From the time he was a boy, he'd been raised with one thought in mind. Do not be selfish. Do not set yourself on the path of the undesirable. Make your heart not a fortress of greed. Ilúvatar had taken to those lessons because a knight was meant to be all of those things. He was meant to be a sacrifice to his people, a defender and champion of his people. His people were any of the innocents who shrank away from the defense of their lives. His people were the ones who had nothing. It was for them that he must live his life. And yet here he was, a goblet before him, staring at the sun-haired beauty as though he'd never seen someone so perfect in all of his life.

( He did not think that he had. )

He noticed almost immediately that the air felt strange around him. No. It did not feel strange. It smelled strange. Ilúvatar knew it well. It had begun, this familiarity, in the days of his father. When you were the sword of your house you were meant to know the stench of battle. Smoke and death were recognizable to you because it was your purpose and intent to cause them, in as much volume as you could, thus laying great waste to the enemies of your house. Here he was, now, the last male of his family. If he'd perished in battle yesterday the house would have gone with him. He was not one to think often on family honor - unless it were one of the more obvious obligations, such as caring for his mother, he found he had little use for them. Yet that thought lingered as he stared into the mirror.

( The last of a kind. )

All wrought iron and vicious corners, these gates. Yet the massive wheel-and-pulley systems on either side began to hiss. Chain was wrapping around itself with dull metallic clanks. The gate began to rise. It was one of a hundred such gates spread throughout the city. The great wall of Terestai was in reality two walls - one outer, one inner - with about thirty yards of space between outer and inner. That space was occupied by murder holes, fox holes, arrow slits and heavy entrenchments from which a wall-saving stand could be made. Oil was boiling up above, distracting the mages with its scent of death and fear - oil and tar that had been pulled from the burning wood to the south. Those fox holes between the two walls were occupied by four pikemen each, but could hold up to fifteen. Ilúvatar could see eyes and helmets floating through the arrow slits. Elves stood ready behind the inner wall, waiting to fire on anyone who breached the defenses from the safety of stone.

( Baila had done a fine job of preparing this city for battle. )

Maeglin's residence was a boiling sea of madness. Elves in heavy armor and pikes were scrambling into ten-deep formations before hustling off to points unknown. Well, in fariness, he knew. Baila had given him a detailed report of the arrangements for the defense. Ilúvatar was certain that he'd been listening intently. Their colors were strange bedfellows, indeed. Some of Maeglin's soldiers and some of Guyther's soldiers and some of Ilúvatar's own Thunderbolts. Their ranks were swelling every day. If you were able-bodied and had a mind to defend Terestai, you were enlisting in the Thunderbolts and taking your lumps among all of the other fresh recruits. Baila had established quite a system for funneling and testing recruits, so that by the time Ilúvatar was aware of them, their participation was almost certain. Truly irreplaceable, that Captain of his, and he would never be able to Baila so until one of them was certainly going to die.

( It would be a long wait, he hoped. )

Fiaethe spent what time she had outdoors. Perhaps she should have double checked her own work instead, or harassed someone for not doing their job fast enough, but while Lord Ilúvatar was in captivity she had not left the halls of Maeglin's residence. Not even for a brief visit to one of the gardens. If Fiaethe was going to be trapped in a siege with everyone else, she wanted to enjoy the sun for a day. And she wanted to do so without being followed.

This wish was far more challenging to fulfill than when she first arrived here. Back then, Fiaethe was less known and did not hold the kind regard of the staff. Now the household's eyes knew her and had concerned themselves with her safety. Fiaethe could not find it in her heart to spurn what worry was shown to her -- after all, no amount of inner steel disguised that if not for divine intervention, she would be dead. And while just Lord Ilúvatar's presence here made it infinitely safer to be out in the open, Fiaethe knew risk still walked wherever she did.

