He had not gone far before he met with Elrohir; and he had only to look at Elrohir to know that his son—his last, remaining son—knew what had transpired.

"Father, is it true?" Elrohir demanded, falling into step beside him, his eyes wide. "Is—did—did Arwen really threaten Mother with—" But he could not finish the sentence.

Elrond closed his eyes. He was sick at heart; though Elrohir might have been a comfort, the questions he was asking were not, and Elrond did not wish to deal with them, to attempt to find answers for what could not be answered. He said only, shortly, "Yes," and said no more, hoping that his son would take the hint.

He did not. "Yes?" he asked, staring at his father in open disbelief. "How—how could it be yes?"

"Elrohir—"

"She didn't," he continued doubtfully. "I—I don't believe it. She couldn't possibly—Not even now. She couldn't have changed that much, could she?" He appealed to his father. "Could she?"

"It is these Seanchan," Elrond said, shaking his head.

"These Seanchan…." Elrohir tasted the words for a moment; Elrond could see him contemplating the idea. After a moment, his youthful face hardened into lines of bitterness beyond his years—at least, beyond the years of an Other.

An Elf, Elrond reminded himself distantly.

"They changed Arwen—that much—" Elrohir said, and his hands clenched.

"I am afraid so."

For a moment there was silence between father and son, as they walked without purpose, without direction, down the corridors of Imladris.

"She's lost to us," Elrohir said, and closed his eyes. "She—She didn't even know me when they came in. Neither of them did. Or they would not admit it."

"You know how the renaming process works," Elrond said gently in an attempt at reassurance. "Neither of them are—who they were when they left here."

"And Elladan?" he demanded, looking at his father. "What of him?"

Elrond said nothing, only shook his head.

Again, there was silence for a time; then Elrohir turned again to his father.

"Aren't you going to do something about it?" he demanded now. Elrond responded with a questioning look, to which Elrohir clarified, "You can't let—You can't let Mother be killed. Aren't you going to do something?"

"There is little I can do," Elrond said heavily. "This is a Seanchan affair and I—I have little control over such things." The admission came hard, though it was a true one. At Elrohir's look, he continued, each word perfectly correct, "First General of the Air Briande Duchen Paendrag is hardly without defenses against such an attack, my son. Supreme Der'Morat'Raken Arisae Moribet Paendrag may find any such assault more difficult than she considered."

Elrohir swung on him with the fire of youth. "So you are going to sit back and let—let Arwen kill Mother without any sort of attempt to stop it—"

"There is nothing I can do!" The words were close to a shout; closer than he had intended. Elrond paused and clasped his hands behind him; they were trembling slightly. "Do you not think," he continued, when he had regained control of himself to some extent, "that if I could stop this I would? Do you think I would let my daughter—my wife—" He paused again here and drew a deep breath. "I can do nothing. It is a Seanchan affair," he said again. "What do I—How can I—" It came to him what he was doing—that he was defending himself to his son—and he stopped by effort of will, raising one hand to cover his eyes. Elrohir said nothing, but his silence was that of disgust.

"You can do nothing," he said after a time. "It is fitting. You could do nothing to stop them from leaving; why should I think that this should be any different?"

"Elrohir—"

"Never mind, Father, I should have known better." His face tight with anger,

Elrohir pushed his way past Elrond and left his father behind.

Briande had gone to the gardens after the scene on the terrace, taking in the night air, trying to allow the tension and shaking to leach from her system. She followed the white stone path, not thinking of anything, simply allowing her feet to carry her, until the path rounded a hedge and ended up in a small clearing under a white marble fountain.

She recognized the clearing and the fountain at once; it was the same clearing and fountain by which she had met Arwen the day she had taken her for a morat'raken. It was the image of Luthien Tinuviel, Arwen's—and her former husband's—ancestress, who had chosen mortality for love. Elrond had had it carved in the image of Arwen, she remembered distantly, to please her; when Arwen had been Undomiel, many had said she was as beautiful as Luthien had been.

Briande had never understood why an immortal being would choose mortality. Now, however, she thought she was learning. Were you as tired as I am, Luthien? she wondered, taking a seat on the edge of the fountain. Were you, as I am, trapped by the path your life has taken? She had once heard a human state in her hearing that the human's age—fifty-some-odd years old—was too old to be thinking of such notions as starting over; at fifty, the human had maintained, it was necessary to keep moving just to avoid the weight of one's own past. Briande had said nothing but had only smiled, thinking that humans had a particularly mortal conception of time if that was what they believed. And yet….and yet here she was now, surrounded by the evidences of a life she had once thought left behind forever; her own daughter now a threat, due to actions she had taken over a thousand years ago….She sighed and lowered her head into her hands.

