Eragon crouched low behind a jagged outcrop of Helgrind, the black mountain looming like a broken tooth against the moonless sky. Saphira's mind touched his—Ready, little one?—steady as stone. He nodded once. Roran slipped ahead, hammer gripped tight, breath fogging in the chill.
They struck fast. A Lethrblaka erupted from the crags above, wings blotting stars. Saphira launched skyward with a roar, fire streaming from her jaws. The beast shrieked, plummeting in flames. Roran charged the tunnel mouth. Eragon followed, Brisingr already drawn, blue edge glowing.
Inside, darkness pressed close. The second Lethrblaka lunged from shadow—claws slashing. Eragon rolled, came up swinging. Brisingr bit deep; black ichor sprayed. The creature collapsed, twitching.
A Ra'zac waited deeper in, red eyes gleaming. It hissed and struck. Eragon parried, countering with fire that lit the tunnel. The Ra'zac screeched, staggering. Roran barreled past, shouting Katrina's name. Chains clanked. She answered—weak, but alive.
Roran smashed the manacles. Katrina stumbled free, clinging to him. "Go!" Eragon barked. "Saphira's outside!"
Roran half-carried her toward the entrance. Saphira swooped low, talons scooping them onto her back. She launched skyward and vanished into the night.
Eragon stayed. The final Ra'zac waited in the highest chamber, wounded, leaning against stone. It rasped, "Galbatorix knows... The Name..."
Eragon stepped forward. Brisingr flashed. Blue flames erupted along the blade as it cleaved through. The Ra'zac crumpled, consumed in fire. The chamber fell silent.
Then a groan from below.
In a dank cell, Sloan sat chained, face scarred, eye sockets empty and crusted. He lifted his head blindly. "Who's there?"
Eragon stared. Rage boiled—for Garrow's death, for Carvahall's betrayal, for everything Sloan had cost them. He could end it now. One spell.
He reached instead, brushing the man's mind. Pain flooded in—regret, twisted desperate love for Katrina, fear that had driven every wrong choice. Sloan's true name rose clear in Eragon's thoughts.
He spoke quietly. "You live, Sloan. But you will never see your daughter again. You will never speak her name. You will walk east to Ellesméra and live in exile."
Using the true name, he bound the commands. Sloan's body jerked, then slumped in acceptance.
Eragon lifted him with magic—arms burning from the strain—and carried him down the sheer cliffs as Imperial horns blared in the distance. Power drained like blood from a wound. At the base, he set Sloan on his feet.
"Walk," Eragon said.
Sloan shuffled eastward into darkness without a word.
Eragon sank against rock, chest heaving. Vengeance was done. Mercy sat heavier than any kill.
He sent the lie to Roran and Katrina: Sloan is dead.
Then he called Saphira back for him, the night swallowing the mountain behind.
Saphira's wings folded as she settled into the camp's wide clearing, dust swirling around us. Arya slid down first, graceful despite the exhaustion etched in her posture. I followed, legs unsteady from the drain of carrying Sloan. The Varden's fires dotted the night like scattered stars, and faces turned toward us—relief, then sharp concern.
Roran reached me first, Katrina at his side. His eyes narrowed. "You idiot," he growled, voice low but fierce. "You stayed behind alone. After everything—Garrow, the Ra'zac—you could have died in that mountain and left us wondering."
Before I could answer, Nasuada strode up, her cane tapping authority. "Eragon Shadeslayer," she said, tone clipped. "Your valor is noted, but your recklessness is not. We cannot afford to lose our greatest weapon on a personal vendetta. You endangered the entire cause."
Angela appeared next, her mismatched eyes glinting with amusement that didn't reach her mouth. "Fool boy," she muttered, poking my chest with a bony finger. "Chasing ghosts in the dark while the world's unraveling. Some hero. Next time, consult the cards before playing martyr."
Percy and Annabeth arrived last, drawn by the commotion. Percy crossed his arms, sea-green eyes flashing. "Dude, seriously? You go solo against those nightmare bird-things. That's next-level stupid. Even I know when to call backup."
Then Annabeth turned her glare away from me and towards Percy, much to my enormous relief.
"Well, most of the time," he conceded, looking for a moment like a cute seal, causing Annabeth to lessen her glare from instant vaporize to maybe a mild heat.
Annabeth elbowed him, but her gaze on me was stern. "He's right. You have people now—dragons, elves, demigods. Stop acting like you're still the farm boy with a chip on his shoulder. We need you alive, not heroic and dead."
Their words stung, each one landing heavier than the last. I met their eyes, throat tight. "I had to finish it," I said quietly. "For Garrow. For all of us."
Silence fell, broken only by crackling fires. Then Roran clapped my shoulder—hard. "Next time, we finish it together."
The reprimands faded into the night, but the lesson stayed.
Weeks blurred after that. The Varden marched with renewed momentum, the merged world's strange energies making our path smoother than any of us had dared hope. Cities that should have been fortified strongholds fell with surprising ease—Imperial garrisons thinned by Galbatorix's paranoia, soldiers deserting at rumors of dragons allied with sea-born warriors and ancient Greek magic. We took Feinster first: Arya and I shattered the Shade Varaug in a brutal mind-battle beneath the walls while Saphira circled above. The city surrendered before dawn, its people weary of tyranny.
Belatona followed. Percy flooded their moats with summoned waves, Annabeth outmaneuvered their traps with architectural insight, and Roran's hammer led the breach. Resistance crumbled faster than expected; many defenders laid down arms when they saw Furnöst and Shorai soaring beside Saphira.
We pressed on, capturing smaller outposts along the way—supply depots, river crossings—each victory feeding the next. The weeks flew in a rhythm of march, skirmish, and consolidation. Nasuada's strategy was relentless but measured; she spared lives where possible, winning loyalty from freed slaves and wavering nobles. Angela always seemed to have a stack of her wry comments, lightening the heaviest days, much to Percy's great enjoyment.
Then, one crisp morning, the horizon broke open to reveal Leona Lake glittering like a shield, and beyond it, Dras-Leona sprawled in all its ramshackle menace. The city's mud-brick walls rose crookedly, crowned by the black spires of Helgrind's cathedral. Smoke curled from a thousand chimneys, and the stink of the lake's shallows carried on the wind.
We halted at the edge of the plain. Saphira rumbled low in her throat. There, she said. The heart of their twisted faith.
Nasuada raised her hand, signaling camp. "This one will not fall easily," she said. "The priests still hold sway. The people fear Helgrind more than us."
I stared at the distant towers, the memory of Sloan's empty sockets and the Ra'zac's dying hiss rising fresh. Dras-Leona had haunted me since my first visit years ago—when Brom died, when the Ra'zac first marked me.
Now we stood at its gates again, enemies old and new waiting within.
The real fight was just beginning.