News that I was back in Edoras had spread and I was being called to attend births again, which meant I had only taken to my bed in the hour before dawn. Not surprisingly I'd fallen asleep on the skins in the parlour by the fire with Dorn after offering to watch him while Alwil and Fraca went riding in the afternoon and Wídwine went to call on a friend. Dorn lay on his back and I slept next to him on my side, arms curled around his little body. A knock at the door woke me but thankfully he only smacked his lips twice in his sleep at the disruption.

I stood and brushed off my clothes before going to the table and arranging myself as best I could to greet whoever the maid let in. The lad who was shown into the room had the air of a household servant and to my surprise looked familiar. It was one of the guards who had let Éomer and I into Etan's house the night of Dorn's presentation party. The familiar air of nervous determination he had about him had me on my feet at once—he'd come on behalf of someone in need.

He bowed and began to introduce himself formally to me, to beg my pardon for the intrusion but I cut him off. "What is it lad? Who is ill?"

"Lord Etan, my lady, he's taken ill. He cut his hand a day ago on his sword edge and it festered. The steward sent me to fetch you, Lady, he said without physic our master will not live through the night."

"Is he in the city?"

"No, my lady, he's returned to his seat."

I swore in Westron. The lad spoke none of the language but my tone was enough to make him blush and shift his weight nervously. The path to Dunharrow had been hard enough on the ride down but there had been quite a bit of snow since and a freezing rain had passed only a few days since. I didn't need to ask the lad how his ride down had been. Besides dusk was already beginning to fall over the city. I had no time to waste though. I went to the fire and lifted Dorn and the fur together, wrapping him in it snugly. Inside he stretched two chubby arms—to my delight he was beginning to put on weight and height almost daily—cooed softly and opened his eyes.

"Hush Dorn. Go back to sleep darling," I told him in Sindarin.

But he seemed to have picked up on the nervous energy in the room and began to scream, flailing his legs and arms in abject misery. I picked him up and bounced him for a moment and he calmed, clinging to me with all his strength.

"Go saddle me a horse. The tan one in the stables and bring it around. Saddle another for yourself if your mount is tired. Tell the groomsmen I've sent you if they give you any trouble and tell them it's urgent. Meet me at Lady Haroon's and be quick about it, lad."

"Yes, my lady."

I fetched a bassinet and laid Dorn in it. He began to scream immediately when I put him back down, reaching for me and wailing with all the strength in his young lungs. His fist curled in my hair with surprising force but I soon overcame the little fingers and covered him with blankets. I paid no mind to the screams of protest, having no time to spare. I covered him with two more blankets and then fetched my warmest cloak and boots. I left a note for Alwil telling her I'd been called to tend a patient but I had taken Dorn to Wídwine.

No snow was falling yet but an ominous chill wind swept through the cross-streets not protected by the bend of the hill and a strange quiet in the city that spoke of snow to come. The inhabitants of Edoras almost seemed to sense the coming snow and most of them had chosen to be inside, by the a fire rather than out in the streets. Dorn's screams echoed off the empty streets, making my heart and mind race even faster. The purple light of dusk made the chill seem more intense, penetrating through cloak and fur.

I walked quickly down the familiar side streets to Lady Haroon's and was quickly ushered into the parlour where Wídwine was taking tea with her old friend. Both older women rose at the sight of me. "Hello, Lothíriel! What an unexpected..." Wídwine trailed off seeing my expression.

I curtsied to both deeply. "I'm sorry to intrude, Lady Haroon but I come on an urgent mission. A servant for Lord Etan has come with news that he has fallen gravely ill. I must ride to see him and have come to see Dorn safe before I ride out."

I bent and picked up the baby, attempting to comfort him again now that we were safely inside. He clung to me but this time could not be consoled, beating little fists against my breast in anger for how I had ignored him. I held him out to his grandmother who took him and bounced him. But she could no more console him than I. He buried his face in her locks and sobbed.

"You can't mean to go tonight!" Lady Haroon said over the sounds of the wailing babe. "A storm is coming and the path is surely already deadly treacherous at this time of year in the daylight, never mind at night."

"I mean to go immediately."

