Chapter Text
“She lives.”
Galadriel knows that voice. That drawled, amused, slightly condescending voice. Her mind is still hazy from sleep but her heart warms with an instinctive flicker of happiness.
“No stew this time, I’m afraid,” the voice continues, rough with the accent of the Southlands. “Poisoned or otherwise.”
His words and the familiarity of the walls around her overlap in her mind, nudging her to remember something. She follows their trail sluggishly, slotting memories into place as she finds them. She takes a moment to admire the full picture – and then comes the weight of remembering, of loss and rage, crushing her with a weight so heavy it pins her to the stone cot beneath her. Her breath leaves her in a rush, exhaling those last little sleepy shards of hope.
Except she hadn’t been asleep. She’d been unconscious, victim of a blow to the head from a Númenórean ambush. In the days it had taken to reach Armenelos, they had slipped herb-infused water past her parched lips to keep her in a state of sedation. She half-remembers the bitter taste and the head-swimming sensation that had followed each gulp.
They left her in a cell, perhaps the same one they’d taken her to during her first visit to Númenor. Judging from the raised and echoing quality of the voice that had spoken to her, they have left her with the same companion as last time, too.
The one calling to her with such familiarity does so because he knows her, and she knows him, and his betrayal had cut so much deeper because of it. She’d had her eyes open for less than a heartbeat when he spoke. He must have been watching her closely, or else was so attuned to her that he sensed the moment she returned to consciousness. She isn’t sure which is worse.
Galadriel lifts her head enough to confirm that there’s an empty cell separating them, the same as last time. It’s still too close. It’s still not close enough. She returns her gaze to the stone ceiling. The usual weight of a blade at her hip is missing but Nenya’s comforting presence still rests on her finger. Strange that the guards should have left her that, but perhaps they didn’t realise its significance.
Her battle instincts scream at her to keep the enemy in her sights, loud enough that she almost turns to face him. Something stops her, warns her to gather her strength before she does. The battle that awaits her is one of wits and will.
“Galadriel,” he says softly. “Won’t you at least look at me?”
It would be cowardice not to, and Galadriel is no coward – no matter how much, in this moment, she longs to be. How she wishes to huddle into herself, eyes screwed closed, hands firmly over her ears so that even her Elven hearing could not detect another word from the Man who inspires such weakness in her.
But he is no Man, and Galadriel is no coward.
She tenses her arms to stop them from trembling as she lifts herself up. Her body is dutifully burning through the last of the poison but she’s still weaker than she would prefer. With one fortifying breath, she rises from the cot and turns to face Sauron.
He’s already standing, arms at his sides, open for her perusal. As expected, he wears Halbrand’s face. His appearance isn’t the unexpected dagger to her heart it had been on the cliffs above Eregion, where the sight of him had made her falter, but a tiny shattering still occurs in her chest.
If he had arrived in armour, it’s since been stripped from him. He’s back in a smith’s garb, his belted green tunic slightly wrinkled as though he’d come straight from the forge. Galadriel lingers on his muscled arms, her thoughts empty of the appreciation she’d once admonished herself for even as she stole another glance. He is far stronger than he appears, even without his sorcery, and she is without weapons or full health. If he decides to attack, there is little chance of her victory.
She lifts her scrutiny past the strands of hair that curl around his chin, past his beard, past the small quirk of his lips. When her eyes finally meet his, there’s a gentleness in his gaze.
“There she is,” he murmurs.
Everything about him is warm and fond, as though she has returned from a long journey and he’s welcoming her home, brushing snow from her cloak and pressing a hot drink into her hands.
“Did the guards harm you?” he asks. “They weren’t as gentle with me as they could have been, but there was no-”
“Do not take this form with me.”
It’s a command disguised as a plea. Her mind pushes her to remember that she cannot mourn something she never had, but her heart doesn’t seem to understand. It had finally found another which thudded to its own lost and lonely beat and nothing – not breaking, not scathing attacks from logic – had managed to sever that connection.
He raises an eyebrow. “Does it not please you?”
The question may as well be rhetorical; they both know the truth.
“I prefer to see my enemy as he truly is,” Galadriel says. “Sauron.”
A fleeting coldness passes over his face, gone almost before Galadriel could detect it. He smiles, close-lipped, and moves until he’s a single step away from pressing his face against the bars. Galadriel, unsure if it would be weakness to step closer or further away, stays where she is.
