Archive of Our Own

When Celeborn and Galadriel first come to Eregion, they wander through the marshes of the Swanfleet, bright with the first golden green of spring and home to great flocks of swans whose white wings flash in the sunlight. They have been traveling since they left Harlindon, which has grown all too settled for Celeborn's tastes, peaceful again and prosperous after the great upheavals of the War of Wrath, but a busy garden now rather than a wilderness.

The marsh is beautiful, but no place to make a camp. At another time of year Celeborn might bring down one of the swans for a swanskin blanket and meat for their dinner, but the swans are nesting, hissing indignant warning whenever they come near. They eat dried berries as they walk, and when they climb out of the marshes to where it is possible to build a fire from driftwood, he catches a fish with his bare hands and they roast it over smoky green wood.

Upriver above a tumbling series of falls there is a natural ford, the river running shallow and tame, and they bathe in the river and wash marsh-mud from their clothes, laying them to dry on the bank. The other bank is green already, tall holly trees towering among bare branches just beginning to color with unopened buds.

"There are elves already in these woods," Galadriel says, sitting naked on warm stone with her hair drying in golden streams about her knees.

"I should think so," Celeborn says, lazing himself on warm rock. Neither of them is moved to go looking for them yet, content for the moment with their own company.

They skirt the forest on their way upstream, under the shadow of the holly boughs. Galadriel weaves a wreath of the dark green branches as they walk and sets it in his hair to match her own circlet of green rushes. They walk hand in hand as if they were children unshadowed by any care, and come finally to the place where the river rushing down from the mountains meets another coming down from the north.

On the north bank, a green meadow rises toward the edge of the forest. Both rivers run too deep here to ford, but there is a broad bank where boats could easily be drawn up. The green shade of the overhanging trees is inviting, and to the east the mountains rise high and gray.

It feels right, and although he can't put names to his reasons, he supposes neither can the swans. "We could stay here a while," he says.

Galadriel looks thoughtfully up at the mountains. "Others were not entirely happy in Lindon," she says. "What would you say to going north again to see if any of our kinsmen might want to join us?"

"We might do that too," he says, and without lowering her gaze from the mountains she smiles.

*****

The Sirannon runs to the gates of Khazad-dûm, and Celeborn goes with Galadriel up into the mountains to treat with the dwarves who live there. They are friendly enough, welcoming the chance at trade if not overly interested in the doings of elves beyond the foothills of the mountains. They have no love of forests as anything but a source of firewood, and they cut enough of that in the hills to have no need to venture into the great holly groves. Besides, they have discovered something new beneath the mountains, a black stone that burns hotter than charcoal to fuel their forges.

The dwarf city lies deep beneath the surface of the mountains, and after some years of friendship Galadriel is welcomed into Khazad-dûm. She goes with a light heart, admiring their vast pillared halls that glitter by lamplight in fathomless chasms the sun has never touched. Her hair catches that lamplight and gleams back as if she brought the sun with her underground, and she has no fear of darkness.

Celeborn himself finds the harsh lines of the dwarves' halls unsettling. The caverns of Doriath never ran so deep, and there is something oppressive in knowing that he is beneath the vast weight of the mountains, with winding stair after winding stair lying between him and the light.

But more than that, he does not like putting his trust in the dwarves, who betrayed and murdered his kinsman Thingol in their greed for the Nauglamir.

"These are not the dwarves who slew your uncle," Galadriel says, not entirely patiently. "Nor are they even their distant kin. That was long centuries ago, and Durin's folk had naught to do with it."

"It speaks to their nature," Celeborn says.

Galadriel puts her head to one side with an expression that has made braver men flee. "No more than the deeds of my uncle Feanor speak to mine," she says. It is some days before they make it up between them, and then it is with the understanding that Galadriel will continue visiting Khazad-dûm, although she will not ask him to come with her.

He knows she thinks it is foolish of him, but all he can think of when he sets foot in Khazad-dûm is the bitter campaign that followed Thingol's death, driving the dwarves back to their own doors and leaving the bodies of their dead lying among the wreckage of their gates. He walks among the trees instead when Galadriel ventures underground, or turns to helping new arrivals settle themselves among the holly trees; some of them are building houses, in wood or fieldstone, and there are more ambitious plans being discussed to cut stone in the mountains and bring it downriver by barge.

That is a little unsettling, too, but he tells himself that a few fine halls will hardly make the plain above the river-fork into a city.

*****

"This is become a city," he says to Galadriel, frowning as he lets the curtain at their window fall. More construction is going on all the time, and some of the stonemasons among the Noldor have sketched out a plan for a series of towers and walls that will rise like a new mountain peak straining upward from the plain.

Their own apartments look out on garden, but he wonders how long it will remain so at the rate that their people are building. And garden is not forest. There is nowhere in Ost-in-Edhil where the sound of voices or cartwheels or hammers at the forge cannot be heard.

"Cities do have certain advantages, my heart," Galadriel says. "There is something to be said for a roof when it is raining, and for warm hearths when the snow is falling." She tugs teasingly at a lock of his hair. "Not everyone shares your love of sleeping outside in a snowstorm. And besides, it's so interesting."

The last is the real heart of it, he knows. The city is full of Noldor craftsmen with ideas, and dwarves come down from the mountains to talk of metalwork and masonry, and even mortal men, Numenoreans come up from the coast. They mingle and talk as if they will never run out of things to say. There is new music sounding in the gardens and in the halls, and in the evenings people exchange stories others have never heard and talk enthusiastically of new devices that were only ideas weeks before.

It is a heady wine, and he can see Galadriel's joy in it. He feels some portion of it himself, some days, but on others he feels penned behind walls, stifled and diminished by the crowds and noise. He finds himself dreaming of the stark simplicity of the winter woods where he once hunted, escaping the crowded halls of Doriath for the quieter winter camps of the wandering wood elves or the silence of his own company in untracked snow.