Light footsteps made her look up sharply; she rose to her feet and put her hand to her sword hilt, facing down the path where it bent around the hedge. She did not think, even now, that Arisae could be a physical threat, but after the scene on the terrace she did not know for certain….and Arisae's backrider Sthenn was frightening. More than backrider, if the rumors that Briande had heard was true, though she did not know how and why Arisae would ever choose such a one to keep her company.

When she saw it was only her former husband, she sat down againand greeted him with a smile. "Join me," she invited, gesturing toward the rim of the fountain.

He offered her a brief smile in return, and sat as she did, turning slightly to stare into the waters of the pool below Luthien's—Arwen's—marble, dancing feet. He seemed subdued, thoughtful; he did not speak at first, but was content to sit and look at the waters.

After a long moment, Briande addressed him. "Elrond—"

"I was accounted wise, once," he said quietly, as if he had not heard her.

Briande paused, then nodded in response to his statement. "You were."

"I was Elrond Peredhil," he continued. "Elrond Half-Elven. You know this story too, don't you?" he asked with a glance at her. She nodded. "How at the beginning of the Third Age, I and my brother Elros were offered the choice between mortality and immortality…"

"You chose immortality," she said with a smile.

He nodded. "I did. I….could not understand why anyone would willingly choose death when they might live forever. I still don't…not entirely." Briande almost spoke, but he was not finished. "I was—I grew to be a master of great wisdom," he said in a low voice. "I held…more of the knowledge of the earth—of Middle-Earth—than anyone except perhaps Galadriel, or the Istari. I knew the names of the Ents, where they slumbered in their deep forests—I could recite the tale of the forging of the Rings of Power, and the betrayal of the Enemy—I knew the story of the Silmarils and Fëanor's dreadful Oath, I could speak of Minas Tirith and Minas Ithil—I knew all the songs and histories of any people you might care to name, back to the days when the Trees of Gold and Silver were in bloom. This was known. Others knew this of me and spoke of me as Elrond the Wise…"

"Elrond," she said gently, "don't—"

"Of course Gandalf came to me with the question of the One Ring," he said wearily, and looked away. "I fought in the first War of the Ring, and I had studied the matter—as I had studied all else—since that time. I feared the Enemy, as it proved wise to do—who else would the Istari approach with such a matter? He—or perhaps it was Aragorn—said it himself—'the strength of Elrond Half-Elven lies in wisdom not in weapons…'" He trailed off, turned, and looked up at the statue behind them briefly; Arwen's perfect face gazed blankly, vacantly out into the gardens above them.

"And?" Briande prompted, sensing there was something else.

He gave a heavy sigh and looked at her with a strange, edged smile that she had never seen on his face before. "And now my own daughter," he said, "thinks of me as a 'rustic, backwoods, ignorant dirtcrawler.'"

"Elrond, don't—"

"And she is right," he added quietly, spreading his hands and looking down at them in the moonlight, his empty, useless hands. "What do I know of Seanchan? I have never been to Seandar, I have never seen the Court of the Nine Moons or the Crystal Throne of the Empress—I have never 'crossed the Aryth Ocean to Paendrag's Home,' never seen Tar Valon or Cairhien or Caemlyn—I don't even know what those places are—"

"Don't," she repeated, and gently laid a hand on his shoulder. "Don't do this."

"The knowledge that I have—that I hold of Middle-Earth, its mysteries, its past—it is useless now," he said with the air of someone coming to a realization. "What earthly good is it," he asked, turning to look at her in something close to surprise, "that I know the complete tale of Luthien and Beren? What purpose does it serve? Better that—that I had learned what a—a—Choedan Kal—is or of the—Breaking of the World—more relevant, anyway." He was silent for a moment, then added, glancing at her, "What is a Choedan Kal?"

"It's a great sa'angreal," Briande replied quietly. "There are actually two of them, one for saidar, which is the female half of the One Power, and one for saidin, which is the male. They were made during the War of Power that ended the Age of Legends, intended as a final strike against the Dark One, but were never used for that purpose; it was thought that the risk was too great, for both together would certainly provide enough power to destroy the world. It was not until Great Tarmon Gai'don that—" She stopped at the look on his face. "Never mind," she finished lamely. "Did she actually say that to you?"

He shook his head slowly. "Not exactly, but she did not have to. I simply suggested that she become something other than a der'morat. I said that Galadriel still held Lothlorien, that she might return to Imladris, and that was when she said—she said that she could not bear to give up the skies, to be trapped in one place like a…." He trailed off. "I understood," he said with a trace of bitterness. "I may be 'ignorant' but I am not unintelligent; I understood very well."

