Darkest Nights | Love of Royals: Book II

II: Throne of Stars

'Go now, and send that miserable wretch to his doom,' my father's voice booms across the plains as I turn my face to the northeast, the sun setting behind me.  'Fulfil your task.  Run the rivers red.  You are the Raven, and you feel nothing.'

You feel nothing.  Another one of his delightful daily affirmations. I predict that will be the last I hear from him for a while.  If the Woodland Elves are really as evil as they say, then it may take some degree of effort to wipe out their royal line.

Lyrenna's gift has sat around my neck for three hours now.  The pendant thumps gently against my chest in time with my steps, each one another fraction further away from home and closer to danger.  For it is dangerous—I have accepted that.  It is dangerous, and difficult, and I will be alone... yet I will always carry a connection to my only true friend, small as it may be.

Not that I'm unaccustomed to being alone.

Lands become unfamiliar and clouds become thicker. The humidity intensifies until it feels as though a pillow is clamped over both my ears, the pressure of it ringing through my head like a death toll. Whether it is for me, or for the Woodland Elves, only time will tell. It won't be long now. I will run with the wall of night, ride the oncoming storm, and no matter what happens, put up such a fight that the stars themselves will tremble.

The forest greets me with its moist, sickly air. The rains of Mirkwood do not fall straight away, but when they do, they can be described as nothing less than torrential.  While the skies are emptying above, the trees receive a battering of heavy drops that slip down to the end of each leaf before tumbling off and gathering in a soggy marsh on the forest floor.  With this downpour comes a cold twilight, turning the heavens to a deathly grey which darkens with every second.  Night is falling.  Now, I'm ready. 

One hand is constantly beside the hilt of one of my swords while the other is grasping tree branches to help me cross the perilous paths of the place they call Mirkwood.  At long last, I sense my target is not far away.  The isolated haven of the forest; the Woodland Realm; the court of Thranduil Oropherion.  My path has finally led me there, where I can do what I have spent my whole life preparing to do.  It is all in the slicing of two throats in the small, dark hours of the night—King Thranduil and his son.

I can do it. I must do it.  I've come this far after all, and there is no shame in killing one's fellow elves if they are monsters who deserve to die.

Mirkwood falls under the shroud of autumn darkness as the rain only continues, soaking through my thin clothes and plastering my ebony hair to my head.  I press on, embracing the power of the night, feeling it rush into my soul as I travel swiftly through the shadows.  I am almost unprepared to be faced with the looming silhouettes of the kingdom's walls, but the faint shapes of glittering lights from inside the halls act as my guide as I begin to climb.  I scramble up a tree, over the river and leap lightly onto the wall.  Through the gaps I can see more lights, dancing and flickering, but gleaming as white as the stars. 

I wonder if Thranduil has seen them at all today, for it is his last chance to see anything in this world before his soul departs to the Halls of Mandos.

The first of the lightning catches me off guard and my grip slackens on the wall slick with unrelenting rainwater. Steadying myself, I look up to the daunting slope stretching up before me, raindrops hammering against my back and trickling down my face. Climb, Fíria. Climb, for Ilúvatar's sake. You've faced worse than a little storm before. What do you have to be afraid of?

Then the thunder comes. The deafening rumbles feel so close, the storm may as well be breathing down my neck. I need to move on now unless I have a death wish. Only by the strength of my Dû-edhel blood do I will myself to ascend, little by little, until I am stood atop the roof of the largest hall. Illuminated caves and passages stretch out far beneath me, all glowing with that same ethereal light as if the torches are bearing not orange fires, but white. White fires—that's what they are. Minuscule stars scattering the earth just as they scatter the sky.