Brightest Stars | Love of Royals: Book I

V: Healing Me

'It's you, isn't it?  You're the Star the King brought back the other night, aren't you?' Avadhil drops me into the dirt beside the raging waterfalls thundering down one side of the gardens, muddying my nightdress and causing searing pain to shoot through my leg.  I cry out in agony, but Avadhil, Fëalos and Noredhon only laugh at me.

'How's he treating you?  Better than his old wife?' Fëalos aims a kick at my injured leg.

'Why are you doing this?' I squeal, fighting back the tears with all the strength I can muster, 'what do you gain from hurting people you deem weaker than yourselves?'

'We don't deem you weaker, you are weaker,' Avadhil sneers.

'Look at you!  You can't even walk by yourself!' Noredhon pushes me back down into the mud every time I sit back up, while the spray from the waterfalls spatters my skin.

'You're the weaker ones.' I put up a mental barrier against the relentless pain battering my body.  Laid on my side in the soft mud, dampened by the spray and completely immobile, escape seems utterly impossible, but I can irk the ellons to my heart's content.  Perhaps I can irritate them until they leave me alone, then call for help and hope another passing elf can take me back to my room.  It's my only option.  'Strong people don't hurt others to feel better about themselves.'

'I don't need to feel better about myself, I've already stolen the King's Star!  I wonder what he'll do when he finds out you're missing... or since he hasn't been kind to anyone since his precious wife died, perhaps he won't care?' Avadhil's boot makes contact with my stomach and holds me flat on my back, pressed against the sludgy ground.  When I don't answer, his wicked green eyes narrow and his lip curls.

I can't let him be right... but maybe he is.  That is why I'm here, after all.  Because Thranduil doesn't care.

'Your words mean nothing to me!' I snap, writhing in the mud as Avadhil's cronies leer at me.  'I belong to no one!'

Avadhil opens his mouth to respond, but something catches his attention.  All three ellons turn in the direction of a distant call, emanating from somewhere inside the nearest chambers.

'Elena?  Elena!  ELENA!'  Thranduil's voice booms out into the almost deserted gardens, and I can tell the ellons know it's him because fear flashes through their eyes.  They exchange glances, but before they can move, Thranduil has turned out of the corridor and spotted us over by the waterfalls.  Immediately his vivid blue eyes widen with shock, and he strides over to where the ellons are cowering fearfully and Avadhil has quickly removed his foot from on top of my stomach.

'K... King Thranduil...' Noredhon stutters, 'we didn't...'

Thranduil silences him by pushing him and his friends out of the way.  On reaching me, his expression softens, and he pulls me up out of the sludge without a moment's pause. Ignoring the fact that I am caked with dirt, Thranduil holds me in his arms and faces down the ellons.  He towers above them by several inches, and Avadhil in particular is practically trembling in the King's shadow.

'You are fools, all of you,' Thranduil says icily, 'your actions are disgraceful.  You will stay away from Elena.' 

I don't look any of ellons directly in the eye.  However, my head nestled against Thranduil's silky robes, I can see all three of them staring at the floor and shuffling their feet in my peripheral vision.  They are like guilty little elflings after being caught stealing biscuits.