Atandil by Eilinel's Ghost  

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24. Mirröanwi

”Thou hast set a fracture within me already, canst thou see it not? Broken along the line of my own self. It is the soul’s bond that would be our unmaking, thou sayest—yet thou it was who named us lovers in soul, who holds me still in that bond while denying its effect. I shall rend already at the parting. Wilt thou not?”

After returning to Nargothrond, a welcoming feast for the returned thrall triggers a progression of crises.

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Mirröanwi: Quenya, incarnates, those (spirits) 'put into flesh'

[…] the Mirröanwi are made of a union of body and mind, of hröa and fëa, or as we say in picture the House and the Indweller. For what is the "death" that you mourn but the severing of these two? And what is the "deathlessness" that you have lost but that the two should remain united for ever?
- The Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth

312th YEAR OF THE SUN, AUTUMN
Nargothrond

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The king stood beneath a tall elm tree, a brooch laid upon his opened palm and a smile softening the line of his lips. It was a marvel of artistry, Balan reflected. The trunk and branches had been carved whole of a column jutting from the cavern floor and a blanket of ivy wove over the limestone, dangling its leaves between the boughs and completing the illusion of life. Tultamo stood opposite him, his own palms held outstretched in answer and a basket looped over one arm. 

“Take now this emblem,” Finrod said, his voice reverberating through the Third Hall where they were gathered, “in token of your lord’s favor and as a remembrance to all of your welcome in this city: above reproach and in full esteem among us.” He reached forward and pinned the brooch over the other’s heart, his lips moving in a blessing that Balan could not discern.

It had been little more than a month since they found the thrall trailing them through the Andram’s pathways, whereupon they had returned at speed to Nargothrond and given him over to the care of the king’s healers. He had spent the intervening weeks in the quiet of their cloisters, and though he still appeared pale and withdrawn beneath the boughs of hanging ivy, there was a growing substance to his movements, a flicker of life rekindled in his gaze.

The king held his hands spread open once more in the space between them, and at this signal a group of Elves moved forward to stand beside him. The first of these, the Warden of the Doors, placed a key on the waiting palm, to which Finrod carefully attached a silver bulla of his insignia, then passed it to Tultamo. “Where once there was bondage, may there now be liberation.” A loaf of bread was next, transferred from Meril’s hands to the king’s, and again from thence to the former thrall. “Where there was scarcity, may there be bounty. Where there was pain,” he retrieved a small amphora of honey from Celiel and offered it when Tultamo had transferred the loaf to the waiting basket, “may there be a balm. Where there was darkness, may you now carry light.” The lamp that Faelon placed in his hand was small, a shapeless lump of blue crystal from which the caverns’ starlight spilled between the king’s fingers. 

Tultamo’s face was lit in stark outline as the stone passed into his grasp, and for a time he stood unmoving, staring down at his glowing flesh while the white scar-lines seemed to take on and mirror the pale light.

“Where there was isolation,” the king continued when this token too was at last stowed alongside the others, “may there be love.” 

Guilin stepped forward bearing a carven cup, which Finrod took from him and brought solemnly to his lips. It was shaped of some smooth, dark wood, nearly black, and inlaid in silver with a circle of dancing figures whose heads were wreathed in flowering garlands. These, Balan surmised, had been wrought of gold—else it was some trick of the light that had caught the reflection of the king’s hair and warmed the silver with its sheen. Two trees there were as well, around which the figures danced, one on each side of the vessel, and their boughs burgeoned upwards till they wove together into a curious brim where Nóm’s lips rested as he drank of the wine. A moment later it was lowered, the king’s lips softened in a smile, the cup of friendship extended toward the former thrall.

 “And may there be fellowship,” Finrod finished as he placed it into the other’s hands, then inclined his head in deference when Tultamo drank in turn. The wine was passed around the gathered group until each had partaken and the empty vessel returned to Guilin’s keeping. Then Finrod knelt beside the little stream of water that babbled from the rock face at their feet. He dipped two fingers into the current, then rose, laying his dry hand upon Tultamo’s shoulder. “Where once you were voiceless, Tultamo son of Tírthon,” he said, gently anointing the other’s lips with the water, “may you again be One Who Speaks.”

A cheer erupted from those assembled—both from the king’s attendants and those of the Third Hall’s residents who had gathered to witness their neighbor’s welcome—and Tultamo flinched involuntarily at the sound. The king’s hand tightened momentarily around his shoulder in reassurance, then he released him and took a sprig of lilac from Meril’s hands.

“Let us give thanks for the newly returned,” he called out, lifting the branch in the air before passing it to Tultamo, “our brother, restored to us beyond hope!”

“To light and to life!” the crowd rejoined. “By Eru’s bounty we welcome him among us.”

The formality slipped away with that exclamation, and the low rumble of conversation grew about them as the crowd began to mingle throughout the open area. The hall’s market was held here most days, but on this afternoon it had been cleared away and a feast laid out in its stead—rugs and cushions draped in clusters across the thick moss and boards spread with fruit and fresh bread, with wine and with meat from the hunt. It was the welcoming feast, a bounty spread for any who dwelt within the Third Hall where Tultamo had been given lodgings, and served to establish him as one among their number. 

Nóm had explained it earlier that day when he drifted into Balan’s chambers from the garden, bare-headed and dazzling in the morning light. There was ever a specter of doubt when one of the gwethrim came back among them. The instances of true betrayal, of course, were fewer than the rumors and fears made them, but the Foe’s deceit wielded a subtle blade and terror spread rampant from that grain of truth. Tultamo’s father had turned him from his family’s door in Mithrim, and many among Nóm’s own people shared the same impulse throughout the years. It was why he had begun the rite of the returned, he confessed, that all might gather and see the king’s blessing laid on each former thrall, and know that any discrimination was to malign one in whom the king had placed his trust.

It was a well-intentioned effort, Balan reflected as he watched Finrod thread his way through the crowd at Tultamo’s side, but he found himself skeptical as to its efficacy. Prejudices were not so easily set aside, nor were such fears as these likely to be quelled by decree. Nóm knew this too, of course. What more could he do but rule by example and hope to see his people follow? He let his eyes drift across the cavern, noting the sidelong glances, the children tarrying near their parents, the low voices carrying on in stilted pleasantries. At least there was no open hostility.

There was a stir at the far edge of the market square and he turned to see a small group intersect with the king’s path, three soldiers and a fourth in traveling garments, and heard the echo of Finrod’s glad cry as he stepped forward and flung his arms around the foremost in greeting. They bore the High King’s livery, Balan noted, the golden wheel on blue leaping like flames in the cavern’s lights—this was surely the expected delegation from Barad Eithel. They had been dispatched, Nóm told him, after he sent word to his uncle requesting Tultamo be released from his vows, that he might be sworn instead to the lord who now sheltered him. 

Their leader stepped back from Finrod’s embrace and turned at once to the former thrall at his side, confirming Balan’s supposition as he dipped his head in salutation and held out an offering on the flat of one hand. It was a pity Sídhon had relieved Tultamo of his basket when the rites concluded, Balan thought with wry sympathy, at this rate the poor wretch was like to be overrun with tokens of one kind or another ere the meal had begun.