"Let me at least call for Fraca to escort you," Wídwine insisted. "You cannot go alone!"

"She cannot go at all! A girl of her age, a Gondorian no less, riding through up path to Firienfield? At night and in this weather? It's madness, Wídwine, tell her!"

"I cannot wait for Fraca to return. Time is of the essence."

"I shall ride with you then," Wídwine said.

"No. Etan's lad will be my guide. I cannot take Dorn away from all he knows. He'll need you Wídwine. And you'll need to explain to Alwil where I've gone."

"Lothíriel you cannot go!" Wídwine insisted, catching my arm as I turned back toward the door. "Éomer would be furious if I allowed you to go. And the debt we would owe your father if anything were to happen to you on the road, if you were not to make it safe back to Dol Amroth..."

"There is no time to argue, Wídwine, and nothing to argue about. I cannot delay."

"Lothíriel stop! As your chaperon here I cannot allow you to go! What would your father think? What would Éomer think?"

There was a large and perhaps very reasonable part of me that screamed for me to listen to Wídwine. She was after all a native of Rohan, much more experienced with the land in winter and what she was saying was undoubtedly true.

I thought back to that first glimpse of Edoras when Amrothos had told me about the paths up through the mountains that led to the streams that fed the city and I had thought I would never be able to see them even in summer. Now I proposed to ride those same paths in the dead of winter with night falling and with only a lad of thirteen or fourteen to guide me and against the advice of someone I knew was much more experienced than I was.

How had I changed so much in a year?

I imagined what I would have said if it was Ivriniel who was telling me not to go. Would I trust her instinct over my own and stay until morning? Or Amrothos? Or my father? Or even Éomer? Éomer who had such a strange power over me, that bewitching way that his very presence seemed to fill me with an anxious desire to please him. That he would not want me to go was obvious. He hadn't allowed me to accompany him to the campaign against the Wild Men after all when any voice of reason would have told him to do so. I had obeyed him then, despite all my wishes. His was the judgment on the battlefield.

But mine was the judgment in the sickbed. As I had been when Alwil was in peril, I felt the same calm conviction come over me. By my own judgment would I act and no other's.

"I am not asking for your permission, Wídwine. I am telling you what I intend to do," I said, my words echoing those I had told my father many days ago when it was Alwil who's life was in peril as if they were a spell that might imbue me again with the same unbending determination I had felt then.

I pushed the door back open and she let my wrist go reluctantly. I went back out to the frozen street. The lad from Etan's household was coming up the street on a horse, another was lashed to his pommel. He swung down at the gate and waited for me expectantly.

Wídwine followed me out into the bleak, cold dusk, Dorn screaming in her arms as I swung up into the saddle. "The Valar protect you, beloved one," she said, reaching up to catch a hand and press a fierce kiss to it. "May the fates bring me back my second daughter, hale and whole."

"I will be careful, Wídwine, I swear it."

She whispered something in Rohirric that I didn't quite understand but seemed to be more directed at fate's ears then my own so I squeezed her hand once and then let it go. The lad and I turned our horses towards the gate. The wind whipped at my face, pulling away my cloak and I fought to keep from closing my eyes against the stinging cold of the night air.

In truth the way was trickier even than I'd imagined. Unlike the night we had ridden down from Dunharrow this narrow cut stone path was now completely obscured with snow and ice. To our left was a sheer mountain face and to the right a terrifying plunge to the valley below as we wound our way very slowly upward. Every so often the way was cut by a deep ravine, little streams that came down from the Starkhorn cut deep trenches in the path over which had been built, at best, stone bridges, at worst, little more than a few fallen logs nailed together, barely wide enough to dismount and pass with the horses. The path was icy as well and though we took it slowly my heart was in my throat with every step.

After the lad's horse slipped and nearly took what would have been a fatal plunge down the hillside I slid down from my mount and shook my head. "It's no use going forward on horseback. You'll have to turn back with our mounts," I told him.

"My lady I cannot let you go alone. There are wolves in the woods beyond this path and with the snow that may come at any moment you could freeze to death before you reach the field."

"I'll be fine," I said with a confidence I did not feel at all. "They fear the flame and I'll have a torch with me and a better cloak than you have. And there's no use both of us risking death tonight when one of us is enough."

