Spring seemed to come in a rush. The snows melted and the grain for planting needed to be delivered. I spent perhaps every other week riding out with Erchirion to various distribution points with the grain wagons. I looked over some of my maps and made corrections. I also re-tallied the populations to see how many had died in the winter and I did some of the accounting for Erchirion, who had never had a head for numbers. It might have been grim work, but the winter was turning out to be mild and I would always recall those days as being full of joy.

Éomer was at Edoras even less than I was. With the snows melted the wild men had come back. He spent most of his time in Helmsdeep, or at least the area around the Hornburg. More attacks kept him busy there, and me from sleeping too soundly at night. It was silly how I tossed and turned in my bed, but cursing myself for a fool only made it harder to sleep and did nothing to alleviate the miserable frustration of not knowing if he had been hurt.

When he was in Edoras Erchirion took to taking me (and Lithoer would often join us) out on long rides. We would run our horses over the plains in the sun and the snow for hours. Of course, Wind Chaser was nowhere near a match for Erchirion's big charger or Lithoer's dainty little mare with a slender body but the legs made of wind. But after my horse tired I would find one of the great boulders that stuck out of the grass and snow like shoals in the sea and scramble up onto it from my horses back.

"Wind Chaser is tired," I would say when they circled back around for me. "Go for a run and we'll be here when you get back."

They never went far enough that we lost sight of each other, and I watched them as my horse panted and licked at the snow. Sometimes I would take off his saddle so the cool air could let down his lather. It was pleasure to watch my brother fall in love, but it was like a sad ballad sang by a bard I couldn't silence. I was glad for my brother, but wretchedly jealous. Watching the two of them get exactly what they wanted, exactly what they deserved, made me feel like there was a heavy weight on my chest, crushing the breath out of me. If I hadn't been what I had been all those years perhaps I would have deserved Éomer. Perhaps that would have been us running out over the snow with light in our eyes and hair. The idea hurt worse than any pain I had ever experienced.

"Lithoer is a very good woman," I said one day as we ate our evening meal after a ride.

"She is more than that," he said. "And she is quickly becoming very dear to me."

My head jerked up. It was silly. I shouldn't have expected my brother to obfuscate his feelings to the extent I was accustomed to doing. But still, such a free confession was shocking to me. "I'm glad to hear that. She has been a very good friend to me... like a sister."

He laughed, and poured himself some more wine. "You are losing your touch, Lothi. I remember you being quite subtle in days past."

"If you wish me to be coy you need only ask. Or perhaps simply insinuate."

"No, plain words from your lips are far more precious than any scheme could ever be," he said fondly. "And I am pleased that you approve of her... she is rather lower in birth that might be expected... for a match of mine."

It was true that Lithoer came from a somewhat small fiefdom near the River Limlight. And though Erchirion was the second of our father's sons, he would have his pick of any of the seats of Elphir's banner men and would live a comfortable, even luxurious existence. Any number of Gondorian ladies with much richer dowries would have been pleased to marry him for no more than the asking. Not to mention the question of blood. Ours was the blood of Númenor and, no matter how liberal the court believed it had become, there would be whispers of pollution if he married a Rohirrim.

"I am going to ask father for permission to ask for her hand during the Beltane celebrations."

The questioning look in his eyes as he waited for my answer hurt. I had no right to be offended of course. I had said disparaging things about Rohirric blood before, even in Erchirion's presence. And besides, our new found understanding was so recently wrought. Really it was to be expected that he would worry that I would disprove.

I met his eyes with as much conviction as I could. "I could be no prouder of any other new sister."

His smile broke wide. "I am glad to hear it... Your opinion means a lot to me, you know."

I put my fingers to my lips gently. I couldn't meet Erchirion's eyes so I took another sip of wine. "That is kind of you to say."

"It is the truth."

In that moment I felt the bond between us tighten like a noose around something tender and vibrant in my chest. I wanted to tell him that his opinion had changed me in ways I could barely fathom. When no one else in Gondor had seen me as more than a flippant, petty monster, his faith in me had pulled me to Rohan and made me stronger, braver and better than I would have ever imagined possible. I swore to myself that Lithoer would see only the side of the court I wanted her to. My warrior brother, hero of the Ring War, wouldn't be able to protect his lady wife from the petty humiliation marriage to him would expose her to. But I could, and I was going to.

It was the least I could do.

