Uttermost West by Sasha Honeypalm

Chapter 1

My heart is in the East and I am in the uttermost West.

-Yehudah Halevi

Amdís steps slowly, almost reverentially, into the warm surf. Above her is the carcanet of Valinor’s night sky, still dazzling enough to take her breath away after thirty years of seeing it. Below, Alqualondë’s jeweled sand reflects the starlight, bringing a slight glow to the rolling waves. She closes her eyes, feels the sea breeze stroke her face and play with her braids. Under the salty tang is a smell she still cannot put a name to, a sweet musk; all the harbors in Aman she’s been to have their own cryptic scent. She inhales slowly, trying to breathe in the beach, absorb it through her pores, store it up within…

Faint footsteps, almost swallowed by the sand. “The hour is late; I had not thought to find you still awake,” says Finduilas. The princess leans closer, teasing. “You would not want to oversleep and miss your ship.”

Amdís shrugs. “I can sleep aboard the ship. I would rather not waste my last night in Aman abed.”

“You sound almost like you no longer wish to go.” Finduilas’s tone is light, but she’s frowning; she knows full well that Amdís spent the last three years begging to be allowed to join Ingwë’s host.

“Wish to go? Certainly. Wish to leave? Ai, Fin… what can I say?” Amdís kneels down and picks up a handful of scintillating sand, watches it run through her fingers. “I thought I knew beauty from my first life, the song of the summer crickets under my talan, the afternoon sun shining through a curtain of willow leaves. Nargothrond’s opal mosaics, even. I had heard bards sing of the glories of the Blessed Realm, and thought it was Noldorin boastfulness. But this…” She stands up. “I understand why their words were not enough. Could not be enough.”

Amdís takes Finduilas’s hand. “If only I could have been born to this realm, on a beach not unlike this one, to my same kin… but I cannot re-sing the Song. I was born not far from where the Gelion meets the Ascar, and my family lives there still.” Memories that she has dammed up all her second life are flooding through her lips. “You would have liked them, I think. My mother used to talk to the local kingfishers, like you did with the nightingales; I think she knew all of them by name. And my brother… you wouldn’t have noticed, those few times that we spoke, how I always had wooden beads in my braids. That was Selweg; he was so proud of his skill at carving, and he would whittle pledge beads for the most trivial occasions. He was so ridiculous… but sometimes I wonder—and sometimes I am almost sure—I think he did it on purpose. To make us smile, come orc or storm. I hope he was with my mother after… after.”

For several long moments, Finduilas stares into the sea. Finally, her gaze comes back to Amdís. “I was born in the Princes’ Palace, in Tirion. And yet I was still a small child when we left; I grew to my womanhood underground. I resented my confinement at first—I had had twenty years of running under open skies at Hithlum—but the world soon became my uncle’s halls. A stone sky above me, fields of wool and tile beneath my feet—sometimes, Amdís, I still wake up and briefly wonder why the lampstones have been set so bright. I say ‘home’ and have to think which home I mean. Were I able to return to Nargothrond-that-was… I think I, too, would find my way homeward. If only to properly weep over the ashes.”

They stand in silence for several minutes, listening to the waves, still hand-in-hand. The night is peaceful, but a pressure is building up in Amdís’s chest; as inexorable as the creeping tide, the words well up. “Why must I come back here?”

She feels Finduilas stiffen beside her.

“I am no rebel, no kinslayer.” No Noldo. “I am a simple Dân, sent West of no choice of my own. I am returning lawfully, with the blessing of the Powers themselves, to fight against the Enemy of the World; if after the Black Foe falls, I remain in Endor, I hardly think they will lay a Doom on me!” Amdís’s voice is harsh in her own ears, overly defensive; she tries to force some levity into her tone. “Though if they insist on counting heads for the return, I suppose I can plead extreme sea-sickness.”

“And you have none here to bind your heart to these shores,” Finduilas says softly. Then, “No, that was not fair of me.”

“It was not fair,” Amdís agrees. “And not untrue.” She drops their hands apart and turns to face Fin. “To bind my heart—yes, hearts can be bound in chains of love and iron; dragged hither and yon, even across the Great Sea. But one can hold a heart without holding it captive. Though we have only truly known each other these past scant years, you hold my heart in your hands.”

“Then out of the love I bear you, I open my hands and let your heart soar free.” Finduilas spreads her hands wide. “Fly well, dear friend, and think of me in your old-new nest.”

“I would fly back again sometime, I think. I may come with the High King’s fleet, or I may tarry a yén or two, or for an Age of the world. I will not know until I have at least seen my kin, let them know I am well…” Amdís suddenly laughs. “Selweg used to tease me about chasing after Western lords—what will he say when I tell him that my dearest friend here is a princess?” Her lips quirk. “Ai, brothers! He may yet drive me to take the quickest ship after the war is done.”

“After the war is done. After the mightiest of the Powers is cast down.” Finduilas sighs. “Even on that quickest ship, it might be long before you see Aman again.”

“I know.”

The water laps gently around their ankles.

“The hour is late,” Finduilas finally says. Quietly, as if to herself. Then, louder, “But I have no pressing need to wake early tomorrow.”

Amdís smiles. “Walk with me, then?” she says, holding out her hand.

By the time they return to town it is already dawn.