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Chapter Text

“I know we are in mourning,” said Sáramerillë tightly, “but the new High King, the Queen of Gondolin, will not be crowned in anything less than the royal robes that are her due.”

To their credit, none of the members of the guild council made any protest such as “In two days?” or “Impossible!” or “But the healers need--”, which would have echoed through the guildhall and revealed their conference to everyone.

Aegwiril tapped her distaff-cane on the floor as she always did just before speaking, as it was the best way to be heard in the noisy buildings of the Guild of Spinners and Weavers. “My craftsfolk can be redirected, though not all of them. What dost thou need, and how much of it?”

“The healers still require enchanted thread for sewing wounds, and as much bandage-cloth and bed linens as can be made. That must continue. From thee and thine, Aegwiril, we must have silk thread and lace patterned in her majesty’s sigil,” said Sáramerillë.

Tap, tap. “We have some lace in her heraldry that was meant for another gown, but it is not yet finished.  We may manage to bring it to two yards in length, if my very best take it on, in time to sew it to the clothing. More if thou wilt allow the sewing together of the lace, rather than one long piece.”

“That will do. I want it for the sleeve-ends, so whatever length thou canst get will be the sleeve size,” said Sáramerillë. “I will have my own people, those not working on the robes of state, making over whatever court robes of the late king’s we are given for that purpose. Her majesty will need more than one set.”

“I will caution thee, Sáramerillë, that we have little time for weaving, unless it be card-weaving,” said Lúnasamin, head of weavers and broiderers. “But we have some silks and brocades laid by that will do. I will have them brought directly.”

Lúnasamin had a gift for understatement; Sáramerillë would surely see them provide bolts upon bolts of silks and feather-light linens from their storerooms, no matter how quickly the stores went out to keep a full city clothed. “Good. I have her majesty’s measurements and block, and I will do all I can to get us a single fitting. Anyone who can cut cloth or sew a decent seam must be sent to me. Let us to work.”

The sound of hundreds of threadworkers soon filled the guildhall to the very rafters, but they could not be accused of being a disorganized guild. Where another elf might have seen chaos, from the balcony of the great sewing chamber, Sáramerillë saw only the beauty of her life’s work going just as it should.

Where Aegwiril walked, distaff marking time upon the ground, the spindle-song followed, the music of humming spinners walking behind her as their flax and wool and silk became thread. Lúnasamin’s runners went back and forth between the storerooms and the sewing hall with countless bolts of fabric, weaving between one another as neatly as warp and weft. Even her own apprentices darted through the busy hall like little needles, carrying pincushions and blocks of beeswax for to keep thread from tangling.

Sáramerillë turned sharply on her heel and returned to the sewing chamber. A younger tailor, Glánvidh, had already fetched for her the marked shapes of unbleached cloth which she had modeled on Idril the year before, so as to make well-fitting clothes, and he had laid them out on the biggest grid-patterned board and opened the heavy tome of references for robes of state.

Glánvidh gave a curtsey and said, “Guildmistress, will you direct us?” with all patience and understanding, but he was nearabout bouncing on his toes.

“Glánvidh, thou and Faelcheryn shall cut and sew the smock,” she said, judging that this would be the easiest thing to ask for before she could choose fabrics and styles for the gown and robe; a smock would be of nothing but white linen. “Any apprentices who can sew and fell a straight seam are yours. I want it with plenty of fabric in the body and great big sleeves, in the Vanyarin fashion. Faelcheryn and thou wilt then give it to me, then to Lúnasamin for embroidery. Anyone whose hands begin to ache or cramp will rest.”

Glánvidh and Faelcheryn each gave her a shallow bow and rushed to work, Glánvidh to the linen and Faelcheryn for tailor's chalk and pins and shears.

Sáramerillë turned then to the book. Here were the grand court robes of the Noldor, the royal gowns of the Vanyar both simple and complex, the silken dresses of the Teleri, and sketches of those formal weeds worn by the elves -- and Men! -- of Middle-Earth, as best they could be drawn from memory or description. History spooled within its pages, knitting past to present with a single endless strand of yarn.

High King Idril had given no word on her choice of styles, which Sáramerillë found as frustrating as it was freeing. A purely Vanyarin gown would not suit for the Noldóran, but Idril preferred the billowy Vanyarin smock -- but of course the Vanyarin styles in the book were five hundred years out of date anyhow. Some attention must be paid, too, to Middle-Earth fashions; Sáramerillë was not so nostalgic as her late king.

She knew Idril liked simpler clothes, day-to-day: only two layers or so in the summer, often without a smock, and leaving much of herself uncovered, relying on jewelry for adornment; a perfect melding of Noldorin and Vanyarin sensibilities in dress. But on the great holy days, she dressed as elaborately as anyone, and was never any less at ease.

Chewing her lip, Sáramerillë pulled a fresh sheet of paper to herself. Sleeves -- yes. Lined sleeves, for the overrobe or the gown, with the lace at the end. But to fit the smock sleeves...

“Faelcheryn!” she called. “Leave the ends of the sleeves ungathered and unhemmed. I have not picked the sleeve shape yet; I may want them loose in the Tol Eressëa style.”

And if she left it loose, and put the lace-edged sleeves on the gown itself, the overrobe could be a sleeveless one in the style of a Sindarin court gown, wrapped about and belted. That would have to be a patterned silk, but the lightest she could find, or else made immediately and given to Lúnasamin and their skilled needleworkers.

A sketch took shape under her hands. The overrobe would be easy enough to make, and if Lúnasamin said the needed embroidery was impossible in such short time, there would still be enough hours to make another.

Yes! The overrobe would be a dark blue, the gown a cornflower blue lined with silken silver, and the mantle cloth of gold. With gems beaded onto it, if there was time.

There was little time to make a gown of any great complexity, but a twelve-paneled dress could be done, and if Sáramerillë were clever, she might have time with which to contrive to make it fitted and laced instead of needing to be belted to create shape.

The overrobe and mantle first, being simple to make and in need of adornment. Then the dress, then the fitting of it.

With a brief prayer to Vairë to spare her hands, Sáramerillë took up her chalk and began.

After the coronation feast and its dearth of joy had wound down, after the sun had finally set late on the midsummer’s long evening, after the stars had shown their faces above the still-smoky air, Itarillë took her leave of the cheerless festivities to walk home alone.

There was a soothingness about it: going through the quiet streets and glancing up at the warmly-lit windows, a solace found in solitude and darkness when brightness and company rang hollow.

She was meant to be staying in the palace, but three and a half days were not time to move her life out of the House of the Wing, her proud proof of independence wrested from her father’s smothering love. The Wing was still her home; she would not leave it so easily, but the Tower of the King was still the true seat of the ruler of Ondolindë. There was no helping that.

The House of the Wing had only faint lights visible, the hall lights, everyone either absent or asleep. Itarillë went to the side of the House and around, back to the somewhat-adjoined dwelling where she lived, and where one day her family would live, if her prophecy-dreams held true in the wake of a tragedy unforeseen.

She shed her golden mantle and all its beads and pearls, draping it over her arm, and took up her skirts with her other hand. The stairs in her house were shallow, in deference to court robes, but today she still regretted her choice of path, for there were ways into her home without stairs for when she was footless and went about in a wheeled chair, and those gentle slopes would have been easier.

