If there was one thing I would miss when I left this world, it would be Leona’s skills as a secretary.

Sure, she was actually one of the heads of the Healer’s Guild and technically my apprentice as far as the Varden was concerned, but for me her most valuable role was as a personal assistant. How the woman simply remembered everything I told her and kept track of my schedule was incredible.

She was honestly better than most smart phones I had used.

Probably because I couldn’t mute her by accident or leave her somewhere to get lost.

“...our supply of bandages is still running low.” Leona continued her breakdown of our current situation after the battle. “We still don’t have enough healers trained to use the devices for more complicated injuries or enough devices in general, so we’ve been rotating them to ensure they get at least some rest but we still have more wounded than we can care for.”

“How are the medic classes going? Can we use some of the participants to take the pressure off?” I asked.

The idea of the medic classes was simple. Teach some of the Varden’s regular warriors how to properly bandage, tourniquet, or just generally keep someone alive until a healer could get to them. Unfortunately…

Leona shook her head. “They aren’t going very well. Most aren’t interested beyond basic bandaging, which helped at first but…”

“We don’t have enough bandages in the first place.” I sighed and rubbed my eyes. Why had I decided taking over the healers was a good idea again? Oh, right. I hadn’t.

“Well, do what you can. I’ll ask King Orrin if Surda can spare more resources, but I doubt it will go much differently than the last three times we talked.”

Leona nodded and started going through the rest of the updates which were mostly more of the same. We were short on some things with no idea of if we would be getting more. We were short of people that knew what they were doing. And the people that did know what they were doing had to be forced into breaks to avoid burning out.

Eventually we got through everything and Leona ran off to handle the hundred other things she was responsible for while I tinkered in the laboratory someone set up for me. Between ferrying Eragon to the elves, running back to the Varden, and the battle progress of my personal projects had ground to a near halt. If it wasn’t for the massive breakthrough I made in Ellesméra I would have been upset about the wasted time.

But even then I wasn’t free to ignore the outside world. Not even two hours later a messenger was outside my tent with an urgent message from Nasuada.

Politics waited for no one apparently.

I gave one last longing look to my latest project before securing my notes and following the boy to the command tent.

-o-

“Alexandria, good you’re here.” Nausada greeted me when I arrived. “Maybe you can talk some sense into these two.”

I looked between her, Arya, Eragon, and his cousin Roran. The latter two staring at the former stubbornly while Saphira loomed behind them looking bored and irritated.

“Okay…” I drawled. “What exactly am I talking to them about?”

“These two,” Nasuada seethed. “Want to invade the Empire by themselves.”

I waited for her to continue, but the leader of the Varden seemed too frustrated to explain.

I sighed and decided to just ask what was going on.

“The betrothed of Eragon’s cousin was captured by agent’s of the Empire.” Arya explained. “They want to venture into the Empire to retrieve her.”

“Okay? What’s the problem with that?”

“The problem is that it’s a harebrained scheme that will have catastrophic consequences for everyone in Alagaësia if it goes awry!” Nasuada exploded, which kicked off a round of arguing between the four of them.

While I enjoyed being ignored despite being called here presumably to help settle this, I skirted around to Saphira.

“So how long do you think it will take before they calm down and remember we’re here?” I asked her, getting a smoke laden snort in reply.

“Far longer than needed.” She replied. “They are all being stubborn.”

I shrugged. “I mean none of them are wrong. Roran won’t be able to rescue his wife without your and Eragon’s help, and if anything goes wrong it’s going to be all of our problem.”

“Just because they are not wrong does not mean they are not being foolish.”

Well, it was hard to disagree with her on that.

-o-

Several minutes later the argument was still going strong.

I managed to stay mostly neutral in the whole thing the few times either side tried to drag me into the argument and focused on something else. Planning what we would do with Saphira. Because the dragon was right, just because neither side was wrong that didn’t mean there wasn’t a clear risk if we did nothing.

We even managed to put together a pretty good plan, which was a good thing because Saphira was long out of patience for the argument.

A brief warning was all I got to cover my ears before a tremendous roar shook the command tent and quickly killed the ongoing shouting.

Despite being the youngest in the room, Saphira glared down at everyone like an exasperated adult dealing with children.

“I am sore and tired, and Eragon is doing a poor job of explaining himself. We have better things to do than stand around yammering like jackdaws, no?... Good, now listen to me”

Since I had helped craft the plan and argument Saphira was in the process of explaining, I didn’t listen very closely but the main points were thus:

We couldn’t leave Roran’s betrothed in the Empire’s grasp. As long as Katrina was their hostage, Roran – and by extension Eragon – would be completely open to manipulation. All it would take would be Galbatorix threatening to kill her and Roran would take off to rescue her or just flat out submit to his demands. And since he was the only family Eragon had that he was still on good terms with, Eragon would follow after him.

The second point was that we likely wouldn’t get another window of opportunity to pull off a rescue like this.

Galbatorix likely wouldn’t expect a lightning raid into the center of the Empire after a major battle. It made it the best time we would get to try rescuing Katrina and possibly killing the agents responsible for her capture, the Ra'zac, before they could be deployed against us. The fact that the death of the Ra’zac would also complete the quest for revenge for killing his uncle/father figure Eragon had initially left his home for would just be a bonus.

And since both Murtagh and Samuel were spotted flying towards the capital – likely to get chewed out for failing Galbatorix’s orders in person – there was little chance of anyone stopping Saphira for flying in or out uncontested. Of course if everything went to plan, she would only be flying one way.

The third point, which was more a warning to Nasuada than anything else, was that forbidding Eragon from doing this could wind up poisoning the relationship between them which could bleed over into other arguments or cause a lingering resentment. Both things that could undermine the Varden’s cause if left to fester.

“The choice is yours.” Saphira finished. “Keep Eragon here if you wish. However, his commitments are not mine, and I, for one, have decided to accompany Alexandria and Roran. It seems like a fine adventure.”

Several heads snapped to me at the dragon’s announcement.

“Alexandria, you’re going along with this!?”

I raised an eyebrow at them. “Yes? Someone needs to keep a level head for a mission like this and since Saphira will likely be too busy wrangling Eragon I’m the best choice to go along with them.”

“You are almost as important to the cause as Eragon! You can’t just abandon everything like this!” Nasuada protested.

“I’m mostly a figurehead for the Healer’s Guild at this point. Leona does all the actual work.” I pointed out. “Plus there’s two very important things you are overlooking.” I raised a finger. “One, I’m the only one strong enough to support Eragon and Saphira if they have trouble that doesn’t come with severe political risks. Two,” a second finger joined the first. “I’m still not sworn to the Varden in any way. I can leave and do whatever I want, when I want.”

“Fine,” Nasuada clearly didn’t like that, but didn’t argue the issue. “I don’t like it one bit, but you are correct. I assume you have some sort of plan to make this fool’s endeavor less risky?”

“I have an idea, yes.”

I explained my and Saphira’s plan. By the end of it, Arya was scowling at me, Nasuada looked like she had a headache, Eragon was barely holding back the hundreds of questions he no doubt had, and Roran looked like he was going to be sick.

But none of them could come up with something better so later that day Eragon, Roran, and I loaded up what we needed for a long flight on Saphira and flew towards the Empire.