Agarwaen

Part Fifteen
~Suffocating in the Smoke of Ghosts~

Waning moonlight slanted through the narrow, grimy windowpane and lit up the porcelain basin. It had a long crack in it curving down through the bottom and a chip taken off the left-side rim. Some clumsy maid or more likely a drunken inmate had knocked it over after a night’s bout. He hadn’t seen any maids, just the servers in the scullery. He also hadn’t washed the dried blood off his face. He hadn’t wanted to do or think about anything in particular since reaching the inn less than an hour ago.

He had removed his torn shirt and taken his time in the room Fabor had generously provided, even rebraiding his hair back into its familiar pattern. Zaren and the others had seen him come in and were waiting in the common room. But he still felt too drained and shattered at the moment to think about confronting them right now without knowing what Carlóme might have told them. He needed to gather up the pieces first.

A half-empty wine bottle lay within easy reach, courtesy of the dark woman who’d said he was welcome to the rest. Beside it, the basin was full to the brim and sparkling. He broke into a fresh sweat. The water was soft and warm but his lungs still shrank from it. His throat still burned with cold. He quaffed a mouthful straight from the bottle to warm it. The spiderline crack quavered as he cupped his hands beneath the shining surface.

He barely wet his face. Just enough to get the blood crust off.

Dumping the remainder down the drain, he wearily let his hands rest palm flat on either side of the basin, pushing hard to still his fingers’ trembling. He hadn’t had shaken this badly since the harsari wore off the first time. Luckily Zaren had left horses on the road for them. He knew he would never have made the walk. The ride alone had not pleased his injuries. The aches, the weariness and sense of loss had all caught up to him at last and now he felt too tired to even dredge up the energy to move towards the bed. Instead he stayed there leaning against the counter, staring into the blank porcelain forgetfulness for as long as he could, keeping the shadows at bay and the dark realizations from coming to the surface.

A timid knock broke his concentration.

He wasn’t ready to face the others yet. Especially when all of them were not there.

Aragorn.

At the time he had registered only vaguely that the ranger was not with them on the long ride back. Now that his head was a little clearer, he realized he had not seen him at all. Aragorn would have been the first one to come barging into his room after what had happened tonight, even if it was only to yell at him for his stupid risk-taking that had gone so horribly awry…

He recoiled from the stream. He couldn’t deal with that yet. One thing at a time and the most important first. What had happened to Aragorn?

The timidity of the knocker was apparently evaporating as harsh raps began to rain on his door.

Fed up with the noisy persistence of his visitor, Haldir finally thumped his wine down, and flung the door open.

“What?” He was rather surprised by the croak in his voice. His throat was still sore.

If Saeryn was startled by the brusqueness of his greeting, she didn’t show it as she bustled past him with an armload which she dumped on his bed. “Fabor had some ice left from the cold stores. I thought you could use it.” She set a cloth and bowl with already-slushy ice chips on the small night table.

He nodded his thanks.

Clearing her throat briskly, she picked up another bundle from the bed and handed it to him. “It’s a rather hurried job but it’s the best I could do in so short a time.”

She had mended his tunic for him, the collar firmly but hastily stitched back on. There were blood spots on it nearly invisible against the dark cloth. She tried not to stare at the mottled discolorations arranged over his back, chest and shoulders like a second shirt as he tugged the tunic gingerly over his head. The hobnailed imprint of a boot heel shadowed on his ribs before the fabric hid it.

An awkward moment passed in which he kept his eyes studiously directed at the floor while she looked at him with an odd mixture of anxiety, fear, and sympathy (all three of which he would not have appreciated had he bothered to look up). She opened her mouth as though to say something then perhaps decided his pride had already been battered enough and wrapped some of the ice in a rag.

“Here.” When he made no move to take it from her, she leaned slightly forward to press it against his face.

“This is exactly what I did not want to happen.”

“Hold still,” she said, her brow knitting. “At least we got Brenn out. He’s safe and home that’s all that matters.”

“No, it’s not.”

She drew away slightly, looking up at him before quickly dropping her eyes. Her thin fingers twisted and clenched around the rag that was beginning to drip on the floor, leaving clear spots in the dust. “You really should be sitting down. I’m surprised you’re even stand—You shouldn’t be so tall.” She stopped.

He tilted his head at her but did as asked and sat at the foot of the bed. He watched her bowed head for a long time. She didn’t approach him again, her hands still fiddling with the cloth and her eyes fixed on the narrow window behind him. Her eyes were haunted. He could guess what she was thinking. Seeing him by the stream must have reminded her not a little of her own ordeal as a slave woman among the Haradrim, used for pleasure or profit, beaten into submission by threat of death or worse.

