Narquelië 19, 2965
They left the woodland halls at first light, with the forest still under its dawn haze. Eryndor and Arannis walked them to the edge of it, their farewells quiet and warm; Arannis set her hands on Celenneth's shoulders and held her gaze. "The forest keeps you in its care, even as we let you go." Eryndor clasped Linnea's hands in both of his, his amber eyes bright with fondness and a little grief. "May your road run clear and your arrows fly true. We'll meet again when the winds bring you."
Thalion himself came leading a sleek chestnut mare. "Linnea. This is Mareth. She'll carry you swift and sure — and when your road passes beyond the forest, she'll come home to us with my scouts." Linnea brushed the mare's soft muzzle and murmured her thanks, and mounted; Celenneth swung up onto Nimroch, and the scouts fell in ahead.
They were two — Ellarien, lithe, her deep chestnut hair bound back, her armor woven in the muted greens and browns of Elvish craft so that she all but vanished among the trunks; and Thalanar, tall and rangy, his midnight hair in a loose braid over a young face gone prematurely weathered, a dark grey cloak at his shoulders worked with silver in the pattern of running water. The four of them found a rhythm quickly, and the scouts' quiet competence was a comfort on a road that gave few.
They had gone some way when Celenneth reined in. "Is it true there's a great hart in these woods?"
The scouts traded a glance, and Ellarien answered, almost reverent. "It is. Antlers wide as a king's crown. None have taken it."
Linnea grinned and nudged her. "A challenge?"
"A challenge," Celenneth agreed, already sliding from the saddle. She crouched to the tracks, read them, and rose sure of the line. For hours she followed it — the trail thinning and vanishing and surfacing again under her eye — until they came on it at last in a sunlit glade: a great hart at graze, its antlers hung with moss and small flowers, as though the wood itself had crowned it. She signed for silence, drew, breathed, and loosed. The arrow flew true. The hart faltered and fell, its death clean and quick.1
The scouts knelt beside it with words of respect. Celenneth laid a hand to its coat. "A worthy quarry." The meat they shared among them for the days ahead; the great rack of antlers they gave to Thalanar, a gift to carry back to the woodland.
Night drew the wood quiet, and by the fire Ellarien produced a worn leather pouch and a carved pipe, its bowl stained dark with years. "Time you saw how the Elves mark a good hunt," she said, tapping in a pinch of something fragrant — earthy, with a sharp citrus edge that cut through the smell of roasted meat.
"Pipeweed?" Linnea asked.
Ellarien laughed, rough and easy. "Not your Dale leaf. This is feystone's gift. Breathe it deep, and it takes you places you've never walked." She lit it, drew, and passed it round. Thalanar took a pull and exhaled with a grunt, his sharp features easing. "Not for the faint-hearted," he warned, handing it to Linnea.
Linnea drew tentatively, coughing, then found the rhythm of it, and the world tilted bright around her. The fire leapt in impossible shapes and she laughed, giddy. "The flames — they're alive."
"Good, isn't it," Ellarien said, and offered the pipe to Celenneth. "Watch your step, though. The visions can be kind, or they can be cruel."
Celenneth drew deep. At first it was warmth: the trees seemed to hum, their branches weaving patterns that hinted at some language just past knowing, and stars bloomed in the dark overhead like flowers. Then the warmth turned.
The stars go out. The dark comes swirling in to fill the space they leave, and the laughter she has been hearing curdles into screams. She is on her feet and no longer by the fire. The trees loom hostile, their gnarled limbs reaching for her like claws, and something moves between them — a shape she cannot fix, a presence that bears down on her like a weight she cannot get out from under. "Celenneth." Linnea's voice, far off and echoing — but when she turns there is no Linnea, only more shadow. A guttural whisper crawls the air, saying her name in a voice that lifts the hair on her arms, and the shape swells until it blots out the sky. "You cannot outrun the dark," it tells her, and it is not a threat but a certainty.
She came back to herself gasping, the firelight harsh on her tear-streaked face, her hand fisted white in Ellarien's sleeve. "The Shadow," she rasped. "It's coming."2
Across the fire Linnea's giddy laughter faltered. "What shadow?"
Ellarien's smile had gone. She guided Celenneth down to sit, her grip firm and kind. "Whatever you saw, it hasn't happened," she said. "Feystone's gift doesn't lie. But it doesn't quite tell the truth, either."
Celenneth stared into the flames, the warmth of the smoke gone, and only a cold certainty left where it had been: the dark they were running from was nearer than she had let herself believe.
Linnea reached for her, her hand hovering at Celenneth's shoulder. "It wasn't real. It was the smoke. You're safe here."
Celenneth went rigid under the touch and shrugged it off as though it burned. "I don't need comfort," she said, harder than she meant. "Real or not — what I saw was a warning. I can't set it aside."
Linnea drew back, her mouth thinning. "Fine. But you don't have to face it alone." When Celenneth gave no answer she sighed and went to her bedroll and lay down with her back to the fire.
The night dragged. Celenneth stayed by the flames, the whisper going round and round in her — you cannot outrun the dark — poking at the embers until they swirled up and died in the black. After a long while Thalanar broke the quiet without looking up from the blade he was sharpening. "You won't find answers in the fire."
"No," she said. "But I might in keeping watch."
He snorted. "You'll find exhaustion. A thing like what you saw feeds on it. Sleep, ranger."
"Not yet. I'll take the first watch."
His mouth twitched. "Stubborn," he muttered. "Fine. Just don't let it eat you alive."
She sat the watch alone, turning the vision over for meaning, and when Thalanar came to relieve her hours later she only said "your turn" and brushed past him to her bedroll, her shoulders tight. Sleep came slow, and thin, and she knew her strength would not hold forever against nights like this. But for now the fire burned, and Thalanar stood over it, and that was watch enough to close her eyes to.
Narquelië 20, 2965
Morning came with an unnatural hush, the wood slow to stir after the uneasy night. Ellarien broke camp first, quick and quiet; Thalanar grumbled at the stiffness in his back; and Celenneth rose carrying the same tension she had lain down with, her eyes shadowed but sharp as she saw to Nimroch's tack. Linnea glanced her way and thought better of speaking, and saddled Mareth in silence.
The scouts took the lead, weaving through the underbrush with practiced ease, and the air felt lighter than the day before, as though the forest had granted a small reprieve. By midday the trees thinned and the ground began to climb, and Ellarien stopped and gestured them up a narrow trail that wound between ancient boulders. When they gained the ridge, the sight took their breath: the whole vast roll of Mirkwood spread below like a dark sea, and far off beyond it the faint gleam of Dale's towers under the sun, the horizon washed in pale gold and silver. For a moment the weight of the forest felt like something they had already left behind.