Two months passed and it was time for Erchirion and me to return to Gondor for Beltane, which as in Rohan, was traditionally spent with your family. The festival celebrating fertility and renewal was viewed as a particularly fortuitous time to strike marriage pacts and so unmarried sons and daughters from all across the lands would come back to the family hearth to be pushed at various potential suitors. Originally we had planned to return at Beltane for good but after several long conversations, in which neither the names Lithoer or Éomer were mentioned once, we had decided to come back to Rohan in the summer. The grain distribution wasn't finished, he said. Some of the Western Fold could be mapped, I reminded him.

"Our life here is good," Erchirion said with a small smile. "Why leave before we're ready?"

I agreed, but a large part of me was glad to go. A letter from our father had told us the family hearth would be in Minas Tirith this year, as he would be spending Beltane with Elessar. It suited me – I needed to go to Minas Tirith to catch my breath. I wasn't worried that I would break and in some way expose my feelings to Éomer – I kept that secret with the same instinct that kept my heart beating and me breathing – I was worried that I would break and take the only sure way I had of removing the temptation to be with him: make him hate me. I wanted to leave Rohan with the strange, small little scrap of honor I felt I had earned still in my possession. If he ever thought of me once we returned to Gondor for good, I wanted him to think of me the way I had been on Yule: glowing with pride at the maps and willing to jump into the freezing water with him. I didn't want him to know what I was capable of.

But I had forgotten that Éomer, having no family but Éowyn, might also spend Beltane in Gondor.

Gænwyn, when she heard that we would be spending Beltane in the same city, threw back her head and cackled so wildly I had to chuckle a little bit myself, though I didn't understand what she found so hilarious. "Why are you laughing?" I asked when she'd regained her composure.

"I'm only laughing," she said with a strange little smirk around her lips. "What? Don't you want me to laugh?"

"No, it's just I don't understand..."

"Sometimes I think all the questions you ask and those books you read only make it harder for you to see what's right in front of you," she said instead of answering. "Now come, tell me what Beltane is like in Minas Tirith."

A few days before we rode out found me in Éomer's personal study. Since no one was around to contradict me, I had lied to his servants, saying I had permission to use it. I told myself that I had done it because I wanted to use his books, but there was also a large fireplace and a very comfortable chair that smelled like junipers, horses, leather and a familiar masculine smell that was indefinably and entirely his own. The use of it held an appeal to me that had nothing to do with the quiet satisfaction of an interesting book.

Perhaps it was because of this—how close I felt to him in his study—that I wasn't aware he's come in. I was writing out an account of Rohirric sheep tending practices that I had noticed in the craggy rocks of the East Fold. I had no real plans for it but I had thought it was at least interesting enough to merit being written down.

He made it almost to the foot of my chair before I noticed him. I jerked, slamming the book shut and feeling rather like a naughty child caught with a handful of forbidden sweets. "What are you doing here?" I demanded in place of a greeting.

"I could ask the same thing. This is my study," he pointed out with an amused smile.

I ignored him. "You weren't expected back tonight."

"Clearly. I seem to have startled the manners right out of you."

I blushed. "You really shouldn't sneak up on people like that," I said as sourly as I could manage.

He laughed. "Yes. Sneaking around my own study, I can only get as good as I deserve."

"You haven't answered my question," I sniffed. "What are you doing here?"

"You haven't answered mine. What are you doing here?"

"I'm trying to write an account of the sheep herding practices of the East Fold," I said, trying to make it sound like a solid justification for breaking into his study. "I needed to borrow some of your books and you weren't around so I couldn't ask permission."

"Tomorrow is Grievance Day so we rode until late yesterday and today to return tonight so I could hear grievances all day." Grievance Day was one of Éomer's duties as king. It was a day held once a month on which anyone in the kingdom, from lord to peasant, could come and beg the King's justice for their problems. King Elessar, and even Denethor before him, had similar practices, but I had never seen one. Amrothos had assured me that it was mostly petty legal squabbles between lords and was excruciatingly boring.

"Any squabble that people confess of their own free will isn't worth the trouble of listening to," he'd scoffed.

I sighed. It figured that Éomer would take an onerous duty seriously. "Well then, I suppose I should leave you, my lord, you must be tired," I said, going to retrieve the book from where it had landed by the desk.

"My lord is it tonight?" he asked, with a cocked eyebrow.

"I suppose I should leave you Éomer, then. You must be tired."

I stepped up onto the chair and put the book back but when I had and turned to step down he was waiting for me and lifted me by the waist, setting me gently on the carpet as if I weighed no more than a child. "Have some wine with me," he said. "I am not too tired for that."

