I do not own a few of the characters, they belong to the imagination of J.R.R Tolkien. The cover of the story I so not own either.

Prologue

A King's burden

Right after the battle of the five armies.

Silence. It was the silence of a victory that could only be won with too much blood and which therefore would become great. But the story, that is going to be told in many years from now will tell of another victory, a beautiful one, not with less dead, because the death it is, what fascinates about war and creates heroes, but with less cries, children and women. More glorious.

It's true. The only thing that comes near to the tragedy of a devastating defeat was the tragedy of a glorious victory. Every man of war has to learn this lesson, walking on blood-soaked soil, dying and crying men surrounding him who, despite him being the one who was responsible for their pain by leading them into the fight, still have their breaking eyes laying on him with trust in the moment they die.

Alone he was now. Nothing but the sound of the wind banging against the outside of the tent and the noise of controlled camp chaos enshrouded him, the frenetic sound of battle slowly leaving his mind.

Slowly, nearly cautious he raised his hand to take the fragile crown off his silken, long hair to look at it with an apparently distant interest. What a pretty little thing. So light...and yet so heavy.

Did he fail? As a king…or as a father? His gracile countenance, the well-trained self-composure of a king, cracked at this thought. But just a little bit. His father had always loved him and he had always known that. Could Legolas say the same of himself? A piercing pain in his heart told him, that he simply didn't know.

Rage clutched him: no one is able to understand the true burden of a crown as long as he doesn't have to carry it himself. To be always calculating, always watchful, always deliberate, always controlled and always unassailable was grueling and had pure exhaustion as a consequence. It gorges the heart that wants to break open the chains that keep it imprisoned.

Didn't his boy see that always present pain of his position? Legolas hated it to be called like this by his father, he felt his pride hurt. But that was, what he would always be for Thranduil: his child, which he loved more than he could tell and for which he would do everything as his father. Not as his king.

If his son was to wear the crown one day, he had to have already learnt from his father how to act like a king and not like a fool, who just does what his heart dictates him. Oh, there would be enough faults to do for him anyhow, but that was laying in the nature of the attainment of regality: he himself was completely helpless when his own father died in his very arms and the world broke down from one second to another. No lessons in the world could have truly prepared him for what expected him then. His father had been too soft with him and so had done maybe more harm to him than he could ever do to Legolas.

"My lord, your generals are requesting your presence." , interrupted the voice of one of his officers the silence that had enshrouded him before.

The back of the king straightened, his head lifted, but not too much, just enough to give the impression of natural superiority and his shoulders were drawn back, so that his broad chest seemed to be made out of steel underneath his armour.

Just as slow as he took it off his head, he now put the crown back in place on his shimmery hair, where it remained a well-known weight. Bevor he turned around, he banished every emotion from his face, but there wasn't a tear to wipe off. A king does not cry.

A king rules, fights battles and wins them to celebrate the victory or gets defeated to grieve for the fallen, just to rise again the next day and out of the darkest hour, fulfilled with calmness and ready to face the enemy one more time. A king performs the tightrope walk between cold prediction and royal generosity. But to cry, that he never does. Because when the strength of his people fails, he is the only one who can spend it to lead those, for who his only care must be, into golden ages again. Also now, the hope of his people was laying on him and his constancy. And a king, yes, that he truly was.

He gazed at the face of the young elf in front of him, the features not even the ones of a man yet, and could see the expectation laying in his eyes.

"Then we shall not let them wait, Melianar."

And so he stepped out of the royal tent and paced alongside the rows of his soldiers, dead or alive and inclined his head in the face of their bravery. Even in between of all the dead, maybe their comrades and brothers maybe, he still saw the belief in his person written in their flawless faces.

This confidence, have mercy, this blind loyalty shall condemn him if he should fail fulfilling the task he was given. And so he sloughed off the fear that had attached to his heart and became the ruler again he used to be, standing above the banalities of the heart.

But deep, deep inside him, between the broken pieces of this very heart and without the knowledge of its owner, there was the longing for the day to arrive, where it would get softened by affection again and this feeling of weightlessness that could carry his thoughts away.

In this moment, between all the grieve and the horror of this bitter victory, Thranduil couldn't know that a day like this was already waiting to let it's sun rise and to put him in front of a completely new, way more difficult challenge with all its light:

A king that he has been in every second of his life. Born to rule and with the courage to face the own destiny with pride.

But the only thing he couldn't do, the only thing he was not capable of despite his hard-won strength and in face of his oppressed heart, was vulnerability.