Celenneth stood a little apart, her hand on Nimroch's flank, her thoughts still snarled in the vision. Linnea came to stand beside her without a word and held out a piece of dried fruit. After a long moment Celenneth took it. "Thank you," she said quietly. Linnea only nodded — an acknowledgment that asked for nothing more.
The descent was steep and slick, and the deeper they went the darker it grew again, until by the time they reached level ground the full weight of Mirkwood had settled back over them. But the night passed in a rare calm, and Celenneth lay awake a while turning over the small kindnesses of the day — Linnea's, and the scouts' — their weight unfamiliar and not unwelcome, before sleep took her at last, and for once it was dreamless.
Narquelië 21, 2965
Ellarien led them off at a game trail that cut west through the densest part of the wood. "The deer know the way," she said. "If we hold it, it saves us a day." The trail was narrow and root-choked, and Thalanar warned them to watch their footing — this near the heart of the forest, the ground had a way of swallowing careless feet — but the scouts moved silent and sure, and the party made good time. At midday they watered the horses at a stream, and Linnea passed Celenneth a waterskin, and the exchange was wordless and easy. The shortcut held its promise, cutting a full day from their road, and they made camp at dusk in a clearing Thalanar judged good ground.1
Narquelië 22, 2965
By mid-morning the game trail failed them: a wall of bramble and low branch, an hour's backtrack at least. Thalanar cursed and hauled at a thorned vine that would not give.
"Wait," Celenneth said, and dismounted. She read the ground — the subtle dips in it, the faint places where deer-tracks veered sharply left — and a slow smile came. "There's a way through. Narrow, but it saves us the hours."
Ellarien tilted her head, approving. "Lead on, ranger."
They led the horses through by hand, brambles clawing their cloaks, and came out on the far side onto the main trail with the day barely dented. "You've an eye for what the wood hides," Thalanar allowed.
"You learn to see what it wants you not to," Celenneth said, and swung back up.
They made camp that evening in a hollow ringed by old oaks, and while the others saw to the fire Celenneth came to where Linnea sat working a whetstone along her blade, and stood a moment gathering herself before she spoke.
"I owe you an apology," she said. Linnea looked up, brows drawing together. "For how I've been. Cold. Shut against you. It wasn't fair."
Linnea set the blade aside. "You've carried a lot. I understand."
"No." Celenneth held her eyes. "You've been patient. Kind. More than I've given back. And I'm grateful for it. Truly." Before Linnea could answer she stepped in and gathered her into her arms, and Linnea stiffened, and then melted into it, her hands coming to rest on Celenneth's back. They held each other with the firelight moving over them, and the shadows of the wood drew off a little.
When they parted Linnea's eyes were bright. "You've nothing to apologize for," she said. "Just — don't shut me out again."
"I won't," Celenneth promised, and meant it, and slept that night lighter than she had in days.
Narquelië 23, 2965
The wood met them again with its grim silence, the trail winding on through darkened undergrowth. Ellarien led; Thalanar held the rear, his mood as cold as the morning; Celenneth and Linnea rode between them, their mounts picking over ground that grew steadily worse.
"We're making good time," Ellarien said, in the cautious tone of one who knew Mirkwood too well to trust its favors. "Push through to sundown and we cut another half-day."
"If the forest doesn't swallow one of us first," Thalanar muttered, nodding at the roots crossing their path.
The ground turned treacherous on a steep descent, slick moss over jagged stone, and they dismounted to lead the horses down. Celenneth took the front with Nimroch; Linnea and Mareth came behind. It was halfway down that the mare balked at a patch of loose rock, her hooves skidding — and then her legs went from under her with a sharp whinny, and Linnea, thrown, hit the ground hard and rolled to a stop against a jutting root.
"Linnea!" Celenneth was at her side in an instant. Ellarien swept the ground for threats; Thalanar caught the mare, who had come away with only a shallow scrape. Linnea had not. Her arm was bent at a wrong angle, her face gone white, her teeth set. "I'm fine," she hissed, and the tremor in her voice gave the lie to it.
"You're not," Celenneth said. "Don't move."
Ellarien crouched and read the break with a practiced eye, already drawing a length of sturdy cloth from her satchel. "It's clean. Painful, but it'll knit. Hold her steady." She set the bone — Linnea's muffled cry rang through the quiet wood — and bound it fast in a splint. "That holds till we can do better. But rest the arm."
Thalanar got Linnea to her feet, his grip firm and not unkind, and Celenneth walked her back to the mare, guilt heavy on her. "I shouldn't have let you ride so near the edge."
Linnea shook her head and found Celenneth's hand with her good one. "It's not your fault. I'll be more careful."1
The rest of the day went in tense quiet, Linnea riding with her arm cradled to her chest and Ellarien choosing the gentler ground. And that night Celenneth watched her suffer it — the way the splint drew a wince with every small shift, the ragged edge to her breathing, the sleep that would not come and hold. "Do you need anything?" Celenneth asked into the dark.
"I don't know what I need," Linnea said through her teeth. Celenneth settled back against her pack, and did not close her eyes, and kept a kind of watch over her through the worst of the night.
Narquelië 24, 2965
Morning came with a rare clear sky, the sun cutting the haze, and by degrees the wood began to loosen its grip — the great trunks thinning to shorter, sparser growth, the air turning fresher, carrying the first faint scent of open grass.
"Rhovanion, just ahead," Ellarien said, relief in it. At the forest's edge Thalanar drew rein and dismounted. "This is where I turn back," he said, gruff and, for once, gentle. His gaze went to Linnea, then lingered on Celenneth. "Keep her safe. Both of you." He turned to Ellarien. "Ride with them. See them to the Riddermark."
"I'll see it done," Ellarien said.
Thalanar mounted, swept the thinning trees once more as if for a last threat, and with a final nod rode back into the shadow of Mirkwood and was gone.
The step from the tangled dark of the forest to the open roll of Rhovanion was almost a shock. The plains ran gold to the horizon, and Linnea breathed deep of wildflower and open air after so long in the damp decay of the wood. That first night on the grass brought a vast quiet, broken only by the wind, and a sky thicker with stars than they had seen in days.
Linnea sat by the fire, her splinted arm cradled, the pain plain in the tightness of her jaw for all she tried to hide it, picking without appetite at her food. Celenneth knelt beside her and unwrapped a small parcel: a slender vial of shimmering, faintly golden liquid.
