Atandil by Eilinel's Ghost  

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19. Now the World Runs On Swiftly

Finrod attempts to bring Balan to Menegroth as emissary of the Edain, the Girdle does not approve, and Finrod has words with Thingol on the matter.

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312th YEAR OF THE SUN, SUMMER
Neldoreth

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Váya’s coat shimmered like mist as she moved beneath the tall beeches. The sun’s tendrils snaked alongside her, golden and warm and dropping cross-hatched shadows between the trees. It had been a relief to pass the eaves earlier that day, for the heat of summer grew oppressive in their ride across Dimbar and they had all been glad to tarry when they reached Mindeb’s ford, horses and riders alike. The water was deep, nearly to Váya’s shoulders, and they lingered long in the reprieve of its current before moving at last toward the tree line.

It was disorienting, no matter how many times he travelled through his uncle’s kingdom. The seasons began anew when you passed these borders, always slightly disconnected from what you knew a moment before. Here at midsummer, spring still held sway, bluebells carpeting the forest floor in a riot of color, their scent dizzying the senses while bright songbirds flitted from branch to branch. Finrod ran a hand along Váya’s neck and filled his lungs. The air here quenched thirst, deep draughts of light that coursed through the veins as Melian’s spirit coursed through each bough and twig, and its hold on him was near intoxication.

He closed his eyes and let his head fall back while Váya’s gait rolled onward—in her movement he felt the Sea of her name, and for a moment believed he was sailing forward through the bluebells’ waters, a pilgrim of his mother’s people still held in Uinen’s embrace.

Through the haze of light, his thought reached for Balan’s and drew him in against his own spirit. It was warm, the touch of the other’s heart, earthen and steady, and he felt the caress returned in kind even as it summoned him back from his dreaming—one intoxication exchanged for another. It was reckless, he would have said before Rivil’s Well, this renewed freeness of spirit; it was tempting doom, allowing this passion to burn unhidden between them. But lovers in soul, they had said, and as a lover he wound himself within the other’s embrace: heart against heart, spirit within spirit, thought chasing after thought in giddy pursuit and tumbling together through the space between their flesh.

Mind thy steps, Satheweis.

Finrod pushed Maedhros’ words aside in annoyance. He had kept the conversation hidden away in the back corners of his mind, locked amongst those paths where Balan’s touch did not tread. But in the weeks since, when he found himself alone, he would take up the memory of his cousin’s words and turn them over, peering at this facet or that, prodding at tone or phrase or gesture as though to learn whether each had been trustworthy or in jest. To contemplate whether his own ardor would dare the trial of it. 

His lips were burning and he pressed them quickly between his teeth to still the thought of the other’s kiss, soft and eager against his own. Balan would agree without hesitation, there was little doubt, for he had offered as much already, there beside the waters of Ivrin with hope shining undimmed within his gaze. Had Finrod been a fool after all to refuse him? Little goldfish, clinging to naivety and naming it conviction? 

Nay, Maedhros might know the truth of custom, but Finrod knew the truth of his own heart. He would never be sated while there was anything left lacking, he would find no contentment save in the whole. He had proven it well enough these past months. Granted friendship, his passion had seized a kiss. Granted a kiss, he had plead for a heart. Granted a heart, he now longed only for the body. 

If granted that, he knew he would yearn ever for that final bond yet withheld. 

Thou art foundering.

Finrod opened his eyes to the canopy above him, lace-woven with the sky tracing rivers through the leaves. There had been a rustle of confusion from the thought against his own, a flicker of alarm.

“Nóm?”

“Mm?” He lifted his head and turned toward the other in query, only to find him drifting toward a close thicket, lined still with mist, and looking around in growing concern. “Ai! Balan, do not stray. These paths are readily missed if you know them not and we might easily spend a day in search of thee.”

“There you are.” For a moment Balan lapsed into Taliska in his relief. “Fay creature! You lecture me on wandering while you flit about like shades?” He guided Elmorë back to ride at the king’s side with a smile. “Stay where I can see thee and I’ll not stray.”

“So I have done,” he protested, and then illumination trickled over him. Of course—it was the power of Melian’s spirit. His own senses were ever loose and giddy when he passed through the Girdle; and how much stronger, surely, that must play upon a mortal’s thought. “Sídhon,” he called, laughing, “come ride at his right. We’ll corral him together and give the lie to these rumors of negligence.”

Balan attempted to match the laughter, but his glance remained wary and he rode nearer than before. “What is it about this place,” he asked at last, “that the air shifts and deceives like a fever?”

“Lest melian,” Sídhon answered in a low voice, “where the nightingales sing in time with the spirit of the queen—she of Aman who was once handmaid to Estë and Vána the Ever-young, and who is herself of the race and kin of the Valar.”

“I thought your gods did not set foot on this side of the Sea?”

“Stewards,” Finrod’s correction slipped out in reflex.

”Not since before the Sun was born,” Sídhon continued with an amused glance at the king. “But Melian departed long ago from the gardens of Lórien, in those days when the Quendi woke beside Cuiviénen, and she came instead to these silent lands, filling them with her song. And with her came the nightingales.”

There was a flutter, a rush, and as though in chorus with his words, a watch of them took flight from the low bracken, surrounding them for a moment in a bright cacophony. 