"Do you think I would prevent you from going?" Galadriel says. He turns, a little alarmed, and she strokes his cheek in reassurance. "I would not keep you like a hound on a leash, my dear. Nor keep you from the forests you love. Go and hunt bears in the mountains, if you like, or go over the mountains and visit your kinsman Oropher in the Greenwood. I will still be here."

He strokes her cheek in return. There was a time when they would have gone together or not at all, twined too tightly together in love to bear a few weeks separation.

They are stronger, now, and more sure of each other. "I know you will," he says.

He only means to go for a few weeks the first time, but it is a relief to let go of the relentless demands of the calendar and pay no attention to the turning stars, and the wood elves he stays with in bad weather have no more concern for the passage of time. When winter turns into spring, the rivers swelling with snowmelt, it dawns upon him that it has been six months, and he hurries his steps toward home.

Galadriel is there to meet him when he comes out of the woods, and he puts his arms hard around her.

She rests her head on his shoulder. "Well, my wandering hunter, do you still remember the uses of a bed?"

"I remember one at least," Celeborn says. "Perhaps you might remind me."

He has to admit, some time later, tangled naked with Galadriel among warm pillows as the rain falls outside, that their bed is a very comfortable place to be welcomed home.

*****

"My little cousin Celebrimbor has come down from the north," Galadriel says one evening as they share a simple dinner. Their table is low, as if they ate on the lawn, and outside their arched window, a young birch tree sways to screen them from the garden below.

Celeborn shakes his head, amused by memory. "So is he still desperately in love with you?"

Galadriel shakes her head, but her own amusement is clear in the sparkle of her eyes. "I have no idea. I haven't yet seen him. I'm afraid he may be."

"Poor boy," Celeborn says. They were already lovers but not yet married when Celebrimbor threw his heart at Galadriel's feet, making a series of breathlessly earnest attempts to court her. As Celebrimbor was scarcely more than a child, a generation younger than Galadriel and weed-thin with gangling limbs, she was hard-pressed to conceal her amusement. She told him very kindly that her heart was already given, and Celeborn did not point out that he wasn't the jealous sort, as he didn't think under the circumstances it would be a kindness to provide Celebrimbor with cause for hope.

"He's a jewelsmith now, apparently," Galadriel says. Celeborn raises an eyebrow, and she inclines her head. "And, yes, people do react like that, which I expect had something to do with why he left Lindon. It can't be easy for him when everyone expects him to have inherited Feanor's talent for creating beautiful disasters."

"Nor do I expect it's easy living under Gil-galad's rule when he's got as much of a claim to be High King of the Noldor himself."

"An awkward claim for Celebrimbor to make, when half the Noldor swore blood feud against his grandfather."

"I'm not saying he'd have much luck. I'm just saying that with Gil-galad in no apparent hurry to produce an heir—"

"Gil-galad is single-minded," Galadriel says, the corners of her eyes crinkling in amusement.

"Believe me, I wish him only joy," Celeborn says. Certainly he wishes his kinsman Elrond joy, as the young man has seen tragedy enough already. "But as you must grant that he'll get no heir unless he at least troubles himself to take some lady as his lover, it can only complicate matters to have Feanor's grandson hanging about looking available."

They make their way down to the great hall after dinner, where musicians are playing at one end of the hall while a number of craftsmen, elven and dwarven, have gathered at the other end. The matter in discussion is apparently some new way of tempering metal, which goes entirely over Celeborn's head, although he gathers it is a matter for great excitement.

There is a stranger among the craftsmen, and it takes a moment for Celeborn to be certain who it is. Celebrimbor is slender still, but broad-shouldered and hard-muscled from the forge. His hair, which Celeborn remembers as an uncertain dun color, falls raven to his hips, and his broad hands are sure and clever as he traces the shape of some imagined creation.

Oh, my, Galadriel says, for only Celeborn to hear, and it takes an effort for him to keep his laughter for her alone.

*****

Celeborn goes over the mountains the next spring to Oropher's realm, to visit him in his perch atop the high hill of Amon Lanc, with the Greenwood spread out around them. He and his cousin Oropher have argued about nearly everything since they were boys together in Doriath, but all the same there is something comforting in his company. They are alike in a way that runs deeper than the silver of their hair and the shared cast of their features.

"You spend too much time among the Noldor," Oropher says.

"Well, I married one," Celeborn says.

"I told you that was a bad idea."

"I remember you said something of the sort at the time."

"But you didn't listen."

"Nor did I thrash you as you deserved."

"If you weren't my guest, I would make you eat your words," Oropher says.

"You started it," Celeborn points out mildly.

"I suppose I did," Oropher says after a while. "I still think they're trouble."

"We have all heard what you think," Celeborn says. "And I'll grant you that they did bring considerable trouble with them." As well as the moon and the sun, and all manner of new things, he forbears from adding, and some of them glorious.

"That's my point. You could have had any of our own women," Oropher says. "Or even found some wood elf girl, as much as you love the greenwood. Not a lady of the Noldor who wants you to live in a tower of stone."

"It's not that simple," Celeborn says. "I have what I wanted."

Oropher shakes his head. "I've always wanted simpler things."

"I know," Celeborn says, and puts his arm through his cousin's as they walk along.

*****

It's no surprise to Celeborn when Galadriel takes Celebrimbor to her bed. It is a pleasant pastime for for her, and he is glad that it brings her joy. Perhaps more than a pastime for Celebrimbor; Celeborn thinks that the man has not grown less devoted to Galadriel with time, only more reserved and cautious in his expressions of affection. But the greater part of Celebrimbor's heart is given to his craft, and most of his evenings are spent at the forge or in his workshop, bringing beautiful dreams into being in metal and stone.

