"You are doing amazing!" Taelen clapped his hands as Rian extinguished the flame in her palm. "Try it once more, and we can be done."
He watched with his tongue between his teeth as Rian ignited the straw in her hand and crushed it into a small ball of flame. She extended her arm, holding the ball in front of her, and moved her other hand in a circular motion. The ball followed the movement, circling slowly around her hand before it landed once more on her palm, and she closed her fingers around it, the flames disappearing as Rian sighed.
"Incredible," Taelen grinned. "You have come along so fast!"
"Fast?" Rian glared at him as she wiped her forehead with her sleeve. "I have never been this slow to master anything in my life."
"You mastered using your sword in two weeks?" Taelen laughed, taking the burnt straw ball from her hand and throwing it into the trash bin with the others. "Swordplay took me years to master. I hated practicing."
Rian shrugged. "I have never felt tired while wielding my sword, but creating and controlling fire seems to pull all of my energy away."
"Creating it is draining." Taelen sat on the ground and offered Rian a piece of bread from his pack, which she took without any hesitation. "I still feel the same way when I create water. That is why I told you to keep some matches on you if you want to use fire in a battle. Creation saps your energy fastest."
"Then why are we fussing with creating it?" Rian asked through a mouthful of bread.
"Because you have to learn the basics. You will be surprised how easy just plain manipulation is after a few more weeks."
"I do not have a few more weeks," Rian grumbled as she lay down on the ground and crossed her ankles. "We are leaving to investigate the Nimrodel today."
"Right, but you would not want to use your fire anyway. We will be too close to water."
Rian sighed and closed her eyes again. She had been frustrated about something all morning, which Taelen knew was making it harder to exercise control, but she had refused to talk about it when he asked. He wondered if it was still her manifestation of power against the wolf, or if something happened at the gathering last night, but he didn't get another chance to ask before Arien and Hanna hurried into the clearing.
"A scout just arrived-" Hanna said in one run-on breath, but Arien cut her off.
"A dark creature has entered Lothlorien on the Westside."
"We should leave then. That is where the Nimrodel enters the forest." Taelen stood, offering a hand to Rian, who didn't take it but stood on her own and crossed her arms.
"I think we should proceed with caution," she said. "We do not know what would await us if we were to pursue it."
Hanna shook her head. "But it is probably Thuringwethil-"
"All the more reason for caution!" Rian grabbed her pack from the ground. "She is most likely setting a trap for us, or trying to get us to retrieve the Silmaril for her."
Hanna placed a hand on one of the trees that shaded them, stroking the silver bark with her thumb. "But if she starts attacking the forest - I have seen her destroy older trees than these with ease."
"She can destroy trees?" The surprise in Arien's voice startled Taelen.
"Why do you think I was so hesitant to come here?" Taelen asked. "I knew she would follow us, and this is part of the reason Hanna fled Mirkwood, and I fled Lothlorien."
"I have read every account I could find on Thuringwethil, and none of them mentioned trees."
"You never asked me what my account was," Hanna snapped.
"Oh." Arien raised her eyebrows and blushed heavily. "I had not realized you would have more information."
Taelen shook his head, he had thought Hanna had talked to Arien, she had told him she'd spoken with Rian about her childhood run-in with Thuringwethil, and her battle with her in Mirkwood. Regardless, he wasn't about to sit around and wait for Thuringwethil to hurt his home.
"You," he looked at Rian and Arien, "Are both welcome to stay here, but I must protect Lothlorien. Thuringwethil will not best me this time." He said the last part more to himself and Hanna, who looked at him with concern.
"You are not going without us!" Arien looked at him aghast.
"Then it sounds like we had better go with them." Rian grabbed her pack and headed to the stables, strapping her sword around her hips.
Within minutes they were mounted on their horses and flying at full-gallop out of Caras Galadhon. They rode hard for an hour. Taelen ignored the riding path, leading them through the trees. He knew if they did not get there in time, whatever the creature was after might be forfeit.
"Just a little further!" He yelled to the others. They were close to the clearing where the Nimrodel met the Celebrant.
