"I knew that this was coming. At least… I should have," Faramir confessed as he straightened from his bow. He forced his gaze first onto the king's still body, and with some effort, to the queen's accusing look. A fist clenched around his heart.

The evening sky was a deep indigo and beyond the window, the sunset painted the mountains in shades of lavender and gold. Aragorn had been carefully rolled onto his side, the bandages had been removed and only a pink line cut across his temple remained as evidence of his injury. Allatar's healing had been thorough and artful so that he seemed to only slumber as his wife ran her fingers through his dark hair. He showed no signs of awareness and his spirit felt distant and suppressed so that he did not respond to his name or the hands on his body. The shocking vulnerability of seeing him coaxed to drink the few sips of water by the attending healers made the steward's knees shake like the foundations of the city were crumbling below his feet.

"I pursued the wizard Pallando North from Umbar a fortnight ago." Faramir reported, folding his hands, "The death of the heir to the Umbarian empire came to our attention in the spring, we have had field agents tracking insurgent entities in the desert for the past decade, hoping to find allies against the lingering darkness. I led a company of Rangers South in the Spring when we became aware of Pallando's involvement. We discovered his lair, in which he had been practicing his dark arts for these long years, but by that time, he had already fled North. I returned with all haste possible, but when we reached South Ithillien there was no word of him. In hindsight, he may have already been practicing his face changing…" Faramir shook his head in guilt.

"I returned home and sent a message by pigeon to Elessar warning him of the danger. I sent riders ahead to warn the city, but truly I had no sign of Pallando's movements, and only a hunch that the city might be threatened."

"We never received any pigeons," Arwen said, quickly deducing what might have become of them.

Faramir inhaled and closed his eyes, "I was," he shook his head, regret and fear warring in his expression, "I was weary," it felt like an excuse, "and had to change my horse, and, I longed to see Elboron, who is learning woodcraft with the Sylvan folk. I left the house in the morning with a fresh horse and cookies for Eowyn." His gaze rested on Aragorn's still hands and his voice became slightly thickened as he fought for his soldierly resolve, "to apologize for being gone so long. She could not know the true nature of my mission." He took a deep breath, "When I arrived in the city… I… I thought that I was on time. I went straight to the royal apartments to deliver my warning, the wizard was waiting for me, and you had already departed for the market." Faramir kept himself still and straight, waiting for her response like the fall of an executioner's axe.

"Where is the report?" Arwen asked.

"It was taken when I was incapacitated," Faramir admitted, his memories of the incident were hazy. The last clear memory was leaving Eowyn in the palace infirmary.

"He was impersonating Damrod. He impersonated you, or at least tried to, as your wife would tell the tale. Did you know the extent of his abilities?" Arwen's eyes pierced through him like icy stars, and he was drawn to meet them. She looked at him, and seeing through him as if he was made of crystal, she gleaned no dishonesty, only a deep sense of failure in his heart.

"No," Faramir shook his head, "we saw that he had many strange devices of dark sorcery, but by the time we discovered his hiding place, he had taken the most treacherous of his weapons with him."

"I see." Arwen took a deep breath that ended in a sigh, she took her husband's hand.

Faramir swallowed. He dared not break the tense silence between them.

"I sent Eowyn to see that the visitors from the Shire have a proper dinner. We had to send most of the palace staff home for the night, she offered for them to stay in your residence until the palace was deemed secure. I am sure that she could use your help." Arwen smirked kindly. The Lady of Ithillien's culinary reputation preceded her.

Faramir blinked, "Yes, my lady." He bowed, realizing that he had been dismissed. "Sir Took is waiting outside. He is eager to see the king if you will permit it."

Arwen winced; it was clear that anyone else would have been barred from entry. "You can send him in."

Pippin was pacing the hallway outside. He looked up with worried, hopeful eyes when Faramir emerged and gestured him through the door.

"My lord Strider?" Pippin looked around hopefully as he stepped into the dark paneled room. The stars had begun to emerge outside the window, and a single oil lamp illuminated the woman sitting beside the bed. Arwen cringed, clearly he had underestimated the severity of the situation. "Oh!" Pippin froze, his voice catching and his eyes falling on the still body on the bed.

"Pippin!" Arwen crossed the room and knelt to embrace the halfling. He felt enveloped in the sweet perfume of her dark hair and yards and yards of finely spun silk as her voluminous sleeves cocooned him in the vast pale blue of heaven.

"I had hoped that it was not so bad," He returned her embrace with a furtive pat of her back, eyes fixed over her shoulder at his friend's still body.

"It's bad, Pip." She choked, sliding down to sit on the ground, suddenly incapable of repressing the tears.

