The Inheritance Cycle

Mum’s hand was cold. Arya had to keep adjusting her grip, holding tight to limp fingers. She had already cried all she could, eyes wide and gritty despite washing her face three times. The tip of her nose and her cheeks felt raw from hours of trying to clear the tears, sniffling and gasping and hiccuping as the truth kept coming back.

“Evandar was felled on the Plains of Ilirea.” 

‘My Da is dead. He won’t wake up again. He won’t talk again. He won’t hug me again. My Da is dead….’ 

Mum had held her all night, almost too tightly to even breathe, silent, frighteningly silent. Never answering Arya’s sobbed questions of why, why, why.

Arya could not settle on if she preferred the hollow silence to the terrifying, ragged screams that came before. The wails of…of someone torn away. 

She had heard those sounds before. When others had been told. 

But Mum had never made those sounds. Mum had never…she had never needed to, Da was always back, he was always….

Arya looked up. Her mother’s face was white as the lilies. Her golden eyes no longer held the radiance of the sun, only the dim, feeble glow of an ember so dangerously close to sputtering out. 

She squeezed her fingers tighter, tried to rouse the woman walking beside her that felt so unlike the mother she knew. ‘Mum, be strong. Please. Please be strong. Da needs us to be strong, he needs us….’

They had all stopped now. Beneath the Menoa tree. A space between the towering roots, where all past kings and queens lay and gave their bodies to feed the greatest monarch of the forest. The casket holding Da slowed and gently settled to the needle strewn ground, the golden pinewood cradling his body as gentle as a mother with a newborn babe. Not even the clematis blooms draped and curling around the graceful engravings swayed, so soft was the care and reverence the gathered elves took with their fallen king.

He looked peaceful. Like the mornings Arya had crept into her parents quarters and clambered into bed with them, cuddled up to them as she remembered doing when so very small. Or the mornings that she bounced them both awake, proclaiming that the day begin with giggles and gentle bouts of wrestling with Da. A lion and his cub, a dragon with his hatchling. 

They had told her he would not wake. He was not sleeping. He was gone to the void, to the darkness that lies beyond. A few had told her his energy was now a part of the wider world. That he would still give to the forest with his flesh, would still be protecting her through that natural process to feed the Menoa tree, to give his lifeblood to the spells that protected their land. 

They had all told her she could not wake him, no matter how hard she tried.

It did not stop her from trying. It did not stop her from climbing over the curved lip of his funerary dais when no one was there.

She curled up against his side, and if she kept her eyes squeezed shut, her forehead pressed into his ribs, little fists bunched tight in the liquid smooth fabric of his most handsome tunic…she could pretend the crook of his arm was not limp against her back. Pretend that she could feel his heart beating. Could hear his voice as he crooned to her and rocked her to sleep. Pretend that he wasn’t cold, that his chest didn’t rise, that he didn’t move or speak or comfort her as tears leaked past scrunched lids.

Mother had been furious when she found her there. Arya did her best to not remember being yanked away from the deceptive pool of warmth her own body heat had created on her father’s skin, the collar of her tunic tight around her throat as she wailed in protest. Did her best to forget that her mother had screamed at her and shaken her and had dragged her away from the room where Da lay alone and cold before collapsing in the hall. 

Arya forced herself to remember only that Mum broke down in tears and pulled her close, cradled her in her lap as they both sobbed until Mum couldn’t any more. 

The singing was louder now. Sylvian voices rising and falling together through silent crying that streaked the faces all around them. Arya didn’t know the words. 

Blagden alighted upon the rim of the dais, white wings flared. He perched behind the crown of Da’s head, the white silver circlet with diamond and emerald and gold that once was the raven’s favorite thing to nibble and nip to bait his dear friend into focusing on his feathered companion now a reminder of loss. Blagden’s voice keened above them all, the sorrowful song of mourning constant since the battle’s end. 

Many words were said. Memories of her father from many people she did not know. Däthedr wept as he spoke, open and unabashed. So did the others. 

The entire time, Arya watched and listened to them all with wide, red rimmed eyes. So many people knew Da. She hadn’t realized just how many. He was just Da to Arya, not Evandar Könungr, just…Da. The one who tucked her in, taught her to skip stones, carried her on his shoulders, made flowers bloom at a single touch and caught her when she fell.

Then the talking was finished. 

Blagden took flight. The singing began again. 

For the first time that day, Islanzadí’s hand closed around Arya’s, her grip tight and fingers shaking. Arya looked up and saw the tears falling again, dropping to the needles at her mother’s feet as she joined the singing, a pain in her voice that Arya had only heard in her screams the days before. 

She could understand most of what they sang. An acknowledgement of loss, of an end, a new beginning for the elves, and, over all of it, a farewell.

This…this was goodbye? Already? Now?

The earth beneath the dais shifted, flowing away as a column of roots remained, supporting the casket above a gaping maw of darkness. The dais, Da’s body still ensconced so peacefully upon it, began to lower into the earth.

