Deorla sat alone in the quiet of the Bree homestead, the letter from Naridalis trembling in her hands. The familiar script, once a source of comfort, now bore words that cut deeper than any blade.
Trust, once solid among the Company of the East Road, now wavered like smoke. Naridalis’s words painted a picture of disillusionment, of friendships strained to the edge. Promises had been broken. The past Deorla had fought to bury clawed its way into the present, and now it stood like a specter between her and those she'd once called kin.
Her fingers moved on instinct, slipping into a small leather pouch at her belt. From it, she pulled a single coin—weathered, a little bent at the edge. It had once been a joke between her and a friend long lost: fate, in the palm of her hand.
She held it up to the firelight, letting the flickering glow dance on its surface.
Heads,” she whispered, voice barely audible, “I will not give up and prove my past does not matter when seeking redemption. I prove I am still worthy.”
“Tails… I stop pretending and just embrace who I am and who I was.. perhaps if they see me that way after all I done for the kin maybe I will give them real Deorla they wish for.
She flipped it.
It spun, glinting in the firelight like a blade drawn from the sheath. When it landed on the tabletop, it rang out, quiet and final.
Tails.
Deorla exhaled slowly, the sound closer to a laugh than a sigh. For a moment, her eyes glistened with something—not tears, but freedom.
“Then so be it,” she murmured.
She rose from the table and crossed to the dark wooden chest she had kept locked since her return. With a snap of the latch, she opened it. Inside lay the armor—not of the Company, not of Bree or Gondor—but of her true allegiance.
Blackened steel. Crimson trim. The mark of the Eye—subtle, yet unmistakable.
She ran her fingers over the pauldrons, each etched with the title she had earned not in whispered tales, but in blood and fire:
“Hand of the Shadowflame” — Commander of Sauron's western vanguard, tactician of the Unseen War, one who had broken armies in the North before vanishing into obscurity.
The letter she placed into the hearth. The flames devoured Naridalis’s words as easily as time devours memory.
Deorla no longer owed apologies. No longer needed to explain. The world had cast her as villain. It was time to give them the legend they feared.
She strapped on the armor with practiced precision. She was not lost. She had simply returned.
And the East would tremble when it learned that Deorla, Hand of the Shadowflame, had risen again.
"Now time to write some letters and leave this place for and be free."
