Disclaimer: I own none of Tolkien's creations and only lay claim to my own humble creatures.

Chapter Quote: "I killed Faerlain."

PART THREE

Chapter Fifty-One

Guilty

I don't know when my tears stopped or when I started to feel so tired. I'd gotten sick out in the forest before and I knew I should be finding shelter just about now... but I couldn't bring myself to move- even if I had wanted to. "I won't leave you... I won't ever leave you." I whispered fiercely to the still body of Talorta... my dearest friend. Soon I couldn't feel the snow anymore and I felt sunshine on my face. I looked up... and I saw Zachary smiling at me. His hand felt warm and gentle on my skin... there was no more pain.

"Not yet Victoria... wake up Victoria... wake up." He said to me.

But I couldn't. I closed my eyes as weariness overtook me again and my consciousness drifted. I won't ever leave you.

...Never recover... she won't ever recover... seven years...too long in a coma...never recover...terribly sorry Mrs. Knightengale... terrible sorry...

The wind rustled through the lifeless trees and again I heard Teacher's words echoing in my head. "One day you will feel the icy numbness of death... and you will be powerless against that void." It was all my fault... I knew it now... all my fault the attack had failed... all my fault that Talorta was dead... all my fault that my own life was slipping between my fingers. Ironic... I would die now when for the first time in five years I wished I could have lived. I thought of Legolas... of his warm lips seeking my own. And I cried.

The sunshine faded and Zach's encouraging face slowly started to disappear. "Hang on Vic...just a little longer..." It was cold again but I was so numb that I could hardly feel it. I clutched Talorta's mane and I let my tears trail down my cheeks. The harsh wind tore at my body, my breathing was coming in gasps and I squeezed my eyes closed tight. Hold on Victoria... hold on Vi-

"-ctoria!" I clung closer to Talorta and the pain came in waves once more. Someone was calling my name and I could hear it as if in a dream over the wind and the snow. "Victoria!"

I couldn't find the strength to move as I felt something warm touch my shoulder. I willed my eyes to flutter open as I heard the voice whisper my name again. It pulled me away from Talorta but I was too weak to protest as I was enveloped in someone's arms. He was so warm... and I smiled weakly as I looked up... recalling the smell that I could imagine to be the aroma of heaven just then. "Legolas..."

She was so weak... so helpless as he knelt beside her in the snow and cradled her in his arms. She'd broken off the shaft of the arrow, but the tip was still imbedded in the flesh of her shoulder. She was shivering...ice crystals had formed on her eye lashes. She opened her blue eyes and looked up at him, despair in her gaze as she smiled weakly at him. "Legolas." She whispered as he tenderly caressed her cheek.

The wind was dying down... the snow drifted on the faint gusts and twirled softly about them- the forest was silent. "I found you." He said softly. "I will bring you back... and then you will be all right."

Her smile faded and a frown creased her frozen features. "Legolas..." Her words were choked and remnants of tears ran down her cheeks. "Talorta-"

He placed a finger on her lips, silencing whatever else she'd been trying to say. "He died with honor."

He felt her body stiffen beneath him and she closed her eyes momentarily as if to hold back tears. Reaching up, he pulled a heavy blanket from his saddled and began to wrap it as tightly as he could around her, moving her limps carefully and applying pressure to the arrow wound.

"I failed him... I should have stopped them... should have... but I just... couldn't..."

He shook his head and cradled her gently. "You have done nothing wrong. I can prove you are innocent... you will be able to walk free." Her gaze was clouded and drifting. He sought to instill hope in her again... to bring the fire back to those eyes. "We will not have to stay here, Victoria. We will go far away... where no one can hurt us anymore."

She shook her head, her lower lip trembling. She was afraid. "No." She shifted, grimacing as she turned her head and gazed straight into her eyes. "We have to go back...I need to... to turn myself in... I... they... they need to arrest me." Her gaze was so far away... as if she was looking at him from the bottom of murky depths. "I need to go back to the Palace."

He frowned, his insides freezing as she struggled to breathe. She couldn't... it wasn't possible... "No Victoria... you just do not understand-"

She quieted him and sighed in resignation. "I am not innocent Legolas." She winced again, this time as if the memory of something pained her.

"I killed Faerlain."

