Chapter 6: A Toast to Doom
The Hall of Fire was a beating heart of warmth and noise, a sanctuary of crafted joy that felt, to Vanja, like a beautifully painted cage. After the grim clarity of the library, the forced merriment was a relief and a torture. She drank the honeyed wine because it was sweet, and because it softened the sharp edges of the bookshelf-lined reality waiting for her outside. She drank more because Glorfindel, across the room in deep conversation with Elrond’s sons, had not looked at her once.
The music swelled, harps and flutes weaving a tapestry of sound as intricate as the ones on the walls. Elves danced, their movements a fluid language of grace she could never hope to learn. She watched, separate, a scholar observing a beautiful, extinct culture. The wine hummed in her veins, a cheap substitute for belonging.
It was Elladan who approached first, refilling her goblet with a teasing smile. “You watch as one who studies a rare insect, Lady Elenya. Do we fascinate or frighten?”
“You confuse,” she said, the words already slurring just slightly. She took a large gulp. “You’ve seen ages of sorrow. Yet you dance.”
“Sorrow makes joy a necessity, not a frivolity,” he said, his grey eyes kind. “You should try it.”
She didn’t dance. She drank. Elrohir joined them, and their twin attention was flattering, easy. They asked her of mundane things—the taste of Lembas, her opinion of the valley’s gardens—carefully avoiding the chasms they knew lay beneath. The wine kept coming. The world developed a soft, glowing halo. The memory of Glorfindel’s hand on her shoulder, his rejection at the waterfall, curdled in her stomach, fed by the alcohol.
Her eyes found him again. He was looking now. A statue of disapproval etched in gold and shadow. It sparked something ugly in her chest.
She stood, a little unsteady. She held up her goblet, the deep red wine sloshing dangerously. Her voice, when it came, was too loud for the mellifluous atmosphere. “A toast!”
Conversation hiccupped. Polite, curious faces turned her way. Glorfindel’s posture went rigid.
“To stories!” she proclaimed, swaying. “To the ones we tell to make sense of the dark! And to the poor bastards who have to live inside them!” She drained the cup, the wine staining her lips like blood.
An uneasy silence, then gracious, scattered applause. Elrond, seated on his dais, watched with fathomless eyes.
Glorfindel was moving toward her, a silent storm cutting through the crowd. She met his gaze, a challenge in her own. She grabbed a fresh flagon from a passing attendant before he could reach her.
“You are not used to our wines,” he said, his voice low, a blade wrapped in velvet. “They are stronger than they taste.”
“I’m fine,” she hissed, pulling away from his reaching hand. “I’m just catching up. Centuries of parties, you must have a legendary tolerance. Bet I can out-drink you.”
A murmur rippled through the nearest elves. The impudence was shocking, a toddler challenging a mountain to a contest of strength. A dangerous amusement flickered in Elladan’s eyes.
Glorfindel’s jaw tightened. “Do not.”
“Scared, my lord?” she taunted, pouring herself another full goblet. “Scared a little mortal will show you up? What’s the matter? Worried you’ll lose your precious control?”
She saw it hit home. The word ‘control’—his, hers, the precarious control over the secret she embodied. His eyes flashed, but he composed himself, a terrifying calm settling over him. He took a cup from the table.
“As you wish,” he said, his voice clear and carrying. “A contest. One drink each. The first to stop, or falter, yields.”
The Hall erupted in soft, delighted laughter. This was a novelty. They made space, forming a loose circle. Vanja knocked hers back, the liquid fire burning a path to her gut. Glorfindel matched her, his throat moving in a smooth, unhurried swallow. He poured the next round himself.
They drank again.
And again.
The world began to tilt, to smear at the edges. Glorfindel’s face remained a placid mask, but his eyes were molten gold, fixed on her with an intensity that cut through the fog. She was aware of the heat of the hall, the press of bodies, the smell of wine and woodsmoke and his own clean scent cutting through it all. She was laughing, a ragged, unhinged sound. She couldn’t stop.
“You’re cheating,” she slurred, pointing a wobbly finger at him. “Elvish metabolism… bullshit.”
“Yield, Vanja,” he murmured, so only she could hear.
“Fuck you.”