He pilfered a few berries from the nearest board and slipped them into his mouth as he drifted through the crowd, his steps bending gradually toward the king and his companions. Nóm was clad still as he had been that morning: loose pants cut in an echo of Balan’s own, a shirt of some unknown cloth, fine as silk and lily-pale, a heavy outer robe which fell open in the front and had been embellished across its surface with the rich golden thread he favored.

Gods all, you’re lovely.

It had slipped from him unthinking on the heels of a jest, his guard down as he held his own shirt in hand and teased the king appreciatively for this new turn of dress, and the sudden awkwardness in the other’s demeanor had turned his smile cold. It was not deliberate, Nóm had stammered out; that is, it was not his intention to cause—Balan had cut him off with a curt reassurance and turned abruptly to finish his own attire so the other might not see the mortification burning along his cheeks. He had willed himself to keep a distance after that, polite and aloof, to prove he was impervious to the king’s ever-shifting demeanor. But it was no good. Nóm was incandescent in the cavern’s light and Balan drifted toward him like a mayfly to the fire.

“I had not heard thine interests were turned to diplomacy,” the king was saying as Balan drew within earshot. “Finno spoke nothing of it when last I saw him.”

“Little mystery in that. He spoke not of it because he knew naught of it—though in truth no more do I, for I cannot claim any such change in myself.” The newcomer’s eyes were bright and he leaned in to brush a kiss to the king’s cheek in a more conventional greeting. “I heard hints from thy cousin of this den of thine, and I confess I offered myself for the task so I might look upon it with my own eyes and sate my inquisitiveness.”

Finrod laughed and clasped him by the shoulder. “I should be wroth with him for spreading tales of what is best left unspoken, but I find myself deep in his debt rather. Thou art most welcome here, my friend.”

“And my heart is gladdened to know it.” He drew back with a smile, then his brows lifted in curiosity as Balan reached them and met his gaze.

Finrod glanced around to see what had piqued the other’s interest and caught Balan’s arm at once with a glad exclamation. “And here thou art at last! I wondered what had become of thee.” He drew him forward eagerly and held out a hand in introduction. “Here is one I would have thee meet. This is Írimo Arandur—ah, forgive me, I fear my tongue is bound up in memory—this is Írui of Eryn Gwedhion, a lord of my uncle’s court. He is a dear friend of my cousin, Fingon, and a companion from my own youth as well.”

“In goodness our paths have crossed, Hîr Írui,” Balan said, crossing his arms after the manner of his people and bowing in welcome. “In peace may their journeys lead.”

“And may Elbereth smile upon them.” 

Balan turned expectantly toward the king, but he was watching the newcomer still, bright and eager and seemingly unaware that anything was left wanting. “I am called Bëor,” he added when Nóm made no move to complete the introduction. “I dwell here as an emissary of my son, who is chieftain of our people.”

“And as my friend,” Finrod broke in quickly, his grip tightening for a moment around Balan’s arm, and he glanced down in contrition for the lapse. “He has been an invaluable companion as we work to build a lasting alliance between our peoples.”

“On this matter my prince spoke much,” Írui said with a smile, reaching out to clasp Balan’s hand in greeting. “He holds you high in his esteem, Bëor, and I am honored to greet you on his behalf.”

“And I to hear it, lord—I thank you.”

“Have they offered thee refreshment?” Finrod asked, turning again to Írui and seeming to notice for the first time the other’s travel-marked clothing. “Nay, I see they have not—thou art fresh come from the road and it is thoughtless of me to have kept thee here talking in such a state.”

“Am I so unkempt as all that?” Írui laughed and the twist of his smile was arch. “Varda…not fit for a picnic even?”

“Brute. Thou art twisting my words,” Finrod retorted in kind, grinning, “and full well dost thou know it.” He motioned for the others to follow and led the way toward where Tultamo and Sídhon waited on the nearest spread of rugs. “Thy penance shall be to join me at board—and I shall not release thee till thou hast had thy fill.”

“As merciful as the tales name thee.” Írui stood aside till the king had chosen a cushion then lowered himself to sit at his left, leaving Tultamo in the place of honor at Finrod’s right and Balan to take up the remaining space opposite the messenger. Sídhon had already filled the cups from a decanter of wine and Finrod leaned forward when all were seated and began portioning out the meat. 

“Yavanna’s bounty, by Oromë’s grace,” he murmured as he placed the first cut on Tultamo’s plate. “Take and know that you are welcomed at this table.” He turned next to Írui and passed the second serving. “Yavanna’s bounty, by Oromë’s grace…”

Balan’s eyes followed each motion and he tried not to feel slighted by the ease with which another had claimed his usual place. Pettiness, he chided himself as the king set a portion before him and met his eye with a smile. Rank, adolescent pettiness. It would have been a more telling insult by far had Nóm displaced the High King’s representative in his stead. Diplomacy was not personal, this was not a slight. He shifted on the rug and reached out to tear a strip from the nearest round of cambas, a blistered flatbread strewn in piles along the table, and glanced over at the newcomer in appraisal. His appearance was unremarkable, at least in so far as one might compare him to others of his kind, with dark, wide-set eyes and a nest of curling brown hair hovering just below his jawline; a pleasant-featured Elf of medium build, perhaps a hand’s breadth taller than the king. Unlike the others of his company, he was not clad in the patterned blue and gold of Fingolfin’s livery, but wore instead a simple vesture of traveling hose and a loose outer tunic, beneath which a shirt of midnight blue was fitted closely about his arms. Like the king’s robe, this too had been embroidered in fine detail along its length—silver stars and lily-of-the-valley trailing in a delicate dance toward each of his wrists—and the tunic was belted at his waist with a matching strand of silver flowers. Hardly the travel-stained disorder Nóm’s words had implied. 

He dipped the cambas into a paste of spiced lentils, scooping up a large portion as he had seen the others do and using this to enfold a bite of meat and bring it to his mouth. There were as many different turns of etiquette as there were varieties of meals, he reflected irritably while he studied Sídhon’s movements from the corner of his eye. It was a constant dance of mimicry to navigate each without a gaffe. This, thankfully, seemed to be near kin to the begetting day feasts, with only a detail changed here or there. It held a certain kind of logic, he supposed: the marking of a new life and the marking of a life renewed. Edrahil leaned in to share a dash of wine as the blessing passed around the table, and Balan found himself unexpectedly moved by the poignance in these mirrored rituals. Nóm’s doing, he recalled as he tipped a portion into Sídhon’s cup, for these rites had originated here in his kingdom. He raised the cup to his lips and met the king’s eye, a brief smile flickering between them as he let the warmth in his heart seep through into the other’s thought. 

The toasts were fewer in this form of the tradition, and evidently limited to a predetermined group. Finrod had risen first, giving a blessing after the manner of his earlier benedictions; then Meril spoke, as did Celiel and another healer. Last of all, Írui had risen and offered a blessing on behalf of his lord, that Tultamo would know the High King’s immeasurable gratitude for the courage and fortitude he had shown, that life might spring anew from the shadows, and Tultamo find the peace and welcome so long denied him.

