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The first time Halbrand kisses Galadriel, the sun no longer beats down on weathered planks that scarcely hold together under their lashings of rope. The lingering heat no longer steals the breath with its oppressive weight. And yet, there is no breeze, and the waves have calmed to a stillness that makes even the slightest of movements on the raft feel like a startling ricochet of sound when it creaks beneath the weight of its two passengers. Or rather, its two captives.
Salt stains Galadriel’s cracked lips and cheeks, and she blearily prays to the night—to the Valar or to anyone who will listen—for rain. For fresh, clear rain that would wash down upon her and leave her revitalized and reborn. Or even for the wind to ease the endless distress of the feverish delirium setting upon her. That delirium catches her up again and again as she drifts into a restless nothingness of sharp glances of memory and things that have never happened.
She keeps finding herself lying next to Halbrand, curled into him for comfort in her need for companionship throughout this trial, even if that need is only an unconscious one. It’s an annoying turn of events, but he doesn’t say anything about it as she huffs now in wearied dismay and turns away from him yet again. Lying on her side, she falls into a fitful drifting in her mind that could never be counted as restful. She dreams of her life before: of moonlight falling on blossoming glades and flowers, and of Celeborn drawing her close to dance; to kiss her mouth. Those slow, drugging attentions had felt so sweet and good. Now, she relives them again, mouth brushing against his and savoring the feel of him beneath her hands.
The sweet strains of music are fading as she follows Celeborn into the trees. He awaits her as she steps near to him and wraps her arms around his neck, pressing her lips to his. They feel better than anything she has ever known. Her fingers play and linger in his hair, shorter than she remembers that brings her a little wariness somehow in the back of her dreaming mind.
And when Celeborn slides his tongue into her mouth, it is a luxurious invasion that is gentle but completely foreign to her. He has never, ever done such a thing, and neither has she. Her dreaming mind rears back now, pulling her to consciousness. Salt pulls against eyelashes in an uncomfortable, grainy way when she cracks open her eyes.
It is not her husband beneath her hands nor is it her husband attending to her mouth as she lays the upper half of her body upon him. It is her forced companion on this accursed, never-ending voyage. Scrambling away as well as she can when her limbs hold such little strength, Galadriel gapes at him despite his seeming reluctance to let her go. His hands linger on her waist and she at last finds the energy deep within to swat them away.
“You stole a kiss,” she rages with as much incensed emotion as she can muster in her shaky weariness.
He frowns, looking more coherent and less worn than she who had been swimming for so long before coming to the ship that had wrecked beneath them. “I did not,” he grumbles a protest low in his chest. “You bestowed it upon me—without my asking for it, I might add. How could I refuse when you were half on top of me? There was no escape from one so determined as you.”
Galadriel’s blush fires through her, setting a tingling to her cheeks. “I thought you were my husband!” The declaration seems to cool him slightly toward her, but not nearly enough. They still haven’t pulled away entirely from each other.
“Well, clearly I am not your husband, although he seems a lucky man to have such a demanding and lusty wife.” He raises a hand to forestall her own that has raised itself to punch or to slap. In her weak haze, she’s not quite sure which it would be. “But since you gave me something,” he says, “I’ll give you something in return.”
She drops her hand now, the weariness overtaking her at last. Her look is frankly skeptical. “And what is that?”
“I will give you one of my many secrets,” he says, a corner of his mouth turning up and his eyes glinting in humor. “Surely that is worth a kiss.”
Galadriel scoffs. “I doubt a Man such as you has much of anything that would interest me in that way. Not enough for a kiss of mine, at least.”
His laugh resonates over the waves like a roll of thunder. “You think very highly of yourself, Elf.”
“I do,” she says with the smallest toss of her head and tilt of her chin. “But very well. What secret from the depths of your heart and soul would you share with me?”
He crooks his finger to beckon her closer as he leans nearer still until his nose practically brushes hers. From this distance, she is lost in the hazel of his eyes that remind her of the lush moss-covered trees and rich earth of Doriath. His chapped lips part, and her eyes dart there next. The corners of his mouth tilt up at her instinctive interest.
His breath is soft against her lips, as he whispers in the lowest hush.
“I hate persimmons.”
It is so ridiculous that she cannot help but tip her head back and join in his rusty laughter.
