Stories of Arda - Lord of the Rings Fan-Fiction Archive

BOOK I ~ EDLEDHRON

“THE EXILE”

Chapter 1 ~ Rise

A fresh calm lingered over the eastern shores of Balar. The white sails of Círdan’s ships billowed in the afternoon breeze, and the sounds of work and laughter were carried on the air as the shipwrights plied their daily trade. Even rain could not have dampened the spirits of the Elves who lived there in a glad daze of springtime euphoria, for who could be troubled by the old wars in Middle-earth while the trees around them burst into flower and the yellow fawn lilies nodded in the fields?

But beyond the activity of the mariners there was one who had retreated from the noise of their company for a few moments of solitude. He lay on the weathered planks of an old pier, trailing his fingers in the water. Had he been standing it would have been plain that he was of greater stature than the Falathrim who had originally populated those shores. One could almost have mistaken him for one of the golden lords of the Golodhrim, but he was an exile of a different sort. He was a remnant of Doriath, that realm that had borne the greatest lords of Middle-earth before the rising of the moon.

As much as he enjoyed the companionship of Círdan’s people, Thranduil wished to be alone today. Beneath the sparkling ripples he could clearly see many silver fish gently teased by his fingertips, loitering without fear, knowing he meant them no harm. It seemed the world bid him rest and be at peace, forgetting what had driven him to that place. He longed to forget, even for just a moment, but that would not be easily done.

Last night he had dreamed of home. He had remembered the reign of Elu Thingol, the maternal grace of Melian the Maia Queen; he had remembered beautiful fleet-footed Lúthien, his cousin; he remembered his grandfathers and grandmothers, family and friends, Daeron the minstrel who had taught him to play the flute, his father’s cousin Celeborn. He had remembered the way the wind sang in the beeches, the call of the nightingales, the flash of the fountains in the halls of Menegroth. Then he remembered the ruin that was Doriath’s downfall, the blades and the flames and the sharp smell of blood, before he finally woke in a cold sweat.

It had been nightmare enough when the Dwarves of Nogrod had murdered King Thingol in his own halls and stolen the Silmaril of Lúthien. Thranduil had been very young then, when their world had first begun to crumble, but in the haste and confusion he had been permitted to accompany his father, Oropher, as he and every other outraged lord of Menegroth ran down the murderers in the midst of their flight. The first blood on his sword besides that of Orcs had been of Dwarves. There had been little enough time to mourn his innocence, however, as Melian abandoned them in her grief, leaving all Doriath exposed to the vengeful host which then issued from Nogrod against them. The border defenses had utterly failed and only in Menegroth did the lords of the Mithrim resist the hordes of invading Dwarves, but they had been overwhelmed and the city had been ravaged.

That had been enough bereavement and bloodshed for a lifetime. The funerals had gone on for months and the mourning for years until finally Menegroth was restored to somewhat of its former glory. The Silmaril had been restored, they had taken Lúthien’s son Dior for their king and begun trying to live again in a world that seemed much bleaker than it had before.

Then the sons of Fëanor had approached King Dior to demand the surrender of the Silmaril. It had seemed an unpleasantly proud and callous request, considering all the suffering and upheaval the Iathrim had endured in the keeping of it. Dior, too, had his pride and had not been inclined to forsake his parents’ most glorious heirloom, so he had dared to refuse. Dwarves were barely civilized, naturally savage and rapacious, but surely they could expect better conduct from the Golodhrim, the High Elves of the West.

How wrong they had been.

The Fëanorionnath had fallen upon Menegroth in the dead of winter, destroyed the city and killed all they could lay hands upon. Lord Oropher had fled the flaming ruin with Lady Elwing in his custody by King Dior’s command, and their ragged band of survivors had braved hunger, deprivation, and the unforgiving cold to journey on foot to the mouths of the River Sirion and the sea. There, with the melancholy companionship of the remnant of Gondolin, the exhausted and destitute remnant of Doriath had tried to reinvent their lives. But the sons of Fëanor, unsatisfied and with a cruelty unheard of in all the history of the Elves, had ridden as if for war against the nascent village and razed it to the ground, putting everyone indiscriminately to the sword. Those few who had survived that third slaughter, broken and utterly dispirited, had fled to Balar and the protection of Gil-Galad. And there they remained.

Their destruction had been so complete that it was still surreal to remember it. Everything and everyone was gone, smashed and swept away like so much glass. More unsettling was the thought that it had not been some random catastrophe but rather a deliberate massacre wreaked by those who knew exactly what they were doing and would do it again given the chance.

Thranduil shuddered despite the warmth of the sun, repulsed by those mad princes of the Golodhrim and the black curse that haunted them. They had heard rumor in Doriath of the Kinslaying of Alqualondë, but it had seemed impious even to speak of it, surely a terrible misunderstanding or accident that would never happen again. Thranduil, like many of his family, had been wary of the exiled Golodhrim, but never in his darkest imaginings had he expected to be so completely brutalized by the blind savagery of those who boasted to be Elves of Light.

Worse than the physical wounds the Kinslayers had inflicted was the taint of their own degradation they had thrust upon their victims. Forced to defend himself and his people, Thranduil and his surviving companions were now among the only Elves who knew what it was to drive a sword through the living flesh of a long-sundered kinsman, to be elbow-deep in warm Elvish blood, to maim a foe with a kindred face and hear him scream. There was no guilt, but it was a shadow they would carry for the rest of their lives.

Something that had once been soft and untried in Thranduil was hardened now as adamant, cold and woefully disillusioned in the ideals of his youth, rendering him older than his years. Much of his laughter had died with his innocence, and even now had not fully returned. He used to thrive on fellowship, but now he was given to pensive solitude. Mirth that before had come easily to him now required greater effort. No more was he boisterous and easily befriended; rather he had become distrustful, suspicious, violated. He wondered if he would ever be able to truly trust again. What had been so thoroughly broken could never be fully mended, nor all the flaws buffed away.

By now he had learned how futile it was to attempt to guess his own future, but he could not help but wonder where life was leading him. Was this the end of them? Would the Iathrim remain in the dust, unfortunate victims in the tragic drama of the Silmarils? That would be a disappointing way to be remembered. Perhaps they would not be remembered at all.

Lifting his eyes, Thranduil looked out to sea, back toward the unseen shore that had been his homeland. A primal desire stirred in him to return, even as he wished to forget.

In this moment of weakness he felt familiar footsteps reverberating through the planks of the pier, and a kindred shadow was cast beside him in the afternoon sun.

"Would you object to my company, Thranduil?"

Pushing himself up to his knees, Thranduil turned toward that well-beloved voice with a genuine smile. "Of course not,” he said. “I think too much when I am alone."

Oropher gladly sat down beside him, letting his feet dangle just above the rippling water. With his gleaming silver hair and his heather gray tunic, he still looked like a lord out of the old starlit era. The world was all of color now, surely very different from how it had been when Oropher was young. "What was it that you were thinking too much about here at the feet of the sea?" he asked.

Thranduil had settled cross-legged at his father’s side, grateful they shared so intimate an understanding. He could tell him anything. "The past," he answered, quite frankly, "and the future, if we are to have one."

Oropher grunted and nodded, tossing a pebble into the shallows. The distant crash of the surf and the lapping of small waves against the pier filled the silence. "I must confess that it has been of some concern to me as well. Balar is pleasant enough, but it is not home."

"Nowhere will ever be home," Thranduil said ruefully.

Oropher turned, as though he regretted hearing that tone embitter his voice again. "It will not be Doriath, no," he said. "But you need not despair of ever finding a place you may call your own. You are young yet, Thranduil," he insisted. "Your entire life lies before you. I would not have it on my conscience that I left you here to atrophy unchallenged."

Thranduil looked up with some measure of interest, catching what he thought was his father’s true underlying motive. "You wish to leave, then?"

"I am yet undecided," Oropher admitted, his gaze distant. "The hospitality of Gil-galad leaves little to be desired, and he is an admirable lord in his own right. I fear only to lose what little remains of our kind to the rather overpowering influence of our foreign brethren. Even among the ‘Remnants’ we are no longer distinguished from the Gondolindrim." He sighed heavily, his mind turning to another matter that touched him near. "In any event," he said, "I would not see you wed to some lovely Exile and entangled in her doom, as Celeborn is now."

Yes, Celeborn. Both fell sullen for a moment as they recalled the rift that had divided what remained of the family, a rift by the name of Lady Nerwen Finarfiniel. The love that had united her to Celeborn had been strong but unquestionably tumultuous, and Oropher had warned rather vehemently that it would always be so. Thranduil had stood by as his father had quarreled with his cousin for the last time, uncomfortably torn between them. There had been bitter words, and not long afterward Celeborn had quit Doriath in the company of his formidable wife, unreconciled.

Beside him Oropher heaved another sigh as though to banish useless regrets, watching the seagulls dip and swerve. "It seems Celeborn, or perhaps rather Nerwen, eventually saw Doriath as I now see Balar. Though it be gilded, it is a cage nonetheless. Young falcons must be given a chance to spread their wings if ever they will learn to fly, and there is little enough room here."

"Where would we go?"

"I do not know. We are pinched in a corner here if Morgoth is never overthrown. Perhaps we could at last follow Celeborn into the East, to the lands beyond Beleriand. The unknown intrigues me of late. Daeron went often to Ossiriand, but I wonder now what lies beyond the Ered Luin, whence our forebears came in the Years of the Stars."

"That is quite a long way to go," Thranduil said, thinking of the trek across merely Beleriand itself.

"What does distance matter, so long as we go together?" Oropher asked, a warm smile lighting his face. But then he sobered once again. "There is nothing left for us here, Thranduil. Nothing but fading and domination. I am not ready to be pushed into the West, and I suspect neither are you."

Valinor. Eldamar. Once those names had meant the land of Melian, the Realm of the Blessed, the Elven Paradise. Now it seemed to imply a kind of oblivion, the End none could see, the land of the Exiles, rife with treachery and contention. "Of Valinor" had become almost a label of dishonor in Middle-earth, little though the crimes of the Exiles reflected on the land itself. No. They were Iathrim, Elves of Beleriand, of Ennor; they had wronged no one but had been grievously wronged themselves. Not yet would they suffer to live among those who would patronize them with self-righteous pity.

"It seems a clear choice of East or West, and I am not particularly fond of either," Oropher continued, interrupting Thranduil’s errant thoughts. "But I would sooner make a commitment to one or the other than abide here forever. Besides, often our decisions are made for us if we tarry overlong. I would follow my own mind before I am forced. There are many lands yet that answer to no master."

Thranduil’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as he recognized the distinct air of ambition about his father. "Is the title of lord no longer grand enough for you?" he asked pointedly.

"It is not that which chafes me," Oropher insisted, taking no offense. "It is that I have naught to be lord of. We are noble still in name, but in truth little more than alms-guests." He glanced aside to his son. "I can easily see a prince in you. A crown would suit you well."

Thranduil gave a half-hearted smile. "You think so?" he asked incredulously.

Oropher smiled broadly. "I propose we seek a realm of our own. What say you?"

At last spoken plainly, the idea was jarring. It was true that all their rightful lords were dead, their realms disbanded. Gil-galad held no claim of obligation or kinship upon them beyond the service they had already rendered in return for his aid. They owed nothing to anyone. A consequence of having everything forcibly reft from them was a new freedom so complete it was difficult to comprehend.

"I have dreamed of it often," Oropher said when Thranduil did not answer. "There should be many of Lenu’s following still east of the mountains, the woodland people. Perhaps we could seek them out. If they will accept new lords, I believe they will be more willing to trust one of their nearer kindred than a fell prince of the Golodhrim." He paused a moment in thought, considering the silvan Elves they had known in Doriath, a rustic race without the refinements of the Mithrim, but not without their own charm. They were not savage, merely simple. "Perhaps we could bring a bit of our world to them. Theirs is a simpler life, and blessedly so. It could be the living echo of Doriath without the troubles which beset us here."

The thought was not without appeal, but still Thranduil was reluctant to accept such an astounding challenge as this. In his younger years he may have jumped at the chance, but what remained of his enthusiasm now burned at a decidedly low flame. "That will not be easily accomplished," he said at last.

"Rising to new challenges is the only thing that renders life bearable,” Oropher insisted. “Come," he said, digging a paternal fist into Thranduil’s shoulder. "Shall we take flight again, or sit here on our tails like fat peacocks, nothing but bluff? While such as we endure, Doriath shall never truly die."

Thranduil arched one brow at him, elbows on his knees, the very picture of disenchanted apathy. "You really believe that, Father?"

"Certainly, I do," Oropher said. "Our heritage is too precious now to be lost, for it survives only in memory. We may be crushed and scattered to the wind but we are still who we are. Take a lesson from the sea-star. If it is crushed and scattered it does not die, but instead each piece grows into its own whole, and then there are more than there were at first. Why then should we not leave his place behind and foster our own portion of Doriath anew?"

Thranduil was tempted but still reluctant, the future stretching away before him with new and frighteningly boundless horizons. "You do realize what it is you are taking upon yourself?" he asked, finding his father’s unbridled enthusiasm a trifle unsettling.

Oropher rose to his feet with a new air of purpose. He had been as dismal as any of them when they had arrived, but his new aspirations had worked a startling change. He had become again the full-blooded lord that burned in his core with a pride that harkened back to the days of Doriath’s glory. Tall and unashamed, his spirit flew in the face of the disgrace they had suffered.

Yes, they could be proud again.

"We are too strong yet to admit our defeat," he said imperiously. "We may be barely breathing, but I daresay we are far from dead. The world will hear our names again before the end."

All had begun to move too fast for Thranduil to follow. He looked up at his father with consternation akin to fear. He had never imagined his family as anything more than lesser lords of a king’s household, the highest rank he had ever known or expected. The thought that they might claim a crown for themselves seemed shockingly presumptuous. "Is it our place to simply assume the rule of others?" he asked. "It is not a role I imagined we were suited for."

"There was once a time when none of us had seen or imagined such a wonder as the rainbow," Oropher said evenly. "Not until we saw the world in a new light did many natural things manifest themselves. The world is changing, Thranduil. We cannot go on as we were, but neither can we go on as we are, thrown to the gutter of passing time. It is for us to pull ourselves out if we wish to walk free once more. Will you come with me?"

The question itself was exhilarating, a demand and a challenge. Quite in spite of himself, Thranduil felt the stirring of old passions he had thought dead, a swell of the audacious panache for which they had once been infamous. "You believe we can?" he asked.

Wordlessly, Oropher offered his hand. It was more than a gesture; it was the offer of a father to pull his son once and for all from the darkness in which he had lost himself, and from there across the threshold into a new and unprecedented walk of life. Ruin lay behind, but an entire world waited ahead.

Thranduil’s own hand started upwards of its own accord, but hesitated. Again, he saw their future reflected in his father’s eyes, the immeasurable horizons no longer daunting, but beckoning. Alone he could do nothing, but together it seemed there was nothing they could not achieve. He took his father’s hand at last in a strong filial grasp. Oropher smiled roguishly, and pulled him again to his feet, righting his shoulders to bear again the dignity of yesteryear, shadows thrown aside, humiliations spurned.

"Now I know we can."

Oropher and Thranduil left the harbor together and began the walk back home lest they be found truant at mealtime. It was true that they were noble only in name, for they were accorded no particular honors as they passed through the crowds at the shipyards, nor when at last they entered the city, not that they looked for such. Let Gil-galad and the others say what they would; the remnants of Doriath were just that to their neighbors, lingering echoes of a doomed race whose dominion had long since passed, little more than chaff on the wind.

There was nothing new about the hustle and bustle on the white stone streets that evening, but to Thranduil’s reawakened heart the colors seemed brighter, voices livelier. Perhaps he had simply not bothered to notice before. The slender towers of the palace rose in the midst of it all, the waning sun gleaming upon their slanting crowns of white marble, the centerpiece of this hastily but beautifully embellished haven. Though beautiful, it was still painfully foreign. His father’s bold proposal had begun to grow on him.

It felt good to be himself again. He had not fully realized just how much he had missed his old confidence, simple and unaffected. He walked with his gaze trained ahead, not dropped inoffensively to the pavement as it had too long been. Recognizing his crestfallen diffidence to be just another form of defeat, his rebellious nature repudiated it now. No more would he afford his oppressors the satisfaction.

“Suilad, meleth nín!” Oropher greeted his wife brightly as they passed the threshold of their spacious but modest home, hewn of white stone as were most things here, but alleviated by warm touches of drapery and greenery, including that trail of ivy that had entered through the window and begun weaving a living tapestry of its own along their wall. “I do hope we have not kept you all waiting.”

“Certainly not, love,” Lóriel assured him as she was enfolded in his arms. “Indeed, I fear we may yet keep you waiting. Linhir and I have had some difficulty this evening.”

His curiosity piqued, Thranduil left his parents to their endearments and sought out his friend in the kitchen. There he found him, his harried attention split among several half-completed tasks. Very distantly akin through maternal relations, there was a good deal of resemblance between them, notably the long fair hair Linhir had tied back out of his way. The younger son of Lord Lingalad of Doriath, he was one of the many who had been orphaned by the wars only to find a new father in Oropher. It was at his own father’s displeasure that he had cultivated Thranduil’s friendship, but now he was amply rewarded for his boldness as Oropher freely laid aside any quarrel he may have had with Lingalad for the sake of his surviving son.

Indeed, quickly distinguished for his fiery disposition and now a brood of six wards in addition to his own son, Oropher was styled as an unsettling Mithrin echo of Fëanor by the Golodhrim of Balar. Some were thereby inclined to frown upon him accordingly. His family were yet unsure whether to consider it a compliment or an insult.

“Can I help?” Thranduil asked when he deemed his voice would be least intrusive.

“Perhaps,” Linhir replied, the civility in his tone becoming more brittle by the moment. Spatula in hand, he hovered over the brick oven, the fire beneath reduced to glowing coals. There in a skillet simmered a generous batch of seasoned fish steaks. The finished portions lay cooling nearby, their tantalizing scent permeating the air. “Attack that sauce, please.”

Obligingly, Thranduil manned the whisk. The whole room was accented with paraphernalia from the sea, including one monstrous conch shell set in a corner of the counter top, of no practical use besides its aesthetic value. By the time Thranduil was satisfied with the sauce, Linhir was dutifully watching the progress of the final portions, indulging in a well-earned glass of pale wine.

“You are very pensive,” Thranduil observed, hitching himself up to sit on the counter behind him, pouring himself a glass of the same.

“Imagine that I hear that from you,” Linhir returned sarcastically, though a smile brightened his eyes. “I see you have at last taken a turn for the better. I dare say it is about time. I disliked having a thundercloud for a brother.”

“You have not exactly been the essence of felicity yourself,” Thranduil insisted as they amiably tipped their glasses to one another. All was an attempt to make light of what they no longer had the heart to lament. But that was the way of Middle-earth: recover, rebuild, move on. There was nothing to be gained by forever dwelling on the past or bewailing the inevitable, for what was done was done. “Where are the others?”

“Galadhmir went to consort with his fellows at the harbor,” the other began, inquisitively poking at the fish. “I wonder that you did not see him. The ladies are in the garden waiting for me to put food on the table.”

“They did not offer their assistance?” Thranduil asked, a bit incensed by such inconsiderate behavior from his adopted sisters.

“They did at first,” Linhir offered in their defense, “but in this kitchen there was not room enough for the five of us, and soon I banished them from my presence. One can only endure so much chatter he does not understand.”

Thranduil laughed, imagining a kitchen full of bustling skirts, fair voices joined unintelligibly like a flock of starlings. “They shall make themselves useful afterward, then,” he decided. “There will be many a dirty dish in need of washing tonight.”

Linhir did not answer, busy lifting the last of the fish from the hot skillet. “There,” he said. “It will not be long now. Fill those, if you will.” He gestured to the standing ranks of empty wine glasses at the side.

Galadhmir burst in just as Linhir began plating the fish. “Thranduil!” he greeted him, relief evident in his voice. “Good! For a time, I feared I had left you there.”

“Go wash!” Linhir shouted after him. “You have only a moment, and I doubt if Adar Oropher will wait dinner for you! Thranduil, you might go fetch the ladies.”

Dinner was uneventful. At one time, they might have enjoyed an interruption or two to ameliorate the monotony, but in these days of sudden and tumultuous change they were glad of any semblance of normality. In any event, it was not until the plates were cleared and they lingered over the remnants of their wine that Oropher chose to broach a significant subject.

“Thranduil and I shared a very enlightening discussion today,” he began, idly turning his glass on the tabletop as he addressed his extended family. “I proposed that we leave Balar for a home of our own, and he for one is eager to follow.”

“Leave?” Lóriel exclaimed from her place at one end, lovely in her gown of white and green, looking upon her husband as though he had asked her to gather her things that very night. Her treasured necklace of emerald and diamond sparkled at her throat, saved only because she had been wearing it when Doriath fell in raging ruin. “Why?”

“Because we are stifled here,” Oropher said firmly. “We are all wasted like goldfish in a bowl. And more than that, to stay would be to accept a foregone fate of being merged with the Golodhrim and their curse, which I will not stomach for a moment. Who will these young ladies wed if we linger on? But, as we are considering a course which will significantly affect us all, it is only right to ask the free consent of the family before uprooting it. What say the rest of you?”

Menelwen obviously wished to speak but somehow could not. Habitually the boldest of Oropher’s wards, even she was struck by the effrontery of the proposal. Most still felt themselves too indebted to Gil-galad to simply abandon him.

“He is not my king,” Oropher returned proudly, inspiring a few more aghast expressions. “Ereinion Gil-galad is a noble lord, but I am not obliged to answer to him. We have stayed long enough beneath his rule, obeying his laws, forwarding his interests. If we owed him a debt of gratitude, we have paid it, and I assert our freedom now to go when and whither we will. If he is sovereign enough, let him recognize it.”

The silence only deepened around the table, most neither daring to disown Gil-galad nor to gainsay Oropher. He was well within his rights as an independent prince, but perhaps not all the Golodhrim would see it so.

“But you do intend to bring this before the king?” Lóriel asked, hovering at the edge of her resistance, and unconsciously fingering her necklace.

“I shall proceed with all tact and consideration,” Oropher assured her, noting that old apprehension in her eyes. “I shall be ever so reasonable. But I am leaving,” he maintained firmly. “We have stayed, but now we shall leave, and none may lawfully bind us.”

Lóriel nodded at last, her gaze falling for a moment to the linen tablecloth. She was ever the dutiful wife, but still retained the bearing of a princess, for she was not without her own pride. “You are my lord,” she said at last, “and I am bound to you. Where you go, I shall follow.”

It was a tranquil night on the shore of Balar, the only sounds the chirping of crickets outside in treble accompaniment to the call of the toads and the distant waves. The full face of the moon shone down upon the quieted city, slanting to the east now as he began his slow descent in the young hours after midnight. But for some the night did little to bring the peace they sought.

At last, Lóriel sat up in bed, inexplicably cold. Oropher still sat motionless at the window seat, the latticework thrust back to allow him an unimpeded view of the stars they loved so much. Silvery moonlight played over the contours of the sleek but powerful form that complemented his intractably independent mind, his hair loose and untended about his shoulders. She could see a kind of bittersweet pain on his strong features, infatuated with an idea and yet held from realizing it.

“He laughed today,” he said, turning toward her at last. “Did you hear?”

“Yes.” Quietly she crushed the airy coverlet in her hands. Their son’s disposition had been the cause of many a sleepless night for both of them. The sudden turn for the better that evening had by no means gone unnoticed. “You believe it was the thought of leaving that wrought the change?”

“Can I believe otherwise?” His voice was low but betrayed his discontent, like the quiet rumble of distant thunder. “Do not think I insist upon this course for myself alone. I see in my mind’s eye what he can become, and it breaks my heart to see what they have done to him.”

“But are you certain?” Lóriel asked, tormented by her own maternal fears. Perhaps it was only time that had at last healed Thranduil’s wounds, and now she feared to smite him again by sweeping yet another home away from him. She did not shrink from the journey herself, but neither was she eager to begin it. The miserable unprovisioned and unprotected leagues through the cruel snows of winter were burned in her memory as with a cold iron. She, too, had lost much of her innocence in those trying days. She was born to a noble name and she had wed a prince, but now she knew what it was to go clad in little more than rags, to endure an endless march in the biting wind, to sleep in a crevice of snow and ice with only her husband and son for warmth, kept alive upon what little a dormant and frozen world will provide. To stay seemed so much simpler.

“This refuge is little better than a prison,” Oropher said, knowing her thoughts. “If he were shut in a box, would you leave him to grow accustomed to it? He deserves better than the life of a lackey, admired only as a curiosity, a trophy gathered into the household of some lordly Exile.” He squirmed uncomfortably at the very thought, perhaps hearing again the muttered comments, the covetous sidelong glances turned upon them at court. Gil-galad himself had already offered their son a place in his household, an offer Thranduil had courteously declined of his own will. Lóriel knew it would do her heart no good to see him humbled so far as to finally accept such a position, fully subject at last to the long shadows cast by the Valinorrim. She could not stand to see any living thing in chains, let alone her own son.

Pushing aside the bedding, she put her feet to the floor and drew near to lay a fond kiss on her husband’s brow. “Have no fears for me,” she said as she sat down with him and he gathered her into his lap, her golden hair mingling with his silver. “No road shall daunt me if I follow you.”

She felt his unspoken thanks, conveyed through touch rather than words. She always felt young again in his arms, for indeed she had been little more than a child when she was wed to him. Lord Thalos had been reluctant to release the hand of his only daughter who had barely attained the limits of her majority, but Oropher had marked her for his own, maintaining as respectful a distance as burgeoning love will allow until the demands of propriety be appeased. Nor had any other suitors dared pursue her while she stood in his shadow, to her father’s acute consternation. But she had never harbored regrets. She felt him lay a kiss deep in her hair, neither wishing to break the fragile silence.

The newest and brightest star was just rising above the eastern horizon, Gil-Estel, a celestial sign unlooked-for, a light they had recognized as the selfsame Silmaril of Lúthien for which Dior had been slain and Doriath had fallen. At first it had been a painful reminder of all they had suffered, but in time its distant brilliance had seemed to herald instead a reversal of past misfortunes, a promise of the Belain to yet bring good out of ill. In any event, it heralded change, and none knew if such boded well for what remained of the realms in exile.

“There is also the little matter of the Curse,” Oropher purred into her hair, holding her closer. “The shadow of ruin stalks these people, and I will not leave my family to be caught in its trawl.”

Lóriel lay her head against his chest, finding some comfort in the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. She had friends and acquaintances of her own among the Golodhrim here, but she knew he was right. They could not stand between the Powers and their justice, and to stay and endure would only impose greater suffering upon their own family.

Regardless of blood, they had freely taken the bereaved youth of their race into their hearts, and in that Oropher had proven himself twice the father Thalos had expected of him. In an uncharacteristically heated moment, he had accused Oropher of being crass and overbearing, that she and the children he would sire upon her could expect but little affection from one who knew not how to inspire it. She had denied such an accusation then, and would still have denied it now had not her husband’s own deeds already done so.

Tears sprang to her eyes at the memory of her own family, fallen to Dwarvish axes and Elvish swords, grateful that her father and brothers had come to accept her marriage before their lives were cut short. So much was lost, yet still she clung to that which meant most to her, that which by grace had been spared. Their sufferings had only drawn them closer, forging for them new ties of kinship to assuage the loss of so many. Oropher had taken a wound in Doriath, two arrows at Sirion. Thranduil had been wounded at the last battle, and so had fair Lindóriel, manhandled and beaten for the blood she had shed in her own defense. The brutes who did not shrink from instigating a Kinslaying seemed to feel no qualm in falling upon a maiden even as they would a warrior. Even she herself had felt the chilling cut of a blade through her skin. Had it not been for Thranduil’s timely intervention she would have been slain even as her parents had been, with the bite of Elvish steel in her heart. It was horrible to see one’s death come with a kindred face, so cruel and pitiless that it had in truth ceased to be what it once was. It was in that moment that she had at last fully believed the tales that Orcs had sprung from Elvish kin.

Oropher held her close, perhaps guessing the reason for the warm tears she shed against him. They had often wept upon one another since their lives had been reduced to the basic tenets of survival, even as the younger ones they had gathered beneath their wings had shared their own grief. Once upon the long road to Sirion she had seen Thranduil and Galadhmir hold Lindóriel beneath the sparse shelter of a frosted pine bough even as Oropher held her now, slowly freezing, slowly starving, sharing both their warmth and their misery. Belain above, those poor things had earned peace in their lives.

The wind swept through the tall grass of the valley in rolling waves very like those on the surface of the sea. The air was clearer here, even while it retained that distinctive tang of salt. Wildflowers blossomed here and there, just waiting to be plucked. It would have been a fine place to sit and collect her thoughts were it not for her unsolicited companion.

Lindóriel stood still a moment, letting the wind sweep through her pale green skirts and blow her hair of frosted gold back from her face. Dark Alkarinwë stood with her, as near as propriety would allow. She strove to be civil, but as an unwanted and singularly persistent suitor he had no rival. He had long served beneath the Fëanorionnath, but at Sirion he had turned on his murderous lords in the heat of the battle in favor of the Mithrim. Outwardly he had repented of his misdeeds and had been conditionally accepted by Gil-galad the king, but to Lindóriel there still seemed something sly about him. He was still of the same mind, regardless of his newfound disgust for Maedhros and his lawlessness.

She had found it within her heart to pity him, though she did not like him and would certainly never love him. She had told him as much, but he was not one whit discouraged even after six full months of grudging friendship. Even the protective company of her peers did not seem to deter him, though she knew it was only by a monumental act of will that Thranduil was able to tolerate him, never with very good grace. Even gentle Galadhmir, her true brother, seemed inclined to shun the renegade, and it was not for nothing that Alkarinwë had never brought himself before Adar Oropher. Lindóriel would have preferred to see him go his own way, recognizing the air of hostility amid the circle of Oropherionnath, but her kind dismissals seemed only to goad him on, as though their eventual union were merely a matter of time and not of choice. His gradually more explicit manner had become disquieting, confirming the forebodings of her adopted sisters. She felt insecure in his presence, that in itself sufficient indication of his unsuitability. His marring ran deep, beyond her poor power to correct or heal.

“How fair you are with the wind in your hair,” he smiled, the breeze drifting through his own of midnight black, the changing light accentuating subtle hues of indigo, like the sheen on a beetle’s back. His accent was still thicker than that of those who had fraternized more often with the Mithrim. “Like a great lady of Eldamar.”

Why did such outwardly courteous compliments make her so uneasy? She almost wished she could accept them, but like all his many compliments they rang hollow, as only empty flatteries meant to blindly charm her favor from her. She did not believe she could rival the Valannorrim for beauty, nor had she any aspiration to do so.

“Thank you, Alkarin,” she said anyway, rendering his name into the vernacular as well as she might, slipping the flowers into her girdle. Someone else weighed more favorably upon her heart, fairer than he, one who had never offered her anything but honesty whether it be gentle or not. She wished it could have been him standing there in the rippling ocean of grass, not this kinslayer who blighted her horizon like a looming cloud. She wandered aimlessly under the guise of seeking out the long-stemmed flowers she favored. Alkarinwë followed, a beast on the prowl. She doubted that he loved her, for they hardly knew one another. He plainly desired her, and the distinction was frightening. She was not a trinket to be claimed, a whim for his amusement.

He always praised her beauty. Did he have no wish to see deeper? Her other companions seemed to care little for her tangible attributes, loving her instead for beauties that were more abiding. With him it was always her hair, her eyes, her figure, her grace. It was becoming embarrassing.

“Come with me to the riverside. The day is not too far spent.” His tone was meant to be gentle and fond, but instead seemed twisted and leering to an acute feminine mind. He had sidled nearer with a hand poised to stroke her hair, a lover’s gesture. But, feigning obliviousness, she shied away after yet another nodding bloom. Belain, she would never let him lay hands upon her! He had been in Doriath; he had gladly slain her kinsmen. The very thought of suffering his touch was repugnant. It was already asking much of her to grant him forgiveness enough even to speak with him.

She felt him smile though her back was turned, a chilling prickle that climbed her spine like claws of ice. Perhaps she had reckoned too much upon the protections of common decency. Her wandering steps resumed an idle homeward direction, toward the trees, for she felt she had endured quite enough of his company. Would that she had her brother with her, indeed any of their brothers! Had she known Alkarin was to join her, she would not have wandered so far.

“Why so soon?” he inquired smoothly, confronting her directly and at startling proximity. He was taller than she. “You need have no fear of me, Lindórië. Why not come with me, melmenya? I know a charming place there.”

There was that smile again, a gloss for growing impatience, and plainly there was more on his heart than met the eye. Lindóriel drew back three hasty paces, repelled by his nearness, stricken now by some measure of real fear. Never had she met such brazen behavior in a man. Such suspicions would not have had cause to darken even the fringes of her mind in the old days of Doriath, but what lingered of her naïveté was swiftly unraveling. His attentions were now those of a predator. She could see it behind the menacing gleam in his eyes. He had no intention of accepting a refusal.

Was he pursuing her so forcefully because he feared Oropher, or had no hope of winning her formidable guardian’s approval to wed her? Little did he fathom the wrath of the Silver Prince should his chosen daughter be so violated!

“Enough, Alkarin!” she reproached him, making no effort now to hide the disdain in her voice, her hand curling into a fist for want of a weapon. “Return whence you came and leave me be. I have no part with you, and had you not been so blind you might have spared yourself my rejection.”

She turned to leave him, but again he straddled her path, his smile becoming brittle. She could see he found it intolerable that he should be so spurned by a sharp-tongued Umanyarin maiden if he was determined to have her, and she knew she could not rival him for brute strength. “Perhaps you have no part with me yet,” he said, advancing as she drew back. “But perhaps soon, Lindórië, you shall not find me so repulsive!” Looming over her, he moved to claim her virgin lips in an unchaste kiss.

Incensed, the warrior fostered within her of late won over and she struck him a blow across the face worthy of Beleg Cúthalion’s niece.

With a vicious curl of a bloodied lip, Alkarinwë twisted her wrist in a crushing grip, swinging her around by the arm. “Lá!” he snarled in his own tongue. “Be still!” But with her hands forcibly restrained, Lindóriel spat in his eyes, for which she earned ungentle retaliation.

“Elbereth Gilthoniel Fanuilos!” seethed a furious and blessedly familiar voice, accompanied by the rapid pounding of many hooves and the crashing of horses through the wooded glade nearby. “Unhand her!”

Lindóriel felt her heart soar at the sight of her saviors stampeding into the field, Thranduil, Galadhmir her brother, and Gwaelin. It was Thranduil who had spoken, and he seemed inclined to say much more as he swung down from his dark stallion and waded through the rippling tangle of grass. “I know not how they court their brides in the West,” he began, an indignant storm brewing behind his eyes, “but here in Ennor we do not drag them away like wolves and wed them without gift or leave. You would do well to remember it.”

Alkarinwë drew himself up proudly, resenting the insult but unable to protest it under the circumstances.

“Take your hands from her,” Thranduil insisted, “or I shall take your hands from you.”

