Chapter 416: The One Remaining Ring
But when it came to their children, Elthir and Elríen, things were more complicated.
They were still young — and more importantly, they had not yet made their choice of fate. Until they decided whether they would live as Elves or as Men, there was no passage to Valinor for them.
"And what of your own decision?" Elrond asked, looking between Kael and Arwen. "What will you do?"
Kael and Arwen exchanged a glance. Neither of them spoke, but between two people who had long since learned to read each other without words, the answer was already settled.
Kael turned back to the others and gave it plainly. "Arwen and I won't be going to Valinor yet. We'll wait until Elthir and Elríen are grown, and until they've made their choice. Then we'll go."
It did not trouble him which choice they made — Elven fate or mortal fate. Whatever they decided, he would respect it. And even if they chose the fate of Men, he could still ensure they lived long lives. The only thing they would lose was the right of passage to Valinor.
Besides, Kael was in no hurry to leave Hogwarts behind.
Still, one thing nagged at him, and he turned to Gandalf. "The right of passage — it won't expire, will it? If we stay in Middle-earth for a while longer?"
Gandalf understood exactly what he was asking. He shook his head with a smile. "Of course not. As long as you haven't renounced it entirely, you may linger in Middle-earth for as many years as you like. It will make no difference."
That was enough for Kael. There was no great urgency. When Middle-earth had given him all it had to give, Valinor would still be waiting.
With that settled, the gathering drew quietly to a close. Brief farewells were exchanged, and the company parted ways.
Elrond returned to Rivendell. Galadriel made her way back to Lothlórien.
Gandalf, for his part, chose to remain at Hogwarts — determined to spend what remained of his time in Middle-earth continuing to teach the children their flying lessons.
Of course, though the decision to sail West had been made, there was no particular urgency to it. At the very least, another decade or more would pass before anyone made their way to the Grey Havens to board the great ship and leave Middle-earth behind.
Kael spent several quiet, warm days in the castle with Arwen and the children before he made his way to Rivendell to visit Frodo, who was still there recovering.
Despite every measure that had been taken to shield him from the Ring's influence — keeping its effect on him as minimal as possible — the long road to Mount Doom had left its mark. The wounds it had dealt to Frodo's body and spirit were not the kind that faded cleanly.
After Kael had sent Frodo and Sam away from Mount Doom, they had been brought to Rivendell, where Elrond had taken over their care.
Elrond could ease what Frodo carried. He could not cure it entirely.
But there was one thing in Frodo's favour: just as fate had always seemed to intend, his role in the destruction of the One Ring had earned him the right of passage to Valinor — where a healing beyond anything Middle-earth could offer would be waiting for him.
Bilbo had received the same honour. As the Ring's previous bearer, and for the part he had played in this war — disguising himself as Frodo, drawing Sauron's attention westward, buying the true Ring-bearer precious time to enter Mordor — Bilbo too had been granted passage.
Both of them were in Rivendell now, and both intended to sail with the first company of Elves heading West.
When Kael arrived at Rivendell, the change was already apparent.
Without Vilya's power to sustain it, the valley was slowly becoming part of the world outside once more. The flowers that had once bloomed in abundance had begun to wither. The leaves on the hillside trees had turned and were beginning to fall, and a chill threaded through the air that had not been there before—the feeling of a season turning towards something bleaker.
The Elves moved through it all with quiet sorrow, pausing to take in familiar corners of their home and beginning, in their unhurried way, to prepare for the journey ahead.
After visiting with Frodo and Bilbo, Kael climbed to the highest terrace in Rivendell. Elrond was already there, standing in silence, looking out over the valley below.
His expression was as composed as ever. But there was a sorrow in the set of his shoulders that he made no effort to conceal.
He heard Kael's footsteps and turned, offering a quiet smile. "You've come."
Kael walked to stand beside him and looked out over Rivendell — still beautiful in its way, even now.
"You're reluctant to leave," Kael said. It wasn't a question.
Elrond gave a slow nod. His gaze drifted back over the valley, unhurried, as though committing it to memory. "The Elves here have already begun making ready to depart. The decline is inevitable now. A few hundred years, perhaps a thousand — and there will be nothing left. No trace that any of this was ever here."
"Lord Elrond, you needn't grieve over it," Kael said. "Home is wherever your family is. And besides — perhaps I can do something."
Even as he spoke, he raised his right hand.
On his finger, a gemstone ring blazed into visibility, casting a radiance that spread outward in a soft wave of pale gold. The light expanded until it had formed a vast, luminous dome over the whole of Rivendell — and then it faded, settling into the air like mist dissolving, leaving no visible trace behind.
But within the valley, everyone felt it. A warmth settled over Rivendell — thick and gentle, like the first week of spring. Flowers that had begun to wilt straightened. Trees that had shed their leaves seemed to breathe again, new colour returning to their branches. The grey, withering quality that had been creeping through the valley was swept clean away.
Rivendell was alive again.
The change came so suddenly that for a moment, no one in the valley quite knew what to make of it. Then the realisation settled in, and with it came something that had been absent for days — pure, unguarded joy. The Elves moved through their restored home with wonder in their faces, touching leaves and flowers as though confirming they were real.
Elrond had not expected this. He stared at the ring on Kael's finger, his composure briefly overtaken by surprise.
"I had assumed Cemya was destroyed in Mount Doom," he said. "I never imagined it could have survived."
And the power coming from it — it felt stronger than before. Considerably so.
If Mount Doom could unmake the One Ring itself, the fact that Cemya had endured its fires was remarkable enough on its own.
"I didn't expect it to survive either," Kael admitted. "It may be down to Cemya's nature. My wand, my spatial pouch, my alchemical defensive equipment — all of it was swallowed by the lava. Even my phoenix form couldn't hold against the earth's primordial fire. I burned away entirely." He paused. "But Cemya — perhaps because earth, defence, solidity, and stability are in its very nature, and because it draws on the power of the earth itself — it held. More than held, in fact."
What should have destroyed it had instead refined it. Cemya had been tempered by the earth's primordial fire, and in the process, had formed a connection with the Silmaril buried in the earth's core, drawing from it a new and deeper source of power.
Before, Cemya had worked through the medium of Tom Bombadil's blood, sealed within its gemstone — that was how it had reached into the power of the earth, how it had commanded the element of soil and stone.
Now, the Ring was bound to the Silmaril at the world's heart. It drew directly from that source. The power was of a different order entirely — greater now than even the Three Elven Rings had been at their height.
As for why Cemya had been able to form that connection, Kael could only speculate. The most likely answer, he thought, was the Ring's origins — forged under the guidance of Fëanor and Celebrimbor, with techniques that bore the mark of both. Fëanor had created the Silmarils. Cemya carried that same craft in its making. Perhaps that shared lineage was what had allowed the bond to form.
And it occurred to Kael that his soul's journey — the way it had been drawn, seemingly by chance, toward the Silmaril deep in the earth, bathed in its light long enough to ascend to Maiar level — that too might have been Fëanor's influence at work, in ways that went beyond anything that could be fully explained.