( ... )

There were whispers again as he walked the halls. Each forceful jab of his heel into the hard wood gave the game away. Servants were peering around the corners and trying to look busy. Some managed it better than others. There was a basket full of cloth and towels for the bath rooms. Woven reeds rasped when they were balanced between a hip and the wall. Trays and expectant guests were forgotten. In some ways Ilúvatar was fairly certain he had not been the subject of such spectacle since he killed that boy. Or Tholiath. It seemed that every spectacle made of Ilúvatar had nothing to do with intelligence or soul, and everything to do with death. That was probably an unfair way to look at it. After all, most of these servants were simply hoping to see tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after. Ilúvatar could not promise them that. Why, then, did they seem so interested in watching him as he passed?

( They could have been looking at Aeotha. )

It was, in many ways, the worst sort of homecoming.

( Not what he had expected. )

Whisking themselves away in the dead of night actually developed into something of the easy part of this mad little plan of theirs. The riot was only just beginning to take shape as they'd fled, hustling across dark stone and shadowed corners to reach the place where the wagons were loaded and unloaded. A port on dry land, Skandra had called it, and that had mostly been right. Plum sheets and curtains disguised the back of the high-walled cart. enough to shield the fact that only four bottles had been arranged there. It was the perfect amount of space for two Elves and an Immortal that were simply desperate to be away from there, and didn't want to be seen on the road back to Terestai. There were going to be patrols, or Skandra was going to become a zealot of Lorien. Guarantees didn't need to be that colorful, but the more confident you were, the more likely you were to offend someone's sensibilities.

( And he was fairly confident. )

"We have nothing," Airion said. "We are nothing."

"We still have hope."

"For how long, do you think?" Airion spat in reply. "Hope doesn't survive on nothing."

( How long had it been since he'd truly had hope? )

To stared at him from across the way. They were both slouching against the sides of the grand stone archway, one of the few pieces of the structure that wasn't made of wood. The hot sun of the day was descending into its grave, replaced by orange light and relative shadow. Wind stirred the open face of his coat; for once, Baila did not concern himself with buttoning it. The rail-thin lieutenant had loose scarves hanging around his neck and the stench of the road pouring from him in waves. By now they were both accustomed to it. And though the climbing lattices of roses hid them from view, both knew this would be the last chance they had to speak to one another for some time. At least, in the way that they now spoke. Maeglin was a friend, but he was not their friend.

( And the news was not good. )

Terestai, once an outpost for the military and little else, had become a teeming center of everything grand in Elvish society. In Astarii's society. Now the streets were deserted. Now, at night, you walked alone no matter how many you numbered. They were only two. She in the finest that she could muster, and he in much the same. No cape. The lies he'd told his mother did him little good. A dinner affair, as before. The gossip of Terestai might have reached her. She still believed her son was a lord, and worthy of whatever finery she could manage to cram onto his body. She did not appreciate his lack of a cape. Ilúvatar managed to hide his weapons from her in Baila's care. Then they were off, he was armed to the teeth, and it was time to find out if he was too clever for his own good.

( The meeting was set. )

At the gates of the Magister's residence in Terestai stood two elves, waiting for permission to enter. They had been kept outside after handing a piece of parchment through the bars, but seemed in little rush. One elf stood with his hood off his head as he looked up at the iron bars with a curious light in his eyes. His brown, almost black, hair was cropped so short that it sat a top his head in sharp spikes. A gold spike ran from the top of his right ear through the lobe and beads were wrapped around the knuckles of his right hand. He wore a bow and quiver at his back, but did not stand as if he knew the weight of them. The elf occasionally smiled at the blank-eyed sentry through the bars.

The other elf was far more intimidating and at least three hands taller than his friend. He had not removed his hood and neglected to smile at the guards who watched them. He wore boots that covered his knee with a flap of leather, and black gloves. His cloak was older than the one of his friend, and not quite as fine, though in good condition. The embroidery at the edges was faded. There were a few places where the fabric was lighter than it should have been -- evidence of patching. He was the one who handed over the parchment.