Arya knew he was gone. She knew, she knew that. That he was dead, Da was dead, he couldn’t talk to her anymore or hold her anymore or be him anymore but–

Mum was there, then. Kneeling, still singing her farewell, tears rolling down her cheeks. Hands on Arya’s shoulders, tight, stopping her from running forward. Before she could even suck in a breath to scream for her Da to not go. 

And yet, Islanzadí never looked at her. She kept her eyes fixed on her life-mate’s disappearing body, face white, tremors passing from her fingers to her child’s thin shoulders. 

The last piece he had left her. The only thing of Evandar truly left in this world.

The casket was even with the ground now. Arya saw her father’s face one last time. Peaceful. Cold. 

Arya squeezed her eyes shut. 

And when she opened them again, all that remained of her father was a bed of clematis flowers, lilies and forget-me-nots, sprawled out on the forest floor.

Everything here smelled of blood. 

Arya braced her hands on her knees, forcing herself out of Trancing. The half-sleep state had snuck up on her mind despite the stress and chaos of healers and doctors and medics rushing too and fro across the churned up soil. 

Apparently preparing for the end of all things after over seventy years of conflict, navigating a trap-laden fortress of a castle, being nearly talked to death by a megalomaniac, watching the love of one's life fight their half brother, and then fighting and taking down a dragon larger than what large could even define could make the unfortunate person experiencing such a day quite exhausted. 

Shaking off the last traces, Arya leaned back in the folding chair and strained to hear anything past the canvas of the tent at her back. 

Nothing. Warded. 

When the healers had finally slowed and led them to the tent the elven Queen had been evacuated to, both her daughter and Glenwing had pushed to enter. Glen had only made it a single step inside, his head just past the tent flaps, when he had thrown his dented metal arm back and shoved Arya away. 

“Stay out.” 

“The fuck do you mean–”

“Arya, stay out.” Glen took her by the armored shoulders and walked her three paces back, almost into the frantic flow of medical personnel constantly surging between the tents. “You don’t need to see her like this, and I can’t focus if you’re in there and can’t compartmentalize. She needs the best right now, alright? And she would never forgive me if I let you see her in this state.” 

His eyes were bright, hard chips of liquid gold burning from the inside. “Please. Stay out unless we call you.” Glen gave her arms a quick squeeze. “We– I – will do everything we can. But if it’s clear, then…”

Arya reached up and seized his wrists before leaning forward. He joined her out of instinct and long built trust, their foreheads pressed together in a moment of quiet. 

“Just keep fighting. Don’t waste time with me, just fight to the end.” She wasn’t shaking, but her eyes were closed. “Please.”

“I understand.”

With that Glen slipped away into the tent.

And so Arya sat on one of the rickety folding chairs outside the tent. She had spent some time pacing until the thin layer of muck made of dirt and blood binding together in a paste coated her boots. After that she sat again and now found herself shaking off the half sleep state, still waiting, still out of the loop.

That’s when she heard it. 

Arya bolted to her feet, head snapping up. That call. Among the cacophony of the camp, the pitched struggles still being fought in pockets out on the plains of Ilirea, the screeching and screaming and croaking of hundreds of thousands of carrion birds. One stood out, one piercing, warbling cry, keening and slicing through the cacophony.

Heart pounding, eyes glued to the dust and haze above, Arya began to run. 

‘Not another one. Not today. Not here.’

Slipping between soldiers, leaping over supplies. A white speck the only thing that had her attention, the only thing important in that moment. The white dot wobbled and grew, following her as best it could on turbulent, low winds from the fires until the young elf burst through into a tiny clearing. Barely the size of three tents crammed together, a single piece of open land not flooded with people or bodies or equipment. Some long buried boulder or mass of roots sloped the ground up a foot higher than the rest, leaving the patch unusable except for a measly breath of fresh air.

Without a single thought beyond the damn determination to keep one more member of her dwindling family alive, Arya slammed a foot down as she crossed the threshold and leapt into the open air. Throwing her weight, twisting, she opened her arms. 

“Blagden!”

Bloodied wings went limp, surrendering to exhaustion and long-stalled pain. With a morose crackling croak, Blagden, white raven of the Knotted Throne, plummeted from the sky like a rock straight into Arya’s chest.

Arya folded herself around the wounded bird and hit the ground with a solid whumph. The shock half absorbed by her armor vibrated her sternum and yet she refused to let it transfer to Blagden’s broken body, coughing as the air drove from her lungs. 

“I have you.” The words were a wheeze. “You’re safe, Blagden.”

She could feel the rapid beating of the raven’s heart through the fingers holding him to her chest, his lungs heaving. His right wing was crooked even as it lay open, feathers tickling her neck. Sticky gore clung to his talons, strips of flesh still tangled in the shaggy fluff of his ruffled throat. 

Careful, supporting his broken wing, Arya rose up to a crouch. “Don’t you dare give out, you damn bird.” Blagden merely grumbled in response, a short hiss of pain when the woman shifted to kneel and rest his body on her lap. “Shh, okay, just…fuck, okay, I’m going to…I’m going to heal your wing, alright?” 