It is more of a surprise when he finds that, rather than being jealous, he is a little envious of her. It's rare for them to have the same taste in lovers, but he finds himself watching Celebrimbor more closely than friendship requires. He can't help liking Celebrimbor's expressive hands, beautiful even when they are roughened by burns from the forge, and rarely idle. Handed a length of gold wire Celebrimbor will twist it idly into a flower that might have just opened its petals in the grass outside, or a flame to set in the hair of the next lady who passes.

The three of them wind up in bed together, one evening after they have drunk deeply of wine and of the strong spirits Celebrimbor's craftsmen make with some apparatus used in metal-craft. It feels inevitable, as if they have long been arriving at this moment, and they spend the night in unhurried exploration of one another's bodies and the pleasures to be had from them.

"You want him for your lover," Galadriel says afterwards.

He finds, still somewhat to his own surprise, that he does. He has fallen easily into the beds of many of his friends – if he did not like them well enough for that, they would not be his friends – but there is something here that seems worth concerted effort to pursue.

Galadriel smiles at him. "I look forward to watching your strategic campaign unfold," she says.

The trick, he finds, is getting Celebrimbor's attention. He generally remembers that Galadriel exists even when he is in his workshop, making her lovely things out of gold that speak of summer and sunlight and the light of her eyes. The extent to which he remembers anyone else exists is variable.

He makes things for Celeborn as well, though, rings of mithril and cloak-pins set with moonstones, and while Celeborn has little love of jewelry, he can see that Celebrimbor has given some thought to what might suit him.

"I should prefer something plainer still," he admits finally, turning the cloak-pin round in his fingers, and Celebrimbor shrugs, undaunted.

"I can do that," he says. "Silver holly leaves, maybe." He rests one finger at Celeborn's throat as if judging how the cloak and its clasp would lie. "I won't even do the berries in gemstones, if you insist."

The measuring touch is more personal than Celeborn can bear entirely stoically. He lets out a frustrated breath and reaches up to wrap a hand around the back of Celebrimbor's neck.

"Well," Celebrimbor says, as if he's made a new discovery, and pulls Celeborn in to kiss him.

Somewhat later, they lie tumbled in the sheets of Celebrimbor's tower room, among the clutter of strange sculptures and mechanisms that line every surface. Celebrimbor lies sprawled largely atop Celeborn, tracing the line of his shoulder as if he means to recreate it.

"I didn't think you were interested unless your lady was involved," Celebrimbor said.

"Nor did I know that you were."

"I thought I'd made that plain," Celebrimbor says, and Celeborn abruptly puts a different interpretation on the gifts of jewelry, and on Celebrimbor's recent attempts to capture moonlight as well as sunlight in his work. There is a language there he does not speak, but at least he can try to understand.

"I see that you did," he says, as Celebrimbor begins braiding his hair with busy hands.

*****

Celebrimbor has gathered a guild of craftsmen around him, and their workshops and forges occupy the highest towers of the city. Celeborn goes there only on occasion, and then pieces his way between fires and odd equipment with considerable caution. More often Celebrimbor descends to seek their company for an evening, and sometimes to spend the night in their bed, or more occasionally with one of them alone.

He has been spending more nights than usual in his workshop, of late, fascinated by the guild's new guest, one of the Maia apprentices of Aule himself, come from Valinor to share secrets of the craft learned in the West. His name is Annatar, and he is not only wise in the secrets of metalworking, but luminously beautiful.

"I am afraid Celebrimbor is bowled over," Galadriel says in amusement.

"Well, no one could ever call him indifferent to beauty," Celeborn says. "I'm not jealous, I'm just not certain I see the attraction."

"You may be the only one who doesn't, my dear."

"He's certainly beautiful. But … too perfect for my taste."

"Some women might not take that as you meant it," Galadriel says, but there's no offense in her tone. She knows he doesn't think her perfect. She has a knife-sharp will and a quick temper, as quick as her kindness. Her beauty is that of a flower with thorns, not an idealized marble statue. "He is a bit like that," Galadriel says thoughtfully. "But I think it's only that it's hard to see into his mind. He's not really an elf, after all. And he does have such interesting ideas."

He means to ask her if she found it equally hard to touch Melian's mind, in the days of their youth, but at that moment Celebrimbor appears at the door, eager to show them the new way he has devised for casting sheets of glass as broad and clear as pools of ice, and Celeborn sets the question aside as mattering little after all.

He still wanders when the urge strikes him, but more and more he finds himself content to stay closer to home. On one of his journeys up into the mountains, Elrond asks if he may accompany him, to his surprise. Celeborn welcomes his company; he sees little enough of his kinsman these days.

On the western side of the mountains, they camp in a hidden dell where Celeborn has stayed before. The wood elves come there from time to time, taking shelter in the secluded valley, but most of the time the deer are the only ones who drink from the tumble of streams that wind their way across the valley floor.

"You could build a fortress here," Elrond says.

Celeborn shrugs. "You could, but that would spoil it."

"That's true enough."

"You wouldn't need a fortress, though," Celeborn says. "You could hold off an army trying to come through that crevasse to the north with a handful of rocks. And there's really only one place to ford the river."

Elrond turns round, looking up at the waterfall tumbling to the rocks below. "It is beautiful. Peaceful."

"Don't tell me you're growing tired of cities."

"Hardly that. I may be growing tired of politics."

He keeps his tone even. "Have you and Gil-galad been quarreling?"

"We don't quarrel," Elrond says, a door shutting between them.

"Perhaps that's your problem."

Elrond snorts after a moment in clearly unbidden amusement. "It's only that it's refreshing to be among people who see the point of books."