His stomach twisted again and he closed his eyes. Abruptly getting up from the bed, he retrieved his wine bottle.

Saeryn watched him.

“How else were you—?” Her voice was a low gasp as though she like Carlóme had trouble getting the words out. “H—how do you feel?” She faltered desperately. Carlóme had dealt with Branock before she could so she hadn’t seen his condition until the men were gone.

Thinking it a little too rakish and desperate to drink from the bottle in her presence, he fished around until he found a small, chipped cup with a pattern the mirror of the basin. He swallowed a long draught. “I can’t say my opinion of men is much improved.”

She shook her head when he offered her the bottle but still waited for a real answer.

“My only injuries are bruises.” It was true enough for what she was asking.

The blank rigidity seemed to drain out of her face and she sighed long. “Good,” she whispered it like a prayer. Maybe it was. Abruptly remembering her task, she bent forward again.

“I didn’t kill them.”

She didn’t know why she heard what sounded like relief in his voice and decided to ignore it. “You don’t have to come to the common room tonight; in fact, Carlóme said it would probably be better if you didn’t.”

He didn’t know what to make of that statement so he asked something else, “How is Brenn?”

“Sleeping. He looks better than you at least.” Saeryn’s frown deepened as he shifted again.

“Small favors.”

That coaxed a twitch from her lips. “Stop squirming!” she chided, fed up with trying to play chicken with his swollen jaw. She snagged his chin firmly between thumb and forefinger and tugged it down to her eyelevel. “Now, hold still.”

He pulled away again almost instantly with a remonstrating glare. “That hurts.”

“It’ll hurt worse when I thump you with this because you won’t hold still. You’re lucky they didn’t break your jaw,” she said, the audible grind of her teeth loud in his ears. “Now stop acting like a child and let me tend it.”

That stilled him and she snatched the opportunity to firmly compress the cold cloth to his face. It soothed the dull ache and he gradually let her have her way. Methodical though with a slight air of embarrassment, she checked him over, frowning as she delicately pressed against his side, exploring the heaviest bruises she’d seen earlier.

“There isn’t much I can do for these. That crack in your ribs you took a few days ago wasn’t helped. It ought to be bound up again,” Saeryn said with all the patience of a healer as he shifted restlessly again. “You’re lucky it didn’t turn to a real break. It’s strained enough though and that’s why you’ve been having trouble breathing—oh, I know you have. I can hear it even if you don’t admit it.”

She smeared a cool, minty-smelling ointment around his throat for the painful groove left by the noose, purposefully ignoring his irritated grumblings.

He subsided sullenly when she finished. He didn’t like being fussed over. “Can I go to sleep now, Nana?”

She smiled with strained forbearance and fondness. “Yes, you may, tithenion, sleep will do you do some good.”

He pretended to turn down the bed so she wouldn’t see how her calling him “little one” when she knew perfectly well he was more than a hundred times her senior amused him. But he did hear her pause on the threshold, the door open on her palm. “If you have need of anything else, just ask. I’m down the hall.”

“I will not but thank you.”

The door shut softly behind her.

Haldir waited until he heard her footsteps recede down the corridor. The last items on the bed she had not touched. He picked up his worn saber from the bed and ran his hands over it. Someone had thoughtfully cleaned it for him and slid it back into its dented sheath still attached to his belt beside his knife. He stowed them under the bed. Muscles aching with quiet tension, he repositioned the flat, musty-smelling pillows. Though he was beyond tired, he didn’t feel like sleeping just yet.

A moment’s rifling in his satchel was all he needed and he was out the door.

Down the hall, he could see the bare gleam of firelight from under the double doors of the common room and a murmur of quiet voices too indistinct to make out. After poking his head into one or two empty rooms, he found the one he was looking for and edged inside, half-shutting the door behind him.

A sliver of light from the vigil-lamp in the hall fell across the narrow but comfortable-looking bed and the gangly shape enfolded in blankets. Brenn lay with his head facing the round window, one hand, the one with the splinted fingers, lay curled up on top of the covers. A pestle and the remnants of a strong-smelling paste on the bedside table accounted for his almost comatose-like state. Haldir did not take the little stool provided but instead walked to the window and stood looking out.

