Ellavorn at least appeared contrite when he demolished her plans for the afternoon. Which is probably the only reason she offered him a comforting smile when disappointment was swirling in her chest.
After dismounting on the bridge, Thranduil carried Charlotte bridal-style into the dim glow of the caverns. She'd tried walking on her own, but her legs had wobbled and collapsed the moment she let go of Belegroch. Thranduil had been prepared and scooped her up without hesitation.
"Maybe you should just rest," he said with a wry grin as the guards peeled open the towering teal doors.
Charlotte groaned. "The absolute last thing I want to do is rest."
"There is no other activity you would dread more?" Thranduil teased. His soft steps gently rocked her as he crossed the entrance hall, heading for the curling stairwell that led to the royal wing. "Is a large comfortable bed such a trial?"
"Will you be with me?"
"Perhaps." The corner of his mouth rose.
"Then I suppose I'm not completely against resting."
Thranduil quickly pressed his lips to her hair. His mouth opened, but then he snapped it shut and frowned.
Charlotte followed his gaze and nearly sagged into his arms at the sight of Ellavorn. The ellon strode down the stairs, heading directly for Thranduil, his arms tight at his sides and purpose in each step.
"Your majesty," Ellavorn greeted Thranduil. "Alagon has returned and is waiting to give his report."
"Can it hold until later?" Thranduil asked, his expression carefully blank. He refused to break his stride and continued up the stairs as if carrying an elleth around the caverns was an everyday occurrence for him. Considering Ellavorn fell into step with him without question, Charlotte was beginning to wonder if she had somehow missed Thranduil toting around injured damsels.
"I do not think so. He seems rather insistent, and he's brought the map you've requested."
Thranduil sighed through his nose, and his eyes shut as if pained. "Adar will not examine it then?"
"King Oropher is currently otherwise… engaged."
Thranduil finally stopped, his foot on the step above as he studied Ellavorn's grimace. "And what exactly prevents him from attending his duties as an advisor?" There was a soft growl, a hint of warning in his tone.
"Don't look at me with that face," Ellavorn said, gesturing toward Thranduil's narrowed eyes. "What was I supposed to do? Throw him into the adjacent cell?"
"At least a level up, but yes!"
Oh, no. He wouldn't. Oropher wouldn't be so foolish. If he'd gone alone to see Cúthon, she would be surprised if the ex-advisor was still alive. "You at least sent someone with him, right?" Charlotte asked.
Ellavorn winced, and Charlotte pinched her lids shut in frustration.
"Well, I don't have many wardens at my disposal right now," Ellavorn argued.
"I'm not angry with you, Ellavorn." She wiggled in Thranduil's grip, swinging her legs down until she stood shakily, leaning against his frame.
"You are in no condition to go anywhere," Thranduil argued. He pulled her closer to his chest as her knees buckled and looked to Ellavorn for support.
But Ellavorn winked at her. "Glad you're still alive."
Charlotte snorted. "I'm definitely not going back there anytime soon."
Ellavorn's face paled, but he said, "Which reminds me: I'll see you in training as soon as you're feeling better. Wear one of your gowns."
She understood the offer for what it was: he knew that she had been taken by Cúthon's guards when she was in a gown, and he wanted to ensure she was never at that disadvantage again.
She was going to thank him, but then he smirked and added, "Just get your fawn legs under control first. I don't want to be impaled because you tripped."
Charlotte rolled her eyes, but she couldn't argue. Already, her thighs burned with the strain of keeping herself upright, and that was with her death grip on Thranduil. She caught Haedirn's eyes over Thranduil's shoulder, and then he was right beside her, letting her lean on him as she stepped free from Thranduil's arms. "I missed you too, Ellavorn."
Her Elvenking looked at her with a soft frown, eyes full of disappointment and longing. Thranduil hadn't left her side since he found her on the battlefield, and she could tell that he was struggling to do so now.
"Go," she said, shooing him along with a smile. "It sounds important. I'll take care of Oropher."
His eyes darkened, and his back stiffened. "I do not much like that idea either."
"Well, it's what's going to happen. Now, go see your southern marchwarden."
Thranduil huffed, but his lips twitched as he swooped down to steal her from Haedirn for a short, playful kiss. "Our southern marchwarden," he said, and then he was passing her back to Haedirn. He made it four steps up the stairs before he peeked over his shoulder.
"I will be fine," she promised, sending it from her mind to his.
"It's not you that I have concerns about." He nodded to something Ellavorn was saying but then sent to her, "Whatever is left of him when you're finished, you can give it the same hospitality he offered you."
Charlotte shook her head. She was sapped, unable to walk without support. She didn't foresee her being a threat to anyone, and Thranduil knew that. Which meant he knew how much she was dreading going back to the dungeons, even if she wouldn't be inside a cell herself, and he was trying to poke her out of that fog before it could entrap her.
