Chapter Four
Celebrian wavered where she sat next to Thranduil's bed, but resolved to get up. She pushed herself to her feet, kept one hand anchored to the chair while the other reached for the doorway. With one bodily lurch she made it through to the corridor, still clinging to the doorframe to hold herself up.
"I put him to sleep," she said. She had thrust him so deep beneath the realm of physical pain, she had exposed herself to the same deep unconsciousness. The effect would pass, but for now every sensation was a variant of overwhelming. It was a relief to close her eyes, but the chill on the air still prickled her skin, every sound no matter how faint was still a pounding in her ears.
Elrond stood up from where he had been waiting for her. He took her arms and bore her weight as she shuffled away from the sickroom.
"Legolas…" she started, but was suddenly too exhausted to finish.
"I heard," Elrond said. "We'll send word for him to come immediately."
"Don't tell him." Celebrian was not certain she had spoken out loud; she could no longer tell if she was even moving. The numb darkness started to swallow her.
"Don't tell him what?"
"His mother… he should not learn it from a message." Celebrian did not speak again after that. All she knew was the painless embrace of oblivion.
"What happened!" Elrohir cried. The sight of his father carrying his mother's lifeless body was too much for a night that had unveiled nothing but tragedy.
"She put Thranduil under a spell of deep sleep," Elrond said. He walked past his sons lingering in his study and laid Celebrian on the settee by the fireplace.
"So he's still alive?" Elladen asked.
"Stay with your mother and make sure she eats something when she wakes up. This has all taken a toll on her."
When he had left Thranduil and gone to the sanctuary to fetch Celebrian for assistance, Elrond had found her almost as deathly pale as Aradess was. She had always been sensitive to the forces of the world—he mother's daughter in that regard—but the peace they had forged in Imladris had shielded her and left her defenses out of practice. Even without the effects of her supernatural senses, the loss of a friend, the end of a great love, the death of a mother were all difficult to bear. Elrond's heart broke for Aradess and Thranduil and Legolas, and for the people of Mirkwood, and it splintered the very centre of him to think about how it would feel to lose his wife.
"I must go back," he said, but he paused when he saw the deep and unspoken fear in his sons' eyes. As he was disturbed by the thought of losing his wife, so were they by the thought of losing their mother.
Elrond tried to comfort them with a gesture from when they were young boys and laid a hand of the side of each of their faces, even managing a small smile for them.
"Send word to Lorien for Legolas to come immediately. Say only that his parents are here, nothing of… the full extent of what's happened. He should learn that news much more gently."
"Yes, Ada," said Elladen. A nod from Elrohir.
"Good," Elrond said. He left his sons to return straight to Thranduil's sickroom, where he did not know where to even begin.
Since Celebrian had subdued Thranduil enough to clean the wound on his left hand, Elrond could now clearly see the puncture mark. It went cleanly through the palm and was glistening with fresh blood, but was otherwise unremarkable. Elrond had cut off Thranduil's clothes as soon as he had brought him in, but there were no other marks to be found on his body. This wound and the burn on his other hand were all that had taken down the warrior king. At least, they were the only injuries that Elrond could treat, if he could figure out what gave them such power. In thousands of year, he had never seen a cure for a broken heart.
The immaculate flesh of Thranduil's torso, throat, and face began to crumble and melt into the scars and burns of his true form. The mind that conjured the glamour was too deep in sleep, the heart too weak. His whole left side from hip to brow was only the thinnest layer of translucent skin over still muscle. A huge white scar wrapped over his right ribs. It traced all the way around to his left shoulder, Elrond knew. He remembered when it had been a great and bloody gash, remembered the fear of feeling so much blood gush over his hands. He had been all that stood between Thranduil and death, and had been a desperate but effective guard then. Thranduil had been king for one day after the fall of his father, and to save his life had been a worthy cause.
But tonight, with Aradess' body only steps away, Elrond could not bring himself to feel quite so mighty. Once again, his efforts alone stood between Thranduil and death; but this time, saving his life also meant denying him reunion with the woman who had made it worth living.
