The early morning was cold but clear, and she found herself smiling unthinking as she walked to the Hall. Meren and Anna were already there, and Aragorn entered with Halbarad as she sat down with her food. Halbarad was leaving that morning as well, but he did not wear his star, and his clothes were more tattered and mismatched than was usual for a Ranger. She did not ask where he was going, for she knew she would not get an answer.
They ate without speaking much; there would be time enough to talk on the road. Raeneth brought the last of their provisions as they finished their meal, and she took their empty trays back with her. "You take care of yourselves," she said, when Aragorn protested. "I'll take care of your dishes." He smiled, and they stowed the food in their packs, and went out into the morning.
There was a small crowd at the gate to bid them farewell, despite the early hour and the cold, for the Chieftain was leaving. Too soon, some said. He does what he must do, said others. May he return before the snows.
Word had spread as well of Miriel's choice, and they wished her well, with heartfelt gratitude that moved her almost to tears. But Aragorn caught her eye and nodded slightly. So we will walk the hard road together.
Halbarad went with them to the far edge of the River Wood, where the track branched off that led south along the skirts of the hills. He embraced Aragorn, and she could not hear what they said to each other. Then to her surprise, he turned to her. She braced herself, but he said only, "Take care of him, Miriel."
"I—I will, sir."
And then to her utter shock, Halbarad smiled. "He's stubborn, but you're not one to take no for an answer. I think you'll do."
Aragorn laughed, saving her from the need to reply, and it was well that he did so, for she could think of absolutely nothing to say. "Leave her be, Hal. She's already gotten me to take poppy twice. I am in good hands."
Anna grunted, looked away and said nothing. But Halbarad turned to her, mirth gone, stepped close and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Gwethor nîn."
Anna met his eyes. "Remember who you are," she said softly, fiercely. "And why." And then, clear in the cold morning, the words of ritual to push back fear: "Valar guard and guide you, Ranger."
He swallowed, nodded. "Valar guard and guide." Then he turned away, and strode down the southward track without looking back.
The road climbed slowly but inexorably up into the hills, and Miriel soon found herself bent under the weight of her pack, gasping for breath. Meren stayed by her side and said nothing, and they began to lag behind the older Rangers. Anna glanced back, said something in a low voice to Aragorn, and they stopped. When Miriel and Meren had caught up, Aragorn looked at her searchingly, then took her hand. She felt the question, let him find the answer, for though instinct cringed in shame, thought knew there was no reason for it. He knows why it is. And she met his gaze steadily.
"I will stay with her," he said at last. "You two go on ahead, find a place to camp." He glanced up at the sky. "Sheltered, if you can. Looks like rain."
Anna's jaw tightened, and she looked as if she would speak. But she said nothing, only gestured sharply to Meren, and without a word they set off. Aragorn waited until her breathing had calmed, and then he said softly, "Well done. You are learning."
"What?" She was frustrated and shaky, and in no mood for riddles.
"Learning your limits. What is within your control, and what is not. What you can do, and what you cannot. Limits will keep you alive, Miriel."
She let out a dissatisfied breath. "How am I to protect you if I can't even keep your pace?"
He laughed softly. "Do not take that to heart. I am rather capable of minding myself." A sidelong glance, and a half-smile. "Most of the time."
"Then what was he on about?" It was discourteous, bordering on rude, but in her irritation at herself she let temper flare.
"Halbarad worries too much," he said shortly.
She accepted the rebuke, and they walked on in silence. After a time, he said in a softer voice, "That was unkind. Forgive me. Not untrue, but unkind. He gives me more than I deserve, and I am too seldom grateful for it."
"It is not more than you deserve, my lord." She did not know if he looked for an answer, thought perhaps he did not. But there was pain in his voice. Distant and masked, but there without doubt, and it was to the pain that she spoke.
He turned and looked at her then, smiled faintly and shook his head, but he said nothing, and they walked for a long time after that without speaking.
The sun vanished as thick clouds rolled up behind them, and the hills before them faded into dimness. A cold wind began to blow. She shivered and pulled up her hood. I am moving, and dry. I should not be this cold.