“Flattering though it is to know the sight of me vexes you to distraction,” he says, “I have taken this form with everyone. I was already on my way to Númenor when I was attacked, and there’s no benefit to using an Elven visage here. Something about Elves being vainglorious, haughty, and generally unpleasant to be around?”
Despite the insults, his tone rests on the teasing side of cruelty. He’s banking on Halbrand’s charm and familiar way of speaking to lower her defences. Galadriel steels herself.
“Why are we here?”
He bristles at her tone, annoyed at her refusal to sink back into their old camaraderie. It’s such a Halbrand expression that Galadriel has to remind herself of the lie in front of her. How many times had the Southlander shot her this exact irritated look? She could paint a perfect copy of it, studied first from repetition and then through increasingly lingering gazes on his face. A useless memory to have, and the softness attached to it more so, but she has not yet managed to scrub it from her mind.
“It’s a pity you did nothing to rehabilitate your people’s image when you were last in Númenor,” he says, words clipped. “In fact, I’d argue quite the opposite. The last time Pharazôn saw us together, we were allies. He’s since discovered who I am, and, well, if he could learn the truth, then how could it be possible that Galadriel of the Noldor, Daughter of the Golden House of Finarfin, Commander of the Northern armies of High King Gil-galad, had no idea of my true nature?”
Galadriel refuses to react, but each title cuts her deeper with its intended mockery. All her power, bloodlines, experience, and expertise had come to naught when it counted. She had been deceived as easily as one might trick a small child.
“No,” Sauron continues in that same sardonic tone, “surely, we were working together to deceive Númenor. We’ve been brought here to receive his justice.”
Galadriel presses her lips together to trap the shout of frustration that’s building. Is she to be punished for her accidental association with Sauron for the rest of her existence?
“Where is Míriel?” she asks, forcing patience.
“Not sure. In a prison more gilded than ours, presumably.”
It had been a coup, then. Galadriel scans the other cells for occupants she can rally to her cause. They are empty, but she won’t feel disheartened. She will instil Míriel – her actual ally – back on the throne once her current situation has resolved itself. However that might happen.
“And Elendil?”
“Elendil is dead.”
Galadriel’s eyes flash to Sauron as her heart drops.
“Or fled.” He shrugs, although he seems pleased by her attention. “I wasn’t paying much attention and may have misheard.”
He grins at her, unbothered by the glare she shoots him in return.
“Your allies would be little help to you, anyway,” he continues. “All Númenor believes we are in league. One of Pharazôn’s soldiers in particular called you some of the vilest things I have ever heard come out of a Man’s mouth.” He pauses. “I ripped his tongue out for it.”
For the first time, his gaze slips away from hers. His brow furrows with the passing confusion of examining his motives and not quite understanding what he finds. It chills Galadriel. Then he smiles and looks back to her.
“I’d hoped to take his full head – and would have done, were I at full power – but I suppose the tongue sends a better message. More poetic.”
Every syllable that comes from his mouth is carefully chosen, precise enough to further his goals by whichever exact measurement he desires. Galadriel knows this, and so it is with great annoyance with herself that she repeats, “Full power?”
“The transformation from this form into Annatar and back again has taken more strength than I anticipated.” He doesn’t sound resentful, or even inconvenienced. “Nothing I won’t recover, of course, but it has me at a slight disadvantage for the moment.”
Galadriel doesn’t believe him for a second and tells him as much. He laughs, eyes crinkled as though he’s genuinely delighted with her. She looks away, feigning an inspection of the cell doors. She should have known better than to ask him anything and expect the truth.
“It’s no matter,” he says, still cheered. “I have whiled away my time in far worse places, with far worse company.”
Galadriel would cut his throat if she could.
“Am I to believe you are content to wait here until Pharazôn decides what to do with us?” she asks, losing patience with each successive word.
“I know what Pharazôn intends.” Sauron taps the bars of his cage with a vaguely interested expression, as though testing the quality of the metalwork. “He enjoys pageantry. He’ll want to put us to very public trial, likely paraded through the streets in some form of dishevelment, and have a long list of our faults and failures relegated to a crowd.”
His tone remains casual despite the grim predictions. He gives a bar one final tap and then nods, apparently impressed. Galadriel frowns.
“The thought does not anger you?”