"I may have read one once or twice myself," Celeborn says.

Elrond shakes his head in scolding amusement, and then sobers. "They say that Galadriel is much in the company of her cousin Celebrimbor," he says, in a careful tone.

"I expect they do even in Lindon, given that he's in the habit of bestowing spectacular gifts, and she wears all of them at least once to be polite." He regards Elrond more closely. "Have you been worrying that I'm being ill-used?"

Elrond puts his head to one side in a little shrug that reminds Celeborn abruptly of Elwing as a young girl.

He claps Elrond on the shoulder fondly. "It's all right," he says. "It's an entirely agreeable arrangement."

"Well," Elrond says, as if relieved but not entirely approving.

"Besides, I'm sleeping with him too."

Elrond shakes his head. "Don't you find that …. complicated?"

"Simplicity is overrated," Celeborn says, and finds that he means it.

*****

It comes as another surprise when Celeborn realizes that he has spent an entire winter in Ost-in-Edhil. He kept meaning to seek the quiet of the deep woods, but there were so many things to lure him: Galadriel laughing in conversation in the great hall, her eyes alight, Celebrimbor wrestling him cheerfully down into the bedsheets or twining silver flowers in his hair, and the cool quiet of the holly woods, not wilderness but enough respite to keep him from bridling at the company of his friends.

Galadriel is the one who has been gone half the year, having crossed in the fall through Khazad-dûm and lingered in the forests beyond. She has befriended Amdir, the lord of those woods, and comes back merry in the springtime, telling him tales of the eastern forest and its beauties.

"Is this my Noldor girl in raptures over a forest?" Celeborn teases. "I thought you were singing the praises of roofs and walls."

"And who is it who has stayed all winter long inside walls in order to seek my cousin's bed?"

He twines his fingers through hers, sharing her amusement. "I suppose even we can change that much."

"If we never changed at all, I expect we would sooner or later grow tiresome to each other," Galadriel says.

"Then I shall be sure to change just enough to keep your attention."

"You will always have that, infuriating man," she says, and leans her head on his shoulder. He strokes the golden waves of her hair.

"It seems to me that we could be happy here for long years to come," she says after a while. "Between the holly woods, and the city, and the mines of Khazad-dûm, and the forests of Lórinand beyond the mountains, and beyond it the Greenwood, and good roads now built between—"

"You sound as if you are trying to sell it to me," Celeborn says.

"I am trying to persuade you – and perhaps myself – that we could nest here like the swans."

"Isn't that what we've been doing?" he says, but he remembers their courtship; they shared their bodies and their wanderings for long years before she would entirely commit her heart. Somewhere in the centuries that have passed he has started calling Ost-in-Edhil "home" without even noticing it. Galadriel makes her choices less lightly.

"I think that we could," he says.

"Swans have young," she says after a while longer, and he feels his heart begin to fill with joy.

"So they do," he says, nestling against her shoulder. "What say we work on that?"

*****

Celebrian is a tender-hearted child, quick to laugh and equally quick to weep at anyone else's pain. She brings home broken-winged birds for her mother to nurse, and is the first to pet and comfort her small playmates in their childish sorrows. Ost-in-Edhil is grown big enough that she has at least a few agemates, and they are inseparable, a tumble of boys and girls running about with their playthings.

Some are marvelous playthings indeed, the flower of their craftsmen's art turned to making silver boats that sail themselves upon the river at a word of command or metal butterflies that flap their glittering wings in the sun. There are dwarf-made toys as well, and while Celeborn raises an eyebrow at Galadriel when they appear in Celebrian's nursery, he can only smile when Celebrian cradles them in delight.

There is less time to spend with friends or lovers, or for any other pursuits. The years of their daughter's babyhood are short in an immortal life, and both of them are content for a while to be parents before all else. Celebrimbor is busier than usual, besides, throwing himself into his latest project, rings of more than usual beauty that he says will have considerable power besides.

"This is really only a beginning," Celebrimbor says, one day when he and Celeborn are out walking through the holly groves, Celebrian running ahead, her hair streaming behind her. There are few dangers that can befall her this close to Ost-in-Edhil, but Celeborn keeps one eye on her all the same, the habits of the more dangerous years of his youth. "These will only be lesser rings."

"Less than what?"

"That the ones I mean to create when I master the craft."

"I thought you were a master of a dozen crafts already."

"I am always learning," Celebrimbor says. "Annatar has showed me secrets I would never have stumbled on in another thousand years."

"Do the two of you talk of nothing but metalworking?"

"When we talk," Celebrimbor says. He doesn't meet Celeborn's eyes, his cheeks coloring a little, and Celeborn puts an arm around his waist to show that he is not jealous.

He has been spending his own time with Galadriel and the child, after all, and venturing rarely to the towers of the jewelsmiths. He could hardly visit Celebrimbor's workshop with a toddling child who reaches with tender hands for anything bright, and on his few visits alone he has found Celebrimbor and Annatar in lengthy discussion of points of craft beyond his understanding. There will be time enough when Celebrian is older, and when Celebrimbor turns from his current enthusiasm to something new.

"There's been some talk that Ost-in-Edhil needs a lord," Celebrimbor says.

"I suppose it might," Celeborn says, although they have gotten along well enough so far with the guilds of craftsmen and architects to plan the city's growth, and the elder elves to settle any disputes that people cannot work out between themselves.

"You and the Lady were here before anyone else," Celebrimbor says. "It's probably yours by right."

Celeborn shakes his head. "I don't want to rule." It has been a relief to have people turn elsewhere for advice and judgment for a while, in the days of Celebrian's babyhood, and even now he shrinks from putting on the mantle of responsibility for the city in any way that he cannot shed again. The Lord of Eregion cannot wander the Greenwood with his daughter at his side, or seek solitude in the high mountain snows once Celebrian is old enough not to miss him for a few months at a time.