Thranduil had usurped Galadhmir’s rightful role as her brother, but he had practically become one himself. Lindóriel had always loved him, but now in Alkarinwë’s grasp she thought him more blessed than ever, his windswept hair brilliantly catching the sun, the rest of him adamantly still as though no power on earth could move him.

Finally, Alkarinwë’s grasp on her slackened until Lindóriel was able to twist away of her own accord, throwing his hands from her as she would the cold embrace of a snake. She took the hand Thranduil offered and observed the silent but bitter exchange of glares as they turned away. She knew Alkarinwë hated Thranduil passionately, but even more so because he knew it was to Oropher’s son that her favor was given. Only the fact that he was outnumbered constrained his jealous wrath.

For his part, Thranduil deliberately turned his back upon him as though his festering rage was beneath his concern. His silence alone was insult enough as he dutifully assisted her onto her horse which they had had foresight enough to bring with them. But, despite his outer calm, Lindóriel knew by the set of his jaw and the tingle in his touch that Thranduil was still seething at the unspeakable slight his house had been dealt, only exacerbating the deep contempt he already harbored for the guilty party. Only the law of Gil-galad and the last frayed thread of courtesy held him from extracting his own brutal retribution. Indeed, it was quite possible they had crossed paths before, in another place and not so very long ago, then with bloodied blades drawn.

Galling though it certainly was, Thranduil suppressed his obvious desire to extract satisfaction in blood, swinging astride his restless mount to retake command of their group and leave Alkarinwë to choke on his rancor.

The Golodh did more than that. “Nai cuiletya nauva mára tenn’ omentielva ento!” he hurled after them, his taunting words aflame with frustrated anger, obviously not expecting them to understand. “Ma hanyalyen, Moriquendë?”

That dark and disparaging epithet they had heard too many times, often by well-meaning Golodhrim, but now in flagrant insult and ill-deserved by comparison. They had always endured in silence, but this time Thranduil pulled his horse to a sharp halt. Here for a moment he was his own master.

“Tancavë hanyan, lókë,” he turned and snarled in return, shocking his friends with his brazen use of the Forbidden Tongue before he turned to take their thunderous leave. “Á lasta lalienya!”

When they had left the kinslayer far behind, Thranduil gradually slackened their pace, slowing them to an easy canter into the dell and then to a walk. With one last disdainful look back, he intended to banish the incident from his mind for the moment. But the resolution was short-lived, for such an abiding wound would not be ignored.

It was not only the attempted violation of Lindóriel that weighed upon his mind, though that claimed pride of place. Formerly their kin had met such taunts with silent and immovable dignity, though it never failed to prick their hearts. The slights they had endured since the advent of the Exiles were manifold – the usurpation of their rule, disparagement as inferiors, ignorant, savage. They of the Twilight had allowed those names and worse to break against them like surf upon rocks in faithful obedience to Thingol’s edict which forbade the acknowledgment of the Tongue of the Kinslayers from friend and foe alike. But for once Thranduil felt such a challenge deserved an answer; for once he would not be victimized, and the label Dark Elf was too much to be borne. Perhaps he was merely taking proffered bait, but he no longer cared. He never sought a quarrel, but he would gladly finish one.

He was not completely fluent in Quenya, which was difficult for his people to master, but where the rudiments of language were concerned he seemed to possess a natural talent. What he had learned of the Noldorin dialect he had picked up by mere observation. Celeborn had known more than he, who had begun to study under Nerwen before Thingol forbade it. All the Mithrim shall hear my command that they shall neither speak with the tongue of the Golodhrim nor answer to it, the King had said. And all such as use it shall be held slayers of kin and betrayers of kin unrepentant. He considered that a moment. He had not repented of his part in the shedding of Elvish blood, nor would he. Let the Golodhrim’s own blood be upon them. It was a crimson badge he had earned with valor – a justification for him, an accusation for his persecutors. He was the betrayed, not the betrayer.

“I see your persistent suitor has at last taken a turn for the worst,” he observed bitterly as Lindóriel rode beside him. In some twisted way, he was glad that brute Alkarin had now so completely shattered whatever hope he might possibly have had of winning her hand.

“Had he a mind to take you, Lindóriel?” Gwaelin asked, scandalized. “Adar Oropher would have had his head on a platter!”

“Not only his head.” A few wishful but delightfully morbid thoughts flitted through Thranduil’s mind. There would doubtless have been a few other offending members of his loathsome carcass worthy of their ire.

Their ride through the inland retreats of Balar at last brought them to their destination, a tranquil valley much like those they had left, but bordered on three sides by what could have passed for a mountain range in miniature, just a rambling fence left by the hand of nature and now utilized by the shepherds of the coast. The bobbing crowd of sheep there in the grass added an idyllic touch to the landscape. The flock took little notice of the horses as they passed. Galadhmir and Gwaelin capered on ahead, seeking out a favorite canopied hollow in the tree line where they and the others often went to forget the cares of the world for a time amid sun-dappled shadow. Thranduil hung back at a more sober pace in an effort to collect himself lest the leering face of Alkarinwë darken his entire day. Perhaps there was simply no help for it. Lindóriel remained with him, whether for comfort or for companionship he could not say. The sky seemed darker in the west as though in promise of rain, seeming to aptly reflect his mood.

His thoughts were interrupted by a strident bleating from the trees beside them, a pitiful sound that could not in good faith be ignored by anyone. With a glance back to Lindóriel, he dismounted and pushed his way into the overgrowth to at last find exactly what he expected, a forgotten lamb in a tangle of brambles, stumbling about in a vain attempt to regain its footing. Here at last Thranduil put his knife to good use, sinking to his knees to free the young captive. It struggled at first, but soon quieted beneath his hand as he cut away the tangle and extracted a few worrisome barbs from the gangly little legs. At last accomplishing that much, he lifted it from the bramble patch and sat nearby, holding the wriggling bundle in his lap and stroking some life back into its limbs.

Lindóriel knelt beside him, stroking the fleecy ears. For a moment he had almost forgotten her. “He is a pretty thing,” she observed with a shade of an affectionate smile. The lamb paused to sniff her hand, recognizing another friend. Then she sobered and met his gaze earnestly. “Thank you, Thranduil,” she said, “for doing what you did. I shall never forget it.”

“Neither shall I,” he said bitterly, though his tone and attention were directed more at the author of their grievances. Some injuries he could forgive, but he always remembered. Alkarinwë would do well to see that their paths never crossed again.

She seemed a bit exasperated with him. “Thranduil,” she protested gently, pulling a stray leaf from his hair. “Put him out of mind. I would not have him stand between us.”

“Nor would I,” he concurred, but guardedly, feeling the direction the exchange was turning. “Does he?”

“I trust he does no longer,” Lindóriel said. She had a harder core now, he recognized. In Doriath she had scarcely dared speak to him, but that timidity of youth had been burned away by the fires they had walked through together. Now at last she was baring her heart to him, shaken perhaps by what had transpired that morning.

“Thranduil,” she began again, crushing a leaf in her hand, “people think they have time enough. Then before they know it, all they once knew and loved is torn from them forever. Whatever you will say, I cannot face death again before I confess how very much I care for you.”

Thranduil straightened where he sat, afraid of this kind of intimacy. She was deadly serious, and he was finally forced to confront the fact that what he had originally dismissed as the first stirring of young infatuation was indeed something stronger. It was irksome to be so loved by one he could not love in return. Or did he? He was fond of her, certainly. But if love it was, it was the patronizing love of a brother, entirely unsuited for marriage. Nor was he ready to wear those bonds yet. “It had not entirely escaped my notice,” he admitted, unsure what to say. “I fear I cannot give you what you desire.”

“I desire only what you are,” Lindóriel maintained firmly. “I ask no more. What have these years of trial gained us if not a greater knowledge of one another, be it complimentary or not? And still not a day passes that I do not compare all men to you and find them wanting!” She bit her lip, as though to check this flood of her inmost thoughts. “I have always loved you. Do you care nothing for me?”

The many things they had shared in the past rose again in his memory, and he realized they had indeed grown much closer over the years, only as siblings to his mind, but plainly she thought more. He wished she had never said it, that he would not be forced to disillusion her. But he could not promise what he had never felt, and she did not want mere consolation. She wanted the truth.

The lamb squirmed in his lap, unwittingly shattering the moment. “I care a great deal,” he said at last with genuine regret, “and I wish you every happiness. But I cannot say I love you when I do not.”

She said nothing, merely let her lovely eyes fall closed with a long and slow sigh. She took the blow calmly, bravely, though he could see he had taken much of the life out of her. There was nothing more to be said, and it was more than he could bear to watch her suffer on his account. Gathering the lamb under one arm, he climbed to his feet and offered her his hand. She took it, but was still rather crestfallen when she stood. Much though he wanted to do something to salve the wounds her heart had taken that day – violated by one she despised, rebuffed by one she loved – he knew only time could blunt that kind of pain. He lay the lamb in her arms, then kissed her brow as a brother would.

Lindóriel stood still as he brushed past her, now regretting confronting him. Still, it was a strange bittersweet disappointment, for though she now loved him more than ever and seemingly without hope, in refusing her he had only exhibited two traits she most admired, honesty and constancy. Shaking herself from her daze, she gathered the lamb closer and followed him back out into the light. There she set the youngling down in the grass where he went bleating toward the flock to rejoin his dam. She watched him go, feeling that she had released a bit of a cherished dream along with him.

Thranduil stood by in dutiful but rather uncomfortable solicitude, holding both horses until she should tire of looking fondly after their stumbling friend. There she willfully closed that chapter of her life for the moment, resolved to bide her time.

They were mounted again and went to join the other two of their party. Her brother noticed her despondency but misread it. “I never did like Alkarin,” Galadhmir muttered to himself, affectionately putting his arms about her from behind. “I am glad now you will not have to suffer his attentions. I wonder that you endured him as long as you did.”

“It was not without an effort,” Lindóriel assured him, though she could not keep her eyes from wandering after the others as Gwaelin asked Thranduil to inspect her mare’s shoe for her. “He unnerved me,” she complained, her tone a general lament for what seemed a widespread deterioration of the gallant masculinity she had once taken for granted. There was a time when she would not have imagined swords drawn against her or unwanted husbands thrust upon her. “I fear nothing in Thranduil’s company.”

Galadhmir snorted into her hair. “Nor should you,” he said. “There are many things you need not fear in his shadow. Keeping his company is as good as keeping a bear on a leash.”

He meant well, but Lindóriel was disconcerted by his choice of phrase. That was exactly what it was, she realized, and it was the bonds of love that Thranduil seemed to fear. Was she trying to tame what was best left free?

Galadhmir was not so blind as he may have seemed. “He loves you, you know,” he said fondly, running her hair through his hands, “just not quite the way you would like yet. Give him time. All things come to those who wait.”

Lindóriel pulled from his embrace and turned to face him. “I have waited,” she said, under her breath lest the others hear. “And three times we have almost been destroyed. I fear to rely on a tomorrow that may never come.”

Galadhmir folded her restless hands in his own, his calm quieting her anxieties. “But you must,” he said firmly. “You cannot expect to command him before he wills, whatever upheaval the world may endure. Realms rise and fall, but love comes in its own time.” He lay his brow against hers with a kindred smile, an endearment reminiscent of their younger years. “And every cloud has its silver lining, no matter how faint it may seem. What brought us here was horrible, I know, but it has only brought you nearer him.”

He was right, but it was small comfort to her now. Lindóriel nodded and turned away again, closing the subject. The western sky had darkened ominously though it was only midday. The wind had grown in the treetops, seeming to herald an approaching storm. Yes, she thought bitterly; a thunderous drenching was just what she needed to suitably punctuate such a day.

They rejoined the other two where they were standing near the trees, but Thranduil’s attention was bent upon the untimely disquiet brewing in the west. He stood unmoving against the stiffening wind, his hair and mantle blown about behind him like flame. Lindóriel also noticed that it did not smell like a storm. It was acrid and metallic.

Gradually a disquiet began to grow upon all of them, a stirring of instinct that would not be ignored. The distant flock of sheep had become agitated in the mounting unrest, the shepherd and his hound appearing to herd them away. The darkness grew like a stain, taking an almost reddish hue, as though it was not true darkness at all but instead another light. The horses pranced about, expressing their misgivings in snorts and soft squeals. There came flashes, but not of lightning.

Catching his stallion by the mane, Thranduil leapt astride. “Come!” he called to the rest of them over the noise of the wind. “I know not what it is, but I shall not be caught by it here!” They needed no encouragement. Lindóriel whistled to her mare, swinging nimbly onto her back as she passed. Galadhmir brought up the rear, sending Gwaelin ahead as they took the eastbound path at full stride. Through the empty valleys and sporadic belts of woodland they raced, forging a trampled trail through the overgrown grass, maintaining a strenuous pace while restraining the temptation to break into an unmitigated gallop with the wind at their backs. But even as they flew over the violently rippling fields, Lindóriel felt she did not fear it as much as she should have. Was the Doom of the Enemy at last at hand?

The sun was hidden behind a true wrack of cloud when at last one after another they took the flying leap over the low wall of the back garden, the wind quickly assuming the howling force of a gale, all light turned a threatening gray. They found the house in an uproar.

“Thranduil!” Oropher greeted him in frantic momentary relief. “Come, all of you! Gather your things! No more than you can carry, mind you!”

“What on earth is happening?” Galadhmir demanded, thrusting back a windblown tangle of pale hair. Lady Lóriel was rushing from room to room, the hallways choked with familial traffic as necessities were madly gathered from every room and thrust into packs before the looming blow fell. The atmosphere was bizarre.

“This is no storm,” Oropher told him, hustling Galadhmir off to find his own things. “This is war, the Last War. Go on! The entire city is prepared to take ship at a moment’s notice! Go!”

Lindóriel had already ducked into her own door and begun gathering what she needed and valued most. She willfully remained numb to what she would forfeit, for by now she had learned to let go when all that truly mattered was her life. She hurriedly threw aside her gown of delicate green and donned more practical garb designed especially for warfare, of slate gray with boots and leggings like those of her brothers but with a longer skirt and train, artfully tailored at the sleeves and breast for the noble lady warrior. From her wardrobe she snatched her sword belt and lashed it about her waist, the uncomfortably familiar weight of her blade again upon her hip. The draperies at her window seemed to have taken on life of their own as the wind howled past them and the sky darkened, urging greater haste. She filled her pack half blind to what she chose, strictly practical and merciless. She allowed herself one necklace, a string of pearls Galadhmir had made for her here, throwing it around her neck and slipping it beneath her collar. The tapestry she had begun would be a wasted effort.

Slinging her pack over her shoulder, she turned again into the hallway only to brush shoulders with Menelwen. She, too, sported the ensemble Oropher had commissioned for all his adopted daughters for just such emergencies, her own sword clanking at her belt as she headed toward the parlor with her long and determined stride. There they all gathered—Linhir and Illuiniel, Lóriel and Gwaelin, Thranduil and Galadhmir, herself and Menelwen—grimly awaiting the call to clear the city and make for the harbor if need be. Oropher already stood at the door, holding it open, grimly watching and waiting. Many others could be seen doing the same, debris blowing about the white stone streets that usually went before a hurricane.

Lindóriel sat near Galadhmir, the mounting tension making a hollow knot of her stomach. No one spoke, all steeling themselves to close yet another short-lived era of their lives. It was a dreadfully helpless feeling, knowing a cataclysmic struggle was poised to erupt somewhere near, wishing only grace enough to survive it. She looked to Thranduil, but his eyes were trained upon the floor, unseeing. Burying her face against her brother’s shoulder, she shut her eyes against it all, waiting for that release that would signal the beginning of yet another frantic end.

“Nai cuiletya nauva mára tenn’ omentielva ento! Ma hanyalyen, Moriquende?!” ~ Q, May your life be good until our next meeting! [Sarcastic] Do you understand me, Dark Elf?

“Tancavë hanyan, lókë. Á lasta lalienya!” ~ Q, Certainly I understand, serpent. Listen to my laughter!

Thranduil tossed his pack onto an uninteresting and unadorned table, one of the only two pieces of furniture to be found in his new quarters. There was a bed in the corner, little more than a cot. The air smelled of fresh dust, and the sounds of construction were still to be heard outside the open window hewn into the wall. Outside there was the broken landscape of the shore, mountains, the harbor beyond, all aglow in the afternoon sun.

His first impression was not particularly favorable, but that could have been due to his depressed frame of mind. Running his hand along the rough-hewn windowsill, he came away with a lingering residue of chalky white dust. It was a far cry from Menegroth, even from Balar, but he would accept what he must. The contents of his pack and the clothes he wore were his only possessions in the world.

What had once been Thargelion on the northern marches of Ossiriand was now the sea coast, all Beleriand drowned beneath the inrush of the ocean in the terrifying wake of the War of Wrath. Balar was gone; the ruins of Doriath were gone; Sirion, Nargothrond, and Neldoreth were gone, vanished as though they had never been.

Thranduil’s innate reverence for the Belain was no less, or the Valar as they were most often called now in such mixed company, but still he could not help feeling a twinge of resentment at the final ruin of the lands of his birth, trampled once again by an army of the West. He and his family were among the very last of the Iathrim, gathered there like driftwood. He was still numb to the realization. He was aware of it, certainly, but without real emotion. That would come in time like the rise of the tide, bitter and inevitable, but not yet. It was not often that the entire world one had known was so quickly and so thoroughly effaced from the map.

He unfastened his sword belt, laying that on the table as well since there was yet nowhere to hang it. He tested the support of the bed beneath one hand. It was thin but adequate, like most things here. Falling limp on his back, he lay still for a moment with a hand over his eyes, one foot trailing on the floor, exhausted.

How many times? How many times must they begin again, stripped to the barest minimum? Were the Powers mocking them? It did seem as though they were supposed to be dead and fate was unsure of what to do with them.

A dog began barking somewhere outside, the sound carrying well in this burgeoning realm of thatch and stone, joined to the incessant tempo of hammer and chisel. There were also the subdued noises of the rest of the family settling in, the ever-familiar voice of his father as he candidly critiqued their new quarters, though he too seemed wearier than usual. There was the bustle of the ladies as they observed that the floors were in still in some need of sweeping. Their straggling group was not the first to arrive here in Lindon, nor would it be the last. All would join their efforts to build this haven together, regardless of what scattered and obliterated realms they had once called home. But at this moment, Thranduil was not excited by the idea. He remained where he was, limp on the bed, unwilling to face the paltry start they were expected to salvage. A part of their hearts went into each home they built, and he had seen that effort crushed too often.

There came a rap at his open door. Glancing up, he saw Illuiniel with broom in hand. Two brooms. She looked sympathetically at him for a moment before drawing near and pulling him upright by the hand. “Come now,” she admonished him gently. “Will someone like you lose heart over a trifling thing like the end of the world?”

He met her steady gaze without a word. What else could they do? Illuiniel nodded reassuringly and turned away, leaving a broom across his knees.

After she had gone, Thranduil reluctantly turned his eyes toward the floor. It was a bit of a mess, the lingering grit of masonry undisturbed but for the trail of his footsteps. The whisk of several brooms being put to good use could be heard throughout the empty house, so he resolved to get the chore over with.

Focused solely on the task at hand, he diligently swept all the dust and dirt into a neat pile. Under the bed, around the table legs, and then over the whole room again to catch what he had missed before. All was done with strong, even strokes, the monotonous rhythm dulling his mind for the moment to the stark realities at hand, the soft rasp only accentuating the barren emptiness of the room. For that moment, the careful pile of chalk and sawdust was the purpose and center of his life.

Finished at last, he regarded it for a while, the culmination of his efforts. But as the air cleared again, the inescapable truth returned to him, as it was bound to do. Angrily he kicked the little mound aside before someone else could, sending a dusty streak across the white floor. Was that not what became of all their efforts? Completed only to be ruined.

The stab of despair faded as readily as it had come, leaving only a dull ache in its place. He resignedly swept up the mess again. What else could they do?

“Galadhmir, should Father ask, I have gone out for a while,” he said as he brushed shoulders with his friend in the hallway. “No. I want to be alone.”

The air was freer outside, alive with a brisk sea breeze that drifted through his hair and the gray mantle over his shoulders. He wandered down the new-paved walk from the house, not particularly caring where he went. The sky above was clear and blue with hardly a streak of cloud. Gulls were circling about the cliffs in the distance, cliffs that were the seaside spurs of the Ered Lindon. Those same mountains had once been the gateway to the far east, the borders of Beleriand. Now they had become the last reaches of the west.

This was certainly not been how he had imagined beginning their appointed journey to find the final home they desired so much. Just behind him lay all that had been unknown, beyond the cares of the Eldar. Were there still other mountains, grander and more daunting than the Ered Lindon? Where were the mountains that had turned Lenu and his people back from the Great March in the starlit years? What lay beyond them? It was an intriguing thought.

He kicked a stone from the path, watching as it skittered off the walk and into the coarse grass at the side. He had descended the rise upon which their home had been built, aimlessly following the road to the haven itself. Golodhrim, Mithrim, and Falathrim still worked together carving out an existence here, the sounds of their work and conversation heralding the growth of yet another Elvish realm. They would build from nothing, make a city of a valley, a harbor of a gulf, a home of a cliff face. He had to grudgingly admire even the Valannorrim, for they availed themselves well. Many had returned humbled into the West in the wake of the final fall of Morgoth and the irreparable loss of the Silmarils, but there were those who stayed to live and work in Ennor either out of pride or shame. Regardless of their motive, Thranduil had to admit they did not hesitate to begin again. Doubtless the same heavy-handed hierarchy would again establish itself once their homes were built and the Exiles reassumed their former rank, but for now the burden was evenly distributed.

He left the main road for a more desolate path that led up onto the rise, shards of rock crunching underfoot. From there one could command an unobstructed view of the harbor beyond. The wind whisked by him with the refreshing scent of summer to come, rustling through the tufts of pale green grass that grew by the roadside. The sea birds flitted in the air and about the rocks, giving voice to their manifold calls that somehow all sounded like squeaking doors.

He turned as he heard his name on the wind, a voice he did not immediately recognize. One of the Golodhrim was climbing the path after him, garbed in the everyday blue and gray livery of Gil-galad’s house. As he drew nearer Thranduil noted there was indeed something familiar about him. Not all the lingering traces of youth had yet left his face, and he was still a hand’s breadth shorter, but as he stood softly panting before him it was the gleam in his gray eyes that Thranduil recognized.

“Elrond,” he returned with a courteous nod, though notably without the honors he had accorded him in Sirion as the son of Lady Elwing. The boy’s blood had not changed, but there was something about him now that seemed decidedly more Noldorin despite his equally Sindarin birthright. It was a pity, for Elrond was one of the last heirs of Thingol himself. Even the final scions of that tree had been grafted to foreign roots. “It has been a long road from Sirion. You and your brother were mere children when we lost you.”

“It has been,” the other agreed, seeming rather disheartened by the perceived chill in Thranduil’s manner. “I am very glad to find you here.”

“Are you indeed?” Thranduil turned to continue walking, but beckoned for Elrond to follow. “So, you have joined with Gil-galad, have you?”

“Yes,” Elrond answered, hurrying to keep pace with him. “Maedhros and Maglor sent us to him before they too were lost.”

A prickle climbed Thranduil’s spine as Elrond spoke of those sons of Fëanor with obvious affection. It was just as he had feared. Reft from his parents at a tender age, the damage had been done. Belain, it was depressing. He knew Oropher would have a few choice words to say about it. “The king is as fine a benefactor as any may hope for,” he said at last, “and there are many wanting one in this new broken world of ours. The wars have left me so many new siblings that our home has become a warren. Much like –” He would have said it was much like Menegroth, but Elrond had never known that city. “You intend to stay on with him?” he finished instead.

“Yes. Lindon seems as good a place as any other, and the king has already granted me a position in his household. You do not?”

Thranduil said nothing, lost in his own thoughts. What he saw as a surrender, Elrond perhaps saw as inevitable. Or perhaps this was the sort of life the young one thought himself suited for. Thranduil remembered the offer Gil-galad had once extended to him, perhaps the same Elrond had accepted. Such a post was not without honor, a chance to rise to considerable rank in the king’s favor. But, already born to a certain level of privilege, Thranduil was of like mind with his father in refusing to be snared to stand about and look decorative at court. Still, he said nothing, for he could not tell Elrond what to do with his own life. “I am not certain what we shall do in the end,” he admitted at last, stopping to stand on the bluff and feel the wind on his face. “I am not certain of anything anymore.”

“No one should fancy themselves assured of anything in this fickle world,” Elrond agreed. “Not after what we have seen.” He paused for a moment, as though preparing to lift a weight from his mind. “Did they . . . I mean . . . is all well in your father’s house?” he asked. “What became of them at Sirion?”

“Most of us lived to see the end, even if we were rather the worse for wear,” Thranduil answered stiffly, watching the gliding specks that were seagulls against the blue of the sky lest Elrond be made to bear the brunt of his lingering indignation. “Many of our friends were not so fortunate.”

Elrond lowered his eyes, as though he had taken to heart the bitter undertone Thranduil had reserved for the Fëanorionnath, murderous abductors who had become his guardians. “I am sorry,” he said, shifting where he stood.

“And why are you sorry?” Thranduil asked bluntly. “Have you so taken those people as your own that you would claim their crimes as well?”

This time it was Elrond who did not answer. Thranduil did not press him, for he had not meant to snap at him, but the rise of Noldorin traits in the boy was disquieting, plucking at his every nerve. Fairest Lúthien, is this where your legacy has gone? Everything that had once been the pride of the Mithrim had been taken by one conquest or another, bent to the purposes of others.

“Thranduil,” Elrond ventured at last, over the soft whistling of the wind. “Once in Sirion you told me that there comes a time to cease brooding upon the wrongs one has borne if he is to make anything of himself. I was young, and I looked up to you then. Do you still look down upon me?”

Thranduil considered that before he gave a definite answer. “No,” he admitted, for Elrond had grown a great deal since he had last seen him, even if it had only widened the rift between them. “But I no longer owe myself to you. The line of Thingol is broken, especially now that you grant your allegiance to the Golodhrim. It may be that the years to come will take us in very different directions.”

Elrond nodded, for there was nothing more to be said, whatever bonds of kinship existed between them strained by the opposing vocations they had chosen. Despite all that, Thranduil turned and laid a hand fondly on Elrond’s shoulder, seeing an echo of Lúthien even if tainted by the memory of Maglor. “Merely promise me that you will remember your mother's people,” he said. “Go where life will lead you, but remember whence you came.”

Elrond offered him a flicker of a smile. “That I can do,” he assured him. “But do you not find me a disappointment still?”

“Yes, I do,” Thranduil admitted, granting him the honest truth, though a sympathetic smile tugged at his mouth as well. “I suppose you can hardly be blamed for it. Still, it would perhaps be advisable that you do not frequent our household with your newfound loyalties.”

“You need not worry yourself on that account,” Elrond agreed. “I thought your father frightening even before he had complaint with me.”

“You are summoned,” Thranduil observed, catching the gist of the call. “Go on, before you earn the king’s ire for my sake. I doubt if he has ever quite forgiven me for refusing his colors.”

“I would not doubt that he has,” Elrond countered amiably as he turned to go. “Namárië, Thranduil. I would like to see more of you so long as you remain with us in Lindon.”

“Navaer, Elrond,” Thranduil returned, with particular emphasis upon the Sindarin equivalent of his valediction. “Go on. Ereinion is waiting.”

He watched him go from his vantage point on the bluff, Elrond sending up a thin drift of white dust in his wake as he dutifully rushed back to his post. Such was a fate Thranduil had refused for himself, running at the beck and call of every Golodh within earshot. It would have driven him mad. But Elrond was made of different stuff, and oddly enough he seemed well-placed in those circumstances. Perhaps it was Eärendil’s blood. He shook his head for he would never understand it, but he had learned to leave well enough alone.

He wished longingly for a horse. He could have found much of the solitude he looked for on horseback. That, too, must wait.

Now that it came to it, Thranduil found he did not have the patience to seek solitude. Just the thought of lingering here in Lindon for the next century or two made his hands itch for something to work on, for there was entirely too much to be done to conscience sitting idle outside.

He turned smartly on his heel and headed back toward home, such as it was. The idea was perhaps laughable, but he had to unpack.

“In which directions are we called today?” Oropher asked in his usual manner, courteously demanding explanations of each of them before they left the house. Keeping a loose eye on seven adult children would be handful enough for many.

“I go to meet Anárion at the harbor,” Thranduil said for himself, helping to clear the breakfast dishes amid the general hustle and bustle. The morning sun streamed in through the open window, promising a beautiful day.

“The way you two devote yourselves to that boat, you ought to have finished it by now,” his father commented with a lurking smile.

“I would go with you,” Galadhmir apologized, shifting out of Lindóriel’s way, “but I expect Duilwen to have her kittens.”

“How wonderful,” Linhir said dryly. “A house full of cats is just what we need.”

“I am to go riding with Malach,” Menelwen declared boldly as she turned to leave with an armful of plates.

The warning glance Oropher leveled upon her left little doubt of his opinion regarding the matter.

Thranduil turned to slip out of the bustling room, brushing a filial kiss on his mother’s cheek in passing.

“And the same to you, my son,” Lóriel smiled, holding him back so she could return the gesture. “Behave yourself.”

Thranduil rolled his eyes a bit at the traditional farewell, one he had heard since the earliest days of his childhood. “I will, Mother," he promised, as was habit. After all, he never went out intending to be trouble, but sometimes it happened that circumstances were not so obliging.

Anárion was strange company. Quiet and reserved with an almost preternatural gravity, he was one of the few survivors of Gondolin who remained in Middle-earth, the offspring of a Sindarin mother and a Noldorin father. Thranduil had known him in Sirion and Balar, but only enough to put a name and a voice with the face in his memory. Here they had at last befriended one another, and over the last year Thranduil had worked toward gently bringing Anárion out of his self-imposed solitude, something he remembered well from his own experience. Anárion no longer had a father to whom he could turn, his own fallen in Balrog fire. Perhaps there was yet something they could do about his circumstances.

“In years to come,” Thranduil ventured at last, as he and Anárion stood on the rocky beach diligently brushing gray paint over the inside of their trim little craft, “do you see yourself remaining here?”

“Who am I to say?” Anárion returned wryly with a terse stroke of his brush. “I did not see myself coming here in the first place.”

“No,” Thranduil agreed with a humorless laugh. “Forgive a foolish question. But has Lindon any particular hold upon you?”

“None in particular,” the other maintained. “It is a home for now, as many places have been before it.” He avoided meeting Thranduil’s gaze as though he was still reluctant to speak of it. It must be a lonely existence to have no living kin this side of the sea, and Thranduil was thankful again that his own bereavement had not been without certain recompense. Anárion, however, still held himself aloof on his own bleak plateau where unkind fate had left him, asking nothing of anyone.

They were both silent for a time as they continued their painting, Thranduil resignedly letting the conversation languish as what he wanted most to say waited at the tip of his tongue. Eventually their gradual progress brought them almost face to face as they leaned over the sides.

“You say that nothing holds you here,” Thranduil went on, “and in these days of broken families I am accustomed to sharing mine. Will you not come with us?”

Momentarily taken aback by the offer, Anárion finally ceased his painting. He was unable to hide the fact that the offer had touched him, but was still reticent to accept. “What of your father?” he asked instead.

“One more will be no great novelty to him,” Thranduil insisted. “Nor is he so hostile to everyone of Noldorin descent as some would have you believe. I do not doubt he would have his doors open to you if you wish.”

Standing undecided, Anárion glanced about nervously, tempted greatly but not daring to impose upon such intimacy. With his back to the lapping harbor, it seemed the invitation had taken the form of an ultimatum.

Recognizing this, Thranduil relaxed and shrugged as if it was of no consequence. “So be it,” he said, resuming his even brush strokes. “You must go where you think best. But it is a shame, you know; I would have enjoyed taking you for a brother.”

The fragile thread of resistance snapped then. To have a brother, a father, a family, a purpose – it was everything Anárion was pining for. “You are certain Oropher will not object?” he asked, an almost desperate note in his voice.

Thranduil smiled broadly. “Consider it done,” he said, laying aside his brush to clap the other on the shoulder. “Tonight, you come to join the rest of your newfound kin. Now the ladies do not outnumber us!”

The rest of the morning passed with a much lighter air. While they waited then for the first coat of paint to dry, they shed their shirts and indulged in a swim in the clear waters of the harbor. Their lives here were certainly not all pleasure, and this brief interlude was a welcome one.

As they sat on the pier, letting their hair and leggings dry in the warmth of the afternoon sun, Thranduil spotted a courier running on swift feet along the shoreline road, and soon he recognized it to be Elrond. The diligent young messenger returned his wave but dared not slow his pace.

“It will suit some,” Anárion said in his peculiar accent as he entertained an iridescent dragonfly on his finger. No one would ever mistake him for one of the Iathrim. “For myself, I have refused it thrice.”

“I suspect the king has been trying to gather as many of the broken pieces of Beleriand as he can. I know he means well, but some things cannot be mended.”

After applying a second coat of paint and giving it a chance to dry somewhat, Thranduil and Anárion were both aware that they had not bothered to eat since breakfast. Still, if they wasted no time, they would be able to go back to the rooms where Anárion had dwelt of late and carry his things back home with them before dinner.

The walk through the city was uneventful, the westering sun shedding slanted rays on the rooftops of the haven. It was well-established now, and almost densely populated. They brushed shoulders with many on the streets as they passed.

“Here,” Thranduil said, nudging Anárion aside toward an open door through which abundant sounds of life could be heard. “We can spare a few moments.”

The place was by now familiar to both of them, of good but sometimes rowdy repute where the mariners could stop to have some leisurely refreshment.

Negotiating their way through the maze of tables and the milling throng of patrons of all sorts, Thranduil and Anárion took unobtrusive seats together at a neglected side of the bar at the front.

“Well met, my lord Thranduil,” smiled the capable Elf there to serve them, Ladarth by name. “I did not see you yesterday, and was beginning to wonder.”

“Do not wonder; you know I shall not stay away for long,” Thranduil assured him. “I understand you have a new son at home. Convey my congratulations to your lady wife.”

“Thank you, my lord,” the other returned appreciatively. “That I will. And what may I bring you this evening?”

“The same,” Anárion agreed at his left, perhaps to save himself the trouble of making up his own mind.

Ladarth gave a smart bow and retreated to fetch their drinks. In his absence Thranduil hitched his legs up comfortably on the rungs of his stool, but Anárion began drumming his fingers on the board. The incessant noise seemed to be aggravating his nerves.

“Peace, Anárion,” Thranduil said with a smile. “I swear there will be a warm welcome waiting for you at home.”

The other made a conscious effort now to calm himself, stilling his restless fingers and closing his eyes a moment with a mute nod. Thranduil had to wonder if his father was really so terrifying as all that in the eyes of the rest of the populace. In any case, it was probably good that he was buying Anárion a drink first.

Ladarth set their glasses in front of them and Thranduil paid for both, not sparing a gratuity that was itself more than the original expense. “I shall not have time to choose a proper gift for the little one,” he explained with an easy smile. The other thanked him profusely before he was called away by a couple of rather impatient patrons at the other end.

