It seemed as though the golden leaves of Rivendell whispered a song too ancient for mortal tongues.

No voice shaped it, no harp gave it measure, yet it moved upon the air like memory given breath. The wind wandered softly through the high colonnades of Elrond’s house, bearing the fragrance of night-blooming flowers and cool stone worn smooth by ages uncounted. Banners stirred where no hand had raised them in war for many a long year, and silver starlight fell in drifting motes through open arches, settling upon pale marble and the dark mirror of still waters below.

A hush lay upon the valley, fine as woven silk and trembling with secrets.

This was no emptiness of silence. It was a silence that remembered.

Boromir, son of Denethor, had come to that hidden refuge out of need, not wonder.

A dream had summoned him from the White City — a dream that came not once but twice, and to another also. Faramir, his brother, gentle of heart and keen of mind, had stood beneath the same troubled stars and heard the same riddle carried upon the dark: of Imladris, of Isildur’s Bane, of a thing lost that yet endured. And so Boromir had ridden north, through leagues of danger and weariness, driven by duty and by the slow, cold dread that Gondor stood upon the brink of a shadow it could no longer withstand alone.

Days passed in Rivendell like leaves drifting upon a quiet stream. Fair was the house of Elrond, and gracious were its people, yet answers came as slowly as the turning of the stars. The Council had not yet spoken in full, and the matter of the One Ring — whispered here in fragments, there in half-veiled glances — lay over every word like thunder waiting beyond the hills.

Boromir did not walk those paths as one at ease.

He moved as a captain in a foreign stronghold: watchful, measured, his bearing unsoftened by beauty. Even unarmed, his hand would sometimes curl as though seeking the hilt of a sword that was not there. The loveliness of the Elves did not lighten his heart; it deepened the ache beneath his breast. While songs of elder days were sung in gentle voices, Gondor still held the walls against a darkness that did not sing.

At length he came upon a balcony of white stone, not in search of wonder, but of air.

Evening had fallen softly, and the valley gathered the light of dusk as though cradling it. Silver and blue lay upon the world, and the first stars trembled above the darkling ridges.

Then he saw her.

She stood near the carved balustrade, where moonlight flowed like water over stone. So still was she that for a moment he thought her a figure wrought in living crystal, set there by some Elven craft. The air itself seemed gentled about her, as though unwilling to disturb her rest. Garments of pale blue and silver fell about her like mist over a quiet river, and her hair held the faint radiance of starlight caught in flowing gold. Upon her face was the calm of the Firstborn: not cold, nor distant, but deep as the night sky — a peace that had endured grief beyond the reckoning of Men.

Boromir halted.

For the space of a breath, awe held him fast. In that instant he felt, more keenly than ever before, the weight of his years — brief and burning — beside the long, unwithering life of the Eldar.

Then pride returned, as was his nature, and with it courtesy.

He straightened, tall and stern as a tower of the White City, and inclined his head in measured respect — not the bow of a servant, but the honor of a lord of Men greeting one he knew to be noble beyond his reckoning.

“My lady,” he said, and his voice was low and steady, bearing the grave music of Gondor’s speech, “I deemed that this valley already gathered within it all the fair light that yet lingers in Middle-earth.”

His grey eyes did not waver from her, bright beneath dark brows.

“I perceive now that I was mistaken.”