“She remained when the others had gone,” Sídhon continued when the melody faded once more into the boughs, “and dwells still within the heart of Doriath, and all this land is girded ‘round by a fence of her enchantment. None may pass it, save at her will.”

“Why linger?” Balan’s eyes still followed the arc of the nightingales’ flight. “When even thine own folk were summoned away?”

“Elwë Singollo.” There was an almost languid note in Finrod’s voice, caught still in the heady draught of light and song and spirit, and his gaze too had trailed the birds into the boughs. “Elu Thingol as he has been since. Beneath the trees of Nan Elmoth she found him…and captured there, each by each, they passed long years unmoving while the stars danced overhead, and all his people sought the paths of the sea, thinking him lost—my mother’s people, for he is of my kin—but here they dwell yet, Ainu and Elda; and here her power holds sway to guard their kingdom from any who would enter without Thingol’s consent.”

“Not Satheweis, but the goddess of song…” Balan murmured with a sidelong glance as they ducked below the branches. “So there are such tales among thy people after all.” 

Finrod glanced back and met his eye, a brief flash of smile before they dipped into the shadows. The boughs had grown together here to form a thick archway, low and covered in flowering ivy, and the nightingales’ chorus rose to a deafening pitch as they passed beneath. It was the length of two horses perhaps, no more than three, and in only a few strides the king emerged into a new clearing. “Steward,” he corrected again when the birdsong had eased, grinning still over his shoulder, “not goddess.”

But it was Sídhon whose horse stepped out from the canopy, Edrahil following after him, then Gelmir and Canneth and Lithui. 

“Balan?” Finrod drew Váya’s head about with a frown and rose in the stirrups to look over the others’ heads. 

“Nóm?” The reply was muffled as though he spoke through wool, off to the right and behind, and the fear in Balan’s voice was palpable. “Nóm!”

He was halfway across the far glade, dismounted now and leading Elmorë by the reins while he searched the trees in alarm, and every few steps he staggered as though the ground shifted beneath his feet. 

“Here!” Finrod called back and lifted his hand to catch the other’s eye, then he glanced at Sídhon in frustration. “Did I not tell thee to keep him between us?”

“I never shifted.” Sídhon shook his head, bewildered. “He entered before me—I understand it not.”

“Nóm, where are you?” Balan’s tone was growing panicked and his eyes swept past them. “Why do you not answer? Sídhon! Canneth!”

“Here, Balan, to the left of thee!” This could not be explained by confusion. Time too must have bent in the shadows to set him so far afield and without their notice. Even distracted as they were by the ivy and the nightingales’ melody, surely he could not have strayed so far without—the nightingales sing in time with the queen’s spirit. Truth rushed over him and he leapt from the saddle with a cry. “Balan! Stand, move no further!” He was sprinting toward him, pressing the command urgently into the other’s thought. 

“Nóm!” Balan’s eyes darted in the opposite direction and he stood frozen, breathing fast. “I cannot see thee…”

“I am here.” For a moment Finrod heard the trees’ song turn dissonant in rebuke, then he closed his ears and reached out to grasp Balan’s wrist. 

And all the world changed about him.

It was the same forest, the same glade bright and golden beneath the beeches, but it had grown slippery somehow, at once too sharp and too fluid. His eyes darted from tree to tree as the scene before him rippled like cloth in the breeze, and he clutched Balan with both hands now, his breath hissing between his teeth. 

“Elbereth…It has been so for thee all this time?” 

“Aye.” Balan shifted so he could grasp Finrod’s arm in return. “I thought it was the same for thee, that thou hadst learned to weather it.”

Finrod shook his head and felt his stomach lurch. He had been seasick only once as a child, the first time he sailed through a torrent of Ossë’s fury, and he found the same nausea rising within him now. Each tree he focused on shimmered like a mirage, each bluebell bled into the next before standing out in uncanny clarity—too crisp, as though formed of glass and not soft flora. 

“Why canst thou see it now?” Balan clutched at him as the glade rolled like a wave beneath them. “The forest knows thee well enough.”

“I am numbered among the strangers in this—it cannot let me pass so long as I have hold of thee. The lest melian may confuse by enchantment or in the various currents of Time, but it cannot wrench a grasp by force.” The shadow of the beech behind him loomed with increasing menace and he glanced over his shoulder, his fingers tightening. “Or so I deem.”

“Arto?” Sídhon’s voice cut through the haze with surprising clarity. The group of them had halted at the edge of the clearing and were looking about with consternation. 

“Nor may the others pass if I cannot,” Finrod added in revelation when the other’s words were not muffled, and his own voice was rich with both disquiet and fascination. “Each of us move as linked threads woven together: their passage permitted while journeying as my guests, mine permitted by kinship and grace…but bind one thread and the whole cloth is tangled.”

“If we are so caught, lord, then let us not risk separation.” Sídhon turned his horse about and urged it a step nearer the others. “Come back, the both of you—and swiftly.”

“He is right,” Finrod murmured, “though I suspect the forest’s power will be little wont to allow it.” He shifted so that one hand gripped Balan’s arm above the elbow, the other his far shoulder, and tucked him firmly against his side. “Hold fast to me, even should we fall—loose the horse first, should it come to that. He will meet with no harm in these woods.” 