"You should not have suggested that to her," Briande murmured thoughtfully. "It is….somewhat insulting….to suggest to a morat'raken or a der'morat that they should give up the skies. Especially for a—"

"A 'dirtcrawler?'" he asked with a smile so sharp it almost cut. When Briande did not answer but dropped her eyes, he shrugged. "Ah well, what else can be expected from one who 'knows no more of the world than what he can see between his front door and the horizon?'" His voice was harsh, painfully self-mocking. Briande bit her lip, then moved over slightly so that her shoulder brushed his own. He paid her no heed, continuing to stare down at his hands where they rested in his lap like the remains of something broken and futile.

After a time he glanced at her. "What will you do, Celebrian?"

Celebrian. She smiled. "Did you know, the last time we spoke, every time you called me 'Celebrian'—if you had been anyone else I would have challenged you? I was this close to doing so, on more than one occasion." At his shocked expression she could not contain a laugh. "It is that much of an insult, in Seanchan, to call me by my da'covale name….Even Arisae has never done so. I have called her Arwen on occasion, but she has never called me Celebrian. Of course, she was never da'covale."

"If you wish it I will call you Briande," he said, watching her carefully. She smiled again and let herself lean against his shoulder.

"No. You may call me Celebrian if you wish," she said warmly. "Now, somehow, it doesn't bother me. At least, it doesn't bother me to hear you do so….my husband," she added deliberately.

He cautiously returned her smile. The two of them sat in silence for a time as the night breeze rustled the leaves in the trees and bushes around them, and sent gentle waves over the grass. Briande found herself quite content to sit thus, with her—husband—watching the night around them, putting all thoughts of Seanchan and of Arisae out of her head.

But she could not sit so forever. At last she sighed. "I can't do anything about it now," she said, answering his earlier question. "I haven't the resources with me at this garrison. When we cross the sea again to Seanchan, I will have to take steps. What kind, and how drastic….that will depend on her."

Elrond looked over at her. "How far will you go?" he asked inflectionlessly.

Briande closed her eyes for a long moment. When she opened them again, she met her husband's eyes directly. "As far as I have to," she said, her voice hard.

Elrond made no reaction; he merely looked down a little, but did not speak. She shook her head. "I should never have taken her from here," she said quietly, again. "I never should have. I didn't think—it didn't occur to me, but….There isn't room for two immortals in the service of the Crystal Throne."

Arisae Minabet Paendrag rose from the couch she had so recently shared with Sthenn and went to the window, looking out through a sheer drape of thinnest silk at the grounds of the house that had once been her home.

No longer. The thought came, unbidden, accompanied with a fierce sting of pride. No longer was her home this isolated place on the edge of the world where nothing ever happened. Now, if her home was anywhere, it was in the Court of the Nine Moons at Seandar—the heart of the One World.

Behind her, she heard Sthenn say in a sulky voice, "Arisae, where are you going? Come back here and—"

"Be silent," she said without looking around; Sthenn had many virtues, but a knowledge of timing was not one of them. Sthenn lapsed into the pouting silence of a spoiled child; the fabric of the bedclothes rustled behind her as he rose, and then he crossed the floor and put his arms around her.

"What are you looking at?" he asked in a slightly less petulant tone.

"The grounds. The gardens. Thinking how little has changed since the last time I saw them."

"Don't look at them. Look at me," he whined, and nuzzled her neck; she pushed him away in irritation and picked up her leather flight jacket from the floor where it had been dropped. As she shrugged into it and began doing up the front fastenings, Sthenn scowled a bit more, then shrugged himself; he began pulling on his own tunic and breeches.

"When was the last time you were here?" he asked, fastening his own jacket.

"A long, long time ago," she replied, then added with the faintest hint of an edged smile, "Over a thousand years." Her beautiful smile sharpened slightly as she saw him shiver out of the corner of her eye.

"It always gives me the creeps when you talk like that," he complained fretfully. "I'll tell ya, Arisae, it's not attractive at all."

"Sorry," she said smugly.

"A man doesn't like to know that he's embracing something that's older than the Rehhei dynasty, you know," he continued. "It's not a good feeling. It makes you feel like your lady could crumble to dust at any moment. Thank the Light you never talk like that during the act, at least; I think I'd have to leave you," he added idly.

