Eclipse of Hearts ✔

Chapter 59. [Alyssae]

Two days passed by. Thorin behaved significantly friendlier. He didn't show her much affection, but he no longer screamed at her and he seemed to have accepted the situation as it was. Alyssae had postponed the revelation of Niamh's loss for a long time, but she knew the time had come, even though she was sure he would burst out in anger. He would possibly even decide that he didn't want to see her anymore. 
Alyssae hadn't seen him much. He often had a headache and felt weak, which meant the poison was slowly leaving his body, although he still longed for it. 
"How do you feel?" Her eye caught the rope with which he was bound. His hands were loose, so that he could eat without help. He was also able to wipe the hair out his face again, as he was doing now. 
Thorin shrugged. "My joints are stiff."
Alyssae watched him, worried. Contrary to her, his body wasn't that young anymore. He couldn't sit on the ground for days without feeling the consequences. 
"Eldinòr doesn't give me the permission to free you."
"I thought they were listening to you?"
"If that was true, you wouldn't sleep here."
An uneasy silence hung in the air. Thorin looked up to her, clearly wondering if there was a deeper meaning hidden in these words. Her cheeks turned red and she bend over one of the barrels, which she rolled to him so that she could sit on top of it. 
"I have to tell you something."
"I already thought so, otherwise you wouldn't be here."
She folded her hands. She didn't need sarcastic remarks.
"It's about Niamh. She is... different."
Thorin performed a cynical laugh. "Of course she is, we are her parents."
His answer hurt her, as if Thorin had always believed she would become a lousy mother. She didn't know how to start. She didn't want to think of the man who had ruined their lives. Who had tortured Thorin, and left him to die. 
"Do you remember the curse I told you about?"
Thorin leaned with his head against the pole. "Of course. It surprises me we have a child."
"Yeah, wel... it changed Niamh in something that doesn't look like a normal elf or dwarf. She was born after three years and she could walk and talk immediately. She had beautiful wings and pallid eyes and..."
"Why do you speak in the past?" Thorin interrupted her. 
All this time he had acted a little indifferent about his daughter, but his tense voice showed that he did care about her. 
"She - she's gone." Alyssae bend her head. 
"Where did she go?"
"Please, let me finish," she mumbled. 
Thorin inhaled loudly, but kept silent with a grumbling expression on his face. 
"After a few weeks, Niamh murdered two children." She bit on her lip, while the image of Raphael's bloody hands appeared in her mind. "She was locked up and sentenced to dead, but I freed her and brought her to another place." She stared at her fingertips. "I hid her in a ruin and returned to the city, for I didn't want to stand out. When I came back, she was gone. We have searched for days, but found no traces."
Alyssae didn't dare to look at him, afraid that eye contact would make him explode. A tear glided down her cheek. 
Thorin said nothing for a long time, but in the end he broke the silence. "So our daughter has disappeared," he concluded, surprisingly calm. "And you have no idea what could have happened to her?"
"I do," she mumbled. "I think Thranduil has her, so that he can trade her for me."
"If he dares..." Thorin grumbled. 
Alyssae stilled looked at her hands. She suddenly wished he would hold her. "Then what? What can we do? You are dead before you've entered those woods and I will be captured immediately. He overpowers us."
"Maybe Niamh rips off his head."
Alyssae couldn't laugh about it. If there was someone who had to rip off his head, she wanted to be that one. She didn't want her little girl to spoil more blood.
"So this is the real reason behind all this?" Thorin asked after some time. "You want me to help you find Niamh. 
"No," Alyssae mumbled. "At least I wanted you to know that you have a daughter. That we have a daughter. A family."
Thorin sighed. "What you long for, will never happen."
"What?" Alyssae asked with raised eyebrows. 
"You and me. We won't get back together. I am sorry." He took a deep breath. "And I really am, Alys. I just don't see it happen. I want to be a father for our child, but I think I would fail in doing so."
"Of course not!" Alyssae answered firmly, but she kept her mouth shut when she saw his face. 
"Four times I have tried to kill you. You think I ever want to go through that again? Having nightmares for weeks, because I can't control myself? You think I want to take that risk with my own child?"
Alyssae looked at his eyes. They were glowing by the emotions he was struggling with. 
"That's not how you are. Not all the time." She stood up and took his hand. "We were happy ."
She felt sorry when she saw his tormented face. She wanted to throw her arms around him, but was distracted when his thumb stroked the back of her hand. 
"But it's too often." After those words he took back his hand and turned his head away. 
Disappointed Alyssae turned around. The conversation was over.