"What is it?" Linnea asked.
"Elrond's draught. He gave it to me before we left Rivendell — to heal, to strengthen. It won't take the pain, but it'll mend the arm faster." Celenneth's mouth tightened. "I should have thought to give it to you yesterday."
"You've been holding onto this." Linnea studied her. "Why now?"
"Because you need it. And because I can't stand to watch you hurt." Celenneth uncorked it; the scent of wild herbs and honey rose into the cold air. Linnea drank, and exhaled slow as the warmth of it spread through her, the tension easing out of her body. "It's strange," she murmured. "Like sunlight on my skin — even here in the dark."2
"Rest," Celenneth said, a hand at her shoulder. "Let it work." And Linnea sank into a deep and untroubled sleep, and Celenneth kept the fire and watched over her, and the stars seemed to burn a little brighter above the wide dark of the plains.
Narquelië 25, 2965
They made swift, easy miles the next day, the horses glad of the open ground, Linnea's arm much eased and her seat steady again. But toward dusk the land turned against them — the smooth ground breaking into rocky outcrop and stubborn bramble. Celenneth raised a hand and stopped.
Ellarien came up beside her, her face going grim. "Sinkholes. The ground looks solid till you set weight on it, then it takes you whole." She dismounted and tapped the earth with the butt of her spear; the hollow sound of it put a chill through them all. "This whole stretch is rotten. We pick our way, slow."
They had barely begun to skirt it when Celenneth caught a faint sheen on the grass ahead, like dew where the air was dry, and stopped them again. Ellarien narrowed her eyes. "Not dew. Wet earth — a hidden spring." Celenneth pressed her palm to the soil and it gave, and the reek of stagnant water rose. "A marsh. Shallow, most likely. But it could swallow a horse if we're unlucky."
They edged the marsh's rim with care, hooves sinking in the soft ground, and at one point Mareth's forelegs went into the mud and Celenneth caught the reins and hauled her free with a sharp pull. By the time they reached firm ground the sun was down, and they made camp weary and whole. "We nearly lost her," Linnea said, shaking her head at the dark line of the marsh behind them.
"We were lucky," Ellarien said. "These plains are as dangerous as they're beautiful." And the wind moved through the grass with a sound like a reminder that even the open country kept its hidden teeth.
Narquelië 26, 2965
Dawn brought a bitter wind off the plains, an edge that cut through the thickest cloak. They moved swiftly against it, Celenneth at the front reading the horizon, Ellarien at the rear. At midday they paused at a shallow stream to water the horses and check their stores — and it was then that Ellarien pulled open one of Mareth's satchels and held up an empty sack.
"Gone," she said flatly. "The seam's torn. The marsh, most likely — we've lost most of the rations to it."
Celenneth crouched to the other bags and felt the truth of it settle cold: a handful of dried meat and hard biscuit, barely a day's food between the three of them.
Linnea let out a breath but her jaw set. "We're not turning back. We'll make do."
Celenneth was already slinging her bow across her shoulder. "I'll find game. Settle the horses and wait." She went off into the tall grass, silent and quick, and it was not long before a rabbit broke cover; she nocked, tracked, loosed, and it dropped clean, and she murmured her thanks to the land as she took it up. Back at the stream Linnea knelt over a cluster of smooth brown mushrooms, glancing to Ellarien. "Are these safe?"
Ellarien crouched to look. "Fieldcaps. Common enough. They'll keep you alive, if not delight you." By the time Celenneth returned with the rabbit the fire was going, and they made a thin soup of the mushrooms and the last of the stores, the roasted rabbit turned over the flames. It was a lean meal, but it held. "We'll be fine," Celenneth told Linnea, who sat close and weary. "This is the one thing I do know."1
Narquelië 27, 2965
The next day carried them easily over smooth ground, even Linnea managing the reins one-handed with growing confidence. Shortly after midday a rise revealed a strange formation ahead — a jagged cluster of black rock jutting from the flat plain, weathered and cracked by centuries of wind. Celenneth drew rein, studying it. "I've seen that before. But I can't place it — north of the Riddermark, or south."
Ellarien came up beside her. "The Stone Teeth. We're south of them, which puts the Riddermark ahead — eight days' riding, maybe less, south and a little west." She nodded at the landmark. "Travelers steer by the Teeth the way sailors steer by stars. We're on the right road."
The tension went out of Celenneth's shoulders. "Then we have our bearings." They pressed on, the Teeth falling away behind them, the grass growing shorter and the soil harder underfoot — the land itself promising the Mark drew nearer.
Narquelië 28, 2965
They rode on under a sky that smelled of distant rain, and made camp at dusk in the lee of a cluster of boulders. The fire warmed their tired faces, and Linnea leaned into Celenneth's side, her good arm draped across her waist — and then wrinkled her nose and drew back.
"Ugh. Is that us?"
Celenneth arched a brow. "What do you mean?"
Linnea sniffed pointedly. "I mean we smell like a barn a month past its last clean straw. Between the riding and the smoke, we're ripe."
Celenneth laughed, the tiredness giving way to it. "You're not wrong. But unless you're hiding a hot spring out here, we'll have to bear it a while yet."
From across the fire Ellarien glanced up from cleaning her blade. "There's a stream half a day south," she offered, dry. "Bear yourselves till then, and you might smell of grass and flowers again."
Linnea grinned and nudged Celenneth. "You hear that? Grass and flowers. That's the goal."
Celenneth shook her head, the smile lingering. "Fine. And if you behave, I might even change that splint for you."
Narquelië 29, 2965
The stream Ellarien had promised came into view by mid-morning, cutting a silver line through the grass. Celenneth led Nimroch down to drink and swung off, and Linnea slid from her saddle with a sigh of pure relief. "We've earned this," she said, already pulling off her boots.
The water was shallow and wide and cold enough to make them gasp, and they waded in to rinse the road from their clothes and lay them out on the rocks. Even Ellarien's stoicism softened; and when Linnea splashed Celenneth with a daring grin, Celenneth answered with a wave of water that broke over Linnea's head, and Ellarien was dragged laughing into the fray besides. For a while the three of them played like children, and the weight of the journey fell clean away.
A deep, resonant bellow stopped them. Celenneth froze, her hand going for a bow that lay on the bank. Across the stream, majestic shapes came out of the tall grass — a herd of great elk, antlers crowned with moss and small blooms, their leader a towering stag that stepped forward and regarded the three of them in the water with dark, unhurried eyes.