"Try it, fool, and see where it gets you," she muttered under her breath; there were times when she seriously wondered what she ever saw in Sthenn. More than a few times, actually; while he was able to please her very well on occasion, this advantage was more than offset by his sulky, petulant, spoiled manner. He seemed to think that because she chose him to share her bed, this meant that he was entitled to monopolize every moment of her time and attention. And on top of that, there was his disturbing attraction to violence and suffering of all kinds. She was not particularly squeamish, yet witnessing the dark joy that Sthenn took in inflicting pain on others had unsettled her on more than one occasion. He was not particularly skilled as a morat'raken, and being one of the few male morat'raken in the Ever Victorious Army had counted against him as well; he most likely would never have made it as far as he had if she had not taken an interest in him. In fact, in the few moments when she considered the matter honestly, she was at a loss to explain why she was so attracted to him, except….except….

The thought hovered beyond the reach of comprehension for long enough that she pushed it away irritably. What, after all, did it matter? She found him acceptable, and that should be enough.

"Do you really think it was a good idea to speak so to the First General of the Air?" he asked now from behind her.

"You doubt me?"

"No, it's just that I think it would have been better if you had not told her now," Sthenn said. "You put her on her guard, Arisae; now she knows that we're after her."

"She would have known that anyway," Arisae said with a shrug. "All I did, we would have had to do sooner or later. And this way…." She trailed off for a moment, her gray eyes distant; Sthenn had seen this expression on his lover's face before. It usually meant, he mused disapprovingly, that she was feeling sentimental.

"At least she has fair warning," she finished quietly. Sthenn shook his head.

"You shouldn't have given her any warning," he protested. "You should have waited and struck when she was not expecting it; this way she knows we're coming—"

"But I doubt," Arisae overrode him, "that she will expect us to strike as soon as we are planning to."

"When are we planning to strike?" Sthenn asked fretfully. "Because if we're not planning to soon—" He stopped, staring at the Other Arisae as a thought came to him. "When are we planning to strike?" he repeated.

Arisae said nothing, but her smile grew beautiful and lovely, like drops of blood edging a wound.

"You can't be serious," he said, aghast at his thoughts. "You can't—In front of the Daughter of the Nine Moons?"

"It's the perfect time and the perfect place," Arisae said, smiling.

"Are you insane? If they let you do it—"

"I'll challenge. At investiture ceremonies there is always a moment where they ask if there are any objections to commissioning the new officer. That is when I will challenge."

"Arisae, that's just a formality! Nobody ever actually—the last time anyone—"

"It was two hundred seventeen years ago, at the investiture of Alin Athaem Kore Paendrag—and led to the downfall of the Athaem dynasty," she added with a smile. "I know. I was there. I watched and remembered very carefully."

Sthenn was silent for a long moment, staring at her in something akin to awe, and then gave a slow grin of his own. "Unbelievable," he said. "Unbelievable. Only you, Arisae."

"You like it?"

"Oh yes. It's a good plan. A very good plan," he said, still grinning. "Only, if all the evidence is in place—"

"Oh, it is," she said confidently, turning to look out the window again. "Believe me. By the time I'm done, they'll be convinced that Briande participated in the downfall of the last dynasty, let alone this one. Think of it," she added. "At one moment, both to denounce Briande to the assembled crowd for a traitor, and to kill her myself, while at the same time reaping the benefits of it for loyalty to the Crystal Throne. I will be surprised if I am not appointed Banner-General in Briande's place," she added, smiling.

"Good. Then it's set." He stopped and looked at her more seriously. "Now Arisae, if you don't have a problem killing your own mother—if you're not afraid of the Light's vengeance upon you for that act of impiety—" He paused out of fear—superstition—and looked at her. "You aren't, are you?"

You aren't, are you?

Arisae was silent at his question, her eyes shadowed in thought.

When she had left home so many years before at her mother's invitation, she had done so in the hope that in the world beyond, she would find the things that were denied her or beyond her in the world that she knew: Adventure. Importance. Discovery. Meaning. And perhaps—just perhaps—a tiny scrap of glory. Of honor.

And she had. She had found those things many, many times over. Long after the short, plain daughter of Men who had helped to set her feet upon this path had fallen into dust, Arisae had continued on; she had traveled further than she had ever dreamed, seen things the existence of which she had not even imagined—and of which, she suspected, her father had not even imagined. She had gained wealth and riches, and, yes, glory and honor in her own right; she had helped to alter the course of wars and of dynasties. She had been granted at last a new name for her service to the Crystal Throne, and the lands of Minabet to go with it, and she had also gained—of all her acquisitions the one she valued most—the skies. The sense of freedom, of possibility, of control that came when she bestrode a raken's back and soared among the clouds, whether at the head of a massed flight of rakens united for a purpose, or alone with only the sound of her mount's gently beating wings, the wind in her ears, the creaking of harness straps and flight leathers to fill the silence and endless space around her—that sense had never left her. It was worth as much as all the rest put together. Perhaps more.

