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Thranduil and his men are still several hours ride from Framsburg, but a number of the Éothéod have ridden out to meet them, and hang back gawking at the trade caravan as it comes. Thranduil, astride his horned mount, does not stare in return, but his sidelong glances tell him that their horses are of surpassing quality, though their clothing and gear are crude to his eye.
Thranduil has brought such goods in two deer-drawn wagons as he thinks these men might desire, furs and deerskins from the forest, salted fish bought from Dale, and worked iron from the new dwarven settlement at Erebor. There are finely-crafted bows and leaf-bladed knives, and for Frumgar their chieftain, Thranduil has brought a heavy gold torque made centuries ago by the craftsmen of Ost-in-Edhil.
He does not expect he will receive equal value in return, even if he takes back horses to sell in Dale, but it is worth a certain investment to have allies here at the source of the Anduin. This new settlement of men is ideally placed to send food and wool and flax down the Forest River in trade, and to stand guard against the orcs of Gundabad.
The horsemen are still staring, and he sits up straighter, tossing his head to shake back his hair. He knows that he and his men are beautiful, the most ordinary among them possessing a fine-boned grace that these rough horsemen cannot match. They have bred beautiful horses, though, and he lets his gaze linger long enough to assess their price in Dale if they are as well-trained as they are graceful.
As if in answer to his thought, a stir goes through the horses, some stamping and one rearing with a frightened neigh. He frowns, and then his own mount balks as well, taking two steps backwards and tossing his antlers.
These are the rocky foothills of the Grey Mountains, and there is a tumble of rock up ahead that might well hide a cave or deep crevice. Such places are frequently haunts of orcs and trolls, and his men are armed for travel and not for battle, but in broad daylight they should still have the advantage.
"Show yourself!" he calls, and repeats the words in Westron for the benefit of the men of the Éothéod, who are still struggling to master their restless horses. Whatever lurks within the cave, he does not want it emerging after they have gone to dog their steps. "Or flee this place and return no more."
There is a noise like stone grinding on stone, and then a movement like a snake sliding across grass. It takes a moment for him to understand that the moving, sinuous bulk is bigger than both wagons put together, a black scaled behemoth without wings that bares teeth like daggers as it winds out into the light.
"A long-worm!" one of the Éothéod calls. "Curse the evil day!"
He looks around him, falling already into the cold clarity of battle. The riders are scattering, but there is another knot of horsemen approaching in the distance, bearing Frumgar's banner. Perhaps they will come to help, and perhaps they will flee themselves. Thranduil's wagon-drivers are scrambling down from the wagon.
"Cut the wagon traces," he snaps. "Flee who can!"
The beast takes a breath, and then there is light and searing heat. One of the men of the Éothéod is down, his horse screaming in its death agonies. Thranduil has his bow unslung already, and as the long-worm rears up to claw the horse, he puts an arrow in its eye.
There are more arrows flying, the approaching Éothéod shooting from horseback, but they rattle impotently off the beast's scales. The long-worm shakes its head back and forth in pain, and then bellows a challenge that makes the rock shake. Thranduil has another arrow drawn. He shoots and does not miss, sinking another arrow into the same eye.
The beast is coming for him, now, rushing over the grass, propelled less by its short legs than by the writhing bulk of its scaly length. It is taller than he is at the shoulder, and smells of brimstone and blood. There is the sound of pounding hoofbeats.
The dragon draws breath. Thranduil pulls his mount around in a tight circle to the right. For a moment the world stands still, a universe made up entirely of light and heat.
Then he is on the ground, unsure how he was dismounted. The world is half in shadow, and it roils around him as he forces himself up to his knees. His own people's arrows whistle past him, evidence that someone has disobeyed him. He will have to give them a lesson in the meaning of the word "retreat."
Then the men of the Éothéod charge the beast in a thunder of hooves, and one of them sinks a spear into the dragon's other eye. It screams, tearing at the turf, and rushes them. Thranduil reaches for his bow, but his hands are unaccountably clumsy, refusing to grasp an arrow properly.
Another arrow strikes home in the dragon's eye, and then two more, and the beast shudders and thrashes to a halt, its head crashing to earth between its paws. The Éothéod riders circle it and drive several more spears home for good measure. He doesn't suppose he can blame them.
He tries to stand, and is infuriated to find himself staggering again to one knee. Four of the Éothéod riders have dismounted, three men and a woman, who by her heavily decorated helm is the most important among them. She sweeps off the helm as one of her three companions runs to the fallen man and begins weeping, cradling his burnt body in his arms.
