She was hungry, and so was he, judging by how he ate. Girith was not there, or at least she did not see him, as she cast her eyes furtively around the hall. But when she returned to her room, he was sitting cross-legged on the hearth rug, back to the fire, singing softly. His smile was like sunlight, and he gestured her down to sit beside him. She gasped a little as stiff legs protested the movement, but the fire was warm on her back, and she felt full and a little sleepy. Without really thinking about it, or rather avoiding thought, she laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.

He was still, and she felt his breathing, slow and controlled. But then he shifted, and she felt the muscles of his shoulder move, and he slipped an arm around her and drew her close, and they sat for a long while in the warmth of the fire. At last he said softly, "You wanted to wash?"

She laughed. "Are you asking or telling?"

"You did say it."

"True."

"And you do need it."

She heard the smile in his voice, and laughed again in surprise. "Also true."

"Then come. I will show you where we bathe."

She frowned. "There is a bathhouse? And you never told me, in all the time I was here?"

"Not a bathhouse," he said, almost dismissively. "And it is only for us, as a rule. Not for…guests. But you are with me." He said it plainly, as a fact, but as he spoke his fingers curled around her hand.

He led her down, below the kitchens, below the storerooms, down smooth flights of steps lit only by the lamp he carried. The air was cold and smelled of earth, and she shivered. But then at the end of a long stair he opened a door, and it was as if she walked into summer. Warm, wet, and she felt sweat prickle on her skin. There were many lamps hung here, and figures moving in the shadows. She saw pools rimmed in smooth rock, some with steam rising in clouds, and there was a soft sound of water trickling over stones.

She gazed in wonder. She had heard of such things, of heated water from the depths of the earth, endless and inexhaustible, filling pools that a body could sink into as though returning to the womb. But she had not entirely believed it, for it seemed too wonderful, too luxurious to be true.

She turned to him, found that he was watching her, a strange guardedness in his face. "These are our baths. Rather different from your village bathhouse, or so I am told."

A small, surprised laugh. "Yes." She met his eyes. "It is a wonder."

He smiled. "It is indeed. There is nothing else like it in the northern lands." And then the caution returned. "Will you bathe? If you do not wish to, I can have water sent to—"

"Of course! This is…a dream, a marvel. How could I refuse?"

And at last he smiled in truth, and she felt warmth flood through her that owed nothing to the air. "Good. Come, I will show you how it is done."

And he showed her which pool was to wash, which to rinse off the soap and dirt, and which to soak in once it was done. The few others who were there glanced at her and then paid no more mind, and that was a relief. But when he had finished the instructions, he looked at her, face soft in the steam. "Can you find your way back to your room?"

She frowned a little. "I—will you not stay?" Are you to leave me alone among strangers?

She did not say it, but he heard it. "They saw you come here with me. That is enough."

"Then do you…not wish to bathe?"

"Not with you." A brief, sidelong smile, and his glance flicked to them and back to her. "Not in front of others." And he bowed slightly and turned away, and she watched the steam swirl in the movement of air as the door closed behind him. And she felt her heart beat suddenly fast, and wondered if his words could mean what she thought.

But there was no answer now, and no use dwelling on it, and so she did as he had told her. The hot water pained her frost-damaged hands and feet, but it was a clean pain, and she did not flinch from it. She undressed quickly, and sank into the water of the wash pool, unbraided her hair and tipped back her head so that it floated around her, as she had not done since she was a child playing in the village pond. And that was spring-fed cold even in summer. She closed her eyes, let the water fill her ears, and in the muted, drifting heat it seemed for a time that she was hardly in this world at all.

She washed and rinsed as Girith had instructed, clambered out dripping, and slipped into a small empty pool on the edge of the cavern, and soaked until she felt herself drifting into sleep. Not here, she thought vaguely, dried herself and dressed in a languid, pleasant daze. But cold air brushed her face as she stepped out into the tunnel, and she drew in a sharp breath. Her head cleared, and she felt with her feet for the stairs in the dimness, lit only faintly by a lamp on the landing above.

When she returned to her room, Girth was not there. But there was food, and a bright fire on the hearth, and she found herself sleepy after she had eaten. The sky outside her window was fading to early winter dusk, and she smiled to be warm and clean, sitting on the braided hearth rug with the firelight on her face, as the cold wind whispered outside but could not come in. She traced her fingers over the roughness of fire-warmed stone, closed her eyes, and began softly to sing.

Wanderer, and she remembered Calen's voice in the hills above Annúminas.

The melody of the linnaidh, as she had sung it in the stone chamber in the ruined city, and she thought of the dead, and shuddered a little at the memory of pain. But still she sang. For though they were not her people, they had fought for her people, and for her lord, died for him as much as for their own folk. And so they also are my brothers.

And then, very softly, "I will go to the hills in the dark of the morning…" She thought of Kir, but it was not for him, not really. She did not know who it was for. Perhaps no one. Perhaps it will always be an echo, or a dream. And she did not mind the thought.

She thought of the Wild, of her brothers around the fire, watched the play of light on the walls in the falling dark. And so she was singing Shadowdance, soft and slow, when the door opened.

Girith's eyes met her, darkness behind him, firelight on his face. She rose and came to him, took his hands and led him to the fire, and they stood before it, and she sang now to him. And when the song was done, she said softly, "Your hands are cold." And she laid them on her fire-warmed cheeks.

He drew a soft breath but said nothing, and stood in stillness. But something in her thought that he was not still. At last he said, not taking his hands from her face, "I was gathering the last herbs from the garden. There will be snow tonight."

Before she could stop it, her lips pressed together and she shuddered at the memory of cold, and he took his hands from her face and slipped his arms around her, and drew her to him.

"Estel told me what you did," he said quietly. "In the battle and after." And then, moving a hand softly over her still-damp hair, "He was not wrong to put his trust in you."