Ellarien lifted a hand. "Still. They're no threat unless we startle them." They stood motionless as the elk came down to drink, deliberate and serene, and the stag lifted its dripping muzzle and held Celenneth's gaze a long moment, as though some understanding passed unspoken between them, before it turned and led the herd away into the grass.
The three stood quiet in the wake of it. "I've never seen anything like that," Linnea breathed.
"Nor have I," Celenneth said, softer than her wont.
Narquelië 30, 2965
The day after unfolded like something out of a good dream — crisp air, endless blue, the horses light beneath them. Linnea's splinted arm no longer dragged at her, and she rode easy at Celenneth's side. And then, near midday, she slowed Mareth and tilted her head as though catching a sound too faint for the others.
"What is it?" Celenneth asked, low.
Linnea closed her eyes a moment. There was — something. Not a threat; the opposite of a threat. A presence, close and warm, brushing at the edge of the new sense the plains had woken in her. "Someone," she said. "Near. But there's no danger in it."
They crested a low rise, and a figure stood upon it, haloed by the sun at its back — tall, slender, its garments shifting between earth-tones and silver as though woven of the light itself. As they came near, warmth reached out from it to meet Linnea, not heat but a deep and settling peace, and its features clarified: a being of unearthly beauty, its skin luminous, its eyes holding a kindness old as the land, hair the color of turning leaves falling down its back, a slender staff crowned with a single glowing crystal in its hand.
Linnea reined in, her breath caught. Behind her, Celenneth's voice came tight with wariness. "Stay back. We don't know what it is." And Ellarien had dismounted slowly, reverent, one hand near her blade but making no move to draw it. "An emissary," she murmured. "Or something greater. Tread carefully."
But Linnea felt no fear, only the peace of it, and she slid down and walked forward with her good hand raised in greeting. "You're not of this world," she said, gentle, "are you?"
The being inclined its head. "Few see beyond the veil." Its voice was like the far rustle of leaves, layered with a quiet, ancient wisdom. "But you carry a light within you, Linnea — one that sees past shadow."
She startled at her own name, and yet felt no alarm, only that abiding calm. "If I carry any light," she said, "it's because others have shared theirs with me."
The spirit's mouth curved. "A rare humility. It is such that binds the broken threads of the world." It reached into the folds of its shifting garments and drew out a ring — delicate, silver, gleaming with an otherworldly sheen — and held it out to her. "A gift, for your kindness and your trust. It will help you know the hearts and minds of others, if you wear it wisely."
Linnea took it in both hands, and slipped it on, and a subtle warmth spread through her, invigorating and strange. "Thank you," she said simply.
The spirit bowed its head once more, and began to fade, its form dissolving into the golden afternoon until it was as though it had never stood there, and the air let out a held breath.
Celenneth came to her, brow furrowed. "You shouldn't have trusted it so easily. It could have been a trap."
Linnea turned the ring on her finger, and met her worry with a small, certain smile. "Maybe. But sometimes trust is worth the risk. And this —" she lifted her hand "— this feels right."
Ellarien watched them both. "You may have made a friend today," she said. "Or something greater than a friend."1
Hísimë 1, 2965
The next day the sky was clear, but the wind carried an unease, and Celenneth rode with her gaze sharper than ever. When the foreboding took shape it took it fast: dark forms moving low and quick across the plain, a dozen or more, closing with a relentless purpose. She raised a hand and stopped the others. "Orcs."
The shapes clarified — crude armor, jagged iron, and at their head a hulking brute in a spiked black helm. He flung up a hand and bellowed in the Black Speech, pointing them out. Celenneth's blood went cold. "Dol Guldur," she said. "That's who sent them."
"That's a hunting party," Ellarien said, tight. "Not a raid. Us they're after."
The open plain gave no cover, and outrunning them on tiring horses was no sure thing. But the land might serve where speed would not. Celenneth's eye caught a shallow depression to the west — a dried streambed cut into the plain, its high banks narrowing to a bottleneck. "This way!" She spurred Nimroch toward it, and the others followed, the orcs' guttural cries rising behind them.
At the streambed's edge she swung down and strung an arrow. "Ellarien — take Linnea and the horses into the tall grass. Slow, low, circle back east. I'll lead them into the cut."
Linnea's eyes went wide. "You can't take them alone—"
"I won't have to. The banks bottleneck them — they'll have to come single file, chasing one target. I climb out the far end and lose them, and meet you east." She loosed before Linnea could argue; the shaft took a lead orc in the shoulder and he howled, and the brute bellowed, "After her! She's alone!"
She darted into the cut, drawing them in, the high banks forcing them to string out behind her, and fired again — a leg this time, slowing them further. When she reached the narrowest point she vaulted up the bank, hauling on a fistful of grass and root, and loosed a last arrow that rang off the leader's helm. "Up here, fool!" she goaded, and vanished over the ridge, and the broken ground slowed their scramble after her enough that she was clear and mounted and away before they crested it. The orcs boiled out of the depression too late, their leader roaring, to see the three riders already small against the horizon.2
They slowed at last, breaths ragged. Linnea turned to her, anger and awe at war in her face. "That was reckless. But it worked."
Celenneth gave a tired smile. "Sometimes the best fight is the one you don't have to finish."
Ellarien scanned the country behind. "They'll find us again if they've a mind to. But we've bought time." And they rode on into the lengthening light, the plains no longer feeling quite so open, the memory of the hunting party lingering at the edges of the day.
Hísimë 2, 2965
Dawn spilled over the plains, the golden grass silvered with frost. Despite the day before, the group rode lighter for the nearness of their goal. Celenneth led, reading the ground, and by late morning she called a halt and crouched over the dry, trampled turf. "Tracks. Horses — many of them."
Ellarien knelt beside her. "Rohirrim. No one else rides in such numbers this far south."
Linnea leaned over Mareth's neck. "Which way?"
Celenneth's face clouded. "That's the trouble. They scatter." She swept a hand at the churned grass, broken in every direction. "As if they split off — or doubled back." It gnawed at her as they followed the strongest line southward; the Rohirrim were disciplined riders, and disciplined riders did not scatter without cause. But the tracks faded on harder ground as evening drew on, and the horizon stretched empty ahead.
Hísimë 3, 2965
The morning broke pale gold, and the land itself felt changed — lighter, the shadows less oppressive, as though they had crossed some unseen boundary. By midday the first signs of habitation rose from the plain: a scatter of small settlements, thatched roofs like islands in a sea of grass, smoke curling from chimneys, the far bark of dogs. Linnea slowed at the sight, a smile tugging at her. "Rohan. We've made it."
