CHAPTER 3: In The House of The Elvenking

Legolas ran. His feet barely touched the ground in his haste. He flew past trees, rock, and shrub barely distinguishing them. The morning had begun to wane and the midday sun blazed through the thickened eaves in ever more stark patches of light and dark. Cradled in his arms, she had begun to burn. Her skin, initially chilled by the cold air and water, had started to warm not a few paces away from when he'd picked her up by the riverbank. Now her flesh burned like live coals against his. Such a heat could not be good to a human constitution. Her eyes fluttered now and then but never enough to regain consciousness. Instead they were only a constant reminder of the far more searing agony he had seen in her face as she'd fallen.

Just as he crossed the threshold of the palace walls she began to spasm. Her arms knocked against his chest, her torso twisting in unnatural angles before snapping abruptly into a posture as stiff as a board. Legolas cursed low in his breath. No, not now. Not when we are so close. He gripped her closer to his chest. He pressed his lips against her sweat-matted hair. His voice, soft and low, quavered. "Hold on. Don't die. We are nearly there."

The healing ward, normally only a short distance from the palace gates, felt inordinately long to him. He had no doubt that the news of his return and of the body in his arms was even now speeding its way into his father's ears. There were enough eyes and ears throughout Mirkwood and the palace to have seen him. He had, after all, prioritized speed over stealth. It was all the more important that he hand her over to the healers before he was inevitably summoned to answer for his transgression.

At each empty hall he passed his breathing quickened. That he had yet to meet anyone on the way was not normal. At this hour there should have been far more activity.

Ten meters. Nine. Eight. He was nearly at the ward's entrance, the uniquely sweet astringency that forever hung in its air already assaulted his senses, and its white stone arches shot through with intertwining branches a welcome banner. That was when he heard them. Metal on stone, the pounding followed a rhythmic cadence that could only mean one thing - a squadron of guards in full battle regalia.

What did his father think he was carrying in his arms to have deployed so many armed men?

Legolas put forth a burst of speed. He rounded the corner into the curved columns that demarcated the infirmary. For once, Legolas was glad to see its spartan beds with their crisp white linens and neatly folded corners. There, Gwaedhel, the chief healer, and two of her apprentices stood right at the entrance in their pristine white robes, arms outstretched, bandages and steaming wash basins at the ready, clearly expecting his arrival.

Just as he was handing her over, a chorus of strong masculine voices rang through the room.

"Halt, in the name of the King."

Legolas spun around to face the twelve men in their gold metal plate armor, their hands gripping the hilts of the swords that swung at their sides. They came in formation, a double file that fanned around them into a tight semi-circle blocking the entrance and the only way into or out of the ward. Legolas looked at each man in turn. He knew each of these faces, had grown up with them, and swung his own blade beside them. But right now, looking at their impassive battle-hardened features, he didn't care. If he had to take each of them down he would. The woman was still in his arms and he could practically feel the life ebbing away from her limp limbs every second.

The elf at the center of the formation motioned the others forward. Though his stance showed his respect of Legolas' station, the hard set of his angular jaw made it clear that what he was about to do he had no choice in. Legolas turned to squarely face him. "Cúon, at least allow me to give up my charge to Gwaedhel before you take me away. She is in sore need of a healer."

Cúon motioned his men to stop. Taking off his helmet, shook his head. "Although the King does want to speak with you and it would be wise to hasten to the throne room we are not here to take you away." His slender, metal-clad finger pointed at Legolas' burden. "We are here for that which you carry, my Prince."

Cúon took a step forward, the grip on his sword tightened. The look on his face was one of deep apology. Even pity. In all his centuries of knowing him, Legolas had never seen him look as he did now. Legolas' heart sank. He knew what the dark haired elf was about to say before he uttered his next words.

"I am truly sorry but we have been instructed to take her to the dungeons and there to await my Lord King's judgement."

Legolas shook his head and stepped backwards into position. He could not raise his bow while he still carried her in his arms but that did not mean that he wouldn't fight. Cúon drew his sword as did his men.

"Stop you fools!" Gwaedhel's voice boomed. In the heat of the moment they had forgotten her. All eyes turned to face the matron who scowled at all of them in turn with her emerald eyes, hands firmly planted at her hips. Legolas winced. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Cúon do the same. No doubt like him, he was reliving memories of having been chastised by the healer for his own past injuries.

"This is a house of healing, not of war. Put your swords down or else I will throw you out of here myself."

The guards sheathed their swords. There were few elves that could command as much fear and obedience as King Thranduil within the walls of his own house. Gwaedhel was one of them. While elves did not die the way mortal men did, they still had the capacity to bleed. And any elf, be he highborn or low, would always be at the mercy of their healer.

Satisfied, Gwaedhel approached Legolas and placed a hand on his charge's forehead. The few lines that marred the older elf's face deepened. She lifted an eyelid to appraise the woman's unseeing silver-grey orb. Legolas could not help but shudder. She looked up and nodded to him. Legolas could see in her face that she understood the gravity of the situation. She turned to face the armor-clad men.

