Arya laughed, and her voice rang like well-tempered steel. “It is, but Wyrden added something else to it.”
“Oh?”
“The leaves of a plant that grows in the eastern part of Du Weldenvarden, along the shores of Röna Lake.”
He frowned. “Do I know the name of this plant?”
“Probably, but it’s of no importance. Go on: drink. You’ll like it; I promise.”
And she laughed again, which gave him pause. He had never seen her like this before. She seemed fey and reckless, and with a jolt of surprise, he realized she was already rather tipsy.
Eragon hesitated, and he wondered if Glaedr was watching them. Then he lifted the flask to his lips and swallowed a mouthful of the faelnirv. The liqueur tasted different than he was accustomed to; it had a potent, musky flavor similar to the scent of a marten or a stoat.
Eragon grimaced and fought the urge to gag as the faelnirv burned a track down his throat. He took another, smaller sip and then passed the flask back to Arya, who drank as well.
The past day had been one of blood and horror. He had spent most of it fighting, killing, almost being killed himself, and he needed a release.… He needed to forget. The tension he felt was too deep-seated to ease with mental tricks alone. Something else was required. Something that came from outside of himself, even as the violence he had participated in had, for the most part, been external, not internal.
When Arya returned the flask to him, he downed a large quaff and then chuckled, unable to help himself.
Arya raised an eyebrow and regarded him with a thoughtful, if merry, expression. “What amuses you so?”
“This … Us … The fact that we’re still alive, and they”—he waved his hand in the direction of Dras-Leona—“aren’t. Life amuses me, life and death.” A warm glow had already begun to form in his belly, and the tips of his ears had started to tingle.
“It is nice to be alive,” said Arya.
They continued to pass the flask back and forth until it was empty, at which point Eragon fit the stopper back into the mouth of the container—a task that required several attempts, for his fingers felt thick and clumsy, and the cot seemed to tilt underneath him, like the deck of a ship at sea.
He gave the empty flask to Arya, and as she took it, he grasped her hand, her right hand, and turned it toward the light. The skin was once more smooth and unblemished. No sign of her injury remained. “Blödhgarm healed you?” said Eragon.
Arya nodded, and he released her. “Mostly. I have full use of my hand again.” She demonstrated by opening and closing it several times. “But there is still a patch of skin by the base of my thumb where I have no feeling.” She pointed with her left index finger.
Eragon reached out and lightly touched the area. “Here?”
“Here,” she said, and moved his hand a bit to the right.
“And Blödhgarm wasn’t able do anything about it?”
She shook her head. “He tried a half-dozen spells, but the nerves refuse to rejoin.” She made a dismissive motion. “It’s of no consequence. I can still wield a sword and I can still draw a bow. That is all that matters.”
Eragon hesitated, then said, “You know … how grateful I am for what you did—what you tried to do. I’m only sorry it left you with a permanent mark. If I could have prevented it somehow …”
“Do not feel bad because of it. It’s impossible to go through life unscathed. Nor should you want to. By the hurts we accumulate, we measure both our follies and our accomplishments.”
“Angela said something similar about enemies—that if you didn’t make them, you were a coward or worse.”
Arya nodded. “There is some truth to that.”
They continued to talk and laugh as the night wore on. Instead of weakening, the effects of the altered faelnirv continued to strengthen. A giddy haze settled over Eragon, and he noticed that the pockets of shadow in the tent looked as if they were swirling, and strange, flashing lights—like those he normally saw when he closed his eyes at night—floated across his field of vision. The tips of his ears were burning fever-hot, and the skin on his back itched and crawled, as if ants were marching over it. Also, certain sounds had acquired a peculiar intensity—the rhythmic chirping of the lakeside insects, for example, and the crackle of the torch outside his tent; they dominated his hearing to the point where he had difficulty singling out any other noise.
Have I been poisoned? he wondered.
“What is it?” asked Arya, noticing his alarm.
He wet his mouth, which had become incredibly, painfully dry, and told her what he was experiencing.
Arya laughed and leaned back, her eyes heavy and half-lidded. “That is as it should be. The sensations will wear off by dawn. Until then, relax and allow yourself to enjoy them.”
Eragon struggled with himself for a moment as he debated whether to use a spell to clear his mind—if indeed he could—but then he decided to trust Arya and follow her advice.
As the world bent around him, it occurred to Eragon how dependent he was on his senses to determine what was real and what was not. He would have sworn that the flashing lights were there, though the rational part of his mind knew they were only faelnirv-induced apparitions.
He and Arya continued to talk, but their conversation became increasingly disjointed and incoherent. Nevertheless, Eragon was convinced that everything they said was of paramount importance, although he could not have explained why, nor could he remember what they had discussed only moments before.
Some time later, Eragon heard the low, throaty sound of a reed pipe being played somewhere in the camp. At first he thought he was imagining the lilting tones, but then he saw Arya cock her head and turn in the direction of the music, as if she too had noticed it.
Who was playing and why, Eragon could not tell. Nor did he care. It was as if the melody had sprung out of the blackness of the night itself, like a wind, lonely and forsaken.
He listened with his head tilted back and his eyelids nearly closed while fantastical images roiled within his mind, images that the faelnirv had induced but that the music shaped.
As it progressed, the melody grew ever more wild, and what had been plaintive became urgent, and the notes trilled up and down in a manner so fast, so insistent, so complicated, so alarming that Eragon began to fear for the safety of the musician. To play that quickly and that skillfully seemed unnatural, even for an elf.
Arya laughed as the music reached a particularly fevered pitch, and she leaped to her feet and struck a pose, lifting her arms over her head. She stamped her foot against the ground and clapped her hands—once, twice, three times—and then, much to Eragon’s astonishment, she began to dance. Her movements were slow at first, almost languorous, but soon her pace increased until she matched the frenzied beat of the music.
The music soon peaked, then began to gradually subside as the piper restated and resolved the themes of the melody. But before the music ceased, a sudden itch made Eragon grab his right hand and scratch at the palm. At the same moment, he felt a twinge in the back of his mind as one of his wards flared to life, warning him of some danger.
A second later, a dragon roared overhead.
Cold fear stabbed through Eragon.
The roar did not belong to Saphira.