Adventure of Tuiwen 2

The gate closes behind Tuiwen and Eldred. Instead of turning toward the throne room, they take the western path, beneath silver birches and the dim green canopy.

Then the old shoulder wound answers. The throbbing becomes a cold numbness, pulsing in time with something far away beneath Dol Guldur.

Eldred reaches to steady her. Beneath the torn edge of her tunic, dark veins spread from the scar, faintly shifting like ink beneath ice.

The western road remains quiet, leading toward Rhosgobel and Radagast. Yet the shadowed pattern tightens once, and the forest ahead briefly resembles a path Tuiwen has never seen.

White-gold light spills from Tuiwen’s hands, gathering over the wound until the dark veins stand stark beneath her skin.

The light drives inward. The shifting marks recoil, then burn away in thin wisps of shadow, leaving the shoulder cleansed and raw.

The cost lands at once. Tuiwen’s cleansing flare rings through the trees like a struck crystal, and the sealed message case flashes beneath her cloak.

For one breath, the wound opens her sight. She sees the heartstone’s black core, not as a prison, but as a splinter of will planted by Saruman’s hand before Dol Guldur’s fall.

The vision breaks. The shoulder remains painful, but the corruption is gone. Beyond the birches, unseen branches crack in answer to the flare.