Then he drew him forward, passing each foot carefully along the grass to hold their balance. Finrod found himself remembering a corridor in the palace at Tirion where the marble was polished to such a shine that the walls themselves turned to mirrors when Treelight poured through the eastern windows. He had been halfway along it one day when the hour struck and the dizziness left him clinging to the nearest wall. He had steadied himself then by closing his eyes and walking the passage by memory, but he dared not attempt it here when every bough shifted in treachery and the world seemed to change between one blink and the next. 

“This way,” he breathed, setting his eye firmly upon Váya’s sheen. “Steadily, and do not take thine eye from them.”

One swath of bluebells was crossed, then another. The thud of Elmorë’s hooves was unnaturally loud as they shuffled through a patch of sunlight, but they had passed the midpoint and—

A raven’s cry sounded from the thicket to their left. Through the bewitched air it seemed to their ears to be the voice of one of their companions and Finrod looked sharply around, only to see the bird flutter its wings and send out a short series of croaks as though in laughter through the trees.

Finrod swore under his breath. The moment he looked to the side, all the glade had gone off-kilter and he swayed against Balan’s arm. 

There was a wide stream running along the edge of the clearing and he found his eyes drawn irresistibly to its path. Earlier, when they rode along the banks, it had danced over rocks and branches—even now his ear found a distant whisper of that music—but the water here appeared still as glass, not even a ripple creasing the surface.

The nightingales took flight again, rushing from one set of boughs to another and in the water their reflection was pristine. The stream was a flawless mirror, still and shimmering, beckoning, its slight distortion no different from the unnatural sharpness of the world above. In fact, it was more natural, was it not? Nay this stillness was the world and the other was the brook’s reflection, alternately wobbling and sharp as it was. He had become disoriented by the forest’s song and nearly led them astray. Fill the lungs. Find the bend of the archway—there, where Edrahil and Medlineth stood beside their horses, speaking in low voices and glancing warily between the trees. Right the gaze and settle the senses. His arm tightened about Balan and drew him forward beside him. One step, two, they were nearly to the clearing’s edge. 

Then the trees danced before his eyes in sudden waves, blurring and scattering, and he realized with a shock that his legs were wet to the knees. 

“Back!” He dragged Balan from the center of the stream and they scrambled together up the side of the bank where Elmorë had stubbornly dug in his hooves. “Tis no good,” he called back to Edrahil, closing his eyes for a moment and shaking his head in a futile attempt to clear the mirage. “Once separated, it means to keep us so.”

“Stay still, lord.” Edrahil had held up a hand in warning. “The less we move, the less web is woven. Medlineth is right.”

“The Marchwardens will not be far.” A tall Elf stepped forward, broad-shouldered and dark haired, and took up the explanation. “We have ever met them within a short distance of the eaves and if our own sight could light upon Bëor while he was caught within the Girdle—and ourselves yet free—then they too would find us should they come near.”

Finrod nodded as his eyes scanned the trees, squinting into the shadows. “Sound a horn,” he directed. “They know our call and will come if they hear it sent up in distress. Each of you take hold of another,” he added glancing down at Balan and shifting to clasp his hand within his own. “At the least, I will not have us scattered like seeds.”

Medlineth nodded and reached out to grasp Edrahil’s cuff, then lifted a small, silver horn to her lips. Its call was bright amidst the beeches, a voice more so than a blast, and with it the light seemed to grow beneath the boughs. Thrice she sounded it, and with each ring of its melody they felt their hearts strengthen, the world about them steady. Even when its echo drifted off into the canopy, the woods remained less sinister than before.

“And now we wait.” Finrod drew his thumb along the edge of the other’s hand and a smile played at the corners of his lips. Balan had twined his fingers between the king’s, their hands out of sight in the shadows between them and, to his chagrin, he found himself momentarily grateful to the Girdle for trapping them so. “Though it will not be long, I deem.”

Indeed it seemed a scarce passage of time before the birdsong had returned—gradually, so that they were hardly aware until it neared its former volume—and the brook resumed its chattering, leaping in eddies once more unhidden from their eyes. The air too had eased, its new, stifling weight lifted, and even the earth grew trustworthy beneath their feet. Only Balan now remained mired in the haze. 

“How came you here, lord?” The glade had been empty one moment, the next a tall Elf stood before them, brown-haired and silver-eyed with a spear resting at the ready beside him. “I knew not that you could fall foul of my Lady’s guard.”

“Mablung!” Finrod turned swiftly at the other’s voice and relief flooded through his own. “Hail to thee, and well met! I failed to send word ahead of us that my friend traveled among our number, and so he has been caught unwitting in the Lady’s labyrinth—and ourselves with him when we would not part ways.”

Mablung turned in curiosity toward the man at his side. “You are Balan, Beldar’s son, of the eboennin?”

“I am.”

“I am Mablung, chief captain of Elu Thingol and Marchwarden of this realm. You have met my friend Beleg, I believe, on our southern borders.”

“Aye, my greetings to him,” Balan replied and the hint of a smile creased his features, though he glanced about warily as another dozen or so emerged from the trees behind Mablung, dressed likewise in the colors of the forest and bearing spears and bows in their hands. “I will be glad to meet him again, should he be in your lord’s halls.”

“He is.” There was a brief hesitation and Mablung’s eyes moved back to the king. “Is it your intention for the abonnen to journey on with you into Region?”