Solemnity was swift to fall away after that and a lightness of heart settled over the gathering once no further formality seemed required of them. Tultamo especially showed visible relief as he sequestered himself in a quiet conversation with Celiel and the other healer, and something near a smile began to grow at last upon his face. Beside them, the king and Írui drifted into a meandering discourse, touching on this friend or that, the latest of the High King’s councils, the varied skirmishes upon Ard Galen or the equally varied indiscretions of Barad Eithel’s court. Balan found himself unreasonably irritable with their conversation. Nonetheless, he attempted to follow the thread of it until their barrage of unfamiliar names and places made the endeavor hopeless, and he busied himself instead in half-thought pleasantries with Gildor and Edrahil, all the while keeping one ear tuned to the king’s voice.

But in the end, it was Írui’s words that carried his attention back to the exchange. The meal had dwindled by degrees until only a few of them remained, stretched at ease upon the rugs or meandering through the lamplit green. Tultamo had retired to his new lodgings some time past, weary and overladen with the sounds of celebration, and was accompanied by the two healers who wished to see him safely settled before returning to their own halls. Meril sat with one arm resting along the table and looked out with a tolerant smile at the group spread before her. Gildor had woven clusters of grapes into his hair and declared himself warden of the vintage, appropriating the remaining carafe of wine and bestowing it with regal dignity to each as he saw fit. Sídhon, by contrast, lay on his back, gazing up at the panoply of draped cloths overhead—great swaths of reds and yellows and oranges—while Edrahil and Balan amused themselves by tossing berries in a vaguely successful attempt to replenish the bowl he held balanced on his chest. Across from them the king reclined against a stone tree, the outer robe now folded as a pillow behind his back, and Írui lay stretched on the thick moss at his side.

“This rather puts me in mind of the lumas at Endillos,” the latter said, reaching out to touch the ring on Finrod’s left hand—a golden sprig of enameled leaves, wrapped ‘round and clasping a large, asymmetrical pearl within their blossoms, “the year Finno brought Turvo and thee to join us.”

“Does it?” Finrod’s tone was carefully neutral and he leaned forward to retrieve a plum from the table, cutting a thin wedge before glancing down at the ring in question. “I suppose the petals do bear a similar hue.”

Írui chuckled and took the proffered slice from the king’s hand. “And the pearl a similar cast.”

“Hm?” Finrod shrugged, then shook his head with a dismissive laugh. “Truly, I do not recall.” 

“O how he lies, our noble lord!” Írui grinned up at him. “Hearken to the rose blooming on this serene visage. Sídhon,” he called, shifting onto both elbows so he might see past the table, “thy memory will support me in this. What—“

“Nay, I’ll not be baited into thy fooling,” Sídhon cut him off with an amused glance. “As fortune has it, I was not yet among your number and therefore cannot be called in witness.”

“Thoughtless of thee, but I suppose it cannot be helped.” He turned toward Meril with a beatific smile. “Surely you recall the pearl in question, Amillë Merillë?” 

“With more ease than thou wilt ever recall propriety,” she returned, but there was mirth in the lines of her eyes as she turned to sip from her wine.

“No hope for that, I fear.” He winked at her, then cast a penitent glance toward the king. “Poor Ammalincë, I believe we were quite horrid to thee.”

Finrod handed over another slice of plum with a snort. “Not thou, at least. Though I confess a lingering grudge with thy cook for indulging my schemes.”

“You see?” Írui crowed. “He does remember.”

“Ammalincë?” Gildor queried, and the arch of his brow was comical beneath the drooping collection of grapes.

“Yes, he was quite the little goldfinch in those days—nay, truly thou wert! Clever and bright and the most amiable child I’d ever set eyes on.”

“I was not a child.”

Írui looked up in feigned surprise. “Not ever?”

“Pest. Not when I earned the name of thee.”

“Not in thine own eyes, certainly.”

“Nor thee in thine.”

Írui laughed and lay back in the moss. “And deluded cubs were we both.”

“That I will concede.” Finrod laughed too then, and tossed the plum pit toward the other before reclining once more against the limestone tree. The wine had drawn a slight flush to his cheeks—as though he had just ducked in from the snow, Balan thought fondly, the memory of Estolad still near in his heart—and his laugh was unusually bright, his eyes shining. He was fiddling with the pearl ring that began the exchange, slipping it loose, turning it on his finger, pushing it back into place; and ever so often cast a glance at his companion while a smile flickered at the corners of his lips. Balan held back a chuckle. For all his protestations, Nóm was radiating youth in every motion—king of all this grandeur, yet fidgeting as nervously as Baran whenever Sabil came near him as a lad. A cold, sickening weight unfurled in his gut. Oh gods…he had passed more than enough meals at Nóm’s side to know it needed far more wine than this to color his cheeks so, or to set him in such a fey spirit…

“You see?” Gildor held the wine carafe aloft and there was laughter from the group as he gestured toward the king. “He has distracted us once again. A cup to whoever will speak the tale.”

Balan could hear his heart pounding and hastily closed the other from his thought before Nóm could investigate the cause. A needless precaution. The king continued on, seemingly oblivious to the sudden surge of alarm in the mind against his own, and Balan felt his despair deepen. 

“Let Ingoldo tell it,” Írui suggested with a grin. “No doubt he will need the cup in solace.”

“And will give a far more accurate accounting than thou wouldst manage.” Finrod scowled at him in feigned annoyance, then reached for another plum. “We were friends in our youth,” he began after a pause, “Finno, Íryo, Turvo, and I. Or rather, Finno and Íryo were friends and we followed them about like eager shadows; we had each one foot still in boyhood and they were nearly come of age—a quite predictable worship. One spring we were gathered at Írui’s family home for his begetting day feast and I, having brought a token in gift, found upon facing him that I was too timid to present it in person. So I contrived instead to hide it within the lumas where he might come to find it for himself. Which, as you have no doubt surmised, he learned with his teeth.” He collected his cup from the stone beside him and held it out toward Gildor with a smile. “My due, warden.”

“What he does not tell you,” Írui interjected through the laughter, setting one hand on the king’s arm and using the other to block Gildor from refilling the chalice, “is that the token was an unconscionably fine pearl set in filigree netting. Nor that he spent the full afternoon befriending our kitchen folk, convincing them not only to conceal this menace alongside the fig, but furthermore to add a seventh petal to the flower which sat above it, that he might know where in the loaf they were to be found.”

“How else was I to ensure it wandered not to Finno’s plate instead?”

“How indeed?”

Balan affected to laugh with the others but he could not shift his eyes from Írui’s face, save to watch as the other’s hand came to rest once more against the king’s arm. How well he knew that gesture! How often had he done the same, letting his touch linger just a moment beyond prudence. An unspoken claiming. Laughter came again and he realized he had let himself lose the thread of the conversation.

“But even with the diversion,” Írui was saying, “he could hardly hope to change the pieces unnoticed; a sleight which, of course, my lord Fingon observed at once—though still too late to prevent my own discovery. Poor Ingoldo,” he added with a sympathetic grimace, “we teased him so mercilessly that he fled to the gardens without enjoying so much as a bite of his stolen cake.”

“Where, to his credit, our host sought me out in short order, with the offending token strung in honor from his neck and a gracious but entirely undeserved word of thanks upon his tongue.” Finrod cast a warm smile down at his neighbor. “Thy kindness, at least, I have not forgotten—much as I would unlearn the rest.”

Írui chuckled and leaned back on his elbows. “A recounting which, I confess, is far more flattering than my own recollection, so in vanity I’ll say thou hast the right of it and let thy telling stand.”