Arya reached out with her mind, ironclad barriers encasing the mental tendril. Her brows lowered, exhaustion creeping in again with just the minor exertion, when she encountered wards around the raven. Some were familiar, the spicy richness of sandalwood and sparking ozone so distinctly her mother’s magic that it made her heart twinge with a renewed fear of loss, but the other was…different. Like…like the cool, smooth, immovable stone carvings in Tronjheim, but half blanketed with soft moss. Crackling campfires, smokey and oddly similar to her own strains, the feeling of music without the sound, a sudden flash of flat stones skipping across a pristine lake–

It took everything she had left for Arya not to hug Blagden to her chest as the raven’s mind brushed her own and the image of her face above him, lightning brow tipping down, determination set at her lips, morphed into a face she only ever saw in hazy Recall dreams of years long past. In fairths and pictures and the few aching memories shared. 

‘Da.’

“I won’t break them.” For the first time that day, tears dropped from Arya’s eyes. They wet Blagden’s feathers, rolling light streaks through the collected soot. “He stays with you. I promise.”

Glenwing was always healing any injured bird that he came across. He left the windows of their flat open most nights, an open invitation to any feathered friend to come rest out of the elements. Arya herself had helped on occasion, Fäolin lending his hand all those years ago when a third set of steady fingers were needed to help calm a nippy eagle or cradle a jackdaw deadset on flying before it was ready. 

It was with those memories in mind pushing aside her parents, Arya found the gaps in the wards. Energy, warm and buzzing, trickled from the fingertips gingerly holding Blagden still. Apologies, something so unfamiliar between them, poured from her lips as the bird thrashed and cried out with harsh squawks as the hollow flight bones realigned like broken straws. They fused together smooth and strengthened, the energy moving on to fix bruised muscle, torn tendons and ligaments stressed beyond their limit from his flight–

And then the magic snapped like rotten rope, a surge from within the white raven’s own mind lashing out like steel blades to sever the connection. The mental ricochet felt like it slapped straight to the center of Arya’s forehead, a sting and a throb of a promised headache pulsing to the surface as she cursed and curled forward, catching herself on a hand before she completely folded in and smothered the ungrateful feathered wretch. 

“Blagden, I’m trying to–”

It was almost pathetic, really. The way the bird flipped and flopped off her lap and managed to stagger to his feet with his undamaged wing outstretched. “A Queen’s touch only may apply! Only she will make me fly!” He hissed, loud and threatening, as Arya reached for him again. “Touch again and learn it well! Your bite’s not the only one to give hell!”

That ripped a broken, choked laugh from Arya’s throat. 

It was all too much. 

The laughter, so incredulous and disbelieving at the gall this spicy raven always had boiling in his feathered body, transformed to ragged, gasping sobs. Fuck, why did she feel so small again? After everything that day, after confronting Galbatorix himself with Eragon, Saphira, Elva, Nasuada, Murtagh and Thorn? All of them little pieces in that mad king’s sick game, their lives and struggles all turned to seemingly useless specks of dust before his discovery and manipulations. After standing, blood cold, staring up at an ice blue eye with nothing in it but malice and hatred for all things and so…so much larger than she had thought possible, only to later meld minds with the smaller of its kin, Thorn and Saphira both, and feel dragonfire bathe her skin before making that fated leap to end its miserable existence…

Not once had she felt small. 

It was here, kneeling on a torn up knoll with her sobs drowned out by the keening, wailing and screams of the wounded, the dying, the mourning, the lost and the found, being confronted by this damn two foot tall menace of feather and saucy tongue refusing to be healed by anyone but her mother, who lay, likely dying in a tent some distance away…it was here that Arya suddenly felt seven years old again. 

So small. Barely a foot taller than the raven himself. The same raven that had perched on her father’s casket until it had lowered at the base of the ancient tree and had sung for days on end, mourning the man who had made him as he was. The friend he had become. 

And now. Now he might sing again. Sing for her mother as they wrapped her body for the long journey back. Cry his funeral tune for days more. Clawing at her ears, piercing the bittersweet veil of the ended war. Reminding, for days and days and weeks and months that her mother was dead, as dead and gone as her father.

The feeling had her crying harder, the images of that casket long buried dragged up to dance with her new fears. Islanzadí, dying? How was it not impossible? How was there even such a chance? After so long at war, witnessing and experiencing and feeling it all in every shape and form and in every role of soldier, leader, wounded, captive, saboteur, assassin, bodyguard. The mourning mate and the warrior lover side by side with the man she loved the day one died and the day one triumphed. 

She knew people died. She knew elves were not invincible, had screamed that fact at the Lords of House with her scars laid bare and her rage boiling. How dare they think that elves, hidden as they were, were untouchable, invincible, when Glenwing had his arm taken, when Fäolin didn’t even have life anymore, after her heart just about stopped too many times to count, actually gave out more than once?

But…but Islanzadí…she wasn’t an elf. She was their Queen. Her mother. And after Da, Arya should have known, did know, that the quietly whispered promises to a tiny child at night that they would never, ever leave her were lies to make her and them feel better…. But how could Islanzadí die?

Burning anger followed close behind. Arya struggled to stop her chest from heaving, teeth set, ragged near squeals of air pushing forward and back against them as her body clawed for the chance to submit to the emotions. She scrubbed at her eyes with the heels of scuffed palms, dirt and avian blood smearing at her cheeks. 