He hesitated but I didn't wait for either of us to think better of it. I lit my torch from his and squared my shoulders against the climb. I was a little less than halfway to the plateau I gauged, another two hours walk and I would be at Etan's keep. It wasn't snowing but there was the occasional gust of wind that whipped down the mountain, stirring up the snow enough that at some points I had to stop as the world became a haze of white so dense I couldn't see where I was putting my next footfall. The snow also obscured the true path and I had to go slowly to make sure I was on solid ground and not wandering out over a ledge with nothing but snow and ice beneath me that could fall away at any second.

At one point the path narrowed to a stone bridge that I remembered from my recent descent for the old, gnarled oak that grew on the far side, roots tangled between old stones. It had seemed charming at the time, a rather romantic scene. But the recent frost had proved too much for bridge to bear the strain of the tree. One side had crumbled away, leaving a break in the path a little more than half my own height and only a sheer cliff face where the foot of the bridge had been. I could just make out the remains of it in the deep ravine below in the bright moonlight, like broken teeth in the stream. The stream below had frozen into ice many months ago but the fall to the rocks beneath would almost certainly be fatal. For a long time I contemplated my route forward, contemplating if I had the strength and materials to fashion a safe way across for myself.

A sudden sound made me freeze. The clatter of horse's hooves were soft in the snow but I was listening acutely for sounds of danger in the muffled stillness of the quiet wind coming down the valley. I turned just as he rounded the last bend. He stopped when he saw me. In the light of his torch I could see that his face was a mask of fury. Behind him were two other riders who held back while he dismounted. He handed the reins of his horse to one of them and advanced towards me a few paces.

Éomer had never looked so much like a king to me as he did in that moment. He wore no crown but the light from his torch, and the torches of his men, seemed to gather about the golden crown of his head. The stern look, the anger, the determination in his eye—these were what had made his uncle choose him to lead a people in the aftermath of the greatest war in living memory.

"Lothíriel it's time to turn back."

"I can't, Etan needs my help." I didn't bother to ask how he knew where I was. Wídwine must have gone straight to find him once I'd left. As he and the others were better riders than the lad and me it had been easy work to overtake us.

"The path is too dangerous in the dark."

"I will not turn back."

"I will drag you back to Edoras if needs be, Lothíriel." His voice was like the cracking of a great bough in the cold.

In the light of his torch his shadow was cast back against the path behind him. It seemed huge against the wall of the sheer mountain face behind him, a visual representation of the rage that emanated from him. If he wanted to it wouldn't take much of his strength to overpower me. It would be easy enough to throw me over one shoulder if he had the will to do it.

Temptation sprang up in the cowardly part of my mind. In his anger I felt sure that he would dare what even my father had not: to physically prevent me from my goal. How easy would it be to allow him to do so? I could imagine perfectly that he would take me by the wrist or the waist to hoist me onto the back of his horse. Once there I would be too sensible to struggle with him further on the treacherous way back to Edoras. You would be back in Edoras, out of the wind and cold, safe. And no one could say that you didn't do all you could, no one could say that you didn't try. Be sensible, be reasonable.

But that quavering plea in my head was the voice of the girl I had left behind many months ago. "I will not submit to that." My voice did not waver as I spoke. I'm not asking for your permission father. I'm telling you what I intend to do. Again there was an echo in my tone of those words from so many months ago.

Here was a man who was not my father but who had always had been able to command me. At a word I would have walked over hot coals, at a glance I would freeze in place, for a request I would accept to see him at great pain to myself. But even Éomer could not stop me in this task. I had felt a similar implacability of his own will the morning I had hidden the juniper branch in his saddlebags. The dearest voice in the world could have begged him not to go but only in vain. He was a warrior and the battlefield was an arena in which no judgment but his own could be substituted. This was my battlefield.

I was the healer and mine was the judgment.

Before he could react or I could change my mind I turned and sprinted toward the chasm. "Lothíriel no!" The shout behind me fell on deaf ears for I had already leapt. My leg bent and propelled me forward into black air.

