Author's Notes:

Hello, all! We're back with a new chapter! Something a little different this time: we were going to pick up right where the last one left off and follow Elrohir, but you'll have to wait for the next chapter to find out how he fares.

I'm afraid my worklife has imploded lately, so I'm not sure when that will be, precisely, but I hope not to keep you waiting too long. In the meantime, please enjoy!

As always, thanks to my beta, Cassijex_73. This chapter is much better for your keen eyes and swift pen!

Content Reminder

Since it's been a while: please mind thecontent warnings relayed back in Chapter One.

Summary

As Elrohir slips unknowingly into the Unseen, Haldir prepares for a long-awaited confrontation.

Chapter 30: Of Secrets Kept

The reflected candlelight burned with a marshy glow, and the odor curdling off the water made his shoulders stiffen against the weight of half-rotted lamellar, but Haldir drew his chair right up to the basin, Rammas' lamp in hand. Lifting the shutter, he released a riot of starlight across the water. With luck the Starkindler's influence might coax more from the glass than memory of old battlefields.

He had often watched Celebrían thus, bent so her tresses trailed in the water. She could hold herself there for hours, reading the augurs of water and light. When she surfaced, her gaze would remain afar for a time as if she dreamed in some distant land, down roads he could not follow. Too uncanny, that whole business. Too much like the Enemy's enchantments luring the unwary into the bog (an opinion she patiently refuted in private even as she encouraged her reputation as an 'enchantress' abroad).

But the water remained dull and dark. Only a spiderweb of craquelare interrupted his own unsatisfying reflection. Perhaps doubt hampered the glass, or women alone possessed fortitude enough to peer through the veil between Seen and Unseen.

The candle flared and flapped, a breath rufflling the mirrored surface of the water, building until little wavelets lapped the basin's edges. Deep within the water, the darkness gathered itself into a shape.

The shape—undeniably—of a woman.

He craned forward, heart thudding.

"I've been looking for that," said a voice in his ear.

He reared back as if the water had gone up in a gout of flame, the movement twanging from his chest to the tips of his fingers.

Rammas stood behind him, well past the threshold.

"A knock would have been welcome," he grumbled, once the hot flare in his chest receded enough for him to speak. "Barging into a man's bedchamber. How like you."

"I did knock," she said. "And you never used to mind my 'barging in'."

"I'm occupied."

"So, I see," she said with a sidelong glance at the basin. "But it's timeto put on your most gracious face, soldier. Angren is rounding up the troops to enter the high hall. He was going to oust you, but I sent him after Elrohir. I thought my face might be more welcome."

"I'll be along," he said.

Instead of taking his words for dismissal, she shut the door and advanced into the rooms he shared with Aragorn.

The quality of a sickroom clung to it though what it lacked in comfort, it made up for in privacy. Where the Elves surrounded their ill in light and air and the restful company of green and growing things, the Dwarves favored pressure and warmth as the cure of all ailments: a clay-tiled stove occupied most of one wall, and if left to burn too long would make the room swim with heat. There were no windows. Smokeless lamps waxed or waned to mimic the passing of day to night and back again. The walls and floor were bare stone, relieved by a scrap of wool beside the low bed. The cot at its foot—where his nursemaid slept and would not be persuaded, cozened, or threatened elsewhere—was already assembled with the tools of nightly torment: fresh dressings and herbs, packing, scissors, a flask of wine (since his waking, Haldir had refused anything more potent).

Shifting these, Rammas perched on the cot's edge, shoulders angled like a bird tucking in her wings against the wind.

"I hope you're not tiring yourself out."

The last time she'd said that to him had been after Sarn Gebir where he'd spared her an orc's thrust in the belly by taking it in his flank.

Dusky hollows ringed her eyes, and her cheek was wan. She came every morning and evening to see how he fared. If he hadn't put his foot down over the crowding, she would have unfurled her bedroll under Aragorn's cot. Though the immediate danger was past, and he was mending as well as could be hoped (and with as much rest as he could take), his hroa cooling in blood-soaked sheets haunted her.

