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In summer, there came to Rómenna two things, in terms of weather. One was thunderstorms that shook the houses to their foundations, rattling windowpanes, felling trees by wind or by lightning, flooding houses and making roads impassable by carriage or wagon, and occasionally setting fire to whole neighborhoods. The second was wall upon wall of cloying, choking heat, so laden with moisture that within five minutes of setting from your front door, you might feel as though you had been running for miles and miles—the moisture clung to your hair and your skin and your clothes. It was hardly any better inside, in some ways worse, for at least outside you could catch a breeze if one happened to play.
There hadn’t been a storm for a fortnight, for which Fíriel was grateful; she feared lightning and thunder, feared every bolt would light the roof of their house, or every rumble would bring the house crashing down. But that left the heat. Someone, Elennúmen probably, had ordered that all the windows on the second floor be opened, in the likely-vain hope of catching a breeze. Even little Númeniel could have told her grandmother that it would do no good, that the air had been still since the last storm, but no one gainsaid her. The air outside was a little less sour than that found within.
Fíriel sat out on one of the small balconies, absently twisting in her hands the stem of a spray of lavaralda blossoms Elendur had brought from the garden. She trained her eyes on the road north out of Rómenna, the road that snaked across the countryside until it disappeared from sight. Many days had she found herself sitting there, watching the north road. Sometimes, she was watching for two people. Sometimes, just one. But inevitably, she would watch for long enough without seeing those she hoped for that her heart would start to feel like lead in her chest.
How long must I wait?
Memory drew from her lips the words of a song she had made, what was it, two, three years ago? Fíriel remembered far more clearly the feeling of anticipation of being able to share the song with her parents when they returned, only for anticipation to turn to a sharp pain in her chest when the year came and went and they were still gone. The words were easily enough recalled, and the tune had come from an older song, a hymn marking the passage of the seasons, so it was no trouble at all.
‘Ilu Ilúvatar en káre eldain a fírimoin
ar antaróta mannar Valion: númessier.’
“Fíriel?”
‘Toi aina, mána, meldielto—enga morion:
talantie. Mardello Melkor lende: márie.’
There was a clatter of footsteps on the staircase, but the sound was distant to Fíriel’s ears, like thunder before it could gather strength.
‘Eldain en kárier Isil, nan hildin—‘
She was abruptly pulled out of her singing by a hand roughly grabbing her shoulder. “Fíriel!” She looked up into Isildur’s flashing gray eyes, his face white and stretched. “Fíriel, you know better than to sing that song out the windows.”
He gestured for her to follow him back inside, and Fíriel did so, traipsing back into the stuffy room. The spray of lavaralda blossoms dangled from her hand, dropping wilted golden petals on the floor. Isildur pulled the glass doors to the balcony firmly shut, and glared at Amanyë, who was sitting on the low couch and yawning. “And what were you thinking,” he demanded hotly, “to let her sing that song where anyone passing by could hear her?”
Amanyë glared right back at her uncle. “I was asleep!” she protested. “I didn’t hear anything until you came barging in here!”
Isildur sighed. “I see. Forgive me, then.” Amanyë nodded stiffly, and he went on, “It’s time for supper. Your mother will need help with the stairs, and Anárion’s not yet returned from his errand in the city.”
Amanyë nodded and left the room in a swish of pale blue silk. As soon as she was gone, Fíriel asked, confused, “Why can’t I sing that song? Is it not all true?”
“They sing it otherwise in Armenelos,” Isildur said shortly, though his voice had softened slightly. His face was shadowed as he explained, "They sing that Melkor has come back among us, that he will grant eternal life to his followers and strike down all who dare to oppose him. They sing that even now, the King is building a fleet that he will use to sail to the shores of forbidden Aman, so that he might cast down the Valar for denying us all that which we deserve, but were not granted.” He tossed his head. “Or were robbed of. The King’s Men never seem entirely sure of which version of the story they believe.”