It seemed to me that time froze for a moment as I hung over the rocks below and then the next thing I knew the breath was knocked from my lungs as I hit the edge of the breech of the other side. I had made it but just, my elbows hooked over the edge of the crevasse but feet dangling into thin air. The torch fell from my fingers into the gorge below and I screamed out as I fought for purchase on the cliff's edge, feet scrabbling beneath me against the sheer wall of dirt, trying to find any belay that might stop my descent. Beneath them the wall fell away, small stones crumbling easily as for one horrifying moment I slid backward.

A second later Éomer impacted next to me. He must have started to run the instant I had, hoping to catch me before the leap. He no doubt would have made the jump if it hadn't been for the sword and armour he was wearing. Unlike me he'd had the sense to abandon the torch even before he leaped and found purchase on a frozen root beneath the snow. I heard him hiss slightly in pain as the muscles of his injured side jerked taught against the labour of stopping his slide downwards. He wrapped the arm that he was not using to support his own weight around my waist, catching me as I slid. In another moment he managed to sling me up over the edge of the chasm so that at least my weight was above the edge. I scrambled forward on hands and feet and collapsed in utter terror, face down and panting in the snow. My breath fogged in the cold air, melting a little pocket of snow before my face.

Éomer pulled himself over the edge of the chasm as well and crawled forward. He flipped me over onto my back, hands checking my face, neck and extremities for damage. "Are you hurt?" he managed to gasp out. "Lothíriel, are you hurt?"

The breath knocked out of me I could only pant and shake my head, rolling over to gasp into the snow. He collapsed next to me on the snow, rolling onto his back and letting out a long breath of relief. We lay together for a long moment, side by side and panting in the snow. Through the thin screen of barren branches of the trees the moon and sky had never looked more beautiful. The stars were a blanket of jewels in a dark blue ocean and I felt that I had never appreciated them fully before. How glad I was to be alive that moment.

I turned my head to face Éomer. In the silvery moonlight his profile was so precious to me: the strong line of his jaw and the surprisingly soft lips outlined as clearly as if it were day. I had expected immediate anger but instead, like me, he seemed to be content to watch the clouds move across the moon for a few moments. My heart was hammering and my breath gasping.

He raised himself onto one elbow, peering down at me in the silvery light. "You could have been killed in that leap." His voice was soft, not angry. Éomer was known for his rage but there was no trace of it in him. The fury he'd had coming up the side of the mountain he had left behind in the leap across the chasm. Instead there was only respectful terror and somehow I was somehow sure that he felt it only for me. He could have been killed leaping after me but spared no thought for himself. I had barely managed it in nothing but a heavy cloak. He was wearing full armour and a sword at his belt. And yet he thought only of the danger to me.

But perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps he hadn't left the anger behind but only transmitted it to me when he'd hoisted me over the edge of the chasm. With an anger that surprised even me I shoved him back. Out of nothing I could distinguish my own fury erupted from me like a poppy bud bursting forth with no warning. My hands found his shoulders and shoved him as hard as I could. "How dare you! How dare you leap after me! You bloody, great, valar-cursed fool!" I punctuated each sentence with a shove to his chest that he barely seemed to feel through his armour. "You are a king without an heir! Take a care with your life!"

He caught my hands in his and I struggled against him with all my strength but to no avail. Tears blurred my eyes, freezing on my cheeks almost as soon as they fell. He pushed me back against the snow and rolled atop me, pushing my hands back into the snow at either side of my head. I flailed against him, but he did not struggle back, only let me tire out without comment. When I finally stilled against him he tilted his head down, letting it rest against my shoulder. His breath was hot against my neck. It was not proper, but we were beyond such formalities. We were halfway up a mountain, alone, having leaped across a chasm together and he had had his hands over my waist to pull me up over the edge.

"Lothíriel! Lothíriel, please!" He clasped my wrists together. "Peace, peace. Lothíriel."

I struggled against him for a few more moments before finally calming myself in his arms. "I cannot be at peace!"

"Lothíriel there is no going back." His voice was strangely gentle, almost regretful. "There is no undoing what has been done."