“And the strategy hadst thou not been discovered?” Gildor asked as he added a splash of wine to the king’s chalice in payment.

Finrod mumbled something unintelligible and drained his cup.

“What was that?”

“The pearl’s luster was meant to catch in the light when he cut into the lumas, not to go unnoticed while he was distracted by Fingon’s accusation.”

“And?”

“I thought to let one or two speak first in surprise, and then—” he broke off with an uneasy chuckle and hid his face in one hand before continuing. “Then I thought to add in reflection, ‘As the music of the Ulumúri are those lives upon whom the Lord of Waters sends his blessing—a joy to the spirit of those who hear them, and held ever in the heart thereafter’.” His cheeks burned with no small flush now and he held out his cup without uncovering his face. “There, Warden, that has earned me another.”

Sídhon let out a whoop of laughter and Írui collapsed onto the moss with the force of his own. “Light of Varda, Ingoldo,” he gasped at last, “that was thy scheme? Oh Valar, to have seen it—a room full of thy cousins and half the court of Tirion, and the ardent child at my side reciting the most pious false flattery one could devise.”

“Thankfully they spared us all the ordeal.” Finrod drained the second cup as swiftly as the first, then sank back against the tree, drawing his hands self-consciously over his cheeks as he joined in their mirth. 

Balan felt a tickle on his wrist and glanced down to find the handful of berries he was holding lay crushed now within his palm. Little wonder. The familiarity and affection of their exchange churned bile in his stomach and his teeth ground when he lifted his eyes to the pair once more. Írui was laughing still, trading banter with Gildor and looking toward the king in open admiration. His earlier evaluation held, Balan decided, attempting to wipe the berries discreetly on the ground behind him; but while this intruder was unexceptional—plain, he would have said, if one could use the term of any of the Nómin—there was a vibrance about him when he moved and spoke that lit his features and left him undeniably lovely. Damn him and his unending youth. Damn his laughter and damn his charm, and his fingers hovering along the king’s arm yet again.

“More wine, Bëor?” Edrahil had appropriated the carafe while Gildor’s back was turned and tipped it toward him with a canny smile playing at his lips.

“Ai,” Gildor cried before Balan could find a reply, and snatched the carafe from Edrahil’s hand, “only the Warden may grant or deny! Thankfully I am of a benevolent sort,” he added, turning to Balan with a grin. “Ale we have not, but for thine ails I’ll grant a drop.”

“Menace some other,” Balan rejoined, chuckling despite himself and redirecting the wine toward his neighbor. “I’ve learned the danger of these casks long ere now.”

“Do your people not ferment drink, Bëor?” Their exchange had drawn Írui’s attention and he was propped on his elbows once more, looking across the table with a smile. 

“We do,” Balan answered shortly, then heard the coldness in his voice and tempered it with a smile. “Though ours are not so potent.”

“I see.”

“Not even a horn of seven?” Nóm met his eye across the gathering, mischief flickering in his grin, and Balan’s heart turned over at the allusion to the hrögemetheilit’s folly. 

“Estë preserve us,” Gildor murmured with a shudder. “Remind me not of that devil’s brew.”

“She has done a work already that thou canst recall it.” Sídhon dodged the grape that arced toward him and laughed as he rolled onto his stomach. “I was set a fine task corralling the both of you.”

“Then a poor shepherd thou wert,” Gildor retorted. “I woke with one arm ‘round an apple barrel and my lord slept the night on a hillside.”

“Pillowed by heather and content as a babe when I found him on the morn.”

“Much as you find me now,” Finrod’s laugh cut through their banter, “peaceful and rested and in fine company—and much recovered from my earlier follies.” With this last, he tossed his empty cup to Gildor with a grin. “For what more could I wish but this?”

❈❈❈

Balan stared down at the sea of glass. It sprawled across the stone in shattered fragments, each piece catching the lamplight and turning it back in distorted patterns. A fitting sight. 

He had kept his composure in the moment, dipping his head with a placatory smile when the group rounded the garden’s edge, then murmuring a greeting before slipping by them and escaping into the passages. But now, alone in the quiet of his own apartments, the helplessness overmastered him and he was choked with his own futility.

As spent and withered as though he was of the Engwar…

Gelmir had sighted him first and blanched even as the remark left his companion’s lips. It was Nélloth at his side, one of the recurrent emissaries between Nargothrond and Estolad. Till this, Balan had always found her pleasant and courteous—carrying back tokens the village children sent for him, seeking out spices he mentioned in passing, murmuring the settlement’s gossip in his ear while her captain passed the formal report to the king.

So engrossed had they been in their whispers of the former thrall that they failed to notice the garden was not empty until Balan sat in full view, and by then it was too late to censor their speech.

As though he was of the Engwar…

He had slammed the door when he reached his chambers and stripped away the ornate tunic as though it burned him, crossing the room with some half-formed thought to scrub the words from his skin. But as on that first morning in the caverns, his eyes fell by happenstance on the reflection before him; and again he froze and stared in disgust. His face was weathered. The lines within it were deep, harsh accusatory markings that told of every year and weighed each day in measure, the skin beneath his eyes looser than he recalled, the eyes themselves weary and dull. His rage turned in on himself and he felt his soul lash out at the image he saw. What mad delusion had come over him? What doddering senility that he believed himself of sufficient worth to tempt a god? For so the other seemed to him again in his despair—pristine beneath the crystal waters, singing in the dying firelight, the unnerving depths of his eyes. How clear it was when he saw him paired with one of his own. Beauty for beauty, light for light, lives that wove in tandem through the tapestry of years.

The mirror was hurled through the air before he realized his own intentions, and for a long moment he stood in shock, surrounded by the wreckage and breathing hard. Then his eye came to rest on one of the larger shards, fallen at an angle against the frame, and its skewed reflection rekindled his fury in an instant. He kicked it to the side with a wordless exclamation, shattering it against the wall, then flew at the remaining debris with the heel of his boot, stamping over and again and grinding them into dust as the door swung open.

“Balan!”

His wrath turned next to the mirror’s frame—and this too was kicked away, leaving the delicate ivy twisted and bent against the stone.

“Balan, stop!” The king’s arms wrapped around his chest and hauled him back.

“Leave me be!” There was a confused struggle, then he wrenched free and thrust the other away with an unexpected vehemence. “Go! I want thee not.”

Finrod staggered back against the wall, confusion spreading over his features as he stared back at Balan in concern. “What is it?”

“I said go.”

“What has happened?”

The haze had begun to clear and Balan felt a lump of humiliation growing at the base of his gut. What was it after all that had set him in such a state? He had heard far more disparaging evaluations of his people than Nélloth’s comparison, and he was certainly past the age where a petty jealousy should rankle to such a degree. Shame deepened at the thought and he dragged his fingers through his hair, staring down at the broken shards. Gods all, surely he had more dignity left than that. Everything had grown disjointed, emotions ranging through him with an intensity that scorned reason, griefs that had been tamped down—till one final blow loosed the dam and left them roaring so loudly he could hear nothing beyond their clamor. He shook his head in disgust and turned away. “Nothing of import.” 

There was a long silence and the weight of the other’s worry bore down like a yoke across his shoulders, till at last there was a rustle of fabric and he glanced back to see the king disappear into the adjoining room. A short moment later he emerged with a damp cloth and a bathing brush in his hands. “Forgive me if I find that unlikely,” Finrod said quietly, then crossed to kneel beside the debris, sweeping fragments carefully to the side and wiping away the dust.

