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There was something to the clarity provided by desperation. The crumbled ruin of Eregion’s proud buildings, the choking smoke of unchecked fires, the distant wails of suffering—all of it slid away as Galadriel’s focus narrowed, as sharply honed as the tip of a blade.
Eregion had fallen, and the death and destruction Adar spilled upon the land had been for nothing. Sauron had been fully untouched by it. He had Nenya. He had the crown. Surely, at any moment, that now meant he would have an army, too.
With the news that the dwarven lands had been poisoned by the rings, Galadriel felt the threads Sauron had woven tighten into a noose around their throats. Unless something changed, and soon, they would all fall within his merciless grasp.
There had to be more she could do, more she could offer, more she could give. She had to try something. And she only saw one option.
She hid the rings as best she could in a narrow stream, the pouch tied securely and pinned beneath the largest rock she could move without wading into the water. For a moment, she allowed the water to rush against her fingers, cool and grounding, before turning to follow the draw curled within her chest.
It had not been there in the initial weeks after the revelation beside the Glanduin, or perhaps its call had simply been too quiet against the roar of her inner turmoil. When she began to wear Nenya, though, she had sensed it. As she toiled to right all the wrong she had allowed, buffeted between her people’s shock and scorn and suspicion, it had pressed the softest touch upon her mind, easing, comforting, like the relief of a cool shadow after the relentless heat of a midday sun.
It had offered a balm to the flame of her humiliation. She need not stay with those who shunned her. She need not bow and make herself small before those who could not see her greatness, not when there were others…
She had rejected it all, ignoring the way this unshakeable flicker of Sauron’s presence settled within her. Now, though, as the desaturated mosaic of gray stone and weary trees blurred past, Galadriel let it lead her to him.
The motivation was familiar—centuries of carrying its acid had carved well-worn tracks upon her spirit—but the emotions woven through it had changed. It was no longer a vague, shapeless evil she hunted; it had gained a face, and that face had become dear before the truth was exposed.
When she rushed into the clearing, nothing about the figure facing away from her was immediately recognizable. Even with the pale hair spilling over black armor, though, she knew him. Her hand flinched fruitlessly in reflex for the dagger no longer at her side. “Sauron.”
He had been waiting: for her to arrive, for her to speak, for her to acknowledge him. At her voice, he turned to her, casual and satisfied. “Galadriel.”
This should not have felt like an attack, and yet it did. For everything that was different—the voice, the hair, the eyes—it was still Halbrand’s face beneath it all, and her breath stuck in her lungs as though she had been hit. She supposed in some ways she had been; the swell of grief she had held at bay for weeks crashed over her like a wave.
And he knew; there was the slightest uptick of his lips as he watched her, something in her stillness betraying her. “Of course you would still know me from this face alone,” he mused. “I had hoped as much.”
She could not afford the way his appearance unsteadied her. “Stop the attack,” she managed, prying the words from her throat.
“But the attacking forces are not my troops, now are they?” he replied dismissively.
She gestured toward the crown beside him. “I know that will provide you with some sort of control over the orcs.”
Sauron did not seem particularly surprised that she had this knowledge. “What an unexpected level of trust for Adar to have explained as much to you—and for you to listen.” He considered the crown. “That must mean you had an opportunity to change his mind regarding the attack. It’s unfortunate that you failed.”
“I’m here to negotiate,” she snapped, regret and desperation flaying what remained of her calm. “Will you act as though you are too powerless to stall the attack while we do so?”
“Negotiate?” She tried to read any emotion woven into the word or his expression, but he watched her with his thoughts hidden. “And why would I negotiate with you?”
Galadriel had asked herself this as well. He had been so furious the last time she saw him, wild and unraveling so that he hardly mastered his own illusion. He had sunk her into an imaginary sea, and now she stood before him with defenses she could not trust to be enough. Perhaps her death was something he wished for as eagerly as she wished for his.
In some deep place within her, though, she bitterly acknowledged that her wishes were no longer so straightforward. And by the luring thing that had kept a gentle but persistent hold within her, she suspected it was not so simple for him, either.
