It was madness to think that their love was anything meant to be—the Eldar and Edain did not wed each other—but something had swept them into each other’s lives; something had strung the thread between them that wound them closer and closer together, spinning them around the edges of all the things that threatened to draw their love to a swift end.

Caranthir did not know what drew them together, what power forestalled for the moment their inevitable sundering, but he cared little—did he not have two heavier dooms ordaining the path of his life, one that commanded him to ever pursue death and destruction, and one that damned him for every life he had taken from his kin?—it was enough that he and Haleth had been granted the time they had, before death came for her and judgment came for him.

Their love was not meant to last, but it lasted for the moment, and that was mercy enough for one such as he, beholden to the Oath and condemned by the Valar.