Celebrian comes running back now with her hands full of holly branches, bending them into an unpracticed wreath and stretching eagerly to crown Celeborn with it.

Celeborn strokes her hair and smiles at her, but hands the holly crown to Celebrimbor instead. "This I think is yours," he says.

Celebrimbor takes it with a solemn bow of thanks to Celebrian, and Celeborn can already see the circlet that he will make for himself to wear as Lord of Eregion, holly leaves of mithril to shine in his raven hair.

*****

The greater Rings of Power are Celebrimbor's triumph, although his fellow smiths have a hand in their making, and Annatar himself takes his turn to feed the forge. Celebrimbor takes the first of the rings to Khazad-dûm as a gift for the dwarf-king Durin, in token of his long friendship with their folk, and comes back flushed with the satisfaction of a gift that has clearly been well-received.

"What do you plan to do with the rest of them?" Celeborn asks.

"Give them away," Celebrimbor says. He shrugs at Celeborn's expression. "The point was never having them, only making them. I'm not like my grandfather, making things and then hoarding them like a dragon. Besides, they're meant to be used. To help people preserve all the beauties of this world, as Annatar says. He loves this world, you know. Not the perfection of the Blessed Lands. But Middle-Earth as it is."

"As do I," Galadriel says. They have stolen a few hours of ease in the garden, under the thinning branches of the birch tree. It is grown old, its branches brittle, and even with Galadriel's care, Celeborn is not sure that it will bloom again in spring. It is the second tree to grow outside their window since they came to Eregion, but the only one that Celebrian has ever known, and she will weep for its passing. "Or I would have returned into the West long ago."

She rests her hand on the trunk of the birch tree, her fingers gentle as if she might cause it pain if her hand rested too heavy. "And yet I wish myself that beautiful things might not pass away."

All summers end, Celeborn means to say, and yet with Celebrian's distant laughter rising from across the garden and the lamps being lit with the dusk, throwing their golden light across beautiful trees and equally beautiful arches and winding paths, this place, this moment, seems impossibly fragile and precious, something to be grasped and held tight at all costs.

"So do I," Celebrimbor says, a shadow passing for a moment over his face. He has grieved in his quiet way ever since his great friend Narvi died, an aged dwarf passing peacefully away with his kinsmen gathered at his bedside, proud of the work he had shared with Celebrimbor and regretting nothing. But Celeborn knows that the day's triumph would have been the sweeter for Celebrimbor had Narvi been there to see it.

Celebrimbor takes Galadriel's hand and raises it into the light, considering, and then raises her fingers to his lips to kiss them as she smiles.

*****

The Ring of Adamant shines on Galadriel's finger like a star caught between her fingers. Celebrimbor has the Ring of Fire on his own hand, and tilts it to catch firelight in its ruby depths.

"I might keep one," he says.

"You could hardly give it away, as closely as it fits your hand," Galadriel says, stroking her own ring contemplatively.

"They'll fit the hand of whoever wears them. I thought it would be more convenient that way."

"More likely for people to fight over them," Celeborn says. He remembers the Silmarils with a touch of chill.

"I can always make more," Celebrimbor says. "These I made entirely alone, to prove myself the master of the craft." He looks at Galadriel with a gleam of humor in his eyes. "And because it seemed not entirely tactful to ask Annatar to help me make love-gifts for another lover."

"Perhaps not tactful, no," Galadriel says in amusement, although it has been long since Galadriel shared Celebrimbor's bed; he is not sure she has returned there since Celebrian's birth, content with her husband's company and her friends in Lórinand.

"I wondered," Celebrimbor says, turning the third ring around in his fingers. Its stone is a cold blue set in a golden band, like ice reflecting the winter sun.

"It would be well to give one to Gil-galad," Celeborn says firmly. He is not certain what is in Celebrimbor's mind, only that he would not willingly take this ring even if it were offered as a love-gift. It reminds him all too sharply of the Nauglamir, a golden collar drenched in blood.

"I don't even like Gil-galad."

"Nevertheless, he is High King."

Celebrimbor shoves at the circlet of mithril holly leaves he wears, as if it is ill-fitting, as unlikely as that is to be true. "Don't remind me." He plays with the ring for another moment, and then makes it disappear into his sleeve. "I'm sure I will find some use for it in time."

He and Galadriel walk home through the garden, past where Celebrian is trying her hand at the harp under the eye of a patient musician. The old tree outside their window has at last been felled with sorrow and carried away, and a new sprout strains toward the light, urged upwards by Galadriel's power.

She bends now and cups it in her hands, and it unfurls more leaves as Celeborn watches, its trunk strengthening under her hands and its branches bending in graceful arcs. She smiles in radiant pleasure, and he can already see the tree that will be, ten or twenty years from now; perhaps this time in a few hundred years they will not have to bid it good-bye.

*****

Galadriel wakes screaming, and Celeborn is awake at once at her side, his blood running cold. She tears the ring from her finger as if it burns her, and turns to him with horror on her face.

"We are betrayed," she says, and her voice is grim as death.

Celebrian comes running in, her hair disheveled, her white gown swirling about her bare feet. "What is it? Are you all right?"

"Yes, sweetheart," Galadriel says, but her smile doesn't reach her eyes. She is already catching up a cloak to wrap around her, not taking the time to dress. "Your father and I will be back soon."

They climb the stairs to Celebrimbor's apartments as fast as they can without breaking into a run, Galadriel schooling herself to a walk as if to run would be to surrender to panic. Her hand reaches blindly for his, and he clasps it as they climb. Her fingers are cold in his.