Another cup. This one tasted of oblivion. Her knees buckled. He caught her arm, his grip iron. The touch sent a jolt through her system. She stared up at him, the laughter dying in her throat, replaced by a wave of visceral, drowning sorrow. The room swam. The tapestries on the walls seemed to move, the woven flames of Gondolin’s fall dancing in her wine-addled vision.
Her eyes locked on one particular scene: a golden-haired elf lord, surrounded by fire and shadow, facing a demon of flame and whip.
“You looked so beautiful in the fire,” she whispered, her voice carrying in a sudden lull in the music. The words were not her own; they were vomited up from the depth of the story she’d consumed a lifetime ago. “All that golden hair… like a candle. He took you from behind. The Balrog’s whip… it cracked your armor like an eggshell. Your blood sizzled on the rocks. You screamed when you fell. It wasn’t noble. It was fucking loud.”
The silence was absolute.
Every note of music died. Every breath held. The crackle of the eternal flames was the only sound.
Elrond’s silver goblet hit the stone floor with a deafating, pure ring, wine splashing like a wound across the intricate mosaic.
Glorfindel did not move. The color drained from his face, leaving it a pale, stark mask of utter horror. The memory was his, private, sacred, and vile. The most intimate trauma of his existence, never spoken, only carried in the silent hours of the night. And she had described it. Not as history, but as an eyewitness. With filthy, mundane words. Sizzled. Fucking loud.
Murder ignited in his eyes.
He moved. There was no grace now, only lethal efficiency. He hauled her against him, her back to his chest, one arm like a bar across her collarbone. She gasped, the air crushed from her lungs.
“My lord,” Elrond began, rising, his voice steeped in alarm.
“She is unwell,” Glorfindel bit out, the words sharp as shattered glass. “I will see her to her chambers.”
He did not ask. He dragged her, half-carrying, half-walking her stumbling form from the Hall. The crowd parted like grass before a scythe. She caught a final glimpse of Elrond’s face, not angry, but profoundly, eternally grieved. Then they were in the cool, dark corridor, the silence pounding in her ears.
He propelled her forward, his pace furious. She tripped on the stairs leading to the residential quarters, and he simply lifted her, throwing her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. The world inverted. Blood rushed to her head. She beat weakly at his back.
“Put me down! Glorfindel!”
He didn’t answer. He took the steps two at a time. He shouldered open the door to her room, crossed it in three strides, and dumped her unceremoniously onto the bed. She bounced, disoriented, the room spinning. He slammed the door shut and threw the heavy bolt.
When he turned, he was a stranger. The composed elf-lord was gone. This was the creature who had fought demons in the abyss. His beauty was fierce, wild, untamed. His golden hair had escaped its braids, falling around a face sharp with rage and a pain so deep it looked like madness.
“How?” The word was a scrape of stone on stone. “How do you have that in your head?”
She pushed herself up on her elbows, wine and terror churning in her stomach. “I read it,” she sobbed. “I told you… I read it all.”
“You did not read that!” He roared, advancing. He loomed over the bed. “You did not read about the sound my armor made! You did not read about the sizzle! What are you? A ghost sent to torment me? A spy for the Shadow, peeling open my past to unmake me?”
“I’m sorry!” she screamed back, fury rising to meet his. “Do you think I want this? Do you think I want your trauma living in my head next to grocery lists and subway schedules? It’s just there! It’s all just there!” She tore at her own hair. “I can’t get it out!”
He stared at her, chest heaving. The murder in his eyes morphed into something else, something desperate and scorching and equally frightening. The air between them was pure ozone, the tension coiling past breaking point.
“You want to see the demon?” he whispered, his voice suddenly, dangerously calm. “You want to see what the fire left behind? Look.”
His hands went to the laces of his tunic. He didn’t undo them. He ripped. The fine silk parted with a sickening tear. He shed the garment, letting it fall. His torso was a map of pale, perfect skin over sculpted muscle… and there, across his left shoulder blade, curling around his ribcage, was a patch of skin that was different. Smoother. Whorled and shiny, like melted wax. A massive, terrible burn, long healed but forever marking him.
The legacy of the Balrog’s touch.
She stopped breathing.