He sucked in a deep breath and sat down on the couch Amanyë had left vacant. Fíriel stared at him, silent. For a moment she considered closing the distance between them to put a hand on his shoulder, but restrained herself. Silence was a trick she had learned early on. Silence to keep quiet fussy babies; silence to make herself invisible to strange men who came to the house asking where exactly it was Amandil had disappeared to; silence to keep her own thoughts from coming out of her mouth as a scream. She had thought though that here, at least, when it was just them, that she did not have to hold her tongue.
Isildur turned a faintly drawn face on Fíriel. “I know Father thinks it kinder that you not know, but you are too old for some of what I have just told you not to have reached your ears already.”
Slowly, Fíriel nodded, though she didn’t quite meet Isildur’s gaze as she admitted, “……Yes, I’ve heard it. …But everyone in this house is of the Faithful, and Rómenna is a haven for the Faithful. Is there really a danger to singing my song?”
Isildur laughed hollowly. “It is better not to assume you have safety if you cannot be sure. If you must sing that song, Fíriel, do so away from the windows, and quietly—even use of Quenya could endanger you, if you’re not careful. Now, like I said, supper is ready. We shouldn’t keep the rest waiting.”
As they descended the staircase and passed through the greeting room washed red as ochre with the sunset, Fíriel asked, “Do you know when Elendil will return?”
Isildur set his jaw and shook his head. “No, I don’t. He told none of us whence he would return, nor even his destination.”
Fíriel did not say so to him, but she thought this was all too similar to when her parents had vanished. Neither had they told anyone whence they were going, or when they would return.
(She chanced a glance behind her, and saw that she had left a trail of wilted golden petals from where the lavaralda spray had completely given up the ghost.)
-0-0-0-
Fíriel had never known any home but the house of Elendil in Rómenna, though when she was born it had been the house of Amandil, still. Long before she was born, all of the people of the Andustar had been forced to come live in Rómenna, under the King’s close watch. Most of the buildings in the Andustar had been razed, including most of Andúnië, so that even when Tar-Palantir had allowed those who wished to return to the Andustar to do so, few had taken him up on the offer. The reconstruction of Andúnië had only been in its initial stages when Ar-Pharazôn (Tar-Calion to Elendil, though Fíriel had never heard him call the King that but in whispered conversations with his sons) had called for them to stop and for the Andustar to be emptied of people once more.
Well, Rómenna had not been empty before the Faithful were forced to go live there. While some had been given permission to go live in Armenelos or in the Orrostar, most had to make do with what was available to them. The wealthy had built homes of their own on the outskirts of Rómenna; the neighborhood in which Elendil’s house was located was practically an enclave for the wealthy Andustari. Those without wealth piled into empty houses, or the houses of those that would take them, or slept under the open sky. There were those who attempted to return to the Andustar, and paid for their desperation with their lives. “The trees dance in the wind like a Westlander at the rope,” or that was how the saying went.
The house of the Lords of Andúnië, a title that had remained theirs even when Andúnië itself was denied them, that house had never been theirs alone. Their servants dwelled there, certainly, but friends cycled in and out of spare rooms and spare beds, and there were some who stayed there for years, their whole lives, even.
Fíriel had been born in this house. It had been her home from the beginning, the garden her place of play, the rooms her places of learning and refuge. She had learned Sindarin and Quenya at Amandil’s knee, alongside his great-grandchildren. Lirulinë had taught her how to sing and Airalómë and Fíriel’s mother Ranyë had taught her the tales of the Valar and the Elves in Aman. From Orontor and Elendil Fíriel knew of the Edain of the First Age, and how they had loved the Elves and the Valar alike, and how, through all their travails, they had been rewarded for their faith with Andor, Númenor.
Take the faith of the Edain as instruction for yourself, Fíriel. If you remain steadfast, if your heart is true, then your faith shall be rewarded. The reward might not take the form you expect, but it will come to you, in time.”