“I see. I suppose I accept your secret.” She chuckles one last time, but then Galadriel’s smile fades. “You may keep your secrets from now on, however, for this will never take place between us ever again.”
“Promises, promises, Elf. But remember that I didn’t start this.”
Galadriel merely snorts her disdain and stares into his smirking face.
“Never,” she says. “Ever. Again.”
***
The second time Halbrand kisses Galadriel, the cells beneath Númenor are cold, and they smell of the water gathered in their corners and the smoke of the torches arrayed in their brackets. Their words aren’t quite friendly, but they aren’t filled with dislike, either. Instead there’s a kind of challenge in them.
“All I see is an Elf who won’t put down her sword.”
“Come with me to Middle-earth. And together we will redeem both our bloodlines.”
“How? You’re stuck on this island. And you’re still short an army.”
She looks at him, and she knows it’s with a bright coquettishness that she cannot quite hide. “That is all about to change.”
He huffs a laugh, head shaking in disbelief. “We’ll see, won’t we.”
“We will indeed,” she returns before turning to go. As she does so, her eyes catch upon the statue of Uinen, beloved of the Númenóreans for bringing calm to the seas. Her heart stirs at the remembrance of the devotion that Ainu held for the one whom she cared for. Before Galadriel can stop herself, she finds herself asking as if idly, “Dispute about a woman? Anyone I would know?” Her stomach twists a little that he has felt enough for a Númenórean already to have become the mystery woman’s champion.
“Galadriel,” he groans quietly, as if seeking to put the idea from her mind.
She draws herself up. “I wish to know who she is. Tell me.”
Halbrand hums in thought, then. “You have met her, but you do not know her nor think well of her at all. You think her prickly and unlikable; driven to anger far too easily. I see her, though, and I see so much beauty and so much grace within her.” His voice drops even lower when he sees her gather his meaning. “Above all of this, I see a loyalty that has stood the test of time. She is a marvel. A wonder to behold, and I would never cast my eyes away from her.”
Galadriel’s own eyes drop, voice now hesitant. “Halbrand… You should not say such things to me. It is not proper for a married woman to hear these words.”
“I did not say it was you I spoke of.” His lips twitch with repressed mirth, but his eyes burn as he gazes upon her, lingering on her mouth and running down the length of her neck to her breasts and further down. His voice gentles. “But she is so very beautiful. It seems I cannot keep these thoughts confined to myself now that you have asked.”
Turning more quickly this time in her need to escape lest she make a dreadful mistake, she gasps as her wrist is grasped, and Halbrand pulls her to the bars of his cell.
“I have told you a secret, fair lady. Now I must have something in exchange.”
“I—” she begins, but her voice breaks off when he raises her fingers to his lips and begins to kiss each one before sucking her thumb into the wet heat of his mouth. The heat magnifies and plunges to her stomach, twisting and aching there as her body yearns for the very thing it should not yearn for. “I cannot,” she whispers, but she does not pull away as his hand tightens around her wrist and his tongue strokes the pad of her thumb until a shudder wracks her entire body.
“You must,” he says at last, eyes hooded and dark. “It is our bargain.”
When he pulls her close, she does not resist, feeling the cold metal of the bars where they press against her breasts and her heated cunt. It is a shock, but it is even more of a shock when his free hand wraps around her throat. He spans it so easily, so gently as he pulsl her face to the bars’ edge that he might press a kiss to her lips. Its intimacy smolders like coals beginning to steadily catch with fire, and she closes her eyes that she might not see him nor feel the guilt of her actions as their mouths move together in sinuous delight.
There is more than one stolen kiss this time, and when he releases her neck and her wrist after uncounted moments, she finds herself still trapped. She is still pinned in place somehow, body unwilling to be the one to move away. At last, he pulls back, and it takes her a moment to collect herself, eyes drifting open with slow blinks and vision gone hazy with desire. She raises a hand to her swollen, bee-stung lips in both wonder and dismay. This is a betrayal. And yet, this is the most she has felt in an Age that is neither rage nor guilt, but something sweeter and softer that lodges deep within her breast.
She takes a backwards step, and then another, and then another until she feels safe to turn and stride with purpose—it is certainly not with fear of herself nor of anything else—to the threshold of the cells. His voice rings out to follow her past Uinen, past the torches, past the arch of the doorway that will give her an escape.