It was late. So late he couldn’t see the moon. The inn yard was dark and muddy, beginning to puddle from the rain just starting to fall. He watched the tiny droplets of moisture trail down the window, replaying the day’s events over again in his mind.

There had been no traps, no attempts to stop them. It had been too easy. In his more than lifetime’s worth of battle experience, nothing was left to luck and they had. Maybe they had not been caught because Arenath had kept his word and led Fedorian away as he’d promised. But even he knew that was a long shot for a hope. Arenath had never been able to lie to Fedorian; and Fedorian had known about his, Haldir’s, treachery at least, surely he would have done something to stop them…

Unless…

Unless his aim wasn’t to keep Brenn. But to get someone else.

Haldir’s shoulders bowed until his forehead rested against the cool, damp glass. There was nothing he could do tonight and the sheer helplessness of knowing that frustrated him to no end. But depriving himself of sleep wouldn’t save Aragorn any faster.

Zaren gave a huge, grunting snore from where he sat propped up in an armchair in the corner. The noise jolted the elf who glanced at him. But the man merely pushed his face deeper into the cushion, his mouth slightly agape.

Recalling the reason he had come in the first place, Haldir drew out the object he had removed from his satchel. It was the small knife Brenn had won from him. The triumphant joy on the boy’s face seemed like a lifetime ago when he looked at the thin, sallow cheeks. The blade was clean again and now restored to its rightful owner. He laid it beside the pestle where Brenn would be sure to find it when he woke.

The exhaustion that had been tugging insistently all night finally overcame him. Too tired to seek his own room, he borrowed a spare pillow off Zaren’s armchair and tossed it to the floor, stretching himself out underneath the window. The music of the rain helped lull him and soon, despite all thoughts to the contrary, he was as deeply asleep as Brenn. So he never heard the door creak open a while later and a brief shadow fall across the floor.

Nor did he see the woman’s tawny, rain-lit face as she flung a wool blanket over him.

----------

Wet beads slated grey and cold down Aragorn’s cheeks, trickling off the ends of his hair and into his shirt. He lifted his head, letting the tiny rivulets wash the blood off his forehead, and soothe the trip-hammer throbbing inside his skull. He opened his mouth a little trying in vain to catch a stray drop on his tongue. He had had nothing to eat or drink since before they set out to rescue Brenn. At least he thought that had been hours ago. He had been able to gauge time only by a glimpser or two of the moon until the clouds swelled in.

He was still lying where his captors had dropped him and his spine felt permanently grooved by the rock digging into it. His hands had gone numb from both the bonds and the cold. His clothes were still wet from being knocked in the creek and the rain didn’t help. However, it had done one good thing. The wet had made his bonds loose and pliable. He rolled over onto his other side, uncovering the sharp rock that had been boring into his back. Almost holding his breath, he desperately pried the jagged tip into the knot.

It was difficult, slow work for the stone edge slipped off the soaked flax; and he kept checking over his shoulder every few seconds, expecting to see the elves return. He kept at it until his wrists were sore and raw with struggling. Little by little, the knot began to ease apart and finally loosened enough for him to slip his hands free.

With stiff, clumsy fingers, the hobbles on his ankles took a few more difficult minutes than he would have liked. His first attempt at standing failed. His muscles refused to respond save with cries of pain as they adjusted from lying in one spot for so long. But the thought that Fedorian might soon return with some fresh horror gathered his wits and strength and he pushed himself into an upright position, using the tree to steady himself. Once there, he didn’t waste a minute. This part of the forest was unfamiliar to him; he had no supplies, no means for warmth. But he didn’t care. All that mattered was to get out of here as fast as he could.

Picking a direction, he bolted.

Barely fifty yards from the camp, an elf stepped out of the trees directly in front of him. Aragorn skidded to a halt, his boots almost sliding out from under him.

Arenath looked almost as surprised to see the ranger as Strider was to see him.

Aragorn let out a shaky, relieved breath and offered the elf a smile, glad to see the face of an ally in all this, even if it was an uncertain allegiance. Maybe without Fedorian’s influence, Arenath would help him, get him some supplies or tell him which direction the road lay in.

But Fedorian’s partner was no longer looking at him and instead stretched the bow Aragorn hadn’t seen until now. The wicked arrow tip pointed directly at the ranger’s chest.

He took an automatic step back, bewildered, and held up his hands. “I don’t understand.”

“You cannot leave.”

A stab of panic shook the man’s composure. Surely Arenath wasn’t going to—? “Why are you doing this? Haldir trusted you.”

