Chapter 32

When at last I opened my eyes, at first I thought I had deceived myself. For no lamps had been lit and there was no fire burning and because of this the room lay in darkness. But when I lifted my pounding head in an attempt to make out any details, or indeed make any sense of what had happened, there was a shift in the air to my right and a familiar rustle of heavy fabric.

"You are a fool, Elrond."

I sank back down. Mithrandir leaned in over me and his face came into view. It was lined and the shadows under his eyes were dark pools. In the absence of light, he looked more wraith than man.

"Fool indeed. Yet this is my fault also," he was saying now, and he shook his head so that his beard brushed my shoulder. "For I see now how I sowed the seeds of doubt in your mind. And for that I beg your forgiveness."

Slowly his words sank into me. Perhaps I could have found a reply for him but he appeared not to be waiting for one. Instead he rose and wandered out of my line of vision and it was not long before a first light sputtered to life as he lit a lamp.

I saw then that I was not in my own chambers. It took me a moment too long to recognise the room but when I did so, there came a stab through my breast and I struggled to sit.

"No, not so!" He was by my side again in an instant and his hand on my shoulder was persuasive. "No, Elrond, you must rest."

"But…" I choked the word out, from a throat and a tongue that felt as though they had been clawed to shreds by a dragon.

"You will rest," he said, and his voice came stern and commanding, and as if from beyond the world. "For you have wandered far and wide in the darkness, I perceive."

My head was spinning but it was now far too heavy to lift and for the first time in my long life I knew an impulse to retch. But he steadied me and muttered words I did not recognise, and ere long, my stomach settled. Yet I knew this bed and its hangings and that door that led out onto a patio. And so I tried again to sit up but, this time also, he stayed me.

"I must…" I managed, but he only snorted.

"Think you truly that he ever left your side? I never took you for a faithless soul, Elrond, and now it might be that I was wrong. Oh, very well…" He turned away from me and spoke more words but these were not for me. "Come here," he said, "if you have not given up yet."

And then he backed away and for a little while I knew only that faint and distant burn of the lamplight, but then, among the shadows, I could suddenly make out another face, and the sight of it caused tears to fill my eyes.

His cheeks were white. Around his face fell his hair that had once been the very rays of the Sun herself but, in this moment, it had lost all colour. In his eyes thundered the same pain that was now wrenching my heart into two and they were ashen in hue. Warily, he drew closer, like a frightened animal, and his gaze skittered from my face to something else that I did not know what it was.

"Go on," came Mithrandir's voice, and it was gentler now. "He is as you know him."

This I barely understood, but then Legolas was by my side and all I could see was the fear in his eyes, and it broke me.

Almost.

For finally I understood that while I had known fear countless times, always had I mastered it, and must do so also this night. And so it was that when he finally stood beside me and could not speak I did so instead; and though my voice sounded rough and unpleasant that was not what mattered.

"I am sorry," I said, through all the pain I had ever known. "I am so sorry I mistrusted you."

"As well you should be," said Mithrandir, as he came to stand behind Legolas and placed a hand on his shoulder. "It was well that I was watching you when you went to him. Such madness, Elrond." He shook his head.

"I did not know what to do," said Legolas, and his voice was but a weak disturbance of the air.

But Mithrandir gave his shoulder a squeeze. "You did well." Then he looked once more at me. "No one knows of this, as I am sure you will appreciate. Dawn is on her merry way and will soon break in the east. If you will consent to stay in bed, Elrond, I will leave you to talk and invent a decent excuse for you both."

Legolas opened his mouth and looked at him, but Mithrandir only gave his shoulder another squeeze. And he winked. "Leave Thranduil to me."

With that he left and there was, once again, silence.

I swallowed hard. "I do not know what came over me," I admitted at last. "Never before have I felt like that. I do not know what power seized me."

Legolas' eyes had fallen from my face. So thin he looked, and so wan. "I did not know you, my lord," he said in a whisper. "I feared you, even as you fell."

And I felt his fear. It worked its way through my breast until it constricted my heart and held it in an unforgiving grip. His worry I felt, too, and his sorrow, and it hurt my very soul to know that I was the cause of such pain.

"I am sorry," I said again, "I never meant to hurt you. It was as if reason itself abandoned me and fear came to govern me."

He stood unmoving. "What did you fear?"