Galbatorix may be dead, yes. The promise she made to Brom all those years ago finally fulfilled, yes. But damn it all to whatever emptiness awaited the lost souls of the blood soaked war now ended–

‘I still have work to do. Now is not the time for tears and a fucking breakdown!’

“Right–right now–” Arya hiccuped, trying desperately to get tears off her cheeks with the rough straps at her shoulder. Their presence was a dim and hollow reminder, one that should have been bringing fiery hope but now felt heavy. The dragon egg, tucked at the small of her back in the hastily emptied and secured medic’s kit Glen had repurposed for her on the fly as they ran, was free. Her mother would have been overjoyed. 

If she lived to see it. 

“Right now, I’m the–the best you–you’ve got.” 

Vision blurred, tears and dirt and blood clinging to her eyelashes, Arya dug into one of the side pouches on her leg and scrambled her fingers around until they met wax paper. She tore the packet out and ripped the paper away, the large muslin sheet flapping out like a flag. Swallowing a fresh wave of tears, the elf tied to opposing corners in a knot behind her neck and slipped her arm through the loop. 

“Get in.” Still rough with contained sobs, but firm and carrying at least a hint of her mother’s command, Arya opened the makeshift sling slightly. “Get in and I’ll take you to her. You can’t…you can’t balance right with your wing like that.” 

When Blagden did not move, wing still limp at his side, Arya reached out her fist. “She needs us.”

The white raven lifted his head, ruff rising. “Paths entwine, root and vine.” With a bit of a wobble, Blagden strutted forward and hobbled up onto the offered perch and allowed her to transfer him into the cloth’s embrace. “Our strength grows with your blood and mine.”

And that was how it came to this. Arya, sitting again outside the warded tent, eerie false silence as the world faded in and out around her. A bloodied white raven nestled in a sling against her chest, looking almost comical were it not for their surroundings. 

Blagden had allowed her to carefully wrap his wing with strips of the muslin. He kept his promise of a painful nip as well, squalling his indignation at being restrained when Arya stopped him from marching into the tent like some knee-high, feathered general checking on his second-in-command. The puncture to the back of her hand burned, but it was a welcome distraction in the chaos.

The raven eventually settled. He slept now, head tucked into the cloth, talons flexing in his fever dreams. Arya gently rubbed her fingertips at the crown of his head, the spot he ‘loved a good tickle,’ as Islanzadí always said despite the halfhearted grumbling Blagden always made at such a description. His feathers were already wrecked, and she didn’t want to risk stripping them of even more of their precious oils by stroking his back. 

Time passed, though Arya could not tell how long. The smoke from the raging fires and lingering dust of the king’s explosion nearly blotted out the sun, robbing her of any sense of time yet again. 

A battle frazzled elf carrying a large crate of fortified nectar bottles hurried by, hastily placing two of the six bottle carry cases down at Arya’s feet. In a flash she caught his arm as he made to pull away, stopping him dead. His features, splattered with mud and flecks of blood, were hazily familiar, but Arya couldn’t spare the energy to find his name in the moment.

“How long–” Arya fumbled, at a loss for a point that she could draw reference from that the man would also know. She went with the first thing that came to mind despite the excess it would add. “How long since the explosion?”

The elf yanked his arm free, already moving on with the barest glance at a scratched timepiece hung around his neck. “About four hours. If you can stand, grab a crate from block eight and start passing these out to healers and the wounded!” And then he was gone, his call to action trailing into the masses of people looking for loved ones or tending to the injured.

‘Four…four hours?’ 

Just four hours?

The tent flap suddenly slapped against the middle support, one of the occupants stumbling out into the grey light. Arya bolted to her feet and caught Glen around the shoulders as he nearly pitched into the dirt. 

“Easy! I got you, I got you.” The man feebly clung to his CO’s forearm, legs unsteady. He could feel himself being guided back, collapsing into one of the folding chairs hastily set up outside the hundreds upon hundreds of healing tents. “Sit.”

Glen raised his bleary gaze to Arya’s face. He had to tell her. “Arya–” 

“Shh.” There was an unmistakable tremor in her voice. “Here, drink this. It’s got the powder in it.” Something pressed first to his palm and then his lips as it was raised to his mouth. “Just…take a minute.”

Sweet, thick nectar slid down the medic’s parched throat. The gritty feeling of fortification powder did little to dissuade him once the liquid touched his tongue. He leaned back, dizzy, draining the bottle before tearing it away with a ragged gasp of air. “Arya–”

“No.” Arya’s voice lacked any bite. It cracked at the edge of the word. Through his steadying vision he could see the shine of tears clinging to her lashes, the pallor of her face beneath grime and streaks of blood. And yet…as always…the fire in her eyes. Different from any time he had seen it before, but still there. “Glen, I can’t…I can’t hear what you’re going to say right now. Just…take your time. Let me take care of you. Please?”

Numb. Exhausted. Blood, blood so akin to hers, caking the joints and creases and crevices of his prosthetic. Tightening and tangled in the fine hairs on his remaining forearm, flakes of it falling from his knuckles as he gripped his knees.

