Lifaen turned his glittering eyes on him, probing Eragon with disconcerting acuteness. “Arya? What is your interest in her?”

“I . . .” Eragon faltered, suddenly unsure of his intentions. His attraction to Arya was complicated by the fact that she was an elf, and that her age, whatever it might be, was so much greater than his own.She must view me as a child. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But she saved both my life and Saphira’s, and I’m curious to know more about her.”

“I feel ashamed,” said Lifaen, pronouncing each word carefully, “for asking such a question. Among our kind, it is rude to pry into one’s affairs. . . . Only, I must say, and I believe that Orik agrees with me, that you would do well to guard your heart, Argetlam. Now is not the time to lose it, nor would it be well placed in this instance.”

“Aye,” grunted Orik.

Heat suffused Eragon as blood rushed to his face, like hot tallow melting through him. Before he could utter a retort, Saphira entered his mind and said,And now is the time to guard your tongue. They mean well. Don’t insult them.

He took a deep breath and tried to let his embarrassment drain away.Do you agree with them?

I believe, Eragon, that you are full of love and that you are looking for one who will reciprocate your affection. No shame exists in that.

He struggled to digest her words, then finally said,Will you be back soon?

I’m on my way now.

Returning his attention to his surroundings, Eragon found that both the elf and the dwarf were watching him. “I understand your concern . . . and I’d still like my question answered.”

Lifaen hesitated briefly. “Arya is quite young. She was born a year before the destruction of the Riders.”

A hundred!Though he had expected such a figure, Eragon was still shocked. He concealed it behind a blank face, thinking,She could have great-grandchildren older than me! He brooded on the subject for several minutes and then, to distract himself, said, “You mentioned that humans discovered Alagaësia eight hundred years ago. Yet Brom said that we arrived three centuries after the Riders were formed, which was thousands of years ago.”

“Two thousand, seven hundred, and four years, by our reckoning,” declared Orik. “Brom was right, if you consider a single ship with twenty warriors the ‘arrival’ of humans in Alagaësia. They landed in the south, where Surda is now. We met while they were exploring and exchanged gifts, but then they departed and we didn’t see another human for almost two millennia, or until King Palancar arrived with a fleet in tow. The humans had completely forgotten us by then, except for vague stories about hairy men-of-the-mountains that preyed on children in the night. Bah!”

“Do you know where Palancar came from?” asked Eragon.

Orik frowned and gnawed the tip of his mustache, then shook his head. “Our histories only say that his homeland was far to the south, beyond the Beors, and that his exodus was the result of war and famine.”

Excited by an idea, Eragon blurted, “So there might be countries elsewhere that could help us against Galbatorix.”

“Possibly,” said Orik. “But they would be difficult to find, even on dragonback, and I doubt that you’d speak the same language. Who would want to help us, though? The Varden have little to offer another country, and it’s hard enough to get an army from Farthen Dûr to Urû’baen, much less bring forces from hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away.”

“We could not spare you anyway,” said Lifaen to Eragon.

“I still—” Eragon broke off as Saphira soared over the river, followed by a furious crowd of sparrows and blackbirds intent on driving her away from their nests. At the same time, a chorus of squeaks and chatters burst from the armies of squirrels hidden among the branches.

Lifaen beamed and cried, “Isn’t she glorious? See how her scales catch the light! No treasure in the world can match this sight.” Similar exclamations floated across the river from Narí.

“Bloody unbearable, that’s what it is,” muttered Orik into his beard. Eragon hid a smile, though he agreed with the dwarf. The elves never seemed to tire of praising Saphira.

Nothing’s wrong with a few compliments,said Saphira. She landed with a gigantic splash and submerged her head to escape a diving sparrow.

Of course not,said Eragon.

Saphira eyed him from underwater.Was that sarcasm?

He chuckled and let it pass. Glancing at the other boat, Eragon watched Arya paddle, her back perfectly straight, her face inscrutable as she floated through webs of mottled light beneath the mossy trees. She seemed so dark and somber, it made him want to comfort her. “Lifaen,” he asked softly so that Orik would not hear, “why is Arya so . . . unhappy? You and—”

Lifaen’s shoulders stiffened underneath his russet tunic and he whispered, so low that Eragon could barely hear, “We are honored to serve Arya Dröttningu. She has suffered more than you can imagine for our people. We celebrate out of joy for what she has achieved with Saphira, and we weep in our dreams for her sacrifice . . . and her loss. Her sorrows are her own, though, and I cannot reveal them without her permission.”

As Eragon sat by their nightly campfire, petting a swatch of moss that felt like rabbit fur, he heard a commotion deeper in the forest. Exchanging glances with Saphira and Orik, he crept toward the sound, drawing Zar’roc.

Eragon stopped at the lip of a small ravine and looked across to the other side, where a gyrfalcon with a broken wing thrashed in a bed of snowberries. The raptor froze when it saw him, then opened its beak and uttered a piercing screech.