“He comes as emissary of his people to greet the king—and as my sworn liegeman and ally.”

“Then forgive me, lord.” The Marchwarden held up his hand as Finrod stepped forward, palm outward and adamant. “Your Guard are welcomed as ever, and Inglor’s son as well. But by command of the king, Doriath’s borders are closed to the Secondborn.”

For a moment Finrod stared at him, lips parted and words choked with fury. “On what grounds?” he managed at last. “They have come peacefully among us and no ill have they done either against this kingdom or its master.”

“I know naught but the orders I was given, and to those I am bound. If you would learn my lord’s counsel, then it is to Menegroth you must appeal. 

“And leave Bëor trammeled like an enemy amid these webs?” Finrod’s grip tightened about Balan’s arm. 

“Nay, I give you my word that your companion will be escorted in safety to the banks of Sirion.”

“Then escort us together, for I count myself a stranger too in any land where he is unwelcomed.”

“If such is your posture, then your road ends here before me,” Mablung said, but his face clouded and for a moment the formality gave way. “Though it grieves me to be thus set against thee, Angolodh.”

“And it grieves thee not to be appointed an unjust enforcer?”

“I am a servant of the king.” The familiarity was gone at once and Mablung’s demeanor grew stern. “Not an advisor to pass judgment on my lord’s command.”

“Perhaps not. But to my own will I hold.” Finrod held out his hand and Váya crossed the green to brush her nose against his palm and stand ready at his side. Yet at the touch, regret seemed to wake within him and he turned back to Mablung with a penitent grimace. “Forgive me, I have spoken harshly in my anger, but I hold no grievance with thee for thy duty. We take our leave willingly.”

“Hold a moment,” Balan drew Finrod back when he moved to mount his horse. “Forgive me this brief discourtesy,” he murmured with a quick glance toward Mablung, then slipped into his own tongue as he turned back to the king. “Do not be rash in this. And don’t snort, my lord condescension, as though I cannot see the risk—you break with him if you depart this way. My pride is not equal to what the loss of this allegiance would cost you.”

“Yet the pride is more dear to me.”

“And is it my pride or yours?” His voice was sharp, but a ghost of amusement played at the corners of his mouth. “Mine is a fair cost to keep you in his goodwill.”

“Should I wish the goodwill of one who bars you at his gates?”

“Aye, if it is in my interest.” Balan was quiet for a moment. “My people live on his borders, Nóm, in ever increasing numbers. Who will mediate between us if you break with Thingol now? Shall we do it ourselves, shouting peace from his borders and hoping our words reach through the trees? Or shall it be your other kin—those who name us Engwar, Apanóar, Usurpers? And who, I might add, are also barred from his gates?”

“Vinegar is sweeter on the tongue than your wisdom,” Finrod snipped, turning away toward the brook, then he raked his fingers through his hair and grimaced in resignation. “I choke upon it but must nonetheless confess its merit.”

“And spoiled wine more savory than your praise,” Balan retorted with a chuckle before returning to the Elven tongue. “Go, lord, and see your errand through. Hear his grievances, however unearned, and I will ride ahead and await you at Estolad.” Then turning toward Mablung, he crossed his arms over his chest and bowed. “Bear my greetings to your lord—both my own and on behalf of my people. And if you will, bear too my promise of our lasting goodwill, and the hope to one day greet him with my own words, whether within his borders or without.”

“It shall be done.”

Finrod’s hand moved up to rest at the nape of Balan’s neck, as when he had led him through the darkness of the Annon Aearon, and there was now a fierce protectiveness in the touch. “I’ll not have thee cast out to hazard the leagues alone.”

“I will go with him.” Gildor urged his horse forward to join them in the clearing. “For I too find myself little minded to tread those paths my friend is denied.”

The king looked from one to the other, then turned to Balan with a tone of grudging acquiescence. “Thou art satisfied with this?”

“Aye. My pride is stung, but my dignity unharmed. I will go to my sons.”

Finrod watched him in silence for a long moment, then at last he sighed and turned back toward the Marchwardens. “Very well. If Bëor is content with such an arrangement, then I hold myself answered and will seek your lord in Menegroth—that I might learn what charges lie at the root of his counsel.” For a moment his grip tightened on Balan’s shoulders and again he shifted to Taliska. “Go with caution, Balan, though the lands from here to the ferries are well preserved. Loth am I to send you where I cannot see to your wellbeing.”

“Nigh fifty years of the sun I wandered ere I had you as guard dog,” Balan retorted with a chuckle. “I won’t melt away the moment I’ve gone from your sight.”

“Ride with vigilance nonetheless.” He held himself carefully detached, one hand loose at his side, the other shifting from Balan’s neck to rest upon the hilt of his sword. “For my sake,” he added and again reached for the other’s heart, drawing it close and tangled into his own, and Balan nodded. 

“I’ll await you beside the Celon,” he said—a brief tease of memory, the hint of a grin. “Do not tarry overlong.”

“I will not. Balan—” he broke off and pressed his lips together as the other drew Elmorë forward and swung into the saddle. 

“Ghomenno?” The old merriment danced in his eyes and he turned back, looking down at the king.

