Chapter 31

Thranduil stepped into a clearing with growing horror. The hazy stench was strong here as it wafted along with the increasing wind between the smoking ruins of several telain clusters. The trees were burnt or smothered with black ash or glowing with lighted embers. The area was littered with various shattered and smoldering household items and dis-attached lumber. Several bodies were strewn about as well, some still, others moaning with healers or loved ones bent over them. A chaotic energy veiled the destruction and weaved nearly plausible tension into the very air. Elves scurried about with laden baskets, disheveled hair, and grimy faces, most streaked with tear tracks.

The elflings gasped as they took in the tragedy that had evidentially befallen the area and clung to Thranduil's legs. The Sinda choked down a wave of apprehension, for this felt very similar to the children clinging to him in his most recent dream. He held the elflings closer.

A willowy yet sturdy elleth was the first to take notice of him. Like the rest, her face was discolored with dirt and her garments were soiled and threadbare as if she had spent a while kneeling. Dried leaves stuck out of her lopsided and spilling bun.

She ambled over to him with shoulders back and eyes blazing.

Perhaps she didn't recognize him..? The bud of apprehension bloomed in his chest. Thranduil met her countenance with a confidence of his own. He was never known to be cowed easily.

The elleth came to a stop right in front of him, looking him up and down as if sizing up and enemy. By the look in her eye, she definitely recognized him and sure wasn't happy about it. She spied the children cowering behind his cloak and her eyes hardened further.

Thranduil opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by a unique smack as his head was thrown to the side. He heard the sound a blade being unsheathed behind him, most likely Minaitir. Eyes wide, he looked back up to the— it became very apparent now— towering height of the elleth. He had only been slapped a handful of times in his life (he probably deserved all the other times, he added as an afterthought), but he had certainly never would have thought—

"You dare show your face here again?!" The fury in the elleth's eyes was stoked to be comparable to a forge's furnace.

A hand still on the smarting side of his face, Thranduil warily delivered his weak retort. "You accuse me of a deed that does not add up! I have not set foot here in several millennia!" he shouted vainly. A strange twinge had spewed a fog in his mind.

The shouting had snagged the attention of some other elves, who slowly began to congregate around them. The elflings behind him regarded the other elves with a measure of despairing relief and newfound caution.

Thranduil could not fathom what he had done to garner such a reaction from this elleth who he had not even met before.

The blaze in her eyes remained constant. She let out a forced laugh that was somehow crafted to sound dangerous. "Oh! So now you're not only a traitorous scoundrel and a murderer, but a liar as well! Won't Námo be delighted to see you!" In a blink, she had the tip of a knife pressed under his chin.

Thranduil was so stunned he could hardly think. The Ring at the bottom of his pack seemed to grow heavier in an enticing manner. His head began to spin and he groaned inwardly.

One of the individuals from the throng making a loose loop around them seemed to take pity on him and stepped out.

"Alagbara! Stand down! Let us proceed not in haste." The ellon placed a hand on the outstretched arm of the elleth, Alagbara apparently; Thranduil thought it was a rather fitting name. With some contemplation and a last angry flash of her teeth, Alagbara lowered the knife and instead dug her fingers into his arm, which, he thought absently, was rather unnecessary for he felt rather strange—

Thranduil blinked heavily as a seemingly physical weight plopped down on his shoulders. The next thing he knew was a loud, mournful wailing filled his ears and the echo of a Shadow probed into him, like he had been underwater the whole time and every muted sound became known now. He gasped and stumbled back as his connection with the trees slammed back into him full force. Shouts swam in his ears and colors began to melt together...

As King, Thranduil knew he had poured himself into the very land, letting him actually feel the Shadow creeping up from the South. He had withdrawn most of his energy from the land and back into himself when he had, in turn, depleted his stores to heal Legolas, somewhat quieting his connection with nature.

But he heard it now. Oh, how he heard it.

The wails of the trees became lilting chants of thick melancholy, rising in tune with the heartbeat pounding in his ears and thrumming through his very head like the vibrating of a harp string. It felt like he was thrashing in a pool of molasses in a smothered world.

He vaguely recognized the dark chittering undertones of the trees plagued by darkness in the swimming mix.

A sharp sting erupted in his knees and he absently came to the conclusion that he had collapsed. Hands pulled at his arms as he sunk in his pool of molasses until darkness swallowed his mind.

oOo

Elrond purposefully and swiftly descended the crude stone stairs to the dungeons. He crept through the creaking gate, and was suddenly reminded of the sight of a nearly unconscious Legolas pressed to the floor with a blade at his throat; the sight that had met his eyes last time he had made this trip. He almost wished the same sight confronted him now, for there was more worry in the unknown than the endangered, which in this case was the locations of Legolas and Estel.

The key made an authoritative click as it popped open the lock. Denisale didn't even look up as Elrond swung the door open.

The ex-Captain made a small sniff as his shoulders convulsed. Elrond was surprised to note that he was crying. The collar of his tunic was loose and a red-stained bandage wound around his shoulder visible through the opening. The Noldo settled down next to him on the small cot, leaving the grated door ajar and not fearing an escape attempt.