“Leave it, Nóm, I can tidy my own wreckage.”

“I am aware.”

“I’ll do it—”

“You will wash the blood from your hand and sit ere you damage something more precious.”

Balan glanced down, then bit back his retort in surprise when he saw blood trickling along the backs of his fingers. It was a shallow cut, little more than a scrape in truth, but it bled stubbornly and had already left several droplets on the floor. The knuckles must have snagged on one of the gilded leaves when he wrenched the mirror from the wall, he mused, then grimaced as he recalled the intricate metalwork and the likely expense that had gone into its creation. “Was it a very costly piece?”

Finrod looked up at him with an unreadable expression, then swept the last of the shards aside and stood. “I spoke not of the mirror,” he said, bringing Balan’s hand briefly to his lips before he turned to dispose of the cloth.

“I thought thou wert recovered from such earlier follies.”

The king drew up mid-step and his lips parted in dismay. “Oh Balan no. Hast thou thought all this while that I meant that for thee? I spoke of the game, the drink…” 

“And the fool who thought thine advances sincere.”

“No.” Finrod dropped the cloth where he stood and crossed to take Balan by the arms. “The fool was I for following on Gildor’s banter and never thinking how it would ring in thine ears. It was a jest, Anarinya—a thoughtless jest, but a jest, in truth. There are none I hold closer than thee.”

“Jesting still, I see.” Balan snorted and pulled away. “None closer than I—who cannot even address thee by thine own name. I’m trammeled still by an epithet I dubbed thee ere we knew a word of each other’s tongues. A child’s nonsense, pointing and declaring in monosyllables.” He gestured about the room in exaggerated demonstration. “Stone! Tree! Wall! Nóm!”

“Wash!” Finrod caught the other’s hand with a teasing smile and guided it back to the bowl and ewer, where he cupped the water in his palm and trickled it over the cut till it was clean. Then he lifted a clean cloth from beside the basin and carefully dabbed it dry. “What need have thou or I for words between us?” he asked at last, wrapping Balan’s hand within the linen. “I was known to thee from the moment thine eyes met mine, my soul bared to thee as to no other—whether I would or no.” He reached out and laid a hand along the other’s cheek. “It is my name, Balan; discerned ere thou didst know me and given anew by thy tongue. All those who love me call me Ingoldo.”

Balan twitched his face away from the other’s touch. “So I have seen.”

For a moment there was silence, then illumination flickered over the king’s face. “Ah. So that is what has vexed thee.”

“The virtue of his name comes to him at last,” Balan muttered, then unwound his hand and crossed to the shelf to find a more suitable bandage.

“It was a boy’s infatuation. He was kind and did not shame me for it—I feel gratitude toward him, that is all.”

“And what was I meant to feel toward him, this one on whom my lord of waters smiles with such ardent admiration?”

“Jealousy ill becomes thee.”

“No less than shameless flirtation becomes thee.”

The king reddened. “Even sight has been mired by this imagined grievance, then,” he exclaimed. “There was no flirtation.”

“Then pray, what name would you ascribe to the dalliance we all witnessed between you?”

“Dalliance!”

“Aye, so I said.”

“For greeting an old friend with gladness?”

“And fawning with no less warmth than I received by the Celon, ere you saw the truth of it and fled.”

“I see. And should I have so berated thee when I sat in the Hall and listened to Baran’s jests of thine own former intrigues—exploits in truth and no mere child’s adulation?”

“I thought you were not a child.”

“And neither was I his lover. Nor have I any wish to be.”

“Does he know that?”

“I’ve never presumed to ask.” The sharpness of his own retort startled Finrod back from his anger, and at once he was stung with regret. Balan’s shoulders were set in a bitter line, his hands gripped the edge of the shelf till his knuckles whitened, and a new trail of blood trickled over the damp skin. Finrod let his eyes fall shut as he took a steadying breath, then crossed quietly to stand at his side. “Balan. Beloved.” Gently, he brushed the hair back from the other’s face and tucked it behind one ear. “Call me whatever name pleases thee. I care not what, save only that it is thy voice which names me.” He traced his fingers down Balan’s jawline, then let his palm linger once more along his cheek. “We are bickering over the trappings of pain, Anarinya. Where does the real wound lie?”

For a long moment Balan remained silent, then a strained chuckle slipped from his lips and he shook his head. “Here,” he said at last, and lifted his hand to tap the other’s where it rested against his cheek. “Here.”

“I do not understand.”

“No? It is this, all of this—thine actions even now. This refusal to choose, while telling me all the while thy choice is made.” He drew the king’s hand from his face and turned away, busying himself with a thin strip of linen that he began binding around his skinned knuckles. “It grieved me when thine answer was no, but I understood it. I thought thee in error, but I have lived long enough with the pain of another’s absence that I cannot make light of such a specter. If friendship is all thou canst offer, then with friendship I can be at peace.” He secured the end of the bandage, then pressed his palms against the shelf once more. “But how can I when thine every action belies the claim? Or half thine actions, I should say. I never know from moment to moment which form of thee will meet me in the next.”

“Balan…” Finrod pressed down the urge to gather him in his arms and instead reached out to lay a hand hesitantly on the other’s shoulder.

“Don’t.” Balan shook off the touch, his voice low.

The king let his hand fall back to his side and watched him with growing dismay. “I feared this would prove the self-serving choice. A barter for my own benefit that recked too little of that pain which must surely follow for thee.” He shook his head as the other opened his mouth in objection. “Truly, Balan, twas this fear that made me flee Estolad and not, as I think thou hast ever surmised, a reticence to face my own desire. On which road lay the lesser damage, when damage must surely follow upon either way? Alas that I did not see the danger until we were both of us too fast bound to be spared its bite. It was as I told thee then, my reason was a tempest and I knew not how to distinguish my heart’s wish from wisdom’s guidance. Eru forgive me, I chose the former, for I knew it to be thine as well, and less then did I understand the fate of thy people.”

“Else thou couldst have spared thyself the wrench of such fleeting creatures.”

“Canst thou know me so little? Beloved, the pain of our sundering was inescapable well before any decision was made. Whether our parting was to be wrought by my choice or the doom that summons thee hence, I have known from our first halting words that I would mourn thee all my days.”

Balan remained long in silence as he looked down, expressionless, at the patterns in the smoothed stone beneath his hands. “Then what, lord, is the regret of which you speak?” he asked at last, his formality pointed. “As yet you have named only the decision that granted me these months at your side.”

“Yes.” Again Finrod felt the longing to fold the other within his arms, as though that shelter might hold some power to shield him. “I chose to set thee here to dwell amongst us, the one mutable shoot in a changeless wood. I granted my heart rule of me in Estolad and so have consigned thee to the greater price. That is my regret. Better I had left us both with a hard parting but a dear memory than to have brought thee here to a deeper anguish than thou wouldst otherwise have known.”

Balan snorted and turned away. “You are blinded with the sight of your own kind. For mine there is never a bond between us that does not bear such a price: it is the cost of any love to know it is one with the story of death. That has been a revelation to you, I know, but we who ever watch the hunter’s knife mark our flesh have learned it well enough. This is no new anguish.”