"The outer settlements," Ellarien said. "But the Mark's heart is close. By nightfall you'll be at it." They followed a well-trodden path, the farms growing thicker, folk pausing at their work to watch the strangers pass — children waving from the fields, wide-eyed at Ellarien's Elvish face and Linnea's splinted arm.
By late afternoon the pastures were bordered with low wooden fences, and stables and watchtowers rose on the horizon under the green-and-gold banners of the Rohirrim. Here Ellarien drew rein. "This is where I turn back. I'll see Mareth safe home to Thalion." Linnea's face fell; she rested her good hand on the mare's neck. "You've done so much for me. I wish you didn't have to go."
Ellarien's mouth curved. "My duty is in the forest. But I'll speak of your courage where it will be heard — and should your road ever bring you back to the woods, you won't walk them alone." She took Mareth's reins, and Celenneth stepped forward. "Thank you," she said, and the word carried more than it held.
"Ride well," Ellarien said. "And may the Mark be kinder to you than the lands behind." With a last nod she turned and rode back the way they had come, and was soon lost in the vastness of the plain. Linnea watched her go, then swung up behind Celenneth on Nimroch, her arms circling her waist, and the two of them — and the horse who had carried them so far — turned toward the heart of the Riddermark alone.1
As the sun dropped low and set the land aglow, they reached the gates of the marshal's town. Two mounted guards rode out to meet them, helms bright in the failing light, their sharp eyes taking in the pair of travel-worn women on a single grey horse.
"What business brings you to the Mark?" one called, strong but not unkind.
Celenneth urged Nimroch forward, straight-backed. "We carry word of urgency. From Dale, and beyond."
The guards traded a look, and nodded. "You'll find welcome here," the lead rider said, gesturing them through. "But be ready to answer questions. These are tense times."
Hísimë 3, 2965
They were escorted into the heart of the Riddermark, through a settlement loud with the life of the Rohirrim — the ring of smiths' hammers, the neigh of horses, the deep melodic chant of warriors at their drills — and up to the great hall of the marshal, its banners bearing Rohan's green and gold. Within, a sharp-eyed man with graying hair rose to meet them, his bearing straight and commanding despite his years: Eofred, First Marshal of the Riddermark, holding the seat while the king was abroad.
"Travelers from the north," he said, deep and steady. "You've come far. What brings you to Rhovanion?"
Celenneth stepped forward. "A warning. The Shadow of Dol Guldur stirs again."
His brow furrowed, the name landing like a curse. "Dol Guldur. That black place has slept for generations. What word do you bring of it?"
"The orcs are gathering — organized, relentless. They're sending hunting parties far from their strongholds, to fray alliances and probe defenses. We fought free of one of Dol Guldur's own after we crossed into your lands." She met his eyes. "Their numbers grow, and they answer to a hand. This is a prelude, not a raid."
Eofred studied her. "And why bring this to Rohan, ranger of the north? What do you seek here?"
"To see the Riddermark ready. Your riders are the swiftest and strongest in the North. If the orcs move against Dale or the Woodland, Rohan must not be caught flat-footed."
He nodded slowly, weighing it. "You speak truly, and Rohan cannot stand idle while shadow spreads. But I do not act in haste. The Mark has stood by striking when it is wise — not merely when it is afraid."
Linnea stepped up beside her, her voice softer but no less firm. "Marshal, we've seen what their forces can do. They won't stop at small raids. They'll come for all of us, unless we stand together."
His gaze gentled on her. "You are brave, and your words carry truth. But strength spent blindly is strength lost. React without understanding, and the advantage is already theirs." He gestured, and a captain stepped forward. "I'll send riders to Dale, and double our patrols on the northern and eastern borders. Wherever Dol Guldur's servants cross into the Mark, they'll find steel and fire. But I'll not yet commit riders to Dale or the Woodland."
Celenneth crossed her arms. "Defense alone won't stop them. If they're organizing, it's to overwhelm — not to skirmish."
"You may be right." His jaw tightened, but he did not look away. "But Rohan cannot win this alone. Gondor, Dale, the Woodland — if it grows as you fear, it must be met on many fronts. We will reassess after Yule." He rose, his frame throwing a long shadow across the firelit hall. "Rest here through the winter. Your warning will not go unheeded. By spring we'll know the truth of it — and we will act."1
They were given the hospitality of the hall, and sat a while by the hearth. Linnea leaned back, tracing idle patterns on the long table. "Well. That could've gone worse."
Celenneth's eyes stayed on the flames. "It could've gone better. He's too cautious."
"Caution isn't always weakness." Linnea's tone was gentle. "Rohan's strength is its people. If he throws them away on a guess and loses them, what then? At least he's listening."
Celenneth turned to her, and the faintest smile touched her mouth. "You're right. But every day we wait, the Shadow grows."
A servant in green and gold came to lead them to a warm meal and quarters — a simple, comfortable room, fur-lined blankets over a wide bed, a basin of water, the air sweet with dried herbs, the hearth glowing against the shuttered chill. Linnea ran a hand over the soft furs and sighed. "This feels like luxury after the plains." She stretched out on the bed, her good arm across her stomach. "The kind of thing I could get used to."
Celenneth smiled from where she stood unfastening her armor, a rare softness in her tired face. "You deserve it," she said, setting the leather aside and pulling off her boots.
"You're not going to make me enjoy all this alone, I hope." Linnea patted the space beside her.
Celenneth relented with a low chuckle and settled down against her, the furs closing soft around them after so many nights of hard ground. Linnea turned to face her and brushed her fingers along Celenneth's arm. "It's nice. To have this. To feel — safe."
"It is," Celenneth admitted, quieter. "And it isn't the room, or the fire." She hesitated. "It's you."
Linnea's smile grew, color rising in her cheeks. She tucked her head against Celenneth's shoulder. "Have you thought about staying here through the winter?"
Celenneth pressed a kiss to her brow. "I've been mulling it. At least until after Yule, and the worst of the cold. I'm not even sure yet where we go from here."
Linnea hugged her closer. "Then we winter here. I want to learn how they ride — the way they are with the horses, so easy and fluid. And it feels less fraught here. We could use the rest."
"We could," Celenneth agreed, her arm tightening around her. "And we might learn more of what's stirring beyond the plains while we're at it. Travel can wait."