Thranduil ignored them as he let a mouthful of wine roll over his tongue. Still, he resented their rudeness, forcing Ladarth to answer to them in the Forbidden Tongue. The poor Elf glanced back nervously as compliance was wrung from him, but Thranduil gave it no heed. Thingol was dead, and so was his decree. It was galling—oh, yes, it was—but the pride of Doriath had been crushed, at least officially. Even so, he had never spoken so inconsiderately to even the basest servants in Menegroth. He could only grant these the benefit of the doubt, recognizing that their sobriety had been blunted long ago. One might expect those of the Blessed Realm to be more refined, but perhaps it was no wonder these had remained in exile.

For several long moments he did not condescend even to glance across the void that separated them, a void that was not void for long as others came and went, occupying the places between. Soon Ladarth was quite busy, answering calls left and right. It was merely the customary evening rush as those who had been out by day returned to their homes for the night. Despite the noise, Thranduil could not help but overhear the demands from the farthest right, laced with crude humor. He had learned enough Noldorin expletives at the shipyards to understand most of it in spite of himself.

Enough was enough. “You see, Anárion?” he asked, making no effort to be discreet. “That is the sort of Golodh my father cannot abide." He turned to address the individuals in question, lifting his voice over the din. "You would do well to govern your tongue, my friend,” he said. “One might question your upbringing.”

The confusion stilled around them, though most patrons remained unaware or indifferent to the confrontation. Some of the nearest among them retreated a pace or two to allow the antagonists a clear view of one another. These Golodhrim did not make an issue of the casual abuse of the slight Moriquendë waiting upon them, but most wanted no part of any quarrel with Thranduil if they could avoid it, for he could rival any of them for size. But the most offensive one of them merely turned to sneer at him, and in a blinding flash of memory Thranduil placed that face.

He sat numbed for a moment as a surge of lingering indignation shot through his veins. He was still here? He seemed to recognize Thranduil as well, but he had already drowned his better judgment.

“Well, if it is not our old comrade from Balar,” Alkarinwë drawled with a cheeky smile, though his eyes were sharp yet. “Máravë omentaina, Moriquendë.”

Thranduil said nothing. He had no real desire to kill him—he was not so far gone as that—but the Kinslayings did indeed cross his mind. Would a grievance of some years past justify at least a lingering scar or two if he could catch him alone later?

“Oh, yes, we are old friends,” Alkarinwë said snidely. “I see Goldilocks has found a suitable companion for himself.”

Thranduil bristled indignantly, and he felt Anárion do the same behind him. The other did not know the nature of their unspoken quarrel, but his apprehension was quickly burning away.

Too bold for his own good, the big Golodh closed the distance between them with a fearless swagger in his step. “It is good to see you are learning your place at last,” he said, laying a presumptuous hand on Thranduil’s stiffening shoulder. “Most curs stand a better chance if they run in packs, you know.”

That remark fell hard upon Anárion, who was acutely conscious of his mixed parentage.

“Take your hand off me,” Thranduil snarled, a dreadful storm held back by a very tenuous thread.

Alkarinwë merely snickered, his reckless daring eliciting the same from his companions. “Steady on,” he admonished. “Bear my love to that feisty sister of yours, unless someone else has already had his way with her.”

Thranduil cuffed the offending hand away and knocked Alkarinwë back with a single crashing blow to his nose.

Silver pricks of starlight began to appear in the sky, veiled behind gentle wisps of cloud. The sunset was fading, throwing her last rays of gold over the bluffs and foothills that framed the harbor. It was merely another peaceful evening, soon to be succeeded by a new day. A gull gliding on the rising air to her nest would have seen nothing amiss, but would perhaps have briefly noted two figures walking toward the outskirts of the city, each with a pack slung over his shoulder. But there would have been nothing remarkable about the two of them from her vantage point.

Thranduil shifted his share of Anárion’s meager belongings on his shoulders, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the aching pain throughout his entire body. He had to grudgingly admit that Alkarinwë had proven his worth in an honest fight, and they had beaten one another bloody by the time they were forcibly separated by the king’s guard. It would be a clash long remembered by both of them.

“That might have been an overly-spectacular rite of passage,” he offered in humorous apology to his companion. “But it may prove to be an accurate representation of life with our family.”

“Your candor is admirable, Thranduil,” Anárion returned dryly over a split lip, “but still I find it all rather eccentric. If that is normal among your kin, so be it. I do hope Lindóriel will appreciate our disfigurement on her behalf.”

“She will,” Thranduil assured him, tenderly touching the ugly bruise he knew surrounded his left eye. “She will.”

The lingering glow was fading as they approached the doorstep, the humble entryway rebuilt over the years to boast a small portico, trails of ivy winding up the columns. Thranduil pulled at the latch, but the door resisted him. He sighed disgustedly. It was not an auspicious beginning to be locked out of his own house.

“This is Father’s way of telling me I should have been home before this,” he explained, forced to knock and thus advertise his belated return. He declined to pull the bell rope just yet, hoping to catch a passing sibling to let them in. It was not long before the door opened.

“Thranduil!” she gasped, lunging over the threshold and into the starlight to take his chin in her hand. “What on earth?”

Thranduil waved her off with masculine indignation. The last thing he wanted now was a sister doting on him. “It is nothing,” he lied.

“Then you have not seen your eye!” Menelwen insisted. “Who gave you that?”

“No one gave it to me,” Thranduil insisted, turning up his nose and salvaging what remained of his dignity. “I fought for it.”

“Thranduil Oropherion,” she scolded, waving a slender finger in his face with fire in her eyes, “this predisposition to violence will be the ruin of you.”

“Yes, Menelwen,” he said, accepting her lecture. He doubted she would let them in without hearing it first.

“Now come in, for Elu’s sake! Oh, good evening, Anárion. You have come to dinner?”

Menelwen let them in, and Thranduil skirted the family gathering in the dining room until he had shown Anárion to his room. There they left his things, and then slipped into the washroom to do what little they could to make themselves presentable for dinner. A change of clothes only did so much, and Thranduil grimaced into the mirror at the unsightly discoloration on his face as Anárion dabbed the dried blood from his own mouth and cheek. There would be no forgetting the incident without due explanation with so much of the story written plainly in red and blue.

“You will explain this to your father, I assume?” Anárion asked, as if to ensure that he was blameless.

“I have small choice in the matter,” Thranduil said, experimentally rolling an extremely sore shoulder. “But he usually has a good deal of tolerance for this kind of thing.”

“Here,” Menelwen said, pushing her way in among them, bearing a tray from her room. Rifling among her rouge and shadow, she dabbed her finger in one particular bottle and tried to obscure the worst bruises. “Hold still.”

Thranduil blocked her advances in adamant refusal. “I feel ridiculous enough already.”

“Suit yourself,” Menelwen waved him off with a look that plainly said she thought him hopeless. “You look hideous.”

“She took perverse pleasure in saying that,” Thranduil observed when she had swept from the room. He had been called many things, but never that.

When they slipped into dinner it was still in the last stages of controlled chaos as the table was set and courses arranged with heavy traffic of family from one room to the next. Thranduil was braced for the inquisition, and it was not long in coming.

“Ai, Belain!” Oropher recoiled after looking twice. “What happened to you?”

Lóriel gasped, her reaction echoed in various ways by everyone else present. Anárion edged further behind, not ready yet to attract any undue attention to himself.

“You remember Alkarinwë from Balar,” Thranduil explained simply. Oropher’s aghast expression darkened considerably at the mention of the name. He did remember, and that was all he needed to know. A vicious smile had begun spreading across Galadhmir’s face.

“It was all rather confused,” Thranduil admitted, “but he will need his nose straightened at the very least, and he was certainly not on his feet.”

His father seemed satisfied with that. “Very well; consider the score settled, although now that I know he has not fled to these shores I shall see that Gil-galad hears of his transgressions. Avoid him if you can.”

“I will be glad to,” Thranduil assured him with no small measure of disgust. He would not care if he never heard the cursed name again.

Things were becoming crowded here in Oropher’s household. Taking a plate of his own, Thranduil turned as someone caught him by the shoulder. “So, you finally beat some courtesy into that one!” It was Noruvion, another friend from Balar. His father still lived, and only heaven knew why he was there. “I knew you would someday.”

“Excuse me, sir,” Oropher said then, leveling his methodical attentions upon Anárion as he sorted through the crowd in his home. “Who are you?”

“I have offered him the rather permanent use of the spare room,” Thranduil explained.

“Another recruit, is it?” Oropher looked him over long and hard. All held their breath, though they knew his deliberation was little more than formality. “Very well, Anárion of Gondolin. Welcome to what little remains of Doriath. Now, come; let us get dinner on the table before it becomes breakfast."

The passing years had not quite ceased to leave their mark upon him, if indeed they ever would. As all his kind were refined by the slow passage of time, he felt in his heart that now he had at last reached that long-awaited threshold of life when the final lingering traces of youth faded into the full form of manhood. It was a threshold his kin were slow to pass, but a change each one knew and recognized when his time came, when the last vestige of adolescence was no more.

Thranduil regarded himself passively in the long mirror, gathering his poise for the encounter of the day. For many long and memorable years, he had been considered an adult by the measure of his people, but even after he had visibly ceased to grow there remained the last touches of time that were not completed until now when he knew them to be. Now he had at last attained the full stature in which he would spend the rest of his life, Oropher in form of Lóriel.

Today he and his father would finally broach the subject of their leaving to the king. Lindon had been their home now for two long and peaceful centuries, and the tranquility of it all was at last threatening to become a bore. There was once a time when peace was all he craved, but now the lust for excitement had regained the upper hand. Their lives had stagnated here beside the sea, and Oropher was ready to be gone.

Securing a mantle of gray and silver over his shoulders and stepping over the feline members of Galadhmir’s menagerie, he wandered outside to await his father in the sunlight. It was a bright and crisp autumn day, the late morning slant of the sun lending greater life to the color all around him. The years had changed the face of Lindon, making a fair city of a hastily-built haven. It was a warm and hospitable place, but it held no hold on his heart beyond their home on the bluff. That had been expanded and embellished as well, wreathed now in tall beech trees as the heraldry of their family.

Lindóriel was there in the garden with Gwaelin. She looked up from tending the blossoms as he stopped to stand on the walk, but then dutifully returned to the task at hand. The feelings between them had gone unspoken for all those years, but it was plain that her regard for him had not waned in the slightest, something he still found rather disconcerting. What had he done to encourage that? But even so, the thought was not so unwelcome as it had once been.

He watched her for a time as she pruned the shrubberies, probing the depth of his own feelings for her, a dark and unexplored corner of his heart into which he had not often bothered to look until now. Perhaps it was she, the one he would wed in years to come. He would likely be granted the hand of any maid he could choose, but at the moment he could not imagine any other who would please him quite so well as she. She did not merely admire him with the giddy frivolity that characterized so many others who did not know him. She loved him, and it was a deep and abiding difference. Even now he realized he did not consider it a matter of who so much as a matter of when. He was fond of her now, but he would come to love her in time. Time was still what he needed, for he was afraid to encourage these emotions yet.

She looked up and found him staring. Thranduil frowned, certain he was making a complete fool of himself. Perhaps this was why he had thus far been set on avoiding the peril of feminine influence on his life, but to his consternation he seemed to be losing his immunity.

“Good morning, Thranduil,” Gwaelin greeted him with a smile, waving a trowel at him. She was just as radiant in the sunlight as her companion, but he scarcely noticed her. Stop it, you imbecile.

“And the same to you two,” he said, drawing nearer to peer over the bushes. “I see your efforts here have not been wasted.” He had not meant to address Lindóriel directly, but that was how it happened.

She smiled demurely. “It serves us well enough. But there are no roses here,” she lamented gently. “These are fair enough, but it is poorer without a flowering rose bush or vine.”

It was such a simple request that it struck Thranduil in an odd way. That braveheart Menelwen had already demanded or at least plainly voiced all that her desires deemed lacking here, but if Lindóriel had ever before expressed her wish to see roses again he had not heard of it. Perhaps it was because he had not stopped to listen.

“There you are, Thranduil!” Oropher burst upon them then, startling them both. He came in a swirling cloud of gray and silver mantle, flanked on both sides by the two great dappled horses of the household. “I thought you were supposed to have the horses standing and ready for me,” he reminded him. “I do not remember that a pair of flashing eyes ever made you forget your duty before.”

Thoroughly embarrassed, Thranduil considered himself adequately chastised. With the barest nod to the ladies, he turned and swung astride the mare, for Oropher had already claimed the stallion.

Lóriel had come to the front step, Illuiniel with her. “Oropher,” she warned him again, “he is the king, he has had part in no kinslaying, and he showed us his magnanimity at Sirion. You will be civil, you will not raise your voice against him, and if gainsay him you must, you will do so with all decency.”

“I swear it, my love,” he assured her, lifting his right hand as the restless horse shifted beneath him. “And no strong language, I imagine?”

“I would appreciate it,” she nodded, looking him dauntlessly in the eye, regal as a golden queen in her simple gown, but a smile lurked behind the audacity in her voice. “I take pride in you, husband,” she said at last, “but at times it seems I have not a firm enough hold upon you.”

Now Oropher did smile. “It is best that way,” he said, sharply turning his mount for a run toward the city. “Come, Thranduil. Let us have done with this.”

Thranduil followed as his father climbed the shining white steps of the palace with indomitable purpose, his entire manner clearly stating that none could contest his right to go where he pleased. The Golodhrim thought it arrogant, which could be true enough, but indeed if any ought to recognize arrogance it would be them. The great doors were held open as they passed inside, for all knew the Lord Oropher by sight and reputation if nothing else.

They strode through the milling crowd that attended the court, the tall windows admitting streaming shafts of sunlight into the richly decorated interior. Thranduil might have been tempted to think he and his father woefully underdressed by comparison to the bright hosts of Valannorrim, for they were notably wearing only the gray of the Mithrim, only what their own people had made for themselves within their own circles independent of their neighbors, even unto the heraldic device traced over their hearts, the winged moon of Thingol’s house. There was nothing of the Golodhrim upon them.

“Where is Aran Ereinion Gil-galad?” Oropher asked of a liveried guard standing with his fellow beside a gilded doorway. “I would speak with him.”

“The king is not receiving audiences, my Lord Oropher,” the Golodh answered, all duty. “But if you wish, he will be told of your presence in his halls.”

“I do wish it,” Oropher returned, admirably restrained in the face of this obstacle. He seemed starkly misplaced there, but not unpleasantly so; a lord of pale starlight from another realm, another era.

They waited, patient but persistent. Apparently Oropher was determined to be there when the door opened, undeterred by this first difficulty. The muted roar of incessant activity in that great vaulted hall reminded Thranduil again why he preferred to avoid crowds. He ran his fingers over the shining leaves of a young tree standing in the planter beside him, craving a real forest to lurk in. Perhaps it was high time he went back to Forlindon on the western side of the Ered Luin for a few feral nights in the wood with his brothers.

He turned, alerted as his father straightened beside him to receive the lordly Golodh who approached them. This one was admittedly impressive, his long robes of indigo blue and sea gray, elaborately embroidered with silver. Overall, it evoked more of what they had heard of the Teleri of Valinor rather than the Noldor.

“Greetings,” he began in a commendable rendering of their tongue, spreading his arms in an amiable manner. “You must be Lord Oropher. It is remarkable that so many years have passed and yet I have never been afforded the honor of your acquaintance. Would it flatter you to know I have heard a great deal of you, and of your extraordinary household?”

“That will depend upon the nature of what you have heard,” Oropher answered, agreeable enough but distant still.

“Nothing shameful, I assure you,” the dark one said pleasantly. “I am Serataron Alatúrunion, a lord of the king’s house.”

“Oropher Thoronion,” his father returned, accepting the passive hand Serataron offered, though his lip curled in a wry expression as he finished in proud futility, “a prince of Doriath.”

Now Serataron smiled. “Son of eagles,” he repeated, looking them over. “A worthy name. I may say it is gratifying to see such constancy in the Eldar of the East, such tenacity. There is courage still in this broken race, and that I admire.”

Oropher seemed unsure how to receive those seeming compliments, though they appeared well-intended. It was a difficult subject to discuss amicably.

“And this must be the infamous young Thranduil Oropherion,” Serataron said now, turning to him with a reflected glint of paternal admiration in his eye. “Young no longer.”

“Oh, I have heard of him now and again,” Serataron explained easily, utterly undeterred by Oropher’s defensive manner. “The envy and despair, it is said, of many a jealous young man. In the course of my duties, I hear and see much, and through the years I may say that few have been the object of such regard as he commands now in Lindon, despised by many, idolized by more. He is meant for great things, my lord, which I know will stand him in good stead when you leave us.”

Serataron favored them with a patient smile. “Only what everyone else knows,” he said. “I trust it was no secret, or else it has been poorly kept.”

It really was not meant to be secret, but it was somewhat disconcerting that a Golodh had taken such an interest in their affairs. An explanation might have been forthcoming, but Serataron was called away by another. He turned back before he took his leave of them.

“You have been blessed with a fine son, my lord,” he said to Oropher, though it was Thranduil’s gaze that he held. “I hope that you appreciate him.”

Oropher looked long after him when he had gone, brows low and level. “What do you make of that?” he asked at last, a bit puzzled.

“No more than you do,” Thranduil professed, sharing his bemusement. “I cannot recall ever seeing him before.”

Beside them the great oaken doors swung wide again, and the first guard reappeared.

“Aran Ereinion will receive you,” he said, seeming rather chastened as he held the door for them. “He bids me bring you to him at once.”

“Very well,” Oropher consented. He plainly disliked being brought anywhere, but made no issue of it.

Through the grand corridors they went, surrounded by the combined craftsmanship of the Golodhrim and the Falathrim. It was not Menegroth, but it was still a worthy palace. Finally, they emerged into a sunlit courtyard, accented with artfully pruned shrubbery – rounded, squared, and spiraled. Impressive as it was, there was something confining about it as the plants were not permitted to grow as they pleased or as was natural to them. The king sat at the edge of a gentle fountain in the center, ringed by a circle of white flagstones from which six paths branched away like rays from the sun. Thranduil had seldom seen him, for his kindred kept to themselves, but here Ereinion looked every inch the scion of the West that he was. He turned and stood to receive them as they stopped at a respectful distance, a pale and noble face with thick raven hair at his back, his trailing robes of blue and sea green.

“My lord Oropher,” he said, favoring them with a tolerant smile, as a benign lord would a difficult subject. Never mind that Oropher was by far his elder.

“My lord Ereinion,” Oropher returned the pleasantry, though there was no act of obeisance forthcoming from him. He bent the knee now to no one, for he had always maintained himself as a lord apart. He was grateful to Gil-galad, certainly, but no depth of gratitude ran so deep as to incite him to sacrifice his independence.

“Please, sit, my friends,” the king invited, resuming his own seat at the fountain. “We are not in formal attendance here, though I might venture to guess your purpose.”

Oropher’s brows shadowed a bit as he accepted the invitation and seated himself on one of the white stone benches. Beside him, Thranduil interpreted the expression as mild annoyance at being second-guessed at every turn.

“You need not imagine our leave-taking borne of any ill-will toward you,” Oropher insisted.

“Yes, I wondered when it would come to this at last,” Gil-galad mused, idly running his fingers through the water. He was irritating Oropher by his seeming inattention; purposefully or not, Thranduil could not say. “So, you go now to seek out the Nandor of the East? To impose a new order upon them?”

Oropher curled a lip despite himself, for he resented the word. “We go to impose nothing,” he insisted, doubtless remembering the imposition of the Exiles upon his own people. “We go to strengthen the old order, to refine without uprooting. It can be done without smothering our lesser brethren if only we try.”

“Forgive my choice of expression, Oropher; I meant no offense.” The king turned now to face them directly, crossing his arms comfortably over his chest as he regarded them with a passively regal eye. “You wish to leave the bounds of Lindon. When?”

“As soon as I may,” Oropher returned, blunt but gracious enough still. “I ask only out of courtesy, remembering the friendship of old between us.”

“You are free to do as you will. I do not deny it,” Gil-galad granted him. “But you say only ‘I.’ What of the rest of your entourage?”

“I shall first go myself alone, with such companions as I choose. Thranduil, my son, will remain to govern the household until I return. They have had enough of wandering, and I would not ask them to explore the horizons with me.”

Thranduil frowned a bit where he sat, acutely dissatisfied with that arrangement, but unwilling to argue it considering the responsibilities his father was entrusting to him. It was an honor to at last be granted his father’s position as lord of their house, but he was just as impatient to be gone now as any of them, and to be left behind to wait seemed unbearable. But they had borne the unbearable many times before; doubtless they could do it again.

“A wise decision,” Gil-galad commended him, though perhaps the touch of irony in his voice was imagined. Oropher was not commonly considered to be particularly wise, regardless of what his own thought of him. “Many things move in the East, not all of them the simple and pliant folk you expect to meet. May the powers of Oromë ride also upon your road.”

“Farewell at last, Thranduil. I trust you can keep the household from falling apart in my absence.”

Afflicted by a twinge of anxiety he had not known for many years, Thranduil looked up to meet his father’s unwavering gaze. For one fleeting moment he was young again, for this would indeed be the first time he and his father would be separated for any abiding length of time. Now was his moment to prove himself, a challenge that did not rest lightly on the shoulders of any son. “I can, Father,” he assured him.

A smile softened Oropher’s features as the horse stamped impatiently behind him, a new mount with great potential for distance in his build. “I expected no less,” he said, laying a firm but affectionate hand on Thranduil’s shoulder. “You know how I dislike to leave you here,” he went on in a more intimate vein. “There is no one I would rather have riding beside me. But, on the other hand, there is no other I would rather leave with the charge I give you now.”

Thranduil nodded resignedly, torn in both directions. The rest of the family stood behind him to bid their lord farewell. They were his responsibility now. Two others sat astride ready mounts a stone’s throw away, Noruvion’s father Baranor, and a fellow restless Iathron who had won Oropher’s regard, Luinlas by name, all three armed with bow and blade. Together they would explore the reaches of the East and seek out a place they might all call a home, a preliminary quest that would be as lengthy as it was demanding. None knew how long it would be before they returned, but Thranduil did not expect to see his father again for many long turns of the sun, tedious decades mounting perhaps into centuries.

“Farewell, love,” Oropher said then, taking Lóriel’s fair hands in his own. “Wait for me. The road is long, but it does have an end.”

“And you will find it,” she agreed. Thranduil knew his mother well enough to know she heartily disliked the prospect of the solitary years ahead, but would bear them without complaint for her lord’s sake. Her hair was woven into a crown of plaited gold, the rest spilling down her back like a veil. “You will find it, but now I would have you pledge to return to me when it is done.”

“There is nothing that could keep me away,” he assured her, pulling her close to kiss her farewell. Releasing his wife, he then made as if to leave, but stopped once more to gently lift his son’s gaze. “Chin up, Thranduil,” he chided him softly. “Look the world in the eye and it cannot make light of you.”

With that last bit of parting advice, he turned and swung astride his horse, surveying his family a final time before spinning his mount to follow the open road stretching on into the East toward Eriador. The others followed him around the bend, content to go where he led them. Thranduil watched until he could see them again, three diminishing figures gliding over the plain beyond, leaving him to feel dreadfully stagnant. He yearned to follow, but forcibly resigned himself to the interminable wait appointed for him. He suppressed his agitation as well as he might, but could not quite smother a terse sigh of frustration.

A sympathetic hand fell heavily on his shoulder, and he glanced aside to see Galadhmir beside him, the same thwarted ambition in his bright eyes. They stood for a while yet as the others wandered back to the house, watching the empty landscape for they knew not what.

“And how do you envision us spending the next years, my lord brother?” Galadhmir asked in a dull voice.

“Do not ask me about the next years when I have scarcely decided the next hour,” Thranduil groused, shoving Galadhmir aside in what they both knew to be rough affection. “Come on.”

The white beaches of Lindon stretched away along the shoreline, the glimmering sapphire gulf upon one side and the sharp rise of the mountain foothills on the other. The violence of the world’s breaking could still be seen on the weather-beaten crags standing like dark walls against the open expanse of the sea.

Thranduil let the great horse surge ahead with swift and powerful strides as though to chase the very wind. He could be still no longer, but knew not whether by this vain effort he meant to flee the past or overtake the days to come. Whatever the reason, he found the serenity he longed for in these heedless headlong rides, the sea wind breaking against his face and sweeping through his hair. Perhaps it was only at speed that life did not seem to pass him by so quickly. The rapid thunder of tireless hooves over sand gave evidence that Celebrandir reveled in this abandon as well, his streaming white tail held high in his moment of freedom.

Alone, Thranduil would have let the horse run as far as his great heart desired, for he had much to think about in the meantime. But he was not alone, and apparently Galadhmir had had his fill of this reckless plunge, for with an effort he brought the winded mare to run neck-and-neck with her mate, then pulled her reins aside, forcing them both to turn away into the surf.

“And just what is your hurry?” he asked as they tramped to a halt in the gentle waves. Celebrandir squealed in protest and stamped a forefoot in the foam as the mare snorted in weary disapproval. “If you keep racing ahead of me that way, I may begin to feel you find my presence unwelcome.”

“Spare yourself that suspicion at least,” Thranduil admonished him in a rather despondent tone, turning the stallion to prance out of the surf and resume their ride at a more sober pace. “You perhaps can find it within yourself to be content with idleness when it is forced upon you, but I cannot.”

“Content?” Galadhmir asked with an incredulous curl of his lip, riding alongside him. “I am as eager to be gone as you, but that does not mean I cannot spare a moment to appreciate this place for what it is. You seem to prefer speeding blindly past it. But who said we must be idle? We have been allotted the time, so why not utilize it in ways more constructive than sitting about feeling sorry for ourselves?”

“I have been giving the matter some thought, believe it or not,” Thranduil said, running his fingers through Celebrandir’s windblown mane. “I intend to give it some more this evening. It may well be that the attitude of our household will change while I am left to direct it.”

“No more than necessary,” he said, allowing himself a wry smile. “First, I shall have to consider the—” He broke off abruptly and reined to a halt, his gaze trained intently upon the broken crags above them. “Look!” he pointed, a triumphant smile illuminating his face. “Roses!”

“Roses?” It seemed Galadhmir failed to understand the significance of the discovery, seeing nothing remarkable about a rambling vine of wildflowers nestled high in the cliff face.

Thranduil had already sent the stallion into an eager lope away from their path and toward the foot of the sharp incline, dismounting there and appraising the climb. It was challenging, to be sure, but not impossible.

He turned to see Galadhmir bring the mare churning across the sand to join him. “Just what is in your mind?” he asked, swinging to the ground as well. “I have seen that look before, but did not realize you had fostered such an interest in the native flora.”

“You ought to know, of all people,” Thranduil replied with a withering glance. “Your sister ventured to mention yesterday that she wanted roses in the garden but had found none here. Is it too much to ask that I bring her one if I can?”

Galadhmir shut his mouth at once as though he had no wish to discourage him now, but glanced upwards for himself and seemed to still harbor doubts about the practicality of the venture. Thranduil paid him no mind and found himself a first foothold on the dark rocks roughened by wind and rain. It was an almost vertical climb, but that did not deter him, and with a few carefully placed and balanced steps he was well on his way. One limb at a time he pulled himself up, wedging the toe of his boot into a crevice as he hung by his fingertips, pushing upwards to find his next handhold. Simple.

“I suppose you expect me to catch you when you fall,” Galadhmir called from below.

“I will not fall—” Thranduil had to frantically catch himself as a loose stone gave way beneath his foot, but he managed to cling long enough to find a new foundation. “I will not fall,” he said again after a few breaths, a bit shaken but no less determined.

“I wish I could share your confidence,” he heard Galadhmir mutter to himself. “I do not wish to be the one to explain your broken neck to your mother.”

Forgetting the tense moment, Thranduil continued the climb. At last, he attained his objective, the cleft where the rose vine managed to eke out its rough existence. He braced his legs amid the rocky contours beneath him, dislodging a smattering of gravel in the process. There he drew his knife and deftly cut one long-stemmed blossom in reward for his efforts. They were yellow autumn roses, of a strong but pale hue that he felt would come very near to match her hair. He found he was smiling at the thought of bringing one to her.

“Is there something wrong with that one in particular, or do you just enjoy the view?” Galadhmir called. He was growing rather uneasy if the brittle tone of his voice was any indication.

Ignoring Galadhmir’s remark, Thranduil sheathed his blade and secured the rose between his teeth, prepared to make his slow and deliberate descent. Tentatively, he came upon a conveniently placed fissure that he trusted to bear his weight. Unfortunately, it proved to be slick with moss, and with stomach-wrenching suddenness he slipped but managed to snatch a flailing handful of rose vine. He heard Galadhmir’s nervous cry still echoing from the cliffs as he managed to renegotiate his footing while he hung there, acutely conscious of the sound of slowly ripping roots above. He winced as a loose rock fell and struck him sharply over the shoulder on its way to the ground. He dared not release the strained vine just yet, but half its anchorage pulled free and dropped him another few threatening feet along the cliff face.

“Ai, Belain . . .” he muttered through his teeth, knowing his moment of grace had run short. And, sure enough, what remained of the vine let him go to descend the second length of the cliff in a free fall. He landed heavily on Galadhmir, and they both sprawled gracelessly in the sand as the horses squealed and shied away.

“Elbereth!” Galadhmir gasped as Thranduil crawled off him and he regained his breath. “You nearly scared the life from me!”

“Come now, Galadh. We have seen worse,” Thranduil answered simply once he had taken the rose from his mouth and spat out the green taste, pausing a moment to peel the thorn-ridden vine from his bleeding hand. He had only just become aware of those small but biting wounds. The sand in his clothes was a secondary if no less irritating grievance.

Galadhmir took one look and sighed, forcing down whatever lecture had sprung to mind. “Will you tell me you still do not love her when you would almost kill yourself to bring her a rose?” he asked pointedly, encapsulating his obvious opinion of his sister’s reluctant suitor.

“Do not mistake courtesy for love,” was all Thranduil deigned to say in reply, thrusting the hard-won bloom into his belt and turning away to rinse his bloodied hand in seawater.

Lindóriel paced slowly along the walk in front of the house that evening before dinner, listening to the lilting cry of the harbor birds and the soft whisper of her skirts as the sea breeze drifted through them. She trailed her fingers along a hedge as she passed, embracing the green and growing things she loved. Adar Oropher had been such a prominent feature of their lives for so long it was difficult to believe he had gone. The house seemed much too quiet without him. Thranduil would lighten the atmosphere with his presence before long, and she would not deny that she stood there to await his return. If ever they acquired more horses, perhaps there would come a day when they could all ride together, but so far it seemed her brother was still his favored companion.

She swatted at a stray branch then, frustrated. So many times she had learned to appreciate the present, not to take for granted the supposed centuries of peace that were seldom realized. Perhaps Thranduil did not share her sense of urgency, even after the destruction of Balar. Perhaps he was simply too distracted now to entertain distant prospects of marriage. Perhaps he still did not care to consider them.

She felt a need to speak frankly with him, but could not see her way to broaching the subject, for she had no wish to confront him again. Did he care for her at all, or did he merely dismiss her as another one of the sisters crowding his home? What was she to make of the incident yesterday in the garden? He had never looked at her that way before. It was only a thread of hope, but one to which she clung tenaciously. He had only to ask, and she would be there for him. But what was she to make of persistent silence?

Her thoughts were disrupted then as she saw them coming. The westering sun glowed over the landscape as both Thranduil and Galadhmir rode toward the house at an easy trot, still laughing together over a fading conversation of their own. There at the outskirts they reined to a halt and dismounted. Holding her post at the hedge, Lindóriel allowed herself to stare as Thranduil swung down from his horse with a kind of careless grace, absently running a hand through his bright windblown hair as he passed his reins to her brother with a benign but dominant smile.

Galadhmir took the horses around to the stables while Thranduil went ahead to the house. As he strode toward her, Lindóriel watched with a kind of helpless and thwarted devotion she was unable to politely express, ready for him to breeze past her again without so much as a second glance. She was not prepared for him to look up and favor her with a smile, tripping her heart for a moment and suddenly rendering her dreadfully self-conscious after years of apparent invisibility.

“Good evening, Lin,” he said easily as he paused beside her, miraculously produced a yellow rose from his belt and slid it into the thick plaits of her hair, thoughtfully smoothed of thorns. She was stricken speechless for the moment, but he merely smiled as he turned and bounded up the stairs into the house.

She stood for a while where he had left her, staring after him with eyes wide, waiting for the heart-pounding thrill to subside. Her hand crept up of its own volition to meet the soft touch of velvet petals. Her rational mind told her it was a wild and rambling thing, not so large as those she loved and in the last days of its bloom, in truth little better than a weed, but despite that it seemed to be the loveliest of all the roses she had ever seen. To think he had deliberately gone out of his way to remember her request!

That night, as the table was cleared and the dishes were washed, Thranduil attacked the first of his duties in his father’s stead, one that would largely determine the direction of the next several years. He sat at the desk with the clank and clatter of plates and utensils sounding in the kitchen beyond, offset by the thrumming purr of the cat dozing on an assortment of forgotten papers. Of greatest interest to him was the state of the family finances, written in his father’s severe but exacting hand. Frankly, it was not encouraging.

The figures only confirmed what he had known all along, and he let a page drop back to the desk with a bleak but resigned expression. They had come to Lindon with nothing, and yet had established themselves well, artfully disguising and making light of their meager resources by whatever means their own skill and ingenuity could suggest until they had come near to achieving self-sufficiency in most areas of life. It was the tireless efforts of the women with loom and needle that kept them clothed, and bows of Oropher and his proteges that kept meat on the table. Thranduil remembered how his father had specifically delegated the building of the stables to him and his brothers as a task of their own, even to the point of sending them out into the near forests to cut and drag back their own timber. It was a wonder they had been able to purchase the third horse. Whatever he shared of his father’s pride, he felt it was being slowly undermined by the realities of life.

“Naneth,” he began when he found her, dutifully giving attention to her sewing by lamplight. She glanced his way in reply, and he held up the condemning leather-bound evidence as explanation enough of their position. “This cannot go on.”

Lóriel sighed heavily, dropping her hands for a moment into the sea of gray gown in her lap. “I know. But your father would not admit defeat while we yet had the strength to hold out a day longer. He would sooner choose a life of exile than to condemn you to domestic drudgery with some foreign master.”

“What he would or would not choose is no longer an issue,” Thranduil insisted, setting himself on the arm of Oropher’s great upholstered chair, his feet in the seat as he leafed idly through the pages. “It seems we have little enough choice in the matter.”

“I tried to tell him so,” she said, resuming her needlework. “We cannot live on pride alone, though I must say he has made a commendable effort. You know he cannot abide compromise.”

“Perhaps he cannot, but I have begun to see worthwhile cause for it. If we must endure so much as to serve Gil-galad and his lords until we regain our own footing, we must.”

“You know how your father feels about that,” Lóriel admonished him, glancing up with a critical eye. “Thranduil, get your feet out of that chair. And do not fold back the cover of your father’s book.”

“Folded or not, the verdict is the same,” Thranduil insisted, obediently descending from his perch. “And if he expects to be taken seriously as a sovereign of his own realm, I should expect he would want more than this to fall back on,” he said, striking the page with his free hand for emphasis. “Or shall we be content with nothing and go on with nothing simply because we lack the courage to earn anything?”

