The darkness had ceased to be a threat and had become a refuge.
I no longer felt pain, nor hunger, nor cold; only a deep silence that wrapped itself around every fiber of my body. It was as if my nerves, weary of so many years of torture and misery, had surrendered and decided to extinguish their flames forever.
I did not know how many days had passed since my body had begun to crumble. Perhaps weeks, only hours; time had become a swamp from which I could no longer escape. The only certainty was that my flesh was yielding, little by little, and death held me in its arms with a cruel tenderness—the same I had longed for over more than a decade.
I thought of my family.
I thought of their faces, their voices, the promises I had made while they still breathed. Promises to carry on, to endure even when there was nothing left to endure. Those oaths had been the chains that bound me to life far longer than I would have wished.
Now, on the threshold of oblivion, I wondered if I might finally be free of them.
And then the darkness spoke.
It was not a sound, nor a whisper in my ears, but a vibration that coursed through my soul like an icy current of water.
"There is no destiny without weight, nor suffering without an echo…"
The voice was strange: neither masculine nor feminine, neither human nor divine. It was as if the very fabric of the world had murmured to me.
"Many seek peace at the end, but you… You shall not rest yet. Not as punishment, but because the thread you hold has not yet been woven into the world's loom."
A shiver ran through me. There was no plea in those words, no mercy. It was not a promise, nor a bargain: it was a sentence.
"You will be taken where you are needed. There, your weight will be tested again. And when that thread is cut… then, and only then, shall you know rest."
I wanted to speak, but my mouth did not move. I wanted to rebel, to cry out that I did not want another chance, that I had fulfilled my sentence a thousandfold. But all that left me was a strangled thought, a faint echo the darkness ignored.
The voice faded as though it had never existed, leaving behind a bitter sensation, a foreboding impossible to tear away.
My final moments came without resistance.
There was no pain, no tears, no prayers. Only the certainty that I was closing my eyes to one world, to open them—who knows when, who knows where—in another I had never asked for.
And so I died.
_____________________________________________________________________________
The southern reaches of Middle-earth were a forgotten corner, where maps blurred and names dissolved into old legends. There, upon the ashen plains of Hordern, winters were long and damp, and the smell of woodsmoke and dung seeped into every crack of every house.
The village was no more than a handful of stone and timber buildings, raised by trembling hands and short hopes. The dawn mist clung to the sloping roofs, and the forests to the east whispered tales of orcs, bandits, and creatures no sane man would dare name.
In such a place, anything out of the ordinary became an omen.
That morning, a small knot of villagers had gathered by the door of Matron Rita. It was not unusual to see her come and go with birthing women or the wounded; she had been a healer and midwife for decades. But what she carried in her arms that day stirred murmurs and uneasy glances.
It was a child.
A child like none they had ever seen.
His skin was like snow under the weak winter sun, almost luminous. His hair, no more than down, shimmered with silver glints. And his eyes—though barely open—held a violet so deep it made even the boldest lower their gaze.
"Where did you get him, Rita?" a man asked, his voice raw with restrained disgust.
"From a commitment that is none of yours," she replied without looking up. "An old friend could not care for him and left him in my hands. There was no other way."
At this, the murmurs grew.
Some who at first had leaned toward admiring the child's beauty now shifted to expressions of fear and revulsion.
"You should leave it where you found it. It's a wretch. Even the elves know when to cast aside what doesn't serve them," spat Bergil, a farmer with calloused hands, his eyes fixed on the infant.
Rita paused. She turned her face slightly, with a dangerous calm.
"Bergil… did your mother not teach you to keep your mouth shut when you don't know what you're speaking of?"
The man shrank, muttering under his breath, while the rest stepped back. Without another word, the old woman shut her door and vanished into the dimness within. Little by little, the neighbors dispersed like shadows at dusk.
In Hordern, rumors sprouted and spread like weeds. And that child would, from that day on, be their most poisonous seed.
When I held him in my arms for the first time, I had to fight the urge to lay him on the table and step away.
He was a newborn like any other—and at the same time, not at all.
His skin seemed made of porcelain, and his eyes, too awake for one so newly arrived in the world, pierced through me like knives.
He did not cry.
That was the worst of it.
I have brought more children into the world than I can count. All of them—even the weakest, even those barely breathing—cried. Crying is the signal of life, the cry with which the soul proclaims it has entered the flesh. But he… he did not cry. Not at birth, not in the days that followed.
He only slept, ate, and soiled his swaddling clothes. In silence.
The village women came to see him, to pry, to whisper. I feigned calm, but inside, doubt gnawed at me. What sort of creature had been placed in my hands? What sin was I paying for in caring for him?
There were nights I sat awake by the fire, watching his cradle. I waited for some strange movement, some sign he was a demon in disguise. Yet all I saw was a small body, too still for its age.
If not for my oath, I would have left him in the forest.
But an oath is iron that cannot be broken. And mine was not to a man nor to a village, but to my Lady, whose will guides me even from the grave.
And so six months passed. Six months of silence. Six months of fear.
Until one morning, as I changed his swaddling clothes, I saw him look at me differently.
No longer the empty eyes of a broken doll. There was a new light in them, a spark of… curiosity.
And then, for the first time, he made a sound. Not a cry nor a laugh; a brief call, like a summons.
I froze, my heart hammering against my ribs. And then, unable to help myself, I laughed. Laughed as I had not in years.
From that day, everything changed.
He did not cry, it is true, but he sought me with his gaze, raised his hands when he wanted attention. He learned with a speed that unsettled me: following gestures, mimicking sounds, observing every detail as if the world were an open book to him.
He was not a monster.
He was… something else. Something special. And in that instant, I remembered who I truly was.
Not Rita the midwife, not Rita the lonely old woman of a forgotten village.
I had been captain of the Silver Heron Guard, protector of Númenor's oldest oaths. My sword had shone in palaces and on battlefields, my soldiers marching with me beneath the heron standard, symbol of vigilance and purity.
But the years and defeat had stripped me of everything. To survive, I hid among peasants and merchants, wearing rags instead of steel. The world believes me broken, forgotten… and so it must remain.
Yet my oath endures.