A little reassurance was called for. A fresh image to overlay the awful. They had not been alone since Lórien, and when all was counted…

With half an ear cocked to the door—no telltale rap of boot heels heralded Aragorn's return—he said, "This shoulder will not bear much weight, but my hands are able and untiring when put to pleasure's use. Lest you've forgotten…"

He crooked a finger at her, beckoning, with his most beguiling smile.

More than his match in irreverent and earthy humor, she liked a good tease, ordinarily. A dusty smile touched her lips, but she remained where she was. Her glance fell, again and more darkly, on the basin.

"How did your speech with Elrohir go last night?" she asked.

It wasn't the question he expected. "He keeps things close. The sooner this matter with Zuraz is settled, the easier I will rest."

"You told him all?"

"I told him enough to put him on his guard."

"And of your suspicion?" she pressed.

"I don't want him to go looking. Not until the Elessar's in hand, and we're safe back home. There will be time enough to make a clean breast of it all. He can hate me until the end of Arda then, so long as he lives to do so."

Her shoulders lifted. "He doesn't hate you. But he's no fool either. Your silence may not help him."

"That is why, were it done, it's better done quickly. Tonight."

"Tonight," she echoed without inflection.

Celegorm's lieutenant with the blood of greater innocents than Orcs on her hands, she did not agonize over the morality of the thing and had witnessed him do worse and for less cause. But she had stood with Elrohir to spare Zuraz's life in the tunnels, and Elrohir had sworn his oath. That was no small thing.

He did not like to think that part of his reason for keeping silent was not only to protect Elrohir from Zuraz, but to prevent Elrond's son from interfering. Even though the Orc deserved death, summary execution was not the sort of work Elrohir had been trained for. His honor was not dunned by the depredations that inevitably marred all long wars. Let it remain so a little longer.

"Aragorn has found out where he lies. The Naugrim will be occupied with their feasting and Balin's negotiations in the dale. It is as likely a chance as we will get. With luck, the watch under the tower will little heed a wayward guest, deep in their cups and spoiling for one last gloat."

He did not tell her if the guard withstood him, his options would rapidly whittle down to the least desirable: he had neither silver for a bribe nor understanding of Dwarvish physiology for some potion-laced bottle. That left him a long reach and a swift knife.

Zuraz could not go free.

"It's not the watch that worries me," said Rammas.

"I have dealt with him before."

"Not on his own ground. Not wounded as you are. And I do not mean only the arrow you took."

"Ori said they searched him thoroughly. They found nothing. No rings, no jewels, no cold knife. Nothing to anchor his power. Without it, he will be lessened."

"There is no love lost between him and Raguk. If the Dwarves exchange him for our passage through the dale, this duty may take care of itself," she ventured.

"I would not entrust this duty to Raguk's fickle hands. Zuraz has slipped me twice now. Not again."

"Vengeance will not bring them back."

"Say justice, rather. A long overdue correction."

"And what then? If Elrohir's diplomacy spares you being tossed in a cell yourself… if we bring the Elessar home… if it opens the way… What if there's nothing left to find? You've considered this. That's why you don't want Elrohir looking. Mortal injury shocks the fëa out of the hroa—"

"I am aware," he reminded her, tugging aside his collar to expose the bandage.

"Belegorn and the others didn't survive. And what was left of her was not what I would call 'survival,'" Rammas bulled on with the merciless air of a healer debriding a wound. "Only a fëa of enormous strength of will could resist the Summons and the Boldog's power both. By now it would be utterly diminished or Shadow-corrupted—"

"Not her."

"Celebrían would not want you to risk your life, your fëa, on so slender a chance. You or Elrohir."

The wooden legs of his chair barked against the stone flags. But there was nowhere to go that would not reek of retreat. He fetched up near the stove with another twinge. The heat baking off it radiated through his shirt.

"Elrohir is already your ally. Don't make him your cudgel, too."

She appraised him levelly, unblinking. "I'm sorry to upset you, but I must speak my mind. Friendship, alone, demands it of me, if nothing else. Even your Lady Galadriel and her glass cannot see the ends of all roads beyond Arda. Only the Ainur can pass through Seen and Unseen, unscathed."