"I am Felewyn, lady of the Éothéod," she says. "My husband sent us to meet you and ride in with you." She still carries a spear, and her tunic is spattered with the beast's dark blood. She turns to one of the riders who remains mounted. "Go, get my husband and a healer, quickly."
He can see Laegon and Merilinor and both of the wagons, one with its traces cut, one overturned with a dead deer still tangled in its harness. Others of his men seem to have obeyed his order to flee. He can see no one lying dead, none even wounded. They have been surpassingly lucky, he thinks. His head is spinning, and the clearing still seems hot, as if a relentless sun were beating against his left cheek.
Merilinor reaches him then, taking his arm to help him rise, and then flinches back from him in horror, as if he has put his hand on a spider or something long dead. Thranduil's left eye feels bruised and swollen shut, and he raises his hand to touch his cheekbone. It feels like touching something else's raw meat, with no sensation at all in his flesh. His fingertips come away smeared with black.
Merilinor's grip falters, and Thranduil sinks back to his knees. One of the Éothéod is cutting the throat of the dying horse. Felewyn comes to his side, and although he tries to brush her hands away, he has no strength to resist being laid back on the grass.
Laegon and Merilinor are speaking in low, furious whispers. "I do not think your healer will come in time," Laegon says finally. His voice is grim. "It might be we should ride on toward Framsburg."
Felewyn draws Laegon aside. It is possible that she thinks they are far enough apart that her voice will not carry, unused to elven ears. "I would spare your lord that pain," she says. "When Osfrid comes he can ease his passing."
"I have no intention of dying," he says. The words come out strangely blurred, and he has to repeat them when he realizes he has spoken in Sindarin instead of Westron. Each word scrapes against his throat and tastes of ash.
"May it be so," Felewyn says, but he can see in her eyes that she does not believe him. "If you survive the first days, and the wounds heal and do not mortify …"
"Our flesh heals clean," Laegon says, but Thranduil can see in his eyes and those of Merilinor that they do not believe he will live either. He finds that infuriating, and draws strength from fury.
With a grim effort he drags himself to his feet and manages to stay there. "We ride for home," he says. "Where my own healers will be of more use than yours apparently are."
"You are not fit to ride," Felewyn says.
"My king wishes to see his son again," Laegon says. His eyes meet Felewyn's for a moment, in some kind of understanding.
"Take three of our horses," Felewyn says. "I can say in my husband's name that we will be glad to trade with you and your people. Leave the wagons, and we will return them with goods of equal worth."
From her proud carriage, he believes that she will not cheat him, and will more likely go out of her way to give full measure. He nods shortly, and lets Merilinor assist him to mount one of the horses, gripping the man's hand hard to prevent him from once again flinching away.
Laegon stoops over Thranduil's original mount, making certain the deer no longer breathes. "Take the antlers," he says. "My king will want them."
"We will," Felewyn says. "And you must go quickly now. I have seen bad burns before, when a house caught fire. There is no pain now, but it will come soon."
"Nonsense," he tries to say, but his tongue moves only thickly, and he can feel the shadow of pain hovering over him, like a thing with dark wings.
*****
By the time they reach the edge of the forest, the pain has him in its claws, throbbing through his shoulder and forehead, making every breath an agony, with only his left cheek a dead absence of feeling that he is grateful for and refuses to think about further.
"We turn for home here," he says. They can pick up the forest river, and perhaps send Merilinor ahead for a boat. Thranduil would prefer for the news that he lives to reach Legolas before the news that he has been attacked by a dragon, and besides he is tired of the way Merilinor looks at him in nauseated misery. The man is too young to have seen battle, or to have learned that wounded men may be less than beautiful.
"No, my king," Laegon says.
Thranduil brings his mount around with an effort. He is growing lightheaded, and has been doing little more than staying in the saddle and giving the beast its head. "What did you say?"
"I say we do not," Laegon says, turning his own horse to block Thranduil's path. "It is too far, and our healers know nothing of dragon-fire. Lord Elrond of Rivendell they say is a great healer, and wise in the ways of all fell beasts. He will know the best medicine for you."
Thranduil swallows in an attempt to clear his throat, wishing each word did not grate like a blade as he speaks it. "Rivendell is further away than home."
"We can break our journey at Rhosgobel. If Radagast is there, he will tend you while we ride for Rivendell."