Now she had to see if she could do the same for Oropher.
She waited until Thranduil was out of sight before she attempted to walk the stairs, and upon declaring that a disaster, her knees plummeting each time she tried to bend them, her thighs quaking and seizing if she tried to put her body weight on them, Haedirn tugged her against his side.
"Listen," he jerked his head in the direction of the kitchens, where the connecting passageways would take them to the lower end of the dungeons. "I won't argue with you about going, but if we're going to get there anytime soon and still have you conscious, you're going to have to concede to one of us carrying you."
Disappointment shot through her. She wanted to stand on her own when she faced Cúthon, wanted to prove that, though he had tried to end her, she had survived his scheming. Haedirn read that determination in either her face or their bond and said, "I promise to set you down before we reach his cell."
"Thank you."
Maethor let out a relieved sigh as she agreed, and Haedirn didn't wait, sweeping her up before she could change her mind.
"Idhrenes will be thrilled," Maethor said as they walked through the back of the near-empty great hall. She wished they'd gone another way, but she was sure that path was likely longer. The few straggling elves still nursing drinks and conversation or enjoying late meals sat rigidly on the benches, either outright staring or darting between their food and her in an attempt at covertness. Save for one elf.
Sídher sat at the end of a bench near the kitchen entrance, and though she hadn't glanced up once, she still wiggled her fingers at the trio before flipping another page in the thin book she held. Her typically dreamy expression was warped, her brows knotted with concentration, her lower lip pinched between her teeth.
Haedirn's mouth thinned, his eyes tensed, but he said nothing as he swept past the elleth and into the dark stairwell that descended into the kitchen.
Idhrenes spotted her immediately and abandoned her thick dough, dusted her hands off on a linen towel, and gave Charlotte a one-armed hug made awkward by her position in Haedirn's arms. "What are you doing up and about?" Idhrenes asked and then looked to her gwaethainn as if they were to blame.
"Technically, I'm still resting," Charlotte tried and gestured to the arms currently holding her in the air.
Idhrenes scoffed but led them further into the kitchen. "Sit, and I'll feed you all. I didn't see you at dinner, and Sídher said you left the healing hall hours ago."
One day she'd find out how Sídher knew absolutely everything that happened in the caverns.
"Thank you," Charlotte said, "but we're actually just passing through."
Idhrenes raised one elegant brow and settled her hands on her hips.
"But," Charlotte winced, "we'll come back when we're done."
That satisfied Idhrenes, and she gave them a quick nod before returning to kneading her bread dough. "If you see Galion down there, send him to me," she added.
Charlotte jolted in Haedirn's arms. She hadn't considered that Galion would be awake and wandering around the caverns. Obviously, Meluieth had said she'd healed everyone, but Charlotte hadn't seen any of the elves that had been enchanted.
Haedirn glanced down at her as they stepped into the corridor beyond the kitchens. His grip tightened, but he didn't say anything until they were well past the kitchen and descending the broad steps into the wine cellar.
"It is odd." His words were soft, as if he were trying to keep anyone else from hearing them. "I can feel you just on the edge of my awareness, like a whisper in my mind. Your shock, delight, exhaustion; it's there but not. I do not have the words to explain it."
Maethor nodded, his straw-colored hair swishing against his back. "It is unlike anything I have felt before." He suddenly jerked his head toward her. "Can you feel us?"
"In a way," Charlotte said and tilted her head back so she could see him better. "If I closed my eyes right now, I think I could find you anywhere in this room, maybe beyond that. I seem to know where you are and how far you are from me if I concentrate on the tether between us."
"But you don't feel our emotions?" Haedirn asked.
"No, but I've never tried to either." Or had she? Her mind flashed back to those confusing moments after Oropher had woken them in the clearing. "Actually, there was a brief moment, right after we bonded, where I think I heard you both, what you were thinking and feeling. And you already know that you were able to share a memory down the bond."
"We'll add that to your training then," Maethor said. "Ellavorn will alternate days with us since he won't be able to train you daily anyway."
"Let's get through tonight, shall we?" Charlotte said. The Greenwood was safe. It wouldn't hurt to spend a few days finding a new normal.
"Of course," Haedirn agreed. "Rest and recovery come first. After that, we'll work on making sure you don't have any lasting muscle weakness. You may have to build yourself back up to where you were before the battle. Or this could just be a combination of lingering fatigue from the battle and burning out your fëa."
"Let us hope it is the latter," Maethor said. His mouth thinned, and his back straightened, and Charlotte followed his gaze.
They were walking through the racks of barrels, heading for the stairs on the opposite side, but she could already see the long metal lever jutting out from the wood floor. Now that she knew what it did, she could see the vague outline of the ramp, where the floor tilted to release barrels into the subterranean river.