He didn't step away from me or remove his hand from my waist. I could smell sweat and horses and the masculine smell from him. It was nothing like the shadow of him left on the chair and it made my head swim like I'd already had two or three glasses of his strongest wine. I shook my head and avoided his eyes, which I knew might make my knees buckle "I don't wish to..."

"Don't make me order you, Lothíriel. I don't like reminding you but I am the King of these lands. Now be a good girl and do as I bid." The shadows at the side of his lips crinkled slightly upwards.

I opened my mouth to protest, but he had already turned from me and gone to the desk to fetch out a bottle of rich, dark red winter wine and two rough mugs. He uncorked the wine and poured generous amounts, passing me one of them. This was not at all appropriate of course. In Gondor just being alone with a man who was not my family would have been scandalous, much less sharing a mug of wine with him. But I accepted it and took a sip. It was nice, dark and appropriately strong. I took another sip. If I drank enough I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the heat in my body from the wine and the heat in my body from Éomer's nearness.

"How was your rangeing?" I asked.

"I don't want to talk about battle with you."

My brow twisted in confusion. "What do you want to talk about then?"

I stood, leaning against his great oaken desk and he stood between me and the door with his back to the fire, drinking me in with his eyes. His arms were folded across his broad chest with one holding the cup. I was only perhaps a few inches shorter than him but the cup emphasized that we were not at all of a size. The cup was so big I used two hands to drink from it, but his fitted perfectly into his hand. I swallowed another gulp of wine, feeling suddenly desperate to get out of his study. He was looking at me with that strange, almost hungry expression I'd seen before.

"Nothing in particular," he said, his voice suddenly slightly lower than it had been before. "After a long ride it's enough to simply share a glass of wine with a pretty maiden." I nodded, unable to find my tongue. I wanted to run, but whether into his arms or out the door, I couldn't decide.

For a long moment we stood with only the heat of the fire and the noise of it crackling between us. Then he said slowly, "Lothíriel... why did you come to the Mark?"

My head shot up. He didn't have to explain what he meant and I didn't try to pretend I didn't know what he was talking about. I tried to smile slightly. "I could take offense to that, my lord," I said, my voice sounding strange and strained to my ears, "am I not so pretty that..."

"You know that you are plenty pretty," he cut me off, unexpectedly sharply. "And if you call me my lord again I will take offense. Now answer my question."

I opened my mouth, which suddenly seemed to be filled with sand. "I can't explain," I said, finding it impossible to lie. I toyed with the mug, rolling it in my hands and then looked up with my brightest, most insincere smile. "As I said before... why does a lady do anything? Boredom or a lack of character but sometimes even we can't decide which it is."

He considered me for a long moment and finally took a deep breath. "Fine. Keep your secrets if you like. I suppose I can learn to accept that as price of keeping my favorite little viper around."

Having nothing to say to that I simply took another sip of wine.

After a moment he continued. "I've been looking over those reports you've been compiling. The news looks good. Bema be blessed, the winter wasn't as hard as it could have been and most people survived. If the harvest is good this year I think the Mark will be well on its way to a complete recovery in a few short years, maybe ten at the most," he let out a long breath. "I owe your family a great debt for the aid they have given me."

"Erchirion was glad to help. My father as well, I'm sure."

"And you?"

"I didn't contribute anything big. But the maps... the maps made me happy, yes."

He laughed. "You are the only girl I've ever had the pleasure of meeting who was so reluctant to take praise freely offered."

"I'm contrary and you're too free with your praise. Try insulting me some day. I am sure to protest that as well."

"You are quite... lively when insulted."

I gazed levelly at him. "As are you."

"As I am."

For a moment he gazed at me and I gazed into my wine goblet, refusing to meet his eyes. Finally I said, still looking away from him, "tell me what you will hear tomorrow as grievances."

We talked then for a while about the grievances he would hear. He kept the tone of the conversation light, telling me mostly humorous anecdotes from past cases heard by the old Kings of Rohan. But finally when the wine was finished he said, "I had best walk you back to your chambers my lady. The night grows late."

The stars were out, and the moon shining so bright that when Éomer asked if I wanted him to light a torch to guide the way, I laughed him off. There was a brisk wind, but the silence was so complete it felt almost magical: as if we had stepped into some Elven garden.

When we arrived back at my home I paused with my hand on the door. "Edoras isn't the same without you. I think the city must miss you when you are away. No one seems quite as comfortable when their King is not at his seat."

He smiled at that. "I imagine the city will miss you when you leave as well. We've all grown used to the fluttering Gondorian bird that flew into our nest."

