Chapter 6: Shadows and Light

Caladhel awoke to darkness. In the first moments after her mind stirred she could not fathom why the sky above her had no stars. Then she remembered. She sat up quickly, too fast. Her head ached from that orc spawn's poison. Her hands and eyes groped in the black for something to orient herself. All her senses were drawn to the dim light that crept in from under the doorway. She felt her way from bedpost, to dresser, and at last to the door. Caladhel took hold of the handle but it refused to turn. He had locked her inside. She was trapped.

Panic crept in from the corners of Caladhel's mind, making it hard to breathe. She collapsed against the door, sliding downward until her knees hit the floor. She reached her hand out to the light. It lit the tips of her fingers but offered no warmth or comfort.

Caladhel did not know how long she sat on the floor. Time had little meaning in the dark. She had read once in one of her father's books brought from Valinor that The Void was ever black – a prison where those cast out could see the world but never enter it. She did not understand the full meaning of that passage at the time, for she had never known despair. She understood it now and for a moment pitied Morgoth his fate.

Caladhel was staring down at the light when it flickered. Something blocked the torch and a second later a fist sounded on the door.

"It is Beleth, dear, may I come in?"

Beleth! Caladhel's spirit lifted at the sound of her voice but despaired at the Lady's question. "Only if you have a key."

Beleth was puzzled by Caladhel's answer. "What do you…?" She took hold of the handle but it would not turn.

"The King locked me in last night," Caladhel said.

"Why?"

Caladhel hesitated to share with her Thranduil's accusation, but guessed Beleth would learn of it soon enough. "He thinks I am a spy."

Beleth cursed her nephew silently and her husband as well. She could throttle them both! She thought their game with the wine the prior evening deceitful, but accusing a friend and ally of treachery went much too far.

"This is my husband's doing. He sees shadows everywhere, enemies lurking around every corner." Beleth was fuming. She would do something about this, but first... "Are you well, otherwise?"

Caladhel didn't know how to answer the Lady's question. She was not at all well. She was frightened and angry. Her head hurt and her jaw as well from Thranduil's rough handling, but pain was less of a worry to her than the darkness.

After a long pause, she answered. "The fire has burned out. I have no way to light the lamps."

Beleth laid a hand on Caladhel's door. "Be patient. I will return as soon as I can." She turned on her heels and marched off to war.


Caladhel's insult echoed in Thranduil's mind the entire night. The wine freed her tongue, as he intended, but she had given him nothing he did not already know. Instead she dared to compare him to that cur Isildur – despite the hold he had on her and his hand so near her neck. He could have snapped it. For the briefest of moments he wanted to.

That was when he let her go.

Thranduil had not felt fury that intensely since the Dagorlad and did not trust himself to maintain control. He released her and she fell to the floor, unsteadied by both the force with which he freed her and the wine she drank. The moment she hit the ground played over again in his mind. It sparked in him a flicker of shame, which he struggled to extinguish. He argued with himself long, one part claiming Caladhel was to blame for his lost temper. Not all of him agreed. He tried to ignore that part, but did not wholly succeed.

Finding sleep elusive, Thranduil rose and headed to his study. If he could not sleep, he could get a few hours of work done. His counselors' reports were not enough to distract him entirely, but they kept his thoughts somewhat occupied, enough to allow his mind and spirit to calm.

Thranduil's peace was short lived. Beleth's fist on the door shattered it. He knew it was his aunt before she opened the door. He had watched her the night before hovering protectively about Caladhel. And despite what his aunt thought, Thranduil had not missed the infuriated look she shot him when their eyes met. He knew Beleth would be the first to voice her displeasure at the night's events as she had done before when she disagreed with Oropher.

Beleth did not await Thranduil's call to enter before she threw open the door. She was at her nephew's side a moment later glowering down at him. "What do you think you are doing?"

Her tone grated, but Thranduil managed to keep all emotion from his voice when he answered, "What I must."

"You have no cause to hold her prisoner."

Do I need one? He almost said that aloud, but immediately thought better of it. She was in a temper as it stood. And he did have a reason. It was cause enough in his mind. "I do not trust Celeborn."

"Celeborn," Beleth asked, "or his wife?"

Thranduil believed the distinction irrelevant. So far as he was concerned, they were one in thought and action. "They are one and the same."

"And so too you believe of Caladhel? She delivered a wedding invitation!"

The outrage in his aunt's voice failed to move him. Thranduil regularly sent messengers to distant lands, but he only sent Túven when he wanted something more than a letter brought back. "Any courier could have done that."

Thranduil watched his aunt raise a hand to her temple. He was giving her a headache and was happy to return the favor.

"She was to leave this very morning," Beleth said. "What secret do you imagine she could uncover in the space of a single night?"

"That is what I mean to discover."

Beleth shook her head. He saw frustration in the lines of her face, but also something close to resignation. He hoped the second would stick.

"Whatever it is you think you see in her," said Beleth, "it is not there." She reached out her hand then and laid it on his. "You project your mistrust of Galadriel and Elrond onto her."

"And you consider that unreasonable?" Thranduil asked, but his aunt's attention was no longer on their discussion.

Something rough beneath Beleth's fingers drew her attention to her nephew's hand. She took hold of it and pushed the hem of his sleeve further up his arm. There on the inside of his wrist was a line of cuts scabbed over, each one in the shape of the crescent moon. For a moment Beleth could not fathom how he had sustained such a strange injury, but when she moved to touch the marks she saw that the size and spacing of her own fingers perfectly matched the pattern. She had no doubt whose fingers had left them.

Beleth could not imagine the Lórien lady laying hand on the King for any reason other than defense. The anger she felt at her nephew's actions turned now to fear. "What have you done?"

