Chapter 14

I lay in the quiet dark of Poldor the elf's tower room, with the warm soft weight of Var pressing against me. Felt the rise and fall of her rib cage under my hand. Listened to the soft exhalation of her breath as she slept. Knew she was alive and she loved me. All our problems were behind us now.

Well, except for the minor detail of the Quest for Erebor.

Thorin expected me to go—and of course I would go. He's my king, my best friend, a good man, and noble to the core. The bond between us is unbreakable, forged over the course of our entire lives and tempered in the blast furnace of war.

When Var woke up, I would tell her all this. Explain everything. No holding out, no cryptic references, none of that. Just the honest truth about how things were.

A knock sounded on the door. Poldor's smooth voice called, "Good morning. Perhaps you would like to break your fast before you departed?"

Var sat up with a gasp. "Oh, Mahal! How embarrassing." She flung the blankets back and sprang out of bed. The cold air rushed in, raising goose bumps on my skin.

With a sigh, I began pulling on my clothes. Our elven host was clearly ready to be done with us. As I tugged at my boots, I glanced over at her. She was fussing with her hair and muttering to herself.

Time to bring up the Quest. "Var, we have to talk—"

She patted the air in a quieting motion and whispered, "Please, can we talk later? I don't know what Poldor thinks about us, but let's not make things too difficult. He is an elf, after all."

I nodded. It wasn't that I cared what he thought about us, though Poldor was actually not too bad—I even liked him. In small doses. But if Var was going to yell at me, it would be better if there were no one around to hear us. I was pretty sure there would be some yelling involved when I told her about the Quest.

We had a typical Elven breakfast, some fruits and nuts and bread. I remembered to thank our host even before Var kicked my ankle.

Var rose from the table. "Poldor, I need your help for one last task."

The elf looked wary. I didn't blame him.

"It's not anything bad," she said impatiently. "Nothing you would disapprove of. Well, not very much, anyway. I just need you to look at something, after I've fetched it from where I left it in the woods."

Poldor gave in to her wishes, and we followed Var to the tree she had scratched the rune on. She dropped to her knees in the spot where I'd seen her eat lunch, and combed her fingers through the short grass between the roots of the tree. I frowned. I hadn't seen her bury anything. But she must have, because after a little hunting, she found what she was looking for. She held it up.

It was a gold ring, sized for Dwarven fingers, and deeply incised with a classic pattern. There was a simple grace about it, something hard to put into words—a stark elegance that somehow defined what it meant to be a dwarf. It was a feeling, not an idea, about dwarvishness, if you knew what I mean. Just looking at that ring gave me a feeling of satisfaction. Wearing it would have felt sublime.

I crossed my arms and looked away.

All Dwarves have a special appreciation for finely wrought gold. For us, gold is the embodiment of enduring beauty— gorgeous and glowing, soft and malleable, never subject to corruption or decay. In the hands of a true craftsman, raw gold can transformed into a work of art so enchanting that it might even be said to have a soul.

This ring had been created by such a craftsman.

"Blessed Aule," breathed Poldor, staring at the ring. "Truly your father surpassed himself in making this."

Var nodded wordlessly. Her eyes were full of tears as she put the ring in her pocket.

Poldor stared at the ground for a moment, then lifted his head to look at Var. "Now I understand. Come back to the tower. There is a service I must perform for you."

As we followed him back to his tower, I wondered uneasily what service he had in mind.

Several puzzle pieces fell into place during that short walk. So, this ring was what Var had taken from Aunt Nott's chest of gold. This ring was what Var had been prepared to die to protect—in fact, she had died to protect it. This ring was what that wizard had been seeking. That made it the most dangerous object I'd ever seen in my entire life. But I still wanted it; that ring had an allure no dwarf could resist.

Beside me, the elf walked with a frown on his face, both hands clasped behind his back. He was decent enough, for an elf, but that ring was too bewitching not to have stirred a flame of desire in his breast. Elf or not, I knew he wanted it too.

In the tower study, the elf held out his hand to Var. "May I hold the ring in my hand?"

Reluctantly, she placed it on his open palm. "This ring is my father's crowning achievement. He poured his very heart into making it. It is his legacy. As long as it exists, in some fashion my father is still with me."