"This woman needs rest and herbs, not damp and dungeons." She waved a hand towards her apprentices who, clearly understanding what she intended to do, began to pack up their paraphernalia.

Gwaedhel planted herself between Legolas and the men. Despite her much shorter stature, her fierce nature radiated authority. "But if you must take her, as is your duty, then at least allow myself and my apprentices to accompany her. We shall administer her treatment in her cell, despite how undesirable a location it is."

Cúon paused and considered. No doubt he was debating with himself whether this was acceptable under the orders that he had been given. A short tilt of his head was enough of an acquiescence. Gwaedhel nodded her approval and turned to address Legolas.

"My Prince, rest assured. We will do our utmost to ensure that this woman is given the best treatment that we can provide."

Legolas breathed a sigh of relief. His grip on the body in his arms loosened. He noticed the red bruising where his fingers had wrapped around the exposed skin at her sides. He hadn't even realized that he'd been holding her that tightly throughout the encounter. He carefully laid her into Gwaedhel's arms.

"Thank you. I will see my father and then I shall be back."

Gwaedhel offered him a small, albeit somewhat sad, smile. "Very good, my Prince." Without further ado she walked off, her apprentices in tow, their hands laden with various parcels. Cúon and his men made up the rear. Legolas straightened his tunic. He watched them leave before making his own way to the throne room.

When he arrived, he found his father seated on his throne, his crown of gilded branches and leaves firmly ensconced on his equally blond head. He sat languidly in his silver robes against the intricately carved wood, hands resting against the long curved arm rests. Legolas was not fooled. The same blue eyes he had inherited stared back at him, displeasure clearly emanating from its icy depths and from the thin line of his father's mouth.

Legolas stopped a few paces before the last flight of stairs ascending to the throne.

"Adar."

Thranduil inclined his head. From the line of his brows and the hard set of his jaws it was clear he already knew what had transpired. There would be no small talk. "What were you thinking, Legolas? After our discussion earlier this morning, you left in a wrath and now you return carrying a person of unknown origins into our halls. You, of all people, should know our rules on such matters very well."

While he understood the necessity of such things in the midst of the dangerous times that they now lived in, Legolas had never approved of the dungeons or the laws that his father had enacted. He breathed deeply. It would not help his cause now if he rose to his father's bait and berated him for his treatment of a woman who should rightly be in the infirmary at that very moment.

"Father, she is not an enemy."

Thranduil scoffed. "And you ascertained this how? Did that woman tell you herself?"

Legolas shifted where he stood. He knew this was not going to be easy. He would need to find a way to convince his father that she was no threat. He could hardly say that it was a judgement made entirely through his own sense and assessment of their unintelligible exchange by the river, that there was no objective proof to indicate that she was not an agent of the enemy or even an entity that would wreak havoc on their lands. And if his father had any inkling of the manner in which she had behaved, the way she had launched herself at him at the moment of her awakening, there would be little he could say that would convince him otherwise.

His father levied him a withering look. "By your silence I take it that she did not. And yet you maintain that she poses no threat to us."

Legolas nodded. "She is injured Father. Even at death's door. She could no more be a threat than a baby."

Thranduil slowly stood up and walked down to where Legolas stood. Like this, standing side by side, they were nearly of the same height. And like this, his father's voice, low and deadly, needed not rise above a whisper for his message to be heard. "And what then if she lives? If her condition improves? What surety do you have that she will not threaten everything that we hold dear?"

Legolas set his chin forward and stared back at the face so like his own. He knew what needed to be done. "I will ensure it myself."

Thranduil laughed but there was nothing friendly in it. "So, my son, you intend to take responsibility for her."

"Yes, father."

His father peered at him closely. Despite his intimate knowledge of his father's moods, he could not make out what passed through him in this instance. It felt as though he was being scrutinized and weighed. After a minute he stepped backwards and, linking his hands behind his back, ascended to the throne.

"And you wish for me to release her from her current custody and into yours."

Legolas shook his head. "I would rather we treat her as a guest and not as a prisoner."

His father's brows shot up. "And surely you jest." He gestured towards the towering columns, sweeping arches and gnarled tree branches that held up the domed ceiling of the throne room. "Is it not enough that you have requested her to live under this roof and not rot in our cells for whatever span of life she still has? We know nothing about her. Your youth as yet makes you impetuous."

Legolas held his ground. "Perhaps father but I stand by my request."

It had been many years since he'd asked anything of his father. They both knew this. Legolas had one last card he could play but he was loathe to use it. His mother. She would have agreed. He chose not to utter the words. If he did, though he might win the argument, he would undoubtedly have wounded his father. In the centuries since her death, he would not speak of her. Legolas knew it was his own way of grieving. And that even now he still grieved.

Still, as he knew his father, so his father knew him. The pain etched on his father's features was enough to tell him that.

And then the moment was gone. His father's face shuttered. "She shall be released from custody however she will not be allowed to walk freely in these halls without accompaniment. Any transgression she performs will be on your head. And if she proves to be an enemy, I will expect that you would be the first to drive a blade through her heart."