Her father had said that. The words remained crisp in Fíriel’s mind, even when the quality of Orontor’s voice was beginning to slip from her memory. Six years it had been since she last saw Orontor or Ranyë, and Fíriel had to wonder: Would her faith be rewarded?
There were many things Fíriel might wish for, given the opportunity. She wished the weather was more pleasant, that it wasn’t walls of humidity interspersed with violent storms. She wished she could sing songs praising Ilúvatar in the open, that she could speak Quenya or even Sindarin in the open without fear of reprisal. She wished she could go into town without hearing tell of someone being dragged to Armenelos to burn on Morgoth’s altar, or just disappearing. She wished she didn’t occasionally look west and see a black plume of smoke snaking up into the sky. She wished that the King would die, and Tar-Míriel would take back her throne and right the wrongs done by Ar-Pharazôn, and drive out Sauron and all those who would worship Morgoth. She wished Amandil would return with tidings of the Valar. She wished Elendil would come back soon. She wished her parents would come home.
Fíriel had so many wishes that she barely knew which to give preeminence to. She knew she could not have all of them granted, but beyond seeing her parents again, the rest seemed to vary in importance by the day or sometimes even the hour.
She could hope simply for better days. She hoped something good would happen soon.
-0-0-0-
Though they had the run of the house, the adults of the house seemed remarkably fond of holding their private conversations in doorways in shadowed hallways, and all in half-whispers too, as though they were afraid of being overheard and betrayed, even here. (Perhaps they were.) But the fact that they preferred to hold their private conversations like this instead of in rooms with the doors locked and barred was quite convenient for Fíriel. It made it much easier to listen in from behind cracked doors.
The scene was thus: Elennúmen standing in the hallway with her sons, daughters-in-law and Almáriel forming a half-circle around her. Airalómë stood with her back braced against the doorframe, a sheen of sweat on her forehead, the swell of her abdomen highly visible even through her loosened robes. Anárion pressed his hand on her back between her shoulder blades. Almáriel and Lirulinë stood shoulder to shoulder, occasionally stealing glances at one another, while Isildur stood off to Almáriel’s right, his arms folded across his chest.
“Nothing about Father,” Anárion told his mother, his forehead creasing. “Wherever it is he’s gone, it’s not to Rómenna. Not even Voronwë has seen him, and they’re the closest of friends.”
Elennúmen sighed, rubbing her forehead with her hand. “I was afraid of that. Did anyone you spoke to have any idea where else he might be?” Her taut voice thrummed with barely-concealed frustration.
Anárion shook his head. “Nothing. As best as I can determine, he didn’t even pass through Rómenna on his way to wherever it is he went.” He shifted his weight from foot to foot, searching his mother’s face. “Mother… Is it possible… Do you think he could have been taken captive?”
Fíriel felt as though her heart might burst the confines of her ribcage. Before Elennúmen could respond, Isildur raised his voice to protest. “Father’s always sworn the King would never dare to make an example out of us. He’s never harmed us before. Do you really think he’d start now?”
“That was before Grandfather left,” Anárion retorted, frowning deeply. “If the King has any idea of where he went, and why, then no, I do not think we are safe from his wrath any longer. Whatever affection he bore Amandil in the past would not survive learning that he has gone to petition the Valar.”
At this, Almáriel broke in, murmuring, “The House of Andúnië is too prominent for Ar-Pharazôn to harm any of its members. He must know that if struck down Elendil, or any of Elendil’s kin, those who follow Elendil would rise in revolt. I can’t believe he would risk another revolt by harming your father,” she reasoned, though her tone was more one of attempting to reassure Anárion, than asserting something she firmly believed true.
“Enough of this.” Elennúmen stared sternly at the half-circle assembled around her. “Elendil has not been captured; that does not bear contemplating. And Almáriel is right—the King wouldn’t dare risk another revolt by harming him.”