A wince or perhaps a fleeting shadow caused by the wavering branches flashed over Arenath’s face.

Aragorn pressed his plea while still keeping his hands upraised and his eyes alert for other movement. Maybe he could convince Arenath to let him go before Fedorian came…“You don’t have to do this. You said so yourself you don’t like what he’s doing.
I give you my word Haldir and I both will make sure no one will harm you. Please, don’t—”

“You are right. You do not understand.” Arenath interrupted. He motioned with the bow and Aragorn, knowing the elven barb would find him before he could think of making a break for it, turned back towards the camp with a plunging heart.

“I know of men’s promises, human, and I know just easily they can break them.”

Aragorn could not look back at the freedom that had almost been his. His voice held resignation but not yet hopelessness. “You were never really going to help us. It was all a lie.”

“Do not tell me I went back on my word,” Arenath’s normally soft voice held an edge to it. “I did all I could! But I cannot…forget…I do not know how Haldir does it. Especially after today.”

Aragorn’s stomach surged up. He’d forgotten his friend in his desire to escape. Now that there seemed little hope of that, all his former worry rushed back. So disturbed was he by the implication in Arenath’s words that he fell still and let the elf bind his hands again.

“What do you mean? What happened?”

Arenath cast a quick glance over his shoulder. “After you were… rendered senseless, I stayed. I watched them. Men came.” There was no emotion in his voice though he kept his eyes away from the human and continued to whisper out of the side of his mouth.

“He fought well but they outnumbered him nine to one,” For the first time his voice faltered, “They—they were very cruel. They are always cruel.”

Aragorn’s mouth went even drier. He remembered all too well what Branock had promised—one way or the other he would take an elf head. Even if that head was not that of the killer. He didn’t want to ask what happened but he didn’t need to for Arenath kept going.

“They were going to kill him…eventually. They were so close to him…I—I couldn’t let them—I hid close to the bank. The arrow meant for their leader hit another but before I could loose again, two others burst out of the brush and slew them. One of them was the Haradrim woman if that comforts you.”

Aragorn silently recanted every ill thought or word he had ever had about Carlóme. “Then Haldir is all right?” he pressed.

“I did not stay.” Turning his head, he stared right at the human, his blue eyes anything but inscrutable, and dropped his voice even lower. “It wasn’t worth it to run. And you should not have. He will know and I do not want to see what he will do to you.”

Cold filled the young man’s chest. “What—?”

A soft rattle alerted them to a newcomer. Arenath spun on his heel to meet Fedorian as the older elf appeared in the camp, a brace of hares and a hunting bow in one hand, a sack dangling from the other. His gaze darted between the two of them, taking in Arenath’s bow and Aragorn’s raw, retied wrists.

“Has there been a problem?”

Arenath cast a fear-laden glance in Aragorn’s direction. “He tried to run, sir.”

“I see,” Fedorian set down the sack and opened it. “I suppose it is well then that I retrieved these.” He withdrew lengths of rusted chain with manacles on the end. Aragorn forced down the bile in his throat. He recognized them as the same ones he and Brenn had found on that old stone, the one where Carlóme had granted her brother a last mercy.

“Do you recall how errant soldiers were once punished, Arenath, if they broke the word-laws of their commanders?” He addressed his confederate almost playfully.

Arenath held his tongue, his eyes widening. Apparently, he knew.

The links slid musically through long, pale hands as Fedorian doubled them up, answering his own question. “They were whipped. But not at first. No, they were made to wait, wait until the fear of threat of pain almost overrode their fear of the actual pain itself. But I am not that cruel. I won’t make him wait.”

Aragorn swallowed hard but he couldn’t move the lump that had suddenly decided to take up residence in his throat. Pleadingly, he looked at Arenath who slowly detached himself from the ranger and picked up the hares Fedorian had left in the middle of the clearing. He didn’t like playing his friend’s sick games.

“Arenath.”

The smaller elf stopped short at his commander’s soft voicing of his name but he didn’t turn as though expecting what was about to be said and wishing with all his heart he could run from it.

“Prepare him will you?” Fedorian continued, swinging the chain idly, forward and back, forward and back, its doubled-up end almost brushing the man’s chest.

With agonizing slowness, Arenath turned back around and, keeping his head down and eyes averted, he grabbed up Aragorn’s bound wrists and looped them over a low, overhanging branch. He retightened the knots with a jerk and stepped back still without lifting his face. Aragorn was too shocked and numb too struggle.