“Goodnight, Galadriel. Sleep well.”
That is an impossibility, and that evening she lies in bed and thinks of what she has done. When she touches her lips, she thinks of Halbrand and of his honeyed tongue.
***
The third time Halbrand kisses her, she stands at the side of the ship bearing them from Númenor to the Southlands. After the stirring pageantry of the morning when they sailed off towards the horizon of Middle-earth, she has abandoned her armor in favor of a simple dress. It is in the style of the island’s women, flowing and light with a plunge and gathering of fabric at her breasts that feels scandalous to her. For now, she looks out upon the sea where the waves rise and fall as they lap against the hull in a soft susurrus.
It makes her smile when she thinks of how there is not a serpent in sight to disturb their passage. That ill-fated omen seems to have been abandoned for better tidings which promise a sure victory over her enemies. There are none near this corner of the ship, and the night blankets her in its velvety cover. It gives her time to think; time to plan, to hope, and to dream.
When Halbrand arrives, it does not startle her, for she hears and recognizes his surprisingly soft tread as he comes to stand behind her. He does not hail her, and his voice is soft, winding its way into her ear.
“May I join you?”
She should not let him. She should instead go back beneath the deck to her hammock and wait for the rising of the sun. There is too much between them now—too much desire, too many secrets and two kisses are two kisses too many. But instead, she murmurs, “Of course.”
He takes this as encouragement, because of course he does, leaning into her and placing his hands on the ship’s railing before them. It brackets her in his arms and she can feel the strength of him contained in his mortal body.
“Halbrand…” she whispers.
“Shh. Don’t start,” he murmurs in her ear once again, nuzzling it slightly and sending a shiver through her. The pleased noise he makes when he feels the vibration echo through himself as well brings a blush springing to her cheeks.
“Do you not like your armor? I see you have abandoned it.” There is a cheekiness to his question, and she lets her voice fill with a mock-frown in return.
“You wish for praise? Do not be vain, Halbrand. It is not a becoming trait.”
He huffs a laugh that brushes past her ear yet again. A languorous sort of feeling comes over her, trapped in his arms as she is. “And what are the kind of traits you would admire, hm?” he asks. “Perseverance? Dedication? An undying need for vengeance?”
She quiets at that, a melancholy settling over her. Is that how he sees her? Is that all he sees? “It is a necessary evil,” she declares, investing her words with the surety she feels.
“And yet, it is still an evil.” He lets a long moment of silence spill into the surrounding night. “It is because of your brother. You mentioned him in the forge.”
The thought of Finrod here and now is almost intolerable, but she rests herself in the old and comfortable feelings of anger and sorrow and a lust for something that is the farthest thing from love. “It is because of many things,” she protests, feeling pressed upon to explain herself. Should it not be obvious why I fight against Sauron? she thinks to herself.
“Tell me of him,” Halbrand says before gliding his lips over the shell and the tip of her ear. The feelings it arouses are confusing, still lost in her sadness as she is.
“What would you hear?” she asks, uncomfortable at the thought of sharing her most precious of memories of her beloved brother. “He was murdered in the most cruel of ways by the one whose death I will claim in exchange—”
“No, no,” he reproves, low and gentle. “I do not wish to hear something out of anger. I wish to hear something out of love.”
This silences her. She tries not to dwell too often on the happiest of her memories. They hurt too much; wounding her that she has done so little, in the end, to bring justice to her greatest enemy. But here and now, those memories roll over her at Halbrand’s prompting. Sitting at Finrod’s feet in Valinor. Hearing him play his harp. The sound of his laugh that has almost slipped away in her mind with the slow and steady march of time, now more than an Age gone by. And perhaps that forgetting is what hurts the most; that he may be lost to her entirely in the end until she comes to the Halls of Mandos.
“The way he sang…” she begins at last, settling on that image. “His voice was like nothing else to be heard in Valinor; the purest and most beautiful of voices. It could surely move the hardest heart to softness, but for the one who killed him. His songs still come to me at night when I dream, but I do not know now if they haunt me as a gift or as a chastisement for what I have not finished.”
He hums in his throat and holds her tighter. “It is a gift, surely.” His voice turns tentative for reasons she cannot name. “Thank you, Galadriel. I wish that I could heal this wound within you—or make it to never have happened in the first place. Please believe me that I would if I could.” The hand he moves to put atop hers dwarfs hers in comparison, large and so warm in the cool of the night . “But know that such a horror has made you yet stronger. It has forged you into what you are today.”
