“You are always seeking to improve the Varden’s prospects, aren’t you?” Eragon said.

“Always. As you should be.” Nasuada started to walk away from him, then returned and said, “Sometime before sunset, come to my pavilion, and we will visit the men who were wounded today. There are many we cannot heal, you know. It will do them good to see that we care about their welfare and that we appreciate their sacrifice.”

Eragon nodded. “I will be there.”

“Good.”

Hours passed as Eragon laughed and ate and drank and traded stories with old friends. Mead flowed like water, and the wedding feast became ever more boisterous. Clearing a space between the tables, the men tested their prowess against one another with feats of wrestling and archery and bouts with quarterstaves. Two of the elves, a man and a woman, demonstrated their skill with swordplay—awing the onlookers with the speed and grace of their dancing blades—and even Arya consented to perform a song, which sent shivers down Eragon’s spine.

Throughout, Roran and Katrina said little, preferring to sit and gaze at each other, oblivious to their surroundings.

When the bottom of the orange sun touched the distant horizon, however, Eragon reluctantly excused himself. With Saphira by his side, he left the sounds of revelry behind and walked to Nasuada’s pavilion, breathing deeply of the cool evening air to clear his head. Nasuada was waiting for him in front of her red command tent, the Nighthawks gathered close around. Without saying a word, she, Eragon, and Saphira made their way across the camp to the tents of the healers, where the injured warriors lay.

For over an hour, Nasuada and Eragon visited with the men who had lost their limbs or their eyes or had contracted an incurable infection in the course of fighting the Empire. Some of the warriors had been injured that morning. Others, as Eragon discovered, had been wounded on the Burning Plains and had yet to recover, despite all the herbs and spells lavished upon them. Before they had set forth among the rows of blanket-covered men, Nasuada had warned Eragon not to tire himself further by attempting to heal everyone he met, but he could not help muttering a spell here and there to ease pain or to drain an abscess or to reshape a broken bone or to remove an unsightly scar.

One of the men Eragon met had lost his left leg below the knee, as well as two fingers on his right hand. His beard was short and gray, and his eyes were covered with a strip of black cloth. When Eragon greeted him and asked how he fared, the man reached out and grasped Eragon by the elbow with the three fingers of his right hand. In a hoarse voice, the man said, “Ah, Shadeslayer. I knew you would come. I have been waiting for you ever since the light.”

“What do you mean?”

“The light that illuminated the flesh of the world. In a single instant, I saw every living thing around me, from the largest to the smallest. I saw my bones shining through my arms. I saw the worms in the earth and the gore-crows in the sky and the mites on the wings of the crows. The gods have touched me, Shadeslayer. They gave me this vision for a reason. I saw you on the field of battle, you and your dragon, and you were like a blazing sun among a forest of dim candles. And I saw your brother, your brother and his dragon, and they too were like a sun.”

The nape of Eragon’s neck prickled as he listened. “I have no brother,” he said.

The maimed swordsman cackled. “You cannot fool me, Shade slayer. I know better. The world burns around me, and from the fire, I hear the whisper of minds, and I learn things from the whispers. You hide yourself from me now, but I can still see you, a man of yellow flame with twelve stars floating around your waist and another star, brighter than the others, upon your right hand.”

Eragon pressed his palm against the belt of Beloth the Wise, checking that the twelve diamonds sewn within were still concealed. They were.

“Listen to me, Shadeslayer,” whispered the man, pulling Eragon toward his lined face. “I saw your brother, and he burned. But he did not burn like you. Oh no. The light from his soul shone through him, as if it came from somewhere else. He, he was a void, a shape of a man. And through that shape came the brilliance that burned. Do you understand? Others illuminated him.”

“Where were these others? Did you see them as well?”

The warrior hesitated. “I could feel them close at hand, raging at the world as if they hated everything in it, but their bodies were hidden from my sight. They were there and not there. I cannot explain better than that. . . . I would not want to get any closer to those creatures, Shadeslayer. They aren’t human, of that I’m sure, and their hate, it was like the largest thunderstorm you’ve ever seen crammed into a tiny glass bottle.”

“And when the bottle breaks . . . ,” Eragon murmured.

“Exactly, Shadeslayer. Sometimes I wonder if Galbatorix has managed to capture the gods themselves and make them his slaves, but then I laugh and call myself a fool.”

“Whose gods, though? The dwarves’? Those of the wandering tribes?”

“Does it matter, Shadeslayer? A god is a god, regardless of where he comes from.”

Eragon grunted. “Perhaps you’re right.”

As he left the man’s pallet, one of the healers pulled Eragon aside. She said, “Forgive him, my Lord. The shock of his wounds has driven him quite mad. He’s always ranting about suns and stars and glowing lights he claims to see. Sometimes it seems as if he knows things he shouldn’t, but don’t you be deceived, he gets them from the other patients. They gossip all the time, you know. It’s all they have to do, poor things.”