She didn't need the bond to feel the rage radiating off of her gwaethainn, not that she blamed them. It would be a long time before she looked at that tilting floor and felt anything other than an echo of hopelessness and desperation from that night.
Haedirn's arms tightened around her as her emotions filled the bond, and she was a step ahead of him. "I'm fine," she said, squeezing his shoulder. She turned to Maethor. "I'm okay, thanks to you both."
"If we hadn't been able to grab you from the current…" Maethor's nose flared, and his chest heaved.
Charlotte shivered. It was fortunate she hadn't swept past them. If she had, she would have been lucky to drown before she smashed against the boulders waiting downstream, before her ragdoll body washed up in one of the pools along the river.
"If only he could be sent away today," Haedirn grumbled. "I'd escort him myself if I wasn't so close to kinslaying and if it wouldn't force you into his company for weeks."
"Elves don't believe in execution?" Charlotte asked, brows raised.
"An elf is rarely sentenced to death, " Maethor said. "If they can be safely contained, if they are no longer a threat to our safety, they're normally sent to the west. The Valar judge how they will live in that realm. He could very well sail west and still end in the Halls of Mandos."
"How will you know what happens to him?"
"We won't." Maethor shrugged. They had climbed the stairs and were spiraling up into the lower levels of the dungeons, leaving the lever and the trapdoor behind. "Messages never come from the west unless they are carried by someone. The last elf to return from the west was Glorfindel in the Second Age."
And she knew that Glorfindel had only been sent to guard Elrond.
Haedirn adjusted his grip, and then he was slowly, gently lowering her to her feet. Her legs shook, but Maethor bolstered her other side, and she walked, mostly carried under her arms, between her two gwaethainn. She could hear a voice further down the corridor, but it wasn't until she turned the corner that she saw Oropher pacing before a cell door.
His hair was skewed, wild, as if he'd ripped his fingers through it a thousand times, and his fists were clenched at his side. He didn't seem to see her; his eyes narrowed at the ellon within the cell.
"Why her?" He growled. "You could have just as easily killed me. But you choose her. You took them from me. Why?"
The cell was silent.
"WHY HER?"
"Oropher," Charlotte called softly. His head snapped around. As if he'd been smacked awake, his eyes widened on her stumbling toward him. Her legs tangled beneath her skirt, and only Maethor and Haedirn kept her from face planting the stone.
"What are you doing out of bed?" Oropher asked and abandoned his inquisition without hesitation. His arms came around her, and Maethor and Haedirn yielded their grip so that he could hug her fully.
"You don't have to do this alone," Charlotte whispered.
Oropher sighed against her hair. "I am surprised that you are currently alone," he eyed Maethor and Haedirn and added, "your gwaethainn notwithstanding."
"I am never alone if they're by my side," she squeezed him tightly, "and I will be by yours, should you need me." Like in this moment, she left unspoken.
He pulled her tighter against him, and when he finally shifted back, he pressed a soft kiss to the crown of her head. She'd never felt so loved and cherished in her life. This family she'd built, she'd sacrifice every part of herself for it, just as they had. A weight fell from Oropher's shoulders as she smiled up at him, and she was sure she could convince him to leave the viper alone in his cell.
But Cúthon had clearly lost the battle with his tongue.
"So that creature lives after all," his voice hissed from within the cell.
"Adar!" a feminine voice cried. Lothuial. "Are we not in dire enough conditions? Do not worsen my circumstances."
"Silence," Cúthon barked at her. "I have heard quite enough regarding your opinions about your status."
Oropher was a taut bow before her.
"Don't," Charlotte said. "They create their own misery and need no aid from us."
"Perhaps not," Oropher snarled in the direction of the occupied cells, "but I want answers."
"I doubt you will find what you seek here," Charlotte patted his arm, "though I don't blame you."
So she joined him. Oropher's rage only multiplied when he felt her body quaking, watched her nearly crumble as he stepped away. He caught her, and the silent conversation that followed might have been laughable.
His wide eyes seemed to say, "Why? You should be resting, stubborn elleth."
She only grinned and tilted her head, entirely unrepentant. "I told you. I'm here for you."
Months of communicating to an elk had made her quite proficient at understanding his expressions, even if the features had changed. His affectionate sigh was confirmation that he, too, had learned her silent language. He gestured to Maethor to bolster her other side once again and led her forward.
The cell was much larger than the one Charlotte had been placed inside, although Cúthon and Lothuial were forced to share it. Lothuial sat with her back against the far wall, the hem of her gown damp and ragged, and her face crumpled with a look of exhaustion and hopelessness.
Perhaps it was the latter that changed her fate.