And vulnerability sometimes asks for so much more courage than strength does.

Twenty years after the Battle of the Five Armies.

Siyath peened the dirt off her trousers before she climbed the back of the horse that was waiting patiently next to her. The mare neither was very fast nor very tall, but had a reassuring amount of stubbornness not to leave her side. And that was very valuable in these dangerous lands.

She was travelling alone although danger was omnipresent, because she couldn't handle nerve-racking questions, authoritarian affectations or simply dumb ideas, which (of cause!) would immediately want to get realized and so Ion and her own person were the only ones trying to find their way through the tight scrub and branches of the forest. Unfortunately, there were several unpleasant things to assert in this very moment: firstly, Siyath had never ever been to this forest before. Secondly, it was of the most irritating nature and way bigger than expected. Finally and definitely more alarming than fact one and two, there was a little disunity existing in her brain whether she was still searching for the right way or was already completely lost in the endless greyish green. In this moment of irritation she decided to shrug it off as a question of perspective. She resisted the thought, that it might had been cleverer to take a companion with her in addition with the biggest pertinacity.

Siyath was in the condition to fight with weapons, but actually she preferred the fight with just using the strength and the skill of her own body. The now existing danger she could feel in every single bone of hers, it had become present abruptly after hiding in the shadows between the thick routs of the trees before.

It made her nervous not to see her potential enemy, which was definitely there and watching every single one of her movements: it was well-known that a visible enemy obviously was easier to defeat than an invisible one. In spite of her growing discomfort, she continued her way giving the impression of unawareness. Ihon of cause hadn't realized any danger until then and found her way through the forest better than Siyath could have ever done. There was just a going forward, never there would be a going back for her. It was her own decision she told herself when the nights grew long and dark.

A noise right next to her caught her attention and let her forget the cheerless thoughts which had risen in her mind a second ago. She would have nearly cringed, but was able to control herself.

Again, behind her this time.

And again, next to her, behind her, ABOVE her..?

She stopped the mare, which had finally discovered a danger in her peaceful world and let the ears move nervously. This was indeed very alarming. What meant a danger in Ihon's world, probably meant a catastrophe with an absolute collateral damage as a consequence in her own.

She glanced at her surrounding carefully.

Everything was still.

Even the birds, had there been some before?, had become silent. Not one single noise in a monstrously big wood.

Suddenly the air draught of an arrow touched her cheek. Another arrow would have nearly bored itself into her shoulder but missed it and disappeared somewhere behind her in the dark green.

Stiff as a poker she sat on her horse, not moving one muscle.

And then a tall, slender man was standing right in front of her, with taut bow and an arrow aiming directly at her face. It took her a second to understand that he was an elf. And her intuition told her, that he was not alone, but had a companion.

Before she could react, the second one had to come into sight, otherwise every action would equal stupidity. Her fine ears heard nearly soundless steps behind her.

Now.

She jumped off the horses back with astonishing speed and kicked the bow out of the hands of the elf before her, so that it shattered into pieces on the hard ground. Then she rammed her forehead into his face and heard a reassuring crack and a suppressed moan. Due to the fact that she was standing very near to his companion, the elf behind her could not have shot any arrows at her without risking them piercing his friend as well.

With a knowing smile she turned around a kicked the now approaching elf with all her strength into the stomach, just to then put her knee right into his face on his way down. So far, so good. But now to the unpleasant part.

Elves actually would not be elves, if they would not be blessed with extraordinary celerity and an astonishingly fast regeneration. And the advantage of surprise on her side was definitely wasted by now. Means, that just in the second she rose her arm to punch her first opponent, he grabbed her arm and painfully turned it on her back. Tears immediately wanted to set themselves free, but damn her if she'd cry in front of him. She hit her heels against his shinbone with her whole strength and used his short lack of balance to punch him right into his pretty face. Yet he kept standing and just a fragment of a second later she could feel his fist on her rips as hard as steel. The pain was overwhelming.

Well, and then the next thing she felt was the blade of a thin dagger at her throat.

"Don't. Move.", came the calm voice from behind her, not even a little bit exited, although she must have hurt him quite a lot.

The dagger was too long to escape and definitely to near to her throat, she could feel a fine trickle of blood on her sweaty skin.

"Just a single wince and you will deny it, so do not even think about it.", he said, as if he would had been able to read her mind.

"You will come with us", not a question, but a statement.

And so it came. As easy as that.

They lead her deeper and deeper into this damn wood, her walking in front of them until her feet were hurting and her wrist was starting to swell more and more. The only thing she heard were the nearly soundless steps and Ihon's hooves in her back, nothing else.