Thranduil realized he was arguing with himself as much as with his mother. No, he did not relish the idea of being absorbed into that social swamp that was the king’s court, but was there any other way now that they had sapped their own stamina? Pride had made miserable failures out of many, and now he felt it was the calculating influence of his mother’s father that began to gainsay Oropher’s blood in him. Thalos, as he had known him, had been at heart no less obstinate than his daughter’s husband, but did not at once dismiss all thought of sacrifice if in the end it could profit him. He had tried to instill the same shrewd judgment in his grandson, and indeed it now seemed Thranduil’s resemblance to him went beyond his physical traits.

Lóriel regarded him solemnly for a long moment. Thranduil knew she agreed with him at heart, but resisted only to observe the outspoken will of her husband.

“This is our task, Mother,” he said at last. “Father bade me keep the household together. How and what I do is my own concern.”

At last, the lady of the house nodded with a sigh, for the matter was inarguable under the circumstances. And now that Oropher had gone, he had forfeited his voice in the debate. The time had come to gather a treasury for themselves, and they had the team to do it.

Although they were constrained for a time to enter the service of the neighboring Golodhrim, it did not mean they must become wholly overshadowed amid these great lords of the West. There were other duties they could assume, tasks more to their liking. Thranduil had grown up on the fringe of Thingol’s court, was indeed very much a part of it when he chose to attend, but he viewed the honor with the same reservations he imagined Gil-galad’s horses viewed the elaborate trappings they were vested with for ceremony: proud to wear it, but more at ease when they were allowed to run free. It was a predisposition Thingol himself had not wished to see curbed in him.

Now he diligently ran a stiff brush over the gleaming flanks of a proud red stallion in the dust and dimness of the stall, just another of the many employed here at the stables near the palace. In that he was strangely content, for it had ceased to seem an indignity now that his father’s eye was not always upon him. He was enjoying himself here amid these splendid horses, and although he was not permitted to ride beyond the confines of the paddock, he was encouraged to take them out for a bit of a run now and then. Within three days he knew them all, and they knew him.

“You are a fine hand with a horse, Master Oropherion,” smiled Luinheled as he passed. He was one of the slender Falathrim, but one with a passion for all that went on four hooves in addition to his love of the sea. “It is not just anyone who can make Bragolach stand as quietly as he will for you. He has crushed many a foot in his day. The beast knows no shame.”

“He is magnificent,” Thranduil shot back with a bright smile, always ready to defend his favorite. “Someday I am determined to have one exactly like him.”

Luinheled paused and smiled to himself as though he took unabashed pleasure in merely hearing the Iathrim speak. “It is no wonder he is proud,” he said at last, “when it is a prince who comes each day to attend him.”

Galadhmir returned astride a spirited bay after a turn about the yard, flashing Thranduil a grin as he slid to the floor and led the horse into a stall for a rub down. It really was not so bad working here. It was almost as though they were now being paid to do what they enjoyed. There were many worse things they could have been assigned. Nor were all the Golodhrim as insufferably arrogant as he had initially and perhaps unjustly assumed them to be. There were several pleasant characters who frequented this place who did not disdain the Mithrim, as far removed from the Fëanorionnath as day is from night. He would remember that.

With a familiar drumming of shod hooves, Gil-galad’s mounted heralds returned from whatever errand their royal master had appointed to them, their horses panting and frothed. They were young Golodhrim by the look of them, or at least no older than himself, liveried in the colors of the king’s house, speaking fluent but still heavily accented Sindarin.

“Two fresh mounts at once!” the first demanded to whomsoever might hear him, pulling off his cap for a moment to shake out his raven hair before returning to his duties.

“Very well,” Thranduil replied dryly from the shadows of the stall, startling them both, for he instinctively assumed a rather haughty demeanor when he was irritated, not an air commonly expected of a drudge. More than that, he had conspicuously forgone any term of deference, a privilege Gil-galad of his own accord had graciously allowed him to retain. “There is no need to shout.”

He grudgingly left Bragolach to attend the newcomers, deftly loosing both saddles and draping them over a stall door as Galadhmir led the weary horses away. Luinheled brought the replacement mounts, already bridled with the quick efficiency that characterized the stables under his management, leaving his noble protege to finish the job.

“We have met before, have we not, Thranduil?” the second herald inquired with a sly air about him, as though he thought a lord of the Mithrim would not wish to be recognized performing menial tasks.

“It is possible,” Thranduil answered disinterestedly as he lay a clean blanket over the horse’s back and set the saddle on it. These two were obviously not of the benignant sort of Golodhrim he had learned to appreciate. “Apparently, I did not bother to remember you.”

“The ones who keep to themselves up on the bluff?” the other asked. “Finally hungry enough to earn an honest living, are they?”

Thranduil ignored them as they indulged in a hearty laugh at his expense, though it required monumental strength of will. There was nothing to be gained by stirring his anger now, though he did cinch the girth strap with a bit more force than he normally would. The gray mare seemed indignant, so he whispered a soft apology and ran a steady hand over her face as he rounded her to attend her companion.

“Just how long have you had the unenviable task of playing thrall to a herd of horses, my lord? Is the work to your liking? Or perhaps you did not expect to have to get your noble hands dirty.”

“I did not expect the representatives of Gil-galad’s household to be so uncouth in their address,” Thranduil retorted, his voice hardening as he turned to face them directly over the back of the horse. “Perhaps I am to charitably conclude that it is simply because you know no better, and no one has bothered to instruct you in the skills of common courtesy.” He cinched the second saddle without having to drop his gaze. “Or could it be that you do indeed know what manners are, yet you find some perverse pleasure in making yourself a detriment to your race and to your father’s name? That is, if your father’s name was anything to be proud of in the first place. One can never be certain when it is the Golodhrim who are concerned.”

“Áva quetë!” the first of the two snapped back at him at once with a menacing look. “Hold that serpent’s tongue of yours before I am of a mind to provide a hard lesson in the ways and manner of addressing the king’s herald!”

“Hold your own,” Galadhmir spoke up adamantly from behind them, a pale but forbidding echo of his friend and brother. “It could well be that the lesson shall be yours if you provoke him further.”

“Another one!” the second observed incredulously, tempers high. “They come like rats from the woodwork!”

The scene could quickly have become ugly had not a fair catalyst arrived at that opportune moment, a stately maiden in the elegant riding garb of a lady, as tall as any of them, a single great diamond set in a slender diadem above her brow. “Good morning, Fanar, Angren,” she said primly but purposefully in her deep feminine voice, the statement half a greeting and half a dismissal. She was not blind to the confrontation.

“Good morning, Lady Elemmirë,” Angren replied as both he and Fanar almost fell over themselves to come to attention in her presence. Thranduil, disgusted, turned away to resume Bragolach’s interrupted grooming, and Galadhmir faded back into the shadows. “Is there aught we may do for you? Bring a horse for your pleasure?”

“No, my thanks to you,” she assured him with unshakeable poise. “I am certain I shall have assistance enough, and the king does not employ you to saddle mounts for ladies. Doubtless there are other more pressing errands for you to fulfill.” She punctuated this directive with a knowing smile, like the soft glow of moonlight on the ocean waves.

Thranduil gave little heed to the proceedings, glad merely to see them go, and somewhat indebted to the lady in that regard. He could not afford to be blamed now for granting an insolent herald a broken jaw, greatly though he had been tempted. Here, he reminded himself, he must exhibit exemplary behavior, as his mother was wont to remind him. There were indeed a few disadvantages in no longer being one’s own master, but they were simply to be endured.

Angren and Fanar left in the same rushing rumble in which they had come, and when the noise of their departure at last settled with the haze of dust the whole place seemed unnaturally quiet. It was pleasant.

Inattentive though he was, Thranduil could not help but notice that the lady sighed audibly and shook her head once the others had gone, the slanted shafts of light from the windows dancing on the gentle curls in the long mass of ebony hair at her back. She turned, muttering something to herself as she went, something he assumed was far from complimentary.

“They mean nothing to you?” he asked nonchalantly, running a comb through Bragolach’s fiery mane.

“Less than nothing,” she said at once with obvious conviction. “I weary of their attentions, of all unsought attentions thrust upon me.” She paused for lack of further words, smacking a fist against her palm in a rather unladylike fashion as though the gesture would say quite enough without spilling all her desultory troubles to a stablehand. Watching her out of the corner of his eye, Thranduil allowed himself a slight smile at her expense, but in the ensuing quiet she seemed rather intrigued by his apparent disinterest. There was nothing feigned about it; she was exquisite, but she was nothing to him.

“And who are you, my fair lord?” she asked at last, coming nearer to stand beside the stall door, her clear gray eyes flashing as with captured starlight. “I have not seen you here before this, but I know you are more than you would seem. You are perhaps of the Oropherionnath, yes?”

“I am,” Thranduil answered freely, though he volunteered no further information.

“And so the Proud Ones come at last to mingle with us?” she asked, almost playfully. “Long you were content to reserve the honor to your own house.”

“Long we were content to spend ourselves day and night merely to live,” Thranduil replied wryly, finding her company pleasant enough to encourage. “The misfortune is that the years have outlasted us.”

She laughed lightly, a genuine smile gracing her perfect features. “Then I call it a blessed misfortune,” she decided, “if it means I shall have the privilege of seeing you again, and often. You are so much more agreeable than those who crowd to seek my hand in the court, Lord Thranduil.”

He was not surprised that she had guessed his name. Despite what she had said of them, Oropher’s pack was not such a mystery to the rest of Lindon, for they were often seen about the city. “And for myself I will say that such a consequence would be not at all unpleasant, Lady Elemmirë,” he returned gallantly. “Yet I fear you still hold the advantage over me, for I know not to which house you belong.”

“I am Serataroniel,” she obliged him gladly, “my father’s only daughter. My brother was sadly lost in the outrage at Sirion.”

“Serataron,” Thranduil repeated thoughtfully, the name suddenly familiar. “Yes, I have seen your father, only days ago.”

“So he told me,” she smiled. The indigo velvet about her collar only accentuated the sheen of midnight blue in her dark hair. She was not Lúthien, but despite that disadvantage she was remarkable.

Glancing past her for a moment, Thranduil caught a glimpse of Galadhmir watching rather jealously from the shadows, an indignant accusation of infidelity if he had ever seen one. But strangely enough, at that moment he felt it himself more than he saw it, an incriminating barb that unexpectedly penetrated his armor. It was new to him, and rather disconcerting.

Shaking it off, he dealt Bragolach an affectionate slap on the flank as he left the stall, everything now cleaned and groomed to near perfection.

“He is a lovely stallion,” Elemmirë observed candidly. “Seldom have I seen such bold color.”

“Seldom have I seen such a bold spirit,” Thranduil said with a smile. “There is little I would not give if I could make him my own.” He fondled the elegant face Bragolach had turned round to extend to him, stroking the white tongue of flame beneath the forelock. “I had one like him once, long ago.”

Elemmirë seemed to sober then, and he assumed she was remembering the old world as well. But perhaps not. “My lord,” she said, “there is little I would not give as well to see him in your hands. That fine horse deserves a better master.”

Thranduil stopped, wondering at that. “You know him?” he asked warily, almost reluctant to hear now. It would be doubly frustrating to find that the horse he could not have was misused by another.

“I regret to say I do,” Elemmirë confirmed, “and more than I should like. The boor would wed me if only I would consent, but never will I condemn myself to such a life. He who would use a horse as he does would so use a wife as well. You doubtless would not know him.”

“Try me,” Thranduil demanded flatly, praying his gut instinct was mistaken, though the suspicion grew. How many such Elves could there be in the world?

But there was no need for her to explain for he came then, harried and ill-tempered, brashly ordering his horse saddled for him immediately.

“Oh, of all the . . . ,” Alkarinwë trailed away when at last he saw to whom he was supposedly giving orders, a look of utter disgust falling over his face. “Never mind, you son of a wolf. I will get him myself.” Taking matters into his own hands, he lashed a saddle onto Bragolach’s back and slid on the headstall so quickly that the horse grunted and whickered in protest. Swinging astride, Alkarinwë turned the stallion out into the wide stable corridor.

“And fancy meeting you here as well, Elemmirë,” he said before he departed, a sly tone about his voice devoid of all true affection. “I must say, you still have the loveliest glower in all of Lindon. Though I am surprised at you for the vile company you keep. I expect I shall see you tonight, my elusive beauty.” And with that he swung his mount around and left as quickly as he had come.

Thranduil swore through his teeth, slamming the stall door in helpless protest. Of all the Golodhrim on these shores, why did it have to be him?

“You do know him,” Elemmirë observed wonderingly. “Or, what is more to the point, he plainly knows you. What is the grievance that stands between you, if I may be so forward as to ask?”

Thranduil was too incensed to care who asked now. “Once he dared to assault my—” But there he stopped. What was he to call her? Already Lindóriel had become something more to his mind, and he realized that his jealous protection of her had escalated beyond that of a brother. Already he recognized the impulse to defend her as something singularly his own, but still he could not bring himself to admit such rash sentiments aloud. “My sister,” he finished at last; “a lady of our household. Elemmirë, keep a dagger in your bodice when he calls on you.”

“Your solicitude honors me, my lord,” she said grimly, “but you have no need to warn me, for I suspected that such was the shadow of his character. My grandmother, Linaewë of the Teleri, fell in the great Kinslaying of Aman. I only thank the Valar I was not there to witness it.”

It was comforting at that moment to keep the company of another who shared a common grievance. The indignant compassion he had felt for Lindóriel now found its echoes in the plight of yet another fair and spirited woman upon whom the kinslayer’s shadow had fallen.

“Why does he still pursue you if you have spurned his proposal?” Thranduil asked as she drew back. In the lands he had known, there were laws that forbade such effrontery.

“His suit still stands,” she explained rather miserably. “He wants an answer from me.”

“He wants another,” she maintained. “Though I may refuse him, he is free in his endeavor to win my affections until my father would turn him away.”

“Then perhaps you should enlighten your father to the particulars,” Thranduil suggested bitterly. “He forfeited his right to consort with anyone’s daughter years ago. And as for his supposed reformation, I would sooner trust a snake.”

“As would I,” Elemmirë concurred, tossing her head defiantly with a flash of her diadem. “It matters not, for I shall never be his wife. There are hosts of others I would gladly consider.” She smiled again, her grim countenance vanishing like clouds before the night wind. “It seems each day brings yet another to cross my path when least I expect him.”

If that was a cue, Thranduil ignored it. “We must learn to expect the unexpected,” was all he said as he turned away. “Such is the only lesson life has taught me with any certainty.”

So passed several years with their own assortment of good turns and misfortunes. One of the latter, or so Thranduil deemed it, was his eventual promotion to the household of the palace itself, so pleased was Gil-galad with his practical abilities when he chose to exercise them. This meant he was to be assigned to the service of a particular lord, a position that was far from difficult for him to attain. Though he despised the word page, he had to admit that was exactly what he had become, convinced he looked like a Noldorin stooge in the smart uniform of blue and green complete with sash and GG monogram, two runes set back-to-back to resemble a branching tree. The only advantage he could imagine was that he was now paid twice as much as before, which certainly helped their cause.

It was only because of how seriously he dedicated himself to that cause that he put up with this. He had been prepared to endure much, for this assignment was singularly humiliating despite the dubious honor of it all. But he and his latest master, one Lord Rildaráto, had come to an impasse on more than one occasion. Thranduil would serve him if he must, but he would always draw a hard line between being employed as a servant and being driven as a slave. He knew his father would cringe to see him here, and so for his sake he tried to retain what remained of his dignity.

Now he stood sullenly beside a magnificent doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, awaiting a transfer of authority. Rildaráto had his own ideas of how a servant of his would behave, and had apparently had quite enough when Thranduil began refusing outright whatever tasks he considered beneath even his current station. And once decided, the son of Oropher would not be moved, which is not to say Rildaráto had not tried him. Plainly the august Golodh had not bargained upon purchasing a fashionable bit of decor that still possessed a mulish will of its own.

“I warn you, he is a handful,” Rildaráto was saying, grim relief in his voice to be rid of him, though touched with the barest hint of regret.

Thranduil looked up to confirm the verdict of his ears, jarred back to attention by that startlingly familiar and gentle voice.

With the customary parting pleasantries, Rildaráto left them for more immediate concerns of his own. The last sound was the closing of the door, no words for a long moment as they regarded one another again, their positions changed. If Thranduil had thought his situation awkward before, it seemed doubly so now.

“Well met again, my resourceful Oropherion,” Serataron smiled, a guileless expression. “An unforeseen turn of events brings our paths to cross again. Tell me, how fares your family with their lord so long upon errantry?”

“They are well, my lord,” Thranduil managed to reply, still not certain what to make of this particular individual. Again, his manner seemed pleasant enough, but as one who has been twice burned Thranduil was not eager to heedlessly approach a fire.

Serataron seemed to sense this, and maintained a comfortable distance for the moment. “You have courage indeed, my lord, to so defy the will of your father in this,” he said easily, unhurriedly, moving aside with a gentle swirl of robes to pour himself a small glass of wine. “You will forgive me for saying so, perhaps? Oropher Thoronion is a worthy prince, but too often I have seen him hampered by a stiff neck.” Wordlessly he offered Thranduil a glass of his own, which was warily accepted with only a moment’s hesitation. “You may share that noble affliction, but it will be to your credit that it is tempered with an admirable degree of practical wisdom. Please, sit; there is no need to stand at attention in the door as the day wanes. My home is yours now.”

Thranduil seated himself on the couch, inclined now to be agreeable, an instinctive change that said much for this Golodh’s presentation of himself. He had not expected this, for thus far he had been treated as a guest and no less a lord than his master, as indeed Serataron now was, even if only at his own forbearance. It was as though beneath the superficial pleasantries he saw proportionate respect and esteem where too often there had been condescension and disdain. It was, he assumed, the Golodhrim at their best. It was surprising and therefore difficult to trust all at once.

“What I shall expect of you, Thranduil,” Serataron continued, sitting at his ease opposite him, “is not what Rildaráto seemed to ask. I do not wish to have a mindless shadow padding after me all the day long. I would have your service now—you most of all—because you desire a position and I desire a companion, an adjutant, one with a strong voice to add to my affairs, who will not hesitate to refute or admonish me when justice demands. You were raised for those weightier concerns.”

“You would have me manage your affairs?” Thranduil asked at last, incredulous.

“You need not make it sound so mundane,” Serataron smiled. “But you have not known many of the others I have tried in this capacity and found wanting. You have greater initiative than they, and indeed you have years on many of them. They were not those who dared to take the Exile upon themselves.” Here he fell silent for a moment, as though unintentionally stirring a rueful memory, letting his eyes fall to the floor as though admitting a dark fault. “I was of that number,” he admitted, though Thranduil had not doubted it. “But when Middle-earth ceased to shock me outright, I grew fond of its ways and of those who dwelt in it.”

Now he smiled again, revealing another of his cardinal motivations. “You are wise in the ways of your people, Thranduil. You were fostered in the very heart of Doriath. You are my window into that world. Will you not show me what I have not yet seen of your remarkable race, the Lindar of the Many Voices?”

Thranduil did not answer at once, suppressing a first urge to laugh. But a closer look about the interior of the room revealed the draperies along the walls to be tapestries, bright with skillful representations of events long past. It was indeed a historian’s home.

“You hold the realm of Elwë in living memory,” Serataron explained further, and with obvious passion. “You realize the scarcity of your kind, Thranduil, how few remain of those who knew the hidden reaches of the Thousand Caves, who attended in honor the court of the Silver King, who walked the hallowed ground of Melian, still fewer of those who claim royal kinship with them. There is, of course, your kinsman Elrond, but he can tell me nothing.”

“Because he knows nothing,” Thranduil agreed curtly, not in contempt of Elrond but rather in pity of him. Perhaps the impetus of his reply was merely the shuddering thought of Doriath represented for posterity by a mind untrained by more than tales and legend. What had been wrongly destroyed deserved at least to be properly remembered.

“You see?” Serataron asked, spreading his hands in a gesture of self-evident truth. “What is a well-intentioned archivist to do? My mother was of Telerin kindred, and if you would indulge me, I would learn all I may of our Sindarin cousins. There are few enough here who can tell me now.”

“If that is all you ask of me,” Thranduil said, allowing himself a smile, “how can I refuse?”

“There is more, if you would have the full truth,” Serataron admitted, his voice turning bittersweet. “In all honesty, I must tell you I would keep you here also assuage my own griefs, for in your manner and ways you remind me very much of my own son, at once grave and resilient, always so full of fervor that it seemed no misfortune in the world could suppress him. But, nonetheless, Seralómin was ruined by the Noldolantë—alas, by the folly of his own people—and was finally sundered from them in the slayings of Sirion. By then he had come to despise his own life and thought his release a blessing, otherwise though it seemed to the rest of us.”

“Why then do you not go back?” Thranduil asked simply, after a moment of thoughtful silence. “I would imagine you know more of the return of the dead than I. Why linger on here if your home is in the West and your son has already preceded you?”

“Who can say whether Mandos will release him?” Serataron asked rhetorically, his voice now devoid of emotion. “More likely he will be held bound for years uncounted until the wrath of the Valar be appeased, for I doubt that his sword was wholly blameless. Moreover, my daughter does not wish to leave here, shunning the peace of Aman in hopes to be wed to a great and courageous Elf tempered by these wild lands in which we live. But still she refuses to choose among them,” he complained, forcibly lightening the mood.

Thranduil laughed a bit with him, deliberately putting aside the griefs for which there was no help. “Then may the Valar grant that she should find a desirable husband soon,” he said, “if only for her father’s peace of mind.”

That day began a new era of his life in which he became almost a secondary member of Serataron’s family, dominating the household by day going about all manner of business, able to dress more impressively now as a lord’s adjutant. He returned home every evening in time for supper unless Serataron had matters to discuss with him, which was unfortunately rather often. Sometimes it was to discuss a discrepancy in the records or perhaps changes to the schedule of the next week, but often Serataron held him past midnight, asking him to describe in minute detail everything he could remember of the Old Realm, scribbling it all down by lamplight in hasty notes to be reorganized later in a comprehensive volume of the history of Doriath. Thranduil thought it odd that such a work would fall to the skill of a foreigner, but such were the whims of life.

He attended Gil-galad’s court quite often, but not as much as someone like Rildaráto would have required of him. His presence there was always cause for considerable comment, but by now he was deaf to criticism, content where he was. If others found it awkward, that was their affair. Elrond had already advanced far in the hierarchy, herald now to the king himself.

He saw much of Elemmirë, more than he had in the stables of years past, and she was ever pleasant company. She was always glad to see him, but he credited that mostly to the fact that Alkarinwë had ceased to frequent the household at his request. Now that he was in a position to actively disrupt that inauspicious association, Thranduil had delivered his opinion in form of an ultimatum, for one household would not accommodate both of them peaceably. Serataron, harboring no particular affection for his daughter’s singularly persistent and questionable suitor, did not hesitate in making his judgment between the two. Thranduil certainly did not regret turning him out, knowing Alkarinwë already hated him, and the smug smile with which he had triumphed in the end had been well worth it. The scales of authority had suddenly turned again in his favor, inexplicably to Alkarin’s mind.

Elemmirë had begun to grow on him, but only as all other good-natured women did; her concerns were his own as a self-appointed brother. Indeed, perhaps that was what her father expected of him, wishing him to give some semblance of life to the shade of Seralómin. Whether he succeeded in that endeavor he could not say, but Elemmirë seemed to adopt him readily enough, a partiality that escalated into yet another demanding duty for him as her chosen escort in the absence of any other desirable alternative. Serataron heartily approved of this turn of events, evidenced by the fact that he readily freed him from any previous obligation if the lady had need of him. She was a spirited horsewoman, as Thranduil might have guessed, but still she could not outrace him along the stretch of the beaches. In calmer moments they would sit together overlooking the ocean, and she would tell him of the beauties of Valinor, of Tirion and the Calacirya, the Two Trees of the Age past, and the great harbors of Alqualondë; and in turn he would tell her of Doriath, of Menegroth and the Esgalduin River, the quiet forests of Brethil and Neldoreth. She would tell him of sailing along the shoreline of Aman in Telerin ships, and he would describe the strategy of spearfishing in the shadows of the wood. So often were they seen together that rumors had begun circulating through the court, but Thranduil dismissed it as idle nonsense.

Today his mind was far from thoughts of that sort, nimbly taking the stairs two at a time as he hurried back to Serataron’s chambers after running a message for him. Relatively speaking, life was good, and he was enjoying a wave of high spirits which had been steadily rising for months. For the moment there was no one else in the corridor, and he broke into a smooth run at the top of the stairs merely because he could, swift and silent as a hunter over the tile. Winter had come, and the chill in the air was invigorating.

“You are back already?” Serataron asked when he returned, pleasantly surprised. “Never have I enjoyed the service of anyone so efficient.”

“Time is not given to be wasted,” Thranduil answered simply, closing the door behind him and sweeping off his snow-dusted cloak. “In my experience, we are given little enough to be generous with.”

There came a light fall of laughter as Elemmirë entered the room as well. “Might you spare a few hours of your precious time for me, Thranduil?” she asked with a beautiful smile and an innocent gleam in her eyes that no one could refuse.

“To spend them with you is certainly no waste, my lady,” he said, turning to face her directly. But abruptly his words died on his tongue and he felt his stomach twist, certain every trace of his smile vanished. Elemmirë had brought a handmaiden in her train today. There was no welcome or glad recognition in her eyes, but rather a silent indignation as though she had at last caught him in the heinous offense of giving his attentions to another woman. Worse, he was stricken with the certainty that he was guilty, despite the fact that he had never promised anything to anyone.

“Lindóriel!” he said at last. He desperately attempted to regain his composure, but was unable to quite find it. “How have you come here? When? Why was I not told?”

“You were otherwise engaged, my lord brother,” Lindóriel stated deliberately, her bold statement carrying an obvious double meaning. It was certainly true that he had been here more often than he had been home in the past months. “I have seen little enough of you of late. Is it any wonder then that you have not noticed me?”

As the initial shock subsided, Thranduil grew rather indignant himself as he considered her audacity, calling him to task here in the presence of their own temporary lords. By what authority did she restrict or condemn his right to go where he pleased? He owed her nothing.

The contention was plain, and at last Serataron coughed discreetly. “Thranduil,” he said, “my apologies, but it seems I had forgotten my letter to Lord Círdan. I would be ever so grateful if you would see it delivered for me, if you would but wait a moment.”

Elemmirë dismissed Lindóriel, promising to follow soon. Thranduil could not help but glance after her as she went, and for a moment he grudgingly appreciated what a disagreeable task she had set for herself for the sole purpose of confronting him. There were other ways she could have accomplished her purpose, he knew, but perhaps none so effective. His emotions were still in inexplicable turmoil. Why did he feel he had lost something when she failed to look back?

Serataron deftly folded his letter and stamped his seal upon it in pale wax. Thranduil waited a moment for it to cool and then slipped it beneath his sleeve for protection against the elements should the snow outside turn to rain, as often it did.

“Thranduil,” Elemmirë entreated him softly. “You will stay with me today? The snow does not encourage a ride, but there is much to be enjoyed beside a warm hearth.”

“No . . . no, not today,” he begged off, retreating toward the door. “I apparently have other duties I must attend in my own household, if you will excuse me.” He swept his cloak over his shoulders again and left, somehow anxious to get a closed door between them. That accomplished, he stood alone in the empty corridor for a long moment, collecting his thoughts, demanding that his rampant sentiments make a full account of themselves before they strayed entirely out of hand. He was shaken by the dreadfully helpless feeling that he no longer had complete control of himself.

He descended the stairways in a more somber mood than when he had climbed them only a moment before.

The crisp winter air was a relief, snow still falling in gentle flurries that silently covered the landscape in a thin shroud of white. It was a gray day, befitting his mood now.

He walked down the stately palace entryway, no longer the only one there. His thoughts were distant, willfully blind for the moment to the world that moved around him. He deeply resented the fact that both Galadhmir and Lindóriel thought it necessary to supervise his every move. He was promised to no one. He was not even supposed to be known to have designs upon her.

Hold there. Had he in that last thought unwittingly admitted to himself the condemning facts of the matter? Was he singularly partial to her despite all his protestations to the contrary? Well, so be it. Again, it was disconcerting that he could no longer choose to be indifferent, but there seemed to be no help for it. It still did not mean he had trespassed against her by consorting with Elemmirë. Or did it? He paused, suddenly uncomfortable. Well, perhaps consort was the wrong word. What was it that made women so impatient?

He passed a row of picketed horses where they awaited the return of their masters from whatever business called them to the palace. He would have passed them with hardly a glance, but as he neared the far end a velveted nose reached out to bump him with a friendly whicker, protesting his inattention. Startled from his self-imposed solitude, Thranduil stopped to recognize Bragolach, eight years older but still his frosted ears pricked with the same lively interest, asking to be remembered.

It was a sudden, bittersweet reunion with a long-lost friend, something Thranduil needed at that moment. He boldly embraced the noble face Bragolach lay against him, giving no thought to the disagreeable individual who must be somewhere near, the snow in the forelock melting cold against his face.

All of life was conflict, conflict and deprivation. Where was his father now? Far across the reaches of Eriador? Beyond even the distant and mysterious Mountains of Mist they knew only in rumor? Regardless, he was certainly a long way from Lindon. Thranduil felt the need to talk to him now. Oropher had always taken a keen and almost overbearing interest in his son’s prospective choice of a bride, and now he was gone when at last it began to emerge as a real issue. It was not something Thranduil was eager to discuss with his mother yet, and he knew Galadhmir would not approach the subject with a particularly open mind. Neither, he suspected wryly, would Serataron, not that he was tempted to confide such to him even in the event that he was forced to explain the situation.

Very well, he thought, gently stroking the side of the horse’s face while massaging the ears, an indulgent exercise the great steed found soothing. Very well, he would stop denying it to himself at least. He was aware of a stirring of singular affection for Lindóriel, affection that could easily become love if he deliberately stirred it into flame. But that he refused to do, and it was exactly that reserve that she failed to understand. He was not spurning her, but merely holding her apart until he was ready. The time was not right. Even so, he paused to consider whatever impious comment may have reached her ears, and he could understand her reaction. Was that not what he would have done in her place? That was a strange thought. Worse, he realized it would indeed rankle him considerably to see her entertaining the affections of another man, a jealousy he had no right to entertain if he was to be judged according to his own measure. The sentiment was undeniable, whether he wanted it or not. He had been doing well until now, when she forced him to acknowledge her once more.

Bragolach grunted contentedly, lulled to a pleasant calm, his long face shielded from the nip of the air where it was nestled against his Elvish friend’s chest. The snow itself seemed to soften all sound, providing a timely moment of peace that Thranduil used to pull himself together. Bragolach seemed to understand in his mute equine way, and was thoughtful enough to offer a broad shoulder to lean on, only accentuating the brutal fact that their own friendship was essentially without hope.

Life was not fair, Thranduil thought, lamenting the obvious. He caressed the horse a moment longer before steeling himself to face the world again. He preferred that his own household did not witness his weaker moments, but the horse would not care.

The sudden slap of a pair of gloves across his face artlessly shattered the moment, and Bragolach drew himself up with a terse snort, ears flattened against his head. Blinking away the stinging pain, Thranduil returned Alkarinwë’s bitter glare, refusing to acknowledge the reddening welt he could feel on his cheek. Words could not describe the enmity that seethed between them, but it certainly did not go unexpressed.

Without a word, Alkarinwë mounted and pulled the protesting stallion away from the picket rail, spurring him down the snow-dusted road. Thranduil watched him go, maddeningly powerless. His desultory griefs and dissatisfactions at last found a single object, amalgamated into the simple burn of thwarted anger as the mounted figure turned from sight.

Diligently, Lindóriel wove a handful of black hair into a skillful plait while her mistress beautified herself before her mirror. Elemmirë was gracious enough, as she supposed Noldorin ladies would be, but in other ways she was a living curse. Even now Lindóriel was tormented by the thought that this fell beauty was actively entertaining designs upon Thranduil. If she obeyed her basest instinct, she would have twisted those soft flowing locks into tortuous knots, but she managed to behave herself.

Her mind ran rampant in these quiet moments during which she was forced to consider her rival. Just what had passed between Oropher’s son and this maiden that warranted the rumor of their impending betrothal? The possibility had shaken her to the core. She could only imagine the intimate forays those two must have enjoyed. Gone, it seemed, were the days of kindred regard she had shared with him on the bleak road to Sirion. Never had she thought she would one day wish for the return of those hardships. Now it seemed his attentions had passed beyond her, picking her up only to leave her to find her own way. She knew she should not be so bitter toward Elemmirë, for it was truly no fault of hers, but she could not help it.

Elemmirë smiled back at her in the mirror, for plainly she knew jealousy when she saw it. “You also entertain an affection for your striking lord?” she asked playfully, selecting a perfume. “You, too, hold him a favorite, perhaps?”

“I love him,” Lindóriel stated unapologetically, failing to return the pleasant expression.

The profession was spoken with such quiet vehemence that Elemmirë paused a moment and then turned back to regard her surly handmaid. “For that I cannot fault you,” she said at last, her voice low and honeyed. “And, of course, I imagine you despise me, as any neglected lover would. But put that aside; such gloom does not become you. You are not of his blood, then?” she asked, turning back to her array of cosmetics. “You seem like enough to be akin.”

“I am not,” Lindóriel explained, still unable to renounce her grievance, but willing to answer questions. “Only the benevolence of Lord Oropher and his Lady has bound me to him. My family was not of their standing.”

Elemmirë nodded thoughtfully—too thoughtfully—almost condescendingly. “Your fortunes have improved somewhat then,” she mused, snaking a chained diamond about her neck. She seemed sober enough for a moment, but then her full lips twisted into a wry smile. “Do you truly imagine he cares nothing for you?”

Lindóriel was silent, resenting her intrusion into the subject, but also anxious to hear her thoughts.

“He smiles for me, certainly,” Elemmirë explained resignedly, applying a slight but deliberate touch of shadow about her eyes, “and he is glad to go about with me. But never does he so forget himself as he did at the sight of you. I am not blind, my friend.”

“I do not presume to guess his mind,” Lindóriel answered dourly. “He has not troubled himself to share it with me.”

“Then perhaps I may illuminate the facts of the matter,” Elemmirë said flatly. She was gracious, but plainly rather dissatisfied in her own right. “If I am the cause of the jealousy that plagues you, Lindórië, you may set your mind at rest. In truth, I know I am little more than a pleasant pastime for him. He does not come so readily because he longs to be with me, but rather because he is well rewarded by my father for his trouble.” Her handling of her many accessories had roughened somewhat, expressing a frustration Lindóriel could understand. “I saw the way he looked at you. If he avoids you still, know it is an act of his will and not of his heart.”

Lindóriel said nothing, letting the matter lie. But, hurt though she was, she was tempted to believe the grudging insight Elemmirë offered. The trouble was that she did not know what to believe. If Thranduil truly had no regard for her, he was using her badly by the small encouragements he dropped year by year. But if he did look favorably on her now, why did he deny her? She felt that she had been thrown aside, unloved and unwanted. If only she could know the truth, and if only the truth was what she wished it to be!