Fíriel breathed a sigh of relief. If Elennúmen and Almáriel both believed it so, then it seemed impossible that Elendil could have been taken captive or killed. And Fíriel herself thought about it, she couldn’t ever remember hearing of a member of the high nobility being taken to the altar. It was always one of the common people who was taken instead, or, albeit rarely, a member of the minor nobility. But her relief didn’t last. Could they truly have learned nothing of where it was Elendil had gone? Surely they must have known someone in the rest of Númenor who had seen him; a great lord of men couldn’t just vanish off the streets without a trace. Not like…
“Almáriel,” Elennúmen was asking, “the letter you sent to your uncle in Armenelos, have you received a reply?”
At first, the only answer Almáriel gave was to cross her arms across her chest and look away, her brow furrowed. But at length, she shook her golden head and said, “My uncle returned the letter I sent him to me, unopened. It came to me this morning.”
Isildur grimaced. “Which likely means that your uncle is no longer any friend of ours,” he muttered grimly, though the look he shot Almáriel was a sympathetic one.
“Not necessarily,” Almáriel protested forcefully. “It’s much more dangerous for our people in Armenelos than it is here. It may be that he’s been put under watch; if that’s the case, he might have felt himself at risk even reading my letter.”
“Perhaps. But you must admit, Almáriel, that not even opening the letter is rather suspicious.”
“Perhaps,” Almáriel allowed, unsmiling. “But I do have other relations in Armenelos who may be less fearful of reprisals than my uncle. I will write to them as well.”
“One of my cousins was recently placed as a handmaiden to the Queen,” Lirulinë added. “There may be news from the royal court that she can relate.”
Elennúmen nodded. “Good. Please write your letters immediately; I want them sent out tomorrow morning.”
Did they think he was in Armenelos, then? It was only the knowledge that she’d be shooed away and told nothing if she spoke up that kept Fíriel silent. Curiosity burned beneath her skin like a fever, but it was stoked to white heat by mingled dread. Great men among the Faithful did not casually travel to Armenelos, not in days such as this. Fíriel knew of no reason for why Elendil would have gone there willingly. If he wished for information, he would have written letters, or at least sent someone less recognizable than himself to search for what he was looking for.
Not there. Please, don’t let him be there. Better away from Númenor than in Armenelos.
For the first time, Airalómë spoke, laying a hand on her husband’s arm and asking, almost hesitantly, “Anárion… You told me that you learned something else in Rómenna. What was that?”
Elennúmen stared sharply at her son, her lips thinning. “Oh? You said nothing to me.”
Anárion set his jaw. “I… spoke to certain shipwrights who had had news from their brothers in the Andustar,” he muttered, not quite meeting his mother’s gaze. “The fleet of ships the King ordered build is nearing completion.”
“How near?” Elennúmen pressed.
“The fleet itself will be seaworthy within the next month, though there is still the matter of gathering provisions. Construction of the King’s flagship is set to begin at the end of the month.”
“And how long until the flagship is completed?”
“If my sources are correct, nigh unto two years. The ship is supposed to dwarf the rest of the fleet in size.”
“We have some time, then,” Elennúmen said, but the rest were deathly silent. In her hiding place, Fíriel was suddenly finding it very difficult to breathe. “Well… Lirulinë, Almáriel, write your letters. That’s the most we can do for now.”
One by one, they dispersed. Isildur and Lirulinë were the last to leave, the former laying his hand on the latter’s shoulder in silence, but eventually, they left as well. The hallway was empty, and quiet.
Fíriel crept out from behind the cracked door, and stood silent, her heart hammering in her chest. Her only purpose in hiding had been to find out if they knew where Elendil was or not. What she had learned instead…
Slowly, Fíriel made her way away from the hallway. If one of the adults came back now, they’d likely realize what she had been doing—Fíriel had no desire to be scolded like a small child caught doing something naughty. Besides, unlike them, Fíriel had never had much love for contemplating the future in a shadowed hallway.
