The battle had already been named, though it had scarcely ended: Dagor Bragollach, the Battle of Sudden Flame, so named for the rivers of flame that had poured out, until the land was consumed in fire and sulfur, and even now, as the snow fell softy upon the blackened earth, tongues of flame licked through the light dusting of snow, eating away at the bodies of Man, Elf, and Orc alike.

Andreth wrapped her cloak tighter around her against the growing chill—winter gnawed at her bones more deeply with each passing year, now—and carefully stepped through the bodies, looking, looking for the fair face that she had known she would not behold again in life.

It might have been minutes, or it might have been an eternity by the time she found him—he had been pierced by many arrows, and a mound of Orcs lay around him—but his face was as fair as it had been in life, and she knelt next to him and kissed his cold brow; and as she kept her vigil through the growing night, the falling snow fell upon his wounds, and with the warmth left in her hands, she melted the snow and cleaned his body until the stains of his wounds were no more.