“You have wanted me to find you. Why?” she asked in turn. When he did not answer, she swallowed around the uncomfortable truth in her throat, staring into his new, familiar face. “We were able to talk once—so let us talk. Or was that also part of your deception?”
It felt like ages until he inclined his head. “Very well.” He took a deep breath and stilled, eyes closed. In the dragging moment, she wished she could risk thrusting her sword at his chest. “It will take some minutes for them to reorganize, but not much longer. I suggest you make your case.”
Sauron neared and sat upon a line of ruined stonework before glancing back at her, and she did not need his illusions to be transported to a forest in the Southlands, to another moment away from a battle. For one terrifying, lovely, foolish moment, she had almost thought she was on the cusp of something like peace. She had softened the defenses that held her upright against the weight of ages of pain and loneliness, and it had been to the very one who was the catalyst for so much of her suffering.
“I find myself curious regarding what you intend to offer,” he continued into the silence. He was no longer watching her, and while the clear dismissal of her as a threat was insulting, it was a relief to be free of his attention. “You are at a disadvantage with nothing substantial to provide.”
Cautiously, she sat as far from him as the stone allowed. It was still little more than the span of her arm; he could reach her easily if he wished. She forced her hands to rest against her knees, loose and easy and perilously far from any weapon. “There must be something you have considered already,” she figured, unwilling to reveal the depths of her desperation unless she could find no alternative. “You would not agree to this otherwise.”
“Perhaps I merely wish to hear your pleas for my mercy.”
She could have scoffed; as though she believed him capable of mercy. Pressing her lips together, she forced back the retort as it climbed up her throat. Antagonism would not serve her goal here.
He turned to her, an edge of his grim expression softening. “Ah, no more galloping?” he wondered, and regardless of the new smoothness and changed accent, the drawl of his voice over the words was achingly similar.
“It was not poor advice,” Galadriel admitted, staring blankly into their surroundings. She could not bear to look at him. “I would have been better served heeding it sooner.”
She should be heeding it now. There was no reason to be saying these things to him, and yet it had been like this almost from the beginning, had it not? In his company, she revealed things she told no one else, that she scarcely acknowledged in the privacy of her own thoughts.
He made a soft sound, not quite a laugh but amused all the same. “I did miss this,” he allowed in turn, more than a little wondering. “I’ll admit, I was unsure what I intended to do if you reached Eregion earlier than I expected. Perhaps it is for the best that you did not. I was very angry with you.” Like an echo of the past, she could feel him watching her. Just as before, she hesitated to look. “I should be so even now, and yet I’m not. It’s strange—it has never been easy for me to forgive.”
Indignant fury flared through her, allowing her to ignore the discomforting realization that even in this they were similar. She grit her teeth and forced herself to look at him. “Your forgiveness means nothing to me.”
“That is not quite true, because it’s the only reason I am willing to speak to you now. But all of this is your effort to stall—you already know what I want. I have asked for it before.” He watched her, calculating. “So make your offer, Galadriel.”
For all that he kept his expression placid, she sensed a tension just below the surface. She wondered if others would see it too, or if the connection between them had granted her this insight. There was a lingering wariness to him regardless of the advantages he had in this situation, and she was struck by the certainty that there was something he hoped for.
She breathed deeply as she folded her right hand over the left, clinging to the faint scent of pine on the air. “My light,” she confirmed, voice dropping to a resigned whisper. At the very least, she managed not to shiver, even under the eagerness of his gaze. “It’s yours in exchange for withdrawing your designs over the elven realms.”
“Just the elven realms?” Sauron mused. “So quick to abandon the rest of Middle-earth?”
She grit her teeth. “And would it have been worthwhile to ask for so much?”
“No,” he said, turning more fully toward her. “In fact, I will not abandon even the elven realms for that much, either.”
For all her fear and anger, the statement cut through any footing she had believed she had and sent her plummeting. That was all she had to offer, and it was not enough, and her people were dying—
“I have a counter offer,” he continued before her rising panic consumed her. He reached for her, slow and deliberate so that she could have evaded him, but she remained motionless as he lightly braced his fingers against her chin. It was like when he had presented his proposal on the raft and yet not; as his thumb swept over her skin, catching briefly against her lip before he stopped himself, some undercurrent rushed beneath the gesture that had been absent before. “I will cease my plans for the elven realms—for you.”