He was whispering words to me in some older language, something I did not speak, the language of the Éothéod no doubt. His voice was low, soothing, the tone he used to approach a horse who was terrified. When I too gentled under the spell of his tone. When he felt me stop resisting he stood and pulled me to my feet, brushing off the snow from my cloak as if I was a child. He went to a nearby tree and snapped off two large branches. "Do you have any bandages?" He asked.

I had already bent and opened my box of medicines, rifling through them to make sure none had been broken in the leap. I nodded and passed him two along with some spirits, which would help start the flame as well. He wrapped the ends of the branches and found some frozen moss for kindling and set to coaxing a flame to them using a blade from his boot and a small stone as flint. When he had two new torches for us he handed me one and then took my hand in his. "It's at least another hour's climb to the top from here and from there the road must be passable or the lad wouldn't have been able to make the trip to Edoras. Step only where I step and try not to make too much noise once we're near the top. It's not uncommon for even a noise to provoke an avalanche of snow."

I nodded my understanding.

He went to the edge of the chasm where the two guards stood. Both of them had run to the edge but neither had leapt. They must have seen that Éomer had made the leap and held themselves back. From their grim faces I could tell that both felt the weight of seeing their King in such peril.

"Return to Edoras. I will escort the lady for now." Both seemed to teeter on the edge of protesting before thinking better of it. "Send word to Lady Wídwine that she is safely in my company."

"Yes, my lord."

More than once we had to stop when the wind picked up and neither of us could see where we to put our feet. It was slow going as we ascended toward the final plateau where Etan's keep lay but finally the path levelled off into a steadily uphill but at least identifiable trail. Éomer was almost pulling me along by the time we reached the crest. Only pride, his and mine, stopped him from picking me as he had that night in Edoras when he'd found me in my sodden shoes. He'd opened up his cloak and wrapped one side of it over me for extra protection but still I was shaking uncontrollably, teeth chattering loudly when we made it to the ramparts of Etan's keep. I was cold enough to accept being so close to him but not so cold that I was immune to the effect. The smell of him enveloped me: all clean horse, hair, pine and the oil used to keep saddle leather supple. Guards ran out to usher us in and the mouth of the keep was flung open, warm candlelight spilling out.

"She's come!" A female voice shouted as we were nearly pulled across the threshold. "Bema be praised she's come!"

A woman who looked to be the head housekeeper was the first to notice that their King was in their midst. She dipped a low curtsey. "My lord!" she breathed as she recognized my companion. "My lord, Éomer King!"

"Take me to Etan." I was shivering but I managed to keep my voice and teeth from chattering.

The servants all looked to their king but he only nodded. "Take the lady where she asks. Bring her hot tea and bank the fire for her warmth."

A girl took my cloak, sodden and dripping from the snow, and then led me up the main stairs. Éomer followed silently behind us as she led us down the hall and to the grand bedchamber that faced out over the northern ramparts. She pushed open the door and the smell and heat rolled over us like a wave crashing on the beach.

Etan lay in his bed, his eyes wide and roving but clearly unseeing. His face was red with fever and he was sweating, his breath coming fast and ragged. The servants had stoked the fire to a roaring flame and the room was like an oven. He kept trying to throw back the covers but was too weak and delirious to struggle much. The room smelled of poisonous illness and his sweat, an inhuman and foul combination that almost made me recoil back.

Instead I moved forward to the side of the bed and un-slung the case. Already fatigue, fear and the chill in my bones were falling away from my conscious thought. I pulled back the covers and took out his arm. The wound itself had been bandaged but thick, purulent fluid was soaking through and the stench of death was already upon it. Above the bandage though I could see the dark cords of blood poisoning like the tendrils of some monstrous creature reaching up over it towards Etan's precious heart.

I met Éomer's gaze. He too had come into the room and stood on the other side of the bed, looking down at his old friend. For the first time ever I thought I saw something like fear in the lines of his face. In one way or another he'd lost his parents to illness, lost Theodred too, almost lost Éowyn to it. On the battlefield he could fight back but here, against disease, he had no weapons. For a moment I felt I could see the young boy he had once been in him, unprepared for death that came swiftly and bargained with no one: a strong but sweet lad who might have wiped away Éowyn's tears for their parents but I wagered had never showed her his.