He moved then, a predator closing the final distance. He came down onto the bed, knees on either side of her thighs, caging her. He didn’t kiss her. He grabbed her face, forcing her to look at him, his thumbs pressing into her cheeks.
“Is this what you wanted from your book?” he hissed. “The illustration?”
A sob ripped from her throat. She brought her hands up, not to push him away, but to touch his chest, her fingers splaying over his heart, feeling its furious, rapid beat. Then she trailed them around, slowly, tentatively, until her fingertips grazed the edge of the ruined skin on his back.
He flinched. A full-body shudder.
She traced the strange, smooth texture, her touch feather-light. Her tears spilled over, running down to wet his palms where he still held her face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again, the words utterly broken. “I’m so sorry.”
The last of his resistance snapped.
His mouth crashed down on hers. It was nothing like before. This was a conflagration. It was punishment and absolution, rage and a drowning need. It was teeth and tongue and the taste of salt—her tears or his, she didn’t know. She kissed him back with equal fervously.
She kissed him back with equal fervor, a wordless scream against his mouth. Her hands slid from his chest to clutch at his shoulders, her nails digging into the unmarred skin, anchoring herself against the storm of him. He tore at her clothes, the delicate Elvish fabric no match for the singular focus of his hands; stitches popped and seams gave way with soft, explosive sounds.
Her dress was gone, then her smallclothes, ripped away and discarded onto the floor. The cool night air hit her skin, followed immediately by the scorching heat of his body covering hers. He broke the kiss, his breathing ragged, staring down at her naked form with a look of ravenous hunger that erased centuries of courtly grace.
"Tell me to stop," he demanded, his voice shredded. His hands gripped her hips, his fingers pressing hard enough to bruise.
"Don't you fucking dare," she gasped, arching up against him.
That was all the permission he needed. He fumbled with the laces of his own trousers, his usual dexterity gone, replaced by a frantic need. He freed himself, his cock springing out, thick and painfully hard. The sight of it, veined and ruddy and eager, sent a new bolt of liquid heat straight to her core. He was already wet at the tip.
He didn't prep her. He didn't ask. He positioned himself at her entrance, the broad head nudging against her folds. She was wet, impossibly so, a slickness born of fear and fury and a desperate want that overrode everything.
"Look at me," he growled, holding her gaze. "When I fuck you, you look at me. You see who is here. Now."
He shoved forward in one deep, brutal, claiming stroke.
She cried out, a sharp sound swallowed by the room. He filled her completely, a stunning, stretching intrusion that bordered on pain. She clenched around him, her body shocked by the sudden fullness. He stilled, buried to the hilt, a shudder wracking his frame.
"Fuck," he breathed, the curse a prayer.
Then he moved.
He set a punishing, rhythmic pace from the start, each thrust a hard, driving piston that slid her up the bed. There was no gentle build, no tentative exploration. This was raw collision. The slap of skin on skin, the wet, filthy sound of their joining, the creak of the bedframe filled the silent room. He angled his hips, grinding deep on every inward drive, hitting a spot inside her that made her vision blur.
"Is this what you wanted?" he grunted, his sweat dripping onto her chest. "This instead of words?"
"Yes, god, yes," she moaned, her legs wrapping around his waist, heels digging into the small of his back. Her own hips rose to meet his, matching his brutality. Every thrust scattered thought, atomizing the prophecies and the grief and the echoing horror from the hall. He was replacing it all with pure, animal sensation.
He leaned down, capturing her mouth again in a sloppy, biting kiss. She could taste wine and salt and him. One hand remained anchored on her hip, the other tangled in her hair, holding her head in place. The possessiveness of it, the sheer physical dominance, should have chilled her. It ignited her.
"Harder," she pleaded against his lips, the words mangled.
He obeyed. His thrusts became sharper, deeper, more frenzied. The bed hammered against the wall. She was so close, a tight, screaming coil about to snap. She felt his rhythm begin to falter, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He was close too.
"Come on," she taunted, her voice hoarse. "Show me. Show me you're not a ghost in a story."
A guttural sound ripped from his throat. He drove into her one last time, hilt-deep, and held there. His entire body went rigid as his orgasm tore through him. She felt the hot, pulsing release of him inside her, a flood of warmth that triggered her own climax.
It crashed over her without mercy, a wave of blinding, shattering pleasure that erased her name, her world, her self. She clenched around him, milking him, her cry muffled against his shoulder. For long moments, there was only the shock of it, the frantic beating of their hearts, the slow, wet slide of him softening within her.
He collapsed, his weight crushing her into the mattress, but she didn’t care. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, his breath scalding her skin. They lay there, glued together by sweat and spend, the silence returning, now hollowed out and different.
Slowly, he rolled off her. The loss of his weight and warmth was acute. He lay on his back beside her, one arm thrown over his eyes. The scar on his back was a pale ridge against the sheets.
The reality of what they’d just done—the violence of it, the deliberate, wordless obliteration—settled over the room like dust. She stared at the carved ceiling, her body throbbing, her mind blissfully, terribly empty.
After a century of quiet, he spoke, his voice raw.
“No one has ever spoken of my death that way.”
She turned her head to look at him. His profile was stark. “It’s how I saw it. When I read. It wasn’t noble. It was just… death.”
He lowered his arm, his golden eyes fixed on the same patch of ceiling. “It was.”
Another silence, softer now. The frantic energy was spent.
“The wine,” she started, an apology forming.
“Do not,” he interrupted, not unkindly. He turned onto his side, facing her. His gaze traveled over her face, her swollen lips, the likely red marks on her hips and wrists. He reached out and traced the line of her jaw with a single, surprisingly tender finger. “It was already there. The wine just broke the dam.”
He sat up, swinging his legs off the bed. His back was to her, the scar and the powerful muscles in full view. He found his trousers and pulled them on. The domestic act felt more intimate than the sex. He picked up her ruined dress from the floor, held it for a moment, then draped it over a chair.
“I will have someone bring you a new one in the morning,” he said, not looking at her.
He walked to the door, unbolted it, and paused with his hand on the frame.
“Sleep, Vanja. For real this time.” His voice was quiet. “The stories can wait.”
He closed the door softly behind him.
The click of the latch echoed in the silent room. Vanja lay perfectly still, the ache between her legs a blunt, factual reminder. The smell of sex and sweat and spilled wine hung in the air, a vulgar perfume. She could still feel the imprint of his hands on her hips, the stretch of him inside her, the shocking warmth of his release. Her mind was a blank, white field.
Her mind was a blank, white field.
It did not last.
The blankness curdled into a shame so acute it felt like a physical sickness. Dawn found her retching into the chamber pot, her body expelling the wine, the terror, the memory of his touch. Her muscles ached in unfamiliar places. The bruises on her hips had bloomed into violet smudges, fingerprints left by a storm. A servant came, silent and avoiding her eyes, leaving a new grey dress and a tray of broth. The torn clothing was gone.
Vanja avoided the Hall of Fire. She avoided the library, Elrond’s knowing gaze, the training grounds where Elladan and Elrohir might offer sympathetic smiles. She took her meals alone in her room or walked the high, hidden paths where the waterfalls drowned out thought. Glorfindel was simply gone. No note, no word, no ghost of his presence in the corridors. It was as if that night had been a fever dream that had burned itself out, taking him with it.
“He rides with my brothers and some of the Dúnedain,” a voice said behind her one afternoon near the stables. Vanja turned, startled. The woman who stood there was like a piece of the evening itself given form. Dark hair flowed over her shoulders, and her eyes held the light of the clearest sky. “There has been trouble near the Hoarwell. Orcs, they think.”
Vanja said nothing. She just stared, struck by a beauty that was both profound and utterly unpretentious.
“I am Arwen,” the woman said, smiling. “My father said you might appreciate a guide to the less-frequented gardens. He worries you will read yourself into a shadow.”
The kindness was so simple, so direct, it disarmed Vanja completely. “I might,” she admitted, her voice rough from disuse.
They walked. Arwen did not probe or ply her with lofty conversation. She spoke of the flowers—their names in Sindarin and Westron, which bees preferred them, how the light hit the petals at dawn. Her voice was a calm, melodic stream. After a week of solitary torment, it was a balm.
Their friendship did not blaze; it simply grew, seamless and steady as moss on a stone. They met most days. They walked, or sat in silence, or Vanja listened as Arwen spoke of her mother’s grace, her brothers’ mischief, the slow, deep song of the valley. In turn, Vanja haltingly spoke of a world of metal carriages and glowing screens, of universities and deadlines, concepts that made Arwen’s eyes widen with a wonder that held no judgment.
One afternoon, resting by a pool where white water-lilies floated, Arwen looked at her, head tilted. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” she stated, as one might note the weather.
Vanja snorted, a genuine, undignified sound. “Only you and your brothers think that.”
“Then we are the only ones with eyes,” Arwen replied, laughter in her tone. But then the laughter faded. She watched Vanja trace patterns on the stone bench, her movements weighted. “You grieve,” Arwen observed softly. “It clings to you like mist.”
Vanja’s hand stilled. The truth, kept in a locked box, rattled. “Both,” she whispered to the lilies. “For someone I loved and almost forgot. And for what cannot be.”
A gentle silence stretched between them, filled with the drip of water and the distant call of a bird.
“You mean Glorfindel?” Arwen asked, her voice devoid of artifice.
Vanja’s head snapped up. She searched Arwen’s face for pity, for caution, and found only open curiosity. “Yes,” she breathed, the admission terrifying and freeing.
Arwen’s smile returned then, a slow, radiant thing that held a universe of secret understanding. “Oh, there will,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “Well, let us say it will not be easy. But it will be rewarding.”
Vanja opened her mouth to ask what that meant, but Arwen had already stood, offering a hand to pull her up. “Come. The evening bells will ring soon.”
Three months passed.
The sharp edges of Vanja’s shame had dulled, worn down by routine and Arwen’s steadfast presence. She helped in the healing houses, her modern knowledge of sanitation and wound care surprising even Elrond. She learned to wield a knife, not a sword, under Elladan’s pragmatic tutelage. She slept through the night. The face of her husband was a soft, blurry photograph in a lost album, the pain of its loss a quiet, chronic ache rather than a sharp stab. She thought she was building something resembling peace.
Then the hunting party returned.
She heard the commotion in the courtyard—horses, laughter, the clatter of gear. Her heart performed a foolish, traitorous leap. She did not go down. She stayed in her room, then in the archives, forcing herself to translate a particularly dense passage of Númenórean tax law.
That evening, drawn by hunger and a stubborn refusal to hide, she entered the Hall of Fire.
He was there.
Seated at a long table, flanked by Elrohir and a ranger she didn’t recognize, Glorfindel was eating. He was laughing at something, his head thrown back, the strong column of his throat exposed. The firelight caught in his hair, pure and undimmed. He looked relaxed, vital, utterly at home. A lord among his people. He had been back for three days, she later learned. He had not sought her.
A cold stone settled in Vanja’s gut. The sight of him, so untouched, so completely unmoved by their history, was a slap. The memory of his teeth on her skin, his whispered curse, his weight—it all seemed like a pathetic fantasy she’d concocted. She straightened her spine, lifted her chin, and walked to the opposite side of the hall. She took a seat next to Arwen, who was listening to a minstrel.
She did not look his way again. She accepted a cup of wine, engaged Arwen in talk about the day’s herbal harvest, and laughed at the right moments. Her performance was flawless. From the corner of her eye, she saw his gaze slide over her, once, like a beam of light passing over a piece of furniture. It did not linger.
Arwen, following her rigid line of sight, leaned in. “He has asked after you, you know,” she murmured behind her hand. “Three times to my father. He just does not know what to do with you.”
Vanja took a slow sip of wine. “I require nothing to be done.” Her voice was cool, detached.
Arwen’s lips twitched. She glanced across the hall where Glorfindel’s laugh had faded, his attention now ostensibly on his companion, though his posture had stiffened almost imperceptibly. A soft, knowing giggle escaped Arwen. “I see.”
Vanja kept her eyes on the minstrel, her face a placid mask. Inside, everything was churning. The blank, white field was gone, replaced by a dark, fertile soil where something thorny and determined had taken root. He thought it was over? He thought his silence could be a period at the end of their sentence?
Good.
Let him wonder. Let him watch her not watching him. The game, she realized with a cold clarity, had just become infinitely more interesting.