Finrod found his own words had fled and he stood motionless, heart burning beneath the other’s gaze. “May goodness keep you,” he managed at last, the formal Taliska heavy upon his tongue, and set his hand briefly against Balan’s knee, “and mercy preserve you.” Then he stepped back as Gildor’s horse moved forward through the shallow water and Balan guided Elmorë swiftly in his wake. 

“And may the stars shine upon the end of thy road,” Balan called over his shoulder, echoing the king’s solemnity with a quick smile, then the trees wrapped in about him and he was gone.

❈❈❈

Light blazed from the branches overhead, stone-carved and glistening, and an illusion of breeze rustled their stems as Finrod strode between the columns. The fountains were laughing, he thought, pleased and chuckling with their master’s edicts even as the birds, perched in the boughs above the queen’s head, sang in mockery that same melody which sent Balan stumbling from his side. He skirted the last fountain and drew up abruptly before the dais.

“Thou art wroth with me, kinsman.”

“Yes, lord.” Finrod’s eyes blazed as he dipped a shallow bow before the king’s chair.

“And what ill have I done thee, son of the Ñoldor, that you have come hither so burdened with ire and speak in accusation before my throne?” 

“None, lord. But by your order a dear friend was turned from these borders—and for no offense but that his blood differs from yours.”

“From thine as well.” The hint of a smile crossed the king’s face and his tone was near teasing. “Or hast thou forgotten of which children thou art?”

“I admit not such bounds upon courtesy.” 

“No indeed. Thine ire in defense of these children of the sun is more by far than thou didst show when twas thine own kin and self turned away.”

“And justly so, lord.” Finrod’s hands clenched involuntarily at his sides as the nightingales began their song anew. “No shade of wrong have Bëor’s people done against you, nor against any of your people. They have come peaceably into Beleriand and dwell willingly within those bounds your edicts have set. For what cause, then, have you named them in enmity?”

The silence stretched as Thingol’s eyes rested upon him, but when the king spoke again his voice struck a tone near pity. “Tell me. What knowledge hast thou of what passes beyond the Ered Luin?” 

“Much. I have spoken long with Bëor on matters that—”

“Of thine own people, Angolodh. Whom among ye have sojourned there or have spoken in counsel with those who do?”

“Bëor’s people are my own, sworn to me and I to them.” 

“And what dost thou know of them, save by their own telling?” Elu’s voice remained soft, despite the flash of fury upon his kinsman’s face. “Many of the Quendi who remained in the East were of my people first, and messages pass between us still, even in these perilous times—thy missives of the apanóar were not the first to reach my ear. They are not as thine open-heartedness would see them.”

“Nor am I a green shoot to be so easily beguiled. I have dwelt among them, and for nigh two years Bëor has walked at my side—long by their people’s reckoning. Wherefore should I give credence to rumor when by the witness of my eyes and heart I know it to be false?”

“He has not told thee, then, that they worship what we hold in enmity? Or that such worship has defiled them, turned them Man against Man till they spill each other’s blood like water and drain all kinship into the parched and thirsting earth?”

“He has told me indeed of their strife, for among those it claimed were some most dear to him. And of the darkness that lies behind this, he…” Here for a moment Finrod faltered. What did he know, in truth, save that Balan could not—or would not—impart the tale? We have turned our backs upon it, and we do not desire to return there even in thought. “I know that they flee it,” he finished at last.

“The hare is fodder who trusts the jackal’s word.” 

“And by such reasoning have we become jackals to our own lost and shunned those few who escape the Hells of Iron.”

“Am I answerable to thee, Angolodh, for how I mind my own doors?”

“I am answerable to Bëor’s people.”

“Thou art answerable to Elu Thingol while sojourning in his halls.” 

A hush drifted over the merry clamor as the two held each other’s eye in silence, their wills’ clash running like the taste of lightening through the hall. For long minutes they remained so, till at last the king’s manner shifted and he rose, descending the dais to stand before Finrod, tall and imposing and looking down at him in chilly compassion. 

“Thou art young yet, Eärwenion,” he said after a long pause, and laid a hand upon the other’s shoulder, “and youth’s blood runs hot. Go now in peace. Rest awhile and we will speak again on the morrow when tempers have cooled.”

Finrod’s eyes flashed and his lips parted in retort, but a cool touch pressed against his thought and he felt the words evaporate as quickly as they rose.

“Come, Ingoldo.” Galadriel slipped her hand within the crook of his arm and drew him back. “I will go with thee.”

He would have held despite this, locked still in strife with the king’s gaze, but his sister’s grip tightened about his arm and with it he found he was master of his fury once more. “As you say, lord. I am weary from the road and my temper runs thin.” His bow was formal now and deep with all the marks of deference, but as he rose, the queen’s gaze caught his own and he faltered, transfixed. They were uncanny, Melian’s eyes, wide like a bird’s with irises shifting in hues of green and brown, and to his surprise there was recognition in their depths. A sharp, unexpected stab of pity. 

For a moment he was left shaken, but his sister’s thought pressed in again and he thrust the puzzle aside for another hour, and returned his gaze to the king’s. “I thank you for your forbearance,” he said, then bowed to the queen in turn and let Galadriel lead him out from the hall.

❈❈❈

“Supercilious pretense…” Finrod paced from one end of the room to the other as the attendants set the final tray upon the table and closed the door behind them. “Arrogance! Am I a child to be sent away for cakes and shushed into bed?”