Years Past in the Star-Flower Forest...
Teacher was stubborn... I had said it countless times over. But what I was realizing only now what a fool he was... and how naive I had been to have been blind to it. I demanded an answer from him once I discovered Faerlain's name inscribed on the vial... a vial of which I had never seen the likes of before. My mind swirled with long buried memories as I sought for any possible recollection of the vial when I had known Faerlain... but I found not a one.

My heart beat wildly against my breast as I remembered him... remembered his smile, his kisses, his laughter. And it wounded me deeper then any blade could as I thought of him dead once more. Dead... and at my mentor's hand. The thought made me burn in rage.

I locked Teacher in his subterranean laboratory... and I waited fro him to break. Teacher, however, was resilient. And it took days. Four days to be exact before he started to beg for food. I wondered wistfully it he had accidentally devoured his silver poison that I had delivered to the Elves of Mirkwood for so long... I was disappointed however when I found him still thriving in the cell I had made for him.

I entered the dark room, and I held a loaf of freshly made bread tauntingly away, only inches from his face... but I did not give it to him. Yet he wouldn't break... even then. So I tried other things. It wasn't difficult, after all, Teacher had been instructing me in the art of torture for years now... I was a master. I burned his books... I smashed his poisons... I beat him... and when that wouldn't work- I tied him to a tree and struck him with a long, hooked whip.

I was strong from my long years of training and his skin grew torn and bloodied under the lashes. Even then, he didn't break until a stray blow cut him across the face and tore at his left eye. He screamed for me to stop and in panting breaths he answered my questions as I flicked stray drop of his blood nonchalantly off my arm.

"I ordered them to attack Gilloth for the vial."

My arm lowered, slowly. "Why?" I demanded flatly.

He strained his neck to look round at me. "The vial..." He wheezed. "Contains a liquid made from the star-flowers. It was created by a healer called Mirlaic several hundred years ago... thousands perhaps... I am no longer certain."

My hear clenched and my blood ran cold. But Teacher had taught me well how to deal with my foes... and now he was my enemy.

"The liquid is a powerful healing device... heals nearly every malady. But it takes a lengthy amount of time to produce. It was only given to elven children born in the village in the following years. They were gifted with the vial at birth by the village elders... and they were sworn to secrecy when they came of age. Few knew of the liquid's existence outside Gilloth." He stirred with excitement. "But it makes a potent toxin it brewed correctly. A toxin that could wipe out generations of elves in a matter of days!"

This man... if that was what he truly was... was insane. A homicidal murderer... and I had been his pawn. I jabbed him hard in the wound of his left shoulder and he cried out in pain. "Who are you to order the death of an entire race? Who are you to claim that right of judgement?"

His eyes were ablaze and blood stained his tattered garments. "I was wronged." He hissed.

Scowling, I cut the binds holding up his right arm so that his full weight hung from his wounded arm. He grit his teeth and moaned. You made me old man... tell me why you have done this. I grabbed the front of his tunic and I pulled his body off the bark of the soiled tree. "Why did you kill them?" I said, hissing into his twisted face and feeling satisfaction as pain flickered in those hazel eyes.

"Why would you kill him?" I demanded, holding Faerlain's vial up to his face with the inscription facing towards him.

He read it mutely... and then he blinked, his eyes widened in realization... and then narrowed in disgust. "You loved one of them? You loved one of them?" He recoiled from my touch and I snarled, hurling him back against the tree and feeling elation as I heard a sharp crack resound from somewhere in his shoulders.

"Do not toy with me, old man." I said flatly. "You have no business in whom I have or have not loved."

"They are the evil ones, Gwenél! They are the ones who ruined both of our lives!"

I shook my head, revolted that he would dare compare himself to me. "No... I am different from you. I am not like you."

"Really?" He laughed harshly. "My master told me about them... my master was the wizard of white... savior of the world. HE told me how they hated us... HE told me how to kill them." He blinked, as if recollecting something and he smiled wistfully. "He said so... he told me what to do." He cackled wildly turned to look at me again and he grinned.

My mind scrambled to recall anyone in the histories that Faerlain, Mirlaic, and Teacher himself had taught me who bore the name of 'Wizard in White'. I blinked in astonishment. "You paid homage to Saruman? The white wizard?" Teacher licked his lips as I said that name and I struck him in repulsion. "You twisted fool... believing the words of a half-wit wizard."