As they rode into the clearing, he realized there was another outcome he had not prepared for. Rian drew her sword, but Taelen shook his head. There was no dark creature in sight, but several Elves lay on wet soil near the river's edge, their weapons still in their hands.
"We are too late," he said, tears welling up in his eyes. He had known all three of them, though not well. But he had felt the sorrow of others losing loved ones. It was a pain that never fully healed.
Taelen mechanically dismounted his horse and ran to the motionless bodies. His hands froze as he reached to check their injuries: each Elf had several deep gashes in their bodies, and the skin around them grey and flaking, like dead bark peeling away from an infected tree trunk.
"Thuringwethil," Hanna said through gritted teeth, coming up beside Taelen.
Arien joined them, taking out her sketchbook. "You have seen this before?"
"Is now the time for that?" Hanna snapped at her, looking at the book in her hands.
Arien stopped, holding up a hand in defense. "I am just-"
"Their families will be wondering where they are," Taelen spoke over Arien's protest, pushing past her to remount his horse. "They will want to know why they died."
"They died with fear in their eyes."
A chill accompanied the whispered sentence. Fog began to creep into the clearing, as it had every time Thuringwethil had appeared. Taelen felt sick - Rian had been right. Thuringwethil must have stayed around after killing these Elves to see if the Valar children would show up, and Taelen had led them into her trap.
"My Master has been unimpressed with your abilities, thus far." The demon-woman floated out from the trees, black smoke swirling around her feet. She smiled sickeningly, baring her pointed white teeth at the four of them. "But I shall not complain. It makes my job easier."
Rian rushed past Taelen with her sword drawn, whispering to him, "Search for the Silmaril" before swinging her sword at Thuringwethil's throat in a fluid movement.
The demon summoned a thin black blade from the black tendrils at her feet and pinned Rian's sword with it. Rian didn't hesitate, taking a hand off the hilt of her sword and punching Thuringwethil in the mouth. Thuringwethil moved away from Rian so fast the Ranger almost lost her balance as her sword was no longer held down by the black blade. The demon touched the corner of her mouth, chuckling, but her expression hardened as Hanna and Arien both dismounted.
"You have courage, Ranger." Thuringwethil flicked her gaze back to Rian. "But you lack the abilities of your father."
Taelen wanted to keep watching as Rian swung her sword again with a shout, but he knew he needed to act while Thuringwethil was distracted.
He stepped into the cold stream, his body relaxing as the water seeped through his pants and touched his skin. The soft current pushed around him, begging him to sit down. He did kneel, putting his hands in the water with his fingers splayed. Closing his eyes, he reached into the water, riding with the current as it rushed downstream, and searching every hole and under every rock but couldn't find the Silmaril. He then turned his attention upstream, and a sheen of sweat started to collect on his brow as he fought against the current.
"TAELEN!"
Hanna's scream broke his concentration. His eyes flew open in time to see Arien leap into the river in front of him to deflect a dark ball of smoke with a wave of her hand. Thuringwethil flew at her, but Arien jumped much higher than Taelen would have expected, flipped over the back of Thuringwethil and landed on the soft soil of the river's bank.
"Hurry," Arien told him, not out of breath in the least. But Thuringwethil threw several more balls of her poisonous smoke at her, and Arien rolled out of the way. The shots hit the trees behind her, their bark immediately greying where it was touched, peeling away from the trunk in chunks.
All Taelen could see was red, and he ran at Thuringwethil, raising his arms over his head. He yelled, and a wave of water rose out of the river and crashed hard into Thuringwethil, who tumbled to the ground just past Arien, the cloud of black smoke at her feet washed back into the river.
"So you can fight!" Thuringwethil laughed, standing with ease. "Last time we met, you were quite easy to subdue."
She flicked her wrist and summoned her dark blade again. Taelen rolled his eyes and made a pulling motion with one hand. A tendril of water rushed from the river and wrapped itself around the demon sword before pulling it into the current.