“Canst thou deny it would do thee good?” Galadriel cut a slice from the nearest and glanced up at him with an arched brow as she moved it onto a plate. 

“I am master of my realm as much as he of his.”

“And in his realm thou art.”

“As lord to lord we have ever spoken—king to king—and now he would make of me some petulant boy to be placated.” He yanked a chair from the table and sat, glowering at the slice of honey cake that Galadriel slid across the table. “My grievance is just. He condemns them on hearsay and punishes them for crimes that are not their own.”

“His caution is not groundless.” She retrieved a decanter of wine and began to fill the two chalices resting beside the trays. “There are tales from the East—I too have heard the Moriquendi speak and found no lie in their messengers’ eyes—and indeed there is some darkness that lurks with the Secondborn. The Night-fearers, they name them, and it is Elu’s own fear that Men have already proven themselves weak and more easily swayed to the Darkness’ will, that he shelters vipers at his flank.”

“And what is that but the Foe’s council in another guise? Twas Morgoth who whispered such poisoned honey in our own ears—the Third Theme embodied, short-lived and malleable. Easily swayed. Feckless.” He took the cup she offered and gripped its stem till the pattern marked his skin like a brand. “I’ll have none of it,” he said, then drank.

“Eat once of a rotten fruit and the hand is slow to the tree thereafter?”

“The hand is slow when the eye sights the same worm in the orchard.” He broke a bite from the slice of honey cake, chewing sharply as though begrudging its pleasant flavor. “Balan is no servant of the darkness. Twice the seasons have spun their dance in the time I’ve dwelt alongside him. His heart is true—as are the hearts of his people.” Finrod trailed off as he lifted another bite from the plate and let it linger this time upon his tongue. He had found naught but a haze each time he reached for the other since parting amid the Girdle’s mirage, and Balan’s absence had lodged like a sharp hunger in his gut. He did not like the thought of him returning to Estolad alone. It prickled at a small, frightened part of him, the wariness that still watched from the corner of his eye, wondering whether this river or that, tomorrow’s dawn or the following would be the one where Balan took the road leading from him. 

But nay, that was Ivrin’s fear. It was the dove’s message that drew Balan back to Estolad now, not a rift between his heart and the king’s. The bird had arrived on Sirion’s isle a fortnight past with a dispatch from Meril—the messengers that passed between Estolad and the Narog had brought word that their chieftain would wed at midsummer. Balan’s face had been a mask when Finrod read the missive aloud, but in council the next morning he had queried whether his lord might release him for a short time that he might try the journey and learn whether his presence was welcomed. His lord would not, Finrod had rejoined with a quick smile, for it was to Estolad that his own road now lead. He had never witnessed an Atani marriage—did Balan imagine he would pass an opportunity to learn of their rites? And so they had ridden out when midsummer drew nigh: Balan, the king and his Guard, Sídhon as attendant, and Gildor who had grown close in friendship with Belen during his sojourn in Nargothrond. He was glad of it, Balan had confessed on the eve of their departure, glad to return as he had departed, with Nóm at his side, that he needn’t face the reunion alone.

Finrod’s anger blazed again. Yet here he was, caught in the webs of politics while Balan rode on in need of him. 

Would the journey be kind? Would Baran? 

More in reflex than in hope, he stretched out a tendril of thought, beckoning after the other. And to his surprise, there was a brush of familiarity amid the fog. His heart leapt even as the haze settled in once more and stillness rushed over his soul like warmth returning to limbs. It had recentered him, that brief touch; the steady assurance of Balan’s heart against his own grounding this restless fury.

What was it he had said to Aechenon on Sirion’s isle? His heart had ached after Balan then as well, the other’s laughter bright beneath the red and gold of Anar’s descent…and Finrod had lifted an eyebrow and retorted that it is the mainstay that anchors the mast through the gale. 

“Where is Celeborn?” he asked abruptly, only now remembering that he was not alone. “I saw him not among those gathered in the hall.”

“He is with Beleg along the eastern marches.” Galadriel had nearly finished the slice upon her own plate and was watching him with a singular expression. “There have been roving wolves of late, north of Arthórien, and they have ridden to the hunt.”

“North of Arthórien?”

“Put thy worry to rest.” Her lips turned in amusement. “They will root them out long ere they might cross the Celon.”

Finrod frowned. He should have anticipated the ease with which his sister would pluck out his thoughts and turn them over in the sharp light of her curiosity. In the past it had comforted him to be so incisively known—seen and teased and understood. Now he batted her away.

But she laughed at this sudden prickliness and her smile was warm. “Poor Ingo, thy patience is tried enough already. I shall tease thee no more.”

“Whyever not?” Lúthien’s voice tripped toward them along the stone, bright with amusement, and both Finrod and Galadriel turned sharply toward the door. She must have entered sometime while they spoke—for she stood well within the room now, watching them with sparkling eyes, but neither had perceived the slightest movement. Not for the first time, Finrod found himself half-pondering whether her mother had bequeathed some ability to pass through the stone unseen. She crossed and kissed him lightly on each cheek. “I am sorry I was not in the hall to ease thy welcome.”

“To ease my welcome or to witness it with thine own ears?” he queried, returning her greeting with a smile, and Lúthien laughed. 