Elrond merely waited. Denisale took a deep, shuddering breath and began speaking on his own; he knew why the elf lord had come, and was not going to hinder him in his search.

"The Ring, hir-nin. It is thoroughly evil," Denisale said with hitched breath.

Elrond pressed a hand to his mouth. Valar... Tauriel said Thranduil has it; that he put it on...

"How do you know this?" the Noldo prodded.

Denisale furrowed his brow. "Because I— I handled it. The night right after the counsel meeting where we had a quarrel on... the manner in which we would drive the Edain out, Ausocitin came to me and pressed a note into my hand. The note told of a location outside the stronghold to meet him at that night. So I did." He took another shuddering breath. "I came to the place and found him holding a knife to Gilgan's throat."

Elrond made a confused expression and Denisale gestured to the other cell where Gilgan, the boy who had presumably impersonated Aragorn, and his mother, Evlani, were seated. "You see, I had found the boy a week prior out lost in the woods outside the talan I had been stationed in as an outpost. I had taken him in and grown rather fond of him. Apparently Ausocitin knew of this from Gindorelle's thieving little son who had been, shall we say, observing me." His eyes turned dark.

"Well, with the boy as leverage, I became his pawn. I used the Ring under his prodding to clear areas for more of the camps by bending the trees and wagon in the supplies. I don't remember even half of it. Evlani took it from me without Ausocitin knowing. Without it on, the effects wore off sooner than Ausocitin may have wanted and I realized what I had done to—to—" he broke off. "I was a fool," he lamented, shaking his head.

Elrond retreated into deep thought. Something wasn't adding up here... something wasn't right...

He turned to Evlani. "You came in contact with the Ring," he mused out loud.

Evlani and Gilgan exchanged a glance. "Yessir, I did. Ausocitin put it into my possession after he found it in the Grey Mountains. What Denisale speaks it true," she said with an affirming nod.

Elrond's sharp eyes detected the slightest frown from Gilgan.

The Grey Mountains? Why would he find it in the Grey Mountains?

"So Ausocitin had this Ring hidden up there?"

She shook her head. "He had means to find it, a map of some sorts."

He found it? Why on Arda would it be there..?

"It had not previously been in his possession before he found it, you say?"

Gilgan and Evlani exchanged another glance. "Not that I know of, sir."

Elrond nodded and stood. He believed Denisale's explanation, but it had not provided atonement for neither Evlani accepting the Ring and taking it South in the first place, or Gilgan willingly working with Gindorelle to spy on them in the palace.

"So you willingly helped the Advisor, without any threats hanging over your head?"

Evlani paused and bit her lip. "You see, I didn't I know what I was getting into, and I didn't have means for providing for me and my boy so I just went along with it..."

Probably money promised from the treasury, Elrond thought bitterly. He knew almost all he needed now. He fired another question.

"Did you poison my son, Gilgan?" Gilgan was rather taken aback.

"Sir, I—uh—"

"Right, you also skulked about, pretending to be Estel and stole those documents from the King's chambers, did you not?"

"Ausocitin threatened me—"

"With what? You could have easily stayed hidden in the passages and ran north."

"My father, sir, he was in the camp and in danger of being killed!"

"I thought you said your father had died when you were an infant," Denisale said with a puzzled frown.

"He did," Evlani filled in quickly; too quickly. "What Gilgan meant was my father—"

"That's quite enough!" Elrond shouted over the rising voices. He had gotten all he needed to know from those two.

"Where are the missing elves?"

"Sir, I swear I do not know where they are being kept," Gilgan said in a rush and cowered back when Elrond lifted an accusatory eyebrow.

"So they are being kept somewhere then," he said slowly with a look of venom towards the boy, but did not prod anymore and turned back to Denisale who had an expression of troubled consternation on his face. He could see how things were not adding up as well. "Is there anything else that you noticed, anything at all?"

Denisale bit his lip and began slowly. "Like I said my memory of the time I had the Ring in my possession is hazy but I think I remember a certain man conjuring up mixtures for Ausocitin. They possibly may have been poisons."

Elrond nodded and removed the keys from the lock on the door to Denisale's cell and pushed the door open. "I believe you. You may leave this level, but I suggest you make yourself as useful as you can despite your shoulder," Elrond said in reference to the arrow wound in Denisale's shoulder he had taken for Tauriel.

A smile split his face as he walked out of the cell and approached the gate leading to the exit. He looked over his shoulder back at Evlani and Gilgan and gave Elrond a puzzled expression. Elrond took the hint and shook his head, conveying that he would not let the two humans out.

"Will you leave us here such, Denisale? After everything?" Evlani called, grasping the bars.

His expression became pained. "I must. I have much to make up for." And with that he left, Elrond swinging the gate shut with a clang and disappearing up the staircase.

Evlani scowled deeply and freed the small knife hidden in the bodice of her dress. He would be back...

oOo

Thranduil roused himself slowly, feeling very drained as low voices became known in a room near the one he was currently in. He pried his eyes open and decided he did not fancy waking in places he didn't recognize. His gaze drifted around the shabby room, blinking at the late afternoon sun that shone through the cracks between the weathered boards and old sheet that had been used to cover the hole in the wall that apparently served as a window. Beside the creaking old bed he was currently on and a small folding table near the head of the bed, the room was unfurnished; rather unsurprising for the state of the small shanty that did not look like it could outlast a single gust of wind.