"I'll have to take the hand. It can't be saved." I told him. "I'll take it just above the elbow to be sure there's nothing left that's mortal to him. We'll need to move fast so the blood poison doesn't spread to his heart."

He nodded. "What do you need me to do?"

"Clean your sword."

I called for a wooden board, spirits, boiling water and fresh bandages. I threw some herbs to ward off inflammation into one pot to steep. Later I would spend the rest of the night trickling as much of it down Etan's throat as I could but that would be a task for later. We shifted Etan over in the bed and put down a lap writing desk that I took from his bedside table.

I affixed his hand to the surface with bandages and then set to cleaning the site where I intended to cut with spirits. It was, in someway, a blessing that the man was so lost in illness that he could not comprehend what we were doing. We worked in silence. Éomer stood by the fire, rubbing spirits into his blade as I worked to clean up Etan. I got out several needles and loaded them with thread, several bandages and laid them out.

Finally I took out the small leather belt that Ivriniel had had fashioned just for this purpose and cinched it round his upper arm as tightly as possible. The belt would prevent some blood from entering the arm but not all. I still intended to cut a mortal vessel and all precautions must be taken. When the blood began to flow I would have little enough time to work before he exsanguinated and needed all arranged for me prior. When we could delay no longer I nodded to Éomer.

"Milk of the poppy?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Not with his pulse so fast and weak. He'll need to endure it and I doubt he'll remember it. He's close enough to the veil that the mortal world will not trouble him much."

He nodded. "Alright.

"Cut through the arm only to just beneath the bone. I shall do the rest."

Ivriniel herself couldn't have managed it better. I had worried that he might hesitate to do such harm to his great friend but he took only a moment to master himself before he set himself to do as I asked. He made it through the flesh and bone with a single effort but managed not to sever the skin or tissue beneath. Blood sprayed out over us and the bed as Etan struggled to sit up, mouth open in a silent scream of unexpected pain. Éomer was at his side at once, holding his old friend down by the shoulders so I could work. I wasted no time finding the two main vessels I needed and stitching over the top of them. Etan cried out each time I dug in the needle but I paid him no heed, focused only on finding the next thing I needed to sow over that was bleeding. Éomer did not need to be told to hold his old friend down as I worked. My fingers were soon slick with blood but I worked on heedlessly. The stain beneath me was large enough but at least it was not continuing to grow.

When I felt that there was nothing left that was bleeding too much I turned my attention to the skin. A small dagger I kept soaking in spirits for just such an occasion did the trick to take off the rest of the arm. I left myself a small patch of skin and flesh to fold up over the stump of his arm and then sowed it into place. It would serve both to protect the wound from contamination but also as padding against a bone that could protrude painfully into skin. I cut the last stitch and then wiped the wound with spirits and a past to keep out inflammation, then wrapped it in a clean bandage.

"These sheets will need to be changed I'm afraid," I said to no one in particular as I released the little belt on his upper arm.

"I shall call for a servant to help me do so." Éomer replied.

I had almost forgotten he was still in the room. I looked up, my own eyes glazed slightly. It felt almost as if I had been sowing in a bloody field forever and I had forgotten what it was like to see a human face or anything else but raw tissue.

Éomer lifted his old friend up in his arms as the servants changed out the sheets for fresh ones. A basin was brought for me to clean my hands in and put in the bloody equipment. I went to the fire and ladled up some of the tea into a small cup. I went and sat on the bed beside Etan, waiting for it to cool. The old man had slumped over from the pain but still his eyes moved, restless and unseeing

When the tea was cool enough I brought it to his lips and to my surprise he drank it willingly, gulping down the liquid without hesitation.

Kneeling on the bed next to him I leaned my head back against the headboard. "Valar give him grace to see the dawn," I murmered in Sindarin.

I must have fallen asleep at some point in the night because the next thing I knew I was waking in clean sheets. Someone had taken off the blood-soaked dress and left me in nothing but my shift. By the sunlight pouring in from the window it was already late in the afternoon. I sat up in bed and pushed off the covers. A dress was hanging on the door of the dresser so I began to pull it over my head when a young lady opened the door. "Oh, my lady, you're awake! Let me help you!"