Glenwing nodded, and, feeling every one of his hundred and twenty six years, slumped back in the rickety chair’s embrace.

When he was next aware of his surroundings, cool water was pressed against his arm. Arya knelt before him, her face hidden by the bow of her head as she gently scrubbed away her mother’s blood from his skin. A clean bucket of soapy water was at her knee, several soiled rags in a rough hewn bowl beside it. His prosthetic wasn’t gleaming, but it was as clean as battlefield washing could get it without removing the plates. 

Bandages, soft gauze and clips keeping pads in place, had replaced his left pauldron above the prosthetic. Tape over his right ribs. The slight tug of three stitches, her knots feeling as perfect as he had taught her, over his right eyebrow. Wounds he hadn’t felt, dressed and tended.

Arya’s voice was a shivering murmur, the woman still trying so hard to contain the tangled emotions at war in her chest. “I hope you…don’t mind some company.” She squeezed out the washcloth and used a mug to pour fresh water onto the fabric to avoid spoiling the bucket. “He’s cranky.”

Still bleary, Glen tilted his head down further and found a haphazard pile of feathers nestled in his lap. Blagden let out a half croak of protest, his bandaged wing flopping as he tried to make clear his displeasure. There was blood soaked into the white flight edges, soot turning his startlingly bright form a dingy grey. 

“I healed his wing.” The tremor in Arya’s tone rose for a moment. She turned Glen’s hand over, began clearing the grime from his palm with shaking fingers. “He…he won’t let me do anything besides the bones.” Another fresh wash of clear water. “He wants her.”

Droplets of blood-tinged suds dripped from Glenwing’s fingertips. As his CO pulled away again, wringing out the rag a third time, he caught her wrist. 

Still armored. The moisture made the aramid weave glitter.

“Arya.” 

“Don’t.” 

Carefully shifting a grumbling Blagden to the crook of his metallic arm, Glen gently seized Arya’s elbow and stood. She followed his motion out of ingrained instinct, trying to steady him, grasping his forearm. 

The exhausted medic barely wavered, however. “Arya, look at me.” The younger elf refused, shoulders rigid, teeth set and face obscured by the wild, singed fringes of her hair. Glen gave her no choice, his heart bubbling as he cupped her jaw and turned her back. “Arya, listen.” 

His palm was wet. Not from the water, but from the tears cutting streaks through the soot and blood on Arya’s skin as she finally looked at him. 

“Glen, please.” He could feel her shaking. She was begging him, pleading. “Please, I can’t…I can’t take this right now.” 

Damn it. She really always expected the worst. It’s what made her so fierce, always made her come up swinging. But right now was not a time that required fight. Not from her, at least. 

“Arya.” Glenwing gently squeezed his war sister’s cheek. No, they weren’t war siblings anymore. She was his sister now, forever and always. Kid sister, who he would watch over and take care of just as much as she watched over and took care of him. And right now, he could ease her pain in a way she needed more desperately than any time before. 

“Arya, your mum is alive.” 

The green eyed soldier stared at him. Stopped breathing. 

“Islanzadí’s alive, Ari. She’s stabilizing.” 

A strangled noise, half released pain, half relief, and all bewilderment at the revelation, clawed its way from Arya’s throat. And then she tipped forward and fell against Glenwing’s shoulder, arms almost limp from the shock of it hanging around his body and let out a sob that he could feel deep in his chest. 

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” Careful of the raven cradled in his arm, Glen followed his sister to the ground as her knees gave, holding her to his chest with a hand on her back. “It’s alright, Ari.”

He let her sob into his half-removed armor, cheek pressed to the side of her head as he stroked her unraveling braid and squeezed as tight as he dared. All the while he spoke, repeating himself over and over. Trying to prepare her for the inevitable.

“Arya, she’s alive, but she’s still hurt. We had to stabilize her fast. The only way we could was to take her arm at the shoulder.” 

The feeling of muscle, pulverized, shredded, slippery arteries threatening to retract into flesh, all giving way under scalpel blade and held in place by unforgiving clamps made his throat convulse. A piece of a person separated, so clearly removed, across the tent. The white, purplish hue to the hand, so clearly lacking any bloodflow. 

Deep, deep in his mind, Glenwing wondered if that was how his hand had looked to the healers that night now years in the past. 

And then he shook himself and focused on the present, the woman shivering against him, thanks tumbling from her lips only half intelligible. 

“She’s still weak. We’re putting her in the Dream State for a few days. The healers are going to keep working, they’re doing everything they can to preserve nerves and repair her collarbone and ribs, but it’s slow going, okay? She’s alive, and she’s stabilizing. That’s the important part right now.”

A few more long moments passed, the two of them clinging to each other, before Arya pulled away and rubbed her eyes dry with a scarred wrist. “Can…can I see her?”

Glenwing gave his sister a gentle smile and wiped away the last of her tears with his thumb. “Let them keep working, okay? She’s still in rough shape, and like I said, she’ll kill me if she learns I let you see her like that.”