Ringarë 10, 2965
They found a rhythm quickly enough among the Rohirrim — training on the field, riding out with the border patrols or alone, their skills honed against the best horsemen in the North; and each night the warmth of the hall to come back to, a comfort rare on the long road they had known so long. Winter settled slow over the Riddermark, the mornings sharp with frost and mist clinging to the fields. The season's customs here were their own — holly and ivy gathered green for the hearths against the cold, small wooden horses carved as gifts for the children, the elders spinning tall tales of Yules gone by — and there was comfort in the shared anticipation of it.
One morning, come back from a patrol, Celenneth was making ready to take Nimroch out again when Linnea, pulling on her boots at the bed's edge, spoke up.
"Did you have Yule traditions? Back — before all this?"
Celenneth's fingers stilled at her cloak-clasp. "Yule?" she said, as though the word surprised her. "It's been a long time since I thought of it."
"It's coming up," Linnea pressed, tying her laces. "And I'd like us each to carry a little of our own into it. What did Yule look like, in the North?"
Celenneth fastened the clasp, and her voice went quieter. "When I was small, it was simple. We hadn't much. But my mother always saw to a warm meal and a little cheer — she'd bake something sweet if she could manage it, honey cakes. And we'd sit by the fire and tell stories until the candles burned down."
"That sounds peaceful," Linnea said softly.
"It was. Before everything changed." A faint smile touched Celenneth's mouth at the memory, and went out.
Linnea rose and came closer. "Then we'll do something. For Yule. Even if it's only the two of us — or the three, if we count Nimroch." She grinned. "In Bree we had a strange one. Everyone wore mismatched socks — bright, striped, whatever they had — for luck in the coming year. My father swore by it, said it kept the bad-luck spirits confused. Silly. But it always made me smile."
Celenneth's brow rose, and a chuckle escaped her. "Mismatched socks for luck?"
"Bree folk love their eccentricities." Linnea patted her knees. "Well, that settles it. Mismatched socks and honey cakes. And silly stories by the fire — that part's not up for debate."
Celenneth's smile widened, and she hid it by adjusting the strap of her quiver. "I'll see what I can arrange with the cooks."
Ringarë 30, 2965
Yule came, and with it the hall filled with warmth and noise — roasted meat and mead and spiced ale on the air, the Rohirrim's voices rising in song, the long tables heavy with food, the fire roaring gold across the gathered faces. Celenneth and Linnea feasted and shared in the good cheer, and children darted shrieking between the benches. One small boy, no more than five winters, took it into his head to sit in Celenneth's lap through the whole meal, and she let him, a smile tugging at her as he giggled and smacked the table and played with the little carved horse the children had all been given. Across the way Linnea watched, eyes bright. "You've been chosen," she teased.
"So it seems," Celenneth said, glancing down at the child. Linnea's smile widened, and she slipped away without a word.
She came back with her arms laden. "Gifts," she said, warm, and set the first before Celenneth — a small box of honey cakes, their crust glinting gold in the firelight. "The cooks helped me. Just like you told it." Then a bundle of mismatched socks, bright and soft — "for luck; I couldn't resist" — and she hitched her hem to show her own. And last she unfolded a blanket, woven in green and gold. "The women here helped me make it. I wanted you to have something warm. Something from here."
Celenneth set the child gently down and stood and gathered Linnea into her arms, her eyes stinging. "Thank you," she whispered, and wiped the tears quick, and kissed her, deep and full of everything she could not say.
When they parted she reached into her cloak and drew out two strips of leather, and held them up, and her voice was not quite steady. "There's something I've carried for you. A tradition of the Dúnedain — the Binding of Aegis. I've thought long on how best to mark what we are to each other, and while the common way would be marriage, this — this feels truer." She swallowed. "It's a vow. To stand as each other's shield, life or death. If you'd want something else, I'd understand. But I wanted you to know what it means to me."
Linnea's eyes had gone wide and wet. "I want this," she said, barely above a breath. "I want this, Celenneth."
Something lifted off Celenneth's heart. She turned and raised her voice for quiet, and the hall slowly hushed and turned to them. "Tonight we keep Yule — a night for warmth, and hope, and love. And tonight I would share something of my people." She took Linnea's hand. "The Binding of Aegis is an oath of protection and devotion, sworn between those who would pledge their lives to one another. I ask Linnea to swear it with me."
The hall went still. Celenneth wound the leather strip around Linnea's hand and forearm, her fingers working it into an intricate knot, and spoke the words as she bound. "By this binding, I swear to stand as your shield, to face the darkness at your side, and to guard your life with my own. Through all trials, through all dangers, I am yours." Then she guided Linnea's hands to wind the second strip about her own arm, and Linnea repeated the vow, her voice trembling and her eyes never leaving Celenneth's. "By this binding, I swear to stand as your shield, to face the darkness at your side, and to guard your life with my own. Through all trials, through all dangers, I am yours."
When the bindings were tied fast, Celenneth lifted their joined hands, her voice carrying the length of the hall. "This is our promise — to each other, through life and death."1
A cheer went up from the Rohirrim, ringing to the rafters. Mead was pressed into their hands and they drank to what they had sworn, and the music swelled, and Celenneth pulled Linnea close and led her out into a dance while the firelight wheeled around them. Tears stood on Linnea's face, and her smile was radiant, and the two of them turned together in the light, bound now in the sight of all.
Narvinyë 8, 2966
It was not long after Yule that Celenneth took Linnea out on a several-day ride toward the northern borderlands. The pretext was to bolster the patrols; the truth was that she had found something on an earlier ride she wanted to give her.
She led her to a hidden grove — a place where the winter seemed to have caught and held time itself. Crystalline icicles hung from ancient oaks and broke the low sun into scattered color; a still pond lay frozen at its heart, a flawless mirror for the bare branches and the pale blue sky. It glittered like a secret palace no hand had built. They made camp there under the stars, and beneath the moon and the snow-hushed silence they came together, unhurried and warm against the cold, and for that night the wide dangerous world held its distance.
Narvinyë 12, 2966
Morning brought a cruel wind. They bundled tight and made ready for the three-day ride back, Nimroch's hooves crunching the frozen ground, their cloaks drawn over their faces, until the cold drove them to stop and warm themselves in the lee of a cluster of gnarled trees.
The fire had barely caught when they heard it — a thin, wavering cry. Celenneth went still, her hand to her bow. "Did you hear that?"
Linnea nodded, her good hand tightening on the reins. "It sounded like — a child?"
