And the night wore on toward morning.

INTERSECTING SAGAS

It was just after dawn and Eragon was sitting on his cot, oiling his mail hauberk, when one of the Varden’s archers came to him and begged him to heal his wife, who was suffering from a malignant tumor. Even though he was supposed to be at Nasuada’s pavilion in less than an hour, Eragon agreed and accompanied the man to his tent. Eragon found his wife much weakened from the growth, and it took all of his skill to extract the insidious tendrils from her flesh. The effort left him tired, but he was pleased that he was able to save the woman from a long and painful death.

Afterward, Eragon rejoined Saphira outside of the archer’s tent and stood with her for a few minutes, rubbing the muscles near the base of her neck. Humming, Saphira flicked her sinuous tail and twisted her head and shoulders so that he had better access to her smooth plated underside. She said, While you were occupied in there, other petitioners came to seek an audience with you, but Blödhgarm and his ilk turned them away, for their requests were not urgent.

Is that so? He dug his fingers under the edge of one of her large neck scales, scratching even harder. Perhaps I should emulate Nasuada.

How so?

On the sixth day of every week, from morning until noon, she grants an audience to everyone who wishes to bring requests or disputes before her. I could do the same.

I like the idea, said Saphira. Only, you will have to be careful that you do not expend too much of your energy on people’s demands. We must be ready to fight the Empire at a moment’s notice. She pushed her neck against his hand, humming even louder.

I need a sword, Eragon said.

Then get one.

Mmh. . . .

Eragon continued to scratch her until she pulled away and said, You will be late for Nasuada unless you hurry.

Together, they started toward the center of the camp and Nasuada’s pavilion. It was less than a quarter of a mile away, so Saphira walked with him instead of soaring among the clouds, as she had before.

About a hundred feet from the pavilion, they chanced upon Angela the herbalist. She was kneeling between two tents, pointing at a square of leather draped across a low, flat rock. On the leather lay a jumbled pile of finger-length bones branded with a different symbol on each facet: the knucklebones of a dragon, with which she had read Eragon’s future in Teirm.

Opposite Angela sat a tall woman with broad shoulders; tanned, weather-beaten skin; black hair braided in a long, thick rope down her back; and a face that was still handsome despite the hard lines that the years had carved around her mouth. She wore a russet dress that had been made for a shorter woman; her wrists stuck out several inches from the ends of her sleeves. She had tied a strip of dark cloth around each wrist, but the strip on the left had loosened and slipped toward her elbow. Eragon saw thick layers of scars where it had been. They were the sort of scars one could only get from the constant chafing of manacles. At some point, he realized, she had been captured by her enemies, and she had fought—fought until she had torn open her wrists to the bone, if her scars were anything to judge by. He wondered whether she had been a criminal or a slave, and he felt his countenance darken as he considered the thought of someone being so cruel as to allow such harm to befall a prisoner under his control, even if it was self-inflicted.

Next to the woman was a serious-looking teenage girl just entering into the full bloom of her adult beauty. The muscles of her forearms were unusually large, as if she had been an apprentice to a smith or a swordsman, which was highly improbable for a girl, no matter how strong she might be.

Angela had just finished saying something to the woman and her companion when Eragon and Saphira halted behind the curlyhaired witch. With a single motion, Angela gathered up the knucklebones in the leather square and tucked them under the yellow sash at her waist. Standing, she flashed Eragon and Saphira a brilliant smile. “My, you both have the most impeccable sense of timing. You always seem to turn up whenever the drop spindle of fate begins to spin.”

“The drop spindle of fate?” questioned Eragon.

She shrugged. “What? You can’t expect brilliance all the time, not even from me.” She gestured at the two strangers, who had also stood, and said, “Eragon, will you consent to give them your blessing? They have endured many dangers, and a hard road yet lies before them. I am sure they would appreciate whatever protection the benediction of a Dragon Rider may convey.”

Eragon hesitated. He knew that Angela rarely cast the dragon bones for the people who sought her services—usually only for those whom Solembum deigned to speak with—as such a prognostication was no false act of magic but rather a true foretelling that could reveal the mysteries of the future. That Angela had chosen to do this for the handsome woman with the scars on her wrists and the teenage girl with the forearms of a swordfighter told him they were people of note, people who had had, and would have, important roles in shaping the Alagaësia to be. As if to confirm his suspicions, he spotted Solembum in his usual form of a cat with large, tufted ears lurking behind the corner of a nearby tent, watching the proceedings with enigmatic yellow eyes. And yet Eragon still hesitated, haunted by the memory of the first and last blessing he had bestowed—how, because of his relative unfamiliarity with the ancient language, he had distorted the life of an innocent child.

Saphira? he asked.

Her tail whipped through the air. Do not be so reluctant. You have

learned from your mistake, and you shall not make it again. Why, then, should you withhold your blessing from those who may benefit from it? Bless them, I say, and do it properly this time.