Wanderer

49 - Darkest Hour

Jade

I couldn't warm up, no matter how I tried. 

I knew I was a sight, wrapped in a winter cloak in the armory, crouched, trying to restring my bow. The armory was full of sunlight, and the flagstones were warm, but I was cold with dread. 

Things weren't looking up. For one thing, Valthalion's army had regrouped and was bivouaced outisde Lindon. Then there were the threatening messages that kept pouring in from Val every day. Furthermore, Elrond was fighting, and somehow, Dae was too, though how he had walked from his bed to the head physician to check himself out the ward I still didn't know. Erenion looked like an elf staring down death, and there weren't enough elves to repel a mutiny in their ranks, let alone an opposing army.

I finally managed to restring the bow and ran my numb fingers over the polished wood. I really hoped that Earendil was indeed going as fast as he could. I respected him immensely as a person, and trusted him completely. But I knew that Earendil had a side that no one knew about, even my father. My father had always said that people were complex, and had good and bad qualities, and sometimes it was hard to place a person into any one category. Flaws could be devastating, and virtues redeeming. Earendil, I knew, was an elf of both. His affair with the sea had long plagued him and his family, but I thought that he was just a distracted type. If he was capable of being sidetracked from his voyage, then that very well could be the flaw that ruined the world.

I heard the armory door creak open behind me. I blew on my numb fingers, but didn't get up. Then I head Erenion's voice, strained, deliberate. Nothing new there.

"Andunie - Rana, I need you to do something for me."

"Anything," I replied, before it registered that he had used my full name and that something was up.

"Don't turn around," he said, and gasped as if cold.

And then Erenion started choking.

I ignored him and whirled around in horror, notching an arrow to my bow in practiced movements. Erenion could barely heave himself off the door frame. His beautiful eyes were pleading and desperate.

Erenion was a tall elf, but so was Valthalion behind him.

A knife covered in gorgeous maroon elven blood, slipped from Valthalion's fingers as Erenion choked his life away.

The cold feeling was back.

I released the arrow without a second thought, but Valthalion just ducked. 

"Look to your own, Jade," he said scornfully. "I will be back for you."

I dropped the bow, my breathing harsh and short. I grabbed Erenion's shoulders and heaved him up off the floor into my lap. Blood poured from a stab wound from the back of his neck. Instantly, I was dripping with blood.

"Majesty!" Too formal. "Erenion!" I fought my pain and tried to think of logistics. "Erenion, who is next?"

"Regrets..." I could barely hear the word. 

"Majesty!"

"Jade...I have no son...Elrond is strong..he must lead you..."

Erenion clawed at the circlet around his forehead. His dark fingers left smears of blood around his face.

"Jade, please...help him reign..."

Through his shirt, Erenion's heart was beating wildly. He had mere seconds.

I couldn't believe this was happening.

"Jade, dearest!" Erenion formed a heart with his fingers, blood already encrusting them. "I have...always...loved you..."

The pain that hit me was exponentially more than Daeron's had been. To think that he had always cared, and I had never known. It broke my heart again.

"Jade..." He reached for my face with a failing hand.

No.

I bent down as quickly as I could, tears falling on his face. I don't know if he received my kiss or not, but when I lifted my mouth from his, Erenion, High King of Lindon, was already dead.

A quick sound at the door made me start. Elrond came, and our quarrel was instantly forgotten.

"Jade! Did Val do this? Khelek said he saw him but I thought he was crazy..."

A quick nod from me confirmed his suspicions.

Elrond bent beside the body, his face shocked and painful. "I loved him like a brother..."

In spite of my breaking heart, I cut him off. "El, no time. You're High King now."

"What?" The shock on his face bordered on comical. "No. Hell, Jade, I can't do that!"

It was a boy staring at me across the fallen king's body, not an eighteen-year-old.

"You have to," I said. It was as simple as that.

He nodded, still looking confused. "I'll do it." Carefully, he took the golden circlet of office from Erenion's fine hair. Set among his ebony locks, the contrast between gold and black was striking.

"My first act as High King is to find a queen. Jade, will you marry me?" There was no trace of the boy anymore, only a very grown man, deadly earnest and infinitely handsome.

I was about to reply when Daeron limped in. He took in the High King's body, Elrond with the circlet and me on the verge of accepting a marriage proposal and did what only a warrior would have done. 

"Majesty, Valthalion's army is now approaching the city. We are ordering all men ready to fight in the hour. We need your support."

Elrond, his previous train of thought quite derailed, smiled. "He didn't think I would take the office. Daeron, as my new herald, would you announce the contrary?Eru help you, Valthalion, because I'm proving you wrong."