Upstairs she cast her mantle onto a chair in her private drawing room and, with effort, pulled apart the knotted belt of her overrobe, leaving a slight ache in her arms from fiddling with it behind her back. The overrobe, too, she tossed on another chair and sighed.

It was not uncomfortable -- the Guild of Spinners and Weavers would never fail in their craft -- but there were too many layers, and she was tired, and she could not sleep in them.

Except the smock, perhaps. But even that felt too fine to ruin with her uneasy sleep.

Itarillë reached for the laces on her back, struggled for half a minute with clumsy fingers, then called, “Meleth? Good Meleth, wilt thou attend me?”

“Meleth is asleep in the main house,” said a voice from the doorway.

Itarillë did not startle. High Kings did not startle. She had known someone was in her dwelling already, for there had been another mind near hers, but she had not looked to see whose it was.

Rather than jumping in surprise, she turned calmly to the intruder in the barely-lit room and found a pocket of even deeper shadow, above it the gleam of a pale face.

“Lómion,” she said. She inclined her head in greeting. “What are you doing here? You were absent from my coronation.”

“I needed to see you, but I dislike crowds,” he said.

Itarillë ran through her choices in her mind. Her cousin was not known well to her, and only rarely seen outside the palace, or even within it, reclusive as he was. No one knowing this could reasonably have expected him to attend -- but to have him scorn her crowning, when he was by direst need her heir, was unacceptable.

“Then you have found me. Speak,” she said. There would be time to choose her answer to the half-slight after.

He looked at her with consideration, and when he then spoke, it was blunt. “What use am I to you?”

“What, at this moment? Very little, unless you can help me with my gown,” she said.

“I am not your handmaiden. But I have worn enough dresses to know lacings well,” said Lómion. “Yet I doubt you mean it. Do not pretend you cannot see my meaning.”

“You would have been my lord-in-waiting, had we not gone so swiftly into mourning.” And then she might have known what to make of him! “But to answer you: I know not what use you are. I can declare no other heir at this time, so you had best come to terms with being crown prince, but near all I know of you is seclusion.”

“I do not fit in this city. Two dooms lie too heavily upon me, and I am not Húrin nor Huor, to charm all of Ondolindë with a handful of words. Even you mistrust me,” he said, and he was not, strictly speaking, wrong. “Let me ask instead: how can I be of use to you? A dead-weight cousin will do you no good, and you cannot send me forth from the city to haunt some other halls.”

“Neither does he do me good, a kinsman who fails to swear fealty to me at my crowning,” she said. “You might have come to me ere now.”

“Mourning clothes are unfit to wear to a coronation. I own little else.”

“I had rather worn mourning, for we are all grieved. Still you might have come -- greater shame that you showed not your face than coming in weeping-weeds.” Drawing herself up to her full height, far greater than his even when she slouched, she said, “You shall make amends now by swearing to me your fealty, belated though it might be. Kneel.”

He held her gaze for a long moment, as her word echoed in the dark chamber, and it came into her mind that he might refuse. But ere she could order him again, he went to one knee before her, lowering his eyes. “Long live High King Itarillë. I am your loyal servant, and shall be for all my days.”

“Swear it.”

“Upon the tomb of my mother and the grave of my father, I swear it,” he said, now turning up his eyes in a gesture almost pleading.

“Get up, then,” she said, turning half away from him to go to the window. The light was better there, with the moon. “I am not a dishonest nís, and will not lie to you. I little like having you as my only choice of heir for the moment, and while I have no intention of dying -- ah, few ever do. You will serve my purposes until I have crafted a child or two, and when they are grown you may go back to your dark corners if you wish.”

To her this was fair and just: if he had meant to undermine her by his absence, which she now doubted, he would be near and easy to watch. If he proved ambitious, he had a chance to better his station and become a well-loved crown prince. And if truly all he wanted was to be left alone as a palace recluse, he could return to it in time, but be of use to her first.

“What purposes of yours do you think I can be of help to, when I am as much a stranger to this city as I was when I first came?” He had by now risen from his kneeling place, and come toward the window a few steps, still far from her, as she saw from the corner of her eye.

She scoffed at his words. “Do not play the fool with me, good kinsman. You know more of Ondolindë and its people, I think, than anyone would like you to. Even a grieving ghost has eyes, ears, mind -- and no one notes him where he goes. I would have you as my first counselor, and for you to take on some of the city's duties in both rite and rule.”

He bowed to her. “As the Noldóran commands.”

“Good. I will see you on the morrow,” she said. “In the palace, not in my private chambers where I did not invite you.”

In the time it took for her to blink, Lómion vanished.

Chapter Text

Early in the morning, by Maeglin’s standards (which was to say nearly noon), two days after the coronation, Maeglin rose from bed with careful hope. Idril -- High King Itarillë -- had better things to do, it seemed, than deal with him; he would that it might stay so.

The palace was well abustle by the time he left his rooms in his customary black linen cote, and it took little effort to weave through the people in the halls to reach the kitchens.

Calarcala, one of the cooks who had a soft spot for him, had left him a plate in the usual spot, for which he was glad. To speak to anyone at all, with Turgon his protector gone, and after what had passed between him and Idril, was more than he could bear.

Seven-grain porridge was not the most exciting of ways to break his fast, but it would serve, with fresh raspberries and honey in it. Calarcala, unlike some other cooks of his old acquaintance, did not believe in denying one’s tongue that which it savored only because one had not come to the kitchen on time.

He had only just snuck back into his rooms with the breakfast tray when an imperious knock came at his door. It could only be Idril; she was difficult to mistake.

He went and yanked the door open, and hoped to end the encounter quickly. “Good morrow, your majesty. Am I to attend on you at court today? Have you come on that errand, or some other I know not of?”

“Some other,” she said, sweeping past him and into his rooms like a whirlwind in blue linen. “You have no court robes yet, and thus a reprieve until they can be made. But I have a trouble with which you may be a help.” In her hands she held something shrouded in thick gray cloth, and she set it upon his table to unwrap it.

The fabric fell away to reveal a gold and bronze scepter, glimmering with gems and enchantment.

“My father’s scepter, and Grandfather Nolofinwë’s before him,” she said. “There is a magic upon it, of majesty and command and light, which is needed for ceremonies over which I am to preside as High King. Much of its enchantment lies in the jewels.” She reached out to tap her fingernail on an emerald, then jerked back and shook her hand as if the scepter had shocked her. “But this magic likes me not, and I cannot long go without the rod of rule -- its absence would be noted by the first time I needed it for a rite -- yet ‘twould be worse should it reject me, and this be known. But I know you to be a gemcutter, and one of the royal line which it is tied to. You might repair it.”

There was then a press upon his mind, and she said to him, Say to anyone what I have asked and I shall deny it, and rather accuse you of sabotage. I will say only that, in an outburst of magic, the scepter lost a few of its stones, and I asked you to replace them.

Why should I say anything to anyone, whether about this or anything else? Maeglin shot back, and shut her out of his thoughts. “I will need other gems, then.”

“Name them and they are yours.”

Maeglin narrowed his eyes, though his heart leapt as he looked over the scepter. With free rein to choose the jewels, he might store some by for himself, and so enchant them for his own purposes -- but why should she offer so freely? “Sapphires, to be certain. Rubies. But I will make for you a list after I have found those which need replacing.”