I watched the ring pass from her hand to his. I had a really bad feeling about this whole situation. The hair on my body lifted the way it does when a thunderstorm is about to break overhead.

Poldor nodded to her and inspected the ring, holding it close to his face to catch the golden gleam that sparked from its angular surfaces. "Your father was truly a master craftsman. With this ring, he has almost achieved what Celebrimbor wrought ages ago in creating Vilya, Nenya and Narya, the three untainted elven Rings of Power. But this ring is…different. Perhaps it is too Dwarven for me to understand, but I feel its beauty and the spirit of the artist who wrought it.

"Ai! It pains me, but my duty is too clear."

The elf stepped to that strange forge-shaped artifact in his study, and threw the ring into it. A blast of heat struck me as he pumped on a bellows—the damned thing was an actual forge.

"No!" cried Var. She lunged toward her father's ring, now glowing red in the heart of the fire. She had her hand outstretched, ready to reach into the flames to pluck out the nearly molten gold.

I grabbed her and held her back before she could burn herself. "No, Var! Let it go."

"My father—" She was weeping and struggling in my arms. It was a good thing she'd gone for the ring first. Only the need to keep her safe had been enough to stop me from going after it myself.

Poldor shook his head, still working the bellows. "Your father meant for the ring to be melted down. Have you already forgotten the events of yesterday?"

In the heart of the flames, the beautiful ring was losing its shape. The proud angles softened and bent as it melted with a sound almost like a sigh. Then it was gone. An emptiness hovered in the air, like when someone gets up from their favorite chair and never comes back.

"Of course I haven't forgotten," she growled. "But today the wizard thinks I'm dead, and the ring is lost. You didn't have to destroy it!"

"If the ring were allowed to exist, he would soon learn of it—and you," Poldor said grimly. "The Istari are relentless in pursuing their goals. And Curunir would be wrathful indeed, if he learned that you had cheated him of his prize and lived."

The ring was gone, and its hold over me had disappeared. I hated to admit it, but Poldor was making a lot of sense. "He's right. The wizard would never give up and you'd never be free. Your father wouldn't have wanted that. You had to let it go, and move on."

"That ring was all I had left of my father," she said sadly. "Now he's gone. What am I supposed to do? Forget him? How does that work?"

She was still in my arms but not fighting me anymore. I sat in a nearby chair, pulling her onto my lap. "No. You never forget the ones you love. They're always there, just not in a particular thing. You'll hear a song, and all of a sudden they'll feel like they are with you. Sometimes all it takes is to smell a particular scent, like armor-polishing oil, and…well. You know you're not alone." Mahal, I was getting all sentimental. I cleared my throat.

Var shook her head. "I don't think that's enough. Not for me. I can't let go."

Poldor put up with us for a while longer, as Var calmed down. The elf had shaped the melted gold into a disk, which he gave to Var once it had cooled. It was the first time I didn't much care for gold—but perhaps that isn't so surprising, considering how beautiful the ring had been, compared to the shapeless lump it was now.

I tried to cheer her up as we left Poldor's tower. We were on our way home! Well, the Blue Mountains weren't exactly home, but they were somewhere to live. I knew mostly everyone there—Aunt Nott, all my cousins. The Longbeard clan. Family.

Soon Var would become a part of that family, too.

We traveled a good distance the rest of that day, and I even managed to find us a nice cave to camp in that night. I caught a few rabbits for dinner—which made a nice change from elven food. Maybe it was the scent of our dinner roasting on a makeshift spit, the balmy warmth of Spring, or the prospect of sleeping in such a pleasant shelter, but Var seemed to relax as the evening wore on.

We sat together on a fallen log in the gathering dusk. She turned the gold disk over and over in her fingers, but then she smiled up at me ruefully. "Everything I loved has been taken from me. It's not easy."

Tiny sparks flew upward into the midnight sky, dancing in ecstasy before they winked out of existence. This was going to be bad, but I had to get it out. I had to tell her now.

I took a deep breath. "Just so you know, when we get to the Blue Mountains, I'm going to—"

"No," she said, putting her fingers over my lips. "Don't talk about the Blue Mountains. I don't want to know about all the strangers I'll have to meet and the new life I'll have to start. Don't spoil this moment for me—let me enjoy the calm before the storm."