“But amongst yourselves it is a burden shared.” Finrod reached out again and this time Balan did not pull away, but let the other’s fingers trace along the telltale creases in his face. “You may look upon one other and see kinship reflected, time’s marks in tandem, even as I might look upon my brothers and recognize in their eyes the same changes I know in myself. Whereas here, isolated from thy kin, thou must see it marked only upon thine own visage until what was ordained a gift weighs a fetter and chain.”

“What do you know of it?” Balan’s voice was dismissive, but immediately he felt a gentle pressure in his thought, a brush of pity, and knew that the roots of his earlier fury had slipped through to the other. A wave of fresh helplessness rose up and his brows drew together, pressing it once more into his sharp and ready anger. “Is there nothing you’ll not learn of me before I’ve the chance to speak it?”

Finrod blenched as though he had been struck. “I meant no trespass…forgive me, I thought thou hadst shared it by intent.”

“No.” Balan pulled away and dragged his fingers through his hair, his voice shaking as he began to pace. “Or perhaps I did. I know not. I do not know thee from one moment to the next—how am I to know my own mind toward thee?”

“Dost thou truly think me so changeable?”

“When in one breath I am named beloved and in the next vassal? When thou wilt seek me out in the dark of Estolad, then turn from me in thine own home for naming thee lovely? Aye, Nóm, I think thee so!”

“Didst thou not speak only a moment past of understanding? I grant thee what I may—and Eru knows my every breath is a plea that he might mend the chasm between his Children.”

“Enough!” Balan stayed his pacing and turned on him, fury flashing in his eyes. “Thine own kinsman took to wife a Spirit of power, yet thou canst speak to me of chasms and kinds? Does not the hypocrisy choke thee?”

“There is a difference in—“

“What difference? Tis but the gulf seen from another vantage, with ye now upon the nether edge. To the frailer creature the crossing ever appears justified. So turn back, Nóm, and look upon me with that same vision.” His expression darkened as his mind ran ahead in the reasoning. “Or is it so simple as this: that when the twain are both created undying, the cost of sundered fates is more palatable to thee?”

“Cold are thy words, Balan.”

“And cold is thy love.”

“Elu is constrained to Arda, as are the Powers and their servants. As am I. Thy people and thee…where you go I know not, but reason tells me it is from Arda and not within it. If I were to bind myself to thee, what should become of each soul, caught thus together across the gulf? Should the departing linger beside the remaining, an unhoused spirit held back by its troth? Or should the remaining find its bond to the body decaying by the memory of that second bond which beckons it away? Or, and perhaps this is worst of all, should it rend the spirit of each and leave one or both maimed till the end of ends? In every eventuality it is a severing of body and soul. It would break us.”

“Would? Should? Feign not ignorance, it aids thee not. How canst thou plead such a defense when I am laid thus broken before thee: beckoned ever close in spirit, the spirit’s vessel held ever at bay. Thou hast set a fracture within me already, canst thou see it not? Broken along the line of my own self. It is the soul’s bond that would be our unmaking, thou sayest—yet thou it was who named us lovers in soul, who holds me still in that bond while denying its effect. I shall rend already at the parting. Wilt thou not?”

“Yes. And carry the grief of it in me till the ending of Arda.” Finrod’s voice wavered and he drew a shuddering breath, moving a step nearer the other. “But lovers in soul is not wedded in soul, Balan—we are each our own still. We will break, yes, but as a bone that may be set with the hope of healing.” He faltered, then reached out and took the other’s hand as tears slipped loose onto his cheeks. “A mending which I see now I have unwittingly denied thee. Beloved,” he managed at last, shifting gently to Taliska, “would it be better if you returned to your kin?”

Balan’s laugh broke bitterly into the stillness. “All this, and now you send me away at last.”

“Balan—“

“No. Do not feign the words were other than what you spoke.”

“There is no feint. It was a query, not a pronouncement.”

“You overlook your own teaching, then: a door once opened sets a path either may tread.” Balan’s voice was tight with restrained anger as he pulled back from the other’s thought. “I know full well your question carried intent. Dismiss me if you will, but do us both the dignity of forthrightness.”

“I have done so in every word.”

“Have you?”

“Canst thou doubt it?” Finrod’s frustration broke loose at last and he fell back to his own tongue as his voice rose. “What more can I say of truth than I have laid bare already? I love thee. I have harmed thee. Though it break me, I would give thee what remedy there is to bring restitution to that.”

“Restitution—to send me out to starvation?” Balan stepped forward until his face was inches from the other’s, his eyes alight. “I knew nothing besides the life I had. I was content with it. I was born, I grew, I had joy in the dim light of those foundering years; I had my sons, and a grudging peace with the future allotted my kind.” He rested his palms against the other’s chest and felt him shudder at the touch. “But then I saw thee rise from the dark before me, some phantom vision of a god beside the embers, and I turned toward thee as a tree reaches for the open sun. Now I need that light, who before could flourish through a shroud—and thou, my own heart, would consign me back to the darkness?”

“Not to the darkness, beloved; to the light of thine own.” He felt Balan’s hand travel up to rest beneath his jaw, bringing his face forward until their lips nearly met. 

“When eyes have once seen the dawn,” Balan whispered, and Finrod’s heart pounded as the breath of the other’s words passed over his mouth like a caress, “how can they be satisfied thereafter with rushlights?” He turned away bitterly and crossed to stand before the hearth.

Silence held them then, heavy and stale, and when Finrod at last spoke again his voice was nearly a whisper. “I was certain thou wouldst remain when the time came for us to leave Estolad. That, having returned to what was lost, thou wouldst find a second parting too much to bear—and rightly so. In my fear I stayed silent, and by my silence I chose again, selfishly as I did at the first. Twice now have I kept thee when I had no right.” His voice broke and it was a long moment before he could continue. “Go to thy people, Balan, to thy sons. I have robbed them of thee long enough. Go, while there may yet be peace for thee.”

Balan kept his eyes on the dancing flames and shook his head. “I will have no peace,” he said at last, reaching out to rest his hands along the hearth shelf. His voice was weary, flattened of its earlier fervor, and Finrod was jarred by the sudden change. “I will have no peace now, wherever I go—only the memory of thee in every fleeting hour.”

“Is that not a comfort?” Finrod whispered, holding himself back with an effort from crossing again to the other’s side.

“How should I be comforted by remembering that only the lingering shreds of youth were beloved; that memory was better than constancy? Strange ever is thine heart. It is the part of love to bear through hardship; at least so it is amongst my people. Is there no joy yet to be found in the hours of twilight?” He let the quiet hold for a long moment, then squared his shoulders when no reply came and gripped the mantel in fury. “No, of course. You’ve gathered already the threads to weave your fair and bright memory. My part then is the dignity of any stricken creature, to limp away to some secluded burrow and finish my dying tactfully out of sight.” He laughed mirthlessly and turned back to face the other. “Estreth was right to name me your pet. Tame hounds for the hunt are we all, useful for your purpose until we’ve shown our frailty.”

For a long moment Finrod’s poise held against the other’s rage, silent and resolute in the fire’s light. Time slowed. In the hearth, a log gave way with a flutter of embers and drew the remainder down into a new configuration atop the ash; and then, as though its whisper had served as a summons, lines of exhaustion cracked along the king’s face and he shuddered. “As thou wilt,” he said at last, and his words too were heavy with resignation. “I will trouble thee no longer.”