“So be it. The Guild of Spinners and Weavers will see you tonight at the sunset bells for measurements and to have you choose cloth for your court robes, and I will meet with you every other day until you have suitable garments for court,” she said.

He gritted his teeth and reminded himself how direly he needed her favor, and how lucky he was to be granted it even upon the heels of his uncle's death. “Yes, your majesty.”

“Then I shall not keep you from your meal, nor your work. Have a note sent to me naming anything you need for it.”

Out she went, leaving Maeglin with cold frustration in his chest as he shut and pointedly locked his door. To think that she had scolded him about coming in uninvited!

With a sigh he leaned against the door, as if putting weight upon it might undo her entry. But the scepter glinted on his table in mockery and in proof of her having been there, and of a sudden he found himself utterly without appetite.

How she had obtained the thing was a matter of question, but then, more than only the Gondolindrim had come back when the battle ended. One might have carried the scepter to the likely location of the new High King, or one of the Eagles might have. It would, he thought, be better were she not to have it, if it was so much trouble, but the best thing he could do to keep her favor was to fix it.

When he went to his table, and gingerly laid his hand upon the scepter, he saw at once the truth of Idril's words. The spells upon it tried to give him the same lightning shock as they had given her, stopped only by his blanketing them with his own power, but it was plain he could not wield it, and not solely because he was not High King.

“Thou art an annoying piece of glitter,” he muttered. “Well-suited for Gondolin in that, at least.”

Now that the scepter was firmly in his hands, and he had placed his power over its own, the enchantments did little, only kept him from making use of it. As the pinpricks of the shock faded from his arms, he turned the rod over, looking at the gems.

They all were well-shaped, and he would have hard work ahead of him to match them, but the spells thereon were simpler things. It would recognize the true heir of Finwë, and grant that heir alone its magic, which exactly as Idril had said was of command and majesty, but also of light. The person it recognized would be able to light it, and it would glow gold and silver in the rhythm of the Two Trees -- or so Maeglin guessed, never having seen them. That must be a piece of the rite which required it.

None of these magicks seemed to have trouble, so it was the recognition that had failed. Idril was unquestionably the rightful Noldóran, so why would it reject her elsewise?

His examination of the scepter lasted long enough that, without his knowledge, the day began to turn to early evening, and a new knock came at his door.

With reluctance he answered his new visitor. “Good even,” he said to the vaguely-familiar elf he found without. “What is your business with me?”

“Her majesty wished this delivered, highness,” said the errand-runner, whose name Maeglin would have guessed to be Voronwë if he were pressed, and handed him a heavy box. “It comes directly from the Hammer of Wrath’s storerooms.”

The box felt lighter instantly. It must be raw and uncut gemstones of every kind, Idril being too impatient to wait for him to tell her which he would need to replace on the scepter, and this saved him a conversation.

“Thank you. Tell her majesty I will be at work presently, and not to disturb me.” He moved to shut the door, but possibly-Voronwë stuck their foot in the gap to stop it.

Certainly Voronwë, then, for he had heard that was Idril’s right hand in the Wing, and surely no one else but her right hand would be as annoying and forceful as she. “I am also to remind your highness that her majesty will see you tomorrow, and Mistress Calarcala requests you come to her in the kitchen. The tailors, too, expect you..”

“Many thanks for your scrupulous care in message-carrying,” said Maeglin. “Good evening.”

As soon as Voronwë was an inch deep into their polite bow, he shut the door.

Stars, he ought to take one of the scepter’s gems that delivered lightning shocks and put it on his door to deter knocking.

In his private workroom -- because Turgon had been horribly generous in giving him chambers in the palace -- his tools had their permanent place. He went in now, with the box, and set it down on a side table to open.

As he had guessed, the box was full of every kind of gem, all unshaped and unpolished, in great quantities and in every size. Had he allowed light into his workroom from a poorly chosen window, they might have dazzled his eyes, enough jewels to replace every stone on the scepter five times over.

Nearly every stone on the scepter was a cabochon, but cut circularly, not as ovals. He would not need his faceting tools for those, but there were a few faceted stones, a set of four rubies on the golden petal-like shapes coming off the body of the staff, and those four were the cornerstones of the spell which recognized the High King, as he had discovered in his study of the scepter.

Finding some rubies in the box of an appropriate size, he affixed one to a small stick with wax and took it to his faceting machine.

First he replaced the lap, the stone wheel he would grind gems against, with one more suited to ruby, and checked the belt that attached it to the crank handle. While waiting for the wax on the ruby to set, he put a little water on the lap to ready it.

There was as of yet no need for intense precision, so he would do the first shaping by hand, and then afterwards turn to the quadrant to make his angles and depths perfectly even.

But then there was the matter of the spell. He could copy the one from the scepter's rubies, but that was no easy endeavor, and it would still reject Idril. No, better to sing his own, and etch hidden runes into the gems to anchor it, and in the process sing Idril's royal lineage to ensure the scepter's magic would know its true wielder.

A little of the old craft-fire woke in him as he put his hand to the crank and began his song.

Salgant settled into their seat in the council chamber, placing their cane in the notch made for it, and noted the presence of a new chair at the table.

Itarillë might have elevated someone, they mused, to bolster the numbers of the Council. With King Turukáno and Queen Írissë dead, they were down to only nine council members, with Itarillë and Penlod each running two Houses. And both the Heavenly Arch and the Swallow now had new leaders, for Lady Rainacanyë had perished in the battle, her son Egalmoth taking charge, as had Lady Aiwerilya, leaving her brother Tuilindo.

For elevation, Salgant would guess that Itarillë -- ah, but they must remember her title, now -- High King Itarillë would have pressed Mistress Sáramerillë to become Lady Sáramerillë at last, and made her guild a House; it was no secret that the guildmistress had been considered for ladyship for over a hundred years and always refused.

But when Itarillë entered, it was not with Sáramerillë. A living shadow followed her, one which Salgant recognized after a long moment as Prince Maeglin Lómion.

Salgant schooled their expression, hoping not to seem so shocked as to be rude. The shock, though, was very real, and he could see it pass through the rest of the Council: Lómion had been scarcely seen by anyone since the start of his long convalescence in the Tower of the King, and Turukáno had never brought him to attend court, though not for lack of trying.

If Itarillë had managed to bring him here, that must be a good sign, they decided, though an odd one.

“Good morrow, all,” said Itarillë, taking her seat at the head of the table and gesturing for Lómion to sit to her right. She cast a glance over the chamber and said, “Good, we are assembled. We have much to discuss.”

Salgant said, “Your majesty, will you introduce us to our new addition?” Egalmoth had likely never met him, and might guess at his identity, but there was no sense in leaving things to chance and risking embarrassment.

Itarillë nodded graciously. “Leaders of the Great Houses, allow me to present Maeglin Lómion, son of Queen Írissë and heir to High Kingship and the throne of Ondolindë, until such time as there is another suitable for that position. I trust you all to give him whatever aid he needs in his role as crown heir and advisor.”

Lómion said nothing in response, his face a mask without expression, but anyone who looked could see the discomfort in his posture.

The meeting of the Council went on as if Lómion were not there, and Salgant could not help but steal glances at him, hoping to find some sign of what he was thinking or why Itarillë had brought him besides the need to name him her heir.