Celebrimbor is sitting in front of the fire, the ruby ring lying on the floor at his feet. When he turns to face them, it is hard to bear the raw pain in his face. "He has made another ring," he says. "A master ring, one to rule the others and enslave their wearers, bending them to his will." The words are sharp and brittle, as if each one is a dagger in his heart.

"You knew this could be done?" Galadriel says, her voice dangerous.

"I knew it could be done, but none of my brothers in the craft would ever have abused their skill to do it. I never dreamed that he—"

"Not Annatar," Galadriel says, her eyes on his face, searching his heart and mind with all his strength.
Celeborn isn't sure that Celebrimbor can look away from the blue depths of her eyes, even if he wants to. "That is not his name."

"No," Celebrimbor says raggedly.

"He is Sauron returned. That servant of Morgoth who killed my brother and tormented our people for his pleasure."

"He is no one's servant now," Celebrimbor says. "Now he will be the master." There is rising panic in his voice, and he shakes his head as if he would break Galadriel's gaze if he could.

Abruptly she turns her head and buries her face in Celeborn's shoulder, and Celebrimbor covers his face with his hands.

*****
In the hours before dawn, Elrond joins them in Galadriel and Celeborn's apartments for a hurried and desperate council. Celebrian comes in with cups of spiced wine as if she were a page-boy, and hands one to Elrond solemnly, her eyes lingering on his face. She can know nothing but that he is worried, as they all are, but she extends the cup as if she wished to ease his grief.

"Thank you, little one," Elrond says. "But we must talk in private a while."

"He's right," Celeborn says, resting his hand on Celebrian's head. "I'll come to you in a while, but some things are not for children's ears."

He waits until she has gone out before nodding to Celebrimbor to speak.

"What are we going to do?" Celebrimbor says simply.

"The rings cannot stay in Ost-in-Edhil," Elrond says. "If what you say is true, our enemy will come seeking them. They are no use to him in your workshop."

"If I send them away, he will learn where they have been sent," Celebrimbor says. "It will only bring down his wrath on someone else's house rather than on my own."

"He does not know of the three you made yourself," Galadriel says. "And those at least you can send into safety, to be kept safe but never worn."

Celebrimbor opens his hand to reveal two rings, their ruby and sapphire gleaming dull in the pre-dawn light. He holds them out to Elrond, and after a long moment's hesitation Elrond takes them.

"I will take them to Gil-galad," Elrond says. "He will safeguard them." He turns to Galadriel. "And shall I take the third as well?"

Galadriel turns to Celeborn, and rests her forehead against his for a long moment, heedless of anyone else in the room. The ring is not the treasure that Celeborn is determined to safeguard, and yet he knows himself needed in Ost-in-Edhil, now more than ever before.

You may rely on me, and I will rely on you, Galadriel says, for him alone to hear. Then she raises her head and speaks for the benefit of the rest. "I will take the ring of adamant across the mountains into Lórinand, and take Celebrian with me," she says. "There she will be safe, and Sauron will have no reason to seek a ring he has never heard of in forests he has no reason to think of."

Celebrimbor nods, but for a moment his eyes rest on Celeborn as if seeking wildly for some support in a storm.

"I will stay," Celeborn says. He lifts his chin. "I find that I am not inclined to surrender my home without a fight."

"We'd better start preparing for one," Elrond says, unsmiling. "I will go and tell Gil-galad that he had better start finding us an army."

*****

Sauron fords the Isen and marches north with his armies. It is hard to be sure of their strength, as the scouts Celeborn sends out do not generally come back. It may not take a tremendous force to take Ost-in-Edhil, if no one comes to their aid. The city has walls and gates, but it is a market town, not a fortress, and Celeborn is not certain that it can withstand a siege for more than a few weeks.

"Durin will help us," Celebrimbor says.

"Durin says he will help us, but he has not yet sent us more than a handful of men," Celeborn says in frustration. "He keeps his forces in reserve at the edge of the mountains where they will do us little good."

"If Gil-galad comes, Sauron's forces could be trapped between them."

"And are you now a tactician?" Celeborn snaps, and then regrets the words. All their tempers are wearing thin, and although the craftsmen keep at their work as if they trusted entirely that the city's defenses would hold, no one sleeps sound. He spreads his hands in apology. "You are right, in fact. If Gil-galad comes in time."

"You might hold their vanguard off at the ford long enough for his forces to reach us."

"I might," Celeborn says. "If Gil-galad is drawing near already."

Celebrimbor smiles without humor. "If he is not, then it scarcely matters, does it?" He turns to take Celeborn by the shoulder and kisses him, taking him by surprise. They have not touched that way through the long hard weeks of waiting, and Celeborn had thought that well run dry with grief.

He rests a hand on Celebrimbor's shoulder. "I will go and do what I can," he says.

The fog lies heavy over the forest when he sets out with a small company of swordsmen and bowmen. They make their way cautiously to the ford, and there they wait. It is no different than hunting, Celeborn tells himself, and knows it is not true.

Then there are shapes moving in the fog, the misshapen forms of orcs running toward them, shouting curses as the come. The bows sing, and then they are among them, Celeborn's sword slashing again and again through flesh and bone.

Soon enough there are no orcs left standing, although a few are still breathing, bleeding their lives away into the river. Too soon, he thinks, straining to see through the fog. All orcs and no men, and far too few to be the vanguard of an invading army. This is a diversion. But there is nowhere else where they can cross the river without going miles downstream or crossing bridges under the bow-sights of the city guard.

There is a noisy rustle in the branches, and two young scouts burst among them breathless, young men of the Noldor with no skill in moving silently in heavy brush.

"They've crossed the river," one of them gasps. "Men with horses as well as orcs."

"They swam the river?"

"Not swam," the scout says grimly. "They have felled trees to build a bridge, and are crossing in great numbers. More than we could count."

