Something was happening, Eilianneth didn't know what. A thick shadow had settled over her stomach as she quickly walked through the palace. She found the Queen in the throne room, and immediately Miriel grabbed her by the arm and pulled her from that place.
"There is not much time."
Grey eyes had turned to steel, a look Eilianneth had seen less and less of in recent years. But Miriel stood straighter, and her grip was stronger. Long, paranoid years under Ar-Pharazon's rule had made her weary, wary and jumpy. The King had sailed away a month ago to conquer the gods, and now Miriel was more the woman that she'd always been inside. The woman that Eilianneth remembered from before the King had stolen her throne.
"My Queen, what is it?"
She closed the door to her chambers and slid the bolt into place. Turning, Miriel regarded her, fondly, before crossing the distance between them and sweeping the woman into her arms. The kiss was fiery, exciting, brimming with hope, fear, and something tangible that Eilianneth could not put her finger on. This too was something that she had not seen in far too long.
She didn't get a chance to say anything before Miriel was pushing a pack into her arms. "Go to Romenna. Take this to Lord Elendil. There is something for you in there as well."
"I am not leaving you." Shock colored Eilianneth's voice. "My Queen…Miriel!" Her voice lowered to a hiss as she said the name she could only ever say in private. "What is happening?"
"I saw it in a dream. Fire on the mountain. A wave washing everything away." Miriel grasped Eilianneth's face between her hands. She knew this face well. Had traced its features with her fingertips and with her lips until it had been set into memory. "You have been my friend since we were both little girls sneaking into the woods, but now I need you to do this last thing for me. Go to Elendil, and leave this godsforsaken island."
"I'll be killed if the Kingsmen find me with this." The irony was not lost on her. Sixty-four years they'd been in the shadow of the Usurper King and his men, most of those with Sauron turning the ear of the King and the ears of the people. Decades of human sacrifices, choking black smoke rising from what had been a golden holy temple. She'd survived that long at the Queen's side. Friend. Lover.
Occasional spy.
Miriel leaned her forehead against Eilianneth's. "You'll die if you stay here. At least this way there's hope."
"Come with me."
"No. They would search for me within hours. We'd never make it out of the city."
Eilianneth squeezed her eyes shut. "You are the Queen. Arrange an inspection of the port. Anything!"
"I am only Queen in name. My fool cousin stole my birthright. I've no power."
"The fruit of-"
"That was Isildur."
"Who had the guard schedules because of you!"
"After I had you steal them!" Miriel slid her hands down to Eilianneth's shoulders, squeezing tightly. "I did what I could, and it was not enough. This coming calamity is as much my failure as Pharazon's." She stepped back, shoulders slumping as a weight seemed to settle on them. "I should have slit that man's throat years ago."
"They would have executed you." Though Eilianneth would have gladly done the deed for her, if she'd ever had the chance.
Miriel laughed, the sound filled with barely concealed rage. "In hindsight that would have been a fair sacrifice to protect our people." Her voice became faint as she stepped back. "And now their blood will stain my hands as surely as his."
"Even the loyalists?" Eilianneth adjusted the pack in her arms. She started to open it but stopped when the Queen gave her a look.
Tone softening and anger fleeing, she nodded. "Most people just want to live their lives. They are good people, who have been fed lies."
"Lies by the rot festering within them!" Eilianneth put the pack on the floor and came over to her Queen. "Do you know what happens to a limb when there's too much rot?"
"They cut it off." The steel had returned to Miriel's eyes. Eilianneth had forgotten how tall the Queen was, as she straightened to her full height. "That is what is coming, Eilianneth, but that is not to be your fate. The Faithful should be finishing the last of their preparations. Elendil will wait. For word from me, for any stragglers, but before long it will be too late for them, and for you. Please. Go. If for no other reason than I love you."
The most dangerous words Eilianneth knew, and only twice in the last six decades had she heard them from Miriel's mouth. Their friendship was well known in the court. There were rumors, always rumors, but she was safe. No bastard could result from this affair. No challenge to the throne, and if it kept Miriel in line, Pharazon allowed it. Eilianneth was under no illusions that he hadn't known. If Eilianneth was alive, Miriel stayed in line. If Miriel stepped out of line, Eilianneth could be used as leverage. They hadn't exactly been the most secret of lovers in the century before Pharazon came to the throne. It had been an open secret.
But keeping emotions hidden had been been for her own survival, and she couldn't break down now. She nodded her head, and forced the words to leave her mouth. "I love you." She knew instantly it was the right thing to say, made more so by the fact the words weren't empty. Her heart remembered what it was like to say them freely.
"What if things had been different?" More dangerous words. More dangerous thoughts she never should have been thinking. And voicing them only meant that they both knew this was the last time they'd see each other. Eilianneth trusted Miriel, and if the Farsight had told her doom was nigh, she had to believe it.
"Without him?"
"Yes. Maybe we could have…"
"Oh, Eilianneth…" Miriel placed a hand on her wrist. "We had happiness. We had happiness together for longer than we've had this sadness."
"But looking back now, would you have married if you'd come to the throne? Found a man, birthed an heir?"
Miriel quirked her lips. "Perhaps not. My line would have ended with me, and at the end of my life I would have passed the royal scepter to Elendil or Isildur, as my ancestors would have done long ago."
"You would have been Ruling Queen," Eilianneth's voice was scarcely above a whisper. "You could have had anything you wanted. Anyone you wanted. You could have continued your father's work, brought us back from the darkness. You're only two-hundred years old! As beautiful as you were when you were forty."