“You can sing, I trust?” Elemmirë inquired then, standing in all her dark beauty to leave the room at last.

Thranduil walked home alone that evening. The snow had ceased, but the thick clouds hanging over the landscape promised still more. Serataron had been gracious enough to free him early that day to let him attend those ambiguous household duties he had invoked as a ready excuse to escape Elemmirë’s company for a time. It was not wholly a lie, even if his primary concern now seemed to be steadying himself.

Rather than dissipate, the worrisome guilt gnawing at his conscience had only grown more insistent as the hours passed in dreary solitude. He could not explain it satisfactorily even to himself, but he felt he owed Lindóriel an apology at the very least. He was suddenly acutely aware of having neglected her. What the years to come would make of them was of no consequence; he had to redeem himself now if only for the sake of the friendship they had once shared. He had missed that, and had not even realized it.

He had to walk through a stretch of the dormant gardens to reach the front steps – gardens that in the cool days of autumn were dominated now by scores of yellow roses.

He loitered aimlessly beneath the portico for a moment, alone at an empty house, for even his mother was elsewhere. After a moment of indecision, he turned aside and went instead to the stables.

She would not walk home that day, and when Elemmirë dismissed her, she would find him waiting.

As it happened, he was waiting quite a long time, or at least it seemed so as he stood in the cold at the palace steps watching the sky grow ever more overcast, as the snowfall began anew. Celebrandir stomped indignantly after an hour, protesting the seemingly pointless vigil while his mate endured in patient silence. Thranduil gently admonished the stallion with a steady hand; if they had to wait there all night, they would. The great doors opened often, but the one who emerged was never the one he anticipated.

At long last his persistence was rewarded and she did come out into the chill evening air, her mantle pulled warmly around her against the cold and silent flurries of white. She turned and stopped suddenly as she caught sight of him, for plainly she had not expected him.

“I thought you were dismissed hours ago,” she observed sullenly. “Some unfinished task remains to inspire you to stand here in the snow?”

“Only to bring you home, Lin,” he said simply, forgiving her incivility, contritely letting his hood fall back to his shoulders in her presence. “It is a long way to walk alone.”

“I trust you would know,” she murmured to herself, descending the stairway to join him.

Diligently, Thranduil slid the folded blanket from the back of the mare, turning it inside-out to provide Lindóriel a dry seat. She allowed him to help her mount, purposefully setting her foot in the makeshift stirrup he made of his hands.

They rode together toward home, neither venturing to speak for a while. The horseback and pedestrian traffic gradually thinned as they neared the outskirts of the haven, affording more of the quiet seclusion Thranduil was anticipating, the only sound the wet and rhythmic plodding of the horses. He glanced aside at her for a moment—her eyes downcast, her flawless profile defined against the whitened landscape—and he again felt a profound compassion for her. She was adrift even as he was. They had grown so close in the bleak years past; how had they lost that?

“Have I your pardon, Lindóriel?” he asked at last, penitently. “I wish you would not be wroth with me. I had no wish to offend you.”

She lifted her chin a bit, but still did not condescend to look at him, willfully training her eyes ahead. Ai, Elbereth, this would sound ridiculous if he tried to justify himself without a making a commitment.

“You know well there is nothing between me and Serataron’s daughter,” he insisted. “It was not I who said anything to the contrary. She means no more to me than—”

That was not what he meant, but it was indeed what could be implied by his recent behavior. Even so, her attitude was beginning to chafe his apologetic mood. He was tempted then to roughly put her back in her place by telling her everything—that he loved her, dearly, and that she was simply being impatient, unappreciative, ungrateful, and foolish—but managed to restrain himself.

“Do I?” Lindóriel demanded, pulling the mare to a halt. There was no weakness in her eyes despite the flash of unshed tears, only reproach. “How am I to know anything when you do nothing but brush me aside?”

Rather affronted by those winging remarks, Thranduil scowled back at her. “You do not receive apologies well, Lindóriel.”

“Not those that come in half-measures!” she snapped at him. “Why should you trouble yourself to apologize at all if I am naught but a sister to you?”

The snow-muffled silence that followed was a thick one. Thranduil’s eyes narrowed as he withdrew back into himself, his own words thrown back at him in contempt. He had done his best to heal the breach between them, but if she would not have him, so be it. He had abased himself far enough already in this futile effort to please her.

“I do not know,” he said at last, bitterly indifferent. “Why should I?” He spurred Celebrandir on ahead of her, preferring now to ride alone, a chasm of silence between them that was not closed until they arrived home. He never did look back, but that did not mean he was inattentive to her presence. Though she rebuffed his immediate company, he was not absolved of his obligation to escort her.

The dark of evening had descended around them as he dismounted at the front walk beside the barren gardens. Lindóriel was not far behind him, drawing near with the crunch of wet gravel beneath the hooves of the mare. He took charge of her horse for her as she slid to the ground, the meager light gleaming on her face revealing the trails of proud tears before she turned away and retreated inside.

Thranduil sighed and shook his head at the hopelessness of it all. He would never understand women.

“I apologize, Thranduil,” Serataron said absently, looking up from his writing. “I fear I have done it again.”

“No matter.” Thranduil smiled tolerantly from his seat across the room. He had been well aware of the passing hours, but the other had been so absorbed by his work that he had been loath to disturb him. It was all for a worthy cause, anyway. The candles burned low, and the first hint of dawn had begun to appear on the horizon outside the east window.

“You had best take yourself home,” Serataron said as he stood with a slow stretch, “before your mother has more reason to complain against me. And you need not come back later,” he said, smiling. “You have earned a day for yourself. I would advise that you spend it sleeping, but that is your prerogative.”

“I may do that,” Thranduil agreed, returning the other’s weary good-humor. A day with his own family was a welcome prospect. Even so, he stayed to help put the room back in order. He was strangely fond of his Noldorin master, realizing Serataron may have conditionally filled the void left by his father even as he in turn replaced a lost son.

The walk home was peaceful enough, the brief morning twilight not yet disturbed by the overall rise of noise and activity in the city. Spring had come again, and crickets chirped contentedly in the brush along the road as he passed. The sky was clear but for a few feathery clouds poised to catch the colors of the sunrise, and the air bore the fresh scent of dew.

At last, he mounted the front steps of the house, the rosy-orange light of dawn shedding its radiance on the world as he returned to his domain.

“Well, good morning, Thranduil,” Linhir greeted him gladly from the doorway, still dressed in his nightclothes, a mug of steaming cider in his hands. “We began to wonder when you did not return for supper yesterday. Did the scribbling Golodh keep you all night again? He must be incorrigibly curious to ask so many questions.”

“He is, and do not discourage it,” Thranduil smiled. “If he wants to ask, I will gladly answer him.”

“No doubt you would,” Linhir smiled. “But come in, come in; do not let me stand here keeping you out all morning.”

“She is,” Linhir confirmed. “She agreed to sleep on the condition that I would prepare breakfast this morning.”

“Thank you,” Thranduil nodded appreciatively. He knew his mother missed his father terribly, and she would work herself harder in her loneliness. “I assume everyone else is still in bed?”

“Ah, no,” Linhir admitted. He hastened to elaborate when his lord brother’s expression required an explanation, and he gestured inside with a toss of his head. “Malach is here.”

“Well, he certainly did not ask me,” Linhir said. “You could ask him yourself, if you like.”

“That and more,” Thranduil assured him, appropriating a deep draft of his brother’s cider before sweeping past.

The house was quiet, and the aroma of Linhir’s culinary chores lent to it a warm and welcoming atmosphere. With effortless but ominous silence Thranduil strode purposefully through the hallway toward the sitting room. He had feared this issue would arise with no less than four eligible maidens under their roof, and now vested with his father’s authority it was his place to deal with it.

Galadhmir appeared in a doorway, and he seemed to guess his brother’s purpose. “You know about that?” he asked discreetly, nodding further down the hall.

“I do,” Thranduil said as he passed without breaking stride. “No spectators, please.”

The sitting room was quiet, but he found the two of them there sure enough. Engaged in quiet conversation at a rather indecorous proximity, they failed for a moment to observe his careful entrance. He had no personal grievance with Malach at present, but that was not the crux of the issue. The uncomfortable fact remained that the Golodh was a culpable kinslayer, albeit a repentant one of a healthier stripe than Alkarinwë, reluctantly guilty of only the first incident on the shores of the West. Even so, while he remained on this side of the Sea, he was heir to the infamous Curse, which was not something into which Oropher wished his daughters to marry. In any event, the ultimate decision would require either Oropher’s final word or Menelwen leaving the household.

Thranduil arched his brow in mild disapproval as he supervised the proceedings, realizing for a moment how a parent must feel. Malach’s hand had bravely ventured up to Menelwen’s white shoulder as though near to sliding through her loose hair, each one so thoroughly enamored of the other that the potent ripples of the other presence went entirely unnoticed. Then he leaned in to kiss her.

“A decisive move, my friend, but boldness has its bounds,” Thranduil said at last, giving them both a violent start. “Let us exercise restraint where it is due.”

“Thranduil!” Menelwen protested as they both stood to face him, a healthy flush blooming on her cheeks. “You speak of boldness!”

He was in far too amiable a mood to be angered by her protest. He was rather enjoying this incontestable authority. “Sister, my judgment of this inopportune scene will depend greatly upon the nature of your explanation. Clemency will perhaps be offered for ingenuity.”

Ever defiant, Menelwen looked him squarely in the eye, an overweening air about her as she played her highest card, nothing clever about it. “Malach has asked to marry me, Thranduil.”

“Is that so?” Thranduil mused, leaning easily against the long table behind him. “I say he cannot.”

“I do not recall seeking your approval!” she reminded him indignantly, eyes flashing.

“You did not,” Thranduil assured her, “and you may be certain I have not overlooked the omission. Or perhaps you would like us both to give an inauspicious account of ourselves before Adar Oropher?”

“Thranduil,” Malach broke in politely in an effort to favorably redirect the subject, “I am appointed now to the king’s captains.”

“Ah! Then you have my congratulations, Malach,” Thranduil said, brightening considerably. “Such a position is not easily earned.”

“It certainly is not,” Malach smiled, accepting the hand he was offered. “I may not be truly of the aristocracy in the eyes of Doriath, my lord, but I—”

“Do not start me on that, my friend,” Thranduil said, waving him silent as he turned to seat himself formidably in his father’s great chair beside the hearth. “I do not fault you for your position, nor for your father or your father’s father, nor indeed for any of your paternity back to Cuivienen. Still,” he added in afterthought, glancing toward the window, “you might benefit from a lecture regarding polite visiting hours.”

“I can make a habit of calling later, if you like,” Malach answered him, obviously annoyed by the flippancy with which his purpose was dismissed. He was a handsome devil, Thranduil had to admit; long hair dark as a starless night, keen gray eyes bright with the light of Valinor. He could see how Menelwen would find him attractive, for she had always had an eye for the bold and glamorous, even the dangerous.

“The gesture would be appreciated, but it would make little difference,” he said flatly. “Malach, the answer is no, and it will be no so long as you are an unreconciled Exile and Kinslayer.”

“Those are names I do not appreciate, Thranduil!” Malach returned angrily, towering over him.

“They are not intended to be pleasant,” Thranduil replied, raising his voice as well, though he made no move to stand, utterly unthreatened. “You unfortunately brought this plight upon yourself, and there is no more to be said.”

“The age of the Curse is past,” Malach insisted sharply, ignoring that last bit, growing impatient. “To my knowledge, it has not discouraged our intermarriage with the Sindar. Or have you forgotten that your own kinsman took Lady Nerwen to wife?”

“She is another matter,” Thranduil returned firmly. “As I understand it, if she incurred the wrath of the Guardian of the Dead it was to a lesser degree than the aggressors of her company. But Exile she is, and I make no excuse for her, nor for Celeborn.”

“You speak of excuses, but what of yourself? Or is your Lady Elemmirë less an Exile than I?”

“Malach, no,” Menelwen checked him sharply, for even she recognized a forbidden subject.

Thranduil held his peace until their bickering ran its course, not inclined to violent retaliation despite Menelwen’s futile warnings. He was too tired to be violent. “Lady Elemmirë is no more mine than she is yours, Malach,” he said at last. “There is little use in your efforts to force my hand now. You have made your suit, I have refused it. If you wish to pursue the matter further, you will be obliged to seek the final word of my father whenever he should return, or Menelwen could take her leave of us. Do not look at me that way,” he asked in a conciliatory voice. “I could not forbid you outright even if I wished to, but until you choose either of those courses let us regard the subject as closed. Such complications are not of my making.”

Malach sighed in lingering frustration and dropped his gaze toward the floor, reluctantly recognizing the opposite side of the dispute. He was a good man beneath it all, and Thranduil could forgive his temper. He, too, would be frustrated if he were rebuffed after decades of thoughtful courtship.

“May I come again?” Malach asked respectfully in an effort to salvage what he could of the situation. That he sought such approval rather than simply assume the right spoke favorably of him. It was a genuine pity he was marred as he was.

Malach withdrew with admirable dignity, and Thranduil fully expected that he would be back that evening. He was almost sorry to discourage him, but such were the unfortunate facts of life.

“Is that final, Thranduil?” Menelwen asked moodily when they were alone, looking down on him with some strange mixture of disdainful admiration. She was unquestionably the most glamorous of his four sisters, and the boldest, so it was small wonder that she should be the first to make this trouble for him. Lindóriel was thankfully quieter than that.

“Until Father should say otherwise, yes,” he said. “It is only for your sake that I object at all, Menelwen. Wait a bit, and let this run its course before you make a hasty commitment.”

“That is what Lindóriel said you would say,” she returned, a passing barb that did not fail to hit its mark. She glanced longingly after her unfortunate gallant, then turned back to her brother with new interest. “Where were you last night? Keeping the company of your mysterious lady again?”

“You may believe that if you like,” Thranduil said indifferently, standing at last. “The truth would hardly be scandalous enough to interest you.”

Gray mist hung heavily over the foothills, veiling the elevated landscape in clammy darkness. The winter wind whistled and moaned around the rocks, and the last lingering whispers of the recent snow remained stubbornly frozen in the shelter of crags and boulders. There was little sound other than the passing wind that day. Only a fool would be out now when he could stay by the fire with a roof over his head.

Only a fool or a stubborn courier, Thranduil thought wryly to himself as Celebrandir steadily picked his way up the slope, his shod hooves on the uneven road sounding especially loud in the stillness. Serataron had been willing to excuse him this errand, but Thranduil had volunteered his time. What was a short ride along the westbound coast to him? Ha; that had been easily said an hour ago, but now the task was becoming disagreeable. The clouds above rumbled an ominous threat of rain, and he could feel the dormant wrath of a storm in the wind as it swirled around him.

Celebrandir tossed his head and snorted in dissatisfaction, his mane draggled by the mist. The horse was not as young as he used to be, but he had lost none of his boisterous spirit. At last, the terrain evened, sparing them for a moment the perils of a slick climb. Thranduil spurred the horse on a bit faster, gambling his time against the impending squall. He passed the twisted dwarf pine at the summit, the mark he and his brothers had named the halfway point between the haven and their favorite cove along the shore. This was not the most frequented road in that direction, but the one he favored.

He did not mind the cold so much as he did the wet. The natural majesty of the mountains had turned gloomy and foreboding, leading him to wish he could be done with this solitary ride and back at home. He could only look forward to it as his ultimate reward, gathered with the family around the glowing hearth, a warm drink in hand. But warm and dry were two qualities that escaped him now, and he nudged Celebrandir into a smooth pacing trot to leave this place behind him.

A barren vine devoid of blossoms was curled in the brake at the roadside, and the passing sight of it easily stirred up other memories. The wall of polite silence had risen again between him and Lindóriel, and not by his will. She seemed to be deliberately avoiding him after that unfortunate incident several years ago. He did not know whether to try again to bridge that chasm or to merely let matters lie as they were, though he now found the quiet estrangement irksome.

He continued on absently, shifting the reins in his gloved fingers, his mind wandering far from the bleak landscape. He pulled Celebrandir back to a walk to give the horse a chance to catch his breath. Gone were the days of their wild gallops together. Before long they would have to consider retiring him, something Thranduil was loath to do. Still, the last colt the old stallion had sired was now a spirited three-year-old with his father’s dapples, a fitting successor.

A shrill scream pierced the dreary stillness followed by a rumbling crash, jarring his every nerve. Celebrandir snorted and squealed beneath him, shying back from the noise as it echoed eerily from the deserted landscape over the whistling wind. Thranduil whipped the slack of the reins around his hand in one quick turn of his wrist, gaining tighter control of his mount as his own heart hammered against his ribs.

The empty silence had descended as completely as it had been before, denying him further explanation of the unholy shriek, but he recognized it as the tortured scream of a horse. He urged Celebrandir to greater speed along the treacherous ground, certain that whatever had just happened boded no good for anyone.

The path drew nearer the cliff’s edge now, the original rocky shoulder eroded by the years. Thranduil slowed his pace out of caution, though he scanned the rocky slopes below for anything amiss. The ground offered his trained eyes no previous passage to track, for there had apparently been no one before him here within the last days. From his place on the mountainous foothills, he could see the bay, the cold water lashed by the wind beneath the thunderous voice of the clouds, empty of ships.

At last, he found the place where the damp ground was plainly torn, and the rattle of freshly dislodged rocks could still be heard as they settled once more. Dismounting and leaving Celebrandir there, he balanced himself on the precarious edge, and at last he saw below a broken horse and rider motionless on the unforgiving rocks, and not an unfamiliar pair either.

He recognized the begrimed but fiery stallion, a cold knot twisting in his stomach. At once he turned and began to pick his way down the perilous slope, throwing his hood back over his shoulders. It was a difficult descent. He was particularly mindful not to loose any more unsteady stones to fall upon the wounded below. It fell to him, of all the Elves in Lindon, to recover what he could of the disaster. The rocks were damp and so were unreliable footing, but through skill and patience he neared the tenuous ledge where Alkarinwë lay with his horse. The icy wind was stiffening, and he prayed he was not putting himself into an impossible position. The collapse had left a legacy of sharp stones, uncomfortable handholds that bit into his fingers even through his gloves. Several were not slick only with dew, but also with blood. After what seemed interminable groping and clinging, he at last set foot down on the out-thrust ledge, really no more than the fallen piece of the ground above that had lodged itself in the rocky slope.

Alkarinwë lay at the sheer edge, drawing shuddering breaths through his teeth, his dark hair drifting over nothingness. The unnatural angle of his body made it plain that his back was completely broken. Pale shards of bone protruded from a shattered leg, and his right arm was wrenched from its proper place and pinned behind him. Bragolach groaned nearby, crushed, ruined, partly disemboweled on the glistening rocks. Thranduil stood silent amid the carnage for a moment, strangely stricken at heart, though gruesome death was by now not unfamiliar to him. All the Powers knew he had little enough cause to love the man, but even he would not have wished this upon him.

Carefully making his way over the litter of rocks to kneel at his side, Thranduil pulled off his gloves and debated whether to try to move him. “Alkarin,” he called, his voice sounding low and clear over the thin howl of the wind. “Alkarin.” The other’s face had turned an ashen gray, his life swiftly ebbing away. But he did acknowledge his name and turned his tortured eyes upon his rescuer, knowing full well who it was. And there Thranduil did not recognize the undying contempt he had expected, but rather a wild and desperate fear.

“Thranduil,” Alkarinwë begged, his words coming weakly between painful hissing breaths, “please . . . I am . . . I . . . !” But pain took his words from him. It seemed all he could do to merely breathe without screaming.

His free hand groped blindly for anything to grasp, and immediately Thranduil took it in his own. It was a hand that had slain his own people, that had violated the woman he loved, but now it was the hand of a fallen kinsman who faced doom enough to conquer the hardest heart. Thranduil did not know the whole of the Curse, but he had heard enough to know that a Kinslayer may perhaps expect no rebirth, no escape from the darkness of the Halls of the Dead. It was a doom indeed, an end from which there was no returning within the bounds of time. Alkarinwë grasped at him with such complete and trembling despair that he suddenly pitied him deeply, all thought of vengeance forgotten.

“Yes,” Thranduil assured him, surmising the other had by his injury lost command of half his body, perhaps a brutal blessing in the end. Gently he tried to move him into a more natural position.

“Ai! No, no!” Alkarinwë begged in torment. Now his eyes were vacant, but focused with dreadful intensity upon something unseen, his short cries coming now as sobs in abject fear of passing the threshold of death. “He is coming . . . please . . . no!”

His waning cries were terrible, the pitiful flailing of a tainted spirit nearing its undeniable judgment, and Thranduil could do nothing. Gently he wiped away a trail of blood from an ugly gash on the brow before it could reach the eye, then lay a steady hand against the shuddering face, offering him what poor solace he could before all was lost. He was already cold to the touch.

“Do not let him . . . aaaaaai, no! . . . do not leave me . . . aaaai! Áni apsenë, áni apsenë!” Alkarinwë fell back into his native tongue, forgetting the Sindarin of his exile. In his last desperate plea, he was pathetically begging the pardon of one he had wronged, one of the few who still lived, who perhaps seemed to have been sent by more than chance in that last moment of utmost consequence to represent them all. And in his plea he was sincere, as though in the looming shadow of death he had been forced to consider what he had become, sickened and frightened by what he had seen.

Thranduil could not forget the grief this murderous traitor had caused him, but now he remembered it all with strange detachment, moved even to tears by the ultimate tragedy of it all, by the irreversible ruin of such a noble being. In the end they all suffered, and it was their persecutors who fared worse. “Lá sangië apsenë,” he said at last as Alkarinwë’s roving gaze fixed on him again, graciously using words he knew he would understand. “I have already forgiven you.”

Why? There was once a time when he had sworn he would never forgive him, and to his knowledge that conviction had not changed with the passing years. But now righteous indignation was drowned in a flood of pity, and he wanted the strength to pardon him at last. It was small comfort, but it was all he could give.

Alkarinwë was too breathless to reply, and soon his eyes that had once been so keen lost their light entirely. He fought for breath against the icy wind whipping around them, resisting his doom to the end, clutching Thranduil’s hand in that last darkness with his final effort as though he would only be torn away by force, away from that last anchor of all that was bright and good. But then death touched him with its cold embrace and his tortured spirit fled, leaving his body broken and lifeless. The incessant trembling ceased, and all was still. The ensuing hush was abruptly rent by a clap of thunder that reverberated from the grim mountains, and in that Thranduil recognized the complete triumph he had never wanted. After so many years of hatred, he found Alkarinwë’s final demise nothing to revel in. It was horrible.

Thranduil closed the sightless eyes. Never would he die such an ignominious death as that, bereft of every shred of hope and consolation. That any should suffer it was tragedy enough.

Over the growing howl of the wind Thranduil then heard Bragolach behind him heave his last wheezing breath, dark eyes glazed as he too gave up his struggle for life.

The stillness that fell now was abysmally familiar, the lonely, empty stillness of the dead. The cold of rain ushered in by the rumbling clouds made it more dismal than it already was. It was a bitter end to all the unspeakable wrongs they had known, all the misery Elvenkind had brought upon themselves. For what?

But, miserable as he was, Thranduil also knew the rainfall had now made his position all the more perilous. Celebrandir whinnied mightily from above, his call echoing back through the storm. The climb would be challenge enough without having to negotiate it in a downpour. Thrusting his turmoil of emotion aside, Thranduil hefted Alkarinwë’s limp form, mindful of all the unnatural breaks it had suffered. But after the first glance at the dark slope above he was forced to admit the hopelessness of the attempt. Frigid rain beat against his face, driven in thick sheets against the rocks with a dull splattering roar. There was nothing to do but wait.

Several hours passed that may have been among the most miserable of his life. The rain showed no signs of lessening and seemed to grow only colder as the dark afternoon wore on to evening. There was absolutely no shelter to be had on that forsaken crag of rock, so Thranduil had no choice but to sit by as he was pummeled with icy water, arms crossed tightly over his chest in a futile effort to keep warm, his only company a dead man. The skies thundered against him, but he answered with no more than a cursory glare, too cold and sick at heart to be angered. The runoff from above came down in rivers, pooling around him and spilling from the ledge in bloody streams as it drained the carcass of the horse. After staring in morbid fascination for what seemed an eternity, Thranduil at last closed his eyes to the whole nightmarish scene, resigned to endure if he must, suffering the onset of the sharp chill he had managed to evade all day. If only he could have stayed dry the plummeting temperature would have troubled him little, but soaked to the skin he was powerless to resist it.

The hail had begun intermittently in a stinging onslaught as he shrank against the rock behind him. He did not suffer alone; poor Celebrandir waited faithfully above, but somehow that thought did nothing to lessen the loneliness of the moment. Worn and exasperated, he shut his eyes, his only escape for the moment from that temporary prison of stone, rain, and bruising ice.

The gradual lessening of the cold barrage against his face several hours later woke him to a world that had improved but little. The thin light of day had dimmed but the storm had passed, leaving a sodden marshland in its wake. The mist had largely cleared, but the gray cover of cloud remained, and the fact that he could plainly see his shuddering breath on the air did not begin to express the cold.

Thranduil grimaced as he climbed to his feet, his wet clothes clinging to him. He pulled off his cloak for all the good it was doing, heavy and dripping. He wrung it out as best he could, shivering violently in the wind despite his valiant efforts not to. He could honestly not remember ever having been so bone-chillingly cold in his entire life, which was saying a great deal after the march to Sirion. Now his only thought was to leave that forsaken ledge and return to the much-desired comfort of his own home. He bound Alkarinwë’s broken body as tightly as he could in his cloak to make carrying it less troublesome.

Again surveying the vertical challenge before him, Thranduil crouched and stretched, reviving his protesting legs and shoulders, painfully aware of all the new bruises he had to show for the merciless beating the sky had dealt him. Unfortunately, he would have to leave Bragolach where he lay, but to forsake a fallen Elf was insufferable. They had buried the kinslayers before.

For a moment he was at a loss as to how he would manage the climb at all. He did have a length of rope at his belt, a common precaution when taking a mountainous route, but it was nowhere near long enough to reach the summit even if he had had foresight enough to tie it there. He drew it out into a double length and strung it under the lifeless arms of the corpse, slipping the ends through the loop and tying the slack into a makeshift sling.

Securing the sling across his chest, Thranduil found his first hand and footholds, and at last hoisted himself up onto the incline. He would have been glad if he had not been so numb to sentiment at that point. The awkward weight of the body pulled back at him, requiring him to double his efforts to retrace the same path.

His shoulders were burning with fatigue when he finally felt grass beneath his hand. It was challenge enough then to simply pull himself over the edge, though he was helped somewhat by Celebrandir, who took the shoulder of his jerkin in his teeth and pulled him up as well as he could. That poor old horse was as wet and cold and miserable as he was, draggled and trembling and sore, but he had waited out the storm with him. Once he had crawled onto solid ground, littered with spent hailstones, Thranduil pulled what was left of Alkarinwë up after him with a joyless sense of accomplishment. He then hefted the body onto the horse, securing it as well as he might with the rope. Celebrandir did not appreciate this new load, but took it without protest.

The return walk passed in a weary blur of mud and cold, frost already tracing the ground as evening fell. Thranduil felt ice stiffening in his hair and on his clothes. He led Celebrandir slowly as they left the foothills, the old stallion apparently feeling his age as he plodded stiffly along the sodden path, crystals of ice glistening in his mane.

It was with dull but ineffable relief that he at last saw the familiar homestead before them. What was left in the clouds above had begun to fall as thin flurries of snow. The last of the light was fading as the sun set, and the glow of lamplight illuminated the veiled windows ahead.

Before he had come much further, Galadhmir came bounding around the house, still pulling on his cloak against the bite in the air. “Ai, Thranduil!” he gaped, horrified. “What happened?”

Thranduil held up a weary hand to forestall any questioning. “Not now,” he said, surprised by the unsteadiness of his own voice, mindful of little save how very cold he was. “Could you?” He indicated the weakened horse and its morbid burden, trusting his meaning was abundantly clear.

“Of course,” Galadhmir agreed at once, a bit unsettled by the corpse, but trusting in the innocence of the whole strange affair. “Take yourself inside!”

Gratefully relieved of those last responsibilities, Thranduil rounded the front gardens and pulled himself up the stairs with an effort. He let himself in, into the welcoming light and warmth of home that spilled out to meet him, only to be greeted with much the same reaction his condition had elicited from Galadhmir.

“Ai, Fanuilos! You are frozen!” he heard his mother exclaim, her shocked concern mirrored by Gwaelin and Illuiniel. She gathered him at once into her warm and now fiercely possessive embrace, heedless of the frosted mud and blood that covered him.

“Shed those wet clothes at once,” Lóriel said, releasing him to go clean up. “I already have a hot bath waiting for you, though you need it now more than we anticipated, you poor thing. Go on, before you fall down.” She kissed him softly as she sent him on, obviously concerned by how cold to the touch he still was.

Thranduil gladly left and shut himself in his own room, where he found it just as she had said, bathwater still steaming. It was touching to think of just how many hours had come and gone before he had finally returned, and how often she must have changed the water just to have it ready and waiting for him. In that moment, there was nothing he could have appreciated more.

As she had expected, Lindóriel found she had very little attention to spare on the half-mended gown in her lap. The fire crackled on the hearth, and together with the lamps bathed the room in a bright golden light. They were all gathered there, and it was largely out of their anxious solicitude for Thranduil that they all found something to occupy themselves as an excuse to share his company. He now sat on the floor comfortably near the fire wrapped in the furs from his bed as he was petted and doted upon by all of them in their turn. If he found their attentions bothersome, he endured in gracious silence.

He looked much better now than he had when he had dragged himself through the door a few hours ago, drained of all living color and crusted with ice and mud, plainly exhausted. He had thawed out and was again his healthy self, though he was not at all inclined to leave his place by the fire, and none grudged him that. Even so, it seemed something still weighed uncomfortably upon his mind.

Lindóriel watched as Gwaelin brought him a warm mug of cider amid the idle conversation. She immediately suppressed the inevitable twinge of petty jealousy, though she would have given much to have their places exchanged. The silence that stood between them was irksome, and at times she hated herself for alienating him, but she could not force herself upon him if he would not have her.

She remembered the kindly meant but condescending words of Elemmirë, that her fortunes had improved somewhat in being adopted into a noble family. But that meant nothing to her now. If Thranduil had been the lowliest drudge in Menegroth she would have felt no differently toward him. The memory of her own parents was bittersweet, Dorlas and Linaewen, happy in their anonymity. Certainly, they had dealings with the nobility from time to time, for they were not unknown. Notable among these was their son’s unexpectedly fast friendship with the young and rather dashing Lord Thranduil.

She pricked herself, jarred painfully from her thoughts by her errant needle. She was prepared to consider the misfortune befitting her sullen mood, but Thranduil immediately looked up as though he had felt her pain, or was at least aware of it. In the same moment he looked away again as though he was not supposed to have known, as though such awareness implied too great an intimacy to be admitted. His reaction was a surprise, to say the least, his thoughts betrayed, and she felt herself flush a bit.

“Thranduil,” Galadhmir spoke up at last behind her, commanding the attention of them all. The uncomfortable tone of his voice cast a sudden pall of foreboding over the room. “I, for one, do not doubt you, and will take you at your word. But how did Alkarin meet his death?”

“He is dead?” Gwaelin exclaimed, the first to voice the thought of them all. “How? When? And how do you know?”

“As to how and when, I had some hope that Thranduil would elaborate for us,” Galadhmir said dryly. “But the grim fact of the matter is that his corpse is lying in our stable. Nor is it a pleasant sight. I did not press the matter before, but it begs an answer now that Thranduil does not seem to be on the threshold of death himself.”

Lindóriel knew not what to think, torn between relief and chill apprehension. The same grave concern was mirrored on the face of their mother, and indeed in all of them. It was said that the act of kinslaying became easier each time it was committed, but she could not believe Thranduil would have allowed himself to be corrupted so far as to resort to murder.

Thranduil turned to face them all with a slow and deliberate air. “If you imagine I had any part in it, you may perish the thought,” he said tersely, knowing their fears. “I merely came upon him after the fact. His horse had fallen on the high road and it was there on the side of the mountain that the storm held me. I brought him back out of decency.”

He shuddered despite himself and stared impassively at the hearth tile, discouraging any further questioning. Lindóriel knew him well enough to recognize that it would be best not to press him yet for the details of his ordeal, not until he was willing to share them. His word was enough to suffice for now, and there were other more immediate concerns.

“Well, we cannot just leave him there with the horses,” Linhir said at last, stating the obvious. “And the somewhat dissonant relations of the deceased with this house are no secret to the rest of Lindon. I believe we may expect there to be some who will be inclined to believe otherwise than you have explained it.”

“What can I say?” Thranduil asked irritably, expecting no answer. “I have told the truth of it and I can say no more.”

“And if they do not accept that?” Linhir asked doggedly. He obviously hoped Thranduil had further proof of his innocence than his word alone.

Thranduil leveled a grim glare over his shoulder, plainly too tired and exasperated to care much for malicious calumnies of Linhir’s imagining. “They must,” he said tersely.

“Lord Serataron need not be troubled with so unpleasant a task,” Lóriel insisted, still plainly disturbed. “How would he know more than we?”

Lindóriel paid no heed to the grim debate. She had attention only for Thranduil, seated at the hearth while faint tongues of firelight played over his desolate face. It stirred other older memories of biting cold and misery, when often the only warmth to be had was what she had found in his arms. Thranduil had pitied her in his own grief and taken her and Galadhmir as his own, securing their adoption into his family. She looked to him as a savior, the last golden straw she had clung to when all else was swept away. Words could not describe how much she loved him, how much she was frustrated by him!

“We gain nothing by wasting time,” Linhir said at last, moving to leave. “Anárion and I will go now to see if we can unravel this chain of events.”

“You will do no such thing!” Lóriel protested. “The sun has long since set and the snows still fall. I doubt any ill will come of letting the dead lie until morning. He was trouble enough for us while he lived.” She swept from the room then, resuming her housekeeping, her proverbial patience worn thin.

Lindóriel said nothing, feeling the strain in the air, the voiceless discontent. It was at times like these that she prayed Adar Oropher would not tarry much longer, little hope though she had of that. The interminable years of waiting were beginning to tell on them all.

Thranduil still lingered where he had been all that evening, save that now he had pulled aside his father’s large upholstered chair and sat cross-legged in its inanimate embrace with his furs, somehow reluctant to leave the firelight for his own room. Regardless of what his mother had said, he did not like the idea of leaving Alkarinwë a frozen corpse unattended all night.

But why? Why did he care at all? He remembered when the very sight of the man had been enough to make him bristle, when he was forced to share his company out of courtesy but all the while tried to place that pernicious face amid his memories of the murderous confusion at Menegroth and Sirion. Now he was dead, gone to suffer whatever punishment awaited him at the hands of the Lords of the West.

A pale light moved in the shadows, and Gwaelin emerged then from the hallway. “Thranduil,” she asked softly. “Are you not going to bed?”

“Why?” she asked, her gleaming eyes wide with childlike innocence as she sank gracefully to sit at the foot of his chair, folding her hands on his knee. “You know we would do anything for you if only you would ask.”