Yes. She had gained everything and more that she had hoped for when she first set out from Imladris those many centuries ago, but somehow….somehow….it never seemed to be quite enough. There was always, somehow, one more glory that eluded her, one more honor not given, one more deed done by someone else and not by her that she had to match or surpass before she could rest in peace.

There was so little of either rest or peace in Seanchan.

And always—always—there was Briande standing before her. Taking the credit, the glory, the honor, that could have—should have—been hers. That Arisae needed—so desperately—as the years turned to decades, then to centuries, and she realized she was still not done.

Her first thoughts of killing Briande—of the murder of her mother, a crime the Light abhorred as much as the killing of a father by a son—had been wild thoughts born out of the despair that had risen in her after the Second Jianmin Incident. There, she had at last—at last—been granted the title of Supreme Der'Morat'Raken to the Ever Victorious Army, only to watch Briande ascend to First General of the Air. It had been made painfully clear to her then that she would rise no further until Briande was out of the way. Sthenn had not been with her then—he had not even been born yet—and she had seen no way that she might do it; it was only later that her plans had begun to take shape—helped along, of course, when she realized what it was that Briande was planning.

But until now, they had been plans more for theory than for practice; though she had seen clearly how it might be done, she had never quite been sure enough to do it. Before she had returned to home.

In the back of her mind, buried so deeply out of sight that she was almost unaware of it, she had held the hope that perhaps her return to home might bring her the finality, the peace she sought. The world, for all its wonder, was not quite what she expected; home had remained in her mind, untouched and pristine, as a place where rest and peace abounded. All through the journey across the ocean, from the docks of Shon Kifar, she had cherished a half-aware dream that she could return to this place—this life that she had led before—and that everything would be waiting for her unchanged.

It had been a child's dream of course; one that had died a fast and merciless death the moment she had set foot on the shores of Middle-Earth and the grounds of Imladris. Not because Imladris had changed, she was wise enough to realize, but because it had not changed. It and her father had not changed in any significant way. She, on the other hand, had.

The buildings, the houses, the pavilions—those that had seemed so graceful and majestic to her as a child, filled with grandeur and splendor—were just as she remembered; the gardens, the fields were the same, every surface detail just as it was in her memory. But somehow, now to her eyes they looked not elegant and graceful, but flat, lifeless; small, certainly and perhaps even a trifle dingy, beside the soaring grandeur of the Palace of the Nine Moons, the Towers of Ravens and Midnight, the White Tower at Tar Valon, and the great, ancient city of Rhuidean. She felt no connection with them, no sense of place, of belonging, though she had run and played and dreamed among them as a child; now they were simply a bunch of buildings to her, buildings that were not as fine as those across the sea in Seanchan, and not buildings where anything of import would ever happen.

Her father also had not changed. In her memories, he had been the source of all wisdom, all goodness; she had thrilled with delight when he smiled at her and trembled with fear at his frowns—all the more so as his frowns were so rarely bestowed on her. He had been much, much taller than she—as tall as a tree or mountain—and infinitely wiser, with a dignity and gravity so great that it was both unapproachable and reassuring at once; nothing could take from him what he was, and what he was was equal to any challenge. She need never fear as long as he was by, for he could and would protect her from any threat, solve any problem, overcome any difficulty that could face her.

She saw none of that in him now.

When they had landed at Imladris and ascended the steps to meet him, she had half-consciously expected to find the awesome, godlike figure of her memories waiting for them at the top of the stairs. Instead, she had seen only one of the Others, a small man—she had been surprised at how small he was, only a little taller than she—looking tired and weary and defeated. Old, she had realized with a start. He had looked old to her, and how that could be when he had not physically changed, she did not know. But he had. He was not the father of her memories.

It was then that she had realized. She could not return home again. There was no place of peace left for her. All there was now was the Court of the Nine Moons in Seandar, the chase for glory all that remained worth seeking.

And to gain that glory—all that was left her—Briande had to die.

She looked back at Sthenn.

Arisae's eyes were shadowed for a moment. "I have to," she said at last. "I have no other choice." She drew a breath. "And the fact that she's my mother will only make it better. They will see that I am loyal to the Throne above my own blood kin. It cannot help but boost my favor in the eyes of the Empress."

Sthenn's grin widened, becoming more predatory, more rapacious. "It is an excellent plan, Arisae," he said, coming over to nuzzle her neck again. "Bold, daring…reckless….Only you, Arisae. Only you."

"Someday," she responded only, smiling herself, and slipped her arms around his neck.