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Freshly, fallen snow crunches under her leather boots as Galadriel tears through dark woods. Her chest heaves, both from exertion and pain. The arrow wound in her shoulder and her bruised ribs sting with every labored step. She is leaving a trail of blood—a faint one, but easily sniffed out by pursuing orcs.
Their chitters sound in the distance. She is too slow, too injured to outpace them. She’d not been the Moriondor’s prisoner more than a few hours before she jumped on her first chance of escape, overpowering an orc guard, and slitting his throat with his own weapon. The arrow she’d taken through her shoulder as she’d fled their encampment, somewhere west of the Anduin, had rather thrown off her plans. She could run for miles at a swift pace, even in the cold in just her light leathers and cloak. But without a moment to stop to bind her wound, her strength ebbed too fast.
They would be upon her soon. And there is nowhere to hide in this unfamiliar forest. No one to turn to.
Except one.
No, she thinks as soon as the idea hits her. Absolutely not.
But she could… He’s been pushing against the walls of her mind for the better part of a year since he’d left her in Eregion, his taunting voice breaching the barrier only at her weakest moments. She’d shut him out. Kept him out successfully for months.
But that door could be opened…
No, I came here to kill him. Only rotten luck had landed her in the orcs’ ambush first. What sense did it make to ask him for help?
Because we share an enemy, she answers herself immediately. And Pelargir isn’t far. He may be there. If I call to him…
She would not. He is far more likely to mock her for the recklessness that had gotten her into this mess.
She would not.
She skids to a sudden stop, nearly flying over the edge of a cliff she hadn’t seen through the trees. A fast-moving river flows far below, and she sees no way to traverse it from here.
A sharp whistle sounds and she ducks. An arrow sails over her head—a warning shot.
“You flee needlessly, my lady.” The pale, scarred elf whom the orcs called Adar emerges from the trees like a specter, a mob of his children fanning out around him. “I told you no lasting harm will come to you while you cooperate with us.”
“I’ve had a taste of their gentle care, already,” she snaps back. One of the orcs nearest to Adar hisses, fangs bared. That one had kicked her in the ribs during her capture. “Pardon me for not volunteering to relive the experience.”
“Gentler than the care you’ve shown them,” says Adar, eerily calm. “They’ve restrained themselves admirably. As have I and will continue to do so if you choose to return quietly. Once you’ve served your purpose, I may let you leave. A courtesy you would’ve never offered me.”
“He won’t take the bait.”
Adar smiles in that odd, stretched way, his scarred features straining. He cocks his head. “Who do you speak of?”
She clenches her jaw and presses her hand against her bleeding shoulder. “You don’t wish to interrogate me, and you don’t intend to kill me yet. That just leaves using me as leverage. And you’re a fool to think he’d come for me.”
She feels faint suddenly. The blood loss is catching up to her, she realizes with a flicker of fear.
“You forget that I’ve known him longer than you have.” Adar’s smile widens. “I’m pleased the idea crossed your mind. I admit it was guesswork on my part, but you brought it up without any prompting from me. How interesting.”
Something shakes free in her mind. Like a chunk of masonry falling from a wall. Sweat beads on her temple and the blood against her palm feels hot. She fights to not sway on her feet.
Halbrand… The name whispers through her thoughts, like someone else had spoken it, though the voice is her own. She would slap herself for doing it if she had the strength to spare.
An orc lunges for her without warning. She dodges with a burst of energy she didn’t know she had left and cuts him down the back with her stolen dagger. With a shout, she shoves him off the cliff.
Her body thrums with pain and she’s not quick enough to avoid the blow of another orc, swinging a club into her shoulder. Right against her wound. White hot agony explodes through her, and she chokes out a scream. She whips around to bring her blade across the orc’s throat. As he gurgles on the ground, she falls to one knee, gasping.
Halbrand, she speaks in her head again. Louder this time. An edge of desperation bleeding through.
The other orcs shout. Adar raises a hand, saying something to them. She barely notices. She can feel her grip on consciousness slipping.
HALBRAND! The scream tears through her mind with a rush of dizzying effort.
There is nothing. No response. Was she even doing this right? Was it even possible? What a pitiful fool she was. Reduced to begging him and going unheard—
This is a surprise.
Her breath hitches. Had she imagined it?
I am here, Elf. To what do I owe the pleasure of this intrusion?
She can almost see his visage, sharpening before her. Indolent smile. Piercing, infuriating eyes.
He sighs when she doesn’t respond. I have a lot on my plate and much on my mind that doesn’t concern you, so do get to the point quickly.