Lómion’s face showed little, and Itarillë only rarely looked toward him, but when she did, she would rub her thumb over the jewels on the royal scepter, in particular the finely-cut rubies around the sides. Salgant virtuously refrained from drawing any conclusions from this.

But once, Itarillë looked Lómion directly in the eye, during an interlude of Laurefindelë and Ecthelion’s flirtatious arguing. Lómion was reaching to her as he murmured something Salgant could not hear, hand brushing her scepter -- and that was too presumptuous a touch, even for a crown prince -- and Itarillë looked at him, and both stopped.

It was ósanwë, Salgant knew. Itarillë had always been gifted. But around the pair of them, it was as if time slowed, the rest of the Council no more than distant memory, as if there was more to their mental conference than only words.

Salgant pointedly coughed.

Both Itarillë and Lómion snapped back to the present, and Salgant once again virtuously said nothing. It would do them no favors to be caught with such suspicions of their liege, and do Itarillë no favors to be the subject of salacious rumors with her reign so new.

Lómion made no comments through the rest of the meeting, but now his eyes bored holes into everyone who spoke, and his attention carried a weight not unlike that of Itarillë’s.

After Salgant had left, once all business was concluded, they recalled having left their cane in the council chamber, and sped back, inasmuch as they could make haste without it. Inside, though, they saw Lómion and Itarillë standing close together, Lómion whispering something in Itarillë’s ear. Itarillë rubbed the gems on the scepter again, and touched his arm with it to quiet him when she noticed Salgant’s presence in the chamber.

“Good afternoon, Salgant,” she said.

“Your cane fell under your chair. I put it against the wall,” said Lómion, gesturing, without Salgant needing to tell him what they had come for.

But Salgant could take a hint, as well as their cane, and did so, hurrying out of the palace and home to the House of the Harp.

What Itarillë did with her newest advisor was none of Salgant’s business, after all.

Chapter Text

It had not escaped the notice of Rôg that High King Itarillë still had no crown of her own.

That was not to say she had no crown at all; she wore her father’s crown of state, and the war-crown of Nolofinwë, carefully un-mangled from the state it was in when the Eagles bore his body to Ondolindë. But neither of these was her crown, and that was plain to see.

The curling pieces of silver and gold, meant to weave into her hair, failed to grip her tresses well, sized for different braids and shaped for another texture. The silk veil of Turukáno’s crown was too short, for he had the shorter hair, and her under-veil of linen always peeked out from beneath it. Constantly did the crown -- either of them -- slip from the proper place on her head, or tilt, or even (as he heard terrible gossip of) snag upon her golden locks.

For a queen of one of the great cities of Beleriand, much less a Noldóran, this was unthinkable.

Rôg could not fault her, of course, for grieving. He had no particular care for the royal customs, save that his people in the House of the Hammer of Wrath were every day asking him whether the High King had yet commissioned them for a crown. She had every reason to be bothering with other things first: her city, the state of the lands outside the Echoriath, her two Houses, her kinsman, her council. A mere crown could not be any kind of priority. But if Rôg had noticed that she wore hardly any jewels besides those of her father, and his ill-fitting crown, then others must have seen as well.

He had been hoping that one of the lords she was closer with might have brought the matter up to her, with gentle tact, and suggested she have her own crown made with her own emblems upon it, so as to have something for her first royal portrait. That was, at least, the excuse he would have used, had he any right to say it.

(By the stars, she even wore Turukáno’s made-over clothes rather than her own!)

But he did see Laurefindelë try to speak to Itarillë, discreetly, after she had performed the opening rites of the Festival of Green Earth and planted the great royal scepter in the town square, where it gilded the marble with gold and silver light in mimicry of the Two Trees. Itarillë had pulled back from him, anger written on her face, and spoken sharply, though Rôg had been too far to make out the words.

So when Voronwë, Itarillë’s most trusted follower, came to the workshops of the Hammer, Rôg expected the message in Itarillë’s formal hand to be a reluctant letter of commision. Instead, it read:

“My good Rôg, Lord of the House of the Hammer of Wrath:

If I might ask a favor of you and your House, as Ondolindë-tári and as a patron of the arts, I should greatly like if you would continue the kind allowances made to my cousin, Crown Prince Lómion. Indeed, I shall ask you to make greater ones yet, if you be willing, for he has insisted on crafting for me my first crown of state until such time as I have one commissioned.

I know it is no small favor, to ask that you and yours make room in your workshops for a near-stranger, but the palace has no place for metalsmithing within its walls. If you would grant me this favor, I would be most grateful.

-Itarillë Rehtarë Tyelperintal.”

The letter was not as formal a one as it might have been, and Rôg took this into account, for while Itarillë named herself Ondolindë-tári in it and did not write thou, the tone was yet one of asking a favor from Rôg himself, not his House, though his House was what had the power to grant it. A friendly favor such as this was one he had no qualms about granting; Itarillë had written without the reluctance she was so skilled at putting to paper when she wanted her requests turned down.

Besides, there was no harm in allowing the prince some room to work his craft; the Hammer had already been quietly supplying him with raw stones at Turukáno’s request, and receiving back finely-cut gems. This was little different.

“Thank you, Voronwë,” he said. “If you would tell her majesty that I can have a space ready by tomorrow?”

Voronwë raised an eyebrow. “Should I not rather, my lord, tell his highness?”

“If only to save yourself another walk, do,” said Rôg. “They both ought to know. Will you have a rest ere you go, or some refreshment? The day is warm.” He beckoned Lhoernis his seneschal to lead Voronwë into the house should they want anything.

“I would be glad of some cold tea,” they said. “But, my lord, do not hesitate to tell my lady if you or his highness run into any trouble or delay.” They bowed and allowed themself to be led off by Lhoernis, while Rôg turned over their words in his mind.

It would seem that Itarillë -- or Voronwë themself, perhaps -- had little faith in Lómion still, even months after being brought back into the public eye, that he would comport himself well.

Rôg would have no trouble believing that, though Lómion had made great strides in these past months. It was only to be expected, after years in sickbed seeing no one but his uncle and healers, never fully recovering in body from the nick of the poisoned javelin, nor in fëa from the death of his lady mother. How could he have learnt to fit in Ondolindë, to make a place for himself, while ill and without company?

Likely, he thought, Itarillë intended this as a ploy to force her kinsman to speak with their subjects and be among them, as well as have the matter of her crown taken out of her hands. Rôg could accommodate that.

“Lhoernis?” he asked, noticing that she was back from directing Voronwë. “I confess I have not been in the jewelsmiths’ forge of late. Have we any extra space? His highness will be joining us to craft a work or two.”

Lhoernis did not ask why, though she had probably guessed the work in question. “There is a spare workbench, but last I saw it the other smiths were using it as a side table to keep their tea or whatever needed setting down. I will have them clean it and make ready for a royal visit.”

“Perhaps only have it cleaned. I should not like to treat this as an event of note, for unless I miss my guess it may become commonplace, as the High King sees fit,” he said. “Let the prince be welcome, but as a fellow craftsman, not a prince.”

“Ah, but it is such fun to see them run around in a panic at the thought of a visitation!” she said with a laugh. “I jest; thou wilt see the workbench clean by morning.”

“Thou art the backbone of this household,” said Rôg.

Lhoernis flicked him on the forehead. “No, my lord, I am very much its brain.”