"And if he is not?" Thranduil tried to say, but the words will not come, only a coughing fit that leaves him dizzy. "We ride for home," he manages finally.
"We do not," Laegon says, and takes the reins of Thranduil's mount. Thranduil means to snap bitter oaths at the man, and to draw his blade to threaten him. He will do both, he tells himself, just as soon as he has rested for a moment, his forehead against his horse's neck. The pain beats under his skin, a relentless drum counting out his heartbeats. The hoofbeats of his horse falter, and he curses it silently for slowing.
"We're going to have to tie him to the horse," Merilinor says.
"I'll ride double with him," Laegon says, and after a moment there are unwanted arms around him from behind. The horse's pace redoubles, and he snarls in fury as it bears him away from where he desires to be.
*****
They are near Rhosgobel when Thranduil's throat begins closing with each incautious breath, leaving him coughing, unable to do anything but gasp for air that seems hot and filled with ash. The pain beats at him with the hoofbeats of the horse, and the one mercy is that he does not have to struggle not to cry out, as he can no longer make a sound. He is dimly aware they are crossing through twisted gates made of fallen branches and overgrown with honeysuckle, and of the flutter of songbirds' wings.
"What's this?" Radagast is saying, whether to his men or to the songbirds, Thranduil does not know. "A dragon," he says, before Thranduil's men at least can reply, his voice growing grim. "Yes, I see. We'd best get him inside."
Radagast's hut is cluttered with books and quilted blankets and the nests of small creatures, some of which look on curiously as Thranduil is settled in Radagast's own bed. He finds that he is sharing it with a fox, which regards him cautiously and then settles against his side, a warm breathing weight that is obscurely comforting.
"Drink this," Radagast says, appearing at his side with an earthenware cup. "It will make you feel better, at least for a little while. At least, it more than likely will."
He finds honesty more appealing than false certainty. Radagast puts the cup to his lips, and Thranduil chokes on the first swallow, but manages to get some of it down. It leaves the musty taste of mushrooms and strong wine in his mouth and soothes his blistered tongue.
Soon after that the world becomes surpassing strange. The drumbeat of the pain through his bones slows until Thranduil can recognize it as the slow pulse of sap through trees, the slow breathing in and out of the forest. He lies not in the cottage but between the sheltering roots of a great tree, taller and wider than any tree that ever grew in the Greenwood. He is cradled among the tree roots as he remembers being as a very small child, looking up at the vast green roof of the forest above. In the distance he can hear his father singing.
But Oropher is dead. Thranduil sits up abruptly to find himself still under the shelter of the tree. Radagast is sitting by his side, but is strangely changed. Radagast's hair is not its usual untidy thatch but bright and wild and crowned in leaves, and his robe looks more like bark than cloth, rustling as he moves like autumn leaves in the wind. His eyes are clear and very kind.
"There is another path you still may take," Radagast says. He nods his head toward the deep shadows between the trees. A stag stands there, his head bent beneath the weight of his crown of antlers. As Thranduil watches, it turns and walks away into the shadows until it disappears into depths of green.
"You mean that I may die," Thranduil says. He is not entirely surprised that here the words come out clearly and without pain.
"I will let you die if you want to, yes," Radagast says, as calmly as if he were offering him a cup of tea. "I know Elrond, you see, and I know that he will fight for your life no matter how much pain that brings you."
"As he should," Thranduil snaps.
He gets to his feet, and finds without particular surprise that he has become a great grey stag standing under the eaves of the forest. A hunter's arrow is buried deep in his flank, the kind of wound that will leave a stag lamed for life. Shadows circle like foxes, winding round Radagast's feet in a rustle of leaves.
He lowers his antlers and stamps his foot. No enemy will take him without a fight, not while he still lives. Here he will stand at bay while there is breath in him.
"Well, breathing may be the trick, you know," Radagast says, more in his usual distracted tones. "We'll see what we can do until Elrond gets here."
Thranduil wakes to find himself lying in Radagast's bed looking up at the rafters through his one open eye. The fox has gone to sleep, breathing steadily under Thranduil's hand. The left side of his face is bandaged, and the room smells pervasively of honey.
"You shouldn't wake yet," Radagast says, and holds the cup for him again.
"No more dreams," Thranduil says, or tries to say, but as the bitter liquid runs down his throat he is once again the beating heart of the forest. This time he finds himself prisoned by vines and branches, his arms and legs wound about so that he can barely move them, his chest wrapped so tightly that it is a desperate effort to breathe.
