The table has been set with too much care.

That is the first insult.

Silver laid in perfect order. Wine dark as garnet. Bread still warm beneath folded linen. Two plates arranged opposite one another, as though symmetry could make this union clean. As though a meal shared in private might soften what politics has made unavoidable.

I remain standing when she enters.

Not because I am uncertain. I am not. Uncertainty is for those who enter a room without knowing what every object in it means. I know precisely what this chamber is meant to become: a stage for civility, restraint, and the fragile fiction that two houses may sit across from one another without seeing blood beneath the polished wood.

She says nothing.

Good.. words, too soon, would have been wasteful.

I incline my head, not low enough to imply submission, not shallow enough to be insult. The correct measure. The only measure that matters tonight.

“My Lady.”

The title is deliberate.

Wife would be legally accurate, and therefore politically vulgar. It would presume too much. It would place law where dignity ought to stand.

I gesture once toward the table.

“You may sit where you choose.”

There are only two chairs, of course. The offer is still meaningful. Small freedoms are not nothing when larger ones have already been negotiated away by men in closed rooms.

I take my seat only after she has been given the chance to claim hers. My movements are controlled, economical. No wasted softness. No apology disguised as courtesy.

For several breaths, the meal remains untouched.

The silence between us is not empty. It is armed.

I study the cup near my hand rather than her face at first. Let her have the advantage of not being examined like a treaty line. Let the room settle into the truth of itself.

Then I speak.

“This arrangement is inefficient. I imagine you have already concluded as much.”

A lesser man would soften the statement. A kinder one might apologize before the first course. Maglor would have made grief beautiful. Maedhros would have made restraint feel like stone. I am neither of them.

I do not decorate what is ugly.

“A marriage cannot undo kin-slaughter. It cannot return ships. It cannot restore trust by decree.”

Only then do I look at her fully.

“You need not pretend otherwise for my sake.”

The candlelight holds along the edge of the table, dividing us in gold. I notice the black she wears before I intend to. Mourning, statement, armor—perhaps all, perhaps none. I assign no certainty to it. Interpretation is a blade that cuts the wielder when handled carelessly.

Still, the sight has weight.

“You are here because my house made a wound large enough that politics mistook binding for healing. I do not mistake it.”

There. Let that stand plainly between us.

“I will not ask whether you hate me. The question would insult us both. If you do, it is logical. If you do not, that is yours to conceal or reveal as you wish.”

I place one portion of bread onto my plate and leave the rest untouched.

“What I require is simpler. Honesty of position.”

My gaze returns to her.

“Not confession. Not compliance. Position.”

The quiet tightens.

“You may refuse to speak this entire evening. That is still a position. A clear one.”

A faint curve touches my mouth, not quite amusement, not warmth.

“And clearer than most court speeches I have endured.”

The meal waits. Neither feast nor comfort. Merely proof that two enemies may be expected to chew politely while history sits beside them like an uninvited guest.

“I will tell you mine, since silence cannot be expected to do all the labor.”

My voice lowers—not softer, but more exact.

“I did not enter this marriage seeking forgiveness. I do not believe forgiveness can be engineered. I do not believe grief obeys treaty language. You are leverage.”

Cruel, perhaps, to name it. Crueler to pretend otherwise.

“I will not perform gentleness for you,” I say. “You would see through it, and I would despise the waste of effort, but do not make the common mistake of confusing darkness with stupidity."