This chapter is brought to you by ciabatta bread. They take like 25 hours to make and it is incredible how much writing one can do while waiting for that thing to rise.


From the roof of Candor's enormous manor, Ashryn monitored the candlelit windows, the figures climbing the front steps, and the occasional snippets of conversation which drifted through the frigid air.

The decision to scale the ornamental balconies lining the estate under cover of darkness had been an easy one, especially with the memory of Candor's taunting gaze staring into her soul. The degree of malicious triumph dancing in her uncle's eyes when Ashryn had passed him in the afternoon had sent a shiver up her spine, filling her veins with a rigid determination as she climbed the iron wrought bannisters.

He held himself with the level of confidence Ashryn associated with students who knew the answers to their upcoming examinations before entering the hall, and it frightened her. The calibre of the elves who filtered through the door only heightened her apprehension.

The rooftop was lined with stone tiles and gently slanted, punctuated with a chimney which she used to shield herself from the biting gusts of wind. As the night deepened and the arrivals trickled to a stop, Ashryn rolled onto her back to stare up at the velvet sky, straining to hear the voices below her. However, unable to pick up much beyond 'orc', 'king', and 'our land', she gradually drifted into a doze, absently thumbing at the rough tiles.

She must have eventually fallen asleep – it was with a jolt that she startled into consciousness once more, something digging hard into her spine. Raised voices slashed through the air from somewhere to her left – Candor's study - and Ashryn's heart jumped into her throat when she slipped against a slick tile, struggling to her feet on unsteady limbs. She heard her own name, the syllables honey smooth over Candor's distinctive baritone. Ashryn froze, heart pumping violently in her ears.

A furious response came from a voice that she knew as well as her own, raised in a manner that Ashryn had never heard before. She didn't dare move closer to the window on her unsteady feet. A low chuckle rumbled through the air. A door slammed.

She didn't want to hear more.

Ashryn forced herself to move over the rooftop that had grown icy in sections, estimating that it was well past midnight. She didn't bother with the balconies on the descent, instead swinging over the edge with the blind confidence of pure panic, trusting the gnarled vines on the frontside of the manor and the thick bushes to break her fall. Her fingers were clumsy, but her blood was roaring and Ashryn couldn't bring herself to care.

She stayed, crouched, behind the bushes, as she waited for her hands to stop shaking.

The front door swung open violently, bright light streaming from the hallway and through the crevices between the leaves. Legolas came storming down the front steps, his heels dogged by fury and a scarlet cloak. The prince stopped right beside her bushes, suddenly deathly still. "Come out," he commanded, voice startlingly even.

Ashryn obeyed without protest.

He looked at her for a few long seconds, a myriad of emotions dancing across his face, seemingly unsurprised to find her, before pivoting and heading for the gates. "Are you coming?"

"Where?" Ashryn managed to respond, hurrying after his longer strides over the uneven pebbles. Legolas did not respond, already swinging onto the back of his white mare and trotting towards the gates. She swore under her breath, accosting the first horse she could get her hands on and struggling into sitting position with her uncooperative limbs.

Legolas spared her only a single backwards glance once they cleared the grounds of the estate, spurring into a gallop, his mare's tail flashing silver under the moonlight. Reluctantly, Ashryn followed.

She had always thought herself a good rider – Ashryn had been on horses since she could walk, but Legolas pressed a punishing pace over uneven ground, making hairpin turns and clearing logs only at the last possible second. The air was freezing cold, but she was breathing hard before long, hair tangling in the wind as steam began to rise from her horse's pelt. They were going too fast for her to think. More than once, she nearly lost Legolas in the winding forest, following only the flashes of the mare's tail flicking behind her.

They continued nearly all the way to the border, slowing before a seemingly ordinary sequoia. Legolas trotted his mare around the perimeter, murmuring to her softly as Ashryn struggled to catch her breath, her muscles aching hard from the gallop. She just about collapsed against the stallion's neck, pressing her forehead into his mane as the cold air burned her lungs.

There was a soft rustle of fallen leaves when Legolas dismounted, and Ashryn raised her head as he approached her horse, brushing a hand down his nose and offering a soft apology. Shakily, Ashryn slid back onto solid ground herself, watching the prince rather reproachfully. When he turned to catch her gaze, Legolas offered a rueful look, but did not speak. He gestured instead at the soaring sequoia.