He can say no more before the thunder of hooves sounds along the riverbank. The bowmen form ranks again in silence, and wait until the first of the horsemen come into view before they begin to shoot.

It is clear at once that there are too many of them to hold back, but there are footsoldiers in among the trees now as well, human and orcs alike, and every time Celeborn tries to draw his force back toward Ost-in-Edhil, they are pressed sharply back toward the ford, until they are wading in the river, and two of their number have fallen, their blood drifting downstream to mingle with the blood of orcs and men.

It is no place to try to make a stand with bowmen. "We must fall back," Celeborn says. "Fall back!"

They break and run, faster at least than the orcs, and once among the trees on the southern side of the river, the horses cannot pursue them with any ease. Celeborn swings himself easily up into the branches, the holly leaves scratching at his face and stinging his fingers as he climbs.

Those who can follow, covering the retreat of the Noldor swordsmen from among the branches. Eventually there is no sound but their own fast breathing and racing footsteps. Celeborn drops down to the forest floor and collects his forces as best he can.

A twig snaps behind him, and he sets an arrow to the string and turns in one moment. It is a young elf dressed for battle, but one he does not know, holding out his hands to forestall the arrow. For a moment Celeborn's hand trembles on the string before he lets it go slack.

"Who is your commander?" Celeborn demands.

"I am one of Lord Elrond's scouts," the man says, and Celeborn feels his throat close with relief. "His force is to the north and west, across the river."

"They hold the ford," Celeborn says. "And they have bridged the river so they may cross at will."

"I swam the river, downstream," the scout says. "If your men can swim as well, we can rejoin Lord Elrond's forces and tell them where the enemy's forces lie."

"We can swim," Celeborn says.

He comes into Elrond's camp bedraggled and still damp, but Elrond clasps his hands warmly in welcome.

"Well met, kinsman."

"And you as well," Celeborn says. He looks around the camp. "Has Gil-galad not come?"

Elrond shakes his head soberly. "He has not, nor has he committed the greater part of his forces. We are not sent to invade the southlands. For that Gil-galad waits for the Numenoreans to send their troops to us by sea. But he has sent me to hold the city if I can." Elrond frowned toward the river. "I had hoped we might even be able to force his troops back to the Isen, but I grow less convinced of that by the hour."

*****

Try as they may to make their way along the riverbank, Sauron's forces hold the river. Elrond is forced to draw back and skirt the holly forest in a wide circle north of the city. A week has passed before they press through the forest to approach the city from the north, not daring to send scouts ahead past the edge of the woods.

Celeborn can hear the gasps as the front ranks emerge from the woods, and he quickens his steps, with Elrond doing the same beside him. He can see now that through the holly branches, smoke is rising. One more step and he is come out onto the field above the city, or where the city stood a mere week before.

Now there are ruins, tumbled columns and heaps of stone, smoldering blackness where gardens once stood. The dead lie among the ruins, not only men in armor but craftsmen and women lying bloodied and waxen-faced where they fell.

Something moves, and there is the sound of a dozen bowstrings going taut. An elf stands from behind one of the fallen walls, his clothes stained with blood and ash, and Celeborn recognizes him as one of the craftsmen. He stands swaying a moment as if lost in dreaming and then runs toward them, the panicked flight for cover of a hunted wild thing.

Elrond catches the man by the shoulders and murmurs words of calming, and Celeborn steadies him by the arm.

"When did this happen?" Celeborn says. He cannot yet entirely believe in this disaster. It might yet be a dream if he does not reach out his hand to touch the fallen stone.

"Five days ago," the man says. "They came with siege weapons such as we had never seen. They built them before the walls, and when they came the walls crumbled before them. And he – Sauron –" The man ducks his head to hide it in his arm, trembling, and it is a long minute before even Elrond's quiet encouragement renders him able to go on.

"Celebrimbor would not abandon our work," the man says finally. "He made his stand in the doorway of the craft-hall, and there Sauron came upon him."

"And cut him down," Celeborn says, knowing there is no hope, but the man is shaking his head.

"He took him," he says. "He took him living. He stood over him as he lay pierced by arrows and demanded to know where he had hidden the rings he had made for dwarves and mortal men, and Celebrimbor shook his head and said he would not tell him."

"And so he has taken him to question him," Elrond says. There is a cautious note of hope in his voice. Taken is not dead. He looks around the plain. In the distance, more smoke rises from the campfires of Sauron's forces. "Have Durin's folk not come?"

"They sent their scouts, but when they saw how we were overrun, and your host had not yet come—"

Elrond swears bitterly and turns aside for a moment. "I curse now every day that we delayed preparing," he says.

"You must send to Durin now," Celeborn urges. "We might yet trap the enemy's forces between our own."

"I will," Elrond says, and signals for his scouts.

At that moment there is the sound of horns blowing, and a stirring in the camps of the enemy. Elrond bends his head for a moment. "No time, we have no time," he says, but he waves the scouts to go all the same.

They make their stand among the ruins, with a few of the city's folk emerging from the ruins or from the woods around to join them. Celeborn cannot bring himself to turn and look over the city; he keeps his eyes fixed on the advancing army, orcs and men on foot with horsemen ready at their flanks to stop any attempt to break away.

"We have the high ground, and the shelter of the walls," Elrond says. "What is left of them. We may still prevail." He is looking over the enemy's forces with a measuring eye, judging their ground. "Their horsemen will be of little use among the fallen stones."

Then the front ranks of the infantry part to let through another company of riders. At their head is Annatar – Sauron, Celeborn reminds himself, although he has still that luminous beauty. He is carrying something heavy aloft on a pike, shrouded in cloth, and as he draws near to the city walls one of his men tugs at the cloth and lets it fall.

