𝕰𝖑𝖊𝖓𝖆

Chapter Eighteen: Into the Woods

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Cyne laughed, looking up at me with two startling blue eyes, sparkling with amusement. I was strung from the Pines several feet above him, having been caught in a hunter's trap. We'd been told to avoid this stretch of the wood, the most popular for poachers and hunters, but Cyne and I, being the adventurous children we were, had gone anyways.

Tears were quick to fall as I looked down at Cyne, who, having caught sight of the water pooling in my eyes, immediately ceased his laughter.

"It's okay, Elena, we'll get you down! It's alright!" he called up at me, leaning on his wooden crutch; Something he was seldom apart from as a child.

"Father will be so mad Cyne, don't tell father!" I cried, feeling that the fear of being found out by my father was the greatest in all the world.

"No one's telling father," he assured me, searching for a way to help me down.

After a few moments, his eyes zeroed in on a rope attached to a tree, pulled taught as it suspended my weight. He rushed over, untieing it, and sending me plummeting down to the forest floor. Panic washed over his face, as he dove to catch me, and I landed on top of him with a heavy thud. Tangled up with each other, the net, and the forest floor, laughter now consumed both of us, any sense of danger having passed. We made it back to the castle before night fell. My father never knew.

Cyne had always protected me. Watched over me. Put himself in harm's way so that I may be safe.

And now he was dead.

✶

We walked down the spiralling staircase, my heavy footsteps and Saruman's arrogant strides echoing through the empty halls. I could hardly walk, stumbling in front of Saruman while he ushered me along until we'd reached the ground floor. The brilliant daylight stung my eyes and ached in my head as we emerged from Orthanc.

My eyes begrudgingly adjusted to the light, focusing on the hundreds of Uruk-Hai, Orcs, Wildmen, and now Dark Fae, who roamed around the tower, going back and forth between tables full of weapons, pits dug out in the ground, and tents pitched in clumped masses at the base of Orthanc. I had no idea what Saruman planned on doing, and I should've been afraid. Very afraid. But I wasn't.

All I could think about was Cyne. All I could focus on was the grief, the guilt, the sinking feeling that grew and grew in the pit of my empty stomach. Until my eyes met his from across the barren field.

Legolas.

He sat sunken into the ground on his knees, hands bound and bloody. He was in worse shape than I.

His hair, once smooth and clean, was matted and streaked with dirt and deep red stains. His clothes were tattered and torn. Rimming some tears, I noticed, was the same red stain. His mouth was a thin line, but his jaw trembled, however slightly.

Surrounding him were a variance of sharpened weapons- spears, daggers, swords-in the calloused hands of several of Saruman's Dark Fae mercenaries. He stiffened upon seeing me. When our eyes interlocked, he tried in vain to hurl himself to his feet, his entire body shaking with effort. A single kick sent him sprawling back down to the cool, unforgiving earth.

I took a step towards him, but was viciously yanked backwards by my hair, and I yelped in pain, turning to find a tall and lumbering Uruk-Hai looking down on me with a wry smile.

"What is this?" I shouted to Saruman, who now stood in between Legolas and I.

"You don't fear death, Elena, nor do you fear your own pain and suffrage," Saruman began, "But would you fear that of one you cared for?"