“It won’t get to that,” he dismisses. “Pharazôn knows power when he sees it. He seeks to humble me for a few days but he will call me to council soon enough.”
Pharazôn must have heard tell of Sauron’s temporary weakness – and believed it, the fool – or else he would realise what terrible arrogance it is to think to chasten a Maia.
“You hardly seem humbled,” Galadriel mutters.
Sauron laughs. “Númenor has become so pampered that even their idea of punishment is a luxury compared to the horrors I have faced.”
“And inflicted.”
He inclines his head, allowing the point even as the corner of his mouth tightens. He’ll tolerate her sharp words, Galadriel notices, and even enjoy them – but he dislikes the reminder that she knows who he truly is. Perhaps he has settled into Halbrand’s mind as well as his form.
Galadriel turns away to sit on the shorter edge of her cot. He remains in her periphery and does not throw the insults she expects at being ignored.
That does not, of course, mean that he’s silent.
“They took your ring,” he says, and then sighs. “You should have given it to me. I’d have kept it safe.”
Galadriel is about to snap back when she glances down. Her fingers are bare. Despite the weight of Nenya, despite its soothing presence in her mind, there is no ring to be seen. She flexes her middle finger as subtly as she can and tries not to gasp at the feeling of the ring shifting.
A memory returns. She had fought the Númenórean guards who had brought her here – slain a few of them, despite her initial aim of incapacitating – but a blinding pain at the back of her head had forced her to her knees. Her sword was wrested from her grip and she managed a last, desperate thought of concealing Nenya before she sank into darkness.
Nenya must have understood.
“You didn’t notice?”
Sauron is sceptical, bordering on suspicious. Galadriel throws him a glare, eager to distract him from delving deeper.
“I have been preoccupied,” she snaps. “And what of your rings? Where are they?”
“Your interrogation tactics leave much to be desired, Elf. Even the Númenóreans did better.”
Galadriel scoffs. “A successful interrogation does not result in whatever lies you fed them.”
“I didn’t lie to them,” Sauron says smoothly. “They asked if we were allies, I told them we were. They asked if you knew who I was, I told them you did. They didn’t specify timelines or tenses and I chose not to elaborate. Besides, they’d have hardly believed we weren’t still working together when I told them exactly where to find you.”
Galadriel had been so prepared to retort about his ridiculous use of semantics that it takes her a moment to understand his final sentence.
“You – how did you…?”
As though in answer, the wound beneath her collarbone flares with lightning-hot pain, as fresh as if it had been gouged into her moments before. Galadriel grits her teeth against the agony and pictures black veins reaching out like fingers, grasping into her skin, desperate to dig their way inside her.
She looks back to Sauron when the pain fades, ready for his feigned sympathy or his taunts, but he’s silent. His gaze, even at this distance, burns into her like he’s carving her open anew. She rises to her feet but hesitates at moving closer.
“What black sorcery is this?” she asks, the demand wavering into something uncertain.
“A natural next step in our tale.” Sauron closes the distance between himself and his bars, gripping them as though he means to tear them apart. He is a beast at the end of his tolerance with his enclosure. “Fate wound a ribbon around our hands the moment I reached out to haul you onto the raft.”
“A ribbon?” Galadriel could laugh or cry. “It is a chain.”
Sauron is unperturbed. “You feel its weight differently than I. We are no less bound.”
“If we are bound it is of your own design. Fate did not push you to impale me on a crown.” The patience she has been holding onto since she woke slips away, overtaken by the remembered helplessness of being pinned before him, afraid and in pain, while he forced her to look at him. “Only you, in your cruelty and pettiness, chose to do that.”
“And look what it has wrought. While you were so stubbornly ignoring the bond as though that would make it go away, I was studying it. Testing it.” His eyes light with a fervour she wants to shrink away from. She raises her chin instead, a challenge for him to continue. “I called out to the darkness in you and you replied with the most beautiful song, one whose melody I had thought long lost.”
“I did no such thing,” Galadriel snaps.
“You sang to me to find you and I did. Through a proxy of Númenórean guards, I’ll grant you, but they saved me the trouble of coming to get you myself.”
Galadriel cannot pinpoint the moment it happened, but she realises Sauron has shed his affable Halbrand mask. There is no warmth in him now save the heat of his predatory gaze. Galadriel has more sense than to taunt him, but she is not prey and will not act like it.