"You attacked me while I was sleeping, and I am not a morning person,"he said sarcastically, moving two fingers in a circle to make another water tendril wrap itself around Thuringwethil. "Everyone knows that."
The water pulled the demon into the river, who hissed and squirmed, breaking free with great effort. She dashed to Taelen, her hand raised, but Hanna, who had run over, was faster and summoned a rock wall the same way she had done to protect Taelen from the wolf outside of Lothlorien. Thuringwethil stopped short of hitting it, directing her attention toward Hanna.
"Do you only have one trick?" she sneered, throwing two balls of black smoke at Hanna, who dodged each and pulled out a dagger.
Hanna threw the dagger with startling accuracy, hitting Thuringwethil square in the chest with a soft thud. Thuringwethil gasped, touching the shining blade as she sank to her knees. Arien stood over the demon, creating a swirling circle of air to keep Thuringwethil on her knees.
Taelen didn't wait another moment, moving back into the river and plunging his hands into the water once more. He exerted all his energy, pushing against the current, when the amount of effort it took changed. A light appeared in the bed of the river two leagues down stream. It was the Silmaril, it had to be! It reached out to him, filling the river with power that surged through the water and into his body. He felt light and heavy at the same time and he almost laughed - Arien has been right after all - but before the sound could pass his lips he heard Thuringwethil's shrill scream reach past the air holding her to the ground.
Panic pulsed through Taelen. How long could Arien hold Thuringwethil?
"Taelen." He felt Hanna enter the water beside him and through the water he connected to her fëa. The blue of the running water turned to black. She was scared, and all he wanted to do was make that go away. "Have you found it?"
Taelen nodded his head, not opening his eyes, trying to keep the Silmaril in his sight.
"Can you bring it here? And take it further into the forest? You could hide it from Thuringwethil in Caras Galadhon - she will not go that close to Galadriel."
Taelen did as she suggested, opening and closing his fingers in the water. The Silmaril shifted, sliding from its hole into the current. It came to him, and the closer it got the more power flowed through him. It only needed to come within his finger tips and he would rush into the forest, securing the Silmaril and its light away from Thuringwethil.
When it touched his hand he had the urge to laugh again. He opened his eyes, his inner vision overcome with light. The stone in his hand was exquisite, shining with light purer than a star.
A cold whisper reached him, crawling over his skin and freezing his feet in the river.
"That's mine."
Taelen didn't have time to move before he was struck with a blast of air. He gasped and the Silmaril fell from his hands back into the river with a loud plop.
"No!" Arien yelled as a shrill shriek rang in the small grove, and Thuringwethil pushed herself out of the air barrier Arien had created. She held Hanna's dagger in her hand, a black, sticky substance dripping from it and her chest.
Hanna took a grounded stance, facing Thuringwethil, and Rian ran into the river, water sloshing around her as she knelt to search for the Silmaril.
"Stop," Thuringwethil hissed, "It's mine." She threw the dripping dagger at Rian's back and Taelen watched in horror as Rian did not move, and the dagger hit its mark with a heavy thud.
Rian didn't even react. She just kept searching.
Thuringwethil glowered, and she threw a ball of black energy at Taelen, but he dodged, falling into the river. He felt around frantically for the Silmaril following Rian's example, barely moving out of the way in time to avoid Thuringwethil cutting him with her black blade before she dived underneath the surface.
"No, I - I have to find it," Taelen cried in panic, closing his eyes and trying to connect with the river again. But it was too late. His heart stopped as Thuringwethil emerged, the Silmaril floating in a cloud of black above her hands.
"You have failed," she laughed with a sinister grin.
"Not yet."
Taelen held his breath as he watched Arien stand, her hand outstretched. The Silmaril immediately flew out of Thuringwethil's hold, landing in Arien's hand.
If Taelen had thought the light was bright when held the Silmaril, he was not prepared for how bright the light was the second it touched Arien. He put an arm up to shield his eyes, and Thuringwethil screamed - but he wasn't sure it was because of the light or the fact that the Silmaril was once more in the hands of a Valar.