“I see thy tongue’s blade has been left unsheathed,” she retorted, then moved to the divan and sat, drawing her legs up beside her and lifting a quizzical brow. “Who has mistaken thee for a sheep, cousin? Thou art quite shorn.”

“Indeed, the Foe strikes ever at that which is most dear to us.”

“Come now, Ingo,” Galadriel cut another slice from the cake with a sidelong smile and divided it between the plates, “there are ills aplenty to lay at the feet of the glamhoth without adding thy braids to the tally. Twas thine own recklessness wielding the shears.”

“I spoke not of the hair,” Finrod protested, laughing as he leaned forward to refill his cup. “And how camest thou to know of it?”

“I know of all thy follies, brother.”

“Dread thought!” He reclined in the chair once more, sipping from his wine, and met her eye with a grin. “But how, in truth?”

“Edhellos writes.” Galadriel admitted, shifting to the Sindarin form in Lúthien’s presence, and her glance at him was affectionate. “Her last spoke much of the skirmish—and of this anorhín who drew thee to it.”

“Now thine own words lay blame where none is owed. Twas my negligence set him in their hands and no fault of his own.”

“I recant,” cried Galadriel laughing, “I recant! Now let us leave it be ere I become the next in these caverns thy tongue seeks to flay.”

“Nay, tell on,” Lúthien interjected, “for I would know of them as well.”

“My follies?” he asked with a quick smile.

“The anorhíni. Do not willfully misunderstand me.”

Finrod laughed and took another sip of wine. “Thou wouldst set me further afoul of the king, cousin.”

“Say rather I would set myself in that knowledge from which he seeks to shield me.” 

She held his eye with a peculiar smile and, as in the hall when his gaze had met the queen’s, he knew again that brief brush of affinity—only now the surprise and recognition were his own, and instead of pity, he felt a burning, eager curiosity echoing back from Melian’s daughter. It unnerved him, this sense of kinship, muddled and loose. A ripple from a stone lying yet upon the palm. 

“Thou art my window beyond the eaves, Finrod.” Lúthien’s voice broke through his reverie, bright and sure of her success. “Let me see these Children through thine eyes.”

“Very well,” he said at last, and tried to dismiss the chill trickling down his spine. “There are few, I think, who could ever find it in their strength to deny thee. What is it thou wouldst have me tell?”

“All,” she said, her smile alight with mischief. “But for tonight I will content myself with generalities. What kind of folk are they?”

“They are…” Finrod paused again, brows furrowed as he let himself slip into the memory of Estolad, then further still to a moonlit glade beside Thalos. “They are a solid people, like the earth itself, steady and warm and burning so fiercely with life that it took my breath when first I knew them. They slept while I wove my steps between their huddled figures, but even so the glade pulsed with it still. Like midsummer’s sun against flesh—or the scent of loam, fresh-turned and teeming with the life it could hold.” 

He fell quiet for a moment and his eyes were distant as he walked again through the woodland and saw their forms spread out around him, familiar now and beloved, with each bundle now recognizable—Eimet snoring a short distance from the dying fire, Hathus curled in the shelter of his cart, a spear planted in the earth beside him and one arm draped over Gelvira’s hip, Weiv a stone’s throw from them, Masci beyond, unmistakable with his shock of red hair and missing leg. Finrod had lowered himself to the grass beside the coals, had lifted a small harp from where it lay upon the earth. The wood was carved with little skill, but use had worn it smooth and it rested comfortably against his palm—and it too hummed with the same vibrant heat; a summons, a hunger, a warning. It drew his fingers irresistibly along the strings, drew his voice alongside the melody, drew his eyes once again to the clustered figures.

A tousled bundle near the embers holding its blanket bunched about the ears: Baran attempting to block out Eimet’s snores. Then a smaller bundle beside him, the cloth brightly woven with embroidery dancing about its edges; Belen’s work—and Belen himself, childlike in his slumber and curled against the nearest bundle which had already begun to shift, which turned and lifted its head and looked into his eyes.

Finrod’s heart was pounding and he felt Lúthien’s gaze resting upon him, curious and canny; he felt his sister’s too, though toward this he dared not look from fear of learning what of his thought she had already seen. Instead, he smiled and met the query in his cousin’s eye.

“They are defiant too, proud and steadfast when they have chosen their way. Stubborn to a fault,” he added with a chuckle, “but with a deep wellspring of loyalty and love that I confess has been a balm to my heart. And yet for all that, they burn up like leaves set to the hearth—a swift light, blinding like the new sunrise, and racing on in its arc to the west.”

“My father thinks it their own doing.” Lúthien rose and lifted Finrod’s chalice from the table. “May I?” she asked, then returned with it to the divan before receiving an answer, curling once more into the cushions and sipping from the wine. “He calls them the Self-cursed.”

“Tis thine, an thou wilt.” A smile played at his lips as Galadriel slid her own chalice to rest in the space between them and he leaned back, his fingers tracing along the grains of wood. "But why should he believe their brevity to be aught but their given nature? The beasts and the grasses—yea, even those beeches and nightingales of Neldoreth that so snared our path—are numbered in their seasons and years. Why then should we deem it otherwise when found amongst our kin?”

“He has been told a shadow stalks in their wake.”

“And voices from the east carry rumor of their ill doings—I too have heard him say it.” Finrod reached absently for his sister’s cup and took a deep draught from the remaining wine. “Not all voices of warning speak truth,” he said at last. “Nor is it always certain that a whole people must be held guilty for a faction’s crimes.”