“I have already told you I will never stand at your side.”
Sauron straightens. His presence is imposing enough that she feels towered over even across the empty cell which divides them. He wears a deceptively soft expression, watching her with a depthless patience she knows he does not truly possess.
“I always get what I want in the end, Galadriel. Denying me will only prolong your suffering.”
A door opens in the distance, followed by the slowly-growing sounds of boots marching. Galadriel goes instantly to her cell door, eager to leave the dungeons and find the first opportunity to escape Númenor. Sauron huffs a quiet laugh but does not comment. He watches with mild interest as four guards enter the room, swords and stern expressions at the ready. They stop outside his cell but don’t move to unlock it.
“Hm. Earlier than anticipated.” Sauron glances at her. “Now that you’re here, Pharazôn will likely use threats to your safety to leverage whatever it is he wants from me.”
He is Halbrand again, the persona shrugged on like a wealthy man switches out coats. Galadriel stares at him, unnerved by the pretence. He pretends to misunderstand her silence for the benefit of the gathered guards and smiles at her.
“They’ll remain only threats,” he says, reassuring. “And Númenor will see a sharp and sudden rise in mute soldiers if any of them dare speak against you.”
There’s an uneasy shuffling among the guards. Three of them look to a fourth, who is visibly reluctant. A discussion must have happened before their arrival, with the unfortunate fourth guard being selected to retrieve Sauron from his cell. Galadriel is no expert in gauging the ages of Men – their lifespans are so terribly short that they barely settle into one face before it withers into the next – but this one seems young. Still, to his credit, he approaches the cell door and unlocks it with only the slightest tremor in his hands.
“We’re to escort you to an audience with our King, Ar-Pharazôn,” he informs Sauron, who nods.
“I will be glad to go,” he says.
This seems to bolster the guard. He approaches Sauron with less hesitance than he’s shown thus far, although he keeps his sword in close range. Galadriel holds her breath, preparing herself for a sudden spray of blood – likely not belonging to the man in possession of the weapon – and ensuing chaos. The guard raises a hand to clamp around Sauron’s arm but then wrenches it back down to his side with a yelp.
“I said I will be glad to go,” Sauron says calmly. “There is no need for force.”
Galadriel frowns. Had the guard faltered under Sauron’s glare? Had Sauron moved swiftly to smack his hand away? She hadn’t seen movement, but then the angled shadows from the dungeon’s lamps could have concealed it.
The guard does not flinch as Sauron brushes past him. When he does follow it’s with an unusual gait and both arms down straight at his sides. None of his fellow guards say a word, or move to restrain Sauron when he exists the cell. Sauron looks from one guard to the next, a satisfied glint in his eyes.
“Away, then.”
“Release me,” Galadriel orders. She has more pride than to clutch the cell bars, and ensures there is more haughtiness than panic in her voice. “I would speak to Pharazôn, too.”
Sauron glances at her and shakes his head. “No, you will stay here for now.”
The casual dismissal boils her blood, and more so when none of the guards speak up against him. She is ready to sneer at them for their supposed new allegiance when she notices the stiff, pained looks on each of their faces. She’s watching them so intently, trying to understand the source of their discomfort, that she startles when, as one, they walk towards Sauron. There is eerie synchronicity in their movements but they are not fluid or gentle. The guards jerk as though they’re puppets on strings as they arrange themselves in a diamond formation around him.
Through it all, Sauron’s hands twist and weave, orchestrating their wills without a hint of effort in his expression.
Galadriel dares not breathe, certain that the sound would rattle and betray her fear. The very air feels heavy with wrongness and threat. What other powers does he hold? What other perversions of the natural world, of free will?
“Before we depart…” Sauron flexes his fingers. Galadriel feels a sick twist of dread in her stomach. “Bow to your Queen.”
As one, the guards twist towards Galadriel and bend sharply at the waist like they’ve been snapped in half. She bites back a cry of horror. Before she can demand that Sauron release them, the guards have straightened with that same awful, rigid motion, and turned to leave.
Monster, she thinks but does not say. There’s little use; she doesn’t mean the word as an insult but rather a recognition, a warning to herself that she is not safe.
As though he hears the word anyway, Sauron smiles and dips his head towards her, his own version of a bow.
The guards begin their march and soon Galadriel is left alone, staring at Sauron’s retreating back as he strides away, at ease in the centre of his web of influence.