"A bird now am I? Not a viper?"

"How is one ever to know with you?"

I grinned. "You need only decide what you think. The rest is immaterial."

"Perhaps you need only decide what you think for it to become material." He bowed. "Sleep well, my southern animal, whatever you may be."

The morning we rode out to start our journey Erchirion and I woke early and went down to the stables together. We ate a light breakfast of fresh buns and tea with Gænwyn, who had woken in time to see us off and wish us well on our travels, and walked down just as gray dawn was breaking over Edoras.

"Ready?" Erchirion asked as he swung up into the saddle.

"More than ready!" I lied.

I embraced Gænwyn, kissing her lightly on the cheek and clinging to her for longer than I normally would have allowed such an obvious display of affection to continue. She pulled back for a second, and then hugged me back to her. "Come back to us safe and sound, Lothi," she said sternly. "I won't say more because it is bad luck to be morose the day of a journey. You tempt fate to bring an accident. So... so..." I had never seen Gænwyn lost for words before. "So I will simply say again, come back to us safe and sound."

"I will see you in a few weeks."

She pressed something into my hands: a small wrapped parcel. "This is for your father. For the favor of parting with such a wonderful and intelligent daughter for so long."

I didn't tell her that it was no burden at all for my father to part with me: that the favor had been all on her part. My throat was suddenly too tight to talk.

As we rode down the hill I couldn't help but feel a strange, dark, foreboding feeling. The insane urge to tell Erchirion to turn around and take me back up to the house seized me and tradition be damned. My heart beat fast again as we reached the arch and rode out through the gates, but we made it out onto the planes without me opening my lips.

"Are you feeling well, Lothi?" Erchirion asked as our horses came close together.

"Just had a little bit too much wine last night. The headache will be gone by the midday meal."

Erchirion had wanted to take the path through the Dimholt, but I didn't want to take the Paths of the Dead, especially after my last experience in them, or take longer than necessary over our journey. So he gave in, and we set off along the Great West Road, boring perhaps, but faster. And with the constant traffic more and more way-stations had sprung up, designed to ease a weary traveler. Even so I was feeling particularly peevish by the time the White City came into view. For some reason a strange foreboding settled over me though as we rode closer. It's just the length of the journey, I told myself. But it hadn't started until we got within sight of the city.

We got into the city before nightfall, barely making it before the gates were shut.

It was so strange to see my old home. I had gotten used to the Mark with it's thatch and wood construction and blond hair everywhere. All the stone and dark hair looked strange to me, though not half a year ago it had been all I knew. The city seemed crowded. All the stone buildings with their walls almost touching each other made me uncomfortable. I had thought Edoras a dirty city when I'd arrived because the roads were packed earth and not stone, but now I found that the White City seemed squalid in its own way. The smell of the city was not of horses and leather and damp thatch but rather of rotting produce, perfume and men. My nose wrinkled at the stench of it.

Erchirion and I made our way up to the house of Dol Amroth in silence. The riders of Rohan would be quartered with the King's riders for the duration of our stay and Éomer was staying at his sister's city residence. They left us at the gate so we were alone. Strangely, as we passed through the gate of the house where I had spent almost fifteen years of my life, I felt a little pang of panic. We dismounted, and Erchirion took my hand for just a second to give it a brief reassuring squeeze.

But by the look he gave me I knew he was wondering exactly who I had become. Had Rohan all been nothing but a dream? I was back in Minas Tirith again, but had I returned to more than just the city? I tried to give him a casual smile but I found that, in spite of myself, my lips trembled slightly.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but just then the door of the house burst open and our family came out into the courtyard and he closed it, turning to greet them. "Hail, Father!" he said cheerfully, meeting his embrace.

"Hail, Father." I said in the most even tone I could manage.

As his eyes fell on me there was that same weary distaste in them that there had always been. Suddenly I felt as if my limbs were made of lead. After all I had done and said and felt in Rohan, after all the progress I thought I had made couldn't he just once look pleased to see me?

He embraced me as well, though as always, formally. "Hail, Son and Daughter," the Prince of Dol Amroth said. "Welcome back after your journey. I trust your ride wasn't too hard. Come let us go inside to hear your stories."

He and Erchirion turned to walk back to the house leaving me and Amrothos together in the yard. "Hail, Lothíriel," he said, letting his gaze roam over my dirty and worn travel clothes, the simple braid that hadn't been washed for a week, my skin tanned from riding and (did I imagine it?) even the small silver bracelet that hadn't left my wrist since Éomer had put it on at Yule. I stood as straight as I could under his inspection, trying to look haughty and unchanged by the months away.