Again, I swallowed to ease my burning throat. Weariness lapped at me from all sides but I could not give in now.

"That your love was not true," I said, and shame welled up within. "That you saw in me a way to further your own ambitions…"

"You thought such of me?" His voice was thin.

"Never before," I said, "but, aye, in that hour I did and it is the worst thing I have ever done."

He was silent for a while and it was long enough for a desire to sleep to come over me and his face blurred in the darkness.

"Mithrandir told me much in the night," he said at last, calling me back. "Of such things I have never known. Of… of your past, my lord. And he, too, begged for my forgiveness. For he said he planted those seeds of doubt in your mind. Without meaning to."

I shook my head against his pillow, barely seeing him now. "Mithrandir spoke only the truth. It was I who interpreted his counsel to your disadvantage. The fault is mine."

When he said nothing to that I drew one of the heaviest breaths I had ever drawn and forced my eyes open. I had to work hard to keep the pain from breaking my voice.

"Listen to me," I said, seeing his face, "I understand if you choose to leave. I could never close my heart to you, Legolas, for I think now that in doing so I would bring about my own ruin, but if you can bear the separation, and the knowledge that I love you, I will let you go to find peace and love elsewhere."

Long he stood in silence at my side while I lay with despair tearing into my heart. Yet I felt detached, as if drifting in a thick fog, and I did not sleep. As Mithrandir had promised, after a time, the shadows of night began receding as the first grey mists of dawn drifted into the room. It was then that Legolas finally spoke:

"I could not," he said quietly. "I could not bear it. I am not that strong."

When he lifted his eyes to mine I saw that they were the colour of the rains of a bleak winter and they were brimming with tears.

"I do not even wish it," he whispered, and in his voice was a note of desperation. "But there is so much pain, my lord. There is so much pain."

Yet even in his agony I knew a spark of hope and I lifted my hand towards his face. I did not reach it but he caught my hand in his and his cold fingers wrapped around my own.

"I know," I said, "but I can heal the wound, if you will let me. For it was my creation."

"I also have known fear and doubt," he said, and he sounded at a loss. "I know you have asked me to stay, my lord, but I think I did not truly believe you. I think… I did not truly think this possible and…"

That was when, with what little strength I had, I drew him down beside me for I could no longer stand not holding him. And while the coming dawn grew as a glowing emerald light in the eastern sky, he finally came to lie against me and buried his face in the crook of my neck. His arm wound around my waist and I secured it there before I closed my eyes.

It took a good long while before his breathing came easier and I dared to lift my heavy head enough to sink a kiss into his hair. Faint were the traces of sunlight that I found in him that morning but his light had not wholly abandoned him or he would have walked in the darkness beside me. I willed even more light into my heart and consciously worked to open it so that he might find it a safe resting place. Only when I felt him relax against me did I speak:

"We have spoken of truths," I said softly, but I will tell you that this is the truth as I know it: you I love, now and always."

He did not stir but lay quite still. I covered his hand with mine and he was warmer now.

"Wherever your path takes you," I said, "remember that. Even if we are parted."

He lifted his head and I saw in the faint dawn the traces of tears on his cheeks.

"I would not wish to be parted from you," he said in a quiet voice. "Even though it were necessary."

Gently, I brushed the memories of tears from his cheek. But even as I looked into his eyes a vision came to me of mountain ranges and endless plains of pale, wiry grass, and a black fire that twisted whip-like in the belly of the earth, and my hand stilled mid-movement. The vision passed just as quickly as it had come upon me but it left a frown on his face.

"What is the matter, my lord?"

I barely managed a smile for him. "Sometimes I have wondered if the world will one day come to claim you."

His eyes were intent on mine. "I would never go."

"Perhaps not," said I.

But he bent his head and placed his lips upon mine and there, somewhere in his shaken depths, I found the sweetness that woke again the song in my soul. As he kissed me it grew in strength and as the first rays of sunlight touched the evergreen crowns of the pines that watched over my Valley, I felt it rise within me and light up my heart.

I brought him down beside me and his fingers laced with mine. It was then that I felt his returning joy, and his mingled relief and gratitude, and his thought brushed mine, and lingered. And I kissed him again and still he did not flee, but instead melted even more fully into me; and his timid light was blended with mine until I was sure that I saw stars glinting in the glow of the rising Sun.

TBC