I do not fear the Valar's judgement. Unlike some who shall remain unnamed, I never stooped to spilling a mother's blood before the eyes of her frightened children. I merely—

No. Some words could not be reclaimed, once spoken.

Besides, rancor was the refuge of the undisciplined, and he'd been too long in the field to vent his spleen on the messenger brave enough to bring him ill news. That was why he'd asked her along in the first place…to rein him in, if need be.

She meant well.

But she'd remained at the post in the dale after the attack in the Redhorn: feeding the many willing hands and marking off caves and lairs and quartered patches of forest as the searchers beat the bounds for Zuraz and his captive.

Celeborn's knights advanced first up the Stair (and Haldir himself, against all command). They witnessed what had been left to lie in the unsparing daylight, in the pine grove where Alagos had been dragged—a sight that turned the most battle-hardened among them grey and wrathful and terror-stricken for their lady.

They hunted down the band of ravagers; the mountain passes would report no more orc-mischief for a yén afterward, but Zuraz escaped their nets, taking the Elessar with him, abandoning his captive. What remained of her.

She had not known her rescuers, stared through them with an animal's wide-eyed wariness, yowled at them with an animal's frightened anger when they drew near.

What had he done to her? Where was she? And if such evil were within the Boldog's power, what havoc might he wreak, unchecked?

The turn of that first year after they bore her home brought no answers and no comfort. The sun rose and fell. Winter waxed into a brief spring and wet summer before descending by degrees and then all at once into a winter notable for its snowless, bitter cold. Zuraz's trail went much the same. News of the Elessar dried up.

The grey ship sailed.

In its wake, those who remained thrashed over the imaginings of an alternate past or the catastrophes of an unknown future.

Haldir found himself returning most often to the former.

Over and over again he lay in the snow, bloody sword in his lap, the last sips of his breath wisping against the black sky with its scatterling stars. She knelt beside him, her hands warm and living and full of sorrow, and he would shut his eyes, grateful, sinking into the dark and the stars.

He preferred that to the dreams, older and softer, from which he woke weeping savagely; and only the arsigil's edge biting his forearm until the blood ran would quell his nerves.

Rammas mourned the loss of the Lady of Lórien and Imladris, the advocate who had sought to strengthen ties among the Eldar, kinslayers and all.

She did not miss the mother, whose loss was still graven in her children's faces.

She did not miss the dauntless woman whose spark Zuraz had crushed and driven in torment beyond the recall of the greatest of the Wise.

He swung open the stove door, thrusting the poker inside and furiously scattering bits of blazing wood and embers to the far corners. If he didn't raise his eyes, he could remain safely unexposed.

"I have not always been a good man, Araukë. I have not always made the right choice. But I have ever remained on the side of the Law, of Good: to safeguard our realms, what remains of our people."

Rammas raised her head as if roused out of some deep thought. A less dusty smile reached her lips, a touch rueful. "I told Elrohir how alike the two of you are."

"Doubtless, that flattered him." He caught and held her gaze. "I won't leave her there, gwathel."

She leaned forward, bracing her elbows on her knees.

"Let us be plain," she said, adopting that Dagorlad tone she used whenever higher links in the chain of command put forth another brilliant tactic that, if carried out, would have the mildly unfortunate outcome of turning many of the front-line into candle-bearing corpses. "What you're proposing risks all our lives. Dol Guldur will declare any harm done one of their own—even a declared traitor—an act of aggression. The Dwarves are doughty fighters, but few: can they repel such a force? Is it worth it?"

"Much must be risked in war."

He went to the field desk in the corner and took up the calfskin there, scrounged with some difficulty, Dwarves not being much in the habit of letter-writing beyond the odd contract. Ori and Aragorn both had put their marks to it.

"I have something for you. These sorts of things always do better in writing."

She recoiled with a soldier's reflexive superstition.

"No. Nothing like that. This is for you."

She took it, wary, and unrolled it, frowning over his handwriting: his Tengwar had always been rather feathery and wrong-slanted, but he'd managed not to smudge the ink with his sleeve.