“Come now. You’re not finished. You know I only ask you to do this. Do it properly,” Fedorian prompted, his voice still musically gentle but his eyes were hard and glaring as the elf under his gaze scurried back towards the prisoner.

Arenath took out a knife.

Though the temperature was dropping, sweat stood out on Aragorn’s brow. He kept trying to catch Arenath’s eyes but the elf was well-practiced in avoidance at all costs.

The knife slit his tunic open from collar to hem, the tough fabric splitting with a ghastly ripping noise, taking what little warmth he’d had. Painfully cold air struck Aragorn’s bare chest. He couldn’t help the gasp that escaped his lips and tensed in his chains though the knife snicked his abdomen.

Arenath threw the blade aside.

“Hannon le,” Fedorian brushed his shoulder as he passed but Arenath shrugged him off.

The man’s feet dangled almost off the ground and the strain on his shoulders hurt but nothing unbearable. Defiant even though he was unbearably aware of his position, Aragorn said, “It doesn’t matter what happens to me, Brenn—”

The open-handed slap snapped his head sharply against his bound arm, his mouth tasting of metal fillings.

“No, no, no,” Fedorian directly addressed Aragorn for the first time. His eyes had lit up, a dark burn like shuttered lamps. “Do not speak to me in my own tongue, ranger, don’t you dare. That beautiful tongue is too high an honor for your lips. Speak to me, if you must, in your language. I will understand.”

Aragorn pressed his bleeding tongue to the roof of his mouth. He hadn’t even realized he’d been speaking Sindarin, it came so naturally to him. Fedorian’s unintentional barb wrung another pang from his already aching chest. Elvish had been the first language he’d ever spoken in. It reminded him of Rivendell’s singing glades, his brothers’ ribald jokes, and his father’s warm laughter. The language of Men, while he was capable enough in it, felt unfamiliar, and harsh to his ears. It forced him to remember where he was not.

“Brenn is gone. You can’t hurt him anymore.”

“It wasn’t the boy I wanted.” Fedorian reached up and wrapped a slender-fingered hand around the ropes trapping Aragorn’s left wrist and twisted them idly. “You are not like the others. They offered me land… coins of little worth… their daughters! Anything so that they might live. Will you do the same, little one?”

Aragorn didn’t lift his head. He didn’t want to look at those eyes. “I have nothing to my name.”

“Have you no fear?”

Fedorian never looked away while he spoke, not once. The very intense directness of his gaze, when many others would have glanced away to lessen the force of their stare, made Aragorn queasy. It called to mind a wolf, the undeniably predatory gaze that visualized the leap-for-the-throat, the teeth closing, the blood gush before he even sprang.

“I am terrified,” he replied, honestly enough. “But I was always told that fear is greater when the heart quails.” If he could pretend he was unafraid, unafraid he would be.

Fedorian’s expression did not change but his head tilted a little more to one side. “Haldir told you that? He always was an avid student. Perhaps later I will instruct you in other lessons he learned so well.”

A glitter of steel leapt to the elf’s hand. “Have you ever been tortured, master ranger?”

The chains still swung, just barely touching the man’s chest but the very lightest brush of the instrument of pain was enough to make Aragorn shrink away.

“I assure you there will be a plateau, eventually, where you will feel very little. Although it rather depends if your body freezes first or not. I do almost wish Haldir were here. I wonder if he would find justice in this.”

“He is not like you.”

Fedorian’s smile sharp edged. “Are you so certain of that? He has been alive for far many more years than you, little one. He has done things that would make you ashamed of him, of which—I have no doubt—he has not told you. So many secrets. Did he tell you he slept here? Ate here with us? It was you I wanted and he brought you.”

“No, I brought myself.” Aragorn knew he should dismiss the elf’s cruel words out of hand. But somehow he couldn’t shake the memory of Haldir’s haunted eyes after he’d put a knife in Branock.

“How has he been sleeping of late?” Fedorian changed tactics. “He only stayed here two nights. Did he have nightmares in your camp as well? Did he wake and not know where he was? I found a man in the water with a javelin hole in his back but he also had a knife wound in his shoulder that was older than his other injuries. Whence did he come by that?”

“That man attacked him! Haldir didn’t… it wasn’t unprovoked.” Aragorn stammered, the unnerving chain still brushing his chest as he tried not to show how much the elf’s words were getting to him.

But Fedorian was bored with talking. Talking would come later. Right now, he wanted the man to scream.

The chain arched up.