“And what is that?” It is a plea for something kind as much as it is a demand that he explain himself.
“A blade,” he whispers. “A blade that is so beautiful, tempered in flame and smoke and quenched in blood. I have never seen its like, and I never will again.”
“Blades are wielded and guided by their masters,” she reminds him. “Would you have someone turn me to their own ends in such a way?”
He is silent at that. “Only if they were to put their hand to crafting peace upon this land once more. There can be beauty in your violence. I have witnessed it in Númenor, and I hope to witness it again.” He pauses before murmuring, “You are so very beautiful in all things, Galadriel.”
“I have heard that my entire life,” she says in return just as quietly. “Always my hair outshining anything else.”
One of his hands removes itself from the railing and she can feel him playing with the end of her braid. “There is so much else to praise as well, though.”
She snorts lightly at that. “Would you catalogue my virtues, then?”
“If you like. I would start here with your hair, but I would not stop there. No, I would sing the praises of your slender neck, for one.” He shifts to carefully set his hand around her throat, spanning it easily once more. Were it anyone else, she would have bucked him off and gutted him where he stood. But Halbrand… Halbrand was different. He was possibly jesting, but the soothing purr of his voice lulled her as he continued. “Such perfect skin. Soft as silk and twice as fine.” His thumb strokes up and down against the column.
He slowly slips his hand downwards, coming to rest on the expanse of skin that covers her breastbone, fingers skating over her collarbone in a gentle caress this time. “This heart that beats so pure and true. I would see fair gems resting on chains and in brooches upon your breast, but their shape could never approach the perfection of your form.”
The honeyed words fill her ears, and his soft touches send a rush of heat through her body. Galadriel sucks in a breath as his hand dips even lower beneath the collar of her gown, and she lets him—lets him!—when he gathers her breast into his grasp. His palm and fingers cup her, and the heat of his hand as it shifts to stroke and knead matches the raging fire building in her veins. A whimper breaks through from between lips pressed tight, despite how she seeks to keep from making a sound of pleasure. But the pleasure is there, as surely as the day brings the light and the night brings darkness.
She can’t help but tip her head back to rest against his chest that is so close to her back; caging her in as he begins to pinch and worry her hardened nipple. “And these,” he whispers. “True gems that I can only imagine the hue and shape of, but would give all that I have to but catch a glimpse of them.”
“Halbrand…” But it is not a chastisement this time. It is a moan and a plea for more. For him to never stop. He indulges her, lowering his mouth to press hot, open-mouthed kisses against her neck. “Would that I could taste them, so sweet on my tongue,” he groans, and she wishes for him not to speak of it, but to do it.
“Please,” she whispers. “Please.”
Humming in the back of his throat, he mouths the shell of her ear, biting it gently and sending sparks racing over her and another rush of heat between her thighs. “Not yet, my fair Elf. Not here and not yet.” A pause. “But perhaps something else.” The hand yet gripping the ship’s railing before them moves to her hip. It grounds her to the swaying deck, but nothing can possibly ground her when he gathers the fabric between her legs slightly and cups her with his palm.
She does gasp at that; she is so very hot—burning and needing him to bring her the kind of pleasure it seems only his hands can inflict. She has begun to think of him when she touches herself in the deepest parts of the night in the safety and security of her bed. But to have him here now; to have him be the hand that strokes and drags out the lightning strikes of anguished pleasure…the way he wrings it from her body is almost more than she can bear.
“Turn to me, lovely,” he murmurs, and she tilts her head to the side at his command. The angle allowed him to kiss her deeply as his hands delve likewise deep and likewise sure. She cannot help but gasp into it, small mewling sounds spilling out that she cannot hold back. He takes them into himself and gives her a fiercer touch in exchange, hands demanding that she relinquish everything to him. Fingers swirl around and around her sensitive bud, the cloth almost, but not quite, rougher than she can stand.
Between kisses, he begins to urge her on, higher and higher with his words of “There’s a girl…so good, isn’t it? Almost there, lovely….you’re so close. Come just like that, my darling.” Praise and liquid darkness on his tongue that she tastes and hears and feels. It’s too much. Too, too much until a gentle orgasm begins to roll through her from between her thighs up through her stomach into her breast and down through her legs. He catches her small cries with his mouth, his lips continuing to drink her down until her body begins to steady in his arms.
