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Taur-im-Duinath, empty forest, was a mirror that reflected back nothing Elwing could use, nothing that could still her raging heart or quiet her screaming mind. She stood alone in the dark, the branches over her head so thick that they blotted out the stars. Rage and despair warred within her, shaking her limbs and stoppering her mouth.
The Kinslayers would have to have passed through this forest. It was too near to the Havens of Sirion, and too large to skirt around—not to mention that the lands surrounding the forest were crawling with orcs and other fell creatures of the Enemy’s. They must have, but Elwing could find no trace of them. No road cut through the dark, tangled trees, no flattened undergrowth (the new ferns already brushed Elwing’s knees), no hoof prints, no wheel tracks. The captors and murderers of her kin had passed out of the land like ghosts dissolving in morning light.
When the attack came, Elwing’s mind had jumped to the defense of the Silmaril. It was ever foremost in her thoughts, the shining, pulsing jewel, rooted beneath her skin, snarled in her heart, hooks too deep in her flesh for her ever to let it go. And indeed, the Sons of Fëanor, when they came as death to the Havens of Sirion, did not carry off their intended prize, nor the queen who held it. Elwing could only imagine their ire when they realized that the Silmaril had slipped their bloodied hands yet again, but it was cold comfort.
When the attack came, Elwing jumped to safeguard the greatest treasure of her broken people, that which was too precious for her to part with. And when the attack was done, she still held that treasure in her hands, but found instead that her sons were taken from her.
At night, the winds were still bitter and cutting as any winter chill. They blew mercilessly on Elwing’s thin, bare arms, and whipped her black curls back and forth, but she had no mind for the cold—rather, her hands went to the thick scarf over her neck, when the wind threatened to blow it away. She cast her wild gaze about the tangled trees, a scream building in her throat, but never escaping.
She had been lax. She had passed the sack of the Havens as she passed many days, in a dream, neither pleasant nor terrifying, but gray and ghostly, where living care had to reach far to pierce the veil. But when the sack was done and choking smoke reached her, Elwing woke at last from the dream, and saw the truth: she had been horribly lax. Círdan and Gil-Galad had not been able to cross the bay soon enough to stop the Kinslayers from escaping. Where Eärendil was, Elwing could not say—only too far away, always too far away.
How many, now? Thingol harassed and Lúthien and Beren assaulted. Dior and Nimloth, Father and Mother, slain in snowy caves, the latter without the meanest weapon in her hands. Eluréd and Elurín dragged out in the dead of snowy night, abandoned in the dark forest, never to be seen again. A ragged laugh tore from Elwing’s lips. Her brothers had been no older than her sons were now. Would she find two small corpses in this forest, coated with frost rather than snow, or would Elrond and Elros be as their uncles, lost for eternity?
Am I to be the last of my house? Am I to lose every member of my family to these accursed Kinslayers?
Am I to be left with no one, while they go unpunished?
Elwing’s white hand went, almost of its own accord, to her scarf. She needed light, and there was no light greater than the one she wore around her neck, even now. Unveiled, the Silmaril gleamed as Anor might were it silver, as bright as any star that ever hung in the sky. The Silmaril had been her solace since childhood, since she first arrived in the Havens as the orphaned, child queen of a shell-shocked, massacred people. Even if she would no longer give it mastery of her, it was still her solace. She clutched at it with both hands, her heart calming, disparate trains of thought coalescing into a single voice, that said:
Even with this, you cannot wreak retribution on your enemies. You are a queen, the descendant of a Maia who protected an entire kingdom from outside threats for centuries, of Lúthien, who sang songs of power against Gorthaur and won, whose enchantments snared even the Enemy. But you are not the equal of your forbearers, and you cannot make those who have wronged you pay for their crimes. You are… small.
Elwing gritted her teeth.
Something flickered in the dark beyond her, darting furtively from tree to tree. Elwing’s head snapped up, and she frowned deeply at the shadow that seemed to flee from the Silmaril’s light. “Who is that?” she demanded sharply, her typically quiet voice rising to stridency.
There came no answer. Elwing moved towards where she had seen the shadow last, her jaw set. No harm could befall her while she wore the Silmaril, and impure hands would burn if they touched it to take it from her. Finally, she caught sight of a mass of shadows, quivering like a living thing. “Who is that,” she asked evenly, “who hides in the shadows like a thief?”
“Someone who has smelled your bloodlust, and was curious,” the shadow replied, in a rattling, whispery voice.
“Then show yourself to me.”
“The light—"
“Show yourself.”
The power that suddenly infused Elwing’s voice was unlooked-for, but it did what it needed to. The shadow let out a half-defensive, half-pained snarl as it drew up from the forest floor and shifted, molding itself into physical form. Slowly, laboriously, it took shape as a nís, tall and gaunt, stark white skin riddled with blue-black veins. Her dark hair hung in lank clumps around her shoulders; her fingers and toes tapered into claws rather than nails, and they were filthy, stained with dirt and gore. Her dark eyes gleamed with hunger that must have gone unsated for decades. With a jolt, Elwing recognized her—no nís, no Adan woman, but something else entirely. “I know you,” she whispered.