Another orc approaches. Slower, more careful than the others before him. She can barely move, let alone stand.
Her heart pounds. They are going to take her.
Galadriel?
She pushes herself to her feet on trembling legs and takes a step closer to the cliff edge.
Galadriel. The smirk in his voice is gone. The force behind his presence in her head hardens, like a fist tightening on the intangible thread between them. Where are you?
She doesn’t recognize the river below. A tributary of the Anduin, perhaps the Erui. Or the Sirith? She couldn’t get her bearings and had no idea where the orcs took her before she’d escaped. What could she even tell him?
And how would he even reach her in time? The hopelessness she hadn’t succumbed to until now threatens to lay her low.
“All I ask for is a little cooperation, and you prefer to leap to your death?” Adar asks like a scolding parent.
Galadriel turns to face the Moriondor, half in a daze but oddly focused at the same time.
Pressure builds in her mind, the weight of him tugging at her—prying apart the bars caging her thoughts.
Who is there with you?
The one who hates you as much as I do, she answers.
She steps off the cliff.
The cold of the water shocks her awake. She doesn’t know how long or far the rapids carried her. It is only when a low hanging branch comes within reach that she manages to pull herself free of the current and drag her pain-racked body ashore. She coughs, hauling herself up the sandy riverbank to collapse against some tree roots.
She is growing numb. Elves are resilient to the cold, but she was already weak before the bruising trip down a freezing river. And it is snowing again.
All she wants to do is rest her eyes, and she does. But not for long. Snow crunches nearby under clumsy, orc footsteps, accompanied by snorts and sniffles.
She nearly cries with the effort of sitting up and brandishes the dagger she’d somehow not lost in the rapids.
Let them come. She has strength left. She does. And she refuses to die without a weapon in hand.
The orc has spotted her. He jeers and yells for his companions. They shout back from somewhere further down the riverbank.
The lone orc reaches for her, and she stabs at him, missing completely. He retaliates by punching her in the stomach. Air escapes her lungs in a whoosh, and she doubles over. Meaty hands yank her up by the hair. She snarls, her fury almost drowning out the sting of pain in her scalp.
“Take your hands off me, filth!”
“Another word and I’ll start carving ribbons out of your skin,” the orc says, foul breath on her face. “Adar won’t mind.”
He yelps suddenly and there is the sharp, unmistakable sound of a blade piercing flesh. He releases her and she stumbles, finding purchase against a tree as he is jerked away from her. His hands scrabble at his neck, at the arm that has locked around it like a vice.
“But I mind.”
Halbrand’s eyes—gleaming and feral—are on hers when he digs his blade deeper into the orc’s back, making the creature shriek. Prolonging his pain on purpose. He is still watching her when he snaps the orc’s neck in one swift, vicious movement. Savoring her reaction as much as he savored the kill.
She couldn’t look away even if she wanted to.
He breathes hard as he drops the orc, like he’d been running. Or from bloodlust. Or both. He is dressed like a Southlander in a simple dark tunic and cloak. A good enough disguise, but to her eyes now it barely shrouds what he is. No guise ever would again.
Enraged snarls fill the air as the dead orc’s companions arrive.
Halbrand doesn’t use his knife for this, seemingly preferring to break them with his fists. One after the other they fall, half a dozen orcs with snapped limbs, crushed noses, and bloody skulls.
He is not quiet as he ends them. His unrestrained roars send shivers through Galadriel in a way that has nothing to do with the cold.
The last one he leaves alive, bleeding and whimpering on the ground with one leg bent in an unnatural direction. Halbrand presses his boot to the orc’s chest, making him wheeze.
“Tell the Uruk it was me,” he says in a voice like gravel. “And I’ll be seeing him very soon.”
She is shaking when he turns back to her and her weapon tumbles from her hand. Whatever resolve that had kept her standing to witness his brutality leaves her body in a rush.
But she doesn’t hit the ground.
The scent of him—familiar in a way that she hates and relishes all at once—floods her senses as he eases her across his lap.
How strange, she thinks, to be held this gently by the same hands that had just wrought such violence.
“There now. I have you.” He brushes a damp strand of hair out of her face, keen eyes appraising her injuries with a glance. He shakes his head, tsking softly. “You might have spared yourself this, if you’d called sooner.”
She wants to claw at his smug expression. If she weren’t so, so tired…
Her vision darkens and she feels him lifting her effortlessly. Carrying her somewhere she did not know and did not care to worry over.
“This changes… nothing…” she murmurs against him.
The last sensation she remembers is his light, answering chuckle vibrating through his warm chest.