They are silent for a long moment until he brushes the tip of her ear one more time with his lips and whispers, “Would you like to hear my secret now?”
Galadriel cannot manage more than a dreamy sigh, and he breathes a huff of a laugh against her cheek before burying his nose where her hair begins to fall from her temple. “I have always most loved the scent of wild roses at dusk. Now it is as nothing compared to you.”
There is nothing she can think of to say to that, so she remains still as he does exactly as she wishes and wraps his arms around her; caging her body in or providing a bulwark against the raging tempests that no longer feel so lodged within her that she can never be free of them.
***
The fourth time Halbrand kisses her, it follows one of the truest moments of her long life.
“Perhaps I shall begin by killing you, you slavering Orc,” she snarls at the one called “Adar”.
“Galadriel!”
His voice rings out through the barn’s enclosed space; powerful and commanding as he calls her back to herself once more. As she stalks out, she is so consumed with her thoughts that she barely hears the Moriondor’s query meant for Halbrand beyond a questioning lilt. Whatever it is he asks, Halbrand does not answer him. She needs somewhere peaceful, somewhere quiet.
The forest offers that shelter. When he joins her to sit upon the fallen log, she stares ahead at nothing, thoughts whirling in a turmoil. It’s a weight in her chest when she realizes how that turmoil eases when he is near at hand. Somehow, he eases her anger that has been as boundless as the sea for so very long. He promises other things: delight, desire, and trust above all things.
Their conversation dredges up some semblance of guilt, but when she admits low and heavy, “I felt it too,” the admission is more than simple agreement. It is a gift to him, laden with all the longings of her heart that he has stirred within her.
The Númenórean soldier’s interruption is a decidedly unwelcome one, but there is nothing to do but heed the Queen Regent’s command. Particularly if Halbrand is to take up the mantle of kingship that Galadriel herself has thrust upon him. He follows her willingly back to the village, but before they pass the last stand of trees, he tugs on her hand and stops her. She swivels slowly, unsure and unwilling at first to hear what he might have to say.
His voice is soft. “Galadriel. I meant what I said. I wish we might be bound, body and soul.” The eyes searching hers make her feel as if she is pinned in place to the ground. “You wish for it as well. You feel it, too. I know it from the words of your own lips.” He lifts a hand to cup her jaw. “Let that binding be soon. I wish for it to last as long as we exist upon this Middle-earth. Promise me it can be so.” He draws the hand that holds hers upwards, pressing it firmly against his armored chest. “Fulfill such a promise by wedding me. Tonight. In front of all of these people. Let us not be sundered ever again by storm or the work of anything else.”
She cannot bear to hear him continue and cannot meet his eyes. “But you forget,” she says, voice dropping to a whisper. “I am already married.”
Halbrand’s smile is quick and wry. His words would seem flippant, but sincerity laces every syllable. “He is gone, is he not? And you have said such a thing before. I do not think it means quite so much as it once did, hm?”
She should protest. She should slap or kick or punch. She should cut him down and wither him beneath the lash of her tongue. But she does not.
She does not.
Instead, there is only begging. Pleading. She who has never begged nor pleaded for anything in her long life other than for Finrod not to leave to war when she had been a small child. “Halbrand... Your friendship is so dear to me. Do not ask this of me—”
“Am I? He asks. Am I still a friend? That is what you would have me be to you?”
She grows flustered like a maiden, then. He has kissed her, shared sweet words and deep ones, and brought her pleasure in the dark of the night. He is more than a friend, but she does not know what it is now that she should call it. That she should call him.
“I cannot,” she begins. “I—I do not—” The words will not come. At last, he takes pity on her.
“Whatever you would have of me, Galadriel; whatever you would take, I freely give it, for I am yours, you beautiful creature.”
The honey from his tongue soothes her and she steps forward at his urging so he might put his hands about her waist. “I do not wish to be thought a creature,” she says on a breath of a laugh as she puts her own hands to his chest, unable to keep them from moving across his armor as she traces where his muscled stomach rests below the steel.
He draws in a harsh breath, his need as bare as she has ever seen it. “No, you are no creature, then. You are purity. You are light. You are the queen of my heart, and I would do anything you say; give you anything you wish.”