The garden was currently in a state of actively trying to wilt into oblivion. At the low stone walls, the lavaralda trees, not just the flowers but the trees themselves, seemed to droop, as though they might shrivel and collapse at any time. The flowers in the flowerbeds had already begun to shrivel, the edges of their blue, pink and white petals crinkled and browned. The normally-scarlet fruit of the yavannamírë tree were withered and brown.
The yavannamírë… Fíriel remembered Amandil telling her and the other children how much he had loved eating the fruit as a child. According to him, they were so sour that children would have competitions concerning how many they could eat before they had to give up, but they were juicy and routinely included in desserts, and were pleasant to eat with sugar. But Fíriel had only ever known the fruit of the yavannamírë as hard and bitter, something that not even the birds would touch. The one time she had actually eaten one of the fruits, she had grown violently ill. It had changed since Amandil was a child. Many things had.
Aman had always been forbidden to Men, even the Núnatani, though the Valar might favor them over all other Men. It was forbidden; they weren’t supposed to seek it out, and they weren’t supposed to ask why. They were supposed to be content with what they had already been given, and not seek more.
Fíriel sat down on one of the benches, pushing her brown hair away from her face and tugging at the collar of her dress. Already, the heat was oppressive, and already sweat was forming on her skin, but at least out here the air was clean, without the sour tang of fear. She could think more clearly.
But those clear thoughts led her nowhere she wanted them to go. Oh, Fíriel knew what she’d do, if she had the freedom to do it. She’d travel west and set ablaze the King’s fleet before it could ever sail away from Númenor’s shore. She’d tear down the Temple, send Sauron back to his blackened lands and give the Scepter back to its rightful owner, Tar-Míriel. Then the land would be set to rights. The Valar wouldn’t be angry with them anymore, and the Elves would come again from Tol Eressëa. Amandil would come home. Maybe, just maybe, Fíriel’s parents would come home, too.
She could do none of this. Fíriel was no powerful lady, to call upon armies as would be needed to effect all that she had fantasized about doing. She was an eleven-year-old child, a currently parentless child who lived off of charity and the affection her parents’ friends had borne them. If ever Fíriel came before Ar-Pharazôn and told him what she thought, he’d likely laugh, and consign her to the flames.
So much could happen between now and two years from now. The King could die, and Tar-Míriel take back her throne. A violent storm could come and wreck the fleet he had built, or someone could get the same idea as Fíriel, and set it alight. The King might even change his mind, as far-fetched as that seemed.
So much could happen, but when Fíriel thought about what seemed likely, ‘so much’ didn’t seem so vast as it used to. I might as well wish for Eärendil to come down from the sky and smite Sauron with the prow of Vingilótë.
Fíriel sighed, and looked beyond the garden to the road, and the countryside past the houses. No matter how much fear she felt, she still loved Númenor. She wanted things to be better, so her love without be untainted by fear. Wasn’t that what everyone wanted? But she could hardly see how Númenor could be free of fear, whether it was the Faithful’s fear of being dragged to the altar, or the King’s Men’s fear of death. The hills were saturated with the very essence of fear. It poisoned all it touched, by inches.
-0-0-0-
The rain had started shortly after nightfall. It started out gently, enough so that for the first hour Fíriel was deceived, believing that it would be gentle all through the night. But then, the thunder had started, rattling the windowpanes and making the floors vibrate. The lightning banished darkness in spurts, lighting the sky as brightly as the Sun, and off in the distance, Fíriel could spy orange tongues of flame igniting on rooftops and in trees. Fire might not be an issue, though, not if the wind blew the house clean on its side first. On the door to the balcony, the wind sounded like the pounding of fists. On the walls, it was nothing short of a battering ram. Many of her people called such gales ‘the fury of Manwë,’ and Fíriel could well believe it. It even sounded like the wind was screaming.