A small nod and shaky breath in and out. “Okay.” Her smile was bright, eyes still shining, but there was that fire, that spark of hope and tenacity in the face of everything around them. “Thank you.” 

They both slumped into the folding chairs, Glen passing Blagden off to Arya. He didn’t comment when she half wrestled, half shoved him into a bloodied sling across her chest. Just grinned and touched the back of her hand. 

“Now. It’s my turn.” The exhausted medic lolled his head to the side, eyes flicking over his CO’s battered and burnt armor, catching on open spaces where pieces had cracked or fallen away during the pitched throne room battle. “Will you let me take care of you?”

Arya let out a soft laugh. “Don’t you dare go trying to heal anything. I’m alright. Just bruised and banged up a bit.”

Glenwing’s golden eyes were hard when Arya looked to him, pulled by his hand on her shoulder. “You don’t feel that?”

“What, you grabbing me? Of course I do.”

“Arya,” He chose his words carefully. “You look to have a lot of burns on your right side. Just from what I can see.”

Arya blinked. ‘Burns?’ She turned her gaze downward, following where Glen had indicated with his own eyes. 

Most of the armor pieces on her right arm were gone. A few measly shards of spidersilk aramid hung limply at the connection points, edges and fragments sharp as glass. The undersuit was…adhered. In some places. In others it had burned away entirely, the tissue beneath bright cherry pink in rippling flares while shiny tissue spidered out around them. 

Glen grabbed her hand, fingers interlacing with hers, when she went to twist the limb to further examine the damage. “Take it easy, don’t move too much.”

“Bit late for that.” Arya stared. What the hell had happened? She had barely fought at all, Eragon and Murtagh taking the brunt of the close quarters combat on themselves while Saphira and Thorn had rushed–

“Oh.”

“Oh?” Glenwing looked up from carefully wetting pieces of the adhered undersuit with the remaining water from the bucket. Arya had fallen silent for several minutes, eyes glassed and far off, when he began working on getting her free from the charred remains of her armor. He wasn’t exactly surprised at her muted pain reception, adrenaline still pumping even now in his own body, likely covering the pain of any of the injuries she had wrapped while he Tranced outside the tent. But Arya always hated burns, and always made that fact known whenever she had one. 

Arya stared down at her skin as the last strip of undersuit was gently worked off her right arm. Tongues of flame stood embedded in her flesh, licking up her forearm, thankfully missing her joint and skating up to her shoulder like liquid dragonfire had become one with her body. 

“Shruikan breathed fire on me.” She cocked her head. The patterns were honestly quite pretty the longer she looked at them, raw flesh aside. 

Glen reached to the back of his webbing, servos and mechanical joints whirring to manipulate his arm in ways a normal limb could not naturally bend. Burn ointment. Lidocaine ointment. Gauze. “Mm-hm.” He began smearing a mix of the medicines over the burns, quietly thanking whatever the hell may be out there, real or imagined, that the pain was yet to begin. These would not feel good when Arya finally registered the full extent of their spread. 

“I had to go through it.” Even through the numbness of shock and exhaustion, Arya couldn’t suppress a sigh at the cooling feeling creeping over her skin. “Wouldn’t have been able to kill him if Saphira and Thorn hadn’t helped me.”

“That was nice of them.” Loose wrapping. Give it a little bit of air, space for any swelling. Once they both had rested they would reassess. Crazy as she was, Glen had no doubt Arya was going to pester him to let her keep some of the burns as scars. And it was only right, after all, having earned them by killing–

“Wait, what?” 

Blagden’s ruffled head appeared above the edge of the sash. “Be kind, rewind! The thread of fate is confused this time!”

Both Arya and Glenwing stopped their motions and stared down at the beleaguered raven. 

And then pointedly ignored his quip.

“I think the thermal shock is what exploded the armor.” Arya reached up and massaged the right side of her neck. Tiny scratches made themselves known under her fingertips where splinters of the aramid had sliced microtears in her skin. “Explains why my neck itches like mad here.”

“No, wait, hold on!” Glen grabbed her hand and pulled it down. “You killed Shruikan?”

“Saphira and Thorn did all the work getting his head down. And they came up with the plan.” A ghost of a grin touched Arya’s lips at the mention of Murtagh’s partner. “Thorn’s got a very kind consciousness. He’s confused, but he’s very sweet.”

Glenwing stared. As surreptitiously as he could, he used a free finger to palpate her wrist, checking her blood pressure in the most rudimentary way possible. “Ari, slow down a second, okay? You killed Shruikan?”

“I didn’t want to kill him.” The mumble would have alarmed him further had he not seen the bright green fire in her eyes, no hint of any muddling beyond that of exhaustion. “But Eragon and Saphira told us what Elva felt. There could be no saving him. And he was going to kill Saphira and Thorn and everyone else if I didn’t take the opening, so…” She shivered, and Blagden burrowed his head deeper into the sling. “I…I gave him rest. We could give him that much, after what Galbatorix put him through.”

Arya took a steadying breath again and shot Glen a wan smile from beneath troubled brows. “I hated that damn spear.”

Glenwing squeezed her hand. “He’s not being used anymore. That was the best thing for him.”