This is too much. Too close to a declaration that she cannot—must not—countenance. Instead of allowing it to continue, she does the only thing she can do. She leans forward and whispers into his ear, “I wish for my kiss, and I wish to hear my secret.”
He looks torn, then, as if afraid she would not want to hear what he has to say. “Very well.” He draws the words out, like sap moving slowly from the cut of a branch. “I wish we could both relinquish our duties and flee to somewhere where we both might find our peace. Where there would be no husband, no duty, no Sauron to destroy. Could you give it up, Galadriel? Could you give all of it up if I asked it of you?”
She cannot answer him; cannot conceive of laying down the sword and dagger she has held so close to her heart before she’d had him to hold there. So instead, she pulls him in for a bruising kiss, hoping that will be enough. The kiss he gives her in return tells her that he understands her lack of an answer for what it is. A denial. He kisses her almost angrily, then, taking their shared frustration out on her body as he slams her back against the tree that rests behind her. The force is harder than she would have believed it possible for a Man, but there is no space for any consideration of anything beyond the press of his lips and tongue, a lash upon her that burns until she, too, is burning for more of his touch.
When he pulls back from her, she whines in protest. It is a humbling kind of sound, but he refuses to respond to it.
“Halbrand—”
“No. You wish to be friends. So friends I will be.”
With that, he drops his hands from her hips, brushes hers away from his chest, and strides out of the trees and across the short expanse of field that leads to the village. The loss is acute; painful to her in ways she cannot fathom. It was what she told him she wanted, but now it feels so incredibly wrong. She tries to steel her heart against the feeling. The One knows she cannot have what she wants. He has already given her a husband. To long for another… It cannot be. And so she trudges across the field in his wake. When a weight settles within her, she does her best to ignore it. But goodness and righteousness seems a bitter draught to her; one which she has tasted the dregs of and would put away from her if she could.
***
The fifth time Halbrand kisses her, they are heading with all due haste to Eregion. Their pace has slowed so that the animals they are astride might walk and not founder, despite how Galadriel wishes they could ride throughout the night. Her eyes are fixed on the pathways to Lindon, if only because she cannot bear to turn to see Halbrand; pale and sweating and in tight-lipped pain with a wound that he can scarcely withstand.
A small croaking sound leaches into the air from behind her, and she swivels her shoulders and head around to see what she dreads: he has lost consciousness and slumped over his mount, hands still twisted in the reins. It seems he cannot keep his balance and will surely slide to the ground if she does not go to him. Her body creaks in protest as she climbs off her horse and hurries to him lest he fall and give himself a further injury.
He is deathly pale. So pale she fears the worst. With an indrawn breath, she turns his unconscious face to hers. She hesitates and then leans forward to press soft kisses against his cheeks, his mouth, painting him with her need for him to wake. With her fear and with her frantic desire for him to merely stir and reassure her he will yet live. But there is no response as he lies across the horse’s sweating withers.
Her voice is stern.“I forgive you for not sharing a secret with me this time. But you will live to tell me others.” There is only a slight wavering of uncertainty at the very end of her words. “You will live, for you cannot leave me, Halbrand. You…You cannot. That is all there is to it,” but her lips tremble on the words, the salt of her tears reminding her of the raft when they had begun their game and their unbreakable bargain.
She kisses him softly once more, terrified that the breath easing from his mouth into hers will be his last.
“Do not leave me alone,” she whispers. “I could not bear it—not so soon as this. Please, my…my love. Please.”
The words slip out beyond her control. She had not meant to reveal so much, even to herself. This was beyond the desires of the flesh. As wrong as those were, this feeling was worse somehow. A mortal Man and an immortal Elf. Always it portended sorrow, yet she could not help herself in this; could not stop loving him and could not keep from giving that love a name.
A stirring motion invaded the sanctity of her thoughts. The sound escaped Halbrand’s mouth once again; a groan of pain and despair before his head lifted slowly. Awake! Alive! She rejoiced in that much, at least. His words were a mumble she could scarcely catch, even with her elf hearing.
“Galadriel…” His weak voice trails off to nothing.
“Don’t talk. Save your strength.” Her laugh is a pitiful thing, although she had hoped to give him courage with it. “I do not need a secret. And we are not so far from Lindon. We will be there soon. Just live for me a little longer, my friend.”