This time Radagast is the one who is singing, a simple tune like a nursery song with the words incongruously in Quenya. The song does not free Thranduil from his bonds, but it makes it a little easier for him to go on taking breaths, one after another, a necessary labor. He tries to count the breaths, but he can't seem to remember how numbers work, and after a while he finds himself dozing, listening to the song and the soft hum of bees among the trees.
He wakes to a different song, and then the sound of a quiet, confident voice speaking words of power. The smell of honey is mingled now with the scent of herbs, and Elrond's hand rests cool on his forehead.
He takes a tentative breath, and finds that he can breathe without coughing, although his throat still feels raw. He opens his unbandaged eye and looks up at Elrond, who smiles in clear relief.
"Welcome back, my friend," Elrond says.
They are not, precisely, friends, but under the circumstances Thranduil feels it would be ungracious to argue. "How long have I slept?" he manages, his throat hoarse. One side of his body throbs with dull pain that worsens when he moves.
"Three days," Elrond says. "And it will be several more days before you can return with me to Rivendell where I can tend you."
"I must go home," Thranduil says.
"Merilinor has left already to return to your halls. He will tell your son all that has happened. I am sure Legolas will look after your people while you are healing."
Legolas is barely a youth, far closer to childhood than Thranduil was when the weight of his father's crown descended on him. "He is too young," Thranduil says. "I must return to the Greenwood."
Elrond shakes his head. "Not for some considerable time. Dragonfire is not like ordinary fire. Its damage will not heal easily or well. It will take considerable skill to treat, and even then …"
"Do you also mean to tell me that I may die?" Thranduil says. "Because if so, you can save your breath."
"I do not expect that you are going to die," Elrond says. He holds a cup for Thranduil to drink, some kind of hot vegetable broth mingled with wine. At least it tastes of other things than mushrooms. He rests his hand on Thranduil's forehead again. "Rest a while longer," he says, and Thranduil surrenders to dreamless sleep.
*****
The road to Rivendell is a hard one, and Thranduil has no desire to speak with anyone when at last they enter its gates and he manages the feat of dismounting without stumbling. Celebrian comes running to him, though, her eyes wide with concern.
"Look at you," she says, her fingertips brushing bandages. She turns to Elrond with a frown. "Surely there was no need to make my cousin ride so far when he is sorely wounded."
They are not, precisely, cousins -- the kinship is at a greater remove than that -- but Oropher and Celebrian's father Celeborn counted themselves cousins, having grown up together in ages long past. Celebrian came sometimes with her father to the Greenwood when Oropher ruled at Amon Lanc, and she roamed the woods then with Thranduil. In those days the Greenwood was as safe as any forest in the world, and they wandered without a care.
It has been centuries since they last met, and neither of them is a child anymore. Celebrian's hair is caught back in a heavy circlet now, and her robes are fine worked velvet that would blaze like fire through the trees of any wood. Her eyes are still the same, unguarded and full of sympathy for any creature's pain. He turns his head sharply away from her touch, unsure if he can bear it in silence.
"I am sorry to put you through the journey," Elrond says, addressing Thranduil, although he reaches out a hand to let Celebrian's fingers rest in his. "But I will need my stock of herbs to tend your wounds. And I will want to consult my books as well. Much was written in ages past about the dragons of the north, and some of it may be of use to us."
Thranduil lets himself be installed in a sickroom, which he finds uncomfortably like the primitive houses of men even if one wall opens in a graceful archway to a garden. Elrond gives him wine drugged with poppy juice to drink before changing his bandages. Despite the wine, by the time Elrond is finished bathing the wounds in vinegar and dressing them again with salve that smells of athelas and lavender, Thranduil's breath is coming in harsh gasps, his throat closing in a knot as he fights not to cry out.
"That's finished," Elrond says, putting the last knot in the bandages, and Thranduil turns away in fury at his own weakness. He raises his chin as if his face is not wet with tears, as if it takes no effort at all to speak above a hoarse whisper.
"I am glad to hear it."
"It will have to be done again tomorrow," Elrond says.
He shrugs one shoulder as if that is of no consequence.
Elrond rests an unwanted hand on his shoulder, steering him to the bed. "Sleep if you can," he says.