Galadriel’s glance at him was sharp and he felt the flicker of warning against his thought.

“Is it not more likely,” he pressed on despite this, “that it is the Shadow itself who weaves such lies to set enmity between the First and Secondborn? We have seen it here as well, and in Aman—the grains of truth kneaded in amongst the poison, that its taste might seem palatable upon the tongue.”

“So thou hast surmised already,” interjected Galadriel, retrieving her chalice and refilling it from the decanter. “But ill news is not always the work of the Shadow. Do not be so quick to dismiss caution for friendship’s sake.”

“Or friendship for caution’s sake.” He felt Lúthien’s eyes turn on him again as he spoke and his skin prickled under the acuity of her gaze. She had reached out this time in thought as well, the presence of her mind resting like a cool palm against his own, turning it in fascination that she might examine each facet. For a moment reflex drew him back, but her touch followed after him, swift and curious, and as ever he found himself bowing to her wish, and he let the barriers drop. 

She darted in at once, a quick brush here, a query there, whirling through his memories with dizzying speed as she gleaned every vision of Estolad, studying each face as her thought stepped in time with the rhythm of their midsummer dances, as she listened rapt alongside him to the benedictions of the Longest Night.

Again he was shaken by the wash of affinity as she moved through his mind, and again he felt the gnawing unease creep behind his ears. Her delving had paused before an image of Balan’s face, shining silver in the moonlight, and upon this memory she lingered longest—confound her, she knew at once that he held this dearer than any of the others—until at last, hesitantly, Finrod offered her the voice as well: Balan’s laughter in the woods, the warmth of his accent rolling Elven words upon his tongue.

“It is not unfounded counsel,” his sister had continued while Lúthien passed through his mind. “Or at least not in all aspects. The eboennin too receive protection from the Girdle—which doubtless was thine intent in planting them close within the bend of the river—but so far they have done little in Doriath’s eyes to earn such shelter. By granting them those lands which ere our people’s return were counted his own, Elu deems his hospitality sufficient already for what they have shown in return.”

“Tell me,” said Finrod, and his voice had grown tight, “for I have had no word of it: when have the lords of Beleriand ruled that safety from the dark lord should be an earned right?” 

“The lords of Beleriand have ruled naught save for the Eldar. And many would say thou dost presume much to hold our mores applied to the eboennin.”

“Are they too not Eruhin, even as we?”

“I did not say that I held it a presumption.”

“He has had dreams.” Lúthien did not shift her eyes as she spoke and Finrod looked at her askance, thinking for a moment that she spoke his own mind aloud until she continued. “Dreams of the Secondborn, and what they herald. He will not speak to me of their nature, but they trouble him more than the rumors from the East.”

“The tread of Doom, the dirge’s call…” Finrod trailed off into silence, then took another sip from his sister’s cup and a mirthless chuckle slipped from his lips. “Does he imagine that only he is visited by such portents?”

“Ingo?” Galadriel’s features grew sharp.

But Finrod waved his hand dismissively. “Orë úna sossë,” he murmured, forgetting himself for a moment in the tangle of thought, then glanced at Lúthien in quick apology for the lapse.

“Once before I have heard thee speak in such a tone,” Galadriel added in a low voice, ignoring the maxim and returning instead to his former words, “and then, as now, I found myself filled with dread. Say it plainly if thou art to hint in this way.”

For a moment he hesitated, the unease huddled thick against his lungs, but at last he shook his head and passed the cup back to his sister. “Nay, it is but weariness turned to words—the day’s frustrations have left me maudlin and I fear I am no fit company.” He drew his hands along his face and at last managed a smile. “But do not let my poor temper set thee to worry, Nerwen. Join me again on the morrow and I will be more amiable. My word on it.”

“And to it I shall hold thee.” Galadriel rose and refilled her chalice, then leaned down to kiss the top of his head. “Dear fool,” she said, and brushed her free hand through the cropped gold, tugging lightly at the shorn ends. “I would have been very cross with thee hadst thou ended thus.”

He laughed and caught her hand affectionately in his own. “This I knew—and dared not risk thine ire.”

“May that fear at least be indeed thine heart’s counsel,” she retorted and set her palm lightly against his cheek, then retrieved the cup of wine and crossed toward the door.

Lúthien delayed for a moment longer, her eyes meeting his once more as she dipped a final plunge through his thought. Then she too rose and moved to depart, and he shivered as her mind withdrew from him. 

“Whatever Doom there is,” Finrod’s voice drifted after her, little more than a murmur as they passed through the archway, “it will find us whether we flee it or no. And I would meet it with my conscience clean.”

---

Chapter End Notes

TRANSLATIONS
Q = Quenya, S = Sindarin T = Telerin
lest melian: [S] the Girdle of Melian
eboennin/abonnen: [S] After-born
engwar: [Q] Men, (lit.) The Sickly
apanóar: [Q] the After-born
Annon Aearon: [S] the gate of the sea (see Children of the Sun)
yrch: [S] Orcs/host of Orcs
anorhín/anorhíni: [S] child/children of the Sun
orë úna sossë: [Q] the guidance of the heart is not fear

MISC NOTES
- Edhellos is the Sindarin form of Eldalótë