Arenath’s shoulders tensed at the crack of the first blow falling. He closed his eyes and tried not to listen as metal links lashed rhythmically over pale, undefended flesh. Fedorian was just testing boundaries now, seeing how much his victim could take before he broke. Arenath had seen the end result of such treatment before in the faces of the others: that glazed, dull-eyed look they wore after it was over and they saw nothing anymore. But the ranger was holding out better than he’d hoped. Many screamed with the first blow if only just to make it stop. But it would come, if not on the first then eventually.

When the first stifled cry came, the smaller elf was on his feet and by the second, he was gone.

Aragorn was in too much pain to notice him leave. The rusted, sharpened chains wrapped around the skin of his ribs, pinched and peeled away strips. The steady, unrelenting rhythm rocked him in his bonds, gave him no time to collect his strength, to twist away, to breathe. Stroke after stroke wrung helpless noises from him until he had no breath left for them. He could feel blood beginning to trickle down his chest perversely warming his icy skin. The blows seemed to come from everywhere. He choked on a sob as reeling from a breathless hit to his chest, the chain lashed over his already overworked ribs.

His arms twitched and spasmed uncontrollably as he tried and failed to shift his body away from the source of its agony. What made it worse was it was for no purpose. Fedorian didn’t want anything from him other than to hurt him. He couldn’t make it stop. He could only hold on and ride it out. The leaves beneath his feet spattered crimson, the trunk behind him reddening. His world funneled rapidly down towards darkness.

Then it was gone.

He jerked back from oblivion. His back and chest still screamed helplessly but the blows had stopped falling. His breath came fast and irregular as he tried to stop the wetness that wasn’t rain from dripping down his cheeks. The cessation revived him only a little as pain-induced blackness still threatened to tumble him into unconsciousness.

Fedorian was breathing a little heavily, a thin film of sweat glistening on his jaw as he rounded the bleeding form’s other side, tilting the limp chin up with the hand clutching the chains. His tunic and exposed skin were vermillioned with the ranger’s blood.

“Haldir covers his guilt in the shadow of friendship,” He let the ranger’s head slump against his chest as he smeared the crimson over and around the links thoughtfully. “Blood soaks his hands as much as it does mine. I will teach you. Once you truly learn what he is, once all your petty, heroic illusions are destroyed, you can go back and tell him. He will know what he is and return to finish it.”

But his victim never heard him as sweet, relieving blackness finally closed over his head.

----------

“You’re in no fit shape to go chasing off after him.”

“I heal quickly.”

Carlóme rolled her eyes at the predictably stubborn answer, watching as the elf threw his few belongings into his satchel. A night’s sleep had done him good and he was more convinced than ever that his place was out searching for his friend.

“Go in half-drawn and he’ll kill you.”

“Better to be slain trying than sitting on my hands—as you seem content to do.”

“Look, elf, I have to look after my own here. Brenn needs more looking after—as does Zaren still. Branock’s dead. Yyrin’s gone. I’m not going to lose them one by one. Here, we might get help. A few days from now maybe we can—”

“Strider might be dead by then.”

“Then he died bravely and we’ll avenge him.”

“He risked his life to save Brenn,” Haldir said in a low voice, picking up his saber. “A fine way to repay him through cowardice.”

He shouldered past her out the door.

“How are you even going to find him? After that little raid of ours, he probably moved, took your ranger somewhere else.” Her voice was tight but she made no move to stop him as he set foot on the stairs.

“I will find them.” He had to believe that. Aragorn had never abandoned him. “I have to find him.”

“We’re not going with you.”

“I will not wait.”

“Surely you’re not going alone, Haldir?” Saeryn stopped him at the bottom of the stairs. Her hair was unbound, her nightshirt still on but she stood resolutely in front of him.

“Are you coming with me?” he challenged.

Her gaze went from his face, to her leader to the floor. She did not reply.

“Then I am going alone.”

He swept past her to the stable’s side door.

Saeryn sank onto the bottommost step, her head in her hands. She didn’t look up when Carlóme paused on the stair behind her. “He’s right. We are cowards.”

“We’re doing what’s right by us. He’s doing what’s right by him. When I get this thing’s head, it’ll be on my terms not his. That’s why I’m not running off into the wilderness unprepared.”

The stable’s side door was unlocked and Lintedal, wide-awake, stuck her head eagerly over the stall as though she’d been expecting him. He didn’t speak to her as he led her out into the early light. He didn’t need to. Low dawn clouds were just beginning to brighten blue and a light wind teased golden hair off his shoulders as he leapt into the saddle.