“Gods all!” Balan scoffed and threw his arms up in exasperation. “Still you dodge the burden. Do not try to shift your choosing into my hands—this is not my decision.”

“No,” Finrod said in a dull voice as he turned for the door. “It is mine.”

“Nóm…” Balan stepped forward as a sudden foreboding gripped his gut. “Nóm wait, don’t go like this. I didn’t mean for—please!” This last broke out as a gasp when he felt the other’s thought break from his own and he lurched after him with belated urgency. But Finrod crossed into the passage without a glance behind and closed the door firmly in his wake. 

Balan slammed his palms against the panels with a cry and sank down the stile, choked sobs wracking his throat as he fought for breath and felt the cold spreading through his spirit. It was the same throbbing emptiness which had left him begging on a hilltop for this life he had just scorned, the same deadened hopelessness. I would choose it again…let me be thine, lord, as whatever thou wilt. Oh gods, what had he done? Nóm was gone, his heart so thoroughly stripped from Balan’s that he could find no trace of it in the darkness—not only closed, but hidden from him, fortified against him…

He was gone.

❈❈❈

It was quiet in the small hours of the night; still, save for the scattered frogs in the sinkhole garden trilling their calls into the dark. Finrod drew the blanket close about his shoulders. It was cooler beside the window than he expected for this early in the season and he pushed back into the corner, stomach dizzy and hands trembling. He had lost all perception of how many hours had passed. Several, surely. 

He had kept the same measured pace through every step between Balan’s chambers and his own, propelled forward by the meter of that rhythm and the certainty that his resolve would crumble should he let it lapse for a moment. Both doors to his rooms were opened and closed in the same measure, his path across the chamber as well. It was only when he stepped down into the little arboretum that his feet stumbled and he found himself drawing in great gasps of breath, clutching at the shelves where bowls of seedlings were laid out in careful rows along the wall.

Time had slipped after that. 

He remembered pacing, he remembered sprinkling crumbs into the fish pools, brushing his fingers over the wide leaves of the larger plants and forcing all his perception into the sense of their textures—rough, silken, waxy, velvet. 

He remembered crushing one bitter leaf after another between his teeth and meditating on the taste, choosing the most pungent that it might hold his focus. 

At some point he had abandoned these attempted distractions and curled on the stone seat beside the window, dragging a blanket over himself and shivering as he stared out into the night. Balan’s name hovered on his tongue with the lingering herbs, bitter flavors both. It was a pulse, pressing at his lips, breaking through his breath; a plea, fruitless and vain.

He drew his knees up to his chin with a groan and raked his fingers through his hair. How had he allowed himself such folly? This was a wound of his own making, dealt by a blade his own hands had forged. Had his heart not warned him from the moment of Celon’s embrace that this was a precipice which should never be tempted? But he had chosen his own wish over the warning, had closed his counsel to its voice, closed his ears to the water’s wisdom and leapt willfully onto the crumbling edge, certain of his own skill to balance. It was ludicrous, then, to feign surprise when he found himself looking up from its wreckage.

Balan.

Even in the wretched days of Ivrin’s wake they had not been fully severed. He could drift against the other’s anger, sharp ice though it had been, and take some comfort from the pain of that touch. 

Balan.

He dared not reach for him now. Oh Valar, to have the comfort of the other’s palm against his cheek…to be drawn to rest upon his lap while the steady fingers combed through his hair, to hear again the sound of his song, rough and earthen and quieting.

Beloved.

A wordless entreaty fell from his lips, some strangled half-hearted thing that caught in his throat, and he kicked the blanket aside in frustration. This circuitous jumble served no one, least of all his own resolve. Where now was his dignity? Where his wisdom, his convictions, his fortitude to accept constraint? He paced from one end of the room to the other, gripping the back of his neck and berating himself in every breath. He was a coward if he could abide the principle only, but not the cost of its enaction. 

“Love is choosing,” he whispered to himself as he drew up beside a fish pool, clinging to his father’s voice amid the tempest of his grief, “it is choosing.“

And I’ve never regretted any decision more. Estreth’s reprimand echoed hard on the heels of his recitation and he gripped the walls of the basin, staring down at the little flashes of silver which darted hither and fro beneath his reflection. The image in the water gazed back at him, drawn and weary, and he was unnerved to find it seemed a stranger to his own eyes. When had he strayed so far from himself? Was this the visage that peered in awe through the pines of Ossiriand? These the lips that kissed Celon’s waves when the bitter truth came clear? Nay, this was an imposter. A fool. A vain child. This was no one of his knowing. 

He tried to turn away, but the reflection held him fast and he could not budge. The mirrored lips twitched in amusement at his plight. The eyes looked back at him, canny and unsparing as they forced on him that knowledge which was his already: that he had felt his restraint slipping and had fled in fear, embracing a mimicry of himself as though by outrunning the truth he might know it not. Coward! Even Balan’s accusations of his conduct found their root in this. He caught sight of an old friend and in that moment yearned so keenly for the boy he once was, for the safety and clarity of childhood, that he had escaped into that memory of himself without thinking how it would seem to others. 

A fish surfaced briefly, sending ripples through the likeness in the water, and Finrod shivered as it danced in the lamplight—like the atna-ahma of Balan’s tales, he thought, and grew dizzy at the comparison. He lifted one hand to touch his face, watching in the water’s mirror as the damp fingers brushed across his lips.

And of the water Aelthes drank. A healing draught, a cleansing balm…

He gripped the stone harder, reeling as his own admissions washed over him with the tale’s cadence. 

Balan was wrong. This had all been a charade.

For there had never been any refusal to choose—he had made his decision long ere now, long even ere their griefs had been poured out beside the holy well. Nay, his way had been chosen the moment he crossed to Balan in the dark of Estolad, in the instant when he sat at his side in the fire’s light and let the whispered yes fall from his lips. 

All the rest had been nothing but delay, a sacrifice offered up in obeisance to his fear.

He was walking before he knew his own intent and passed through the chambers as one caught in a dream. The first door, the connecting hallway, the second door. The main passage now. It was laughable, really, how near he had kept Balan to his own rooms. There was only a handful of steps, a slight curve of the hallway before he found himself facing the other’s doorway once more—sea birds and ocean rays with wings spread in adulation as they soared across the timbers. How Nerwen had laughed when she saw them, when these rooms were yet meant for her use. How she had teased him for the choice of adornment: gulls, the messenger birds of the water’s lord; giant rays sweeping in migration beneath the waves, a Falmarin symbol of returning home. Did he mean to draw her back beneath his wings, then? Nay, the hunt was still running, she was a kestrel and no gull.

Finrod reached out and drew his fingers along a bordering frond of kelp. It had been in presage of his own path that he carved them here, or so it seemed to him now, heart pounding in his chest as his fingers followed their curves. He was the wanderer returning, his the spirit summoned home to himself—which was to Balan, to his heart, to the truth he had known since that first glimpse of firelight through the trees. His hand traced down through the kelp and coral till it closed around the latch ring and he felt the scales of the iron serpent press into his skin.

He turned the latch.