( Parvum always preferred an official letter... )

An ebony box lay across her bed, which she had made herself not a half hour ago. Servants so often thought her observant eye was only capable of seeking points of criticism. She implied that she watched so that she might wring every drop of energy from the servants for her own room. Fiaethe never allowed anyone to think she was more an avid learner than a tyrant; the corners of her sheets were perfectly tucked. Her bed looked as if it were new. Fiaethe absently smoothed a wrinkle from the quilt before her fingers traced over the box and its platinum latches. She popped one latch, then the other, gently lifting the lid and bending over as she reached inside the blue velvet interior. Light danced across her wrists as she lifted the diadem, exposing the golden leaves, the curved silver branches, the citrine, peridot, the amber and ruby that hung in strands from the rim and wove themselves throughout the structure of the crown. Her fingers felt thin and tiny all of the sudden. Too many years had passed since she held this diadem.

( This was only the second time in her existence that Fiaethe had lifted it herself from the box... )

The corridors were empty save the footsteps of servants, rushing to complete one task or another. They'd appeared in preparation for Maeglin's arrival. Word had come to them before it had come to Ilúvatar because they were the ones who organized the house. They were the ones who ruled this place, with its rules and its standards. He was nothing but a guest at the pleasure of their true master. And that meant whatever changes he'd requested, whatever demands he'd placed on them - though most of those were likely requests of his mother - were being undone so that Maeglin would find his home precisely as he left it. It amused Ilúvatar to think that they would have a list, somewhere, of every painting that had been removed and precisely how it sat on the wall. It amused him because there was nothing else to do but be amused. And drink.

( He'd indulged in his fair share of both. )

House Usol had a strange sort of honor to it. Not the sort of honor that Ilúvatar would have chosen for himself if he'd another choice. The manor house was one of the finest in the city - with high stone walls built from the white rock that was taken from a quarry to the north, iron gates that somehow managed to retain a polish, and well-carved stone lion caps that graced the wall itself every thirty feet or so. Ilúvatar thought the entire affair was too ostentatious, approaching the work one might see in a palace, but that was a decision for every lord to make himself. Likely the Lord Usol had simply wanted his residence to stand out. Knowing what he knew about the fellow made it difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt. When you worked with Eiron'aith you were proclaiming your intentions in a way that no one would hear, but everyone would feel. More and more he was beginning to suspect that Flaithriaoh had been real, in whatever way a Champion could be real to his people, and Eiron'aith was the one who had deceived.

( He needed proof, not nebulous connections. )

It was not uncommon for someone to decline Ilúvatar's dinner invitations. Of course, normally their decline of his offer was in the form of a politely-worded note on heavy parchment. Expressing not only their love for him personally but their remembrance of his service to the king. As though any of that mattered. They would go on to protest that many things demanded their immediate attention, and might even list some of them in the style of a gossiping girl, hoping that he would pass on these carefully constructed lies at some other dinner to enemies of theirs. This was most often the case with ladies, whether attached or otherwise, working on behalf of a brother or a husband or a ... it hardly mattered. He remembered once that Eibhear had sent him a similar note - then come to dinner in any case, expressing mock outrage that Ilúvatar would invite a guest for such a lackluster feast. It was an odd memory to come up in this way. Especially since Eibhear was long since dead. For a moment, he supposed he just missed his friend.

( A strange time to do so. )

Ilúvatar would have opposed something so grand as the new temple of Lorien, had he been in Terestai when such a thing was decided. They must have begun work almost immediately after the Breaking for it to be so near completion. There were statues that had not yet been mounted. Sections of the white exterior were incomplete, revealing the gray stone underneath that shouldered the majority of the load. Even the loading bays used for receiving cargo, cleverly hidden in a half-underground area accessed by ramp, still had unfinished docks. It would be a marvel of construction when it was finished. If it was finished. Ilúvatar had heard they were soliciting donations to continue working on it. Knowing how much they received in tithes, he could not believe that they could not afford to finish. But several priests would have to ligthen their purses to see it done. Such was their dedication to their goddess. He wanted to spit. Somehow he restrained himself.

