News of Kaen's slaying of the Balrog spread across all Middle-earth.
From Lindon in the West to the Sea of Rhûn in the East, folk spoke his name in awe. He was hailed as First among the Kings of Middle-earth, and his honour and renown rose to a height no mortal king had yet reached.
In the North, the realm of Angmar had long since ceased its raids upon Rimwinter. Kaen quietly withdrew half the troops stationed there.
Eowenría now stood in full strength. It no longer needed to lean upon the weight of armies to make her enemies think twice; it's very name had become enough.
Kaen sent a simple message to the Witch-king of Angmar:
If the realm of Angmar dared to cross the borders of the North, he would march in person at the head of his hosts.
That single sentence was enough to cow the Lord of the Nazgûl.
From then on, the two powers marked out their frontiers and left one another unmolested.
...
Kaen was already setting a far larger game upon the board—
a design meant to smash the strength of darkness in Middle-earth so hard that Sauron himself would be unable to move openly against the Free Peoples for the next fifty years.
Such a game could not be played by Eowenría alone. It would require the strength of every free realm—and even, four years hence, the might of the Light-elves sailing from Aman across the Sea.
...
In the sixteenth year of the Age of the Sacred Trees,
the year 2961 of the Third Age,
in the year following the War of Moria,
Kaen, as High Lord of the Free Alliance, met with the rulers of the lands and set forth two great designs.
1. The Technological Reforms
The realms would enter into deep cooperation of craft and lore:
> shared teaching of runic knowledge,
> joint development of war-craft and armaments,
Each nation sent its greatest smiths and craftsmen to Isengard, where the White Wizard Saruman would oversee their work, designing stronger engines of war, refining methods, and raising the quality of every host's gear.
2. The Great Artefact Program
This plan concerned chiefly Rohan, Gondor, and the reborn Khazad-dûm.
Since the North already possessed five Sacred Trees, and each of the other Dwarven realms had been given its own rune-core for protection, Kaen decided to help the remaining great kingdoms forge artifacts worthy of their stature.
The materials would be borne by those kingdoms themselves;
the knowledge and master-hands would be provided by the Alliance.
...
In the nineteenth year of the Age of the Sacred Trees,
the year 2964 of the Third Age,
both great plans saw enormous progress.
For the Kingdom of Khazad-dûm, Kaen forged two mighty rune-cores, and set them in the eastern Dimrill Gate and the western Gate of Khazad-dûm, that they might shield the Dwarven kingdom forever.
For Rohan, Kaen took of his own holy light and, in the likeness of the star of Eowenriel, fashioned two great gems.
He named them the Stars of the Mark, and gifted them to King Thengel.
Thengel was to raise two tall towers in the eastern and western marches of the Riddermark and set the Stars upon them, that they might watch the grass-sea and strengthen the bodies of horses and Riders alike.
For Gondor, Steward Ecthelion sent to Kaen a single, withered tree.
It was the dead White Tree of Minas Tirith.
In Middle-earth this tree had long stood as the living heart of Númenor and Gondor's shared heritage—a symbol of the Dúnedain's light, lineage, and hope.
Its history ran back to the first tales of the world, to the Two Trees of Valinor.
The White Tree's ancient forebear had been Telperion, the Silver Tree of the Blessed Realm, wrought by the Valar and made vessel of the first light of the world.
In later days the Valar took a sapling of Telperion and gave it as a gift to the Edain who founded Númenor, a sign of their grace. It was planted in the courts of Númenor's capital and there it was named the White Tree, token of the island-kingdom's faith in the Valar and devotion to the light.
When many Númenóreans turned from that faith under Sauron's whispers, the first White Tree withered and died.
But not before Isildur, son of Elendil, took a fruit, slipping through the guard set up by Sauron in Armenelos, he fought his way out without revealing his disguise and bore it over the Sea to Middle-earth. The White Tree was planted in Gondor and became the emblem of its royal house and for this deed Isildur was renowned forever
When Sauron took Minas Ithil, the Tree withered again. Its sapling was moved to the Court of the Fountain in Minas Tirith as a sign that the line of kings was broken in the flesh, but their heritage not wholly lost.
For thousands of years the line of Gondor waned. When at last the royal bloodline failed entirely, the White Tree put forth no shoot. Its dry branches stood in the citadel as a mute token of the realm's decline.
In the original tale, it would not be until the very end of the Third Age that Aragorn, true heir of Elendil, returned. By the guidance of Gandalf and the preservation of Valar he would find a new White Tree sapling in the wilds and replant it in the court of Minas Tirith, heralding the renewal of Gondor and a new Golden Age.
Kaen knew all of that.
And yet, even in this dead trunk, he felt something pure and bright—a light that did not belong to the Maiar at all, but to the higher Powers themselves, woven with the very rules that bound the world.
This radiance could not be seen with mortal eyes. It could only be felt in the heart: a quiet, steadfast presence.
The Tree had lived by faith, nourished by the devotion of the Dúnedain and their trust in the Valar, holding back a doom that prophecy said must one day fall.
It had withered because the Dúnedain had turned their hearts away.
Having grasped the root of the matter, Kaen and Arwen together called upon their own hidden powers.
They laid a new gift upon the White Tree:
The power to purify the blood of the Dúnedain.
Before their eyes the dead trunk shivered, then broke apart into light and dust. What remained was a single, shining seed.
So long as the Dúnedain returned to their old faith and honour, the seed would take root and sprout anew. Then, once more, the White Tree would grant them strong bodies and long lifespans, restoring the grace that had been theirs of old.
Kaen sent messengers out across the lands to find Aragorn and Legolas, who were still wandering the wide world, after the war of Dimrill Dale.
He assigned a picked squad of the King's Guard to escort three great treasures:
> the two rune-cores for Khazad-dûm,
> the two Stars of the Mark for Rohan,
> and the seed of the White Tree for Gondor.
Aragorn was to shepherd these artefacts south, and see them safely delivered into the right hands.
It would be a perilous journey… and a chance for the hidden heir of Elendil to show himself in the southern realms for the first time.
…
The results were magnanimous, as seen in the following year.
Khazad-dûm, strengthened by its artefacts, grew swiftly in power.
Gondor and Rohan, with their own new epic units, now possessed forces that even the East could no longer easily threaten.
Across Middle-earth there was an air of rising life.
In the North, the dark things shrank back to the wastes beyond Ettenmoors.
In the Misty Mountains, the creatures of shadow hid in their deepest dens, not daring to show themselves in force.
Even Mordor and the lands of the East fell oddly quiet. It was as if Sauron's servants had sunk into a kind of uneasy slumber.
And in that same year, from the West, from Lindon by the Sea, there came word from Círdan the Shipwright:
The Light-elves of Aman were soon to make landfall in Middle-earth.
Kaen summoned the Council of the Free Alliance. After long debate, they agreed that he himself would go West as envoy, leading a company of princes and lords:
> Queen Galadriel,
> Legolas of the Woodland Realm,
> Aragorn of the Dúnedain,
> Denethor, son of the Steward of Gondor,
> Prince Théoden of Rohan,
> and Thorin, King of the Durin Dwarves.
Together they would ride to Lindon and treat with the High Elves from over the Sea.
At that council Kaen made his stance plain:
Any Elf of the West who came ashore in pride, refusing to join the Alliance, would not be permitted to set foot further into Middle-earth.
"This land belongs to all living things," he said, "but now is the hour of war between light and darkness. Any power that will not stand with us is a danger to all—and such dangers must be kept outside our walls."