A near fatal encounter with the Serpents of the North leaves Greenwood the Great's queen with but one choice, one that cost her own life, but she makes a promise to her beloved King, born of a love that has already lasted through more than an age of...
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Third Age of Middle Earth – 93
Dadwenathan le, fae nín. Gwestan im an le men hirathan. Dartho an im... Melethron... faeraranuir nín!
The storms that had raged for days abated earlier that day, but bringing scant relief, and evening descended early with a viciousness that embraced Eryn Galen with more than just an absence of light. It felt more like a bitter surrender and it filled Celyndailiel with a fear that she had never before felt. She could not settle, no matter what she did, as if she could still hear the thunder, sense the lightning that had split the sky, because it had settled inside of her.
She put aside the book, the pages of which she'd been staring at, unseeing, since before dusk fell and climbing to her feet, walked slowly toward where her young son rested, seeking comfort there.
It wasn't to be.
Though she found joy in her son, in running her fingers through his golden hair, and the softness of his answering smile, the growing dread that had been growing in her heart took hold, and with it, a dimming of the light in which she had happily dwelt through all the ceaseless centuries of her life.
In its dimming she felt herself becoming unaccustomedly chilled, and then, as though from afar, she thought she heard an Elven horn, sounding out a cry of wanting in the gathering night. At its second sounding, she recognised the note of her husband's battle horn, but that could not be – for her beloved was far away to the north; called away to campaign against the ever present Shadow that stalked the heart of all the Eldar, and sought dominion over all the free folk of Middle Earth. Yet... doubt began to stalk her spirit and without thinking, she reached out along the bonds of their matrimony, seeking his mind, his soul... prepared only to meet the steel of his denial. Never, when he was in battle, would he allow her that closeness, meaning, she knew, to shelter her from the horrors of war as he always had, in his many ways. She expected to be rebuffed, but this time there was something else... a terrible pain she met in place of that mental barricade – an absence.
Lau...
Almost before the horn sounded a third time – and closer then – she found her feet, hushing her son, and bidding him remain as he was. Then in haste, unmatched in all her years she began the long descent toward the outer courtyard, gathering ladies and stewards at her heels, reaching the doorway just as the first of the horses clattered into the paved enclosure.
"My Queen," Her husband's second dismounted. His usually measured, calm movements seemed hurried and discordant. It sped her steps toward him, but as she reached the foot of the stair, shook his head.
"Stay back, my lady," he said, his voice trailing off as he added, "You cannot..."
She had already ceased to hear him. Movement beyond him drew her eye away, and a litter carried between four armoured Elves passed beneath the arch and into the courtyard, and on the litter, a figure, motionless – dim in her sight – lay covered and yet, peeking from beneath the shrouding cloak, she recognised the tooling on the armour, and the dread she carried heavily within her struck like a viper, swift and full of poison.