She had long since given up on the idea of sleeping. So too had Amanyë, who sat up in the next bed over from Fíriel’s, reading a book by the light of her little oil lamp and yawning occasionally. In the bed closest to the door, Númeniel was still asleep. Fíriel looked past Amanyë to the latter’s younger sister, frowning slightly. How she envied Númeniel her ability to sleep through these storms as though they were not raging at all.
But no sooner had that thought crossed Fíriel’s mind then did Númeniel begin to stir, her little face creased and her body trembling. She began to toss and turn in bed, and Amanyë put her book aside, looking at her sister with concern. As Fíriel got out of bed, Amanyë did the same, and shook Númeniel’s shoulders. “Númeniel,” she called softly, “Númeniel, wake up. It’s only a dream.”
Númeniel’s gray eyes snapped open, wide and unfocused. She drew in deep, gasping breaths, even as Amanyë slipped a hand under her shoulders and propped her up in bed. “The wave,” she whimpered, “the wave…”
Amanyë and Fíriel exchanged a long, uncertain glance. “What wave?” Fíriel asked Númeniel as gently as she could manage, though her heart was already sinking like a stone cast into a pond.
“The… the green wave, it was the green wave,” Númeniel babbled. She was shaking even harder now, her lip wobbling and her hands clenched in fists, clutching the bedclothes. “I saw it swallowing everything; it carried us all away!”
“It was only a dream, Númeniel,” Amanyë soothed her sister. Fíriel thought her face looked a touch grayish in the meager light cast by the oil lamp, like a corpse being prepared for preservation and interment.
But Númeniel’s eyes flashed over-bright, tears forming at their edges. “It wasn’t a dream! It wasn’t! The wave… The wave… I want Mama,” she mumbled plaintively, tears leaking from her eyes.
Amanyë nodded and pulled Númeniel into her arms. “Then let’s go see her.”
The two went out into the hallway, leaving Fíriel alone with her disturbed thoughts. The green wave… That again?
A few minutes later, Amanyë returned, alone. It seemed Númeniel had elected to spend the rest of the night in her parents’ bed, rather than accept her mother’s comfort as being enough to keep her until the morning. Amanyë shut the door behind her, and turned her gaze on Fíriel, gnawing at her lip before saying, “That’s the third time she’s had that dream.”
Fíriel nodded, folding her arms around her chest. “You’re right, it is. What d’you suppose it means?”
Amanyë sat down on the edge of the bed and groaned. “I don’t know. It could just be a dream. You know she’s hated the water ever since she nearly drowned in the sea last year.” She didn’t sound nearly as certain as she could have, though.
“But she keeps having it,” Fíriel pointed out doubtfully. “Is it really a normal dream if she keeps having it?”
At this, Amanyë set her jaw. “Maybe not,” the older girl allowed, staring at the wall opposite her bed. “But I don’t want to talk about this right now.” She leaned over and turned the oil lamp off, dousing them both in darkness. Fíriel heard the rustle of the bedclothes as Amanyë lied down. “Good night, Fíriel.”
“Good night,” she replied vaguely.
The storm still raged outside. Though her concern over Númeniel and her dream had muted the noise for a time, now it came back with a vengeance. The glass doors to the balcony rattled and trembled as though they would shatter at any moment. Overhead, it sounded more like someone was pelting the roof with stones than it sounded like it was raining. The thunder was, if possible, even more deafening now; each clap made Fíriel’s very bones vibrate. Outside, there came streaks of lightning that lit the sky as bright as day, and orange light that lingered even in its absence.
A green wave… Thunder sounded overhead and Fíriel winced. What does it mean?
The line of Andúnië was an offshoot of the House of Elros; both were ultimately descended from the Elves. And there was more than one story of an Elf of Tol Eressëa wedding a Westlander and having children with them, as well. It wouldn’t exactly surprise Fíriel if it turned out that Númeniel had inherited the gift of prophecy from her Elven ancestors.