Only momentarily flustered by the sight of the Evenstar in distress, Pippin pulled a clean handkerchief, monogrammed with a fancy Tengwar T, from the breast pocket of his uniform and offered it to her as if she was a heartbroken hobbit lass and not the ancient queen of the known world.

.

"Inhale with the sound THU," Allatar raised one hand, "and when you exhale, I want you to say LAY."

They sat in the garden behind the royal apartments. A battalion of spears made from lupines and snapdragons surrounded a small lawn of soft grass. The pale light of Earendil shone so bright that it cast black shadows on the trimmed grass. A cool wind swept down from the North, making the fairies in Allatar's drifting locks dance in mad spirals.

Eldarion straightened his spine, pushing his palms onto his splayed knees and furrowing his brow in concentration. He repeated the sounds with the trained ear of one who has had music lessons since infancy.

"That's right," his teacher coached patiently, letting Eldarion relax into a rhythm of deep breathing, his eyelids flickering in something alike to elven dreams. Gently, he released the boy's hands from their grip on his knees, turning them palm up and straightening his fingers. The sounds poured through his lips, guided by the wizard's gentle presence into words in a language from the dawn of time. It seemed to grow within him until his whole spirit vibrated with a single sound.

Tulk and Findegil sat on a bench to one side of the lawn, the scratching of Findegil's quill stilled as he watched his friend's face go slack with the weight of trance. The sound of the chant grew fainter and fainter until his lips formed the shape of a sound that he could only hear within his mind.

"What is he doing?" Tulk whispered to his companion with suspicion.

"He's singing." Findegil let his lead point drop onto the page, closing his eyes and letting the sound, as subtle as a heartbeat and as high and clear as the song of a nightingale, surge through his mind. He closed his eyes and sighed as he felt his spirit release the fear and tension he had carried over the last few days, and a tear rolled down to the corner of his mouth.

Allatar had insisted that the "vibrations" of the Infirmary were improper for what he needed to do and with the excuse that Eldarion wanted to sleep in his own bed, the four of them had escaped the oppressive light and noise of the healing hall. Tulk was having second thoughts about the wisdom of that course of action. The wizard hummed and danced as he led them into the garden, and Tulk wondered that none of the guards seemed to notice them. He was having second thoughts about the trustworthiness of this supposed Istar.

"I want you to focus on the ground below your spine." He was saying.

Eldarion nodded.

"Repeat after me." The wizard said a strange tone to his voice that seemed to vibrate the very stones of Arda beneath them.

"Repeat after me," Eldarion muttered.

"I am swift and strong." He said. The air seemed to glow a deep and primal red, it echoed with a note so deep that it set the most distant stars to jangling in the heavens: warhorns and trumpeting Oliohants and the power in the rush of ancient blood.

"I am swift and strong." Eldarion repeated, inhaling deeply, "Thu," and exhaling, "Le." his brow furrowed. For a moment, he felt as if his heart paused between breaths, and he caught a glimpse of a spreading vision of tumbling worlds of gleaming possibility stretched out in undying music beyond the walls of thought.

"I am brave and young." The wizard sang, and as Eldarion answered, he felt he was riding at a gallop through primordial forests under stars unsullied by sun or moon.

"I am brave and young." He whispered, and something unfolded in his belly like a fresh spring leaf of shimmering gold.

"I am the sleeper and the dream." He saw the forest awake in a flurry of living phosphorescence. He felt himself swept into a spinning, churning wilderness of living mind. The outer world seemed to shrink to a triviality, and his expression bloomed into rising ecstasy.

"I am doom and destiny." The wizard said, and Eldarion heard the music in the stillness between his heartbeats.

"There you are!" Holleg's voice shattered the spell and brought them crashing back into the silence of mundane reality with a jarring dissonance.

Eldarion shrieked in pain and slapped his hands to his ears. Blood trickled between his fingers, as he sagged to one side.

"Muk!" Findegil cast aside his book and dove to catch his prince.

"What are you doing?" Holleg demanded of the wizard, dashing forward and looking around for a source of Eldarion's distress, "what's wrong with him?" he demanded of the old man.

"Dissonance," Allatar was gently pulling Eldarion's bloody hands from his ears, replacing them with his own healing touch. "Shh," he soothed as the prince started to recover from his swoon, a look of fearful guilt in his wrinkled eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, can you hear me? We shan't do that again, too fast, much too fast, my boy." He smoothed Eldarion's hair back, and for a moment, he thought he had Melian's face.

Eldarion nodded, wincing with the motion, he pushed Allatar's hands away. "I can hear you," he looked up at Holleg with a cringe.

"Does Lady Arwen know about this?" Holleg looked around at the four of them in horror.