He regarded her thoughtfully. The firelight dancing over her silver hair made her look more like the offspring of Oropher than he did. She was most like Galadhmir in her forthright honesty, gentler than Menelwen and brighter than Lindóriel had been of late. He had long known the truth of her statement, but it was touching to hear it spoken.

“Perhaps I do not know what I need,” he answered at last, his own manner softening considerably.

She smiled demurely, a gleam in her eyes of blue-green. “Well, I know,” she said, taking his hand in her own. “And I will give it freely if only you will allow me.” She rose and kissed him on the cheek with the chaste but boldly casual affection of a sister, wrapping her arms about him in a warm and simple embrace. He was rather surprised, but it was not unpleasant, and he conquered his first impulse to pull away. Indeed, his mere surrender to her fond familiarity proved to be a real relief.

She released him when she deemed he had received the full benefit of her immediate remedy, the soft smile still illuminating her face as she rested her fair hands on his shoulders. “And may that settle your mind,” she said knowingly. “Good night, Brother.”

She turned to leave as she had come, but then the door abruptly opened to admit a rush of frigid air, banishing whatever warmth the room had enjoyed. Startled and more than a bit annoyed, Thranduil turned at once to see Galadhmir quickly shake the snow from his hair and then look up, his face grim.

“Thranduil,” he said, his voice as cheerless as the winter wind, “Celebrandir is down.”

Thranduil walked briskly with Galadhmir through the dark, still securing the clasps on his hastily-donned cloak, the bitter cold a rude shock after the warmth of his seat by the fire. Even so, the sinking chill in his stomach had nothing to do with the inclement weather. Celebrandir was old, and it did not bode well that the ordeal had weakened him so far.

Soon they gained the shelter of the stables, away from the icy gusts and powdered snow. There was the old mare dozing idly in her straw bedding, the young dappled Elostir peering at them curiously over the rails across from her. Thranduil took notice of nothing save the absence of the last familiar set of pricked ears. He anxiously pushed ahead of Galadhmir and looked down to the floor of the stall, wanting to see for himself and yet regretting what he knew he would find.

Celebrandir lay motionless in the shadows. His dark eyes, once so full of life, were now glazed and distant, his breathing shallow and rough. One look sufficed to see he was fading, exhausted and beyond hope. With difficulty Thranduil swallowed the rising wave of guilt that afflicted him at the sight. Why had he not taken Elostir? What misplaced affection had compelled him to drive the old stallion to his end this way?

Disdaining for a moment to bother with the latch, he swung himself over the gate and sank to his knees beside the dispirited animal. There were no signs of recognition, no glad greeting as he had been accustomed to receive, only a low and guttural moan of feeble protest as he ran his hand along the bruised and battered limbs. It seemed there was nothing to be done to further postpone the inevitable. He sat down and lifted Celebrandir’s head into his lap, determined that so faithful a horse would not die alone and neglected.

Galadhmir recognized the scene of hopeless resignation, and he graciously left it unmarred by empty consolations. Thranduil felt all thought of time lost to his mind, slowly and monotonously running his fingers time and time again through the limp mane that had once been so vibrant.

He did not know when at last Galadhmir left him there, nor did he care. He did not count the hours as they passed. He scarcely noticed the night wearing on to its end, or the dawn when it came. He gave small heed to Linhir when at last he came to attend the horses as he did every morning. The other went about his duties in uncharacteristic silence. Thranduil knew when finally he lingered there before him, knew the futile protests that must be growing within the household against his vigil. But in time Linhir turned and left as he had come, unacknowledged, without a word.

The cold morning hours passed. Celebrandir lingered still, gone but for a fading heartbeat. Dimly he knew when they came to take away the broken body of Alkarinwë and resolve the matter before the king, but again they left him undisturbed.

The horse had gone noticeably cooler now despite the blankets thrown about him, drawing his last weak breaths as long as he could, obstinate to the end.

Looking up with a bit of a start, Thranduil discerned the figure of Lindóriel standing there at the stall door in respectful silence. She said nothing for a moment, but she unbarred the gate and stepped inside bearing a covered plate. “Mother sent you this,” she said simply, setting the plate atop an overturned pail. “You have not eaten.”

Her tone seemed not meant to convey any further implications, but Thranduil gathered his mother was somewhat wroth with him. He knew full well she did not like him sitting up in the stables in the dead of winter, not after yesterday. Lindóriel left her own opinion of him unspoken, perhaps for the best. She merely knelt in the straw opposite him, pulled off her glove and ran her own hand over the great motionless shoulder, combing her fingers through the thick winter coat that now held little warmth.

She would not look at him, yet Thranduil found himself gazing at her. He saw the sheen on her hair as it was gathered in soft curls in the fallen hood of her cloak, the gleam of her eyes half veiled by dark lashes, the fragile mist of her breath on the air, the inherent strength and yet the vulnerability of her form. None of it was unknown to him, but now it was brought unassumingly to his attention as they sat together in the shadows.

All the qualities that had endeared Galadhmir to him were echoed in her, as they had always been. Beleg had been proud of her, his sister’s daughter. It was that quiet strength that appealed to him, though it also brought a twinge of very real regret. His regard for her had certainly not dwindled since their early years together so much as it had grown. Yet how often had he condescended to speak to her within the last days? Twice?

He was strongly tempted to speak now, to apologize for he knew not what, to do whatever he must to pull down the unseen barrier that had grown between them. Was that his doing? He had not thought so, but he could not otherwise account for it. Whatever the cause, he wished to clear it from the air once and for all. But a strange hesitance kept him silent.

He gently slid his hand around hers over Celebrandir’s motionless form. She was still warm, or he was colder than he had thought. “Lin, I . . .” he began, only to falter there, leaving the greatest part unsaid.

She seemed to understand his thought, at least. She looked up, her eyes bright in the shadows, treasuring his every word. But no more words came. What he felt for her now, he was forced to admit, was certainly no longer the mere patronizing affection he had known on Balar, the insurmountable reason he had reluctantly but firmly set her aside then. What had begun as only a fond regard was now burgeoning into a very real devotion well beyond his power to restrain. Now he did love her, and it was no longer a brother’s love. He had not initially singled her out of his own will, but looking at her then he knew that she was somehow already well established in that deepest and most jealously guarded recess of his heart. The past days had been an incredible strain on his emotions, and it was no surprise that it had brought him to this point at last.

She slowly entwined her strong fingers with his, leaning closer, begging him to speak. He felt at once hopeless and helpless now that he had surrendered his last conscious reservation, though it was also a strange relief, intimating that he need no longer suppress those sentiments when they arose.

With hardly a conscious thought he knew they had moved closer, drawn together by a growing force that had enthralled them both, all else forgotten.

But the loud and staccato stomp of shod hooves shattered the intimacy like glass, and they both drew back with ragged gasps. Gone was the strange but blissful oblivion. Gone was the new warmth of that hitherto unexplored passion, leaving them cold and unsteady.

“Thranduil,” Linhir addressed him from astride Elostir, his clear voice still solemn enough to acknowledge Celebrandir’s fate, “the incident is thankfully closed for the moment.” Galadhmir rode in behind him and proceeded to duly attend the mare. “There were indeed many who would have readily blamed you for the whole affair, as I thought there would be. It seems we are still rather unpopular in some corners of Lindon. But Gil-galad was incensed by such accusations, and is willing to accept your word as the truth of the matter until it can be investigated further. He would, however, like to speak to you as soon as possible.”

“Very well,” Thranduil said, his voice still weaker than he would have liked, his heart drumming wildly. “He will find little enough to investigate after the rain.”

“He will find enough,” Galadhmir assured him grimly, turning the mare into a stall removed from the one she usually occupied beside her mate. “How is he?” he asked gently, meaning Celebrandir.

Only then did Thranduil realize the final struggle had ended at last, unnoticed and unmarked after all. The frail spark of life had gone, tranquilly, while for once he had looked elsewhere.

When the others had gone, Thranduil sat a moment more in the growing dark, lacking at first the will to make effort enough to stand. Lindóriel still lingered with him. They could say nothing, but whatever overpowering impulse had possessed them mere moments ago had fled, leaving them again in awkward silence.

Finally, he climbed slowly, uncomfortably, to his feet. She allowed him to take her by the hand and pull her up, still unable to look at him. They left the stall together and turned to follow the others to the house.

Lindon sprang to vibrant life in what was then reckoned the three-hundred-sixtieth year of the Second Age. The Lord and Lady of Eriador came that summer to call upon the High King. Gil-galad spared no expense to welcome them, and bright banners flew from every roof and window in the haven, a myriad of colors beneath the clear sky. The road to the palace was strewn with blossoms and lined with lords and commons alike anticipating the passing of the noble entourage. They would see their sundered brethren more often now that the roads between Lindon and Eriador were firmly established.

It had been several eventful centuries since Thranduil had last seen his father’s cousin, to say the least. Now he, too, stood among the crowds at the roadside, not certain whether to await their brief reunion with anticipation or apprehension. Likewise, he was at once disappointed and thankful that his father was still absent. It was not that he expected Oropher to be immediately ill-disposed toward Celeborn, but the fact remained that his dear father simply could not resist an argument when the opportunity arose.

With the usual fanfare and the joyful roar of the crowd behind him, Gil-galad rode out to greet his elder peers and ceremoniously escort them into his city. As is the case with most great events, there was not much to be seen for a long while until the entourage eventually wound its way near them. Gil-galad led the host into the haven, beside him Lord Celeborn and his golden Lady, and beside her a bright young Elfling astride a pony of his own, all followed by a banner-bearing throng of Eriadorian Elves.

Thranduil regarded them steadily as they drew nearer, silent amid the wild adulation. He saw his kinsman now through eyes that no longer belonged to the young and naive boy he had been. Even so, he knew Celeborn had probably not changed, still the same formidable but not humorless cousin he had known in an age that now seemed very long ago.

Celeborn still wore the noble gray of Doriath. It seemed his Lady’s influence upon him was not so complete as Oropher had feared it would be. Nerwen herself had changed little, except that her face was now that of a mother, softer and wiser. The flowing white of her gown caught and scattered the full sunlight, diffusing it through artfully placed gems in the shape of six pointed stars on her mantle. At that moment, Celeborn’s epithet “Galadriel” seemed well bestowed. It was the child riding beside her that Thranduil found most intriguing. He was the most difficult of them to take in at a glance, a marked combination of his parents. The mother’s influence was plain to see: the way he sat his horse, his pale hair tending toward a marked touch of gold, the way he carried himself echoing the pride of a race apart. But beneath it all Thranduil could see the Sindarin spirit chafing beneath the constraints of decorum, a brilliant smile that could at any moment break through the affected bearing of a prince, the flash in his eyes.

He felt the boy’s wandering gaze fall upon him in turn as it had upon everyone else. Thranduil did not expect to be recognized, but did give the little one a knowing smile as he passed. Doubtless they would meet soon enough.

The boy’s little face brightened like a firefly as though he had been combing the crowd for him all along. He tugged back on his pony’s caparisoned reins, calling to his father. “Ada! Ada, wait! I found them! Ada!” The whole entourage began to fall out of step as he attempted to stop them. “See, see!” the little one continued, smiling back at Thranduil and his mother. “Just like you said!”

“Very well, Amroth. Hush,” Celeborn interposed, reaching down to goad his son’s pony forward once more. “I am certain you will be properly introduced later.” He looked at Thranduil as they passed as if for some reassurance that he was not making empty promises. Thranduil waved pleasantly, after which Celeborn discreetly pointed toward the palace. Even after all that time, it seemed they had not lost their ability to read one another.

Thranduil could not have stopped smiling if he tried. The world no longer seemed like such a bleak place after all.

The customary festivities that would have accompanied the noble family’s arrival were foregone that day in expectation of the annual Midsummer’s Festival to be held later that week. The majority of the spectators did not linger long before returning to their homes or to whatever occupation awaited them in the course of the magnificent preparations planned for that year. The Midsummer holidays were always a great and eagerly anticipated event, but they were to be even more extravagant that year in honor of Lady Nerwen, the king’s kinswoman.

He really should start calling her Galadriel, Thranduil thought to himself as he bounded up the front stairs of the house and held the door for his mother and sisters. That, at least, seemed to be how she preferred to be known in those days, which he decided was a good sign.

The crowd of them dispersed among the many rooms of the house, the ladies retreating to go change out of their gowns lest they dirty them in the kitchen, all the while chattering about how perfectly darling young Amroth was.

“So, that was the infamous Cousin Celeborn,” Anárion observed passively, lifting a drowsy cat from the chair so he could sit down. “He does not seem so bad.”

“He is not,” Galadhmir explained, taking up his feline friend. “It is Adar Oropher who exacerbates the trouble.”

Thranduil was not listening. He returned to his own room, scooped yet another cat from his bureau and tossed her onto his bed before thrusting his way into his wardrobe.

It did not take him long to pick something. He discarded his parade attire and replaced it with an impressive outfit of Doriath gray and a deep summer green. The green sash under his belt had been a gift from Illuiniel, carefully monogrammed with his initial. She had smiled and said she remembered seeing Aran Thingol wearing one much like it. She was right, and Thranduil wore it proudly.

“You may keep your opinions to yourself,” he sneered good-naturedly at the cat who narrowed her yellow eyes at him. He scooped her up and carried her out.

“Galadh,” he said as he passed through the sitting room, dropping the cat into his brother’s lap; “yours, I believe.”

“Thranduil!” Lóriel protested from the kitchen, seeing him leaving. “You are going already? They have not had a chance even to be settled yet! Can you not wait a few hours more?”

He was outside in a moment, taking the stairs two at a time in the bright warmth of the sun overhead, the air alive with the scent of the sea and of flowers in full bloom. He took the path to the stables at a run over the flagstones he and Galadhmir had placed years before. He passed through the shaded dark of the stable building where he paused only long enough to take up his stallion’s bridle, emerging again into the sun in the trampled green paddock beyond.

“Cúron!” he called, giving a shrill whistle. The tallest amid their modest herd of three brought up his head at once, the light flashing over his mane. Thranduil held up the glinting bridle and the horse came running with an eager squeal. He was a bright silver gray with a crescent moon on his brow and three brilliant white feet. He was not quite one of those thoroughbred Noldorin steeds, but he had been sired by one, no less than Gil-galad’s own charger, Arvegil Aglareb. A spectacularly extravagant mount, Cúron had been the gift of both his mother and Serataron.

Cúron pranced to a stop beside him, nudging him eagerly with a velvet nose. Slipping on the bridle, Thranduil leapt astride, enjoying the familiar surge of raw power beneath him as the great horse gathered his strength. He could have easily walked the distance himself, but could not yet resist any excuse to indulge in the pure joy of riding.

At his cue, Cúron pranced about in place, pawing at the ground, eager to be gone. In no great hurry now that he was enjoying himself, Thranduil turned him back in a wide turn about the paddock at a gentle canter before turning him again and building to a thundering gallop. A running jump took them over the fence and then down the open road into Lindon.

The city was still full of bustling traffic, the new crowds of Eriadorian Elves only adding to the general confusion, glad though everyone was to have them. It required no small amount of patience for Thranduil to slowly pick his way through the streets on horseback, and he was not the only one making the attempt. It was a matter of dodging carts, pedestrians, and the occasional dog, skirting laundry, doorsteps, and strings of brightly colored pennons in the process of being affixed to the faces of the houses and shops.

The crush thinned a bit nearer the palace grounds and in the great courtyard, the crowds forming more disciplined columns winding to and from the stables that lay just behind and below the palace itself. That seat of Gil-galad’s realm rose majestically over the roofs of the city, gleaming white in the afternoon sun. It was the guardian of the shore from its foundation upon the low ridge of the mountains overlooking the sea, palace and lighthouse both. The right side of the road that looped around the grounds toward the royal stables was clogged with many coming and going, laden with crates and packs to be carried inside; but on the left side, usually reserved for those employed among the horses, the passing crowd was considerably lighter. Thranduil turned Cúron that way at a smooth trot past the fountain and over the familiar cobblestones, presuming upon an old privilege but at least not adding to the congestion at the other side.

Through one gate and then another, at last Thranduil gained the entryway with the others and then rode on through the dim and vaulted corridors toward his favorite wing. The whole place smelled strongly of horse, for almost every stall was occupied. All the available windows were thrown open to admit streaming rays of sun into that shaded interior. Hay was carried and troughs were filled, saddles were put away and worn mounts groomed, all to the echoing roar of Elvish voices.

“Luinheled!” Thranduil called over the incessant noise, rounding the last bend and looking for a glimpse of his old master. “Come now; do not tell me you have lost yourself in the confusion.”

“I certainly have not!” the other answered at once, appearing in a stall with a smile bright enough to outshine the lamps. “Suilad, Thranduil! It has been too long since last I saw you here.”

“Duty calls,” Thranduil said simply as he dismounted, “and most often it seems to call elsewhere. But today I have kinsmen to call on, and would be so grateful if you could find a place to accommodate my horse for a few hours.”

“Well,” Luinheled mused, glancing around, “we have little enough space in this wing, but I could put him in with her again.”

Thranduil nodded. “That will do. I will have him out of your way before tonight, my friend.” He turned and took his leave, knowing the young stallion would still be perfectly content to again share a stall with Gilaer, his dam.

Up the palace steps he went, two at a time, the royal edifice so familiar he almost felt he lived there himself. The great doors stood open to allow entry to those carrying various impedimenta. Thranduil stood aside for a moment to let two such burdened servants pass him, both sharing the weight of a large chest with two smaller ones perched atop it. By some miracle they had managed the stairs, but almost dropped it across the threshold.

“Hold it there!” Thranduil barked, reflexively catching a falling box. “Put it down, put it down.”

They were only too glad to do so, and indeed could do little else in spite of themselves. “Our thanks to you, my lord,” one of them said in the accented Sindarin of Eriador, rather abashed and a bit short of breath as he relieved Thranduil of the box, “and our apologies.”

Thranduil looked them over, intrigued. Plain-dressed, courteous but plain-spoken, dark-haired and rather slight by comparison, they were not of Beleriand. They were instead from the lands east of what was now Eriador, akin perhaps to those clans his father had gone to find beyond the Hithaeglir. They were fascinating.

“To the quarters of the Lord and Lady,” they answered promptly, looking dutifully up at him.

“I thought as much.” Seeing an impatient jam forming behind them now that they were blocking one of the doors, Thranduil took hold of the chest and dragged it inside. “I am going that way as well,” he said amiably, “so I am sure we shall all arrive sooner in the end if you take this, and you take this, and lead the way.” He assigned each of them one of the smaller boxes and was determined to carry the larger one himself. After all, he had promised to make himself useful.

“It is nothing,” Thranduil insisted. “You have made a valiant effort already, and I doubt Lord Celeborn would wish you to kill yourselves on the stairway. Go on, there are others behind.”

They went, uncomplaining but plainly uncomfortable. Meanwhile, Thranduil gathered his legs beneath him and hefted the big chest from the floor. It was heavy, he granted them that.

The flow of traffic both up and down the stairways continued unabated, those descending on the left and those ascending on the right. Up and around the stairs led them until at last they set foot on level ground in the grand corridor that accommodated the king and whatever noble guests he chose to entertain. The west wing was greatly sought after by virtue of its clear view of the harbor and the sea. Thranduil had been privileged enough that his presence there was not uncommon, though he did not deliberately frequent the area. He glanced upward again to the vaulted azure ceilings, adorned with sharp silver stars. Gulls in flight were skillfully painted in soft but lifelike clarity where that ceiling met the wall, high above the crests of the doors. There was a new air of excitement about the place, an air of flustered activity, of a new presence.

Soon they neared the open doors most frequented by those who busily came and went. Miscellaneous names and instructions were called by many voices to the accompaniment of the usual bump and shuffle of unpacking. The two laden servants ahead of him slipped inside, handed their burdens to their fellows and then slipped out again. Thranduil made his entry when they had gone and offered his best smile as the lord himself turned to face him. “Welcome to Lindon, Cousin Celeborn.”

He saw the other’s eyes light upon seeing him, but he knew Celeborn too well to expect an overtly enthusiastic greeting. “Prompt as always, Thranduil,” he smiled, easily relieving him of the chest he carried. “But ceremony never was your passion, was it?”

There was a glad squeal behind him, and young Amroth came bounding over the clutter. “Cousin Thranduil! You brought it! You brought it!”

“His things,” Celeborn explained. “He has been waiting for them, and rather impatiently.” He turned and handed the chest to two other ready Elves with instructions to leave it in the child’s room. “Amroth, go and help unpack it.”

“No,” Amroth objected, taking firm hold of the sash trailing from Thranduil’s belt, giving it a few tugs for good measure. “I want to stay. You said I would like him.”

Celeborn could not argue that. “I am sure you will,” he said, though Thranduil detected a wry note in his voice. “But go on; you will see more than enough of him in time. First, I would like to speak with him without you changing the subject at every other word. Go attend your things.”

Celeborn looked after him sternly. “He is already fond of you,” he said then, melting again into a contented smile as he led the way into the next room, away from most of the ongoing activity. “But you always were a creature of extremes. People either love you or cannot abide the sight of you.”

“I am relieved to see you are among the former,” Thranduil replied cheekily.

Celeborn turned as though he resented the presumption, but then conceded the point. “Very well. No, I cannot help myself. Some things will never change, I suppose.” From there he passed the open threshold onto the balcony overlooking the sea. “Other things have changed since last I saw you,” Celeborn continued, turning back to face him. “You are taller now, of course, and I notice you have fleshed out more. The years have built some brawn on you, Thranduil; what have you been up to?”

Thranduil felt his smile become rather humorless. “A great deal of carpentry and masonry,” he said, taking a seat beside the potted greenery as Celeborn did the same across from him. “Father can be a difficult taskmaster, and our little home on the bluff did not build itself.”

“He made you to learn the hard ways, did he?” Celeborn observed. “Left to his own devices, Oropher would sooner starve than beg favors from anyone.” He fell into thoughtful silence for a moment, his face unreadable. “For that, at least, I can still admire him.”

A great wolfish hound came stalking out to find them. It considered the stranger with a critical eye before it lay dutifully at its master’s feet, its coat tipped with a silver gleam in the sun.

Thranduil had not openly shared his father’s animosity toward their cousin’s unorthodox marriage, but out of filial loyalty he had not spoken against him. Distant kin or not, he still found Galadriel slightly unnerving. But if Celeborn loved her enough to intimately share whatever her fate may be, that was Celeborn’s affair.

“I shall tell you plainly, Thranduil,” the other went on; “I heard rumor of your father when he passed through Eriador, and in many ways I knew I would be grateful to find him absent here. I know what his reception of me would have been. I know where his complaint truly lies, but for that he has all but disowned me.”

“I know he does,” Celeborn agreed, his sedate voice betraying a touch of disappointed disgust. “But he will not recant it. He will stand by what he said.”

Of course, he would. Oropher was not a man of apologies, nor was he ever eager to forgive or forget anything. While perilous Cousin Nerwen remained a factor, as now she would ever be, no full reconciliation would be possible. And that was maddening.

“But I had greater expectations of you,” Celeborn confessed. “I did hope to speak with you alone at least once without Oropher looming over you, influencing your every word. I took some small hope in recalling that you never openly stood against me of your own will.”

“No,” Thranduil agreed. “Nor will I. But I must go where my father leads.”

Celeborn said nothing, though the intensity of his gaze made it plain that he deliberately held back what he was tempted to say. They had already turned their separate ways, and were too far gone to find the common ground they had once shared when Celeborn had been younger and Thranduil was but a child. It was difficult to be completely frank with each other, despite their reputations to the contrary.

“And just where is your father leading you now?” Celeborn asked at last, turning the course of the conversation. “Why has he left you for the east, and when do you expect his return?”

Thranduil let a quiet bark of laughter escape him. “I am sure you may guess well enough why he has gone,” he said. “He will not stay aloof on the hill and play at lordship forever. In fact, it was partly you and your lady who inspired him to look farther east, and he intends to take us beyond even the mountains. As to the time of his return, he made no promise.”

“There are people enough beyond those mountains,” Celeborn mused, keeping the majority of his thoughts to himself. “I do not expect he will be disappointed. But I understand you have been diligent yourself in his stead. One Lord Serataron has told me what an invaluable help you have been in all his recent endeavors.”

“He has spoken to you already?” Thranduil asked, almost incredulous. In retrospect he knew he should have expected Serataron to waste no time in making the acquaintance of another celebrated Sindarin prince.

“He has,” Celeborn smiled, “and I have already arranged a change in your duties if you will oblige me.”

“My son has had few enough of his Sindarin kin about him in these first years. You have matured a great deal, as I had hoped you would, and to see you now in full form has brought me a joy I did not expect to feel again. Amroth could learn much from you, much that would otherwise be lost as the living memory of Doriath fades. I want you to be an influence for him while we linger here, another example for him to look to.”

“To put it bluntly, yes,” Celeborn smiled. “I am sure it would be best for both of you to be better acquainted before we part again. I see in you what I would like him to be. Someday you will father little ones yourself, so the familiarity will do you good.”

“And what of your wife?” Thranduil asked pointedly, though the idea of looking after such a young and incorrigibly enthusiastic cousin was somehow strangely appealing. “What does she think of this extraordinary arrangement?”

“I have yet to find out,” Celeborn confessed, “but I have allowed her to go her own way so often, it is high time I insisted upon a wish of my own. Will you do this much for me?”

Thranduil sighed, but at last he smiled in return. So, the grievances of the past about which they could do nothing would be forgotten in the face of more immediate concerns. So be it, if that was the best they could do. “Of course, I will,” he said. “I would not like to disappoint him.”

He was rewarded with an ecstatic squeal from the open door behind them, and then Amroth was tugging at his sleeve. “Thranduil, you will come and play with me? I want you to come every day! Will you take me to the beach? Please? I have my own horse! His name is Celebrindal. Can I go riding with you? Can we go climb in the mountains? Can I come to your house? It is so different here. I want to go to the beach! Can we? Can we now, please?”

“Certainly, we can,” Thranduil assured the boy, finding the young smile infectious. “That is, if your father will let you go.”

“Yes, go on,” Celeborn sighed, seeing the transfer of authority had been effected with great success. “It would perhaps be best to have him out of the way for a few hours.”

“Come on, come on!” Amroth pulled his newly discovered cousin to his feet, eager to be gone. “I want to show you my room, and then we can go! I want you to show me the birds and how to build in the sand!”

Thranduil obliged him, for there was little else he could do. But they had hardly passed the threshold when he stopped short and drew himself up, unmoved by Amroth’s continued protestations.

“Nana,” the boy complained, sensing another dull adult conversation building.

Thranduil paid him no mind as he stood toe to toe with Lady Galadriel. She regarded him with gentle passivity, not openly hostile by any means, but not exactly delighted by the prospect of enjoying his company for an extended period of time. How much she knew or suspected of his predispositions would remain a mystery, but now there was much he could recognize in her profound eyes, things even Celeborn was blessed not to wholly understand. He saw and knew the old shadows of the Kinslayings, the dreadful stigma that had first estranged her from her relations in Doriath, a shadow he now shared. More than that, he knew she recognized the same in him, and there was something in her demeanor that told him she no longer regarded him as a boy.

“Well met again, Oropherion,” she smiled sedately, as pleasant as he could wish. “It is a pity that you must go before we chanced to speak, but may I inquire where you and Amroth are bound?”

“They are going out for a few hours,” Celeborn explained for him. “I want Amroth to make the most of this time we spend here, and Thranduil has graciously accepted the responsibility.”

“Responsibility?” By now Galadriel had looked beyond him to her husband, her perfect brows betraying her discomfiture.

“Of looking after the boy,” Celeborn said over the noise of Amroth’s renewed insistence that they go to the beach. “Amroth has a good deal yet to learn and small opportunity to be taught. This, love, is one of the best opportunities I can imagine.”

Thranduil could see an immediate protest on the Lady’s lips, but she was unable to voice it politely. He needed no more encouragement to take his leave, for Celeborn gave him a bit of a shove and Amroth was already pulling his arm away. “Excuse me, my lady,” he said, bowing away graciously. “I am sure we shall meet again before long.”

“Good day, Thranduil,” she returned, her voice bereft of some of its former cheer.

If Amroth had wanted to stay at the harbor, he would have asked to see the ships. But Thranduil correctly guessed that an interest in organized seafaring was not the object of this particular outing. Here, farther along the open white beaches, he watched his young kinsman scamper through the sand, still in giddy awe of the vast sea itself, the roaring waves, the keening gulls overhead. Thranduil remembered the first time he had seen it. The circumstances had not been half so lighthearted then, but the sentiment had been the same. Cúron pranced freely in the shallows a stone’s throw away, seeming to enjoy the experience as much as Amroth did.

Thranduil was content merely to watch as he idly walked along the sand, Amroth and Cúron proceeding with him in their own roundabout way. Children were still a wonder to him, for they were too few and grew too quickly. For that, he was glad to have Celeborn’s son brought to him as a boy. Despite the great disparity of years between them, they were of the same generation of Thingol’s house, and to his knowledge the only two that remained. Such a near relation should not grow up a stranger.

In his right hand he carried Amroth’s shoes, discarded long ago, letting them hang loosely on two fingers. He smiled as the boy ran up and down the shoreline, little bare feet slapping through the encroaching surf, leggings rolled up to his knees, stooping now and then to pick up the occasional shell or to poke at a crab before it burrowed away from him into the wet sand.

Tiring at last of his own aimless pursuits, Amroth turned and ran back up the beach to take Thranduil’s free hand and walk with him. “I like it here,” he pronounced, watching the horse rollicking ahead of them. “It is so big and open.”

“It was not always that way,” Thranduil said. “Once these mountains were the boundary of Beleriand, and as far into the east as any of us cared to wander. But now the old realms are destroyed and the sea has taken them. East has become west.”

He assumed he was merely echoing what the boy had already heard from his parents. Such a monumental fact as that could hardly be ignored.

Why? Taken a bit off his guard, Thranduil found a simple answer. “Because the Valar came to conquer Morgoth.”

What kind of a question was that? “Because he was bringing evil to all of Ennor.

Rather exasperated by this point, Thranduil merely stopped and turned on him. “Did your father not teach you anything?” he demanded.

Amroth looked up at him with an impish grin. Both annoyed and amused at once, Thranduil lunged for him. Amroth dodged, laughing wildly, but was not quick enough. Thranduil caught him after a brief and furious chase, instinctively sweeping the boy up onto his hip. The position came naturally enough, and Amroth gladly wrapped his short arm as far as he could around his shoulders, perfectly content to stay there as they continued along the beach.

After a few quiet moments, the youngster turned to scrutinize him again, looking closely at his eyes. “You look like Ada with Nana’s hair,” he stated candidly. “Will I be as big as you someday?”

“Perhaps.” Amroth would likely enough be heir to his parents’ stature, as he himself had been, but Thranduil was unsure exactly how much of their size was dependent on heredity and how much came of the rich atmospheres of Valinor and Doriath, now lost to following generations.

Thranduil tried not to laugh, imagining the plight of whatever Eriadorian Elf had been charged with keeping the rambunctious young lord. Such a position of trust would make almost anyone overcautious.

“Will you come ride with me, Thranduil?” Amroth asked. “I like Cúron, and Ada won’t let me ride by myself.”

“You will have to ask your mother,” Thranduil answered. It was nothing to him, but despite Celeborn’s insistence, he did not want to wholly dismiss Galadriel’s voice in the matter. After all, standing between her and her son would be the surest way to make an enemy of her.

More than likely, Thranduil thought wryly, setting the boy back down on the sand. He suspected that Celeborn’s purpose in throwing them together this way was diametrically opposed to Galadriel’s preferences in that regard. She probably dreaded the infamous influence Celeborn sought from him. But such were the difficulties of raising a child, especially with such a mixed heritage as this one.

“You will come back tomorrow, won’t you?” Amroth asked then, taking firm hold of his hand, ready to plead with him if he should refuse.

Thranduil turned to meet his young and earnest gaze, and he could see that already Amroth thought the world of him. His concern was touching, especially considering that he had only just met him a few hours ago. Plainly Amroth saw in him everything he dreamed of being, someone who would not be simply another authority figure, but rather a playmate, an elder brother to roughhouse with. Here was someone who would not nag him about keeping his shoes clean and his collar buttoned, whose primary concerns would not be tedious book lessons and bedtimes. He may be disappointed in a few of those considerations, but it was true for the most part.

Thranduil could not help smiling down at him, already fond of him as well. “Of course, I will,” he assured him. “Your father made certain I would have nothing better to do. Now, go see if you can find something nice to bring to your mother when you go home.”

Amroth beamed up at him and then took off at a run over the sand. If he stopped to look, Thranduil knew he would probably find one of the many small spiraled shells that turned up from time to time.

He could already tell that this would be one of the most enjoyable responsibilities he had ever taken.

The early dark of evening already hung over the world, a gentle curtain drawn over what had been another bright summer’s day. It was high time Thranduil had gone home, but after several weeks’ experience Amroth had learned many ways to hold him beyond his usual hours. Today it seemed the young manipulator had successfully extended the visit to its utmost limit.

“Go on, to bed with you,” Thranduil chided lightly, giving the boy a firm shove toward his bedchamber door. “You will make your mother wroth with us both.”

Amroth flashed a grin over his shoulder and his stubborn resistance abruptly became swift compliance, knowing his friend would follow now that he had prodded him that far. Thranduil did follow, dimming the lamp ensconced at the doorway as Amroth leapt into bed. The balcony doors stood slightly ajar, admitting the soft starlight with the fresh air and the sounds of a pleasantly warm night.

“Now,” he said, “good night and goodbye. One of these days, Amroth, believe it or not, you will have your fill of me. Perhaps then I can return to my own family.”

“I am your family,” the boy insisted in the shadows, as though claiming a right. “And you will not be going back home to Nenuial with us, will you?”

“No, I am afraid not.” Thranduil extinguished the lamp entirely, plunging the room into moonlight. “My father has other plans.”

“When will I see you again, after we leave here?” Amroth asked then as Thranduil came to stand over him in the dark.

It was a greater question than Amroth knew. Thranduil still had no right idea where his father was at present, nor of where they would finally establish themselves. In any event, he could hazard a guess that Oropher would be sure to give Celeborn a wide berth. He suspected that his father was by now too disdainful of any near association with another lord to live within easy distance of any of them. Perhaps it was merely Oropher’s overwhelming desire to get away from it all, away from the broken fragments of hierarchies that had once been, away from the quiet contention that chafed just beneath the surface of any society where Golodhrim and Mithrim dwelt in company.

Thranduil looked down at Amroth with some regret. What he saw first and foremost lying there before him in the shadows was Celeborn’s son. Oropher would see Galadriel’s son, the intrusion of the Exiles into their most intimate circles. That Celeborn and Galadriel loved one another was undeniable, but somehow it was also true that they seldom got along completely peaceably. That, too, Thranduil left aside as something he could not understand, but his father seemed to think it still a challengeable issue that could somehow be righted by more heated argument. Whatever the reason, the fact remained that wherever Oropher chose to plant his banner, they would certainly not be keeping the habitual company of Celeborn’s house.