"No... my master was cunning... it was he who ordered the attack on Mirkwood you know." He peered closer at me and I fought the desire to grimace under that crazed stare. "But you... you were so easy to manipulate Victoria... it was so easy to turn you against them." He sneered at me and I found that I was having trouble breathing. "I might have given the orders... but you hated them as much as I. You killed them... didn't you Victoria?"

My former name made me grimace and I gnawed my teeth as his words struck a chord deep inside of me. It wasn't true... I had never... I never...

"No?" Teacher said, as if reading my thoughts. "That boy... the one you used the powder on. Gruglock found him in the woods... I knew you wouldn't tell me about him. He found him all right... he was stiff by the time they found him in the woods... but his company found him a decent enough meal."

My mind reeled in shock. I had never told Teacher about any of my victims... how could he have possibly known? I never killed them... never... my insides twisted and I fought the urge to empty the contents of my stomach as my face suddenly paled. He grinned maliciously as he watched me sicken.

"You killed him." He nodded in the direction of the vial that was now clutched so tightly in my hand that it had started to turn my knuckles white.

I shook my head vehemently. "You killed Faerlian... YOU KILLED THEM ALL!" I screamed in blind fury and in a flash I had cut his binds and he was laying helpless on the forest floor below me with my blade at his chest, gleaming in the twilight. I knew as he looked up at me that he realized as much as I what he had turned me into...a monster... and that he would die because of this.

"They will hurt you in the end Victoria. They already have."

I let my scimitar hang at my side and I glared at him. "You don't know anything about me."

"They are not worth saving Victoria." He continued. "...wake up and embrace what you are."

I snarled, "You can no longer tell me what to do." I could no longer feel the warm breeze on my skin nor the sun on my face. Couldn't think of anything besides that one sentence that repeated mercilessly inside my head. "You killed Faerlain... you killed Faerlain..."

He grinned. "I no longer have to."

And he was right. I had become exactly what he had wanted... and I had done exactly what he had said. The vial fell from my hand and shattered with a crash.

"They died because of you." He wheezed, clutching at my shoulder.

"Why Faerlain?" I asked as I struggled to keep my voice even. "Answer quickly and I may yet find a use for you."

Teacher flinched. "The orcs were driven off before they could retrieve the vials... so I needed another. There were only a few known survivors and your beloved was one of them."

That was it... my people... no... not my people... but all those elves had died, because some diabolical fool wanted a vial? It was too much. "No." I said hoarsely and my mind went numb.

"They died because of you." He said again. "I taught you to be Gwenél... but you... you became the monster."

" I will kill you." I said and I shoved the blade against his throat, my mind whirling. He looked up at me and he glared. "One day you will feel the icy numbness of death... and you will be powerless against that void."

Monster... monster...

I laughed, letting my guilt and anger flow cleanly out of me as I banished the thoughts from my mind. "You made me a ghost... master."

I plunged my sword into his chest and I smirked as his blood stained my blade. The light in his eyes flickered, and then went out with a gasp of pain as I twisted my blade and then draw it back out from him. I felt myself vanish as his blood stained my blade and the ground at my feet. I took a step back and wiped my blade against his thigh.

"I am a ghost... I am already dead."

Present
Legolas shook his head- commanding her to be silent. "Victoria that does-" He closed his eyes, willing the awful ringing in his head away. "I killed Faerlain... I killed Faerlain..." He breathed deeply. "That was not your fault."

The snow seemed suddenly colder and he hugged her closer to him, as if afraid that someone who snatch her away. Victoria's breathing was getting heavier and he fought the desire to let out a cry as the full realization of what would happen if he let her do as she wished. It was wrong... unfair. There was no way he could let her accept the blame for something she hadn't done.

"But it was, Legolas..." She shivered. "Teacher was right... I had been easy to manipulate and I did his bidding without thought or care." She blinked again and her blue eyes wandered past him to Talorta... she took a shaky breath. "I wronged your people, Legolas. Maybe not in the full extent that Teacher wanted... but through me he would have brought destruction to Mirkwood. I didn't stop when he died... and I wouldn't have... if I hadn't met you."

