Where Shadows Breathe [Legolas Fanfiction] :on hold:

Chapter Three: Viridity

The night hid no unexpected trouble. Few could rest but held to the pretense of respite that the night offered. Those who could not remain still lurked on the perimeter of our camp, holding an unwavering watch. With the sun rose a renewed sense of purpose in the company's actions.

Of my two injured warriors, one fared far worse than the other. A restless fever had come over him during the night, his voice piercing the night in a striking echo of the battle that had only just passed. Our battlefield healers had administered the common spider antidote, only being able to guess at the amount that was needed. The healers at the stronghold could do little more aside from offer comfort that the forest's ground could not. A single bite had yet to kill a warrior—I prayed that would still be the case.

It was a blessing when the stronghold came into our sights. No grand welcome crowd awaited us; for that I was thankful as I doubted that any one of us would be able to manage a façade of relief at this victory.

I released my warriors from the patrol, a strict order to rest being sent with them. It was a tense walk through the winding halls as I kept hold of my own emotion—barely. Only once I arrived at my own quarters and rid myself of my battle stained tunic did some amount of peace come over me. I still needed to file a report and would be needed on the training fields soon enough—peace was in short supply.

I stepped outside my door and the unrest that permeated the stronghold assailed me like a wind brushing through tall grasses. There was no harm in it—so long  as we did not let it cut us down.

The Royal Wing was segregated from the other halls of the palace. Outside my door, their was a grand vestibule, several doors along its walls, my own quarters adjoined to my adar's. Flowers were carved into the stone, wooden leaves and ivy extending from their stems. If I let my eyes wander too far, I might let myself wonder after the beauty of this room and let the shadows touch flit from my mind.

I stepped out of the vestibule and into the hall. There were no edhil there and it was in the corner—distant but distinct—that my gaze caught.

Where a crook between two walls towered, stood a table. It had sat empty for many years, once being my naneth's flower table. She had kept it tidy, a blooming flower vase sitting atop it to bring a breath of fresh air to any elf that walked by. Somehow, she had even seemed to keep it replenished in the dead of winter, with flowers of deep blue that might rival the starry sky. I had been too young then—but the memory of it lived on the tongue of those who remembered.

When at last I reached the table, my restless intuition was fulfilled. In a deplorable turn of the day, my heart sank deeper. A thousand thoughts flashed through my mind, tossed like the raging rapids' waters, then stilling at the turn of tide.

Stabbed into the wood, a single knife fixed a note upon the table. Four words were scrawled upon it in a murderous omen that ignited my fury greater than the spiders ever had.