Aragorn walked on steadily at her side, and she fell into the rhythm of his strides. Vaguely she knew he must have shortened them for her, knew she ought to resent it but found she could not, and so they walked together into the fading light.
The land around them was bare, for they were now far up into the downs, and wind tugged at the short, dry grass. All the sky was gray now, and the wind blew damp and even colder, but still it did not rain. She felt the world narrowing around her, and if she lifted her eyes the hills wavered and she felt sick. So she looked down at the road before her, dirt and grass and stones, felt Aragorn's firm, steady footfalls as though they were her own, and her feet followed them without command from her mind.
They went down a slope, rocky and rough, more dry streambed than road. The comforting rhythm was gone, every step an effort. She nearly fell several times, forced her mind to focus on the placement of her feet amid the stones.
He walked beside her, watching her, and he did it openly, for with her hood up she could not see. He tensed when she stumbled, made himself relax when she found her footing again, and he hoped they would reach shelter soon.
They came down into a shallow valley, bushes and twisted trees huddled along its bottom, dry leaves rattling in the wind. He felt a cold drop on his forehead, and then another, and pressed his lips together to stop a groan. But then ahead of them in the gloom, a sharp whistle, and his head jerked up. Movement in a clump of trees tucked into a hollow at the bottom of the further slope. Meren was there, gesturing them on, and as the rain began to patter down around them, they ran across the rough ground, ducked under thorny branches, and found themselves in a dry, shadowy hollow beneath an overhanging edge of rock.
Miriel stumbled, nearly hit her head on the sloping stone, would have fallen had Aragorn not caught her.
Softly in her ear, "Steady, maloseg." He held her for a moment and then let her go, and she sank to the ground, crouching with her hands pressed flat to the dirt.
Everything in him wanted to hold her, pull her to him and cradle her close until she stopped shaking, slip his soul into hers and let his strength flow into her until she was strong and straight and full of light as he had seen her that first day. It was an almost physical pain, to watch her huddled on the ground with unseeing eyes, gasping as though she had run a desperate race.
No.
Any number of reasons for it, and he would face none of them. But then Meren was there, crouching by her side, hand steady on her arm. She sat back with a gasp, let Meren pull the pack from her shoulders. He spoke to her softly, and she leaned against him, and he put his arms around her. And Aragorn turned away, shrugged off his own pack and let it fall heavily to the ground, and went to help Anna gather wood.
They had barely enough to boil water when the rain began to come down in earnest, and they gave it up and scrambled back into the shelter. They did not need to cook, for they had fresh food in plenty from Raeneth, but it would keep a few days more, and they would not always have the means nor safety to build a fire. He put water and meal and dried meat into a small pot set on stones, and carefully fed the bright, crackling blaze beneath it. Red light flickered on stone as night drew in, and they huddled around the small fire, pressed close together to keep out the wind. Smoke stung their eyes, and Miriel closed hers and leaned again on Meren. But she was no longer shaking, and Aragorn glanced at her and felt the fear slip away from his heart. Remember your first time. And that was after you had been trained.
They ate as soon as it was ready, spooning straight from the pot, and when they were done Aragorn filled the pot again with water and set it to heat. There would not be enough wood to boil, but mint tea did not need boiling, and when the last sticks had burned down, he dipped a mug and held it out to her. She took it, smelled it, and a smile spread over her pale, drawn face. "Thank you, my lord," she said softly, and he nodded, and poured for himself and the others.
The porridge steadied her stomach, and the tea cleared her head, and when it was done she felt nearly normal. Not much more weary than I ought to be at the end of a long day. Wind hissed through dry branches, and water seeped through a crack in the stone. But the wind came down the slope above them, and though rain dripped off the edge of the rock and pattered on dead leaves, tucked beneath it they were dry.