( He was still a lord. )

How long could he afford to put them off? So far, with the soldiers on the street to enforce the law and the riots suppressed without a death on either side, he'd managed to keep the damage of the performance hall from spreading even further. There were questions that no one was asking. Why Drow? Why there, and now? Were there more Drow in the city? How had these come into Terestai without being observed? There were enough questions to keep ten thousand men awake at night wondering why. Yet those were not the questions that the former Council members would ask. The priestess of the temple, left to direct the temple's works with the absence of the High Priestess, would want to know what was being done to ensure the continued safety of the refugees. The lords and ladies of the land would want to know when they would stop receiving additional tithe requests from the temple. It was their right, in times of great strife or war, and the lords - experts on the laws they themselves had helped the fashion - were picking through the old scrolls and demanding that Ilúvatar support their interpretation.

( It was his dispute to resolve, but his mind could think of only one thing. )

Tiny yellow flowers crisscrossed over the mossy end table like a delicate lace table cloth. One end that hung too low to the floor, the little petals curved awkwardly against the leafy carpet below. Lilium tapestries covered the walls and acted like eyes that watched the house with starshaped lashes opened wide, their irises stained purple from the bluish tears that fell from their stamen. The ceiling was a dark expanse with hints of large-leafed vines, sisters perhaps of the enormous snake-like plants that overtook the nearby staircase and banister until the core of the house seemed more like a tree than a structure. Fiaethe could see these things, as well as the strange long legged caterpillars on the opposing wall, with what magic lit the tips of her fingers. No guide had brought her into the heart of The Shell; only her own feet. She had been here without escort before, when she first had the idea to contact the new Magister. As Fiaethe followed the jerky movements of the orange and black caterpillars on the wall, she wondered what her household staff thought of her. Sneaking out in the night. Sending out men on strange errands. Climbing about a house said to be cursed. Perhaps this was the last sign of her gripping depression to them.

If so, it would be a danger to return to her estate. Then again, everything she was doing now was dangerous. There was never a time in her life where she walked the streets without guards. The act of slipping along the shadows with nothing but a cloak and a knife should have been more frightening. Funny that as a queen she had been in less peril walking alone than she was as a mere widow, a wife of a dying House. Yet she had made it to The Shell without incident. She had navigated the darkness without any wild animals leaping out to kill her. Without thieves robbing her of her belongings. Fiaethe thought she was doing rather well, alone, so far.

Fog encroached on this House of leaves and blackness. When she moved her glowing hands, she could see it sneaking along the green floor as a mist. Terestai was often touched by mists in the night during the fall. The temperature would plummet when the moon was at the height of its rotation, which Fiaethe had always thought beautiful -- that Lorien could be so present and so distant at once. The mist indicated time better than any dial, any sliver of light. She wondered if the High Lord would make her deadline, if he would venture here as unguarded as she. Fiaethe contemplated this as she touched her glowing hand to the wall and watched the white and violet flowers there take on an eery bluish glow. The magic in her hands slowly pulled away from her fingers and took a more permanent residents in the lilies. Enough light to see or to disappear. Not that she had much confidence of disappearing on a Sylvan Elf. She wore a heavy black silk dress, a crimson shawl and her dark gold hair was folded inward. She still looked the part of a lady. It was difficult enough to outpace one of the Wild Ones without adding her attire to it.

And so she wondered how the High Lord would come here, if at all. Maybe he would miss the deadline. Maybe she would return home. Maybe he would bring others. Maybe this would be the place she finally found her death. Fiaethe never had a feeling for the future. A strange moth settled on the knuckles of her right hand. She could see the eyes on its wings in the dim light. She remembered the words Parvum, then as if the moth had carried his words on the wind. "Why do you care for this place so much? Laurëa'tari, it isn't worth your blood or the wetness on your cheeks. I would spit on this soil, if it hadn't saved you." He was one of the Roquentun, a fine knight. She had not seen him in a year and didn't expect to for another three. Those men were not to wear her colors again. Her colors had been swallowed by the earth.

A band with the colors of Evarahl still hung on her wrist. The moth touched it before flitting away. The insect could hear his footfalls as well as she. Lord Ilúvatar. Fiaethe backed away from the glowing flowers and stood close beside the main staircase, resting her hand against the wall and disturbing the long legged caterpillars there. This was the last danger to face.