She pulled the gown over my head and began to pull the stays of the bodice. "How is your master this morning?"

She smiled. "You should see for yourself my lady."

Etan was propped up by pillows only but even from first glance I could tell that his faculties had returned to him. The sweat from his brow was gone and so was the flush of his face. His skin was near as pale as the sheets he lay on from the blood loss but he smiled when he saw me at the door. "So here is the hero and lady who came to rescue me."

I blushed. "Westu hal, Etan."

"Westu hal, Lothíriel."

I came to sit on the edge of his bed. "I hear you were up the whole night pouring this stuff down my throat. I feel obliged to tell you I shall drink it all of my own accord from now on to save you the trouble." He gestured to the tea. "The servants won't allow me anything else until you tell them I'm allowed anyway," he added with a wink.

I smiled. "Anything you like you can eat but I would start with a broth first to see if you tolerate it. After that perhaps a porridge tomorrow with as much beef broth as possible. You'll need your strength back but your stomach isn't likely to tolerate food just yet."

"That's a good girl."

"I am sorry, Etan... about the arm."

He shrugged. "What for, lass? It's not even my sword hand after all. I shan't miss it much."

"Still... I am sorry."

"You saved my life, lass, at great risk to your own... and damage to you. It's me who should be apologizing to you. If I'd been in any state to protest I never would have allowed the servants to send for you." He bit his lip. "You coming up here with the roads the way they are... it's not worth the life of an old man like me."

I shook my head. "Don't think of it, Etan. I made it safe enough. No harm's been done."

With his remaining hand he took mine. "You're a good lass, Lothíriel. But I wouldn't say no harm's been done."

What he meant by that I couldn't fathom.

"Just rest, Etan. You need to regain your strength."

He called for breakfast in his chambers and we took it together: soft boiled eggs, dark bread smeared thick with butter and venison sausage warmed to nearly bursting with tea so strong it stood to scald the tongue for me and a broth for him. I sat on the edge of his bed watching him work out how to use the spoon with one hand and I knew he would be all right. The fever had broken and strength was returning to him. He would live out the rest of his days in full of health and vigor.

I lingered over breakfast with Etan, and then spent the day reading by the fire in his room. Etan had a rather impressive library for such a small seat and I spread out a few books that looked tempting on the thick hearthrug to read. The only thing I missed was Dorn's little body next to me as I found I was quite comfortable. The staff was more than attentive—bringing me all the tea and small meat pies I cared to eat, their way of thanking me for saving a beloved master. Etan slept for most of the day, waking only to sip his broth and for me to check his bandages. His body was on the way to healing but was far from wholly mended yet.

Éomer was gone from the keep. I knew that as instinctively as I knew where my own elbow was. The presence of him was not in the halls or air. There were no maids lingering wistfully in the hall to catch a glimpse of their handsome king, no young lads sharpening their swords conspicuously in the yard, hopeful that he might fancy a practice match. The confident footsteps, somehow unmistakable, did not ring out over the flagstones.

I had assumed that Éomer had gone back to Edoras in the morning before I'd awakened so I was surprised when I heard a horse clatter into the gate of the keep just before dusk and knew, somehow, that he had returned.

My natural inclination would have been to flee back to my rooms, perhaps drag a chair and prop it against the door. But that was silly of course. I had made my decision and now I would have to face the consequences. I went to the mirror and arranged my appearance as best I could. The maid had done my hair up in a simple braid and the borrowed dress was a fine simple grey that was a bit too big for me but finely made. I put on my own boots and cloak and brushed imaginary dust from my bodice.

The housekeeper and my maid had already gathered on the steps when I arrived, awaiting his arrival. She held the cup of mead out to me with a deep courtesy and I took it without remark. As the only lady in the house it was my duty to welcome him back, much though I did not wish to face him. We stood in silence, staring into the falling dark. All I could hear was the booming rushing of blood in my ears as my heart pounded out of control and yet there was a queer calm tension in my body. I felt like a string stretched too tight, anticipating that I might snap at any moment.