Somehow, this offer was surprising and yet not shocking. “As your queen?” Galadriel tried, forcing steadiness into her words that was absent in her heart.
“As whatever I like.” He watched her expression with an intensity that made it hard to breathe, as though every tell of her reaction was clear for him to dissect, every minute flicker of muscle beneath her skin something he cataloged.
“Why?” she wondered, tugging her chin free. Her heart thundered with sudden fear and something else, more insidious and too dangerous to acknowledge. “To humiliate me?”
Lifting a brow, he let his hand drop to the stone between them as his expression cooled. “Is that what being at my side would be? A humiliation?” he asked. His lips curved, mirthless and cruel. “I can only imagine what you must have felt, reflecting on having considered it—or what you continue to feel, given that it still calls to you.”
The words pressed upon a lingering wound in her spirit. He was right; for all her horror at his actions, for all her conviction to cleave to the light, she had wavered—still wavered.
“You felt it, too,” he reminded her in the lingering silence, tone softened once more around the words she wished she could forget. “Why should you not have considered my offer, connected as we are? Why should you feel shame in accepting it now?”
“Do you truly expect me to witness all this death and destruction wrought by you and somehow find any comfort in what I have felt?” she wondered bitterly.
“I am fixing it.”
She looked wordlessly at the smoke spread across the expanse of the sky, unseen flames still painting the ridges of the mountains with red.
This time when he reached for her, he threaded his fingers into the hair spilling over her shoulder. “When you brought Halbrand—when you brought me—to Eregion, you knew the violence healing that wound would require. The ruined flesh had to be excised, the infection removed,” he said, both his voice and his touch so gentle against the violence he sought to justify. “Would you have me create something lovely while ignoring the rot within?”
That he could conceptualize the world in this way was terrifying, and Galadriel wondered how she had allowed herself to become so blind to his callousness. Had she not been disgusted by it when he abandoned his companions to the wyrm?
Except—he was not always so. He had dived into the sea to save her. He had tried to get the Southlanders to some sort of safety when the mountain erupted, even though he must have known how futile his efforts would be. In some ways, that only made it worse; he had the capacity for compassion and chose to abandon it instead.
“People are not an infection simply because you cannot control them,” she said tightly. She hated that she was sitting here with him, talking instead of swinging her sword. Even more, she hated that there was still something within her that resonated in his presence, a note suddenly drawn back in tune. “You cannot turn them into the fodder upon which you rebuild the world.”
“Then show me that exploring another way is worth it,” he urged, watching the light shift over the length of her hair as it slid through his fingers. “I do not value destruction for its own sake. If you can provide me with a better option, I would much rather leave beautiful things unbroken.”
When he glanced at her, she was trapped within the gravity of his gaze. “Is that what you intend me to be, then?” she wondered, fighting to raise her voice above a whisper. “A beautiful thing you get to keep?”
“Would such truly be so terrible? I have been allowed—I have wanted—so very few.”
Something that wavered between longing and grief passed over his features, and regardless of how his words lit indignant rage within her, his expression reminded her of just how truly ancient he was. It did nothing to stir sympathy for him, but she could not stem the unwanted empathy it drew forth. Loathe as she was to admit it, she understood the burden of carrying years that felt fruitless and dim across the spread of centuries.
She swallowed around the further arguments she wished to make. It was pointless; if she would manage to save anything from the ruin of that day, she could not tarry even with the barb his words drove in her heart. “If that is what it takes to save my people,” she started, tone cool and steady in a way her pulse failed to be, “then very well.”
She was ready for gloating, some arrogant smile slipping across his face or self-satisfied word passing his lips. Surely he had gained everything he could have wanted from that day. Watching what seemed to be the breaking of her convictions for him must no doubt please him.
As the silence lengthened, though, she finally forced herself to look at him. Eagerness gleamed in his eyes, but the intensity of it was still seeking and uncertain. “Did you truly never miss me?”