"I know, but I've got things I've promised—"

She laughed, and cupped my face in her hands again, smoothing her thumbs against my jaw the way she'd done in that nameless inn in Bree. It felt just as good as it had before, tender but filled with the promise of excitement that tightened my gut. "Just let me have this time alone with you, before everyone else comes in between."

She slipped off the fallen log we were sitting on and knelt between my legs. Her smile was wicked as her hands stroked down the front of my tunic and found their way to the laces on my trousers.

"Stop that." I batted her hands away, a little short of breath. "Be serious, will you?"

Her eyes flashed. "No. I won't." She reached up and grabbed handfuls of my tunic, drawing our faces together nose to nose. "I don't want to be serious."

My temper was slipping. I got angry then—angry at how guilty I felt, angry that she wouldn't listen to me, angry that I loved her and didn't want to leave her. But I would.

"Stop messing around and listen to me," I growled. My hands tightened on her upper arms and she winced. Mahal, I'd probably be leaving bruises there. "Once we get to the Blue Mountains, you're going to be on your own for a while. I've got other things I need to do, that you can't be involved in."

Her eyes narrowed. "Oh, so you're going to drop me off like an unwanted parcel and go on your merry way? Do you think you're done with me?"

"Of course not!"

She lunged at me, damn near ready to bite. "You and I will never be done, Dwalin. Never."

"It's not about that. I'm just telling you the truth." I held her off, but she was squirming around so much I had to wrestle her into a full body hold to get her to stop. "I'm trying to do this nicely."

She was pinned under me, breathing hard and glaring up at me. "Nice? Just take what you want and leave, is that it?"

That did it. A red haze of anger filmed over my brain. "If I were going to take what I wanted, I'd do this." And I took her mouth with mine, hard and punishing, not even caring that I was biting her lips and stopping her breath. I dragged the sharp edges of my teeth along the underside of her jaw, making her gasp and buck beneath me as I savaged the delicate skin of her neck.

She was shivering and moaning. I ignored her protests, reaching one hand between us and yanked up her tunic to palm one generous breast. I knew she liked delicate touches, but this time I trapped her nipple between my thumb and forefinger, pinching it hard. She jumped and gave a strangled cry.

Guilt washed over me, and I lifted myself away from her. I didn't want to hurt her; I was going to hurt her enough as it was.

She clutched my hand to her breast. "Mahal! No, don't stop. Don't let go of me."

So I stroked the hurt away from her soft skin, which was glowing with sweat despite the mild evening. She was so soft, so completely in my hands, and the sensation of wicked power was delicious. She was mine; I would wipe the sadness from her. I would make her happy.

"If I were going to take my pleasure of you, I'd do this," I sat up and loosened the laces on the trousers she wore for traveling, pushing them down over her hips and off one leg. Then I kissed her belly.

She scooted away from me. "What are you doing?"

"Come back here," I growled, hooking my hands around her hips and dragging her back to me. Then I bent down to kiss her again, trailing a line of nibbles down to the dark thatch between her legs. I clamped my hands on her thighs, holding her prisoner as I kissed lower and deeper still.

She gasped as I licked her quivering flesh, held tight in my relentless grip. Her body tightened and shook. Just as I felt her reach the crest, I moved up her body and plunged deep inside her. As I moved, I watched her face, savoring the knowledge that I was the one who put that look of surprise on her face, that I was the one who forced those sweet lips into a grimace of astonishment. I reveled in my power over her as her body convulsed, her eyelids fluttered and her face relaxed into slack-jawed release.

Mine, all mine, she was mine. And the power and the dark hot pleasure of having, of taking, roared through me like dragonfire and I was consumed.

After I lay panting for a while, I said, "Thorin asked me to help him take back Erebor from the dragon. But with any luck, I'll be back as soon as it's over." Then I held my breath.

She didn't answer. Night had almost fallen and the fire was nothing but embers. I lifted myself up on my elbow to peer into her face, braced for any reaction: hurt, shock, icy anger. But I saw none of those emotions.

She had fallen asleep.