"Up?" Her voice was hoarse, glancing skywards to find the shadowy edges of a large talan and the camouflaged rope ladder. There was a new twinge in her shoulders – the unfortunate consequences of her careless climbs, but Ashryn did not want to protest at this Legolas.

The platform cleared the treeline, and Ashryn staggered against an unexpected gust of wind when she finally topped the ladder. She leaned back against the trunk as Legolas's golden head entered view, the prince's eyes scanning the surrounding trees and taking a quick turn around the platform with practiced efficiency. The metal scales on his shoulders glinted under the grey light as Legolas shed them alongside his bow and quiver. There was a metallic clink when he undid the leather bandolier across his chest, a myriad of throwing knives sheathed across the strap.

Ashryn watched him with a rapt fascination, noting the way he stood just a touch taller once he was no longer weighed down by the pounds of steel and how he left the two white knives on his back, the hilts just poking over his shoulders. Legolas tipped his head back, eyes closed, breathing deeply the night air. He seemed strangely vulnerable, the prince under the stars, and Ashryn wondered if she should look away. It felt too intimate, and she was sure he could hear the intrusive beats of her heart.

"Why were you there, Ashryn?"

The question was barely louder than murmur, but Ashryn flinched a little nonetheless, tearing her eyes away from the pulse beating in his neck to meet Legolas's eyes. He looked so tired. "Spying," she answered honestly. "Cassian invited me."

"To spy?"

She flushed. "He was trying too hard to patch relations. I wanted to know why."

Legolas looked at her long and hard, something undecipherable in his expression. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Did you find out why?"

"No."

"What did you learn?"

"Enough."

"Did you hear me?"

Ashryn wavered, struggling to maintain contact with his intense blue stare. "Yes."

For the first time, Legolas seemed just a touch uncertain. "How much did you hear?"

"Not much," she responded as evenly as she could imagine, narrowing her eyes a fraction as she scanned Legolas's face. "I fell asleep on the roof."

There was the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth. "I know. I saw your hand on the edge when I arrived."

Ashryn scowled. "You were late, then."

"I was not attending the same event," Legolas corrected. "Mine was a private discussion."

Ashryn sighed, sagging a little against the tree trunk. "Let's not do this, Legolas, please. Talk to me if you want, or don't, and I can leave you be."

It took a few long moments before he turned to face her properly, stepping closer. "Are you sure?"

"I said what I said," Ashryn replied instantly, bracing herself to regret her words.

As an elfling under the unfortunate influence of Cassian, Ashryn had once convinced herself that she could retrieve a basket of summer apples from the top shelf of the kitchens. Balanced precariously on one foot atop a spindly stool, she had succeeded only in knocking the container off the edge of the shelf. There was nothing she could do but brace herself for impact, flinch away, and feel the ground rush up to meet her. Watching the way the prince's face darkened, hearing his voice grow harsh at the edges, Ashryn was reminded inexorably of the eternity it took for her body to meet the floor.

"Your uncle has grown very bold," Legolas said lightly. "Bold enough to offer the king's son his father's throne. Did you hear that?"

Ashryn's breath caught in her throat. "No," she answered honestly.

"I almost laughed at him," Legolas continued on brusquely, "before I realised he was serious. Which begs the question – is he mad, deluded, or both? It will not matter when my father takes his head, of course, but I am curious."

Mind whirling, Ashryn thought back to the faces she glimpsed entering Candor's manor, of how Cassian had tried so hard to warn her. Genuine began to rise in her stomach. "Neither," she whispered.

Legolas did not seem to comprehend her response. "What did you say?"

"He has the numbers, Legolas," Ashryn explained miserably. "I was counting the attendees tonight. A majority of every sector of Greenwood, from military to trade to law. He got all he needed while you were away."

"No," Legolas shook his head, "my father has ruled Greenwood for thousands -"

"He has the general," Ashryn interrupted.

Colour leached from Legolas's face. "Mecheneb?"

"Mecheneb," she confirmed.

Wrath spread across Legolas's face, flashing in the depths of his eyes and roiling through the air in steady, pulsing, beats. His shoulders visibly tightened. When he spoke, his voice was flint cold. "I will have him dead."

It was painful to watch, and Ashryn wished she could stop speaking even as the words left her mouth. "You can't, Legolas."

