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Erenor had never felt so alone in her life. Long had she prided herself on her independence and self reliance but the self delusion had been shattered by recent events. Without Angore, the dwarves and the Dunedain she would have been dead, but had she died no one would have grieved for her as Faerim mourned his brother. He was attached to her, she knew, but at least in part it was an attachment to what she represented rather than to herself. Nevertheless the boy had found a way into a part of her that she had thought shut away beyond reach long ago. He had touched her heart, by his courage, his honesty, his humour and his lack of reverence. But while his youth had refreshed her view, jaded by many centuries; his devotion to his family had thrown her isolation into sharp relief.
Bethiril had chosen a strange time to decide that she, Erenor, was right, she thought.. but that encounter had placed a strange foreboding on her spirit. She turned the ring over in her hand and the more she considered Bethiril's words, the more discomfited she was.
She moved silently to where Angore sat, gaze focused on the far distance. If Faerim's mind had been easy to read, and Bethiril's voiced words oblique, Angore who concealed his thoughts and spoke little, gave the only clue to his state of mind through his body language. He sat hunched up, frozen emotionally perhaps as much as physically. She spoke his name, soft as the snow falling and was aghast when his blue eyes stared into hers with an expression she could only describe as fear... not of her but of what she might say ..... "Angore - what have I done?"
She was bewildered, having had no recollection of her words in the tunnel. The chant had come freely into her mind and in the strange and heightened state she experienced as she had called on a power she had little experience of controlling and her awareness of what had gone on was confused beyond what could be expected from the physical injuries she susequently sustained. In her heightened
state she had used Angore's true name. One that she might have heard long before in Rivendell, or came to her by instinct as she tried to use her mental strength against the enemy .
Still drained physically and metally by that struggle, her spirit was crushed now by
loneliness and a sense of doom impending as she became certain that Bethiril's words were expression of a deathwish, Erenor cried out and took but a few steps before curmpling to the ground. She had not yet resumed her normal travelling garb and her skirts and cloak spilled around her like a dark pool on the snow. Bethiril's ring fell into her lap and glistened there - a lone star on a sapphire ground. Tears coursed down her face as she sobbed, uttering no word. She could not muster the will to move but she covered her face with her hands for shame. No one had seen her cry in this age of the world and few would think the haughty Lady Erenor capable of showing such emotion - or weakness as she would have termed it until recently.
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