It was so hard to explain now... all the words that had been right in my head moments before he'd found me were all jumbled in my mind... and I felt so tired. "I want it to be over Legolas... and I know they deserve justice. Maybe then... if they've forgiven me... I won't find it so hard to forgive myself."

I didn't understand anymore... didn't he realize that if it hadn't been for me... none of this... would have happened and that they would have all been alive? I just... I just didn't want to fight anymore. I was just too tired. Talorta was dead... more innocent blood shed at my hands. I looked up at him again and I let the tears I'd been holding back fall down my cheeks as I weakly reached up to touch his face. "I had wanted to believe that there were still good people out there, Legolas. But no one had given me the opportunity until I met you." My lip trembled.

"I'm so sorry..." I let my hand fall and my eyes seemed to close of their own accord. "At least you saved me." I whispered... and then I fell asleep, my body pressed to his.

He had been gone far too long and Araviniel was about to go looking for him when the Prince suddenly reappeared beneath the trees. The face Araviniel had once thought had been chiseled by the Valar themselves now looked drawn and haggard. The other warriors stood from their relaxed positions in surprise when they saw him leading his horse back with the body of a frail woman held tightly in his arms.

"This is your ghost." He said bitterly. "She has surrendered herself for trial." He glanced around at them and then rested his gaze momentarily on Araviniel. She shivered until that frosted grey glare. "We will gather the rest of our troops and return to the palace. That is all."

No one spoke or moved as the Prince of Mirkwood slowly mounted his horse and held the woman tenderly in his arms. In the fading light, the wounded woman looked hardly like the foe many had grown to fear in recent years... she hardly even looked alive. No one muttered congratulations to each other... no one lauded their victory over the downfall of the ghost. No one said anything. Legolas gently caressed the woman's cheek and her brown hair cascaded in grimy waves from her limp body and onto the prince's side.

No one dared breathe as the Prince looked down coldly at them again and said in a clipped tone, "Give the body of the horse beyond a ceremonial cremation... bring me back the ashes. Lady Araviniel and two of you shall return to camp immediately... the rest of you shall do as I have ordered and return once your task is completed."

He started to urge his horse on again but he paused, turned round to face them full. His golden hair glinted and his eyes flashed in an anger few had seen off the battlefield. "We have won no victory here. But I hope you find comfort that this is over."

Then he rode off back in the direction he had come while the others mounted and proceeded to do as he had commanded in silence. Araviniel mounted quickly and paced his horse while the two other warriors followed at a respectful distance behind. She didn't speak, knowing that Legolas would not listen to her now if she did. She would have to wait to speak her part... but she was worried. For she knew the look in the Prince's eyes all too well when he looked down at the still figure of her once-greatest friend. She had seen it all too often in her brother's eyes... a long time ago in an age that seemed life-times past.

The Prince of Mirkwood was in love with Victoria... and she knew that the end of that tale would not be a happy one.

A/N: Ok... so I wasn't too far behind with updating. Hope you all liked! So we're going back to the palace and you all know a bit more about Teacher... though his name is not included in that information. :) Just to brush you all up a little on your Middle-earthian history, Saruman did launch an attack on Mirkwood which Thranduil repulsed at a later time... though I'm sure the White Wizard knew nothing about the toxin the star-flowers could create being as I created them. :) lol. Again, a bit more AU... but that's to be expected from a mind like mine. :)

I took my SAT'S! YAY! And I now have a new definition of hell. (Groans) I'll let you all in on my scores if they didn't suck too badly once I get them in... which is supposed to be sometime at the end of this month. (Shrugs) We'll see what happens. In other news, my computer is still broken but I'm only $105.50 from getting it back! YAY ME!

As planned, I should have another chapter up by next weekend... we'll see what happens. And I have pictures of Zach and Faerlain up on my SIMA website which can be accessed from my author's bio page. :) That's all for now... forgive any errors that you spot and please don't hesitate to point them out in your reviews! I promise I won't bite. :) Thanks again to all who have reviewed and have brought my hit counter number up to a whopping 40,204 0-o WOW!

And I hopefully my future chapters won't disappoint. Btw... I'll be making special banners for any fans who review to the last chapter of this story... not to bribe you into reviewing or anything... I just wanted to give something back to you all for supporting me so much through this whole endeavor. :) Thanks again!

TO BE CONTINUED...