He drowses, floating through drugged dreams, waking to the unfamiliar texture of linen sheets against his face instead of furs, or to pain when he moves incautiously in his sleep. Long before sunrise he is up and pacing, as if enough steps could outdistance pain. It persists, a tireless companion, as he watches the slow wheeling of the stars.
*****
The next few days pass much the same. Celebrian heaps his couch with books, and he turns pages without the will to make sense of the words within. There are always entertainments in Elrond's house, storytelling and song to fill long evenings, but by evening he is usually as weary as if he had spent the day at hard labor.
"The fires of your body run high when you are healing," Elrond says. "You must eat to fuel them."
He has little appetite, and his mouth is still raw, his throat still closing without warning. He subsists on wine until Elrond threatens to deprive him of it if he will not take solid food along with it, and then makes himself eat without pleasure. Celebrian tries to tempt him, bringing him venison instead of the pork that more often features on Elrond's table, and soft cheese heavily lashed with honey.
"You must eat," she says, and sits chattering at his bedside to distract him. He recognizes it as kindness, and wishes her several leagues away. More than once he catches himself wishing his father were here to bear him quieter company. Oropher was never one for more words than were necessary, and especially on their excursions into the woods, he used his hands as much as his voice, pointing out game or shaping Thranduil's less practiced hands on his bow.
Elrond sits with him sometimes in the evening, less affectionate company, but easier to bear. Sometimes he brings a lap harp and plays as if more for his own diversion than Thranduil's, mostly tunes that were old in Thranduil's father's day. Now and again he sings quietly, although his voice is ordinary and undistinguished. Thranduil takes little notice of the subject except when Elrond begins the Noldolante.
"Perhaps I might be spared the tragical history of the Noldor, as my kin were certainly not to blame for it," he says.
Elrond looks down at the strings as if for the first time realizing what he had been playing. "Perhaps you might be," he says, and begins the Lay of Luthien instead, which is more satisfactory. Thranduil drifts into dreams as Luthien is disguising Beren in the shape of a werewolf, and by the time he wakes the harp is quiet and the room empty.
Eventually Elrond cleans the wounds once more and says, "We will leave the bandages off now, I think, and see what light and air can do."
"I am still blind in one eye," Thranduil says levelly. Elrond does not look particularly surprised. He lights a candle and raises it to the level of Thranduil's eyes; out of his left eye Thranduil can see only brightness, and then shadow as Elrond moves the candle away.
"It was difficult enough to save the eye," Elrond says. "You may not recover more vision than what you have now."
With a blinded eye, his skill at archery will do him no more good. He holds his hand in front of his face, seeing only moving shadow on the left side, and then touches his own cheek and frowns. Elrond's mouth tightens, an almost imperceptible expression, but one that Thranduil takes as a warning.
"Bring me a mirror," he says.
"It is early days yet," Elrond says. "There is no need to trouble yourself without reason."
"I want to see," he snaps. "Bring me a mirror."
Elrond steps outside without another word, and returns with a table mirror. He sets it on the table and takes a step back. There is still warning in his eyes.
Thranduil turns his cheek to the mirror, and sees what the mirror shows.
To be an elf is to be beautiful. He cannot recognize what he sees as the face of one of his people. It is grotesque, distorted like the obscenely mutilated faces of the orcs he dispatches without mercy or hesitation.
He turns to force Elrond to confront the ruin of his face. Elrond reacts with a slight tightening of his mouth, but then he has seen war many times, and is used to the obscene things that fire and steel can do. For the first time Thranduil understands why his own men considered him a corpse walking.
He schools his voice to something like a steady touch. "When will the wounds heal?"
"That is not an easy question," Elrond says.
"It is not one that requires a lengthy answer."
"I do not know," Elrond says. "Is that answer short enough for your liking?"
"I thought you called yourself a healer."
"There is no healer this side of the sea who could give you a better answer," Elrond says, looking as if his patience is at last wearing thin.
There is the sound of footsteps, and one of the serving women comes in with wine and cakes on a tray. Thranduil turns to face her, lifting his chin, and she fumbles with the tray, the cup clattering to the floor. Wine spreads across the flagstones like blood.
"Get out," he says. The woman does, after a shamefaced glance at Elrond and Elrond's pained nod of permission. "And you as well."
"I'll bring you more wine," Elrond says, bending with a linen towel to clean the floor himself, as if he did servant's work every day.