“True. But it still feels…wrong. To kill a dragon.”

“I know.” 

The conversation lapsed, Glen focusing on the extent of Arya’s burns while the woman leaned her head on his shoulder, eyes closed. The few minutes of Trancing here and there was doing wonders for the both of them, bringing the world back to clarity. 

As he tucked the final tail of the bandage and sealed it with a clip, Arya raised her head and blinked away waking dreams. 

“All good?” 

The medic grinned and rubbed his sister’s head roughly. “Good as it’ll get for now.” He ducked a halfhearted swat and tapped his forehead to hers. He had seen the flicker of her eyes towards the tent, the glimmer of ache. “Do you want to go find Eragon and Saphira? Or Brom? Waiting is going to be more difficult than doing.” His voice was soft. 

Arya stretched and winced as the movement sparked pain along the wrapped burns, quickly soothed by the numbing ointment encasing them. “No. No, they’re all needed elsewhere. Eragon’s working on the citadel wounded, and Saphira’s doing evac. Brom’s–” She paused, a whipcrack tendril of thought finding the old Rider among the thousands upon thousands in the camp. “He’s helping Jörmundur.” She looked past the tents arrayed before them, where the elven command center was nestled in the distance. “If you’re clearing me, then I think I need to find Däthedr. He’d have taken command.”

Glen raised an eyebrow. Of course she’d try to dive into work. In all honesty, he was itching to get back into some normalcy, as odd as their normal was. Taking stock and helping the wounded after a pitched battle always gave him a sense of strange calm, as if the differences made both on and off the field were evening out in alignment. 

Motion caught his eye, snapping his attention to the throng flowing back and forth in the makeshift alley. People were parting, moving to the sides as if a force of nature split their river. 

He tapped the uninjured back of Arya’s right hand, tried again when he touched the nerve-severed portion by accident, and pointed. “I think Däthedr’s already found you.”

The Queen’s aforementioned second was breezing up the muddied lane, the handful of the Lords of House that had not been left behind to tend to Du Weldenvarden fast on his heels. 

Both Glen and Arya pushed themselves up to standing as they neared. Däthedr dismissed their tired salutes with an equally tired wave of his hand, bandages already smeared with dust from the thickened air flashing at his forearm. “Enough of that. I think we can forgo our culture’s formalities at a time like this. It is good to see you both made it out of the citadel.” 

“It’s good to see the lot of you in one piece as well, sir.” Arya gave her mother’s advisor a half smile, one that wobbled at the edges when she straightened and gestured toward the tent at their backs. “If you’ve come about the Queen–”

“Finli has already informed me that Islanzadí lives.” Däthedr’s eyes softened, and, maybe with as much surprise to himself as Glen saw on the faces of the Lords of House, the elder elf stepped forward and gently hugged the woman before him. He pulled back after a moment and cleared his throat awkwardly, as if suddenly realizing that the lot of them were in public. “I wish I could say I am here solely to provide support, but time and power moves quickly. We are here to speak on official matters.”

“I’m sorry, but you can’t.” Glen stepped forward to be shoulder to shoulder with his still somewhat bewildered CO. The hug seemed to have caught her off guard just as much as the others, completely unused to the calm and collected Däthedr of all people giving in to what equated to an emotional outburst. It didn’t help that Blagden, woken by the movement and determined to take part in official duties, had begun clambering out of the sling and up her cracked cuirass, using beak and claw to haul himself to a wavering perch on her left shoulder. “Queen Islanzadí is still being tended to, and she is to be put into the Dream State to heal for the next two days at least. With all due respect, I’m afraid you’re going to have to handle the politics on your own.”

Däthedr nodded, head dipping lower than usual. “Understood. We are not here to speak with Islanzadí, but to speak with Arya, and, by extension of your role, you, Glenwing.” He returned his attention to Arya, who seemed to have shaken off her shock, if not the raven clinging to her pauldron. “Nasuada, Eragon, Saphira, Brom and the other leaders are gathering at dusk. The choice of the Broddring ruler is to be made. Our own ruler must attend.”

Arya blinked, then pinched the bridge of her nose, elbow braced against the back of her scarred right wrist where the bandages did not reach. That headache that Blagden’s earlier snap had started was beginning to bloom between her eyes. “Right.” The word came as a barely contained sigh. Really? Now? “Regency. You need my okay to go ahead with electing the Keeper.”

“Keeper?” Glen’s hand at the small of her back was a brief touch, probably invisible to the gathering of elf lords and ladies in its speed. The message was clear, an offering of physical support if she needed it. The question he voiced, while genuine, a subtle way to allow her to catch her metaphorical breath.

It made her grin inwardly. Maybe he should go into politics. 

“Keeper of the Knotted Throne.” Her responding quick tap of her knuckles to his assured him she was fine. “It’s basically a regent, put in place when our ruler is incapacitated until the king or Queen is able to resume duties fully, until they die, or until they pass the throne on to someone else.” Arya dropped her hand and squared her shoulders, ignoring Blagden’s half startled ‘whoop’ at the movement as she fixed her gaze on Däthedr. “They need my permission to put a Keeper in place since I’m the Queen’s next of kin. The Right of Blood, remember? They’re trying to see if I’ll push a claim.”