"I have recorded here the deeds you have done in service to Lórien. That should be sufficient for a small appropriation. It won't be much, I warn you, but enough for a start, a little garden of your own. Give that to the Lady. She'll know. She'll honor it."

"Thank you." She gazed at it for a long time then lowered it to her lap. She did not ask him whether he would be at her side to bolster his affidavit's claims. "Gwador."

He had pricked her, somehow. "You looked more pleased in the bog. What ails you tonight?"

"Nothing."

He waited.

"After all this time you, of all men, trust in nakedestel. It surprises me. I'm glad to see it."

Her 'gladness' would have cracked a mirror.

"I triedamdir, but the sea took it."

A feeble joke, but at least it provoked a feebler huff of laughter, which was preferable to this strange and uncharacteristic despondency.

"I wonder. At least inamdir, when our desire remains beyond our reach, we may rail against the fates for blighting our hopes than blame ourselves for resting on them." She folded the letter and tucked it into her jerkin, taking longer than the task required. "You never deceived me, nor compared, so I contented myself with half-measures, but she is rooted deeper than a mallorn in your heart. None will supplant her."

"You are every bit as worthy, as—"

She held up a hand, and he fell quiet, forestalled by simple truth.

War and wanderlust had forged a bond between them many could not understand: a son of the Wood and one of the 'interlopers', who had sullied her hands with kinsmen's blood.

Their arrangement had long satisfied them both: she wished, as he did, for no claim of ownership, or so he'd thought. She was not given to jealousy (as Celebrían had been). Though, of late, his jests of her throwing him over for more attentive lovers had been met with guarded smiles; and she had spoken more often of an end to her wandering. By word and deed, she'd hinted her fondness had begun to well from a deeper spring than mere friendship.

For a man whose life and livelihood depended on weaving the slenderest bits of gossamer into a visible pattern, he'd missed the one writ large in front of him.

He could not deny her words. Or his own.

Sworn-sister. Dear friend.

Never beloved.

That title belonged to one who would never take it up again.

And, try as he might, he could no more lay aside the old love than take his sword-arm off at the shoulder.

The rhythm of familiar Mannish boots sounded off in the corridor, approaching fast.

As if rushing to dress or rinse blood off their hands, Haldir straightened, and Rammas rose, taking up her lamp, their impasse broken as Aragorn ducked into the room. He paused when he saw Rammas, but she kept the pleasantries brief.

Haldir followed her out into the passage. In the face of loss, he had to hold to the task ahead.

"I'll need you in the hall," he murmured, half-apologetically, "to keep an eye on this lot. Make sure all of you are seen."

"Of course."

"You'll look after them, if it comes to it, won't you?"

"I will."

"For what it's worth, old girl, though my offering was meager, it was all I had left."

"Oh, Haldir. I know."

She kissed his cheek, chaste, sisterly—"for luck"—and withdrew. Her face was a windless night of winter. He ached to take her in his arms, but he could not ease the injury he himself had inflicted and to try would diminish her. She was strong in herself. She had no need of his comfort.

"If, beyond all hope, you succeed," she said, "you might have to allow yourself some happiness, tambaro."

Head high, back straight, she walked away down the corridor; and in that moment, he loved her as hard as he was able.

Rapping his knuckles twice against the oak doorframe to dispel the looming specter of remorse (and any others that might be listening), he withdrew into his quarters and shut the door.

It was dim without the lamp: the candles and low, flameless lamps feebly pressing at the shadows in the corners.

In the remains of light Aragorn was fussing over the flagon of wine.

"Rammas seemed grave." Then, with a closer, searching glance at Haldir's face. "What's the matter? Is there ill news?"

"Hm? No. A little overexertion. I told her to be gentle with me, but a Fëanorian woman will not be denied on a feast-night." He eased off his shirt, fingering the bandage. He half-expected blood, but the dressing was dry. "You're cutting it fine. You'll be late. What did Elrohir detain you over?"

"A trivial matter. Nothing to trouble you with."

Aragorn's shoulders told another tale. Not 'nothing' then.

