And they mourned.
The group settled at the sprawling inn. The five couples who had been betrothed celebrated their marriage in a small, sad feast in the dining hall. The others toasted them with cloudberry wine from the storeroom, then they all dined on ham from the ruined smokehouse. None spoke of the past; they spoke of spring when they would take the remaining wine to Viktal, trading it for goats to graze their fields. They spoke of rebuilding their homes, of the children they would have. Sondra thought of herself and Jon and did her best to hide her tears.
Dominic, Andor, Hektor, Mattas, and Peto joined them a few days later. After so many years of single purpose, Dominic seemed bewildered, out of place. He took on the task of rebuilding the stone winery, working alone when the weather allowed it. Peto, younger and far more able to adapt, found himself drawn to Willa, whose new husband had been the last man killed by Morgoth. He comforted her with gentle patience, and Sondra suspected they’d soon recite their own vows.
As for her uncle, Andor settled into his old duties. Though he didn’t laugh as he once had, he seemed content in the emptiness of the halls. All that ended when Maeve walked through the inn doors, as if she had been there only yesterday. Her beauty was restored, her clothes as colorful as in years past. She glanced defiantly at Sondra, then took a lute from the case on her back and began to play.
The villagers clustered around her, asking for songs, for news of Kellee and Viktal, for still more songs. When the rest went back to their duties, Raesa, one of the younger girls, stayed. Sondra watched the pair speaking together, Maeve’s long fingers brushing back a wayward lock of Raesa’s dark hair.
“Will you say something to warn Raesa?” Sondra asked her uncle.
Andor looked at the pair. “Maeve’s music is beautiful,” he said as if that settled everything. In the days that followed, he seemed happier. Some balance necessary to his nature had been restored.
As for Sondra, she couldn’t share the optimism of her friends. If only she and Jonathan had said a proper good-bye, she might have opened her soul to another. But instead, she felt empty, alone.
When the first spring thaw came, Sondra left the inn, following the path to the fortress where her love had defeated the evil of his past and paid for it with his life. There, in a pile of blackened stones that had once been the shrine, she sat and waited for his spirit to touch her.
Sections of the fortress had crumbled in the final deadly clash of power. The jagged walls threw broken shadows across the courtyard, shadows that lengthened and merged as night fell. Still Sondra sat, heedless of the darkness and the things that lived in it. She had never felt more safe.
A dim glow appeared in the fortress dining hall. She went to it and saw that, as in Jonathan’s cavern, the light seemed to come from the air itself. The table had been laid with a simple meal—coarse brown bread, a few slices of cheese, fresh water for her thirst.
As she took the place that had been prepared for her, she began to speak, as if she and Jonathan shared the meal together. She told him about Linde and the ones who had survived, about Andor and Dominic. At the end, she spoke the words that should have been said at their parting.
“I know you did what you had to. I loved you then, Jonathan. I love you now. I always will.”
The light grew and split, the halves forming human shapes, features Sondra could almost see. “Leith,” she whispered, then, “Husband.”
Silver hands touched her face and she laughed.
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