She felt his voice in his chest as he spoke, and she was glad for once that she did not have to meet his eyes. She let him hold her, and with that anchor she was safe, for if she drifted, caught by the current of memory, she would not drift too far.

At last she asked in a small voice, "Does it get easier?"

She had not dared to ask the Chieftain. But Girith took her hand, and she felt him with her as he said softly, "No, nestorneth. It does not. The way back will be easier, perhaps, for now it is known. But death is what it is." And then, pulling back enough to look in her eyes, "You would not want it easy."

She knew what it was that he said. Slowly, almost reluctantly, "It should not be easy. It should never be easy." And he looked in her eyes, and she felt the sadness in him, the grief of long memory. But then he smiled, and she remembered sunlight on yellow leaves, and his fingers moved over her hand.

"Yet still we live." He smiled, and gestured her down to sit on the hearth rug beside him. "Now, tell me of yourself."

She glanced at him, and frowned in question. What would he wish to know? For the things of her life seemed now small, and unimportant. But he smiled, made a gesture that said, Go on. And so she shrugged, returned the smile and then began to speak.

She told him of her mother, saw the pain cross his face, and she laid her hand on his. She told him of the mountains, of the clear air in the high pass, of sunset on the peaks and the stars that seemed to hang so near. He laughed softly as she described the pack trip, but his smile became gentle when she spoke of Calen's family.

"That is one in a thousand," he said quietly. "Your friend is a fortunate man."

She nodded. "I miss him." And then, softly, "I—I do not know what to wish. I want him to return, but how can I want him to leave them? How could we ask that of him?"

"I think," said Girith after a pause, "that your Chieftain does not ask, and he will not. He only gives a choice. For it is not a thing a man could with honor ask of another. But I think you will see him again. Though it may be long before that day."

And she nodded, acknowledging at last what she had known since she turned from him in the cold dawn. Girith's lips curved in a faint, sad smile, and his fingertips brushed tears from the corners of her eyes.

With an effort she cleared her throat, and straightened her shoulders. "And what of you? What have you done since I saw you last?"

He laughed, and a soft thrill went through her, for it was a sound she had seldom heard, low and musical as a brook over stones. "This summer was as all other summers. I tended the garden, and walked the hills. Two of your folk found their way to us broken, and we sent them away again whole." And then he smiled again, somehow nearer, and more real. "And I missed you, Miriel. I had become used to you. It was as though I turned to see something that ought to be there beside me, and it was gone."

She frowned a little, for this she had not expected. "Is it always so, when you train one of us?" She thought of the bond that had grown between them, the bond that must grow between any two who did what they had done. But he went still, gazed at her for a long moment, and then he shook his head. "No," he said softly. "It is not always so."

Silence then, for a time. The fire hissed gently, and rising wind lashed bare branches. She felt questions in her mind, but they were confused, tumbled over each other, and she did not know what to ask.

At last he said quietly, not looking at her, "I desired you at Midsummer." And she found that she already knew it, had known without knowing, and she was not surprised at his directness. "It was not the right time then, I knew that. Or my heart knew it, if my body did not. And I thought perhaps it would fade, when I no longer had you before me. Such has happened before. But when I saw you again, I knew it had not." And then he did turn to look at her, and she met his eyes. "I ask nothing of you, Miriel. I will ask nothing. I would take what is offered, but I will not ask."

She breathed slowly, though her heart was pounding, looked at him a moment longer and then away. Why is this hard? Faintly incredulous, It's not as though I didn't know. And then, It's not as though I don't want him. And that she had not known. But she knew it now, knew it with certainty, and still she did not know what to do with it. For this was more than simple desire. That she understood, knew its contours and its rules. But this…this is different. And she felt it almost as a danger.

But then, sudden and strange in memory, though why his voice should come to her now she did not know: 'It is a joy, brother. They are few enough in the Wild.'

A moment longer she gazed into the fire, and then she nodded. Turned to him, and smiled a little, and he knew it for an answer to the question he had not asked. And she reached out slowly, almost tentatively, brought her fingers to his lips.

There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of their breathing, and the soft crackle of the fire, and the wind. He brushed his fingers across her cheek, down the curve of her jaw, traced the lines of her neck. She read the question in his eyes, knew he waited for her. And so she stood, unlaced her tunic and pulled it over her head.

Hesitation then, But it is not as though he has not seen me. The rest of her clothes followed, and she stood in the firelight, bare except for the band of cloth around her breasts. In one graceful movement he rose, turned her gently, and she felt cool air on her skin as the buttons gave under his fingers. The cloth made a soft sound as it fell to the floor. She took a deep breath, and turned back to him. But naked before him, uncertainty flickered again. As if he felt her doubt, he smiled, and eyes never leaving her, he undressed.

She had seen his body before, of course, had felt and stitched and bandaged it, had learned the ways of muscle and blood and bone through feeling his. But she had not seen him like this. He was beautiful, she would have said, though the word seemed strange for a man. She reached out, moved her hands slowly over him, and he said nothing, but his breath caught in his throat. His smile broadened, and he pulled her close and kissed her.

She responded without thinking, feeling only the warmth of him against her, his beautiful body under her hands.

He is; I am not. And she knew now what it was that she feared. She stiffened, and stepped back from him.

"Why? I am not beautiful."

He stared at her, but then sighed softly, and reached out again to touch her cheek. "What is beautiful, dunadaneth? A flower in spring, and bare frosted trees. The sunrise, and the lightning. You are alive. There is fire in you. Perhaps it is because you are mortal; perhaps it is because you are a warrior, and face death every day in the Wild. But I will touch the fire. And if I am burned, so be it."

And there was warmth, and heat, and both were burned, and both came through the fire.