"Tell Celebrian she is not to see me until I am healed," Thranduil says. He never dallied with Celebrian -- it would not have been casual between them, and it was clear enough that they were unsuited to marry -- but he has admired her beauty in an undemanding way, and liked her clear admiration of his. If she sees this, she will never think of him as beautiful again.
"I will tell her you have said so," Elrond says, thankfully making no argument and taking himself off to fetch more wine.
*****
Thranduil is up and pacing in the small hours of the night, unable to sleep or to stop tormenting himself by touching his cheek, as if there were some chance that he would feel smooth skin again under his fingertips. He hears the brush of skirts on the flagstones, and turns away at once, hiding his face in shadow.
"I told Elrond to tell you I didn't want you," he says.
"And so he told me," Celebrian says. "I am here all the same."
"Stay where you are," he says. "If you care what I wish at all."
"Of course I do," she says. "Dear cousin--"
"This is not about my sentiments," he says, the words coming hard and flat. "Do you think that if you can face me without recoiling or weeping, I will be comforted and all will be mended? That I may then return to the Greenwood and take up my throne as though nothing had happened?"
He craves the green depths of the Greenwood, and knows that until he is healed -- unless he is healed -- they are barred to him. He knows his people, in all their moods. They will not follow a king whose face makes a mockery of everything they are. They would as soon put an orc upon Thranduil's throne.
"I've already seen," Celebrian says. "While you were sleeping."
"And did you weep?"
"Yes. While you were sleeping."
He turns to consider the mirror. It makes a satisfying weight in his hand when he lifts it, and a satisfying sound when he sends it smashing to the ground. He dashes the wine cup from the table as well, silver ringing off stone and coming to rest among the fragments of silvered glass. For good measure he knocks over the table, the lamp extinguishing itself and smashing to pieces, oil mixing with the wine.
Celebrian is at his side, then, her hands tugging at his arm. "It will be all right," she says. "Thranduil, dear cousin--"
He pulls away from her with an animal noise of despair. "Do you foresee any future for me that I desire?"
"It isn't foresight," she says. "Only hope." Her fingers smooth his hair from behind, and then after a moment she steps away. He keeps his face turned into the shadows until the sound of her retreating footsteps fades away.
Sleep has been murdered for him that night. He paces in the moonlight, wondering how possible it is to live on hope. He has given enough forest creatures clean deaths over the centuries, knowing a swift cut to be a mercy. And yet all of them have fought to the last, struggling toward life with their dying breaths.
In the morning, Elrond cleans up the shards of glass without complaint. "I never liked that mirror very much," he says.
Thranduil raises an eyebrow at him. "Is that why it was the one you brought me?"
The corners of Elrond's mouth twitch. "The many uses of foresight," he says, and draws the eastward curtains back to let in the morning sun.
*****
Days pass, and there are certain improvements. His breath comes easily again, and his appetite has returned. The pain is eased, although he still feels its claws in him more strongly at night, and sleeps restlessly and with the wine cup close to hand. His left shoulder stings and pulls at scars when he stretches his arm, but he persists at Elrond's encouragement, and feels the range of motion returning.
The raw burns heal to furrows that are dry to the touch but still give the impression of raw meat inadequately butchered. Elrond's remedies grow increasingly experimental, words of healing and potions of herbs unearthed from dusty books. Some sting, and others soothe to a greater or lesser degree. More and more, they have no perceptible effect at all.
Finally Elrond comes to him in the morning and sits down in a chair. "I had hoped not to have to say this," he says simply. "But I can do no more for you."
Thranduil is certain that he should feel something at the news, but all he can feel is coldness. "Then find me someone who can."
"There will be no healing for you this side of the sea," Elrond says, and he speaks now with the weary certainty of foresight. "I believe now that not even the greatest healers of our people in elder days could have undone the work of dragonfire." He shakes his head somberly, his eyes very kind. "In the West your wound can be healed. There are good roads from here to the Havens, and from there you can set sail. I think it would be best."
Thranduil feels coldness gives way to sudden rage. He welcomes it, like strength flowing into his veins.
"You would like that, would you not?" he snarls. "For me to go over the sea and leave my kingdom undefended? Perhaps you even covet it for yourself. Perhaps that has been your intent from the beginning, to drive me over the sea with your inept care." He raises his chin in fury. "It may inconvenience you that I still live. But I will not sail from these shores while there is still breath in my body."