Celebrimbor's hands and feet are gone, his body pierced and burned until there is scarcely an inch of unbloodied skin, but his face remains untouched, waxen and open-eyed, crowned with silver holly leaves. The body is impaled upon the pike as a battle standard, and as Sauron rides forward under that banner, Elrond's front ranks break and fall stumbling back, despite Elrond's orders to stand.

It is a rout, not a retreat. Celeborn finds himself pursued through the wreckage of the city, only a handful of his men about him. One of his men falls, an orc arrow through his throat, and Celeborn turns and shoots. He is running out of arrows, and his hands are wet with blood.

He does not realize he has reached the edge of the woods until he feels the holly branches scratching at his face. He stumbles into someone, and finds that it is Elrond, his face bruised and streaked with blood.

"We must retreat to the east," Elrond says. "If we can ford the river to the east, we may yet reach Durin's forces. And if not –" He looks eastward as if he could see beyond the trees. "We will make for the hidden dell," he says. "Those of us who still live."

They reach the eastern ford in great confusion, fleeing stragglers and refugees from the city joining them as they go, and orcs and men in small groups setting upon them when they stumble into each other. Once again there is a rising fog. On the other side, Elrond comes up short, preparing to order them back across the ford, and then Celeborn can see him sag in relief.

The forms appearing out of the fog are dwarves, and with them elves lightly armored in leather. They are Amdir and some of his people from Lórinand, Celeborn understands eventually, sent by Galadriel through Khazad-dûm to urge Durin's folk to press forward to the city.

"It is too little and too late," Elrond says. "I have not enough strength left to support an advance. Ost-in-Edhil is in flames, and Sauron's forces hold the harbor and the western ford."

The dwarves confer among themselves, and are interrupted by another body of orcs setting upon them with a hail of arrows, not well-aimed but striking home nonetheless. Celeborn fights because it would require more thought to do anything else, tugging his sword free to let an enemy corpse fall. In the distance he can hear the sound of hoofbeats.

"We must fall back," Elrond says.

"We make for the gates of our city," the dwarf captain says. "There we can stand."

"I am going east," Elrond says. He turns to Celeborn. "Will you come with me, or make for Lórinand?"
Galadriel is in Lórinand with Celebrian. It is the most pressing reason to move from this spot that
Celeborn can summon up.

"I go to Lórinand," he says, turning toward the gates of Khazad-dûm.

*****

The west doors of Khazad-dûm are far above them. Lamps light their way through the dark, down long stairs and vast pillared galleries. Eventually they reach a hall that smells of blood and sweat under the sweet perfume of herbs.

Celeborn sits down on the steps outside. The elven wounded who can go no further are taken within and laid upon pallets to be tended by the healers. Amdir comes out after a while and tries to speak with him, but the words seem to fall into a great echoing darkness.

After a while Amdir goes away again. The world is reduced to this dark stair, and although Celeborn knows himself only lightly wounded, he cannot force himself to his feet. He lies staring up at the shadows of the vaulted ceiling as if the stars might appear there.

Some unmeasured time passes. Eventually a dwarf emerges from the house of healing and comes to sit on the stair beside Celeborn. He looks somewhat familiar, but Celeborn cannot put a name to his face.

"Master Celeborn," the dwarf says after a while.

"I am master of no art," Celeborn says, and finds his voice hoarse.

"Lord Celeborn, then. Your friends from Lórinand mean to leave soon. They want to be back to their woods, and show their kin that they still live. Will you go with them, or stay here and rest with the wounded?"

"I am not so badly hurt," Celeborn says. His coat is rent and stained with blood, but he could walk if he could find the strength to do so. The darkness feels like a breathing thing atop him, its heavy paws on his chest pressing him down.

"If my home lay in ruins, I would not say the same."

He turns his face away, the stone of the stair cold against his cheek.

There is another reasonably companionable silence. "You'd best get up," the dwarf says after a while. "Before someone treads on you."

"Little would I care," he says.

There is the sound of a blade being drawn, and Celeborn comes alive at the sound, starting up and scrambling to his feet, his hand on his own sword.

"I thought that might move you," the dwarf says. "You see, you've some desire to live still."

"I cannot rest here beneath the earth," he says. Now that he is on his feet again, he feels the desire to flee blindly toward the sunlight above.

"Then you'd best start walking," the dwarf says. "I can tell you that my realm will be no place for elves in the days to come. I cannot let my doors stand open when your enemies come to batten them down."

"King Durin," Celeborn says in sudden recognition.

"Lord Celeborn. Bear my greetings to your lady, and tell her that I am sorry to see Eregion fall. I don't expect such times will ever come again."

"Nor do I," Celeborn says, and sets his face to the east.

*****

The sun is shining in Lórinand when Celeborn finds Galadriel under the trees. She throws herself into his arms, and he holds her tight, and then kneels to rest his face against her skirts. Her hands rest in his hair, saying with their caresses what neither of them can speak.

After a while they walk hand in hand among the trees. "We heard the city had fallen," she said. "Durin's folk sent us word. When I heard—" She turns her face away for a moment. "I feared you would not return."

"I am here," he says, and she clutches at his hand and draws him closer. He buries his face in her hair and breathes in her warmth, like a tree turning toward the sun.

They sit on the bank above a still pool and watch the swans swimming, turning slow circles among the drifting leaves. Neither of them can find the words to speak of what they have lost. He is not sure they ever will, but he is here beside her while Celebrian runs laughing under the leaves, safe under the eyes of Galadriel's friends.

"We could stay here a while," he says. He is done with cities.

She leans against his shoulder. "So we could," she says.

There is still this, always this, certain as the sunlight. He puts an arm around her waist and leans against her in return, trusting that if they wait here long enough under the vaulting treetops, another spring will come.