The prince's furious gaze honed on her. "I can't?"

"He has the numbers, Legolas," she repeated. "There is nothing you can do to touch him. You have to make your father sail."

"No," Legolas hissed. "Not like this."

Rigid stillness bled away as Legolas stormed to life, his aquiline features twisted with rage and anguish. There was a harsh whistle of blade slicing through air, and Ashrynsnapped her head to the side to see a hunting knife buried deeply into the trunk of a neighbouring tree, quivering violently.

"Legolas?"

"What's the point, then?" He exclaimed, striding to the edge of the talan, precariously close to the fall, back turned. "Of all of this?" The other knife thudded into the wood at their feet. "What use is a weapon if I cannot use it? Why tell me all this if all I can do is watch everything slip through my hands? What am I to do?!"

Unwillingly, dejectedly, with a resigned lethargy, Ashryn addressed the brittle spine. "There is nothing to do." If only she could advise him to fight - to steal back through the night and battle through the webs already long woven until the fangs inevitably sank into his neck. A braver elleth would. But Ashryn had never been brave.

Legolas spun around with ferocious speed; his features carved into marble. "You should have let me warn him that first time," he snarled, "You could have stopped this. If you let me go to him when we first knew of a threat-"

"Let you?" Ashryn cut him off, outraged at the sudden accusation. "I am in no way responsible for your actions."

"Stop it," Legolas spat, "you know exactly what I am talking about. He was not on his guard. No one was on their guard, because of your advice, your selfish refusal to be involved in any semblance of public affairs, because you stopped me from going to him!"

"You agreed with me!"

He rounded on her, almost frightening in his fury. "You knew I would have listened to you. I don't believe that you didn't know what Candor could do. This is on your hands!"

Ashryn flinched. "That's not fair." The words barely made it through her throat.

Regret flashed across his face, a quickly crumbling facade. "I only meant -"

"You've made quite clear exactly what you meant," Ashryn said quietly.

The silence roared alive between the two, neither speaking as the night air became unbearably heavy, suffocating her under its heavy embrace. Her hands clenched the woollen fabric of her cloak tightly, twisting until it hurt and watched him stare determinedly at the ground with his jaw clenched tight, a statue eroding slowly in the wind.

Finally, Legolas lifted his head, eyes lined with devastation. "I'm sorry," he breathed, reaching for her. "I did not mean that."

"Didn't you?" Ashryn challenged, crossing her arms. He snatched his hands back as though he had been burned. "You would not have said it if it wasn't true."

Legolas stared dejectedly back at her, shaking his head. "You are not at fault here. Your uncle is."

She was guilty only of enabling the crime, but Ashryn did not feel the need to speak it aloud. Both she and Legolas knew it well enough. "What do we do?" She asked finally, breath white in the air. Immediately, she regretted the question.

Legolas's eyes drained of whatever life they held, staring right through her as though he could see all the way back to the city. "Wait until morning and prepare to compromise."

The stone-cold fury began to crumble before her eyes, splitting at the seams and revealing the raw emotion underneath – heartbreak and grief. When he spoke again, it was quivering, barely above a whisper. "I do not want to be king."

Her chest contracted painfully at the sight. Ashryn could do nothing but step forwards, wrapping her arms tight around his back and laying her head against his collarbone, feeling the unsteady rises and falls of his chest, his breath shuddering through his lungs. Before long, a gentle hand wrapped around her waist, another braced against her back as he rested his head over her own. For a few long moments, they did nothing but exist, silent under the watchful moon.

Her skin prickled under his touch, achingly familiar but tinged with something foreign at the same time, something she could not quite identify – like an exotic dialect of her birth tongue. The metronomic bump-bumps of his heart were the only sounds she could hear, encompassing every fibre of her being and ringing in her ears. "Legolas?" Ashryn broke the silence and pulled back slightly so she could see his face. "Are you alright?"

He looked down at her, the panes of his face sharp in the dim light. "For now."

She waited a few more moments, debating if she wanted to push further. Curiosity won out in the end over empathy. "Did he say anything else?"

His hand shifted against her back. "No," the prince responded.

"Don't lie to me, Legolas," Ashryn said instantly.

Legolas's jaw clenched hard as he held her gaze, his touch burning over her skin. "I thought you didn't hear."