Elrond looks caught between anger and amusement. "You make yourself clear," he says. "For my part, I will only say that you know perfectly well I have no desire to be a king, nor am I in the habit of murdering my patients. However, as my care is doing you no more good, and you seem to have recovered at least enough strength to berate me, you are released from it. You are welcome to the hospitality of my house until you wish to leave it."
"I assure you that will not be long," Thranduil says.
The sustaining heat of anger lasts until Elrond has gone out, and then burns lower as he turns to face the new mirror, a standing glass that he has so far not given in to the temptation to throw. He is determined, now, that he will not be banished from the Greenwood or from his throne, much less from the shores of Middle-Earth, and all those who would see him sail away can rot.
His reflection scowls back at him. He turns his head, throwing the left side of his face into shadow. It helps, but not enough. He shades his face with one hand, thinking of Luthien, whose illusions beguiled Sauron himself, who wove for herself a cloak of moonless night. Thranduil has always had a gift for small enchantments, far beyond his father's skill, tricks of the mind to ensnare or confuse the beasts of the forest.
He stands stock-still, willing the mirror to show him what he desires. Smooth skin unmarred by any flaw. His left eye unclouded, dark and sharp. His ruined cheek whole. The power runs in his blood, and he will make it answer to his will. He will make it answer.
The image in the mirror shifts as if a shadow were flowing away from his face. His skin is clear and pale, his eyes no longer mismatched. The scars blur like smoke and then are gone. His familiar reflection lifts its chin, proud and beautiful.
He raises his hand to his face, unthinking, and feels the rough grooves of scars under his fingers where the mirror shows unblemished skin. All at once the illusion falters and fails, crawling away from his cheek and leaving harsh reality in its place.
He lowers his hand and restores the illusion, a slow and intense effort that will have to become habit. He will practice, and he will make it habit, until there is no threat that the illusion will fade at a moment's inattention. And then he will go home, far from eyes that have ever seen him as he does not wish to be seen. He will return to his own forests, and take up his throne again, unscarred and undaunted, and no one will think him at all changed.
And they will be wrong, but he does not intend for them to know it.
*****
Thranduil returns to the Greenwood on a fair autumn day, and lets out a slow breath as he comes under the eaves of the wood, as if he has been holding it for months. Two of Elrond's men has come with him, as Elrond said he had no desire to see all his work wasted by an ambush of bandits on the road. It has at least provided a reason for Thranduil to maintain the illusion on the road, and assured him it will serve.
He turns them back with the horses at the edge of the forest and sets out to walk. His coming is unheralded, but travelers on the road are rare enough in these days that he is unsurprised to be met before long by a party of hunters come to see who braves this path.
Their greetings tumble out one over the other in feverish joy. "My king, my king--" "We never thought to see--" "We thought you lost--" "My king--"
He fends them off with an out-swept arm and a quelling look to prevent them from laying hands on him. "I am here, as you see," he says. "I was wounded and am now healed. I see that I cannot be gone from the Greenwood for a few months at a time without being given up for dead."
"Your son has not taken up your crown," one of the hunters says. "He waits for word of your death."
"At least there is one sensible person among you," Thranduil says. "I will bring him better word. And as for you, get back about your business. Or do you suppose that the news of my arrival will put meat on the table tonight?"
It would be more satisfying to walk into his own halls unheralded, but his guards are not so remiss in their duties as to miss his approach. By the time he reaches the door, Legolas is there to meet him, carrying a wreath of autumn leaves.
"I thought you would want this," Legolas says. Thranduil takes the crown from him and settles it in his hair before doing anything else. Then he draws his son into a cautious embrace, turning his right cheek against Legolas's own.
There is a question in Legolas's eyes when he draws back, something wrong he senses about the way Thranduil carries himself, or perhaps some shadow he sees through the illusion. Thranduil shakes his head slightly to warn him against questions. Legolas nods, if not entirely satisfied then clearly much relieved at Thranduil's return.
He may have to tell Legolas the truth in the end, but he will not think about that now. For the moment he looks no farther ahead than this evening, when he will feast with his own people and then lie down to sleep in his own tumble of furs. If he wakes in pain in the dark hours of the night, he will walk out under his own trees and feel the forest breathing around him. The trees know nothing of pain or fear, and trust in their hearts that after their long autumn sleep, another spring will come.
"We feared you were dead," Legolas says.
Thranduil lays a hand on Legolas's shoulder, both reassuring and forestalling another spontaneous embrace. "Reports of my death were greatly exaggerated," he says, and steps through the doorway to take up his throne again.