The room was still. Two bags lay half-filled with the other’s possessions against the further wall. The pile of glass had been swept into one corner. The bed remained untouched, the lamps dark, while in the hearth the fire burned low, sending its crackling in afterthought through the silence. And there in the half-light sat the familiar silhouette, one elbow propped against the curved end of the bench and staring into the coals, expressionless. Finrod’s heart beat in triplet as he gazed across the chamber. It was just as he had first seen him—features sharpened, skin warm and burnished in the fire’s glow, face turned into the light. 

He slipped into the room without a word and eased the door closed. It fastened soundlessly and for a moment he faltered, trembling; then drew a slow breath and slid the bolt as well.

Balan did not look up as he crossed toward him into the light. Nor did he shift his gaze when the king knelt on the woven rug, when he bent to set his forehead to the ground before him, to kiss each foot in turn. Long they remained in stillness, two carven images atop the cavern’s stone, till at length he straightened and held out his hands, pressed palm to palm in an echo of Balan’s own plea on the crags above the flax fields. 

“Oiastaro,” Finrod said quietly, and Balan’s eyes shifted at last to meet his in query. “My name,” he clarified, color rising in his cheeks as he knelt beneath the other’s gaze, “the one of my choosing. We bear three in my people’s tradition: given, seen, and devised. The first two thou knowest already, but the last of these is held closely; a private name, never used without invitation.”

“Oiastaro.” Balan spoke the syllables slowly, a new taste rolled skeptically across the tongue.

“It is most often reserved for one’s family—father or mother, sisters or brothers.” He faltered, then added in a hoarse whisper, “Spouse.”

Balan flinched and his eyes fell shut as a tremor ran along his jaw. “Do not toy with me.” His voice broke and he passed his hands over his face. “Please, Nóm. No more.”

“I am not. I will not. Oh Balan—” A sob choked his words and he leaned forward to rest his face against the other’s knees. “Thou hast entrusted thine heart to a poor steward.”

A snort slipped from Balan’s lips despite himself, but any amusement was deadened in its tone. “I fear I’ve no inclination left to reason thee from the claim.”

“Attempt it not; I’ve come here to own it.” Finrod’s hands slipped gently behind the other’s calves, his face still buried against the cloth and long-pent tears dampening the wool. “In selfishness have I kept thee here. A little longer, I would think. A little longer and I’ll counsel him to return. A little longer and I will release him…and all the while I’ve been stealing thy life from thee while I danced about the doom. I thought in my pride that I could both keep thee and hold myself aloof. If I patrolled the signifier, then I would not transgress the signified.” He drew a ragged breath, then lifted his head and forced himself to meet the other’s eye. “Thou hast seen it truly, of course, and named it so: I am a fool. And have wasted precious days I should have given to thee. For I am thine already, Balan, body and spirit. I have always been thine." He placed his palms together once more and stretched them trembling into the space between them. “Or have I broken this now beyond repair?”

There was a stunned silence as the other stared down at him, speechless. Then, swift as striking, he felt Balan catch him behind the neck, felt himself hauled forward till he was clasped within the other’s arms, his own hands tangling in Balan’s hair as he met the kiss with abandon and gasped a small sound of acquiescence into his mouth. 

So many ways had he imagined this—a simple vow in the quiet of the old hut; declared before his people with some grand gesture of devotion; a passion overflowing, as in that first desperate longing beside the Celon; or, in his more measured moments, a dream of riding out till they found a secluded cove in the Falas, of exchanging oaths beside the sea’s chorus when twilight fell, when the waves held the same hue as the waters of his childhood and all was warmth and peace in the briny air.

Never had it been thus—falling together in the exhaustion of spent fury with eyes swollen and weeping still as their mouths found one another, their hands tugging desperately at the other’s clothing and clumsy as boys in their sudden haste. Balan had wrapped himself in one of his old tunics against the chill and Finrod fumbled with the carved toggles, muttering curses under his breath as the last of these refused to yield. But the other reached down and batted his hand aside, snapping the binding with a quick jerk, and Finrod nearly laughed aloud despite himself. He was home. Here, here at last he was home—in the solid warmth of Balan’s embrace, in the softness of his lips, in the rough brush of his beard and the fervor of his soul bright against his own. The tunic was loose now. It slid down from the broad shoulders, beckoning, and Finrod caught the rough undershirt in fistfuls as he pulled him nearer and dragged this too free from the sash.

“Nóm…” Balan caught hold of his wrists, kissing him still as he drew the other’s hands away to each side. “Promise me. Promise me thou art in earnest…”

“I am in earnest.”

“This is not a whim? It is not the wine?”

“It is not, I swear it—as Manwë is my witness and the One may hold me bound.” He pulled his hands free of Balan’s grip and clasped the other’s face within his palms. “Balan,” he begged, his voice hoarse, “let me swear it to thee.”

A wave of longing passed over Balan’s face, but he held himself back with an effort. “Make trial of it first. See whether thou might’st not remain unbound.”

“I would not have it so.”

“No?”

A slow smile spread over Finrod’s face and he stroked his thumbs along Balan’s cheeks, the sensation running like needles along his scalp. “Thou hast my soul already,” he whispered. “What more is there to take?”

Balan was in his arms again in an instant, his fingers weaving through Finrod’s hair as he kissed him with abandon, slipping from the bench and allowing himself to be drawn down laughing before the hearth. “Oiastaro,” he breathed, and though his voice stumbled over the unfamiliar name it was a claiming, fierce and possessive, and Finrod felt it kindle in his soul as he pinned the other beneath his embrace. 

“Beloved…” He passed his lips over Balan’s chest, kissing feverishly along his neck, the rim of his shoulder. Balan’s skin was amber in the firelight, it was honey, it was golden bronze and filled with summer’s heat. “Nieninquë,” he murmured, sunlight and snowdrops coursing through his thought into the other’s, and he felt Balan’s laugh ripple through him, flesh and soul. Oh Valar, oh sun and stars and seas above, he would break apart… He muffled a wordless gasp against Balan’s neck and felt the arms tighten about him, Balan’s legs wrap about his waist. 

He would break apart—from joy or from fate’s judgment he knew not, but he was shattering, his soul cracking like glass…

And light streamed in like water between the fragments. 

---

Chapter End Notes

TRANSLATIONS
Q = Quenya, S = Sindarin T = Telerin
gwethrim: [S] people of the shadows: wherein gwath (shadow) is pluralized to gweth
cambas: [S] “hand bread”
lumas: [S] time-bread (see The Warning Sounds Too Late)
Amillë Merillë: [Q] Mother Meril, where Írui chooses a form of amil that would rhyme with the Quenya version of Meril’s name
Ammalincë: [Q]: little yellow bird
Engwar: [Q] “the sickly,” one of the names given to Men. See The Silmarillion, Chapter 12: “Of Men"

TALISKA INVENTIONS
For the most part, all faux-Taliska is loosely inspired by or modeled on Germanic-Gothic
atna-ahma: water sprite

MISC NOTES
- Írimo Arandur being the Quenya name and title that Írui would have born while he dwelt in the king’s court at Tirion, where Arandur serves as a title (servant of the king/king’s man). 
- For more background on the begetting day blessings, see The Warning Sounds Too Late
- Endillos: an invented place name, intended to be Írui’s family home in Aman
- For the reference to hrögemetheilit and Balan’s “horn of seven,” see Blade’s Peril