A prophetic dream about a green wave sweeping them all away. Fíriel could think of a few interpretations of that dream, and none that pleased her. Surely there was time yet to turn away from destruction; so much could happen in two years. But the avenues of change seemed to grow narrower by the day. How long before they just winked out of existence?
-0-0-0-
Fíriel must have fallen asleep some time during the night—the storm must have stopped some time during the night, for she doubted she could have slept while it still raged—for quite suddenly, watery sunlight was streaming through the doors to the balcony. Fíriel sat up in bed, her stiff back and shoulders protesting at the sudden movement, and looked at the bed adjacent to hers. Empty. That was odd; it wasn’t like Amanyë to go down to breakfast without waking Fíriel first.
Fíriel got up and began to get dressed, pulling a dress—dark red with black piping at the collar, her favorite—out of the wardrobe she shared with Amanyë. Well, if she was late to breakfast, it wouldn’t be the first time, and breakfast was such an informal affair in this house that no one would pay it any mind.
As Fíriel pushed the bedroom door open, there came to her ears the sound of some commotion from downstairs. Her pulse began to quicken. Had someone come from Armenelos? Were there men from the King here again, asking questions about Amandil, or where those questions about Elendil, this time?
It would have been better to remain out of sight, if that was the case. At the very least, those who had come calling wouldn’t have been able to demand her testimony. But Fíriel couldn’t deny herself knowledge of what exactly was going on downstairs, and the more she listened, the less the voices she heard sounded like the voices of people who were alarmed or besieged.
She started down the hallway towards the main staircase. As Fíriel neared the staircase, she would have thought she’d be able to make out what was being said more clearly. However, the clamor of voices only grew more jumbled in her ears. The sight that greeted her when she reached the top of the staircase dispelled any confusion about just what was going on, though.
Elenalóto and Elendur must have come down very early for breakfast, as was their wont—everyone else was dressed as though ready to eat breakfast in the dining hall, but those two, clad in their nightclothes still, might have been planning to sneak food from the kitchens again. Everyone, children and adults alike, were gathered in a cluster in the greeting room, and who should be at the center of the group but Elendil?
Fíriel’s heart leapt into her throat. She tore down the staircase, skipping the last step to land with a solid thud on the stone floor. A thousand questions formed at once in her mind, but Fíriel couldn’t even get close enough to hug Elendil, let alone ask him any of her questions. She hung at the back of the group instead, and listened.
“Where were you all this time?” Elennúmen’s voice rose over the clamor, taut and choked. “Why would you not tell any of us where you had gone, or what it was you were doing?”
Elendil leaned over Elendur to kiss the top of his wife’s head. “If I worried you, I’m sorry for that. I will tell you everything soon—just let me have something to eat first!” he exclaimed with a laugh.
This drew shaky smiles from some of the group, but not from others, and not from Fíriel. She frowned up at Elendil, troubled. He was the very picture of contentedness, except she thought that there was some hollow tone to his laugh.
-0-0-0-
Last night’s storm had thoroughly wrecked the garden. The little flowers in their flowerbeds were either uprooted entirely or dangled lifelessly from their broken stalks. Tree branches were scattered across the grass, flowerbeds and pathways. The ground under the yavannamírë tree was littered with its brown, withered berries. The stone path was plastered with yellow petals that made wet, slithering sounds when someone trod on them. Beyond, Fíriel could see a cedar tree lying sideways across the garden wall of a house across the street. Two young men were huffing and puffing, clearing tree limbs from the muddy road.
Perhaps it would rain again today, but Fíriel honestly wasn’t sure. The morning sky was dotted with gray clouds that drifted lazily east, and the hills, the buildings and the trees were overlaid with a patchwork of shadow and golden light. Maybe the clouds would darken again, and the storm would make an encore. Maybe they would pass away entirely, and of the storm, only the devastation it had wrought would be left behind. It was impossible to say.
The only dry place was deep under the eaves of the house, deep in the shadows of the house. Fíriel sat down there, twiddling a lavaralda blossom that somehow managed not to be torn apart by the storm in her hands.