“Ah.” Glenwing tilted his head slightly. He had only heard Arya invoke Right of Blood a handful of times, all within the last few years, and only within Eragon and Saphira’s band of protectors. Blödhgarm was a reasonable man, and his thinking frequently aligned with Arya’s when it came to commanding the spellcasters that were technically under Eragon and Saphira’s control. 

But cultural standards and hierarchy frequently tied his hands when it came to a few points of contention, and Arya had found her Right of Blood, given by her status as Islanzadí’s daughter and her military rank, allowed them to circumvent such blocks. When Arya spoke with the Right invoked, she spoke with the Queen’s authority, a temporary power but a very high one indeed.

Her use of it during the fateful meeting after Nasuada’s failed kidnapping had been what revealed her parentage to Nasuada and Orrin, and while a rather heated debate on the differences between nobles and primagenature monarchy for humans and elves had followed, the Right had been useful in the end. 

Again, Däthedr bowed his head. Arya’s lips tightened slightly at the lower than normal dip, recognizing it for what it was. Deference. “Yes. We need your permission to name a Keeper.” There was no wary light in his eyes when he met her gaze, just honest exhaustion and a will to find a raft of normalcy in the new storm of uncertainty. 

She could put this in his hands. Her Da had put his faith in him, and so did her Mum. He would not lead the Lords of House to a weak leader, and he would not allow them to manipulate his nomination, nor the Keeper’s judgment. 

Arya sighed again, and this time made no attempt to hide it. She was sore, and she was tired. The sooner she and Glen got to work, the sooner she could forget those facts. Forget that her mother was laying in the tent behind her, arm gone, fighting it out in the Dream State. 

“Alright. I put aside my claim through Right of Blood. You know her better than most, Däthedr.” She nodded firmly. “I trust you’ll find the right person to fill the role, one that the Queen will approve of.”

In the back of the gathered lords, a few shifted slightly. Whether they thought Arya would have pressed claim or were miffed she had so clearly appointed Däthedr to lead the search was unclear. 

“Thank you. However, I’m happy to report that the choice has already been made now that you have given your consent.” Däthedr gestured toward Islanzadí’s tent. “Queen Islanzadí thought it wise to set in place a…living will of sorts. There were…” He paused, grey eyes flicking to the preening Blagden almost too quickly to notice. “Some fears that Islanzadí could be gravely injured or killed on this day. The nomination for Keeper of the Throne was chosen well in advance, as well as Islanzadí’s nomination for her successor should she be killed.” He swept his outstretched hand back, indicating the gathered Lords. “The Lords of House agreed then, and still do now, with the nomination. All that is left is to present the title to them.”

Arya opened her mouth to speak, but Blagden beat her to it. The white raven lifted his head, ruff proudly raised, and uttered a sharp croak.

“Wyrda!”

Arya scowled at him from the corner of her eye, voice harsh.  “Cram it!” How a raven managed enough expression to look offended, Arya had no idea. He took the chance to nip her ear, growling softly. “Knock it off!” 

Once the feathered terror had taken a few shuffles away from the side of her head, Arya put her hands on her hips, left palm settling on the guard of her father’s blade. A flicker of thought at the sword’s name, amusingly kinned to Blagden’s call, flitted through her mind before it was gone again. 

“That makes this far easier. I’ll leave it to you and the Lords of House to alert the Keeper and prep them if they accept.” She shrugged. Entertaining the idea that the nominee, hand picked by her mother, would refuse the position was a nauseating prospect, but if chaos was what awaited them, then they may as well meet it head on. “If they refuse the position, just let me know when you come up with another one and I’ll do this song and dance again.” 

Arya tilted her head towards Glenwing. “We’re going to head for block eight. Help where we can.”

“Very well.” Däthedr suddenly planted his staff in the mud and squared his shoulders. 

“Arya Shadeslayer of House Tialdarí, of House Varden. You have been chosen by Islanzadí Dröttning, Queen of the elven nation, to assume the mantle of Keeper of the Knotted Throne, and to rule as Queen Regent until Queen Islanzadí is fit to resume her duties or pass them on.” 

Däthedr’s voice rang clear in the crowded space, unmistakable power bonded to the truth of the Ancient Language. “The Lords of House are in agreement and stand united with Queen Islanzadí’s choice, made in sane mind and with due diligence done as required by our laws. This nomination is unanimous.” 

Däthedr locked his grey gaze to Arya’s burning green.

“Do you accept this title, position, and the responsibilities it entails?”

It felt as though the entire camp had gone silent. 

People in the lane stopped and stared, frozen by the authority lent by Däthedr’s voice. Though many had not understood the words, the overall feeling was clear. Something was about to change, a ripple through the fabric of the world ready to race out to enact it.

This was history.  

…Odd how making history still felt fresh during such an already historic day.

And as the last of the sounds of Däthedr’s words rang, even time held its breath.

Arya stared back into Däthedr’s eyes.

And managed only a single croaked, dumbfounded word: