The guest chamber of the Steward's mansion lay wrapped in the silence of the night before the wedding. White stone walls rose pale and ghostly in the moonlight, casting cold light across Serine's profile as she stood by the window. Her long dark-brown hair stirred. She could not sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, that look Éowyn had given her in the garden that afternoon returned to her. *(She thinks of me as an enemy.)* The thorns in her words. The surface-level conversation they had exchanged at the dinner table. Beneath it, an uncontrollable jealousy seethed. Serine had felt all of it. The senses she had honed as a ranger caught the fractures filling the Steward's mansion, pressing against her skin. Serine narrowed her grey-blue eyes and gazed out the window. Beyond the garden, the cobblestone streets of the Sixth Circle stretched past the nobles' mansions. Further still, the White Tower rose against the moonlight. Tomorrow, the King's wedding would be held there. *(Lord Aragorn will find happiness.)* She had long since buried that thought deep in her heart. There was no reason for it to stir now. But if her mere presence here was breaking something—that, she could not bear. A faint, stinging ache pulsed in her chest. "...The air is heavy." The murmured words were swallowed into the quiet room. After a moment's hesitation, Serine threw a deep blue cloak over her shoulders. She belted her sword at her hip. The movements of a warrior long accustomed to sleepless nights. Seeking the night air to clear her mind, she opened the door and stepped into the corridor. The hallway was wrapped in the cold silence of stone. Only the orange flames flickering in the wall sconces barely held the darkness at bay. Her boots echoed faintly with each step. No one was there. The White City, bustling with wedding preparations, had sunk into profound stillness at this hour alone. She passed through the main entrance of the Steward's mansion and emerged into the outer colonnade. The cold night air bit at her cheeks. From the heights of the Sixth Circle, the lights of the White City spread below, twinkling like stars fallen to earth. Far away, in the market of the First Circle, the faint ring of a smithy's hammer could be heard. The hammer of reconstruction did not cease even at night. *(Perhaps I should not have come here.)* The thought drifted through her mind. She had come to the White City to attend the King's wedding. Yet her presence, unintended as it was, was driving a wedge into the bond between husband and wife. As a ranger, she had withdrawn for the sake of others countless times before. Should she not do the same now? Serine walked along the colonnade, sinking deeper into these thoughts. —That was when it happened. From somewhere in the distance, a low, angry voice reached her ears. Serine stopped. She listened intently. Sobbing. Someone was crying. The sound mingled with the faint murmur of water, drifting from the night garden. Her ranger's instincts sensed an unnatural tension prickling against her skin. Unconsciously, she lowered her stance and moved toward the source of the sound. A pathway lined with white stone pillars led from the palace's outer colonnade to the courtyard. Before a fountain bathed in moonlight, two figures stood facing each other. A tall man, and a golden-haired woman. Faramir and Éowyn. Serine concealed herself in the shadow of a stone pillar. Her heart hammered against her ribs. She had not meant to listen. But she could not move. The unnatural tension of that scene had nailed her feet to the ground. "[crying]Why... why won't you open your heart to me, and me alone...?" Éowyn's voice trembled. Her refined pronunciation, befitting her Rohirrim royal lineage, was now violently distorted by the surge of emotion. Her golden hair was disheveled in the moonlight, and tears streamed endlessly from her grey-blue eyes. "[sad]You opened your heart to Serine. In that garden, you faced her with an expression you have never once shown me..." In the shadow of the pillar, Serine caught her breath. *(So it is because of me, after all.)* Éowyn's words pierced Serine's chest like a sharp blade. That conversation in the garden yesterday—the brief words she had exchanged with Faramir. A mere moment of sharing a warrior's wounds, nothing more. But to Éowyn, it had been something else entirely. "[crying]For three days... I have been thinking. Why won't you show that to me, your wife? Every time you cried out in your sleep, I could do nothing. All I could do was lie beside you and stare at your back..." Éowyn's voice was nearly a scream now. The sound of the fountain tried to drown it out, but it echoed clearly through the night courtyard. Faramir stood silent and motionless. The moonlight illuminated his jet-black hair and cast shadows deep into his grey eyes. "[sad]You are always looking somewhere far away. Even when you touch me, your heart is elsewhere. Are you thinking only of your brother... only of Boromir...?" Faramir's shoulders trembled, ever so slightly. "[serious]...Stop." His voice was low, as if wrenched from his throat. "[serious]I cannot speak to you of my brother." "[angry]Why?! I am your wife!" "[serious]Precisely because you are my wife." Faramir's voice suddenly sharpened. "[serious]You would not understand. My brother's failure—and this anguish that I alone survived. It was my brother who succumbed to the Ring's temptation. But that does not mean I, who resisted it, was superior to him. I simply did not bear the same weight of responsibility that he did." His left hand unconsciously traced the scar where the Ring had been. "[serious]This suffering is mine alone. I must not share it with anyone... not even with you." In the shadow of the pillar, Serine closed her eyes. *(That's wrong.)* Faramir's words were a shield to protect his wife. But that same shield was also a blade that rejected her in the deepest place. He feared exposing his shame, and so he pushed away the one he loved most. Serine understood that with painful clarity. Because she was the same. She had never been able to confess her unrequited feelings for Aragorn to anyone. To confess would be to burden another. So she had no choice but to carry it alone, to sink alone. Éowyn's face twisted in the moonlight. "[crying]Then why..." Her voice shook. The tears would not stop. "[crying]Why did you open your heart to Serine...? I saw it. You wore a gentle expression in front of her, one you have never shown me. More than me, she is—" "[serious]You are mistaken." For the first time, raw emotion surfaced in Faramir's voice. "[serious]I did not open my heart to Lady Serine. I merely—saw in her the same wounds of a warrior. That is all." "[angry]That is all? And that alone makes you show such a face?!" Éowyn cried out. Her words struck at her deepest fear. The same wounds of a warrior. She, too, had once been a warrior. The legendary hero who had slain the Witch-king of Angmar. But now, she had set aside battle and chosen the path of healing. She lived a new life as a wife who supported her husband. Yet—precisely because of that, she could not touch her husband's warrior's wounds. Having become a healer, she now stood outside the world of warriors. "[crying]I... I gave up battle. To love you, to support you. And yet, because of that—I cannot enter the deepest part of you...?" Éowyn's sobs spread through the courtyard. "[crying]Do you choose your dead brother over me...? Or do you choose Serine, who bears the same warrior's wounds...?" Faramir was at a loss for words. Only the sound of the fountain filled the silence. His face was pale, his deep grey eyes gazing into the distance. What was reflected there—his wife's tears, or the lingering image of his dead brother—even he himself could no longer tell. Everything had blurred together. The fear of exposing his own wounds. The desire not to cause his wife any more pain. And yet, the despair that no matter what he said, he would only hurt her. All of it piled upon him, binding his feet to that spot. In the shadow of the pillar, Serine felt something shatter deep within her chest. *(My presence is destroying those two.)* Faramir and Éowyn loved each other deeply. There was no doubt of that. But with Serine's existence added to the equation, the dark fissure that had lurked between them had surfaced all at once. *(Even doing nothing, merely being here wounds others.)* As a ranger, she had protected her allies in countless battles. But now, in the way she had feared most, she was hurting someone. Far from protecting them, her mere existence was the cause of destruction. Her chest constricted. Breathing became difficult. Without wiping her tears, Éowyn turned sharply away. "[crying]...Enough." With only those trembling words left behind, she departed the courtyard. Her golden hair swayed in the moonlight as she retreated down the cobblestone path leading back to the Steward's mansion. That retreating figure was not the warrior who had once slain a demon lord—it was simply a woman rejected by her husband. Faramir did not pursue her. He leaned his hand against the edge of the fountain, his shoulders slumping heavily. His deep grey eyes saw nothing anymore. The fact that he had driven his wife to this point. And—the intuition that someone might have witnessed this wretched scene. *(Someone was watching.)* He raised his head and scanned the courtyard. But between the moonlit stone pillars, there was no longer any sign of anyone. Yet someone had definitely been there. Only the lingering presence remained in the cold air of the courtyard. And Faramir knew, with absolute certainty, that it had been Serine. *(She saw this.)* Shame and despair crashed down his spine like ice water. The humiliation of having been witnessed by Serine. And the despair that this fact would only deepen Éowyn's conviction. Everything was too late. Faramir stood motionless before the fountain, sinking into the deepest pit of self-loathing—the conviction that he had no right to happiness. When Serine returned to the guest chamber of the Steward's mansion, she did not light a lamp. In the darkness, she reached for her traveling gear. With the efficient movements forged on the battlefield, she moved through the dark without hesitation. *(I must leave.)* A cold tightness gripped her chest. Her self as a warrior held meaning only on the battlefield. In the peaceful White City, she had been nothing but a foreign object. And her self as a woman—could only ever be the cause of destroying someone else's happiness. If it had been only her personal wound—her unrequited feelings for Aragorn—she could have endured it. But she had shattered the bond between Faramir and Éowyn, a husband and wife who deeply loved each other, through nothing more than her existence. *(I did nothing. And yet, merely being here wounds others.)* That fact stimulated her instinct for self-sacrifice in the worst possible way. Having finished packing her belongings, Serine stood by the window. Cold starlight illuminated her profile. The three-line scar running across her left cheekbone rose pale against her skin. *(Leaving the White City is the only atonement I can make.)* Before the wedding bells rang, before dawn broke, she would head to the stables. Returning to the North was not an act of flight. It was a final consideration, given to the wounded by fading away. True to her taciturn nature, Serine reached her conclusion alone. Her grey-blue eyes no longer held any hesitation. Only a deep stillness resided there. With the bearing of a solitary ancient tree, fragile enough to snap at a touch, she continued to gaze out the window. Moonlight enveloped the White City. Tomorrow, when the King's wedding bells rang out, one warrior woman would already have left the city. Telling no one, noticed by no o