The whisper of the trees had returned to the usual, soft incessant droning he was accustomed to. He spotted his pack lying in the corner of the room and pondered what the Ring had done to him, for he could not tell if the lingering Shadow in his mind was from the communication from the darkened hearts of the Shadowed trees, or a wisp of darkness that dwelled in his fea.

It mattered not. He tried to turn his attention to the conversation outside the door propped up in the entrance form the room until a more pressing matter slammed into his drowsy mind and brought it to full alertness; the children! Where are the children?

Thranduil quickly decided that it was wiser to assess his situation first rather than struggling to have a a last living breath to regret his recklessness should he act rashly. He turned keen ears to the evidently quarreling voices that struggled to stay hushed.

"—the smoke rising in the distance, and the destruction the Serpent wrecked there. Your own Naneth was a victim to the beast's flames, how can you say the very coward that refused the King Oropher's direct command to slay it, a sufficient ruler!?"

Ice spiked through Thranduil's veins and he reflexively touched the side of his face that had been singed from the flames of the Serpent. The elves spoke of a matter that haunted him constantly, that he had trained himself to keep hidden.

Centuries ago, when his father still lived and ruled the Greenwood, the Serpent had plagued their northernmost border with its hunger for sweet elven flesh and sadistic amusement held at bay by watching things be reduced to black ash.

In opposition to what the prior voice of the elleth had said, Thranduil had been angered by his father's lack of concern about the beast. Oropher had seen the beast as too large a threat to bother with, and it had not destroyed so much as to be overly concerned of its presence.

Thranduil had stolen into the North with a small contingent of warriors that he hoped would escape his father's scrutiny for a long enough period for them to have travelled too far for anyone to bother retrieving them.

He had been young and rebellious and was confident in his pending victory as he had borrowed his father's Ring of Power. Their company had managed to attack the beast and take out one of its eyes. Furious and belching flame, the Serpent had demolished an entire elven settlement in its rage before returning to the Grey Mountains to finish off the rest of Thranduil's company.

A pang of grief awakened in his heart at the memory. Brave as they were, none of his company had survived. Thranduil had barely managed to keep himself intact—even with help from the Greenwood's Ring— and had thrust a broken spear shaft into the Serpent's empty eye cavity before he had been engulfed in it's last flurry of fire.

While Thranduil had been healing, his father had expressed his fears to the Counsel, that while what his son had managed to accomplish was great indeed, it did not change the fact that he had gone against the will of the King. Oropher feared what his own son's disobedience might mean for his newly established reign and the already wavering loyalty of his people.

Thranduil had readily, in turn, pleaded that his accomplishment not be made known, for he wanted no one to know of his loss in soldiers, as well as the lives lost in the settlement and mostly his appearance. Oropher has decided it was necessary to keep to his son's request, so he would not fade.

Ausocitin, of course, had been the one to spread the news the rumor that atoned for the loss of the settlement and the Prince's absence as he healed and learned to conceal his deformity.

Now it had become clear that the Advisor had been plotting to yank the throne from under Thranduil's unsteady feet all along, and had twisted the situation to his favor, saying that Thranduil had refused his father's wish to take the army out and slay the beast and the incident with the destroyed settlement had caused him to be too ashamed to show his face.

Effective as it was, the rumor had put Thranduil in the light of a coward, certainly making his father's death and his own rise to kingship a worse situation than it ought to have been. The fate of the missing soldiers, however, remained obscure and uncertain.

An ellon's voice on the other side of the door expressed this doubt. "But the missing soldiers? What of them? We know there is something not right here so—"

The fiery voice of the elleth overrode his. Thranduil, with a pang of apprehension, recognized it to be the elleth who had struck him at his arrival. He was still rather surprised at that! She had a spirit indeed. Not that it worked in his favor... "But what of this! First that settlement, now our home! You know it was Thranduil; you saw him with you every eyes! Who knows if the incident up north was not a beast at all, but that black villain and his exploding vials all along! And now he has come to unleash his anger and we happened to be the unfortunate recipients—!"

Thranduil's heart stung at the very thought and he shot to an upright position.

"The King is not evil; do not speak of this treachery," the ellon intervened quietly. Thranduil could see his eyes skittering nervously through the crooked gap in the broken door.

But then their eyes met. The ellon froze and stiffly stared at him. The elleth noticed and whirled into view, and pushing the door aside with a shocked yelp.

oOoOoOo

Here's a tip: outlines are great. Use them. Don't wait until you've written the majority of the story and then decide how it's gonna end like I have. ":3 Now that I've finally taken the liberty to write an outline for the rest of this story, I hope things will go much faster. ":3

Thank you all for the wonderful reviews! I know this story is kind of a mess and super confusing, so feel free to ask questions.

Stay at home, stay safe, and you really don't need all that toilet paper okay? :3 Blessings :P