Inheritance recap

The Varden fight their way across the Empire, taking city after city as Eragon and Saphira lead and Roran wins hard battles. Seeking the power to match the king, Eragon and Saphira journey in secret to the ruined Rider island of Vroengard, where they gain a great hoard of Eldunari, the preserved hearts that hold dragons' minds, along with a hidden cache of dragon eggs, and Eragon discovers his own true name. At the capital, the alliance breaks the city's defenses, and Eragon, Saphira, and Arya confront Galbatorix and his enslaved Rider Murtagh. Rather than defeat the king by strength alone, Eragon casts a spell that forces Galbatorix to feel the full weight of all the suffering he has caused, and the king, unable to bear it, destroys himself. In the aftermath Nasuada becomes ruler, Arya is made queen of the elves and Rider to a new dragon, and Eragon, with no safe place in the land to raise the surviving eggs and Eldunari, leaves Alagaesia forever to found a new order of Riders elsewhere.

Across the earlier books, Eragon became a Dragon Rider bonded to Saphira, lost his uncle and mentor Brom to the Empire, and joined the Varden, the rebels fighting King Galbatorix. He trained with the hidden elf Rider Oromis and his dragon Glaedr, was transformed by elven magic, and destroyed the Shade Durza. His cousin Roran rose among the rebels and married Katrina after Eragon freed her and killed the king's servants, the Ra'zac. Nasuada came to lead the Varden. Eragon learned that his father was Brom rather than the traitor Morzan, forged his own sword Brisingr, and saw his friend Orik crowned dwarf king. The enslaved Rider Murtagh, on the red dragon Thorn, remained a bitter enemy under the king's control, and in battle he and Galbatorix's borrowed power killed Oromis and Glaedr, though the old dragon's preserved heart-of-hearts passed to Eragon and Saphira as the war neared its climax.

This final book opens with the Varden pressing their campaign against the Empire, capturing fortified cities as they advance toward the capital and the king. Eragon and Saphira, hardened by years of war and grief, lead the rebellion's fight, while Roran wins battles as a trusted captain and Nasuada steers the alliance of humans, dwarves, and elves. Everyone understands that Galbatorix, hoarding immense power in his stronghold, is far stronger than any of them, and that some decisive advantage or stroke will be needed if the tyrant is to be overthrown. The stage is set for the last and hardest phase of the long war.

The cycle ends in victory bought at great cost and lasting change. The Varden and their allies breach the Empire's capital, and Murtagh and Thorn, finding the strength to free themselves from the king's oaths at the crucial moment, break with Galbatorix. In the final confrontation Eragon defeats the king not with a stronger blade but with a spell that makes Galbatorix experience all the pain and grief he has inflicted across his long reign; overwhelmed, the king unmakes himself with a word. With the tyrant gone, Nasuada takes the throne to rebuild the shattered realm, and Arya, after the death of her mother, becomes queen of the elves and bonds with a newly hatched green dragon, becoming a Rider herself. Roran and Katrina welcome their daughter. But the surviving dragon eggs and the many Eldunari cannot be kept safe within Alagaesia, so Eragon accepts that he must leave his homeland forever to raise a new generation of dragons and Riders in a distant place. He parts from Arya, from Roran, and from all he has known, and sails away into exile as the guardian of dragonkind's future, while Murtagh and Thorn depart north to find their own peace.