"Separate them," Charlotte ordered. "Stick Lothuial on another level."
Lothuial's head jerked up to find Charlotte's unwavering stare. "What?"
But Haedirn was already summoning guards, who tramped down the stairs and obeyed her command without question.
Six of them filed into the cell, herding a raging Cúthon into a corner so that two of them could escort Lothuial away.
"You cannot," Cúthon yelled. His eyes darted through the guards, trying to catch sight of her. "She is my daughter! She stays with me."
Lothuial whipped around, her lank hair flying behind her, her cold eyes pinning her adar to stone. "You killed her," she hissed. "She is dead by your hand. You are no adar of mine." Imperial as ever, she faced her escort. "Take me away," she ordered.
Cúthon's cell slammed as the other guards trickled out. The heavy lock clicked in place.
"Lothuial!" He shouted. He shoved his narrow face against the bars, wrapped his hands around them until the blood faded from his knuckles. "Lothuial!
But his daughter strode up the stairs, spine stiff, marched by half a dozen guards to her new cell, and she never once looked back.
"Be comforted," Oropher said as Cúthon sagged against the bars. "At least your daughter lives."
"You did this for spite, for cruelty." Cúthon slid to his knees, hands weakly gripping the bars.
Charlotte's lips thinned. He'd never see, never understand. "I offered her compassion where you had none."
A spark of pain ran up the outside of her thigh and into her lower back. Air hissed between her teeth. She tightened her grip on Oropher, and Maethor subtly lifted her so she wasn't bearing weight on her left side. She needed to get Oropher out of there, get herself into a bed before Cúthon noticed her weakness. She frowned at the crumpled form of the traitorous advisor. "I forgive you, you know."
He jerked his head up, dangerous hope sparking in his eyes. "You would release me?"
She shook her head. "I didn't forgive you for you. I did it for me. You will hold no place in my soul, be it light or dark. What I endured, I survived through what I already possessed. I forgive you because I refuse to carry the poison of hating you, suffering the memory of what you did to me, for the rest of my existence."
"Then why—"
"Because I haven't forgiven you for Legolas yet, and I'm far more willing to carry that flame." Her left leg was completely useless by now. Maethor was the only thing keeping her from dropping on that side. "Consider this the extent of my compassion for you. You will remain in one miserable, cowardly piece until the Valar decide what to do with you. And then I will forget you. You will exist no longer, in any form, within the bounds of this realm."
"I have protected this realm with all that I am!" Cúthon slammed his hand on the stone. Oropher scoffed at him, and Cúthon whirled on him. "You were never willing to put the realm first, truly first, as I have done. You do not understand sacrifice as I do."
"I died for this realm," Oropher hissed.
"As did many others," Cúthon shot back. "Others that would not have had you shelved your fragile pride. If I am a kinslayer, bound by justice to the west, what then will be your sentence? What price, what blood, do you owe these lands?"
"He owes nothing that has not already been paid," Charlotte said.
"You have no authority here." Cúthon looked ready to spit at her feet. His cheeks mottled red, and a vein throbbed near his temple.
Oropher rose to his full height, his shadow cast from the lanterns behind him, reaching through the bars as if to snuff out the life within. "And once more, you are wrong. Aside from her role as an emissary from the Valar, she is the king's betrothed, the future queen of Eryn Galen."
"A consort, nothing more," Cúthon sneered. He finally released the bars and leaned away to meet her gaze. "A pretty accessory to the poisonous crown, powerless in the affairs of the realm."
Oropher's answering smirk, his joy at whatever he was about to say, was tangible. She could taste it like ripe berries filling her mouth. "I did not misspeak," he said. He turned, gently maneuvering Charlotte with him. He was the image of his son as he craned his neck, elegantly glancing over his shoulder at the shriveled ellon behind the bars. "I pray your journey is swift."
Cúthon's shouts followed them all the way to the wine cellar, and then Maethor scooped her into his grasp. Idhrenes took one glance at the party and sent dinner along with them, tsking over Charlotte until Oropher promised that he'd ensure that she ate and rested. He fulfilled his vow, and though grief still darkened his eyes, he held her hand while she slept, an anchor for them both, tying them to this world.
AN: I promise I'm not edging the Thranduil/Charlotte bonding for torturous author purposes. Charlotte just woke up, she's weak, and they're only a few days past a major battle within their realm, and Oropher hasn't had a moment to deal with Cúthon since he's been with Thranduil and Charlotte in the healing hall. Plus, Thranduil is the Elvenking and has responsibilities. Both Charlotte and Thranduil will always put their loved ones and their realm first. That said, the next chapter will be posted on Tuesday at the latest. (Possibly Wednesday for you lovely readers that are chronologically ahead of me!) :) Hope you liked this one!