Itarillë knew that Lómion had finished her crown by now, and there were no more excuses to be had, save of course I am the Noldóran and I will not wear it, but she was no longer a girl of thirty-five. She ought to be above such childish behavior.

She felt like a girl of thirty-five, though. No, younger still; she felt as if she were nine again and her mother fallen through the ice, in those days that could not be measured as days, when the world was made wholly of cold and grief. It was summer yet in Ondolindë, the end of summer, and still she could not recall warmth.

The palace only held a fifth part of her belongings. She had moved back into her rooms there in a matter of days when Írissë had been killed, to be near her father and her ailing cousin, and now, even after months, she could not bring herself to live in the too-empty halls. The Tower of the King might still bustle with its inhabitants going about their daily business, but her father was not among them, and his absence echoed.

Even his clothes -- the ones made over for her to wear, since she had no garments befitting her new rank -- had begun to lose his familiar sandalwood scent with how often she wore them, the hair ornaments of his crown bending out of shape with how often she had to adjust them to keep it on. And she could not fool herself, by wearing these, into thinking her father was not dead.

What was the point of Ondolindë, refuge and haven and fortress against evil, if all those she loved still perished?

But she heard a door open, the front door of her house, drawing her from these thoughts and into new unpleasant ones. She clenched her fists until her knuckles went white, for Lómion was here with her new crown.

There was a part of her that wanted to rage at the very thought. Indeed, she had, when Laurefindelë had tried with all his gracious words to tell her she was making a spectacle of herself. Then Lómion had told her she needed to have a crown, whether or not she wore it, and she had been so shocked at his nerve that she had given him leave to make her one.

She was, however nonsensically, determined to hate the new crown. Kingship, she felt, fit her as ill as her father’s crown, and would not cling to her, as it failed to stay bound to her hair; replacing the gold and silk and gems would not make her fit the shape of High King.

There came no knock at her chamber door, and there had been no noise upon the stair. “Enter,” said Itarillë.

Lómion came in, a chest of carven ebony in his hands, and bowed a little less deeply than he ought to have. As he did, she caught a glimpse of the box's lid: her own heraldic sigil, the twelve-petaled flower, made in gems of blue and green and white, and on each side of it a white wing. When had he gone to the House of the Tree to have the chest made, much less found time to add the stones?

Still, she gave him no command to open it, even after he straightened up from his bow. The little girl of nine in her insisted that, so long as she did not look at the crown, it would not exist. The young apprentice of thirty-five said if it did not exist, then she was not Noldóran, and her family had not died and left her all alone in a hidden city with a title she could not carry.

Itarillë, four hundred and eighty-three years old, allowed herself to breathe, pushing away the thoughts of the grieving child in her heart. If she was High King of the Noldor, she would be so, not play-act in the hopes that her father or aunt or uncles or grandfather would suddenly return and tell her it was all a nightmare. “Show me, then.”

Thou couldst muster up a little more interest, Lómion groused, or use some of those nice manners thou hadst me learn. But aloud he would not treat her as any less than her rank, and bowed his head, opening the chest.

Inside was the most stunning piece of jewelry Itarillë had ever laid eyes upon, and she had met Fëanáro.

The crown was no circlet, nor tiara; rather it formed a sun-shape, a ring with twelve rays of gold jutting out, and from the point of each sharp sunbeam dangled one of the twelve stones most prized by the Eldar.

“It should fit well around your head, or around your hair when you wear it up,” said Lómion, but Itarillë put a hand up to silence him, still looking at the crown.

“I think, under the circumstances, thou might call me thou even aloud,” she said, in wonderment both at the craftsmanship of the crown and her own sentiment. But here was proof indelible that he knew her to be king, knew it better than she knew it herself, with how often they fell into one another's thoughts by happenstance -- and she could trust that, and wear his faith proudly. “Thou wilt place it on me.”

“Touch thy hair?” said Lómion, and though he had likely meant to sound grave and serious, since to place even the lightest touch to her tresses would be a grave intimacy indeed, it came out as a flustered squeak, a flush rising in his pale face.

“Yea, for I have no looking-glass here, nor any of my ladies-in-waiting. Besides, wert thou not raised nigh to Doriath? The hair is not nearly so private for the Sindar,” she said.

“Among equals, perhaps,” he said, but drew nearer and set down the silk-lined chest, taking out the crown with the most delicate of touches.

Itarillë affected lightness as she turned her back to him and sat, giving him a good angle, but in her breast her heartbeat quickened without cause. “Hath it any silken veil, or other ornaments?”

“It hath clips, should any such thing be wanted,” said Lómion, the very edge of his breath now felt on the back of her bare neck. “Shall I place this on thy brow, or around thy hair?”

“Around my hair,” she commanded. It was all the way up in a bun; he could put it around the base with the clever interweavings of the band that let it stretch and shrink to fit.

Lómion hummed in acknowledgement, and set to work.

She could not stop herself from noticing when his wrists brushed the sides of her head, nor when his fingers moved her locks to put the crown in place. She ought not to be noticing, she should not -- but his warm breaths came faster now, too, and hitched when his hands met her hair.

Hair had no sense of touch, not as skin did. And yet she could have sworn she felt every caress on every lock, a deep rightness filling her heart, and when she went to touch his mind out of habit she found his thoughts fully open to her.

With a sigh she fell in, hearing the tinkling of the jewels from both sets of ears, and felt the tremble in Lómion’s hands as if in her own as he fastened the sun-crown. His own heart was empty of all but a single feeling, the great lighthouse-flame of devotion and fealty which she saw grow stronger every day.

(And it had been so easy, was the thing. Not only the way their minds fit together like two halves of a whole, but how after the merest scraps of trust and kindness Lómion had taken her as his true king and become her right hand. Was his loyalty so easily bought, or had she earned it in truth?)

So entwined was she in Lómion's mind, overlaid upon him like a cloth veil on the surface of a lake, that with his hands she moved to stroke her own hair, her body and his shivering in unison at the touch. Even her ladies-in-waiting could not boast to have been granted this intimacy; only Voronwë and her kin had ever touched her thus, and when Lómion did it, it was not in the way of a kinsman.

Her own mind was still grief-shrouded, hung with dark gray banners as were all the halls of the palace. But these, too, could float in the water of Lómion's thought, or perhaps his touch cleared them away, too raw and immediate and real to be grayed and dulled. A reminder that there was one, at least, who had not been taken from her.

“There,” one of them breathed, or both of them. Lómion's hands left her hair, and she could not tell which of them caused his fingertips to linger a little longer than they ought.

Itarillë had no looking-glass in this room. Instead she turned to Lómion, and saw herself through his eyes.

The nís -- the king -- that she saw looked more alive than she had seen in a mirror since Midsummer and its tragedy. The sun-crown brought a warmth to her face, a vitality to her features, and all at once a long-buried fire awoke in her heart, desperate for anything that would lend life to her in days of death.

Perhaps it had been a long time coming when she said, “Thou shouldst come with me to my chamber.”

Perhaps it was the sweet and right release of a song's last cadence when he said, “Yes.”

Chapter Text

It might have been an ordinary day, a quiet day, of holding court in the great hall of the palace, had Lómion not interrupted.