His two, unruly charges had likely been commiserating with one another over his refusal to lengthen their leads tonight. He did not have it in him for another bout, not when he'd need everything in him later, so he sat silent while Aragorn, with practice too deft for either of their liking, changed his dressing.

Aragorn's fingers palpated his work experimentally. "The stitches look a little strained. You ought to rest it more."

"Sing me a new song, that tune never varies."

"I am in earnest."

"So am I. Hand me my blade, will you? I'll use my right hand, if that please you."

Aragorn made a small noise of exasperation and handed him the hilts anyway. "They won't allow arms in the high hall."

"I'm not going to the hall."

As Haldir finished dressing and arming himself, Aragorn poured two generous helpings of Dwarf wine: a heavily fortified red.

"Wine before dinner. Do I look as bad as all that?" Haldir said.

Aragorn rolled a shoulder, extending one of the pair. "It is, as you said, a feast-night. At the very least, you should not go forth on your errand with a dry throat."

A plausible enough excuse had it been forthcoming from any other's lips, but Aragorn had an ascetic's aversion to indulgence, unlike many of his fellows for whom drink and debauchery were as necessary as sword and shield for warding off mortality. Twenty years' service in Rohan and Gondor had not budged that infernal martyrdom.

Still. On a rare occasion, even the sun took the moon's place in the sky.

He reached for the offering, but Aragorn withdrew it beyond the tips of his fingers.

"Let me come with you," he said, nearly pleading. "Keep your secrets, if you must, but let me come with you."

"You would, wouldn't you."

There would be no questioning of motives. No argument. The trust between them over the decades—a considerable time for a mortal friendship—had rarely faltered, not though they sat in the council chambers of the Wise or camped rough under nameless stars.

But he couldn't ask.

Regardless of the high hopes hitched to this star, Aragorn—Estel, still—was too dear in his own right. Besides, if anything happened, Elrohir would hold Haldir to blame, justly so, and he had enough amends to make Elrohir without adding to the count. This was Lorien's business and a matter of private honor. It was his to see through.

To whatever end.

"I will explain all soon," he said. "I promise."

Aragorn's mouth pressed into a tight line, but he relented and handed over the goblet. "We ought to drink to something. It's ill luck without a toast on a high day."

"Hope," Haldir said, chiming their rims together. "The ideal and the Man!"

Aragorn's answering smile did not quite reach his eyes, and the wine barely wet his lips.

Instinct honed by centuries hunting many a crafty thing stirred. Haldir paused with his glass halfway raised, searching for the source of his sudden disquiet. Like the mirror, no discernible shape emerged.

His chest gave another vicious throb. His heart had tolerated the arrow's presence better than its absence.

Or, perhaps, it did not tolerate absence of any kind well whether arrow, friend, or lover lost.

The wine was too sweet, but he drank it off anyway, rolling an odd flavor across his palate, a cloying, loamy taste that recalled Umbar's lower bazaars, those dens of vice full of stupefying smoke.

Aragorn said something, but a low hum filling his ears obscured the words.

"What did you say?"

Aragorn set his own glass down, untouched, in time to catch Haldir's from spilling out of his hand. A few drops of crimson dappled the wool rug.

A surge of weariness washed over him, so fierce, he groped to steady himself against its tidal pull. His nerveless fingers jarred the washbasin. Firm. Cold. And no longer empty.

Elrohir, windblown and wide-eyed, stood up to his shins in snow, his sword upraised to check a trio of advancing, figures whose faces were obscured by grey hoods. And in the far distance loomed a familiar nightmare, the Redhorn, its peak raging. The fell light glittered and jumped at Elrohir's throat.

His thaind? No. Too lustrous.

A jewel.

The red beryl. Zuraz's token. The one Haldir had fought and failed to take from him in the tunnels.

The mirror went black, but the darkness did not confine itself to the glass. It spread. Rolling over the basin's rim, it blotted out the pedestal, the rug, his boots until falling snow remained, flashing and popping…not snow…firecrackers, black and purple, bursting before his eyes until they smoked out.

…I'm too late, his thought echoed into the dizzying dark. Again.