His father waved his hand to let him know to be gone. Legolas bowed before he walked away. He knew that this was the best arrangement he could get. At least for now.

Once he had made his way across the throne room, he hastened to the dungeons. While he trusted Gwaedhel and her abilities he was nonetheless worried. The symptoms of the woman he had brought in were by no means normal and he had a sinking feeling that whatever afflicted her was not something they had seen before.

The cell she was kept in was the furthest in. No doubt it had been specifically chosen. Even from afar he could smell the herbs. Sweet, spicy, astringent, bitter, heady, musky, musty - there were too many. He would not even attempt to give the specific names of those that he could make out. The cacophony of odors was too much. Legolas crinkled his nose. He did however break out into a half-run when he recognized the foul undercurrent beneath all of that. It was the pervading scent of vomit and sweat.

The scene that greeted him did nothing to cheer him. Gwaedhel and her apprentices were clustered around the woman he had brought in as she lay in a makeshift bed hastily set up in the middle of the crude stone floor. The remains of the herbs and poultices he had smelled from far off were strewn all about her. From the grim lines on their faces he knew that none of their medicines had taken any sort of effect. One of the apprentices kept laving a damp washcloth over her forehead while the other held her down in the midst of her violent shivering. The basin beside them no longer steamed, the water having clearly been replaced multiple times already.

Gwaedhel looked up from the rough-hewn chair beside the bed where she sat recovering her strength. It was the first time Legolas had seen her look this tired.

"I'm sorry my Prince. We have tried various healing herbs and spells but none have taken effect."

She pointed to another basin, partly hidden in a squalid corner of the small cell, where the stench of vomit emanated from strongest. "Although unconscious she would throw up the medicines that we gave her. The most we have been able to do is to administer ointments and tinctures to her wounds."

Legolas approached the bed and bent down on his knee and took one of the sick woman's hands in his. Her skin still burned from an internal heat that could not be quenched. They had stripped her of most of her garments in an effort to treat her visible injuries. A long white bandage was wrapped around her chest to hold in place her broken ribs. Smaller ones were dotted across where there were gashes and bruises including those that he had made in his haste to bring her in. And now, like this, he could finally see the full extent of the pattern on her skin that he had only seen parts of earlier. Like a thread or the roots of oak trees the lines intersected, bisected, and looped in what appeared to be a never-ending weave. And amongst that weave was a snake coiled around a cross. He had never seen anything like it before. It went round her shoulder and partway to her back, down the whole length of her arm, and part of her chest and sides. He noticed that the apprentices did not dare touch it even as they administered to her.

Without turning he addressed the healer. "I spoke to my father. He has agreed to allow her out of the dungeons."

Gwaedhel placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. "That is good. We can bring her back to the healing ward where we will have better equipment. But I fear that even that will not be enough."

Legolas knew what Gwaedhel did not voice. This woman could die. She would die - unless by some miracle her condition improved. Perhaps Lord Elrond, master healer that he was, might know of a solution but she would never make it to Rivendell. Not in her current state. And no matter how fast a raven flew, it would be days yet before a messenger would arrive and even longer even for a skilled elf to ride hard for their city.

A sudden coldness in Legolas' hand pulled him back to the present. The hand he still held in his had suddenly turned ice cold. The eyes of the apprentices grew wide as they too sensed the change that was happening. Like she had on the journey back from the Forest River, her eyelids began to flutter, the whites of her orbs peeking through each time. The shivers that had been wracking her frame suddenly grew still.

Legolas bent over her and placed both hands on her cheeks. And just like he had much earlier he whispered his prayer. "Don't die. Please don't die. Not when we are already here."

A grimness settled over Legolas. He turned around to face the chief healer. "It's her fëa isn't it? There's something wrong with it."

Gwaedhel nodded. "Yes. It is as if it is torn in two and the other half is adrift in some far off place that we cannot access."

Legolas grabbed the healer's hands. "But there is one way, isn't there. That way."

The idea that had taken root in his mind was not something he would normally voice. He had heard of it once, while visiting Lord Elrond. The elf lord had told him of it not to educate but to caution him. As the master healer had said then, This is not a cure, Legolas. It is a curse. Never perform it unless the situation is truly dire. For instead of one life, you would be trading two.

Gwaedhel blanched. She understood what he was asking of her. Her hands trembled in his. No healer dared do what he was now asking her to willingly perform.

"My prince, you do not know what you are asking of me."

Legolas squeezed her hand. "I do. And I intend to be the one on the receiving end."

If her face had paled earlier it was nowhere near close to the whiteness that now settled on her skin. The despair on her pallid face aged her in a way nothing else could. Her apprentices vacated their position by the bedside to attend to their master. Their faces mirrored their teacher's concern.

Legolas knew he should wonder why he was so willing to risk his life - and more than that - for someone he barely even knew. Except that in his bones he knew that it was right. That this, that everything he had done so far, was only right.

His voice was clear and confident when he uttered his next words. "That is right. Cleave my own soul in two and bind one half to hers."

Notes:
Adar (Sindarin) - father
Fëa (Sindarin) - soul