Thranduil removed his arm none too gently from his aunt's grasp. He did not like the look on her face when she asked him this. "I asked her a few questions."

"What else?" she pressed.

"That is all."

Beleth did not believe him. She had asked the Lady if she was well when they spoke through the door, but Beleth now recalled the long pause that followed her question.

"I want the key to her room."

"Why? She isn't going anywhere."

"You can not keep her locked in the dark!"

"Can't I?" Thranduil leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. The same haughty expression Oropher had used on her from time to time spread across his son's face.

Beleth fought back the urge to slap him. She had done so once to his father when he looked at her with like mien, but Beleth had a different bond with Thranduil than the one she shared with her brother and so would not raise her hand. "I will break down that door if you do not hand it over."

Thranduil knew she meant it. His aunt was as stubborn as his father had been. Oropher lamented that fact often when he lived. When Thranduil was younger it had amused him to witness his father brought to heel by his aunt's wrath. He did not find the experience as entertaining from the other side.

"So you would have me allow a potential spy to roam my halls freely?"

"Other prisoners of this realm have been granted free air and sunlight," said Beleth. "A daughter of Lórien deserves no less. Set a guard on her, if you must, but I will not allow you to keep her locked up in there!"

Thranduil rose from his seat. He had felt much like a child with her standing there talking down to him. At full height he towered over his aunt. He glared down at her. "You forget yourself, Beleth. You may be kin, but I am king."

"Then act like one."

Thranduil flinched as if struck. Beleth's slight was far too close to Caladhel's earlier insult for him to ignore. The dark emotions he fought with earlier returned, but to his dismay, the tiny sliver of shame he tried to extinguish had grown in proportion, aided in no small part by Beleth's words and the judgment in her eyes.

Thranduil recalled his father's wisdom shared with him the last time he lost such an argument to his sister. Oropher had told him that a king must know which battles are worth fighting and from which to withdraw. Thranduil had thought his father's advice prudent at the time, but he discovered now that a defeat in battle would be easier to suffer than this loss.

He reluctantly drew the key to Caladhel's door from his pocket and held it out to his aunt. "I will have a guard set on her."

Beleth nodded once, took the key from his hand and fled his sight. He was relieved to see her go.


Caladhel heard the lady at the door and the key turn in the lock as she opened it. She rose from her spot on the floor. When the door opened light came flooding in from the lamp in Beleth's hand, freeing her from the darkness.

"Beleth!" Caladhel could not stop herself from throwing her arms around the elleth.

Beleth patted Caladhel's back before she pulled away. "I have brought light." She went about hurriedly lighting the lamps in Caladhel's bedroom, driving the darkness back. When she finished, Beleth set her lamp down on the dresser and turned to take account of Caladhel.

The marks upon her face were the first thing Beleth saw. She lifted Caladhel's chin gently to examine the bruises the King's hand left behind. "What happened?"

Caladhel wished she knew. "The King questioned me, but I had not the answers he sought."

Beleth withdrew her hand from Caladhel's face but held the elleth's eyes, seeking answers. "Why did your uncle send you here?"

Caladhel was painfully aware that the Lady was her sole ally in this kingdom. She would not lie to her. "He wished me to deliver news of my cousin's marriage and judge the King's reaction to it. The King believes there is more to it than that. He called me a distraction."

Beleth laughed but her eyes held no humor. She lifted a hand to Caladhel's face. Fair she was, despite the bruises. "You might be, to some." But not to Thranduil. Her nephew had never trusted beauty. It had been so for as long as Beleth could recall.

"I know not what I did to anger him." Caladhel wished she did. The previous day's events had played over and again in her mind as she sat alone in the dark. No matter how many times she relived the day she could not spot her mistake.

Beleth shook her head. "You did nothing. Thranduil's anger has been burning for an age. And my Túven…"

A look of pain filled Beleth's eyes. She knew her husband was also to blame for these events. She wished to explain him, so that Caladhel might understand. "Our people have long distrusted those lords who came out of the West and any who claim kinship with them. Those feelings in Túven have only worsened since our son's death alongside our king at Dagorlad. He blamed Gil-galad and Elrond and your aunt as well, though why I cannot say. After the war a shadow settled upon his heart. I fear it now poisons his thoughts and serves to further fuel Thranduil's fire."

Caladhel sat down upon the edge of her bed. Her hand rose to her face in an uneasy gesture. "I was to leave at first light. I would have departed yesterday if not for the King's banquet."

Beleth shared in Caladhel's dismay. She wished, too, that the Lady had departed. If she had, then none of this madness would be happening. Beleth knew she could not change the past, but she could do something about the present. "Let us get you cleaned up. Then you will come with me."

Caladhel was surprised by Beleth's proposal. She had not thought Thranduil would allow her to leave this chamber. "Am I permitted?"

"You are," Beleth replied. "There will be a guard assigned to keep watch over you. I am sure one of Iordor's wardens will be here soon."

Caladhel looked at the open door. She had wanted so much to escape this room but now she feared to leave it. She knew that by now word would have begun to spread. "I will not be welcome."

Beleth would have none of that. She laid a hand on Caladhel's shoulder drawing the elleth's eyes to hers. "Did you come here to do evil to our people?"

"No," Caladhel replied, praying the Lady of Greenwood would believe her.

"Then you must not spend your days in this prison cell." She moved away to the cabinet where the day before she had hung the spare dresses. She pulled a green dress with leaves embroidered in silver from its hanger. "The people need to see you walking these halls unashamed. They also need to see the marks the King left on your face before they fade."

"I don't know if that's a good idea," said Caladhel. "There will be talk of Thranduil's accusation by now."

"There will be." Beleth laid the dress down upon the bed. She stood before Caladhel and pulled the elleth's hair back over her shoulders, exposing her face and neck. "So we must start some rumors of our own."