“I do not know,” he said at last. It was not a satisfactory answer, but for the moment he could say no more.

Amroth seemed to have read the fleeting conflict of emotions on his face, and did not press him further. And there Thranduil left him, wondering what thoughts were churning now in that young mind, soon be confided to the attentive ear of his mother.

Taking his leave of Celeborn, Thranduil returned to the grand corridor and made his way to the stairs, sparsely populated at that hour. He had descended as far as the spacious ground floor before he paused and gave any conscious thought to his direction. The place seemed peacefully desolate in the absence of the court and all its noise, the great royal dais empty and unattended save for two quiet maids mending one of the wall hangings. Every sound was magnified in that regal void. He cast his eyes once again over the vaulted ceilings, the wealth that over the years had embellished the hall. The vague impression he had gathered earlier came strongly to him now that he stood alone in the center of it all. In essence it was a royal cage.

Drawn by an inexplicable fascination, he strode up the long promenade to the base of the dais itself but stopped short of the trailing indigo carpet upon which only the king was permitted to stand. He could feel the two maids watching him warily but paid them no mind, giving thought to his own future as he imagined it written in the silent configuration of thrones before him. Was this what he and his father were made for, the endless trials and responsibilities of an entire nation? Those talents belonged to a select few and could not be taken for granted by all, no matter how great their ambition.

He frowned at the vacant chair to the right, two steps removed from the level of the royal throne. It was the seat Elrond usually occupied as the king’s herald and standard bearer. That could also have been his fate.

Standing there in the imposing silence, he could feel his mind rising again into a temper of passive rebellion. What had become of him? What had he made of himself? He felt as though he had just woken from a pleasant but indolent dream, regaining something of himself that he had never quite forgotten but had somehow lost sight of.

This, he reminded himself, was not meant to be their home. These were not his people, this was not his place, and already he felt that he had willingly worn too many of the bonds of this society. His father had warned him against it, but he had not expected it to distract him as it had.

With his mind set once again where he desired it, he turned and strode purposefully toward the doors, leaving all the empty court behind him. He would not forget himself again.

Outside the night was clear and calm with only a gentle breeze. Rather than proceed straight home, Thranduil turned instead in the direction of the shoreline, seeking the brief solitude it would offer. He passed around the east side at an unhurried pace, continuing over the stately porches built onto the walls where the ravine dipped away below. The palace was all aglow from within, the soft lights of a city that never truly slept.

The crag declined sharply at the western face, affording a breathtaking view of the rippling harbor, fenced on either side by the mountains. He paused there for a moment, leaning against the rail and looking out over the ends of the world, blue and silver in the twilight of the moon. The quiet wind played around him, rustling through the thick summer leaves in the groves below.

Breathing deeply the fresh sea air, Thranduil knew Lindon already held much of his heart, more than he would wish. Now that he had set his mind again to leave it, the land itself seemed intent upon winning him back. He knew there would be things he would miss, the roar of the sea and the wind in the mountains, but he felt almost guilty in being as content as he had been, as though he had betrayed his father’s designs for him. But what else was he to do? He knew it had been Oropher’s explicit intention to set them apart from much of the common companionship of the rest of the haven, knowing they must maintain only a loose hold in this soil so that they might be more easily transplanted when the time came. Now Thranduil feared that he had instinctively put down more roots than he had been meant to.

At last, he turned and descended the stairway that eventually took him onto a marked path that led down through the wooded glades to the harbor below. He passed the lingering boatmen gathered around their small beach fires, and wandered along the north side of the glistening shore.

He had lived so long within sight of the sea, in Sirion, Balar, and now Lindon. Though his heart was still given to the woodlands, he knew that somewhere in its deep recesses he would always remember the call of the waves, the ever-changing cadence as they forever broke upon the shore only to recede again, beckoning to him. It had not overpowered him as he had seen it affect some others, but it had a distinct appeal all its own. Perhaps it would be best to leave it before it slowly effaced from his memory the vivid detail that was all that remained of Doriath and the way the world had once been.

He looked up at the full face of the moon that shone down upon him from the east, that sovereign wanderer of the night sky defining the landscape in half-light and shadow. Celeborn had told him of its first rising over starlit Doriath, overpowering the sharp gleam of the stars with new and near blinding light. Ithil was dimmer now, stained by time, but had not relinquished his appointed place.

As he went on, Thranduil began humming the old familiar melody that had begun playing though his mind, a haunting tune adapted from a traditional Sindarin ballad to suit the needs of the last centuries, a strain often heard when there was little choice but to endure or die. He knew it by heart, as did they all.

After a moment he stopped and stood silent. The sounds of an approaching horse were unmistakable and not far distant, the strong beat of hooves on wet sand, the light jingle of a jeweled headstall. He stopped among the many dark rocks strewn about the shore and waited. He was already able to discern that it was not one of his own. None of the bridles they kept were spangled enough to make such a sound.

The rider who stopped and alighted before him was a woman he immediately recognized to be Elemmirë. Already he feared he knew her purpose in seeking him out. He stiffened as she left her reins over the saddle and approached him, the gentle sea wind in her hair, a single diamond sparkling like a fallen star at her throat.

“My lady,” he greeted her, still reserved. It was plain to see something troubled her, much plainer than it should have been. The cool poise was all but gone, and her strong face now wore a more haunted expression.

“Thranduil,” she began, her voice also uncertain. “I saw you pass beneath my window. Forgive me, but I must speak with you.”

She seemed almost to be begging him not to dismiss her out of hand, something she must have known he would never do. Perhaps she guessed he would if he knew her purpose. He resisted the urge to draw back, but he did not invite her nearer. “Very well,” he consented, guardedly.

She drew nearer of her own accord, fighting to contain the teeming emotions he could read on her face. Recognizing her lovelorn desperation for what it was, Thranduil felt his heart sink. He had been afraid of this, had tried to avoid what seemed inevitable ever since Lindóriel had confronted him. Elemmirë knew she was losing him, knew her quest was without hope, but driven to this extremity she had to try. He would regret having to refuse her this way, but she left him no choice.

“The past days have been barren,” she said at last, “while I saw nothing of you.” Her voice wavered, though she fought to steady it. Thranduil could understand her discomfort as he watched her defy every standing tradition of courtship. “At first, I thought it fortunate that you were removed from Father’s house, that you could torment me no longer, and that I could go on as I was before, without you. But I cannot.”

That final word at last wrung a glimmering tear from her dark eyes, a suppressed sob in her throat at her own helplessness.

He felt a pang as well, knowing her suffering was entirely on his account, but he did not know what else he could have done to prevent it. “And what would you have me do, my lady?”

She just gazed at him for a long moment and slowly shook her head, the fair pride of the West sickened by unrequited desire, but still her magnanimity remained. “I would have you do nothing against your will, my lord,” she said, the sorrow of defeat already upon her. “But know that I love you. I have loved you in silence since first I saw you. I am forced to confess it now lest my silence be also my ruin. Tell me, please, and spare me not the truth. Is it true that you care nothing for me, as my father says?”

So prepared was she to suffer the final blow, he was more reluctant than ever to inflict it. Thranduil already knew they could never go on as they had been after this unfortunate turn, but he had no wish destroy their friendship as well. And though she loved him now, he feared she would soon learn to hate what she could not have. Fortunately, her turn of phrase made his task less brutal.

“Of course, I care for you,” he answered her gently. She looked up then, eyes bright with uncertainty. She seemed so distraught that at last he could not resist taking her hand in his. “You are one of the few in this world I can call a true friend.”

She drew nearer and lay her head against his chest, seeking the solace he offered, that she so desperately wanted. His forbearance came of pity, allowing her a last indulgence before he deliberately distanced himself from that point forward. Even if it meant at long last officially leaving Serataron, he could not go on torturing her day by day with his very presence.

There he was at a genuine loss, and not without a twinge of guilt sharper than what he felt for Elemmirë’s adversity. Perhaps it was merely because he felt himself paralyzed to act one way or the other until he had the counsel of his father, denied him when he needed it most. But it was not long before his wandering mind was jarred back to the present moment and its difficulties. He could not deny she was indeed beautiful, the starlight accentuating the deep blue gleam on her dark hair, the shimmering expanse of the sea behind bringing out the tearful sparkle in her eyes, begging him to pity her. But that was not his concern. Nor could he in good faith allow much more of her love-starved fawning, not with the sleepless thought of Lindóriel tenaciously gnawing at his conscience.

“You command a share of my affection,” he clarified, “but my love is given to another.”

Once again, she seemed to wilt. “You say that, yet she is no happier than I!” A hard shudder passed through her, whether an expression of frustration or aversion he could not know. For a moment she said nothing, the Sindarin of her exile failing her in her agitation. “How can you be so cruel?” she asked at last, her voice deepening into its old strength but still with a passionate tremor. “Why must you be so heartless? Why must you go on and on through the wheeling years alone, making pitiless sport of us?”

Thranduil thrust her back at arm’s length, tearing away from her and whatever feminine fascination had inspired his misplaced pity in allowing her to touch him so freely in the first place. “Have you not in the midst of the misery you have chosen stopped to consider that I have sentiments of my own, Elemmiriel?” he demanded, nonetheless trying to contain his growing indignation. “Perhaps I want to be alone; perhaps other obligations demand my concern. No one but I will decide when I will accept the intimacy of a bride. No one but I! Do not call me heartless when it is you who would punish me for what you have brought upon yourself.”

It was something he had to say, for it had been building for years, and he realized it was not intended solely for her. Elemmirë drew back, silenced. There was little more to be said now that they had both vented their frustrations upon each other, but already he knew they both regretted the vehemence of their words.

“Please,” he said then, more softly, “do not ask what I cannot give. You will only grieve us both.”

His plea stopped her three paces away. “Forgive me,” she asked for lack of anything else to say, her eyes downcast, her voice thin with what he recognized to be the stricken calm before the inevitable flood of tears.

Thranduil had not overstated the truth in saying that he had indeed grown to care for her, even if only with that patronizing brother’s love that had once been all he had harbored for Lindóriel. As it was, he could only distance himself from her, and he would be playing her false to allow her now what he would refuse later, wrenching though it was to stand by and do nothing.

She seemed to understand that at least, though it was difficult to accept. Again, she drifted back over the glimmering sand, back to where her horse patiently awaited her. Thranduil said nothing, stood utterly motionless among the rocks. Though every instinct implored him to assist her as he had often done, at that moment he did not trust himself to remain as aloof as he should. He wished they could have parted on better terms. He could not even look after her as she sorrowfully turned her horse and rode back toward the palace, leaving him alone again on the barren beach.

Only gradually could he relax his rigid hold of himself, a hollow pit of unmerited guilt growing in his gut. Another heart broken, another friendship lost.

Galadhmir slowed Cúron at the edge of the bluff overlooking the harbor, his own mount following close behind. Picking his way along the ridge, he looked down from his wondrous vantage point in an attempt to spot Thranduil on the moonlit sand. He knew and could feel he was somewhere near.

Thranduil’s habitual absence from the household was a growing annoyance to many of them, and a nagging anxiety to Naneth Lóriel. It would have been good of him to return at least for dinner now and then. Nevertheless, they let him go his own way, for he seemed to know his own business best. But tonight, Galadhmir had gone out after him. Naneth Lóriel had several domestic affairs she wished to discuss with her son, aside from the fact that they all simply missed him. Over the past decades it had become commonplace for Thranduil to be gone all day and often all night, attending whatever duties occupied him beneath Gil-galad’s spires. The house was disturbingly calm without either him or Adar Oropher. One empty place at the table was unpleasant enough.

Galadhmir did feel a twinge of guilty pleasure astride his lord brother’s horse. He knew Thranduil would probably not appreciate the liberty, but it seemed easier to have the dominant stallion lead rather than attempt to make him follow. Cúron himself had objected at first, but had since willingly accepted him. Now the keen-eared steed was on the hunt as well, prancing lightly over the bluff, searching out his errant master.

Galadhmir had first inquired of Celeborn, but apparently Thranduil had taken his leave just ahead of him. Another of the king’s household had recognized him as one of the Oropherionnath and rightly guessing his purpose volunteered that he had observed Thranduil descending toward the sea path. So Galadhmir had retrieved the horses and mounted the jutting shoulder of the broken land to obtain a clear and swift view of the shore below.

All at once Cúron halted of his own accord, pawing at the ground. There indeed was Thranduil, his distinctive form defined in moonlit detail on the pale sands of the shoreline. But he was not alone.

His eager anticipation suddenly gone deathly chill, Galadhmir dismounted and peered over the cliff himself. His jaw clenched as he recognized the dark woman coiled around his friend. The intimate scene bore all the marks of a guilty lovers’ tryst.

Was this what always called him to the palace? Was this what held him from home, night after night? Had Thranduil, too, willingly fallen prey at last to the insidious charm of the Exiles?

No. Galadhmir deliberately seized upon that one last voice in his mind that could not believe the circumstances were as damning as they seemed, indeed refused to believe it. He could not imagine how else to explain what he saw, but while the slightest chance remained, he would try. The least he could do was to reserve his judgment and wait a moment to see what the outcome may be.

He was not disappointed. He heard voices raised, though the words were lost in the slow crash of the surf. Whatever she had said must not have fallen lightly upon Thranduil. The rest followed quickly, the drifting apart, and then what must have been the last regretful apologies, giving the whole episode the air of a forced farewell. Thranduil was now his familiar unbending self, the posture he always seemed to assume when either his pride had been affronted or his mind was in turmoil. In this case it could perhaps be both.

Galadhmir remounted and ran the horses back along their track to the cleft in the ridge. What had once been a creek bed before the breaking of the world had now been widened by long years of rain to become a sloping shortcut to the beaches. He then rode back along the bright stretch of the coast, Cúron surging ahead over the sand. They found Thranduil just where they had left him.

Galadhmir slowed the horses and let the silence hang for a moment. Thranduil still made no move to acknowledge him, though he was certainly aware of him.

“I am sorry,” Galadhmir began at last, cautiously. “That was difficult to watch. Do I want to know what it was about?” There was no use in pretending he had not seen, for Thranduil would immediately detect such an obvious pretense.

Thranduil finally turned to look at him, relieving his formidable stillness. His eyes shone with their sharp but passive glint, too wearied to be angry. “You know already,” was his curt reply. He sat down heavily on the shadowed rock behind him, staring blindly at the sand at his feet.

“Perhaps,” Galadhmir granted him, “but a moment ago, this encounter of yours could have easily been misinterpreted.”

Thranduil recognized the insinuation. “Ill-planned marriages have overthrown entire realms, Galadh,” he said flatly. “You must think very little of me.”

“I think everything of you,” Galadhmir said instead, dismounting at last. “I still do. You know that.”

There was an empty moment of silence before Thranduil would acknowledge him again, swept back into his own thoughts. “So, what am I to do?” he asked then, not demanding an answer of Galadhmir in particular, but simply revealing the cause of his unrest. “She loves me. Am I to blame because I am not equally enamored of her? A friendship of nearly two centuries has been capsized in one night because I would not lie to her.”

His frustration was evident, and it seemed he felt keenly betrayed by he knew not what. Galadhmir truly did not know what to say that would help him at all. “There is no more you could have done,” he said at last, offering his sympathies if nothing else.

The surf seemed to swallow the languishing conversation at that point, and Galadhmir let his brother sulk in peace for a moment. He could truthfully offer his condolences for Thranduil’s sake, but in another sense, he was not sorry to see that particular association end. Even from the first day he had seen the two of them meet in Gil-galad’s stables, he had known that either way Thranduil was setting himself up for a fall. It had merely been a question of who would be most hurt by it. Overall, it had played itself out as well as could be expected, but this was no time to lecture him.

At last, Galadhmir stirred Thranduil from his quiet brooding. “Come on,” he said, dealing him a gentle jab in the shoulder and handing over Cúron’s reins. “Naneth is waiting for you.”

It was during the dispirited ride down the beach and up the winding path that Galadhmir ventured to mention a point of interest that would perhaps be of some concern. “Thranduil,” he said, by the by, “Menelwen is turning Malach a cold shoulder of late. She maintains that she has tired of him and seems very decided about the whole affair despite his vain efforts to convince her otherwise. So, I suppose you need not burden your mind on her account.”

“Good,” Thranduil grunted, still too distracted and dissatisfied with his own concerns to give her much thought. But after a moment he did seem to stop and turn that development over in his mind, for Galadhmir recognized the slight but thoughtful tilt of his head. And all at once he glanced back to the towers of the palace behind them.

“Well, it certainly cannot hurt to introduce them at the very least, can it?”

Spring had come again, coaxing new life from the landscape after a long winter. The mountains no longer wore their white caps of snow and the valleys were transformed beneath a lush green carpet with sprays of rampant wildflowers. A fresh wind swept over the peaks and across the haven, rustling through the trees thick with new leaves.

Thranduil subtly turned his gaze to where Noruvion lay a short stone’s throw from him, lackadaisically sprawled on the green banks of the mountain stream rushing swiftly past them. He looked but could not turn his head, for Galadhmir was not yet finished cutting his hair. “I trust that is not despair I hear, my friend,” he said, his voice almost drowned in the sharp splash that was young Amroth once again hurling a spear after a fish.

He did not look very concerned, and Thranduil allowed himself a smile. “Who am I to say?” he answered him at last, rather helplessly. “Father could tell me nothing when he left us, and of course I have not heard a word of them since.”

“Hold still,” Galadhmir complained, tugging back on his hair, “unless you would like me to just chop it off and be done."

Amroth was again standing stock-still in the shallows of the running stream, his leggings rolled up to his knees, a slender fishing spear in his hand. He had noticeably grown in the past years, and now was determined in his efforts to master some of the skills of his father’s people. He was understandably frustrated by this point, wet and draggled, without a single success to show for all his efforts. His persistence was endearing, but Thranduil knew the boy would never catch anything if he did not relax.

“Even so,” Noruvion went on, hitching himself up on his elbow in the grass, “do you not begin to wonder? Fifty years I might have expected, even twice fifty – but two hundred?”

Thranduil sighed. He, of course, could still remember his father’s presence in their house, but those memories were distant now, as Balar and Sirion were distant. “Of course, I wonder,” he said. “Not a day goes by that I do not wonder. But whatever the reason may be, we cannot do any more than we are.” He paused. That answer seemed unsatisfactory and inadequate, but there was nothing more he could say. “You need not worry,” he smiled; “my father will look after yours.”

Noruvion laughed, idly playing with a twig. “I never doubted that,” he said.

There was an abrupt splash as Amroth loosed another attempt, missed, and then jabbed about in the churning water in blind fury.

“You will never have any success if you are not patient,” Thranduil lectured him gently. “I told you, the fish is—”

“Calm yourself,” he said then, more a command than a suggestion. “Come and sit down for a bit before your wrath warns away every fish within three leagues upstream.”

Thranduil just smiled and would have shaken his head had he been able. Very well, Amroth could learn the hard way if he must. He remembered his own early attempts, though it seemed ironic now to remember it had been Celeborn who had given him his first lesson in the waters of the Esgalduin.

He ran a hand roughly through his hair when Galadhmir had completed his work. Amroth struck again with yet another loud splash, but apparently with no better luck. Thranduil could see he was angry, but he merely watched as the boy stormed out of the stream, retrieved his bow, and after a moment took careful aim at the next unfortunate carried along in the current. The arrow flew sharply into the water and a wounded thrashing was obscured by the splash of Amroth’s own swift reentry. Soon, in grim triumph, he produced a skewered trout.

“Then you do it!” Amroth challenged him, fed up with the whole affair for one day.

“What?” Thranduil asked, recovering something of his composure but unable to banish his broad smile. “And come out a draggled rat, like you?”

Incensed to the point of rowdy retaliation, Amroth threw his fish to the bank behind him and slung a great sparkling spray of cold water at his obnoxious cousin on the opposite shore.

Thranduil turned away but still received most of the intended deluge. The game was on now.

Amroth immediately bounded out of the stream away from him. Thranduil lunged forward in pursuit, but sprawled in the mud at the bank courtesy of Noruvion’s deliberately outthrust leg. He caught himself on his hands though they sank well past his wrists into the silt. Tearing free of the mire, he rounded on his traitorous friend. Noruvion had no time to pick himself up before Thranduil was upon him, both of them laughing as it became an earnest fight to throw one another into the water. They wrestled farther toward the edge of the bank, where Amroth took shameless advantage of the situation to throw more cold water over Thranduil’s face as he was momentarily pinned to the ground.

Rolling through the mud, Thranduil at last hefted Noruvion to the bank and threw him into the rushing waters. Noruvion presently reemerged at the opposite bank, still sputtering with the ridiculous fun of it all.

Thoroughly begrimed but still unvanquished, Thranduil turned back to Amroth. The boy turned to scramble laughing from the water, but Thranduil bounded after him with a terrific splash, surged up the bank after him, grabbed at a foot but missed, then followed into the trees. It was a short chase, and though Amroth defended himself admirably, the boy truly had no chance. Thranduil caught him in both muddy hands and dragged him back to the stream despite the incessant protestations and peals of childish laughter. The little imp received his just deserts in the end, much the same fate that had been granted to Noruvion, except that Thranduil fished him out and left him laughing and dripping on the grass.

“Do you feel better now?” Galadhmir finally asked from the opposite bank where they had left him, the only pristine one left among them.

“I do,” Thranduil said with a smile and a nod. He knew he looked frightful, but he did not care. Beside him, Amroth had developed an acute case of the hiccups, which was only making him laugh the more.

Again and again the passing seasons changed the landscape of Lindon. Years came and went as they always had, one after the other, day after day, and life went on. Now Lord Celeborn was at last returning to his own lands.

“Farewell again, Thranduil,” he said, addressing him in particular after he had taken his leave of the others, banners and pennons billowing and snapping in the springtime breeze. “I trust it will not be an unbearable stretch of years before we meet again.”

“Perhaps,” Thranduil answered, neither unduly hopeful nor pessimistic. But unless his father intended to travel the route through Celeborn’s domain as they passed eastward, he expected it to be quite some time before they saw one another again. That was now the way of his kin, ever scattered.

“In any event, you will be ever welcome in my halls,” Celeborn assured him, “and you need not hesitate to come alone if and when you will.”

“Yes, please come,” Amroth smiled. “I shall hardly know what to do with myself without you.”

Thranduil merely smiled in return. Amroth was no longer a child, entering his promising adolescence now. Even if he never did see him again, a possibility he was not yet prepared to admit, Thranduil would always count himself indebted to Celeborn for allowing him to share his son’s childhood, stringing together the broken house of Thingol as well as they might. “I shall come when I may,” he promised.

The young stallion that stood at Amroth’s side was his farewell gift, one of the many Cúron had sired, for the boy had long ago outgrown the old pony Celebrindal. Practical gifts always were the best.

“We shall be glad to have you when you do,” Celeborn said. “In the meantime, I wish you and your father all the best in your own endeavor, and I do not doubt that someday we shall be hearing a great deal about you all. Argeleb,” he called, turning with a sharp snap of his fingers. “I will not be outdone in giving gifts,” he smiled as one of his great wolves pushed its way through the crowd to stand beside its master, dark gray and white, frosted with silver. “He is young yet, and will serve you well. I am certain you will make good use of him.”

It was not long then before the entire party was mounted at last and began winding its way along the eastward roads behind the Lord and Lady, farewells given time and again, good wishes expressed, promises made. Thranduil looked after Celeborn for a time, but longer after Amroth, who seemed more loath than ever to finally leave him.

When at last the others had disappeared around the bend, Thranduil turned to admire the dog Celeborn had left with him. Argeleb still gazed after his former lord, plainly yearning to follow but obedient to the end. Thranduil coaxed some acknowledgement out of him after a moment, and then the great hound did not seem too dispirited by his change of fortune. He was absolutely magnificent, and Thranduil imagined the name of Silver King was certainly not an accident. Celeborn plainly bore them no ill will.

The difficulty may still stand, but at least it had not irremediably sundered them.

Thranduil rode the young stallion at an easy gallop across the fields beyond the haven, the meadow empty and silent but for the deep drumming of his hooves. Thus far, Celebdil was proceeding admirably in his training, high spirited but manageable. By carefully breeding Cúron over the last years, Thranduil had expanded the family’s resources into a young herd of six, four mares and two fine stallions, all with their sire’s proud carriage and silver dapples. The others had not gone cheaply to the privileged class of Lindon, so if Oropher returned and they had need of more mounts, they could afford them.

Thranduil had purposefully left the road some time ago, and now he came to a rambling stream running down from the mountains. He slowed Celebdil to give the young horse a moment to consider the obstacle. Argeleb leapt across, baying eagerly at them from the other side. Celebdil stepped down toward the water cautiously, delicately for one of his size. He at last determined the water to be harmless and surged across to the opposite bank, launching again into a free gallop on the other side.

It was a rather aimless ride, Thranduil realized. There was something tiresome about that. He felt as though he had spent the last centuries on a leash, bound to those borders until he should be released. He was ready to be released from this place, now that he had already been rather unwillingly released from Serataron, released from Elemmirë, released from Amroth. What was left?

That was not all that chafed him. After arguing the point against himself again and again, rationalizing and excusing himself night after night, at last he had been forced to concede that he was genuinely lovesick. That inescapable conclusion had come hard upon him in the past months, for now Galadhmir and Gwaelin had grown particularly fond of one another, and he had been unable to otherwise justify the strange envy that grew within him whenever he saw them together. It was not merely because Galadhmir now sought her company more often than his, but their radiant happiness made him all the more aware of his own want of it.

Thranduil realized that it was entirely his own fault. If he was lonely now it was because he had roundly declared to the world that he wanted to be alone. Even now it was well within his power to redress the situation if he could only humble himself enough to approach Lindóriel as he knew he should. But somehow he could not. He felt incredibly foolish, but he did not know even how to begin going about it. The fact that he was completely the cause of his own growing misery only worsened it, but it seemed it would be shockingly presumptuous of him to suddenly make a complete turnabout and expect her to simply forgive him everything. Lindóriel, too, had pride, and deep at the heart of his reticence he knew it was her rejection that he feared.

They had been stagnant too long and the forces of change were growing upon them by the day. He could not resist much longer.

Suddenly he reined Celebdil to an inexplicable halt in the grass. Argeleb bounded to a stop ahead of him, panting and wondering at the delay, but for the moment Thranduil lacked the heart to go on. He felt as though he were trapped upon one of those spinning wheels kept for captive squirrels, running, always running, but going nowhere. And the more he ran the more frustrated he became until now he simply had to stop, mocked as all his efforts to escape availed him nothing.

Argeleb barked, jarring him disagreeably from his self-imposed brooding. Thranduil was prepared to be peevish with him, but it was then that he was aware of a familiar stirring at the edge of his mind, a growing presence. It had been so long absent that it took him a breathless heartbeat to place it.

He wheeled Celebdil around at once and spurred him on to the summit of the hill. He could see a mounted party below, and he could not stop the ridiculous smile from spreading across his face.

Lindóriel stood back as Adar Oropher hit the household like a hurricane, and it was only then that she realized just how much she, too, had missed him. Naneth Lóriel was, of course, reduced to joyful tears, and Thranduil was still beside himself with an almost boyish relief and excitement. Galadhmir and Linhir had come running from the paddock, and it was not long before the news brought Anárion back from the city. The entire house seemed brighter now, more vibrantly alive than it had felt in far too long.

Oropher had brought with him two of the silvan people from Greenwood beyond the Hithaeglir, called the Danwaith, or Nandor in the Noldorin manner of distinctions among peoples. They were brothers, their names were rendered into Sindarin as Erelas and Gwaelas. Pale with dark hair and slight stature, clad in the subtle hues of the forest, these had apparently been chosen for the journey both on account of their obvious enthusiasm and their facility with the Sindarin tongue of their new lord. They were not yet eloquent in their expression but fluent enough to make themselves understood. Overall, they seemed understandably awe-stricken by the grandeur of Lindon and the vast glimmering expanse of the sea.

Oropher himself was impressed by the growth of his own estate, for the family had not been idle in his absence. A new wing had been built onto the house, the stables had been extended, the paddock widened and partitioned to accommodate their handsome horses. The gardens had been enlarged and embellished into an elegant labyrinth of green and growing things surrounded by thick but airy groves of pine and beech and silver linden.

If Lindóriel understood them correctly, Erelas and Gwaelas now considered themselves and their people doubly honored that Oropher would wish to leave such a realm as this to live among them in their wood. But all that aside, she could not help but notice their special regard for Thranduil. These Nandor had already admired Oropher for years, but his golden son was a new wonder to them, the most outstanding amid a household of impressive individuals who must have all seemed larger than life to their eyes.

Galadhmir was given charge of them, and he set about settling them in a spare room, the one with the large window, guessing rightly that they would prefer to remain together. Linhir stabled the horses, sturdy mounts but not very fine beside the sleek offspring of Cúron. The whole house fell into a state of controlled uproar as arrangements were made and supper prepared.

“Come, Thranduil,” Oropher said with a smile as he strode down the hallway, his whole manner expressing his pleasure to be back again, even if it could no longer truly be called home. “I want a bath and I must have some clean clothes, if you will allow me to prevail upon you.”

“You may help yourself,” Thranduil assured him, leading the way into his room and opening the wardrobe.

Oropher sorted through Thranduil’s hanging clothes with a swift but discriminating hand. But then he slowed, taking more notice of what he was rifling past. Thranduil had been waiting for that, and rather smugly. “Gilthoniel,” his father commented when he had already found more than six fine outfits of a considerably better quality than they had been accustomed to wear when he had left them. He turned at last, folding his choice over his arm. “I wonder now if you have been as prudent in your charge as I expected,” he said.

“Oh, I have,” Thranduil assured him, unruffled, “though I doubt it was in the way you expected.”

“But the horses,” Oropher went on, “the house, the gardens, these,” he said. “What have you been doing?”

“You will forgive me, I trust, for going my own way this time,” Thranduil said, giving his father the key to the large strong box beside the wardrobe. “But I certainly did not allow the household to fall apart.”

Oropher opened the lid and simply stared for a moment. Thranduil did not blame him. It was an impressive collection of gold and silver coin, all meticulously counted and sorted, the surplus of their earnings over twenty decades.

“Exactly how did you accumulate all this?” Oropher demanded when at last he found his voice.

“Well, we certainly did not stumble across it in the mountains, Father,” Thranduil returned dryly, handing him the ledger.

Oropher’s lips formed a thin line as he considered his next words. “Do I want to know what you have been hiring yourself out to do?” he asked in a calm but deliberate voice, obviously finding the thought thoroughly distasteful.

“I doubt it,” Thranduil admitted. “But I could not imagine that you wished to leave this place entirely destitute, as we came.”

Oropher sighed heavily, seeming to realize there was no point in arguing about it now. “Oh, you are right, of course,” he said at last, finally opening the ledger to see for himself. He quickly scanned the pages for the final figure. “Yes, you have been productive.”

“You missed Celeborn,” Thranduil added as Argeleb pushed his way past Oropher’s legs into the room. “He returned to Eriador a year ago.”

“And he gave you that beast.” There was no question in his father’s tone, and only those who knew him well could hear and appreciate his grudging admiration.

“Very well,” Oropher said at last, turning to go, abrupt as always. “I am sure I shall hear all about everything in good time. I shall see you at supper.”

Lindóriel retreated into the gardens for a moment when her presence could be spared, more intent now than ever on completing the task she had originally set for herself that day. Looking over her rose bushes and vines, sheers in hand, she deftly pruned away what remained of the old dry blooms, dropping them into the basket on her arm. With a loving hand she had bred these strains over the years, larger and fuller now than most others to be found in Lindon, and she would not think of leaving them without taking their seeds with her.

Her gown swept lightly over the leaf litter as she moved among the shrubs. Of course, she would have to change before dinner, and make something presentable of her hair. Adar Oropher had brought the air of change with him like the brisk autumn nip that now came upon the wind, and that alone seemed to excite her more than it should have.

Perhaps it was because she almost dared to hope that his father’s return would be the catalyst that would free Thranduil’s mind for other pursuits beyond his keeping of the household. That was what Gwaelin and Illuiniel expected it to be. But when she thought about it, she felt that she was merely teasing herself, needlessly setting herself up for bitter disappointment. Thranduil would only be distracted by other concerns.

After that singular incident many years before when he had very nearly kissed her, she could not honestly believe that he was truly indifferent, regardless of what he seemed to want her to believe, despite the passive façade he strove to maintain. But even then it hurt to imagine that his love was wrung from him unwillingly. She did not want to be a burden to him.

Nothing was simple anymore. Indeed, now it was difficult to imagine that there had once been a time when she had awoken each morning without worry, without some gnawing care.

“I thought I would find you here, Lin.” Illuiniel’s bright voice intruded on her thoughts, but not unpleasantly.

Illuiniel gave her a knowing smile, then turned then to gather some autumn foliage of her own, presumably for table centerpieces. She cut a long strand of ivy touched with autumn’s color. “It is strange to have Adar Oropher back with us, is it not?” she said. “After all this time, it seems Thranduil now fits his role better than he does. Doubtless all will right itself when at last we leave this place.”

“In any event, Lin, it would certainly do you no harm to use tonight to best advantage,” the other continued, unconcerned. “Smile occasionally and stop looking so dreary. Fan the flame a bit until you make him uncomfortable enough to realize what a fool he is making of himself.”

“Oh, but I think you do. Choose some of your precious roses for the table and leave the rest to us.”

Supper was a lively affair, for there were two centuries of news to be told from both sides. Two extra places were set at the table for their guests. Galadhmir had gone with them to the city to find new clothes for them from among those elves of Eriador who had remained with Gil-galad, attire more befitting the company they shared now, and still reminiscent of the old forest hues they loved.

Indeed, all of them had dressed in their best, making the renewed welcome of their lord as formal and as festive an occasion as the short notice permitted. Linhir was full of his exacting questions, as usual, and Oropher was more than ready with his answers. He went on to describe in grand detail the great expanse that was Greenwood, Eryn Galen, just beyond the Misty Mountains. He spoke of the old clan organization of the Wood-elves there, for the forest was teeming with them, and of their surprising alacrity to learn. So long as their new lords were not asking them to leave their wood and continue west, they were willing to receive them. He spoke of their silvan language, their refreshing simplicity of life. He also let drop the fact that they had not been idle in the past years with him, and they had already made many grand preparations for the arrival of the entire family.

But as intriguing as his father’s narrative was, Thranduil constantly found his gaze drawn aside, not entirely without his consent. Everything seemed set against him. In his line of sight, Lindóriel sat just beyond the blooming bouquet which adorned the table. She was lovely that night, so much so that it truly hurt as he had never imagined it would. Her dark green gown gently caught the glow of the lights, and a soft gray wrap encircled her shoulders as surrounding petals will reluctantly reveal the heart of a rose. Her thick hair was left free but for one great braid that lay heavily over her breast. He tried not to look at her but could not help it. He wished she would smile, even if only once.

The candles behind her cast a soft gleam over her hair, but her eyes remained downcast as she aimlessly pushed her food around in her plate with her silver fork. But she glanced curiously up at him then, enough to stop his heart for a moment.

With a start, he turned to find his father looking at him strangely as well, and his mother, and now most everyone else at the table. Illuiniel just smiled, and Lindóriel blushed.