The question was thoroughly unexpected; Galadriel had no defenses for the way it struck her. She sucked in a breath, but even with the air in her lungs she could not bring the necessary lie to her tongue.
Sauron listed, just slightly, into her space. “Did your thoughts not once turn to me with something other than resentment?”
Unconsciously, unwillingly, she mirrored the motion, caught in his gravity. She was near enough now to trace the hint of his warmth in the air between them. “I don’t see why that matters,” she managed, the moment already drawn overlong.
“It matters because I admit that I often found myself… distracted, thinking of you.” Almost absently, he curled the slackened length of her hair between his fingers, anchoring them—binding them. “About your light and how much simpler everything would be to have it with me, but also your fierceness. Your care for everything. And, yes, your beauty. I missed all of it. All of you.”
When his free hand lifted to curl along her jaw, the pressure of his fingers warm and certain, she despised the way the tenderness called to her. “I think the scope of what I asked before was too limited,” he continued as he tipped her head to look at him. “I had not borne your absence then. Now that I have, I find I do not wish to again.”
“I already agreed to your terms,” she murmured. His words would have been so sweet coming from any other mouth; as it was, she felt she was being fed some poison she could not identify, its bitterness hidden within honeyed sentiments.
“Is it too much to think you could accept because you wish to, not just because you believe it will save your people?”
This was a ridiculous thing to ask, but as she opened her mouth to say as much, realization splintered across her thoughts: he was sincere. Even as so much of this conversation had been crafted in an obvious effort to draw out her vulnerabilities, to soften her to him, he was revealing his own weaknesses. He had admitted to being distracted by recollections of her even as he furthered his plans. As grave as the mark he had left upon her, their connection had not left him unscathed. She had impacted him as well, disturbing his concentration, lingering in his considerations—
—Infecting his thoughts.
She went so, so still, the first fine threads of a plan weaving into shape.
“Deny that you missed me,” Sauron urged, too driven by his own motives to notice any tell that may have betrayed her. This time when his touch lingered against her lips, he did not draw away. “Tell me I was not in your thoughts as well.”
“You were,” she admitted as the truth and a possible way forward fell into alignment.
Regardless of the warmth that unfurled upon his features, it was still suffused with triumph as his hands slid to draw her closer. Galadriel did not fight the pull. When she reached for him as well, she told herself it was just the first stone in the ruse she needed to construct. The way her fingers dragged along the pulse at his throat until he shivered was merely to confirm that, yes, he was as affected by this as she had suspected.
When his lips finally pressed to hers, she did not dwell on the dormant, hungry thing that flared to life within her. She focused on him instead: the desperation in how he clung to her, the clearness of his want in the pleasantly coaxing greed of his kiss, the obvious need in how he echoed the unraveling intensity of her touch. Perhaps she made some sound when his hand sank into her hair, nails grazing her scalp, but she only noted the one he made when she caught his lip between her teeth.
His skin felt almost feverish beneath her hands when he finally pulled back. In his over-bright eyes, already flicking to again consider her mouth, she felt possibility spread before her like a valley after the cresting of a peak. He believed he had won over her convictions, a victor now partaking in the spoils of his efforts. He was not worried about her, or at least not in the ways he should be.
That would be his error. Galadriel was painfully aware of the threat he remained to her, even as he pressed achingly soft kisses to her jaw and throat—he was a threat especially because of those. Part of her, shamefully, continued to want this and everything he offered. She had to be sure she remembered her purpose; how else would she keep her feet from wandering over a boundary she could not return from?
But he was not being cautious. He did not realize that she could yield this much while still lashed to the convictions in her heart. Perhaps she did not have the strength to kill him outright as she had hoped, but she saw how she may have the power to destroy him in other ways. If she had already proven to be such a distraction when outside his grasp, how much of one could she be now? What things could she turn his thoughts from—and to—if she imbedded herself so firmly within them that it would be impossible to extricate her?
He had said he could not allow infection to ruin what he sought to create. How funny, then, that as he breathed promises of healing in the guidance of her light against her skin, he was blind to how she had already infected him.