"It could be a lure. Orcs have used cruder." But the cry came again, louder, and Linnea shook her head. "That's no orc. That's a baby."
Celenneth's wariness lost to the plain humanity of the sound. "Stay close," she murmured, and they went toward it, breath clouding, boots crunching the frost. The crying led them to a hollow beneath the trees, and there, swaddled in a thin and ragged blanket, lay an infant — newborn, no more than a few weeks in the world, a dark down of hair on its head, its face red with cold and its cries weak but insistent. Whoever had left it had done so recently, and was nowhere to be seen.
Linnea dropped to her knees. "Oh, gods. Who would—" She didn't finish it, only gathered the child up against her.
Celenneth crouched, sweeping the ground with her eyes. "The wind's taken any tracks. Whoever left it didn't linger."
Linnea wrapped her cloak tight around the baby. "She's freezing. Build up the fire, or she won't last the night." Celenneth had it roaring in moments, and Linnea sat close to it with the child against her chest, and the cries quieted as the small body curled into her like a bird gone to shelter.
"I've never held a baby," Linnea admitted, her eyes glistening. "But I think — I think she's holding me just as much."
Celenneth allowed herself a rare smile. "Then it's well she's got someone stubborn."
Linnea's face hardened with something else. "How could anyone just leave her out here? What kind of person—"
Celenneth's eyes stayed on the flames. "It's not so rare," she said, low and heavy. "Far from a Bree or a Dale, life is harder. There are families that can barely feed themselves, let alone another mouth."
"So they leave them to die?"
"Out where there's no one to turn to — no charity, no warm bed to beg — they might tell themselves it's a mercy." She met Linnea's stricken look. "It's the choice of the desperate. The kind no one should ever have to make."
Linnea stroked the baby's cheek with her thumb. "So what do we do now?"
"We care for her," Celenneth said simply. "Until we find someone who can. She deserves a chance." She managed a crooked feeding-tube from a scrap of clean cloth and a hollow reed, and they boiled water and softened dried root and crushed berry into a thin paste, and dripped the weak gruel slow between the baby's lips. It was little enough, but it would keep her until the Riddermark.
Narvinyë 16, 2966
When they reached the Mark they went to the marshal's people for a wet-nurse, and a solution was soon found: a woman named Freowyn, who had lately lost a child of her own. She was sturdy and kind-eyed, her golden hair braided over one shoulder, and she came to them with quiet confidence and reached for the infant with gentle hands. "This little one is lucky in who found her," she said, warm but sad. "Many would not have troubled."
Linnea handed the baby over, her fingers slow to let go. "We've done what we could. But we're not made for this. Will you — will you take care of her?"
Freowyn cradled the child to her chest. "Of course. My milk is strong yet, and I have ached to hold small arms again." The baby's cries eased as she nursed for the first time in days, and Celenneth and Linnea traded a glance thick with relief.
The fire burned low in their room that night. Linnea sat cross-legged on the fur-covered floor, and after a long quiet she said, "We could have kept her."
Celenneth glanced up from the wood she was carving, her expression guarded. "How could we? Neither of us can feed her. And come spring — where would we even be?"
"We kept her alive this far, didn't we?"
"It isn't only keeping her alive." The knife stilled in Celenneth's hands. "It's giving her a chance to grow. To be safe. Something better than two wanderers scraping along the edge of the world."
Linnea leaned forward, searching her face. "And what if she'd have had something better with us? What if we could have been good for her?"
"Look at us, Linnea. No home. No knowing where we'll be next season. What could we give her but danger and uncertainty?"
"Love," Linnea said quietly. "We could give her love."
Celenneth's breath caught, and for a moment she said nothing. "Love isn't always enough," she said at last, hollow.
Linnea's frustration gave way to concern. "What is it? You've been holding something back since we found her."
Celenneth set the knife aside and rested her elbows on her knees, her eyes fixed on the fire, and when she spoke her voice was brittle but steady. "I was nine when goblins came for my village. The middle of the night. My mother threw herself against the door to buy us time — screamed for me and my sister to run. I didn't understand what was happening until it was too late." Linnea went still. "They broke through. They killed her. My sister tried to fight them with a cooking knife. She was seven. Brave. Foolish." Her jaw worked. "They took her. I never saw her again."
Linnea's hand found her arm. Celenneth did not look at it.
"I ran," she said, barely audible. "Into the woods, until my legs gave out. I'd have died out there if the rangers hadn't found me." She looked at Linnea then, her eyes glistening. "They took me in. Taught me to survive. But I never had a home again. Not really."
"Celenneth," Linnea said softly. "That wasn't your fault. You were a child."
"And so is she." Her voice broke. "That little girl. She's just a child, Linnea. I couldn't save my sister. I can't — I can't risk failing her too."
The weight of it settled between them. Linnea's anger had gone; only tenderness was left. "You wouldn't fail her," she said. "You've already done more for her than anyone would. You're not that frightened girl anymore. You're stronger now. Wiser."
"Maybe." Celenneth's expression stayed torn. "But it doesn't change what she needs. Freowyn can give her a life we can't."
Linnea nodded slowly, her heart aching, her resolve steady. "Maybe you're right. But if you ever decide you're ready to be more than a ranger — you'd make a fine mother."
Celenneth's lips twitched toward a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "And you'd be a terrible influence."
"Good thing you'd be there to keep me in line." Linnea laughed softly and squeezed her arm, and they sat in the crackling quiet, the old grief giving way, by inches, to the faintest light of something ahead.
Narvinyë 17, 2966
The next day Celenneth stood before Marshal Eofred, her shoulders squared, Linnea at her side and Freowyn behind them with the baby in her arms.
"You ask audience again so soon," Eofred said. "What is the cause?"
Celenneth drew a breath. "Marshal, I wish to petition for the right to adopt the child we found in the wild. I would raise her as my own — teach her a ranger's craft, and ready her for the world."
His brows drew down. "A child raised to the wilds. That is a hard life, far from the safety a child needs."
"It is," Celenneth allowed. "But it is a life of strength, and resourcefulness, and survival. And I'd not put her at needless risk. When my road turns too dangerous, Freowyn has agreed to keep her."
Freowyn stepped forward. "It's true, my lord. I would gladly give the child a home when the road is unsafe. These two would do anything to keep her — she would be loved, in their arms as in mine."
Eofred leaned back. "And what of Rohan? She was found within the Mark. She should know our ways too — the bond of rider and horse, the traditions in our blood. If you are to be her mothers, then let Rohan be her father."