“Well, now that you have come down to join us again,” Oropher continued, setting his silverware on his plate, “I was going to ask if you would remain with me for a time. There is a great deal I must discuss with you.”

“Of course,” Thranduil answered him, and it was only then that he took conscious notice of the fact that the meal was indeed almost over.

The table was cleared as it always was, and the fact that they still served themselves seemed to endear them all the more to the two Danwaith. Thranduil remained with his father as the others went their own ways, though they were all burning with curiosity.

“Come,” Oropher said at last, standing and moving toward the adjoining room, his old study. “I would like to leave here in the late days of winter,” he said, closing the door behind them and then unfolding a cursory map of the journey on the desk. It was by no means exhaustive, but detailed only those landmarks and passes of immediate consequence. “That way we may easily pass the mountains in the summer months. I believe that will be enough time to put ourselves in order, will it not?”

Thranduil returned his smile, finding it easier now to remain focused. “Of course, it will.”

“I would obviously like to go mounted,” Oropher went on, taking a seat, “and I must admit those are several fine horses you have out there. How many are they?”

“Seven at present,” Thranduil said, “most of them relatively young and expected to be long-lived. We did not keep them all, for they were all of the same sire, but we did plan to take at least a second stallion for you.”

There came a low thumping at the door with a dissatisfied snuffling. Oropher looked back curiously for a moment before he remembered what would be making such a bestial sound. “Your wolf, I presume,” he said. “Let him in!” he called when the snuffling escalated into destructive scratching. It was Lindóriel who happened to be nearest at that moment, and it was she who opened the door to allow Argeleb entry.

“Of course,” she returned politely. She did not look at him, but nevertheless Thranduil knew she was very much aware of him as she closed the door again. He looked after her for a moment, powerless to ignore her.

Thranduil was prepared to immediately brush off the insinuation, but the involuntary blush that rose to his face betrayed him. Twice in one night!

“If you deny yourself for my sake,” his father went on, quite at his ease, “you may set your mind at rest. But if you do intend to espouse her, I would advise that you wait at least until we have settled in Eryn Galen.”

Taken aback and indeed rather embarrassed by the frankness of the advice, Thranduil was unsure how to reply at first. He had never known his father to mince words, but it was odd to hear him speak of his marriage as a foregone conclusion.

“That I may perhaps understand, for I waited many years before your mother appeared at Thingol’s court,” Oropher said calmly, leaning back in his chair. “But the disposition seems strange to me when the woman lives each day under your nose. That was certainly not the impression I received from the way you kept looking at her over supper.”

Thranduil said nothing for a moment, for there was nothing he could say. How was he to explain himself? “What would you have me do?” he asked at last, sullenly. But his brows fell darkly when all his father did was laugh at him.

“Ah, Thranduil!” Oropher smiled, absently pulling Argeleb closer to stroke his massive head. “You are a sharp boy, but I can see now that in matters of love you have not the slightest idea how to conduct yourself. Plainly you have at last fallen madly in love with her, and I have watched her worship you in silence even in Menegroth. I am not so shortsighted as I may seem. But what I do not see now is the unfathomable reason why you are both content to make needless misery for yourselves. Is there truly any question at all of what is to be done? Or are you content to deny me grandsons forever?”

What was this? All his life, Thranduil remembered being counseled against every woman that was drawn to him, for his father never failed to find some glaring fault with each one of them. For himself, Thranduil had never entertained any particular affection for any of them, and Oropher had outspokenly encouraged him in that independent frame of mind. What was it now that suddenly made him so eager?

“She has your approval, then?” That was not what he had meant to say, nor had he intended to say anything remotely like it until he had inevitably lost this debate. He realized that it was the final question, the one that had been burning on his heart for years.

Oropher sobered for a moment, and rather than answer him directly he posed a careful question of his own. “Tell me,” he said. “Would you wed her even without my consent?”

Now Thranduil had to pause, catching the immediate denial on his tongue before he could say it. His natural inclination was to obey his father without question, but now he was forced to stop and consider just what he would actually do if he were confronted with such an impasse. How much did Lindóriel mean to him now? Would their love be worth estrangement from his father, disinheritance and exile from his own household, the forfeiture of all his former hopes and dreams to be at last truly and completely alone in the world – but with her?

“Yes,” he said at last, carefully but deliberately, and with no intention of renouncing it.

“Then I give it,” Oropher nodded. “If you would not, the insincerity would be obvious, and I would have forbidden it. If I have dealt rather heavily with you in the past, it was merely because I feared to see you blight your life with a thoughtless marriage. Infatuation is not love, and I have seen only one who truly loves you. It is a great relief to me to see you have grown to love her as well. If you somehow feel that you are not free to marry yet, fine. But, by all means, tell her so. Women want to know these things.”

“You think I should tell her?” Thranduil asked, finally reduced to asking his father for the final impetus to overcome the obstacle he feared.

“Yes!” Oropher said, making himself inescapably plain. “You must come to some understanding with her. I know why you hold back, son, and it is an admirable purpose, but you can see for yourself that it is not having the desired effect. It will demand every bit of courage you possess, but simply pour your heart out to her and see what becomes of it.” He smiled. “It could be that the thought of marriage will not seem so daunting to you then.”

His resolve now set more firmly than ever before, Thranduil returned to his own room and closed the door behind him. There in the quiet and the deepening dark of evening, he brightened the lamp to a golden half-light and pulled open his bedside drawer.

Lifting the lining, he found the pendant just where he had left it, where it had lain for years, waiting. It was the last of the six great teardrop emeralds that had once studded his old belt, the one he had absently put about his waist on that last peaceful morning in Menegroth, the one he had perforce worn into exile. It had been given to him by his mother’s father, Thalos, and it was the last relic he had of his grandfather. The other five stones had been sacrificed one by one in previous years as the family eked out its existence. He had managed to save the last from the same fate. He had amassed several more extravagant trinkets, but none that meant half so much to him as this. He had seen that last dark stone set in silver and hung upon a chain with one specific purpose in mind.

He had intended to go to her with his confession at once, that very night. But as the pendant burned cold in his hand, the monumental reality of what he was doing began pressing upon his mind yet again, and he felt his florid determination paling rapidly.

He closed it in his fist for a moment in an agony of indecision, feeling his new confidence slip back into his old reticence.

Undecided, he quickly returned the pendant to its place, just as he had innumerable times before.

That night he could not sleep. The silvery moonlight streamed through the open window beside his bed, the light curtains drifting in the breeze. All was quiet save for the turmoil in his mind.

He finally sat upright in bed, abandoning the futile effort to sleep. Argeleb whined plaintively from his place on the floor, feeling his master’s unrest. Thranduil hushed him, his voice gentle but preoccupied. Why could he not bring himself to do what he knew he must? It seemed ridiculous after all he had seen and endured in his life, but the very thought of approaching her completely unnerved him. Finally his excuses were exhausted and the desire was there, but he simply lacked the courage. He had never spoken so intimately to a woman before, and it was no easy thing to so suddenly drop the tireless guard he had maintained over the deep places of his heart. Galadhmir had no difficulty in that regard, but he had always been very forthright.

Exasperated with himself, Thranduil reached into the bedside drawer and pulled out the emerald yet again. The moonlight sparkled over the many facets of the gem, over the polished scores and imperfections that bore silent testimony to the violence of Menegroth’s fall.

He let his hand drop impotently into his lap, his fingers curled tightly around the jewel. His father was right—where matters of love were concerned, he was adrift in foreign waters. Many times he had heard the story of Oropher’s unorthodox proposal to young Lóriel, how after a long and devoted courtship he had come before Thingol’s court in the gleaming depths of Menegroth to claim her in excessive pageantry astride his horse, very gallantly asking her hand in the presence of all. It was an invitation she had gladly accepted, climbing up beside him despite the obvious displeasure of her father. At present, Thranduil possessed nothing like that same brazen confidence toward the object of his affections. He must first learn how to speak frankly with her again.

Still restless, Thranduil threw aside the bedding and stood up. Perhaps it would do him more good to leave the confines of his room and debate with himself elsewhere.

He left the house and wandered out into the fresh air of the garden retreat the ladies so loved. Argeleb padded after him, remarkably silent for a hound of his size. The only light was that of the moon, many of the stars veiled by wisps of cloud. He roamed through the first terrace, the rooting place of a stately willow tree and scores of yellow roses.

Thranduil stopped a moment to let one rose rest gently in his hand. He had never expected Lindóriel to go to such great lengths after the one bloom he had brought her so long ago, the very day his father had left them.

Oropher seemed overjoyed by the thought of her, which was great praise when one considered the other eminent ladies he had rejected. Thranduil knew his father’s naturally possessive attitude towards him was compounded by the fact that he remained his only son, the object of an almost inordinate pride. At all times, Thranduil felt the weight of those paternal expectations and aspirations.

Lindóriel was Mithrin to her core, one of the Meliannath of Menegroth, the niece of Thingol’s most celebrated marchwarden. What was more, she was sincere, and their love had grown not by chance. She was a companion who understood him, who shared his hopes, dreams, and sorrows. He would be content with no one but her, not even were he to be offered the hand of the fairest princess in all the blessed land of Valinor. She had been nothing but faithful, and thus far he had failed her completely, stifling his growing affection when he might have been strengthening it. She deserved better.

And now at last he was dourly determined that the sun would not set again before he had told her everything.

The difficulty weighed heavily on his mind all the next morning. There was no forgetting it, no ignoring it. He could feel his father watching him, and there was nothing else that could long occupy his mind. By the early hours of that afternoon his indecisive agony at last seemed to reach a breaking point.

Without waiting for bothersome second thoughts, Thranduil stopped pretending to groom the horses, tossed the brush into a corner and returned to the house. Closing himself in his room, he tore open the dresser drawer and brought the portentous pendant to light once more. It sparkled and flashed green in his hand, eager as ever.

But when he turned, the impartial face of the mirror reminded him what an absolute fright he was. He had been with the horses for hours and was covered with dust, his hair pulled loosely back into a filthy unflattering mess. If he was to pledge his life to a woman, he was determined to do it properly.

A quick bath and a change of clothes could only do so much to bolster his confidence. He stayed there for a considerable time, braced abjectly against the bureau, planning and rehearsing what he should say. None of it seemed at all worthy of her, but at last he scraped together all his courage and what composure would come to him, sweeping the pendant into his palm as he finally left his room.

The ladies’ wing was opposite his, and the hallway had never seemed quite so long. At that point he was prepared for almost anything, but before he had even reached her door he knew with keen disappointment that she was not there.

He let himself in anyway, for now he realized that the whole side of the house felt empty. He stood for a moment in the midst of her room, rather at a loss. All his rehearsal was useless now, and somehow he did not trust himself to work up nerve enough for this again. They had not even spoken together comfortably for weeks. But, nerveless or not, he would not return to that limbo.

Fortunately, there was paper at the writing table. Thranduil sat down and seized a pen. The ink dried on the quill only once before he decided what he would leave for her, forcibly humbling himself enough to say it.

Before he could think better of it, he left the note on her pillow with the pendant. That did not seem like enough, so he reached through her window and twisted a yellow rose off the nearest trailing vine, laying it there as well.

Then he felt Menelwen returning, and he certainly had no wish to be caught there. The windows were easily large enough for him, so with a quick leap he dropped into the back garden once again.

The apples were falling, and that meant the great gathering had begun in preparation for winter, provisions for both the household and the horses. It could have been an enjoyable chore if she did not have so much weighing on her thoughts. At least it was a fine excuse to get out of the house for a few hours.

“It is a pity Malach does not come anymore,” Gwaelin said, thoughtfully turning an apple in her hands. “He was a fine one.”

“Perhaps,” Illuiniel conceded, “but I did not expect his suit to amount to much in the end. Menelwen sought only a handsome diversion. Unless, of course, her purpose was to make Thranduil jealous,” she added with a wry grin.

Gwaelin scoffed, a mischievous gleam in her bright eyes. “Small chance of that,” she said. “No matter how she flatters herself, I have yet to see brother Thranduil so much as grant her a second glance.”

“Nor will he at this rate,” Illuiniel continued, taking an idle seat on the low-slung branch of a willow. “But why he has not had courage enough to approach you, Lindóriel, I do not know. Everyone knows he loves you.”

The casual and candid statement struck her unexpectedly. “Do you really think so?” Lindóriel asked them.

Gwaelin snorted incredulously. “How can we not? He never can put two intelligent sentences together in your presence anymore.” She paused for a moment, rubbing a slender finger over a spot on her apple. “I believe he is terribly starved for affection, but he is now so accustomed to warding it off that he does not know how to seek it.”

“It would not be difficult,” Lindóriel said with a touch of bitterness, twisting an apple off a branch.

“Of course, not,” Gwaelin replied, “but I suppose he will have to discover that for himself. You will see; he cannot deny himself forever. You are the princess among us, Lin. Soon we shall be your maids, and you will be the envy of all Lindon. Just wait a bit for him.”

“Why should I?” Lindóriel asked sullenly. It was a rhetorical question, she knew, but at that moment it was worth asking.

“Because you want him,” Illuiniel answered simply, “and he is plainly drawn to you. I know you would not destroy that for mere spite.”

At last, in the silence that followed, Lindóriel allowed herself a half-hearted laugh. “No, I suppose not,” she said, sinking down into the grass beside them. “But I cannot understand him.”

“We are not meant to,” Gwaelin confided wryly. “The more we attempt to understand the other, the more bewildered we become.”

All too soon it seemed the time had come to return to the house. Taking their baskets in hand, the three of them set off together across the grass, a gentle breeze blowing past them to usher in the coming evening. Lindóriel wished she could enjoy such simple pleasures more than she did at that moment, but still her world was blighted by a single unsatisfied desire, a hollow emptiness that was only growing more painful as time went on.

“Good evening, ladies!” Galadhmir called pleasantly as they cut through the garden to the back door. “You took your precious time, love,” he smiled. But it was Gwaelin who was the object of his affections now, Gwaelin who gladly forgot her laden basket for a moment to accept his quick embrace.

Lindóriel could not help frowning a bit. Until recently, she had always been the first to receive her brother’s endearments, but now it seemed she was eclipsed by the growing love he had found elsewhere, a kind of love she desperately wanted for herself but was still denied. She could never find it in her heart to resent Gwaelin, but she did envy her happiness, Illuiniel’s self-assured independence, indeed every woman who seemed content with her state in life. She felt her heart was starving within sight of its greatest hope.

Leaving the others to their duties in the kitchen, Lindóriel wandered into the sitting room and sat down at her unfinished tapestry. Gently arranging her skirts around her, she took the needle in hand and attempted a few half-hearted stitches, trying to ignore the content of the scene. But it was no use; the figures of Oropher and Gil-galad were all but completed, leaving the unfinished portion she had been avoiding. The deep yellow thread that was his hair waited motionless in her hand as she steeled herself to continue. In the end, she simply jabbed the needle back into its place, knowing her lack of enthusiasm would oblige her to pull the poor stitching later, accomplishing nothing.

She stood again, disinclined to join the feminine chatter in the kitchen, craving solitude. But she firmly decided not to go to her room, for she retreated there too often when these moods assailed her. Instead, she returned outside to the labyrinthine garden.

Linhir went in just as she came out, leaving her alone in that vast expanse of blooming shrubbery, the work of several years of loving toil on the part of herself and her sisters. Aimlessly, she found herself nearing the center, a rounded courtyard where the paths met and branched away like sunbeams, very like what Thranduil had told them of Gil-galad’s palace gardens, a royal arrangement Menelwen had insisted upon imitating. Tall evergreen trees ringed that secluded spot like sentinels, and in the center stood a small but elegant fountain.

Gathering her bright hair back, Lindóriel splashed some of that cold water over her face, just to gather her thoughts. She wanted to shake her growing melancholy, but could not. Or was it simply because she would not? Was she imposing this upon herself, refusing to expand her thoughts beyond her own deprivation and unsatisfied wants? But, as always, it was the uncertainty tormented her. If Thranduil cared for her so deeply as the others assured her that he did, why did he say nothing? Why did he distance himself from her?

Glancing down, her eyes fell upon the four flagstones placed around the fountain’s base, each deeply engraved with the initial of one of those who had proudly laid them: G, L, An, and there at her feet, Th. She simply stared at it for a long moment, her thoughts again in turmoil.

Curling her lip in frustrated anger, she brought her foot down angrily upon that proud stone, turned on her heel and returned for supper.

She did not remember much of the family meal when later she attempted to recall it, for she paid little attention. Oropher went on and on about something, most likely what he always talked about, more plans for their leave-taking, more arrangements, more cautions. Greatly though she tried to ignore Thranduil, Lindóriel did notice that he seemed remarkably ill at ease, apparently unable to keep his mind trained on Oropher’s lecture for more than a few moments at a time. Nor did he seem to have much of an appetite. He excused himself early from the table with apologies to his father, invoking the rather transparent excuse that he was simply tired.

Thranduil, who for so long had been the driving force of the entire household, was never simply tired, especially not on a clear day devoid of any demanding task. But he did look emotionally exhausted and preoccupied, a complaint Lindóriel found she could share, though she knew not if for the same reason. She tried not to watch him go. His very presence was painful to her now.

The rest of them did not linger together long without him, gradually dispersing to attend their own affairs and chores as the soft darkness of evening covered the landscape. Lindóriel helped to clear the table in silence before she finally returned to her own room. She fully intended to fall into bed and remain there until morning.

As soon as she set foot inside her door she knew something was different. The room itself felt odd, as though someone had preceded her. It took her only a moment to notice the rose on her pillow. More brotherly banter from Galadhmir, she thought, hardly daring to hope for more, but already she had crossed the room and snatched up the note.

She knew that hand, strong and elegant. She stared at it for several moments more, as though to be certain they read as they did. So, this was the reason for his discomfort that evening. How long ago had he left it? What did he mean by it?

She saw the pendant there as well, the brilliant silver strand of chain lying over the contours of her pillow, dependent upon her ultimate decision. The petty voice of pride urged her to brush his plea aside, but it was hopelessly drowned by the renewed clamor of her affections. Slowly she took the gem in hand, the familiar facets flashing green, scarred but impressive in its remembered perfection. She knew full well the origins of that gem and what it meant to him.

A nervous excitement had come over her now, but surprisingly she still retained enough self-control to remain rational in that moment, and that rational thought quickly turned bitter. Yes, he deserved to be spurned, he deserved to beg her pardon. But first she must ascertain exactly what he meant. Closing the pendant in her hand, she went out to find him.

The dark of night had already fallen, and bright pricks of light glinted in the sky. The waning moon shed little light, but Lindóriel had no need of his help. Following her instinct through the shadows of the garden, she swept lightly over the path. She knew she would find him, but was not certain exactly what she would say when she did. The lightheaded giddiness was growing upon her amid the conflict of so much resentment, uncertainty and desperate love; she could not seem to steady her heart as much as she would like before attempting such a confrontation.

She stopped beside a dark holly bush and drew a deep breath before rounding the next bend. There he was, sure enough, sitting on the bench in the solitary company of his hound Argeleb.

“What am I to make of this?” she asked him, forcing her voice to be steady. He was absolutely beautiful, his eyes gleaming beneath dark brows as he looked up, silver starlight tracing the strong line of his shoulders. She wanted to be severe with him, but began to doubt she could. She had not yet worn the pendant, and so had not yet strictly accepted it, but all the while her heart screamed at her for deliberately fraying her one thread of hope.

Thranduil stood to receive her, half a head taller, still aloof for courtesy’s sake. “What do you make of it?” he asked in return.

“You once asked me if I cared at all for you,” Thranduil continued softly. It was a comforting tone she well remembered, stirring old memories of endless snow and ice, of wounds and devastation, of pouring out her griefs to him. “My answer did not satisfy you then, though I could have said no more.”

Still Lindóriel said nothing, standing silent in such a way as must have seemed cold and unfeeling. She simply looked at him, unable to speak, a thousand emotions flooding back to drown her in that moment.

“Belain, Lindóriel, do you think me blind?” Thranduil asked at last, pain rather than impatience in his voice. “Forgive my silence, if you can. Whatever I did, I thought only of you.”

She could see a change in his manner. All the severity was gone, softened to the point of real vulnerability. She knew that if she tried to inflict her own selfish revenge now it would indeed wound him deeply. How could she bear to do that?

“We were great friends once, not so very long ago,” he went on, gently taking her hand and holding it between his own. “I have been very slow to realize it, but I do not think my life can ever be whole again without you. I will be content to remain your friend if I must, but know that I love you, and if I have not yet forfeited all the love you once bore for me, I would be very pleased if someday you would . . . accept me for your husband.”

A single tear escaped her as she drew her first shuddering breath in far too long. Thranduil pulled her against him and simply held her close, all the awkwardness and estrangement forgotten. She could feel the rapid beating of his heart, betraying his nervous excitement. Before she realized he had taken it from her, he was reaching back to fasten the pendant about her neck himself. Their eyes met for a moment, a long sweet moment, then he leaned in and kissed her.

It was gentle, almost experimental, but it transfixed her as though to heal old wounds with new ones. She no longer felt the ground beneath her feet. He would not let her draw back afterwards, holding her even closer against his body, breathing deeply in her hair. She tasted tears on her lips, but now did not know whether they were her own or his. It was almost too much to bear all at once.

For a moment it seemed he wanted to say something, but instead he kissed her again, deeply. The force of it stole her breath away, and she was helpless in his arms. Again and again those glad wounds shot through her heart until she felt she could have easily died of joy.

Here was the unwavering strength she had craved, the same that had taken her up when her parents had died, the same that had gently but firmly nursed her through the pain and anxiety of her first serious wound. This was the Thranduil she remembered, the one she had idolized all her life as the prince of her dreams, then as a friend, a guardian, a brother, and now as he who would forever be her most intimate companion. She did not know what had built that wall between them for all those years, how those centuries had somehow been lost. All that was past them now. The entire world lay ahead.

Thranduil sat perched upon the low garden wall overlooking the clearing beside the house, watching as Lindóriel gave her new mount a trial ride, easily putting the young mare through her paces. Already his father’s plans had begun falling perfectly into place, so it had been decided that they would leave Lindon as soon as the coming winter broke into spring, leaving them only a few months to organize themselves. Now they all had horses they could call their own. Thranduil had hand-chosen the mare from among Cúron’s dappled offspring before anyone else could lay claim to her.

It was amazing how much brighter the world seemed. It had been scarcely a week since he and Lindóriel had come to terms, and already it had been one of the most pleasant weeks of his life. A cloud seemed to have lifted from the entire household. Today the sun was shining, the autumn birds were singing, and the air was crisp and clean. He felt more alive than he had in years.

Beside him, Noruvion smiled. “So, will you wait the customary year and then make a woodland princess of her?” he asked as Lindóriel doubled back and rode past them again at a lovely loping gallop, the wind in her bright hair.

“Oh, no,” Thranduil said, watching her pass. “I am in no great hurry yet. Love comes when it will, but marriage in its own good time.”

“Yes, she knows, and she is content for now,” Thranduil assured him as Lindóriel completed her turn about the yard and reined in beside him. “So, what do you think of her, Lin?”

“She is wonderful!” Lindóriel said, allowing him to swing her down into his arms. “But the scenery grows tiresome here. Come ride with me.”

“Ah, but we have much to do yet,” Thranduil reminded her, gently disentangling himself from her embrace, but holding her hands in his. “Later, I promise.”

Oropher was already meeting with Luinlas and Baranor inside, discussing arrangements for the imminent move, giving them their assignments. All the members of their party were beginning to gather.

“No, not yet,” Lindóriel said, taking the reins again. “Even if you are to be so unobliging, I will at least have a few more turns about the field.” With a smile she leapt back onto her light saddle, and then was off again.

“Oh, my friend, I envy you,” Noruvion grinned as Thranduil returned to sit cross-legged on the wall beside him. “Do not put her off too long.”

Thranduil turned to find Gwaelas coming their way, as he had guessed. The brothers still had a silvan accent one could cut with a knife, but he would not have changed it. As they spoke it, the silvan tongue softened the Elvish sounds even more than Sindarin, so that to the untrained ear it seemed to all flow together like birdsong. “By all means, Gwaelas,” he smiled. “Come.”

He had indicated the wall beside him, but Gwaelas immediately came and sat instead in the grass at his feet beside the hound. Thranduil let it go without comment.

“Noruvion, this is Gwaelas of Eryn Galen,” he introduced him. “Gwaelas, Noruvion of Doriath.” Doubtless they would be seeing a great deal of one another in the years to come. He had noticed that neither Gwaelas nor Erelas had worn their own rough woodland garb since they had arrived. The everyday dress of Lindon must have seemed much grander to them as they took full advantage of this brief opportunity to live like princes.

“So many things I have seen in these days!” Gwaelas told them once the pleasantries had been exchanged, his eyes bright.

Thranduil laughed, for his wonder was endearing. “Yes, Eryn Galen is a far cry from what moved in Beleriand. But soon you will return to all that is familiar to you.”

“Oh, I have no wish yet to leave this land of Lindon,” Gwaelas assured him. “We of the Wood knew there dwelt others of our lost kindred on the farther side of the mountains, but this we had not imagined. Great cities white as snow. Whole houses of lords. And the sea!”

Thranduil smiled, but said nothing. He would miss the sea when they had left it.

“And just today, when we were at the shore with the Lord Galadhmir, we saw the king himself!”

“Ah.” Thranduil nodded. “Has Galadhmir taken you sailing yet? We must do that before we go.”

As the sun set that evening after supper, Thranduil found himself walking the gardens again with Lindóriel. Such had become her melancholy custom in the years past, and now he would join her when he could. The sky was aflame that evening in brilliant orange and red, belying the late autumn chill that had begun to pervade the air. But Thranduil did not notice the frost in her company, wearing the soft green cloak she had made for him.

“It seems a pity now to leave it all,” Lindóriel mused aloud, passing her slender hand over a fading rose.

“But you have already built so much here,” she protested gently. “The walk, the walls, the fountain.”

“They were well worth the effort, Lin, if you enjoyed them.” And what an effort they had been. Thranduil remembered those days, their hands chafed and their backs strained lifting stone after stone, the mess of mortar and dust, of dirt and mud and sweat. But they had paved every walk, built up every wall, set every bench. It seemed an even more impressive achievement now that the garden had grown up around it all, and he was still rather proud of it.

Lindóriel smiled back at him, the train of her cloak sweeping through fallen yellow petals. “You do too much for us, Thranduil.”

“Oh, on the contrary,” he said, “I have scarcely done you justice, my lady.”

They walked a while in silence, the fiery red horizon slowly fading into the blue twilight. But, again, Thranduil found the scenery did not intrigue him half as much as did his companion. He wanted to know and remember every detail, the way her hair gathered in the hood at her back, the gleam in her eyes, the green refraction of the emerald against her skin. He only hoped he could be a worthy spouse for her when that day came.

“Ai, Thranduil,” she sighed at last, crushing the bloom in her hand into a shower of spent petals. “It almost frightens me now.”

“It frightens and excites me at once,” Lindóriel explained. “I am happy for you, of course; you were always a prince to me. But I almost wish we could leave aside all thought of rank and realm and simply live out our lives in peace and obscurity. I have very little wish to be uprooted again.”

“We have tried obscurity before, Lin,” Thranduil reminded her as they walked, remembering Sirion, “and it did not seem to help us. Some things must be uprooted and planted elsewhere if they are to grow properly, as I am sure you have discovered in the course of your gardening.”

She sighed heavily, staring vacantly ahead. “Yes. But the life of a lord remains too perilous for my comfort. Where is Thingol? Where are Dior and Eärendil? I fear for you in their position.”

“Perhaps,” Thranduil answered guardedly, his breath frosting on the autumn air. “But kings do not suffer alone. Where is Beleg? Where are Dorlas and Linaewen?” he asked, remembering her own parents. “Obscurity did not help to spare them. But what perils do you fear now? The wars have ended.”

“I do not know,” she said, “but I feel they will come. They always do.” She paused for a moment, and then glanced aside again with a resigned smile. “But now that I am with you, I believe I will be able to face them. Now I do not feel so alone.”

“You never were alone, love,” he said, laying a comforting arm around her shoulders. She leaned gratefully into him as though she had awaited the gesture, and slipped her strong but slender arm about his waist as they walked.

Thranduil always felt a low thrill course through him at her touch. All his life it seemed he had felt others depending on him, relying on him, but not like this. Now he understood what she had been pining for, and only now did he realize just how deeply he had desired such a relationship. He had never imagined what a strange joy it could be to be vulnerable again, to trust someone so implicitly. He had counted several ladies among his friends and acquaintances in the high society of Menegroth and now he could scarcely remember their names, but Lindóriel Dorlassiel was suddenly everything.

She stopped for a moment and turned to face him. She was on the verge of saying something, taking him gently but earnestly by the arms, searching for words, but then she seemed to think better of it. She sighed, but by then her soft smile had returned, quietly banishing whatever misgivings had touched her. “Nothing,” she said at last. But her hands had already begun sliding slowly up and along his shoulders, pulling him closer, turning through his hair.

It was an urge Thranduil had ceased to fight long before, and in the next moment he was again drawn into the warmth of her kiss, lost to all else. Even now the experience was so new and so intimate it almost hurt, but in a strange and comforting way, reaching the deepest places where he needed her most, where he had not realized he needed her, softly touching the old scars he had too long buried. He felt her very closeness was what began to make him whole again. For that moment, it was all he lived for.

Days became weeks, weeks became months, and once again Thranduil walked the garden paths. This time the beds were barren but for the holly and the evergreens, and the crisp chill in the air was that of the earliest days of spring. Thick clouds veiled the dawn, and pale tracings of frost lingered on the ground beneath his feet. All was still and hushed for a moment, allowing him a final glimpse of the place that for so long had been his home.

The thick groves surrounding the grounds stood in stately silence. He remembered the day they had planted them. He remembered the small whitewashed hovel that had first welcomed their weary family to Lindon, now transformed into the vast estate that stretched away to the wooded rise at the horizon. Lindóriel was correct; they had indeed put a great deal of effort into the building of this place, though they had known full well they would have to leave it. Even so, that effort did not seem wasted.

Passing slowly over the frosted stones, Thranduil moved to stand at the precipice of the first terrace, looking down over the expanse of the established grounds, pulling his furs closer about him against the icy fingers of the morning wind. He stood there in his green and ermine, gazing across what had become a long and full count of years in his mind. So much had passed here, so much that would live in his memory forever. This place had been his first true domain, his first taste of sovereign authority independent of even his father. In all likelihood, it would also be his last.

Hearing footsteps, he turned and saw Gwaelas standing just inside the house, dressed for travel like the rest of them.

Turning away with only a single backward glance, Thranduil followed Gwaelas over the threshold and through the empty house to the front door. Now that he had bid his own farewells to the place, leaving it would not seem so difficult. At least he knew it would not fall to ruin when they had left it.

Descending the front stairway, Thranduil joined the crowd which had gathered there, those leaving with them as well as several others who had come to see them off, surrounded by horses equipped either for riders or baggage. Their own household numbered ten, but joined by Noruvion with his father Baranor, their companion Luinlas, and finally the two Danwaith, they became fifteen. All of them were mounted upon steeds befitting a royal house, save Gwaelas and Erelas who still preferred their lighter woodland ponies. In addition, each of them was given charge of a laden pack horse on a lead. All the mounts were newly shod and ready for the long journey ahead of them, roughly three hundred leagues by Oropher’s telling, over field, mountain, and forest.

Gil-galad himself had come to bid them farewell. He came without retinue or guard save Elrond, and his own great stallion stood behind him. Serataron was there as well, and Elemmirë upon the arm of Malach, her husband. Thranduil approached them now while Gil-galad was engaged with his father, prepared to close forever that remarkable chapter of his life.

“So, we come to it at last, do we, Thranduil?” Serataron smiled. “On to broader horizons, new lands and new renown. I suspect your father will eventually need a history of his own compiled for him.”

“If you remain long enough, you are welcome to it, my friend,” Thranduil said. He still felt a stirring of old affection for Serataron, as for a second father. However, he would probably never confess such sentiments to Oropher.

“I may very well be here to accept that invitation one day,” Serataron assured him. “I would not have you leave us without this.” In his hands he held a leather-bound volume with a dark blue ribbon for a marker, embossed on the spine and cover in letters which read, Tales of the Land of the Fence.

“Finished, yes,” Serataron explained. “I am still perfecting it, but I felt I could not let you go without a copy of your own. Now when you read it you may think back and remember that there are yet some among the Noldor who hold the Eluwaith in high esteem.”

“You convinced me of that long ago, my lord,” Thranduil assured him. “I shall not forget it.”

Before he turned away, he looked to Malach and Elemmirë, the new lord and lady of the estate Oropher was leaving. There was no one Thranduil would prefer to have it. They merely smiled at one another for a moment, for there was too much to say.

“Take care of her, my friend,” Thranduil said at last, giving Malach his hand. “I have wished her happiness since first I met her.”

“You need not fear in that regard, Thranduil,” Malach assured him. “I cannot thank you enough for leading me to her.”

“Indeed, it was the least I could do.” Turning to Elemmirë, he offered a soft, conciliatory smile, knowing it could well be the last time he would see her. “I hope I have made amends enough.”

Her gray eyes glistened as she returned his smile, and without a word she wrapped her arms around him in a final affectionate farewell, remembering the happier days they had spent together. Those days were gone, but they could cherish the memory forever. “Bless you, Thranduil,” she whispered against his shoulder, holding him fiercely before he left her. “Remember me.”

Thranduil smiled again as she let him go, caught a bit off his guard by the gesture, but not unpleasantly so. “I could never forget, my lady.”

“Farewell at last, Oropher my friend,” said the king, extending his hand in parting. “I have no doubt that we shall yet hear of you and your realm in the east. May the Valar look kindly upon your road.”

“Farewell, Ereinion,” Oropher returned, accepting the hand in his own with a patrician smile. “Your own influence is growing; indeed, it will not be long ere you hear of us. Fear not to call upon us in your own need. We of Doriath remain your allies in peace and peril.”

Gil-galad smiled and bowed his proud head graciously. “I shall not forget it, my lord. Farewell to you, Thranduil; and to you, my lady. May the Valar keep you all.”

Oropher held his lady’s horse as she mounted, giving everyone else leave to do the same. A quiet flurry of renewed activity descended on the whole party as everyone prepared to be gone.

“My lord,” Gwaelas said quietly, handing Thranduil his sword belt. Thranduil took it and secured it around his waist, bearing the familiar uneven weight of his sword at one side and his dagger at the other. Next, he slung his bow and quiver over his shoulder; they were all wearing their weapons, both for the sake of general safety and because it was the most convenient way to pack them. Taking the reins, he swung into his saddle. Taking his second pony’s lead in hand, he was off.

Oropher was already leading the way down the road ahead, and the others gradually fell into place behind him. Thranduil turned into line just behind Galadhmir, but he slowed for a moment as he filed past the king. Elrond held his gaze a while, but nothing remained unsaid between them. Somehow he knew he would be seeing him again. Then he resumed his former pace and left Lindon behind him, Lindóriel falling into the next position, and the rest of their party behind her, just as a few solitary sunbeams pierced the clouded sky in the east.

We Were Young Once ~ I by Conquistadora