Over the course of the next few following weeks, things had settled down a bit in Edoras. The new medicine that Heodis had brought back seemed to be working a little at a time, but it was still far too early to tell if it would work well enough to bring the king back to sound of mind. It wasn't long, though, before things in Rohan started taking a turn for the worse, and attacks from the Dunlendings and Orcs were becoming more and more frequent by the day.

Héodis looked out over Edoras from the Golden Hall, her arms wrapped about herself. 'Will things only get worse from here? Will war truly reach our lands?' She sighed, shivering as a chilly wind breezed through the town. It reminded her of the night before she left for Ethring, and just like before, her thoughts were interrupted when a heavy warmth encircled her.

"You'll catch your death out here, dressed like that."

Héodis looked behind her as Éomer stepped back, his cloak draped over her shoulders. "My lord?" She could see that he was dressed warmly enough, but she was surprised that he would offer her his cloak- again.

Éomer met her gaze. "Are you alright?"

Héodis nodded. "I am, thank you."

"Does something trouble you?"

"I was just thinking about the state of things..." Héodis replied. "Is war really coming..?"

Éomer looked out over Edoras, his brow furrowed. "Whether we wish it or not, it would seem that it does indeed loom over the horizon."

"We cannot possibly go to war with the king in the state he is in," Héodis noted, "and Theodred is not seasoned enough a warrior to lead us." She looked up at the young lord. "Which means that it falls to you to lead our men into battle..."

Éomer was surprised by the concern hanging heavily from her words. "It is my duty to serve our people, Héodis, so if that is what is required of me then that is what I must do."

"I know, but..." Héodis sighed and looked away. "I don't want to lose you, too... I can't..."

Éomer made to answer, but one of his men called out to him from the main doors. He told him he would be right there, then turned back to Héodis.

"It's alright, my lord, go." Héodis handed him back his cloak and offered him a small curtsy. "I will take my leave."

"Join me for a drink later?"

Héodis looked at him with widened eyes, but she smiled at that and nodded. "I'd like that."

Éomer returned her smile and took his leave, finding he was more relieved than he thought he would be that she said yes. Things between them had been on the mend lately and he had been wanting to spend some one-on-one time with her, but their duties kept them busy and it was rather difficult to find a moment to spare.

However, that drink would never come.

Just after they parted ways, Théoden ordered Héodis to join a caravan bound for a village in need of medical aid after recent Dunlending and Orc attacks, then ordered Éomer to take his éored out on patrol in the opposite direction. Éomer didn't want to let Héodis go off on her own, having a rising sense of dread at the thought of her going out into the field with barely an armed escort, but he could not defy the king's orders.

Héodis was nervous about going back out into the field, having heard just how bad things were in the outlying villages. As Edoras faded in the distance, a sense of forboding surrounded her and Héodis had a sinking feeling that she would not be returning. And she was right.

Two days after reaching their destination, a host made up of Dunlendings attacked once again. The small armed host that had escorted Héodis were wiped out in a manner of minutes, having been severely outnumbered, and Héodis was among the civilian casualties. As she lay dying, an arrow protruding from her stomach, Héodis quietly called out for the young lord she had come to love and begged for his forgiveness. She knew she had been childish to a degree and wished that they could have reconciled before parting ways once more. As her world began to darken even further, she knew that she would be OK. She could feel her brother and her parents reaching out to her, beckoning her to them, and with her final breath, she spoke the young lord's name once more and issued her last goodbye before letting the darkness take her.

It would be a fortnight before word reached Edoras of the village's destruction and the demise of its inhabitants and those who had come to their aid. It devastated Théodred and Éowyn, feeling Héodis' death as though it were a twisting knife in a wound. They knew it would hit Éomer even harder and worried about how he would handle it, especially after how he handled Héoláf. Éomer had yet to return from his patrol and he would not do so for another week, but when he did finally come home to the Golden Hall, his sister broke the news to him and the young lord fell to his knees in disbelief. He couldn't fully process what he was hearing, nor did he want to believe it. Héodis, his friend and sister, was gone and he could not have been there to help her.