He came from the stables, accompanied by one of the lads from the keep. My brow wrinkled as I made out his shape in the dimness. It seemed strangely distorted and only once he was halfway up the steps and properly into the light pouring forth from the mouth of the door did I realize that he was carrying a rather fine stag over his shoulders. He had been hunting? Whatever for? There was a fine wood behind the keep to be sure but hardly a shortage of meat in the keep, giving by the number of meat pies I had demolished.

But I had little enough time to dwell on the strangeness of that. He hefted down the stag and handed it to the man who was with him. He strolled forward and took the welcoming chalice from my trembling fingers. Given that I stood in the light and him the shadow on the walk up from the stables he would have been able to see me well for many paces but he stood for a moment looking down at my face, turned up to his in the semi-darkness. It was not a moment of hesitation I would say but rather of contemplation.

Then he drained the chalice and handed it back.

"Westu hal, Éomer."

"Westu hal, Lothíriel."

"The lady and I will take a drink together in the study before dinner after I've freshened up." He said to the housekeeper.

"Yes, my lord."

I went to go and check on Etan again before dinner and found he was awake, taking a bowl of broth. I changed his bandage for the night and then poured him a glass of ale as he said none of the servants would. I took it as a good sign that he was already asking for ale but at my request he accepted that I water it down quite a bit. Éomer was waiting for me when I arrived in the study.

A fire had been built and was crackling cheerily, an obscene counterpoint to the palpable tension in the air. He was standing at the side and gazing into the flames. He'd changed into a rather formal tunic, one he must have borrowed from Etan. It was the green of the house of Eorl with silver brocade as trimming. He straightened when I entered and bowed rather formally, kissed my knuckles and then poured me a glass of the same mead he was drinking. He bade me sit on one of the chairs by the fire but then returned to his standing vigil beside the hearth.

I swallowed, and took a sip of mead for courage. "Please, Éomer, don't be angry with me. Surely you see what I did it only to save Etan. Does that not count for something?"

His voice was tender. "No, lass, I'm not angry with you. What you did was a very brave thing indeed, worthy of a song even."

"Then why did you leave? Why won't you look at me?" I fought to keep my voice even but a little wobble of the tears that threatened me slipped through.

All the courage I'd had was spent. In the moment that I'd needed it, it had come and for that I was grateful but now, fickle ally that it was, it had deserted me. I took another sip of the mead, hoping that the pungent liquid would dry my eyes but it only made the lump in my throat seem to ache worse.

My heart felt like it was being squeezed tight in my chest as if some cold, invisible hand had reached through my breastbone to the warm centre of all I held most dear. I hadn't allowed myself to mourn the loss of him the first time. I had had the discipline, the self-preservation to push him from my mind. But to loose him a second time, because of a choice I had made seemed to be too much for me.

I wanted to fall forward on my knees and beg him not to hate me, not to dismiss me and send me away. I might have done so too if it were not for the way my throat had frozen around all speech.

"Lothíriel, forgive me, but I needed to clear my head. I went hunting because it is one thing I knew would bring me peace." He grimaced, jaw tightening even more. "A cowardly act I know but I needed to delay... to spend one more day before I did what I knew I needed to do."

My blood felt as icy as the Snowborn. What did he mean what he needed to do? Would he send me back to Dol Amroth? Banish me from Rohan for disobeying him? I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant but my throat felt too tight and no breath came out to give them power.

He seemed to know my question though. His eyes, usually as warm as a cloudless sky over Edoras at mid summer, were like two chips of icy, hard and set firm and unbreakable.

"I sent word to Wídwine this morning to let her know that we arrived safely... and that we are to be married."

TBC

AN: Okay as always huge props to LBJ. She's 1) a miracle worker and 2) keeps me honest to the source material. Also I've really loved reading the comments from my fellow health care workers. I've been being a bit cheeky with it and it's been fun to realize that people have been recognizing the preeclampsia (PSA if you are pregnant and have any of the symptoms Alwil had you should get evaluated at the ER ASAP) and the little things like steroids for premee baby lungs and the like. If you work in healthcare, thank you for what you do. And as for the chapter... please let me know what you think, as ever! I LOVE writing this chapter. Loved it so much. And I really hope you like it too. Let me know if you liked certain parts, certain phrases or lines, everything you think... I want to know! XO Spake