"I didn't hear much, but I heard enough. Now tell me what he said."

Legolas's hair shone silver, shadows lidding his eyes. "He offered me a queen."

Ashryn's blood ran cold.

"My father's throne, his crown, and your hand in marriage, Ashryn. That's what he offered me."

She recalled the voice which had sliced through the night to strike her on the roof, and the words she caught in her drowsy haze. Not a pawn. "And what did you say?" Ashryn asked, fearful of the response.

He met her eyes evenly, grip tightening on her waist. "I told him that you deserve better than being a piece on his chessboard."

All of a sudden, the world seemed to close in. The wind shuddered to a stop, the stars wheeled into the distance, and their quiet breaths saturated the air like seawater filtering through dry sand. Icy blue eyes thawed to something more akin to the cerulean of rockpools, searching the depths of golden brown as the distance between them stretched taut as a bowstring, thrumming alive. Ashryn's breath caught in her throat.

The sudden realisation of what was driving the wild racing of her heart nearly floored her.

Ashryn thought back to the cloak he had draped over her shoulders and the way he had cupped her cheek in the candlelight of his quarters. She thought of the way he had reacted when she touched his hair, the way he had seemed to stop breathing, and how her own heart had stopped and began to race at the same time. "Well," she tried desperately to tease, voice shaky. "Are you so averse to the idea?"

Legolas's eyes had darkened, smouldering. "I am averse to doing what Candor wants."

"And what do you want?" Ashryn managed to ask, mouth dry. Silhouetted against the endless night, he was achingly handsome, looking at her the way an intoxicated man eyed his next cup: with desire and a sense of inevitability. Subconsciously, her hands reached up to lace together behind his neck.

He did not reply. Almost as if he was in a trance, the hand that Legolas had braced against her neck now travelled up her face to cup her jawline, his other hand absently thumbing the curve of her hip. Something was straining deep in his eyes, and in that moment, he looked like he very much wanted to kiss her.

Meeting his eyes, watching the way they travelled hazily down to her mouth and then back up to meet her gaze somewhat bashfully, Ashryn thought she might just let him.

She was moving before she even realised, limbs strung on a marionette. Rising onto the tips of her toes so they were almost of height, she tilted her head up ever so slightly so their breaths mixed together, feeling the way his heartbeat built against her own. With a courage she had not known that she possessed, Ashryn threaded a hand into his hair, relishing the way his grip tightened on her hip as he leaned down. "I want you to kiss me, Legolas," she whispered, eyes slipping shut.

He needed no extra prompting.

The first brush of his lips against her own was tentative, as though he thought she might pull away, before becoming more certain when she dropped a hand to his chest to tug him closer. Something sparked to life inside her like a jagged bolt of lightning, electricity shooting up her spine. Her back arched under his hand, firm on her waist. His lips were soft, slightly chapped, and Ashryn thought she must be alight, sparks flickering through her veins. Her mouth parted over his own, breathless, dragging her fingers through his hair as a low sound rumbled in his throat. For just an instant, nothing else existed – no crowns, no wars, no destinies, only Legolas's lips slanting over her own, holding her like he had no intention of ever letting go.

It all ended too soon.

Ashryn dropped heavily back onto her feet, chancing a glance at Legolas: eyes half closed, hair mussed, a little dazed. She let him wrap her into him, heart beating rapidly, struggling to catch her breath. Too late, as the wind gusted past, she wondered if she had made a terrible mistake.

It was quiet for a long time, constellations tracing the sky above. Time seemed twist and turn, marked only by their everbeating hearts and the occasional rustles of drying leaves. Ashryn slowly registered the world around her again, feeling the wood under her feet and the cloth against her skin, a lingering tingle on her lips.

There was nothing to say even if they had the words. She clung tightly to Legolas's back, not wanting to see if the same resigned understanding of what they had done had struck him as well.

Together, they awaited the inevitable red dawn.


Well, the kids done did it, didn't they?

I honestly never thought I would actually get this far into the story when I begun writing, but here we are! It's time for the proverbial shit to well and truly hit the proverbial fan. Thank you to all of you who have stuck around through the iffy writing and spelling mistakes I never get around to fixing, and to those of you who left me your unbelievably kind words. I want you all to know that I would sleep with your comments under my pillow if I owned a printer.

Until next time,

Silver xx