"Please don't tell her!" Eldarion wiped his hands on the grass, "I'm really all right."

Holleg put his hands on his hips, "This is a security matter, my lord. Might you explain what you were doing?"

"It's a form of meditation," Findegil offered with a guilty smile, "for relaxation," he put his hands behind his back, "his majesty was having trouble sleeping."

"Are you well, my lord?" Holleg eyed the prince suspiciously.

"Yes, thank you, Holleg." Eldarion smiled, the trickle of red down his neck doing little to enhance the effect. "The blast blew out my eardrums." He explained lamely, pulling at his earlobe.

Holleg looked around at their too-innocent faces before sighing and running one hand resignedly across his face, "Go to bed, Eldarion. You will be needed at the council in the morning."

"Why will I be needed at the council?" he asked as the Commander turned to leave, standing up and dusting the grass from his trousers.

"We have to discuss primogeniture," Holleg stopped momentarily at the garden entrance.

"But my father yet lives!" Eldarion called after him, a noose of foreboding wrapping around his throat, cutting off any thought of the blissful music he had been reveling in moments before, "he's still alive!" Eldarion cast aside Findegil's hand on his shoulder.

"Let us pray that you are right in the morning." Holleg looked back at the boy before stepping beyond the hedge.

Eldarion screamed in rage, feeling Findegil turn him into an embrace as he sobbed.

"We have to try again!" he said after a moment, wiping tears out of his eyes, "we have to try again."

"Child," Allatar was turning him gently, "you must rest."

Eldarion shook his head, a look of grim determination on his pale face. "What can we do differently?"

"I don't know," the wizard admitted, "His presence taints the world; you can never escape it, and I fear the dissonance may destroy you should you attempt this again." He said, "This art was not made for mortal minds."

"So, I am just to accept that my father will die?" Eldarion's tears had dried and his face had hardened to a fey light, and for a moment, he stood in grim defiance to the wizard's apparent impotence.

"My Lord," Tulk said, from where he sat on the ornate marble bench, "I have an idea."

.

"The ale will make the batter crispier because it adds bubbles." Elanor went onto her bare tiptoes as she delicately placed the last fillet of Anduin catfish into a pot of simmering oil. It hissed and spat. The dark windows of the great kitchen in the Steward's house reflected the firelight as her audience watched from across the counter in fascination. Eowyn was studying the bottles of seasoning that Elanor had brought from the Shire suspiciously and Brekke was bouncing a chatty Celiriel on one hip. The usual kitchen staff who fed the court population was in lockdown with the rest of the city. Brekke had gone white when the Hobbit girl had eagerly offered to cook for them. A baffled Eowyn had arrived at the house to find freshly caught river fish lying un-gutted on the counter and no sign of the cook. Clearly, someone had braved the chaos of the city to acquire food for the steward's return, but the rotund Northerner who usually occupied the kitchen was nowhere to be found. Had he been at the market when the bomb went off?

"Surely you're using too much oil," Brekke said, arching one black eyebrow across the kitchen.

"It should be enough," Elanor squeaked. She stepped off the footstool and checked on a pot of simmering yellow-green florets, "these are done!" she announced, "My Lady?" she looked at Eowyn expectantly. The lady of Ithillien obediently lifted the pot from its hook above the coals. "Use this!" Elanor commanded, holding up a gleaming colander and watching as Eowyn poured off the excess water into a copper basin, where it steamed and swirled on its way down the drain. Elanor pulled a pot of long-grained brown rice from paddies in the Ithillien lowlands off the heat and, lifting it nearly over her head, set it atop a decorative pot cozy on the counter.

"Now add salt." She watched closely as the Lady of Ithillien measured some white powder in her palm, "not so much!" she cautioned as she stepped onto the footstool again, carefully rotating the slabs of golden fish in the oil, fearless of the spattering grease. "Use a fork to smash some into a paste for the baby."

"When did you learn how to cook?" Eowyn asked in wonder, following her instructions. There was a deeply hobbitish audacity to the humble act of making dinner after the past days of doom and sorcery.

"My father taught me," Elanor lifted the pieces of fish, now covered in a glistening, golden crust that made them crunch when she picked them up in her tongs, "children in the Shire learn to cook before they learn to read."

This made Eowyn laugh. "Just as little girls of Rohan learn to ride before they learn their letters!" The rice was topped with a yellow pat of horse butter, sprinkled with black pepper imported from Khand, and they set out plates for six, springy broccoli, fluffy, long grain rice, and plump fillets of golden fried fish the size of a hobbit's foot. And then they stood around waiting.