What finally compelled Elrond to move was the thought of having to stand before Thranduil's son and say he had done nothing. But as he turned toward the store of medicine and supplies in the adjoining room, a shadow hovering over the bed caught his eye. He wheeled around to face it, but it was gone. Thranduil lay still, his breathing even, no sign of disturbance.
The hand that Celebrian had cleaned was tinted black again, but not with smears of orc blood. The veins diverging from the wound were dark as ink, suffused up to his elbow and spreading. Whatever it was, it would eventually reach his heart.
Elrond ran to the storeroom.
"What will we say to him?" Arwen asked, her question for all the forces of the world, though only her brothers were there to hear. She leaned against a grey pillar on the balcony off her father's study, staring out at the valley in its sparkling winter splendour in the early morning light. Elrohir sat nearby on the edge of the balustrade, his legs dangling over a hundred-foot drop. Elladen hovered in the doorway, keeping watch on both his siblings and his mother.
"I don't think that will be up to us," Elrohir said.
"I'm sure Ada and Naneth will be the ones to talk to him," Elladen added.
"We'll have to say something," Arwen said. Her fingertips tingled with the memory of Aradess' cold flesh. She had helped undress and wash her, had shrouded her in white linen herself once her mother had been called away, yet all the while she had expected the queen to move, to wake as if she were only sleeping. Once she had finished, Arwen had leaned out the window and wept, gulping in air as if she had been holding her breath the whole while. She had cried for Aradess and for Thranduil and his broken heart, and for her own fear. But thinking of Legolas pained her beyond tears, beyond screaming. She could not imagine if tomorrow came and someone told her her parents were gone, without a chance to fight for them, without a chance to say goodbye if that was all that remained; if she did not have Elladen and Elrohir to carry each other through. These were fears for mortals, and yet after a thousand years of wisdom, Arwen felt no better equipped to face them.
"You said you sent word to tell him what happened?" she asked, dashing away a stray tear.
"The message only told him to come and that his parents were here," Elladen replied.
"What could we have told him anyway? We don't know what happened," Elrohir said, an edge of frustration in his usually mirthful voice. "The King of Mirkwood appeared in the middle of the night bloody and wounded with his wife's body and beyond that we know nothing."
"They were dressed in festival clothes," Arwen said. "They must have been ambushed."
"Them and how many others, and by whom? There may yet be greater grief than the loss of Queen Aradess. What if they were hunted? What if whoever did this is closing in on us?" Elrohir said, increasingly frantic. He spun back to face his siblings and hopped off the balustrade. He marched past Arwen, past Elladen.
"Where are you going?" Elladen asked.
"To scout," Elrohir said without turning back. He was already at the door when he spoke, and then he was gone.
Arwen looked to her remaining brother and they shared a frown, but neither moved to follow him. Soon their mother would wake and they would have some comfort. Their father would bring Thranduil back to health. Legolas would come and they would return to Mirkwood, and Arwen could try to put the peace she had known back together.
A kiss in the dark. The smell of wildflowers, warm grass beneath him. Thranduil did not open his eyes, but reached out to where he knew her hair would be loose around her face. He caught one silky lock, combed his fingers through to the end. He smiled and breathed in the warmth of her, and at last opened his eyes.
Aradess sat beside him on a sunny hill, gazing out at the green world. Her fiery hair was unbound and blazed over her shoulders. She wore a long sleeveless doublet over a plain linen shirt and breeches as was her custom, even at court. She left prim Elven femininity to the ladies of Lorien and Imladris; expectations, as with everything else, were different in the Greenwood.
"Did you have a good dream?" she asked as he sat up beside her.
"I don't think so," he replied. He could not remember, and the glorious summer quickly washed any darkness from his spirit. Still, there was twinge in his heart with an origin he could not place.
She turned toward him, eyes as green and alive as the world around them, and smiled. "Then don't tell me. Not on a day like this."
Thranduil leaned back on his elbows, laid his hand over hers. He had never been so aware, so grateful for the golden sun, the warmth that soaked his skin. He must have dreamt of the cold; if he had, he did not want to remember.
He laced his fingers through hers and held on a little tighter, unable—even in the sunlight—to ignore the gnawing feeling that the world was about to crumble beneath him.