Thuringwethil smirked, her dark lips curling back to reveal long, yellowed teeth. “And I know you, little queen. Words travel far over the plains, and the blood of Melian is dilute, but not entirely spent.”
“What do you want?”
Those lamp-like eyes flashed. “What any cast-off servant wants, little queen.” Thuringwethil’s gaze strayed to Elwing’s throat. “The means to return to her master’s favor…”
Elwing closed her hand over the Silmaril at her throat, so that only two stray shafts of light shot out, illuminating Thuringwethil’s sunken face and her black-cowled shoulder. “You cannot take the Silmaril by force,” Elwing said flatly. “It would burn you if you even tried. You cannot take it, and neither can you harm me while I bear it.”
“This I know.”
“If you followed me back to my home, you would be cut down before you could claim even a single victim for your cause.”
Thuringwethil laughed mockingly, a jarringly guttural sound for someone with so feeble a voice. “Your home is a smoking ruin, but I don’t doubt that you people would try to drive me away, if they thought it would protect you.”
Elwing swept her gray cloak closer to her body, until it enveloped her like a pair of wings. “So what is your design, then?”
“To feed on strays,” Thuringwethil answered her frankly, “until my strength has returned.” She bared her teeth in a grin. “How long do you think your people will be safe once I am strong? What of you?” she asked in a purring voice. “How long before your vigilance slips, and I come for you?”
“Anor and Ithil will fall to the earth before that day comes,” Elwing retorted, but even as she did so, she narrowed her eyes in speculation. Thuringwethil was no stalwart ally—enemy to her grandmother, and would-be enemy to Elwing herself. Elwing would have to take care to cut off any treachery from her before it could take wing. But she could be useful, all the same. Elwing fixed Thuringwethil in a piercing stare and asked, softly, “You hunger, creature?”
Thuringwethil chuckled croakily. “I always hunger, little queen. I am like the light-devourer in that; we are always looking to sate our hunger.” She snarled. “And yet your people, even culled and driven to the edges of the Sea, are too mindful of their own safety for me to feed without someone sounding the alarm.”
“And if I offered you Edhil no one in all the world would leap to defend?”
At this, Thuringwethil’s gaze sharpened. “The ones who have driven you here? Who are they, that the rest would not fall upon me for feeding upon them?”
Elwing told her, almost too calmly, “The sons of Fëanor. The Kinslayers, enemies to all.”
“My competition!” Thuringwethil exclaimed in almost child-like delight, but a moment later, she drew herself up, her face full of anticipation. “And while I grow strong on your enemies’ blood, you grow more vulnerable.”
Elwing stared stonily at her. “Perhaps.”
“What are you terms, then?”
“There… The Kinslayers have taken my sons hostage. They are small boys, twins, named Elrond and Elros. They are like in appearance to myself—black hair, pale skin, gray eyes. If they live still, they are to be unharmed. The rest…” Elwing drew a deep breath, her heart pounding. This was it. Even if the targets were murderers and pariahs, it was still a terrible thing to say. But Elwing tipped her chin up, and said, “Do with the rest as you will. I ask only that the Sons of Fëanor are slain. Three times now they have slain my kin, and I will not suffer them to continue. They have hounded my family for too long.”
Thuringwethil tilted her head to one side. “Fate is rarely kind to your family, and the House of Fëanor no kinder; I doubt your children draw breath still. But I will slay your enemies. The Calaquendi’s blood is potent.” She leered. “And the blood of Lúthien will be sweet on my lips, when I am strong enough to overpower you.”
Elwing met her gaze squarely. She could hardly bring herself to care about that possibility. Not if, at last, she could be avenged. If her family could be avenged. “And maybe you will stay my creature,” she murmured, “even after the Kinslayers are dead.”
She held out a hand to seal the pact. Thuringwethil eyed it in apparent amusement, but she closed her hand around Elwing’s much smaller one. Her touch was cold and clammy, but Elwing had not expected anything else.
-0-0-0-
There is a tale that goes thus:
In the south there is a queen of great beauty and wisdom, and terrible power. She was anointed with the blood of her enemies that ran red over the plains of the north. She holds captive a star that she wears in a fabulous jeweled necklace. This, most agree, is the source of her power.
Her kingdom is vast, reaching all over the southern reaches of the world. Elves and Men and Dwarves alike flocked to her banner, fleeing the destruction in the north at the hands of the Dark Lord, and they have enriched her kingdom greatly. Her line is secure in the lives of her two sons. Her rule is a peaceful one. Her rule is unquestioned. Her enemies do not thrive here.
Sometimes, a shadow lingers behind her throne, staring hungrily at everything that passed its field of vision. It quivers and ripples, it puts hands on the back of the throne and on the queen’s shoulders, but the shadow is just a shadow, and the daylight shows it for what it was. It is the queen’s creature, restive, perhaps, but obedient. It found its master long ago.