Itarillë wore her new crown with pride, these days, with its little spark of life in the reminder that she was not her father and neither was she alone. Thinking overmuch on her elder kinfolk saddened her, and brought her too near to that drowning grief, but thinking on the one younger she better recalled herself. Lómion had proved himself more than a stopgap heir, indeed, and she felt more herself with him (a needed thing, if she wished to keep from making the mistakes of her family). It helped, too, that he had a good political mind, though he rarely spoke in company, only in private and to her ears alone.

She had only just answered a petition from a minor guild, the Guild of Ropemakers, who wanted their new requirements for types of rope made standard, when the doors of the hall flung themselves open.

Itarillë was ready to roll her eyes at these dramatics, likely from Laurefindelë or Salgant, but neither of these lords appeared at the entryway. Instead it was Lómion, a shadow amid the sunlight streaming in from the windows, pulling a quarrier-cart of a block of black stone taller than he was.

With surprising strength for one so slight, he hauled the cart all the way to the royal dais, Itarillë's ladies-in-waiting scattering from her side in confusion, and set the black marble next to where she sat.

Now Itarillë raised an eyebrow, having held her silence before. “What, kinsman, is this gift thou hast brought me?”

“A throne,” he said.

In an instant the hall filled with whispers and murmurs, and Itarillë had no need of her sharp ears to know what was said. One did not gift any piece of royal regalia to a queen, much less to a high king; she commissioned them. To do such a thing -- every witness must now be exclaiming at the brazen forwardness of thinking to tell the High King she needed a new throne.

She did, as a point of fact, need a new throne. Her father’s was not comfortable for the long hours she sat upon it, and in this she had taught herself to see no symbolism; she could not stand his desk-chairs either.

“Would that thou might have told me first,” said Itarillë, and with ósanwë added, And chosen a less obstructive way of making it. I never took thee for a sculptor.

Thou knowest me to be a knower of stone. It is not so different from gemcutting, in some ways, and I have been well trained. Aloud he replied, “I thought it best to show you, your majesty, rather than only tell. You are owed your own seat in the great hall as Noldóran, and as your kinsman and heir I believe I am he who owes it.”

A pretty answer. He was better at those, now. “Then proceed. Quietly.” She then added, Do eavesdrop however thou canst, and tell me what thou think’st. I do value thy counsel.

He bowed to her and went to work on the black marble throne, which was not in the least a quiet endeavor. It did, however, discomfit everyone in the hall enough that Itarillë could catch the patterns of their thoughts, and this was well worth the trouble, in her mind. It was a poor High King indeed who could not use all those tools they had to hand.

But a throne could not be made, even by a master craftsman of the Eldar (which reminded Itarillë she must push to have Lómion listed in the guild registers and have him pass whatever tests they demanded), and it was a rare time that Lómion could not be found in the great hall working upon it with chisel and magic as a grand throne took shape from stone.

After the first week, guests no longer looked at him in surprise; after the second, they noticed him not at all, their eyes sliding over the accustomed sight. And as they forgot Lómion’s presence, so too did they forget to watch their words in front of him, and told their private doings to Itarillë in his hearing, where he might tell her just what he thought of the matter without needing to reveal himself.

Laurefindelë and Ecthelion, for two, were hardly a secret well kept; that they desired to wed and had loved one another for hundreds of years was plain to see. Plain to see for Itarillë, at least, and they had taken her into their confidence, but told few others.

And yet, as Lómion chiseled away at the marble, making the arms of the throne with no pretensions of quiet, Ecthelion took no notice of him from his seat at a table below the dais, saying, “We have written out a new draft of our marriage contract, Itarillë, if you would take the time to look it over?”

“Gladly,” said Itarillë, and meant it, though she had already read three of the five drafts before it. Laurefindelë handed the scroll across the table to her, no less formal a document than the other five. “But surely you both have been over this many times. What has changed in this draft?”

“A different agreement on when and how we may act together as a wedded pair in regard to the outlying farms and those who run them, since it is the duty of the Golden Flower to ensure that Ondolindë is fed, but that of the House of the Fountain to see to it that those fields and gardens and orchards have water,” said Laurefindelë. “And a few other things.”

Itarillë knew her father would have taken to this task with joy, and approved of the task wholeheartedly, but she herself did feel as if there might be such a thing as too conscientious. Until Ecthelion and Laurefindelë wrote a perfect contract outlining exactly how their marriage would affect their Houses, they refused to marry at all; to Itarillë this seemed too far when contracts might be amended after the fact, should both of them will it.

Nonetheless, she unfurled the scroll and read. The new contract was, as she had guessed, very much like the old, but for some changes of wording and the newly added agreement about the farms. It was admirable, she would admit, how carefully they ensured they could not use one another's power, but were she in their place she would have far fewer scruples.

I thought they were married already, came Lómion's voice into her mind. In the room, the tink-tink-tink of his work did not pause. They have been terribly indiscreet about the whole thing. Art thou sure that this contract-writing is not some odd way of courtship between them?

I cannot say, she told him. But if it is, then as a friend I must give them more excuses, must I not? She set down the scroll and said, “It seems to me that you have well defined the matter to which you gave attention, but you have neglected to write provisions for some of your belongings in the case that one of you should perish. And, in light of the recent battle, I should think that a needed thing to consider.”

“But we did write that -- did we not, beloved?” said Laurefindelë, furrowing his brow as he glanced toward Ecthelion.

“We did, but I cannot be surprised at having missed something,” said Ecthelion.

“Not all is subject to the same customs upon death,” said Itarillë. “You have forgotten your personal ornaments and to whom they should be bequeathed. Laurefindelë, I know thou hast hair jewels which ought to go to no one but thy friend Salgant, and Ecthelion, thou hast said many times how thy niece is owed thy favorite arm-bands shouldst thou not see the day she is married. By the word of this contract, neither of these is set in stone, and might be ignored.”

“Oh, my stars!” said Laurefindelë, in the same tone and words as a shocked Vanyarin auntie who was too polite to curse.

“Then we will have to fix that part of the contract,” said Ecthelion, hurrying to stand up and take the scroll back. “As always, your counsel is the best in the city! Thank you, my friend.”

Have either of them heard of making a will? said Lómion.

Tuilindo might have been able to tune out the incessant sounds of stonecrafting, but he found he could not ignore the silent shadow who now stood beside the High King's throne. His eyes kept drifting back towards the Crown Prince of the Noldor, drawn as a falling leaf was drawn to the earth below, however he tried to keep his gaze elsewhere.

Itarillë Noldóran had today granted him the honor of standing nigh to her dais during court, shoulder to shoulder with her lady-in-waiting Meleth, who herself was the nearest to the throne. Tuilindo was not ignorant of this favor, for his late sister Aiwerilya had been granted it atimes by the late king of Ondolindë, and every time she had glowed with pride. But there was one who stood even upon the dais, nearly touching the throne, and Tuilindo could not tear his eyes away for long.

Prince Lómion did little, standing by the right hand of the High King, only watched the courtiers and those who asked Itarillë's attention with his piercing eye. On occasion he bent -- though not far, being of lesser stature -- to whisper into Itarillë's ear, and she seemed to listen.

It should not be so strange to him as it was. Itarillë's heir might well be granted the right to speak in her ear at court unprompted, and she evidently found him useful enough to bring to court and to council and have him among her high advisors as she had since soon after her coronation. And yet an almost queasy feeling afflicted his stomach when he saw it, an intimacy too close for an advisor to dare, kinsman to his liege though he might be. Why should Itarillë allow this, when he had already been so audacious in his gift of the throne?