“There seems to be some commotion inside.” Elendil had come up on her silently, but Fíriel made no noise of surprise as he sat down beside her. “And yet, from you, I heard not a sound.”
Fíriel blinked, staring up at him, her stomach churning. Elendil was taller than any other man Fíriel had ever met, might well even stand head and shoulders over Elves. When she was little, he could lift her up into the air and swing her around with ease, and Fíriel suspected he could still do so now, if he so chose. Elendil had always seemed to her to be stronger and surer than anyone else in the world, but he was smiling at her now, and the smile didn’t reach his eyes.
But maybe he would satisfy her curiosity. “Where did you go when you left Rómenna?” she asked him. “You said you’d tell us.”
Elendil nodded. “I did say that, Fíriel. But it is not the children who need to know that now, not you. You will learn in the fullness of time,” he said gently when she opened her mouth to object. “I will not keep it from you forever.”
“……Alright.” Fíriel hesitated for a moment, clutching at her skirt with her knuckles turned white. Then, she asked, her voice cracking, “You haven’t heard anything about my parents, have you?”
The smile faded from Elendil’s lips. “No, Fíriel,” he told her quietly. “I have not.”
“Oh.” With an answer like that, Fíriel wished she hadn’t asked at all. It cut deep, always, to work up the nerve to ask, only to always get that answer, and nothing more. Maybe it’s time I stopped asking. I wish I knew, but no one ever gives me an answer, either way.
Fíriel plucked the petals off the lavaralda blossom and cast it all away from her, mashing her lips together. Was she doomed always to watch from the window, for two silhouettes on the horizon that might never appear? Or would Númeniel’s green wave get her first? She just didn’t know…
“Fíriel.”
When Fíriel looked back at Elendil, he was staring down at her intently, something unreadable in his eyes. She wasn’t quite sure why, but the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. “What is it?”
He smiled weakly at her. “No need to look anxious, Fíriel. I just wanted to ask you something. What is it you think the future holds?”
Again, Fíriel’s thoughts turned to staring out of windows, and to green waves. They turned to the altar and black plumes of smoke rising in the sky from Armenelos. They turned to storms and screaming wind. “I… I don’t know. I… want things to get better, but…” The words died in her throat. There were the words, those that had crossed her thoughts every day for what felt like years now, but had never dared to speak aloud.
Elendil nodded, his gaze now fixed on the clouded sky. “My thoughts are much the same.” He sighed. “Fíriel… What would you do if it became clear to you that things were not going to get better? No matter how you wished for it?”
“I…” Fíriel stared fixedly at the lavaralda petals clinging to the damp stones. She drew a sharp breath. “…I don’t know.”
“Few ever do. But tell me, what would you do if it came to pass that you could no longer stay here?”
By ‘here,’ Fíriel gathered that Elendil did not simply mean the house in which she had been born and raised. Her heart was pounding away in her chest like it might break her ribcage at any moment. She shrugged her shoulders, wishing she didn’t have to answer. “Then, I suppose I would leave. Better gone than being dragged to the altar. But… where else would we go? Aman is forbidden to us, and all of Endóre is under shadow.”
Elendil squeezed her shoulder. “In that case, there is only one thing you need to remember, Fíriel.”
“What is that?”
He smiled, a brief flash of teeth that quickly disappeared. “That so long as you believe that there is some light about you, the shadows will never be complete.”
Before Fíriel could respond, someone called for Elendil, and he left her, stepping back inside the house. Fíriel remained, her heart going strangely still.
She still loved the land, for all that it was soaked in fear. She still yearned for that long-awaited day, for all that six years had come and gone without it. She had been told, so many years ago, that her faith would be rewarded, if she waited long enough. But if she had to leave, if she had to give up this land and all in it as lost, could she do it? If she had to go looking for her future elsewhere, could she do it?
Her still heart gave no answer.