Celenneth looked to Linnea, and nodded. "We'd not deny her that. The strength of the Rohirrim is legend, and their ways are noble. We'd welcome them in her life."
Eofred weighed it a long moment, then rose, his presence filling the hall. "Very well. You may adopt the child — on the condition that she is raised in both the ways of the rangers of the North and the ways of the Rohirrim. She'll know the wilds and the plains both, and be ready for whatever comes."
Relief crossed Celenneth's face, though she held her composure; Linnea beamed. "Thank you, Marshal," they said together. "We'll honor it."
Freowyn stepped near with the baby. "And her name?" she asked gently. "Have you chosen?"
Celenneth hesitated, then laid a hand on the small swaddled form. "Brynja," she said, strength and tenderness both in it. "She was protected by us. We'll raise her to protect others."
Linnea tested it, grinning. "Brynja. It suits her."
Freowyn placed the child in Celenneth's arms, and the hall went quiet with the weight of it, and Celenneth held Brynja close, fierce and protective, while Linnea rested a hand on her shoulder and smiled.1
Narvinyë 20, 2966
Winter lay over the Riddermark like a quiet blanket, the golden grass dusted white, the mornings sharp enough to sting. Linnea divided her days between the warmth of Freowyn's hearth, where Brynja grew stronger week by week, and the training paddocks, where she pushed herself to master the horse-craft of Rohan under a stern horsewoman named Eadwyn.
At Freowyn's fire she would sit with Brynja against her chest, rocking her and murmuring the lullabies she was learning from Freowyn's own lips. The child had thrived since the borderlands — her cries robust now, her dark eyes bright with curiosity, tiny fingers closing hard around Linnea's. She found herself enchanted by the small warm weight of her, by the coos that could set even Celenneth to soft laughter.
But Linnea was not made to idle, and once Brynja was settled she would pull on her riding gear and go out to where Eadwyn waited — tall, sharp-featured, and utterly without patience for coddling.
"Mount with purpose," Eadwyn barked one frost-bright morning, her steely gaze appraising. "A rider commands the horse. Not the other way round."
The lessons were grueling. Linnea had always been sound in the saddle, but the Rohirrim asked far more than soundness — balance, the guiding of a horse by the lightest press of the knee, the seamless shift of weight through a gallop. "Your horse is an extension of you," Eadwyn lectured as Linnea worked a tight turn. "Feel her as you feel your own body. Trust her, and she trusts you." Linnea set her jaw and burned brighter under each correction, and by winter's deep she could ride bareback with confidence — a thing Eadwyn allowed, grudging, was "not hopeless."
"High praise, from you," Linnea shot back, and earned the ghost of a smile. She had no horse of her own to school — her Woodland mare had gone back to Thalion with the scouts — and so she rode the Mark's, learning each new mount as Eadwyn set her to it.1
Evenings brought her back to Freowyn's hearth, where she'd drop into a chair with a groan and Freowyn would set a bowl of stew before her and Brynja would babble from her cradle. "She missed you today," Freowyn said one night, handing her the baby. "She knows your voice. Lights up whenever you're near." Linnea grinned through her weariness and kissed the top of Brynja's dark head. "For now," she murmured, "this is the best part of my day."
Boots crunched the frost outside, and Linnea's pulse leapt as the door swung open on the cold blue evening and Celenneth stepped through it — winded and windblown and radiant, her cheeks whipped red from the ride, her auburn hair escaping wild from beneath her hood.
"You're back!" Linnea scooped Brynja up and rose to meet her. "I didn't look for you for another two days."
"I rode hard." Celenneth's gaze went to the baby, and a rare softness came into her. "I missed you both." She shed her cloak and boots and came to press a kiss to Brynja's head, and the child cooed in recognition.
"She's been thoroughly spoiled by Freowyn," Linnea said, shifting the baby to her other arm.
"I'm sure. But tonight it's your turn." Celenneth reached into the pouch at her belt and drew out something wrapped in cloth, and pressed it into Linnea's free hand. "Open it."
Linnea unwrapped it one-handed, and her breath caught: a fine necklace of braided silver, its centerpiece a small gleaming stone that took the firelight like a fragment of a fallen star. "Celenneth — it's beautiful. Where did you—"
"A smith in one of the outlying settlements made it, for a favor I was owed." Her smile widened. "I wanted you to have something to remember the stars by. Even when the sky's hidden."
Linnea looked up, warmth flooding her. "You rode for days, and fought whatever the Rohirrim throw themselves at, and still thought of this."
"I did."
Linnea set Brynja down in her cradle and stepped close. "Put it on me." Celenneth's deft fingers fastened it at her nape, the cool silver settling against her skin, and Linnea turned to face her and rose onto her toes and kissed her, slow and deep and full of all the years they'd promised each other at Yule.2
"You've set the bar high," Linnea murmured against her mouth. "I'll have to think of something remarkable for your next homecoming."
Celenneth's arms slipped around her waist. "I look forward to it."
The morning was sharp and bright, the sun laying gold across snow-draped fields that glittered like fallen stars. Linnea came out of Freowyn's house bundled in a borrowed cloak and stopped at the sight of it: Celenneth standing tall beside Nimroch, finishing the last of the bindings that held Brynja snug against her chest, the baby swaddled in wool with only her small face showing, pink and wide-eyed with wonder at the shining world.
"You look a proper mother-wolf with her cub," Linnea teased.
Celenneth gave her a faint smile, a hand resting on Brynja's small back. "I thought today was a good day to ride. The snow, the air — it feels peaceful. Like the earth holding winter close one last time before spring." She swung up onto Nimroch, the baby secure against her, and Linnea climbed up behind, arms circling Celenneth's waist, her cheek to her shoulder.
"Ready?" Celenneth asked.
"Always."
They rode out onto the white plains, Nimroch's hooves crunching soft, the cold air sweet with pine and distant hearth-smoke, Brynja's small gurgles threading through it all. And when they crested a rise and the whole Riddermark opened below them — the hills like frozen waves, the snow unbroken but for the tracks of wandering deer, the sky an endless blue — Celenneth slowed the horse and let him breathe.
"This," she said quietly, "is why I wanted to ride today. To remember the world isn't all shadow and fear."
Linnea rested her chin on her shoulder, and looked at the two of them before her — the woman she had bound her life to, and the child they had pulled from the cold — and felt, for the first time in a long road of them, something that was not quite like anything she had lost, and better than anything she had dreamed. "You always find a way to surprise me," she said. "And to remind me why I followed you out here."