And not just allow, he knew, for she bade him stand by her to give his immediate thoughts, on those days when Tuilindo arrived early to court and heard her. And it was not that he would question Itarillë's wisdom -- her foresight was unmatched among the Eldar! -- but whatever her counsel on this matter, she did not share it.

“Stop staring,” Meleth whispered to him in the noise as the courtiers rearranged themselves for the next session. “His highness is prone to noticing things, my lord, even when he looks not upon them.”

“I do not stare!” he hissed, but his eyes found their way to Lómion once again. “And if I do, is it a wrong to heed the High King and watch her, when she holds court? You might scold everyone for a crime such as that.”

Meleth said, “Indeed this would be no wrong nor even rudeness, were your lordship looking upon the High King. But you are not; again and again you stare at her chief advisor and heir.”

“He stands beside her majesty. Perhaps you mistook the aim of my eye,” he said, and Meleth breathed a little laugh.

“Mistook!” said she. “I am not mistaken, and I know how to see where a gaze lands. Be warned, my lord, for her majesty is a proper king, and suffers no one to covet what is hers and hers alone. Were I you, I would find another young man to look upon, one more within reach.”

Tuilindo choked. “I--! What, you think me besotted with him?”

“You might act less like it, my lord, if it be not true.” Meleth adjusted her sleeves in just the way Aiwerilya always had when she was being dismissive, and it could not be clearer that Meleth held the same sentiment. “His highness is her majesty's only kinsman, the last of the proud House of Nolofinwë along with her. They are newly brought into true kinship, after his long illness, and she has chosen him as a counselor. If my lady wishes that he stay nigh to her always, and speak to her alone, I shall not make question of it. Allow her, my lord, being her loyal vassal, to take comfort in what she has left; seek not to steal it.”

“I have no desire to court the prince,” said Tuilindo through gritted teeth.

“I hope, for your lordship's sake, that that is true,” said Meleth. “His highness would receive no suit in any case -- you would not be alone in disappointment, if you did have your eye on him -- but her majesty would forbid it outright, should she see that anyone thought to take him from her house into their own. Not that her majesty would let herself be courted, mind.”

“Why, good Meleth, do you insist on telling me such things? I object only to this: that he is half a stranger, and yet has the ear of the High King, that he skulks about and seems to plot towards some end I know not.” Even now, Lómion whispered to Itarillë again, and that queasiness came to Tuilindo's stomach at the sight.

Meleth rolled her eyes. “Should a man do otherwise, when her majesty named him the master of her spies in the lands beyond the Echoriath? ‘Twould be a sad thing, a spymaster who could not skulk.”

“You jest with me,” Tuilindo accused.

“You seem to jest with yourself, making such a grim face to see your own queen heeding her counselors, when that should be such a good sign for your advancement,” said Meleth. “But cease your staring, lest it be noticed! We are to begin the session.”

Indeed, Itarillë struck the ground at her side with the scepter of the High King, and even Tuilindo's gaze was drawn to her alone as she spoke, as the silver light from the scepter cast her face in sharp, cold hues.

“Good people of Ondolindë,” she said, “we begin the second formal session of court. Ye who would petition me, come forward that I may hear ye.”

Tuilindo managed, after the first petitioner, to wrench his eyes away from Itarillë so as to glare once more at Lómion, whom he expected to be whispering and lurking and generally being untrustworthy. To his surprise, though, he found Lómion's eyes boring straight into his own.

Take heed of good Meleth, Lord Tuilindo of the Swallow, came Lómion's voice clearly into his mind. It is unbecoming to stare so, and being so close to her majesty, it is easily seen.

Tuilindo would hardly go airing the truth of his constant looking if by some miracle Lómion had not heard him voice his suspicions, so instead he pretended as if he had not heard the prince. That were better than causing a scene, or trying with his clumsy ósanwë to respond and deny it all.

How strange to think that, until Itarillë's crowning, it had been said that Lómion was in his convalescence from that small dose of fatal poison! Had he truly, or was that some lie, like the placid face he wore while threatening Tuilindo in front of the court?

Chapter Text

Lady Nordhrien knew herself to be an accomplished painter, one of the finest in Ondolindë if not in Beleriand, and her pride was not a small nor fragile thing. She was the eldest daughter of a noble house on her mother's side, and middling of a similar family on her father's, raised to hold her head up high and treat herself with utmost respect.

And yet, when she received the letter of commission, she went nearabout into hysterics.

“Dear Lady Nordhrien,

We hope this missive reaches thee in good health and good fortune. Thy talents as a painter of portraits are renowned in this fair city, and we find ourself in need of a royal portrait to hang in the gallery. We would be honored if thou wouldst take it upon thyself to paint us, along with our heir Prince Lómion.

For this first painting of our reign, we would best like something in a traditional style, but of course with thine own artistry. Prince Lómion has offered to find and source whatever stone-colors thou might need for this undertaking, though the making of paint is not his craft.

We understand that thou art an artist in high demand, but if it happens that thou hast the time to spare, we ask thee to send to us and say when thou canst paint this portrait.

With all respect and honor,

Itarillë Rehtarë Tyelperintal, Noldóran.”

“Oh!” cried Nordhrien, collapsing onto the loveseat in her sitting room as her heart beat double and her head went faint. “I must -- my good Viryetil, wilt thou fetch me paper and ink? Her majesty has written me!”

Viryetil, her most trusted handmaiden, brought these things swiftly from the next room, but Nordhrien found she could not put words to paper to reply to Itarillë, for her steady painter's hands shook when she thought to write. Instead she penned a note to her mother, and another to her friend Lord Salgant, and a third to her young cousin who would certainly faint at the news, for they practically worshiped Itarillë.

And it was not the commission alone that had her in such a tizzy, but the prospect of meeting the mysterious crown prince, of going so far as to request pigments from him! Her, asking favors from royalty!

After refreshing her spirits with a cup of cold floral tea, she gathered the strength to write back to Itarillë.

“Hail, High King Itarillë.

Nothing would be a greater honor than to paint the first portrait of your majesty's reign. I may need time to gather my paints, and I hope I may prevail upon his highness to find some of the colors that come from the earth, as your majesty has offered.

Paints notwithstanding, I shall do all I can to be ready within the month to paint the portrait on whatever day your majesty may choose. His highness shall receive a letter from me in the next days, if I may be so bold to presume upon him.

If I may be of any further service to your majesty, I beg that you not hesitate to tell me.

Your majesty's humble servant,

Nordhrien.”

Nordhrien folded the letter and sealed it with soft wax and her signet. “My Viryetil, wilt thou see this sent along to the palace? And these others around the city? And I expect half my friends and family will be by today for congratulations and gossip, if thou might tell Theresil that we need the kitchens on ready.” She turned to Viryetil to give the papers over, and to better hear her response.

“Shall I help thee dress for company?” said Viryetil, taking the letters, and Nordhrien's heart fluttered at the informal address, heard from Viryetil's tongue and seen on her lips and read in her hands’ signs.

“After, perhaps,” said Nordhrien, her own hands falling into sign as she spoke, “but I must first assess my stores of paint, and the state of my brushes. Tomorrow I shall send to the Guild of Spinners and Weavers for canvas, I think -- ah, but do not let me bore thee with this! I shall to my duty.”