She was not able to say how long they had wandered through the dark woods, whether it was day or night or both, but her feet were so sore that she could have sworn she felt the warm wetness of blood in her heavy leather boots. Her shirt and her trousers were sweat-soaked. And then the limbs finally parted in front of her and cleared the sight on a gate, made out of elegant arcs and flanked by guardians in shimmering armours. A bridge, just as fine and slender as her companions lead to it over an impressively deep ravine. Everything in her cramped. She had an enormously big fear for heights since…well, since then. Already the imagination to cross this ravine let her stomach cramp uncontrollably and sickness started to develop deep down in her throat. Obviously she had stopped, so that her companions were standing in front of her now, expectation standing in their faces.

"What shall that be?" she asked with one raised eyebrow to win time. Poor try.

"This is the palace. And you will enter it now. Before us." , said again the one with the smooth, calm voice and equally calm eyes.

"… .."

Well, what exactly should she have answered? No? Rather not.

Just in that second she discovered a tiny smirk on his face, no, more a wince of his full lips. What a bastard of an elf. He had already seen through her apparently nonsense stopping. He seriously reveled in her well-hidden or obviously not so well-hidden fear.

"What is your name?" she asked him politely. His elegant eyebrows went up in surprise and out of this surprise he simply answered her question:

"Melianar."

He was still taller than her despite her quite noticeable height, so that she went very close to him when she declared with a sweet voice and truly cold eyes: "Well then, Melianar. We will see each other again outside of lands protecting you." Just for that it was worth surviving.

This time his eyebrows nearly touched his hair line and she saw that he didn't know whether he should laugh or be concerned.

Siyath was now facing the bridge again. Without risking one single look down and with head held up high she reached the gate, concealing the shivering of her legs. She could smell her own cold sweat. Unbidden pictures appeared in her head, a wave rearing up to smash her, but she suppressed it vehemently.

When she passed the majestic portal, she froze a second time. They cannot be serious. Should she now climb over huge arcs to get to any place here? Approximately you do not have to get anywhere soon than to your very own grave, she thought.

But thanks to the gods they took another way, just passing the most frightening things to reach sort of a platform that seemed to be the centre of that huge labyrinth. It nearly looked like the heart of this net made out of branches and stone, which appeared to be endless.

Heightened and of peculiar beauty was the throne made of branches and antlers. It was more decorative than any jewellery and more elegant than any brocade. His opulent simplicity, absolutely not a contrast in this case, was most appealing. It only was empty.

She turned around to Melianar, decided differently and addressed his still nameless comrade instead to ask where the appendant person actually was.

But before she really could ask, she already got an answer: "His majesty appears when he wishes to."

"But does he know of our arrival?" she asked in return, not out of a lack of politeness, but because she truly thought of it as a justifiable question.

A knowing, nearly clement smile was laying on his face: "With absolute certainty", he said in a very friendly tone. Suddenly she nearly felt sorry for hurting him during the fight and that although she was the one, who got attacked and who was now in a probably even deadlier peril than she had been the whole time in those bloody woods.

Minutes passed by and became hours or at least it felt like it. But maybe she was mistaken; she had lost every feeling for time measurement since she had entered this forest. She looked around curiously.

Then Melianar and the other elf sank into an elegant bow. She faced the throne in front of her again and froze. There was standing a creature of frightening beauty.

She had never ever seen anything like it before.

But before she could actually see him, she felt herself encased by an aura that nearly made her breath stop. Power, the pure essence of power flowed around this being, an ancient force which coated it like a garment.

Later, it appeared to her to have stared at him for an eternity.

Although she was not sure that staring was the suitable expression for her fascination: she was more… paralysed by his illustrious and at the same time frightening charisma. It was the charisma of a person, who decided with a shocking implicitness over death and life of others, war and peace and who saw this right as naturally her own.

Just after these first seconds of absolute astonishment she was able to truly see him. His hair was neither golden nor silver but something in between and was flowing down his broad back and chest. He was completely dressed in a silver-blue fabric, which was just as translucent as his hair. Like all elves he had flawless features and pointed ears, but although his distinctive face seemed perfectly shaped and young, it did not give the impression of youth, but the one of an experienced warrior, a leader: marked by big responsibility and bloody wars.

A crown as beautiful and striking as her owner graced his head and small flowers as white as stars entwined elegantly-swung, filigree branches.

And then Siyath looked into the coldest eyes she had ever seen.