"All that is but a fantasy. Hold fast to the memory of the good times, my beautiful rainbow." Miriel kissed Eilianneth's brow, and then her cheek, before finally pressing their lips together. Her voice grew fierce. "Do not open that pack until you get to Elendil. If I cannot pass the scepter to him I will give him something."
"What will you do, Miriel?"
"What I should have done a long time ago." Miriel did not move until she had seen Eilianneth go. Then she walked to the window and looked out to the West. Towards the lands of Aman where the King and the vast armies of Numenor had sailed. Her lover would be safe.
"I am surprised." Dulcet tones washed over her, and she fought off a shudder as Zigûr, Sauron walked into her chambers. "I thought your little plaything would be flitting about."
"Get out of my chambers, wizard." She let some of the tiredness creep into her voice, and didn't look at him.
"Perhaps I should send men looking for her. Ensure that she is returned safely."
Miriel could almost feel the smile radiating off of him. How she loathed this dark creature. His silver tongue and the lives he'd snuffed out. "She said she wanted to give me something for my birthday, but she'd left it at her family's estate." She turned her head towards him, finally. "Are you done here?"
"Obstinate." He clucked his tongue, and waggled his finger at her like she was a child. "When your husband returns."
"He will not return, and we both know it."
Zigûr's smile told her she was not wrong. He bowed, mockingly, then turned and left her chambers. Miriel sagged against the window. By the time his men arrived at Eilianneth's estate, she'd already be in Romenna and safe.
"Alámenë, Eilianneth."
By the time Eilianneth had reached Romenna, most of Elendil's ships were anchored far out in harbor. The city felt abandoned, the only people left behind those who had volunteered to stay, or were too old to go. At the docks she used the signal flags, and waited for someone to row towards her.
There were several men in the boat, and she greeted them in elvish. "I come with biddings from Tar-Miriel. She tasked me with bringing something to Lord Elendil."
One man pulled his hood back, and Elendil's smiling face greeted her. "Eilianneth! It has been too many years. Come on, quickly now. They've probably followed you."
She let him guide her into the little boat, and sat, clutching her pack as her situation started to sink in. She glanced back as they rowed away from shore, and knew that she'd never step foot on her homeland again. "She would not come with me. I am sorry."
"Has she seen anything?"
Eilianneth lifted her eyes to meet Elendil's. "She said she saw the end, and that it would be soon. She told me to give you something in this pack." She started to open it, eager now to see what she'd been tasked with. A sharp gasp escaped her as she lifted up an orb, about as large as Elendil's fists closed together.
The man laughed, reaching over to take it from her and wrapping it in cloth. "Palantíri!. Oh, that makes seven. Thank you, Miriel."
"Seven?" She'd never seen one in person before. It was beautiful. "You've stolen seven?"
"We had three of our own, and but the other three we've acquired through various means. And now this." He winked, tucking the orb into his coat.
"She said she regretted she could not transfer the scepter to you."
Elendil's smile faded, and he nodded solemnly. "I understand. We've considered several ways to rescue her, but I think she would not have considered the losses worth it."
His ship was huge, and packed to the brim with refugees. It was difficult to find any place to take a quiet moment. She wasn't ready to look through the pack yet. Her heart was still with Miriel.
A day later she was woken from a fitful nap by thunder. When she looked to Numenor, she realized that was not thunder. Fire had erupted from the top of the holy mountain, and she could see the ground shaking all over. Buildings were beginning to fall and the ocean grew choppy. She heard sailors calling orders as the wind picked up. On shore, the shaking was only getting worse. Liquid fire ran down the sides of the mountain. Far in the distance she thought she saw spires collapsing in the capitol.
She found Elendil peering through a spyglass. "Do you see anything, my lord?"
"The sacrificial dome has collapsed," he replied, some satisfaction in his voice. "But I can't really see too much of Armenelos at this distance. I hope the Queen has found shelter."
Eilianneth glanced towards the mountain again. The Meneltarma rose up from the center of Numenor, looming over the entire continent. At the very top was the holiest place for the Faithful. She gripped the railing tight enough to get splinters in her palms. "No. She's going to climb the Meneltarma. To pray for our people. To pray for us."
The Lord of Andunie lowered his glass, and put his arm around the woman. "I am afraid I cannot see the path up, even with my telescope."
Nodding, she allowed herself to lean in to the tall man. "When she sets her mind to something it is hard to dissuade her."
Elendil remembered his fiftieth birthday, and how Miriel had arranged an adventure involving reinforced frames, cloth, and a high cliff. He'd nearly broken his neck and Eilianneth had sprained her ankle.
The mountain erupted into flame again, and there was no more time for memory. He ran for the wheel, and there was only the ship and the sea, and then the wave. That horrible wave, taking with it his home and his people and so many of his friends.
Eilianneth remembered the water. How it churned around them, how it lifted them so high into the sky that she thought they would leave the earth behind. The ship had rocked and bobbed, twisting like a toy in a stream. When they'd at last landed, it had been days of building shelter and taking count of the survivors.
Her world had ended, and in the early morning light some weeks after the Downfall, she opened the pack, and pulled out a book. She was familiar with it. Black leather and thick, she'd seen Miriel writing or drawing in it. She'd given it to her a hundred years ago.
It was filled with words and pictures. Poetry and stories, sketches of the city and people. Plenty of Eilianneth. She gently touched the outside of one of Miriel's self-portraits. "Until we meet again."