"Hope it doesn't shift in the night," was all Anna said, squinting into the gathering dark as she doused the embers of the fire and covered them over with dirt. With no fire it was truly cold, a damp, searching chill that made old wounds ache and slipped through cloth as though it were not there. Meren spread two blankets on the ground, and Miriel did not protest when he gestured her to a middle spot. She knew she ought to, but it was remote, known but not felt, and far stronger was the insistent shivering that hungered for warm bodies around her in the night.
Aragorn tried to argue, but Anna would hear none of it. "Been in the south how long?" She grunted, shook her head. "Lost your tolerance for cold."
"I have not," he insisted.
Silence, but for breath and rain.
"You did what you did. And you're not recovered from it." Low, and final, "Don't try to tell me you are."
Aragorn was silent a moment then chuckled, soft and wry in the dark. "Did Halbarad get at you, too?"
"Yes." And then, "But he didn't need to."
The wind fell, and the rain came pouring down, but beneath the rock they were dry. Cold though it was, they had all known far worse nights, and so fitfully, gratefully, in each other's warmth they slept.
It was dark when Miriel woke. But there was a strange gleam in the air, and though her body felt that it was near morning, it was not yet the light of dawn. Carefully, so as not to wake the others, she shifted until she could look out.
The moon shone nearly full through thin clouds, patterned as waves in hard sand, moving fast across the sky in a wind that was yet unfelt by those with feet on the earth. All was still, and thin snow covered the land and clung to bare branches and withered leaves. Her breath was gray, and there was ice on the rim of her hood.
Beside her, Aragorn stirred, shifted until he lay with chin propped on folded hands, looking out at the snow. The moonlight had begun to fade, clouds turning from silver-white to gray as dawn seeped into the sky.
"I—I'm sorry I woke you," she whispered.
"You didn't." A pause, and then he glanced at her, a grin flitting across his lips. "The cold did. Don't tell Anna."
She found herself smiling. "I won't."
And then they were quiet and watched the dawn, the hurrying clouds turning from gray to faint rose to peach and at last to white, and the lanes of sky between to thin, pale blue. Anna and Meren woke, and Meren groaned and Anna chuckled dryly at the snow.
They ate quickly, shivering and puffing in the cold, and set out again just as the sun touched the western hilltops behind them. For once they were glad of the uphill climb out of the valley, for it warmed them more quickly and surely than any fire, and brought feeling back to numbed feet and hands. They let her lead, the unspoken, slightly galling courtesy of letting the slowest set the pace. But she felt more awake than she had in days, despite the broken sleep. It was as if a veil had been lifted from her, and body and mind at last were clear. She thought suddenly of what Aragorn had said when she had woken in fear that first night, and she felt it strange, for she had not known that she remembered. 'Calm is my soul,' her mind whispered, 'and clear, like the mountains in the morning.' She let the words run through her like water, like light, like wind in the dawn, and when she crested the ridge the sun struck her face, and she smiled. And there beside the road, tucked into a hollow below a swell of earth, grew a small patch of gorse, glowing against the snow in the early light. In spite of herself, she laughed aloud.
The others came up into the sun, breathing white clouds in the cold air. But Aragorn looked at her, an eyebrow raised in question, and she glanced sidelong at the gorse and then back to him, and he too laughed.
Meren looked from one to the other, and then to the gorse. He grinned, incredulous. "How'd it come out, Mir? Did he ask about the bow?"
"Didn't take that," she said ruefully. "Somehow he got there on his own. Chieftain's intuition, or something."
"It was not," Aragorn protested. "You brought it up. I only...connected one with the other." And then, more gently, looking in her eyes, "As another did before me."
She let out a breath, for that was there too, and would always be. There would be no new maloseg bow when at last this one broke, as it inevitably would. And she would never hear it in his voice again. If any had asked, she would have blamed the cold for the sudden stinging in her eyes, and perhaps they would have pretended to believe it. But Aragorn did not ask, only touched her shoulder before turning back to gaze out over the downs blushing rose in the early light. She breathed in the dawn, fingered her bow like a talisman. But a thin, cold wind whispered over the snow, and soon they continued on, eyes narrowed against the rising sun.