“Not…your friend.” The words are slurred, dragged from his chest. Her blood and the marrow within her bones freezes. He had heard, then?
“It is nothing,” she whispers. “Forget the words, and we will never speak of it again.”
He ignores this, eyes fluttering slightly as he whispers. “My secret.” A rasping indrawn breath, wracked with pain. “My heart has never been pierced before now. Not until you. A wound like nothing I have ever felt. And…I hope to never feel its like again.”
She isn’t sure how to construe his words, but her heart falls. Is it better that he seems to hope she will no longer affect him? Or does he mean that he hopes to never love another besides her? There is no way to know without a long and deep conversation, and that is one she cannot bear to have. The feelings in her breast are too new. Too treacherous. And It is never simple with him. He will draw promises from her, and she will give them to him if only to give him the strength to fight.
Reaching out, her fingers brush his cheek. “Do not tax yourself. We are so close, just hold steady to your mount and all will be well.”
“As you say. My love…” The words blossom in the air between them; so sweet, so beautiful. And then he is slipping back into a daze and she is left alone with her thoughts and the conflict that wrecks her, heart and soul.
***
There is something wrong. Something as wrong as an apple that looks fair and appealing until one splits it open to find its heart rotten and bitten to the core with worms. Halbrand could merely be soaking up the air and water of Lindon like a plant long denied sustenance. It is not something she has any reason to doubt. Yet doubt, she does.
He’s barely eating, barely sleeping as far as she can tell. Everything is in service to this mad idea between him, her dearest friend, and Celebrimbor. It makes little to no sense. Even with Elvish medicine, there should surely be a taxing of his body and spirit to have been so very wounded. Others had not seen how close he was to death. But she knew.
Pacing the courtyard now, she is eager to know what those who tended to the library can tell her of a kingly line that has somehow lasted a thousand years or more. It would be well to put these suspicions to rest.
She remembers it now—cannot help but remember how he had asked her to give it all up for him; all of her vengeance, and all of her need to strive in honor of her brother’s memory. At the time, she had given no answer, but she knows what answer she would give now after examining and listening to the deepest recesses of her still-beating heart. She loves him. There is no question of it now.
But something is still wrong.
When he appears before her, saying “Don’t be afraid,” it is somehow hard not to feel something very akin to that. And when he thanks her, the words seem to hold a double meaning she cannot parse, no matter how long it seems she has known him. Can she sweep this away? Is it she who is not being trusting enough?
The thought flashes through her mind: what secret will he tell her in this intimate moment between them. He has taken every other opportunity of being alone together to deepen the relationship between them; from laughter and liking to deepening desire and ultimately an emotion yet far deeper than the simple attraction that played out upon the ship to the Southlands. If he bares part of his soul now, will that emotion she still fears to name also deepen in weight? Will he tell her what is going on?
He continues his speech, his preamble “…You pushed me to heights I never thought to achieve. I’ll never forget that…”
Surely it comes now. The secret. The explanation.
He bends down, putting a hand on her shoulder. It is warm and she feels the strength in it hidden behind the gentleness. Surely he will kiss her now, and she hopes none of her fellow Elves will see such a scandalous thing. Yet she longs for his touch and his mouth with her very being. She longs for him to put her fears to rest; to set her heart at ease; to tell her once again that he loves her. Loves her.
But he does not kiss her, and he does not share a secret of his heart. Instead, he whispers only “…and I’ll see to it no one else does either.”
Now he is stepping backwards step by slow step, head raised haughty and sure in the air as he looks down on her. It is a shock of cold sea water that he would deny her. He never has before this. Her friend. Her love. She doesn’t know what his words means; what they portend, but whatever it is, it is terrible. She feels it in her blood and in her bones and in the water, the earth, and in the air itself. His words are a threat. They are a promise. A secret of a kind. But this time it is a secret she never wanted. And he has broken her trust in a game that was no longer a game but has become everything in the world to her.
Her heart belongs to him. Perhaps she is a fool to let it be so, but it does and she is. She has given herself to him in ways both small and then large. There is nothing left to bestow. Yet, as she watches him turn to leave the courtyard, it is with a sinking despair that she knows he has chosen something else. Something other. And inside she feels something shift, and she feels something fall, and above all, she feels something break.