Viryetil said, still signing even though she was near enough that Nordhrien could hear her sufficiently, “Thou couldst bore me never. But I shall see thy letters delivered, and Theresil warned, my lady, and return in time to dress thee for lunch or tea.”

“Do, my good Viryetil. I shall see thee soon,” said Nordhrien, and Viryetil curtsied and left.

Nordhrien went forth from her private chambers to her solar, where she painted portraits and other such indoor scenes, and which had slowly become the storage place for all the things she needed to practice her craft.

Sunlight fell golden through the windows and the skylight, turning the room into honey with the light of morning, the sort of scene she liked to paint when inspiration ran dry. Nordhrien ignored her neatly sorted stands of paintbrushes, and all the canvases both painted and empty -- none of those would do for a royal commission, as she had said to Viryetil -- instead making for the rack of countless rainbowed paints in jars and bottles.

Her cousins in the Heavenly Arch kept her well-supplied with paints and brushes, themselves being mural painters who adorned Ondolindë's white walls. And whatever colors or types of paint they could not source she made herself, relying on her friends in the Golden Flower to obtain the plants she needed for pigment.

But she rarely had the chance for earth and stone paints, or at least not ones better suited to canvas than wall, so the offer of the prince's help was not to be considered lightly.

She would need skystone, first of all. She hardly needed to look at her paints to know she had hardly any of that vibrant blue; skystone was prized for jewelry and hard to come by for paint, but Itarillë favored it, alongside sapphires and sunstone, and to paint her as a Noldóran deserved required the finest of colors even if she did not wear the very stone in question.

Cinnabar was easier to get, if she asked for some before the mural paint batches were made, but she could always use more. Clays, meanwhile, she could dig up in her own garden, and often had as a child, before learning that planting indigo in the earth would do her just as much good.

Humming quietly, feeling the soft vibrations of her throat, Nordhrien began making herself a list to send off to Lómion. Once she was better stocked, her paintings would be a marvel.

“Lady Nordhrien, may I ask how those pigments I sent you have done for paint?” said Maeglin, an hour into standing beside Idril's throne for the portrait. His hands were clumsy in forming the signs while he spoke, better used to the dwarven iglishmêk than mátengwië. “I do hope they have worked to your satisfaction, and that they carry all the color you might need.”

“They have become marvelous paints, your highness,” said Nordhrien, her hands too busy to sign. “The skystone best of all; I shall use it for her majesty's gown. If your highness thinks to make journeys to the mines a more regular habit, I imagine all the painters in Ondolindë would apply to you for their colors.”

Maeglin said, “You flatter me,” and snuck a glance towards Idril. There were worse things than using his own craft to supply color to the Hidden City and the gaudy elves who dwelt there, but as with all things that would take him from the public eye for even a moment, Idril would tell him whether or not he was permitted.

Thou wilt not, she said. Not until thy term of service as Crown Prince is ended. Am I to do without thee for the sake of my painters? No, thou wilt stay.

As my king says, he replied. I would not break my word to thee.

Idril's hand tightened on her scepter. See to it thou dost not. Thou art mine until I release thee.

He ought to have shivered in dread at such words, he who abhorred a cage and all thought of being owned. But Idril could not hide from him her true meaning, not when their minds so often met and melded; he knew she meant I have no other kin, and with thee I am at least not alone in my grief.

She did not need to say something so terrible and raw. Kings never should. But it was understood between them, and so she had no need to put voice to all those cares she would not admit, their unworded thoughts mingling and imparting their deepest truths to one another.

He had feared, before, that with Turukáno and his soft heart gone he would lose what safety he had, but now Idril’s possessive love outshone that of his uncle the way the sun outshone a lamp.

She had promised him that safety, so long as he belonged to her and served her will as her heir, and when first he had accepted it was grudging, with the knowledge he had no other choice. And yet, somehow, she had made him want to serve her, in this short handful of months, and he had given her all his loyalty, as if he were no better than her gyrfalcon, a wild thing tamed to her hand and grateful for the taming.

Worse still, she had kept her word and made him her own, mantled by her power and standing always at her side, and he liked it. She had accepted all the works of his hands for her and demanded his whole self and today -- ai, horn of Oromë, today she acted as if it were a matter of course that he appear in her portrait.

“Hold still,” said Idril. “Thou keep’st shifting in place. Lady Nordhrien shall have a terrible time capturing thy pose.”

He dipped his head, and said nothing.

How was he meant to go back to the silence of his high-up room in the Tower of the High King, after this? Now that he knew what it meant to be wanted? Oh, she claimed she needed him, but she had been raised to be a ruler; he had not. She could do well enough without him, and still she kept him, with the pretense of political need covering over the fact that she wanted a confidant who could support her.

Wanted -- how strange a thing to be! No, he could never return to the obscurity she had once offered as a reward, not anymore.

“How often are royal portaits painted?” he asked.

“Hm? Always at the start of the reign,” said Idril, “and usually at least twice a century after, and once when a new member of the royal house comes along; another when they reach majority. Atto would have insisted that thou and Atarnésa sit with us for one, had things gone less ill, or more recently hadst thou been hale enough to do so.”

“Mourning weeds would not become such a portrait,” said Maeglin, unsure whether he was agreeing with her.

“Then it is well that thy clothes have embroidery upon them at long last,” said Idril. “Though I fear it makes Lady Nordhrien's work that much more difficult.”

“And your own brocaded robes do not?” said Maeglin. Meleth had dressed her in her coronation clothes, gown and overgown and golden mantle and all.

“The bulk of the embroidery lies on the back of the mantle,” said Idril, “but I will admit that the lace on my sleeves may prove a toil to paint, nearly as much as it was for the lacemakers to create.”

Lady Nordhrien's ears flicked at the voicing of her name, the sounds likely being familiar enough to catch even when she would have trouble hearing anything else at the same volume.

She heard a bit of that, said Maeglin.

“Oh!” said Idril, louder. “Lady Nordhrien, pardon me. I only mused that the lace on my gown must be a terrible difficulty to paint.”

The moment Idril moved her hands to begin signing this, Nordhrien held up a hand to forestall her. “Your majesty is too kind! I shall apply myself with all dedication to the painting of the royal robes, but your majesty will do me a great favor by not signing just now, for the sleeves will be easier if they lie still.”

It was a rare thing, to see even the slightest embarrassment spread across Idril's features. “Then, Lómion, thou wilt sign for me. Thy sleeves are smaller.”

“As my king commands,” he said.

Idril glanced at him. Hast thou ever said that in earnest? It seems thou art always sarcastic.

Thou wound'st me! I am always sincere when I say thou art my king, that I shall obey thee, he said, and hoped she would think that a jest, too.

But her mind settled upon his like a hand on his shoulder, filled with understanding, and he knew they were too close for any falsehood.

Slowly, in the silence, he inched closer to the throne, allowing his left hand to nearly brush the marble, for even as her will filled him he found that the closeness of ósanwë was not enough, not in this newly familiar stone hall, not as he realized that he had not dreamed these past months. Not as he saw the rest of his life by her side, as clearly as she dreamed of days to come.

The tower bells chimed overhead. Somewhere between the hours, as one moment slipped into the next, Idril entwined her fingers with his. Their breaths steadied; their heartbeats matched.

(Lady Nordhrien, tactfully, did not paint this.)