"Hail, Amrothos," I replied.

He said nothing for a long moment. I couldn't see his eyes in the dark but I knew that even if it had been noon I would have been able to tell nothing about what he was thinking. He said finally, "Well as father says, let us return to the house to hear your stories."

It was mostly Erchirion who talked that night. The rest of the family had already taken the evening meal, but they sat with us while we were served. It was finer fare than I had eaten since I had left for Rohan —boiled new potatoes in a creamy soup and succulent roasted duck with a cherry and walnut glaze and for desert little pies with cream and berries inside—but I took less than two bites. I felt like there was a lead weight in my stomach.

Erchirion ate heartily though, and between bites he told all about our life at Edoras, the little house and the Hall, the grain and the rangeings and even my maps. He might as well have been digging my grave literally. "Lothi was incredible!" he crowed. "She rode out with the riders and made all these incredibly detailed notes and when she got back she just sat down and made the best maps Rohan had ever seen. All the riders said that Gondorian women must all devilishly smart, and Father, she was so brave and never complained about the ride or if it rained!"

My father looked at me. "Is this true, Daughter?"

"Erchirion is exaggerating. I went on a few rides," I said with a shrug.

I knew that it was hopeless to protest. Father would see the maps soon enough, as Erchirion had brought copies for King Elessar, and it was clear how much effort had gone into them. I had always known that I would have to explain my actions in Rohan. Erchirion would never keep secret what I had done. He could never understand that he wasn't doing me any favors with his words of praise.

"When she showed Éomer King the maps he said he would have knighted her except there weren't any lady knights in Rohan!" he cried out. "And she is ever so popular with the riders. They love that she never complains about the conditions even when it's so clear on her face that she's miserable..." He laughed. "Sorry, Lothi but it's true. That day after our camp almost got washed away and you had to ride all day in damp clothes I thought you were going to scream any second you looked so upset. But you never once said anything about it!"

My father was looking at me with confusion. "Is this true, Daughter?" he repeated.

I answered with the same shrug and took an orange from the fruit basket on the table and began to peel it slowly. "I was miserable, I said. "I don't remember being so stoic about it."

"I see," my father said slowly. "I should very much like to see these maps my daughter has made."

Erchirion called for his saddlebags to be fetched while I finished eating my orange, feeling like someone watching a cliff face crumble beneath them. Behind my father I could see Amrothos, who was looking into the candle flame with a completely impassive expression on his face. But though he was showing no reaction, I knew that he was listening to every word of the conversation with absolutely rapt attention. I had always known that coming back to Minas Tirith with all the stories of what I had done would be awkward, but I hadn't known it would be this bad. What had seemed completely reasonable in Rohan now seemed insane to me here. What in the name of Valar had I been thinking offering to make those maps? How had it even occurred to me to ask to ride out with Erchirion? That was simply something that wasn't done!

But soon the maps were produced and my father looked at them for a long moment in silence. When he spoke he sounded almost grim, "I had no idea that you had this skill, Daughter."

"It isn't as hard as it looks."

"She spent days on these! And that was after all the riding was done!" Erchirion protested.

Amrothos never once looked at the maps, or me. As Erchirion and my father spoke, he played with a knife from the table, passing it through the fire idly.

The rest of the meal seemed to pass in a blur. The conversation sounded like all the conversations I had been listening to for the last months—all about distribution points, road improvement and farming techniques. But my eyes were locked on Amrothos who never once returned my gaze. Only when my father declared that it was late and we must be tired and we should all retire did Amrothos look at me and smile widely. He gave me a short, tight hug.

"It is so good to see you again, Loth," he said with a little smirk. "Your life in Rohan sounds ever so adventurous! I hope you will be able to adjust to the monotony of life in Minas Tirith again."

It made me feel cold all over how sincere he sounded, though I wasn't sure why. He didn't wink at me or hint that there was anything lurking under the surface of his welcoming smile. As I slid under my sheets that night I realized with a stunned, sudden lurch of fear why. Whatever Amrothos was thinking of, I wasn't an accomplice. I was a target.

TBC

AN: Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed and in particular to my beta LBJ both for the excellent job she did editing but also for the idea of Grievance Day (which comes right out of her great fic Bound by Duty, one of my favorite Éomer/Lothiriel stories yet). Please let me know what you think of the new chapter! Reviews are such good karma...