"Where do you think lord Faramir and Sir Took went?" Brekke asked, adjusting a fussy Celiriel onto her other hip.

"They were visiting the king's bedside," Eowyn looked out the window. The house had three levels, the uppermost opened onto the fountain plaza and the lowermost opening onto the sixth ring of the city. From the kitchen window, she could see the distorted lights of the infirmary and, across the gardens, the dark shape of the royal apartments. "I see them!" she announced, going to the door.

Entering the house, Faramir scooped her up in a rib-crushing embrace, "it smells incredible!" Faramir looked around in wonder as the smell of spices and seasoned fish filled his nostrils.

"It's not much, my lord." Elanor beamed at his approval, climbing onto the bench to place a bowl of golden summer melon on the table.

Before they ate, they all raised a glass of golden Ithillien wine to the Elfstone, and Faramir apologized for the lack of formality.

"How fares the king?" Brekke asked as they all went to tuck in. Faramir had gleefully taken the princess from her and had taken the bowl of mashed broccoli as he praised her in a string of meaningless babble about how big she had gotten and how proud he was of her for eating big-girl food. Usually, they would have dined at the small feast hall in the palace, each at separate tables arranged according to their positions at court. Their food was expertly prepared in the vast kitchens by professional chefs. This intimate gathering of those few unlucky souls who had remained in the citadel seemed like a scandalous violation of the social norm. Faramir liked it.

Tomorrow there would be a meeting of the remaining members of the king's council to organize the aftermath of the attacks and make the first step on the path forward. He longed for an enemy with a face, but with the disappearance of the blue wizard, the battlefield had shifted to one Farmir had far less experience with.

"His condition is unchanged," Faramir turned from the child grimly, "the head wound and some fell sorcery which we do not yet understand has sent him into a sleep from which he will not awake." he felt the concerned eyes of everyone a the table trained on him.

"Do you truly think that the Dark wizard was defeated?" Brekke asked, placing a carafe of wine in the middle of the table and sitting between Elanor and the lady of Ithillien. The others looked at him in fearful expectation as if he would reveal himself to be the skin-changer in that moment.

"I think that, when the stone fractured, he was sent from this world into the halls of the dead," Faramir said with a shake of his head, "which may be where he can do the most ill." The fish was perfect but the words in his mouth proved a poor seasoning as it tasted like nothing. Celiriel rubbed a fistful of mashed broccoli into her open mouth, her feet kicking on either side of his thigh.

"I had a strange nightmare," Eowyn said, watching the baby with kind amusement. "About Glorfindel, believe it or not, do you believe what he told me?" she caught her husband's eye, "to do that very thing. He said that the Stone had been made by some," she sipped her wine, "Some elf prince, that it had to be destroyed?"

"Will he be brought before the justice of the Valar?" Elanor, who loved stories about gods and goddesses more than anything, asked, instantly regretting it when too many eyes turned to her.

"We can only hope," Faramir looked kindly at the newcomer, wondering at her likeness to her father.

Brekke looked up, the expression on her face one of bewilderment so deep that everyone else grew quiet to hear her speak, "I also had a dream," her eyes met Eowyn's, and her breath came quickly, "Mandos was in ruins, and death had come to Aman."

...

That night, Eldarion slept in his bedroom in the hall of Isildur again. It was too quiet without the rest of his family but he could not justify occupying another desperately needed hospital bed. He lay in a nest of linen sheets, staring at the shadowy murals on the ceiling and desperately wishing that he was older, stronger, or anything more than he was.

The ceiling depicted a map of Arda in the Second Age when the sea was flat. A tiny model of Vingliot dangled from a hook in the corner, its silver-plated feathers reflecting the dim light from outside. The valar were cast in tones of purple and grey in the distant lamplight. His mother had painted it when he was young. They lay side by side on a dropcloth as she described the coasts of Numenor, Beleriand, and Aman and told him stories about his ancestors. She had painted portraits of the sixteen Valar around the border, Varda spread out her hands in an explosion of stars, and Manwë lifted his scepter in calm authority over the world, bearing a comforting resemblance to his father. He looked at Namo; Arwen had done her best to make the Doomlord look gentle and serene rather than grim.

What terrible sorcery would dare to challenge his power? The gilded stars on the crescent coasts of Valinor marked the cities of the high elves and the courts where the Powers maintained supposed dominion over the world. Far, far to the west, past the furthest stories, just there, on the distant edge of the map, a star marked the halls of Mandos. As he lay there wide awake in the silent hours before dawn, he wondered if it was indeed a place of comfort and renewal or simply a prison for souls?

He looked at the woodcut print of Finrod Felagund on his wall and sighed, wishing that he could talk to his long passed uncle.