Brightest Stars | Love of Royals: Book I

XIII: Feel Nothing

The footsteps catch me off guard, and I spend a few seconds breathing heavily, my gaze darting back and forth across the room. After training my ears to recognise them, I can tell these footsteps belong to Thranduil—the one person I'm most eager to speak to. I wish to tell him what I've read, and I want him to know that I'm here for him.

Thranduil enters brusquely to find me sunk back in his armchair, tapping my nails anxiously against the worn covers of Ellerian's diary. Upon reaching me, his gaze falls on the book in my hand. His eyes begin to burn.

Somehow I cannot bring myself to speak now. A sickly tension creeps up my stomach as I watch realisation sink into him, so much that I tear my eyes away from him in despair. More than ever now, all I want is to help him, but any words have long since disappeared from my mind.

'Elena... what have you done...' His voice, low and cracked, is barely even audible.

I proceed to stand up, placing the diary on top of my pile of books from earlier, and face Thranduil dead on. 'It's alright. I just want you to know—'

'Stay away from me.' He withdraws his hand from where I was about to take hold of it, as if repulsed by my touch.

I won't let him push me away. He needs to know.

'Please, listen...' I reach out again, and when my hand makes contact with his, I notice how cold his skin is. Thranduil recoils again, this time retreating slightly backwards, with each step he takes being equivalent to a stab in my chest.

'I said, stay away from me,' he says almost threateningly.

'No! Please, I only want to help you. I'm sorry—'

'Elena—'

'Listen to me! I just want you—' I cut across him, grabbing his hand again, but this time he shakes me off forcefully.

'You had no right to go through that!' Thranduil snaps over me.

His stubbornness is beginning to irritate me. 'You said and I quote, "you may have to entertain yourself!"'

'Not by reading things that are none of your concern!' he raises his voice even more, towering over me in the hope that I'll back down. I don't.

'I only want to help you!' I persist.

'You may be a Star of legend, but that does not grant you access to my secrets!'

'The ones you love are supposed to help you! Don't push me away!' My voice begins to break as I feel the tears sting my eyes.

'There is nothing you can do!'

I can't stand his obstinacy anymore. 'She was dying, Thranduil! She was dying and you did nothing!'

'I KNEW!' he cries, 'I knew what was happening to her. I loved Ellerian, until the day I realised she didn't love me. All she ever wanted was a child. She grew cold, and so did I. I only realised what she was going through until it was too late. It was incurable.'

'You both grew apart and Legolas's childhood was ruined by it!'

'We were never meant to be at all! She used me to get a son of her own—'

'So you let her die?'

'There was nothing I could have done!' His voice wavers as his icy eyes begin to melt. 'She distanced herself from me in the hope I wouldn't see what she was planning. She sacrificed herself to let hundreds escape from Gundabad...' Thranduil tails off, the first tear rolling down his cheek.

'...Because she knew she was already dying,' I finish off.

'I was left to raise Legolas alone. Ellerian's death changed the course of the kingdom. I vowed never to love again.' His final statement bites the air.

Tears are now spilling relentlessly from my eyes. 'Then where do I come into this? You said you loved me...'

'I feel nothing now.' Thranduil turns away.

I let out a small gasp as the King cries silently in front of me, his gaze fixed on the floor; each tear of his is one painful memory after another, all the hurt and the losses and the suffering being relived inside him. This elf told me he loved me.  How could that have been a lie? 'Thranduil... you're not...' my voice comes out as a feeble whisper.

'You were right, Elena. We should never have done this. Our love was never real. I cannot love anyone, and no one can love me.'  For some reason, I feel I can't reach out and touch him again.  He's standing right before me, yet somehow seems infinitely far away.

I bite my lip to stop myself sobbing loudly. 'But I love you! No matter how much I deny it in my head, I know I do! You cannot think that of yourself!' I plead in despair.

'YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ME!' he roars. I actually recoil in shock, and there's a pause, as he surely thinks I'm afraid of him. The air is heavy and silent, as if slowly trying to crush the two of us beneath it.  Thranduil takes a deep breath. 'You may have watched me from above, but in truth you know nothing of my heart. I have suffered at the hands of all who come close to me. Everyone I care about leaves me in one way or another. There is no more hope for me!'

'No, it's not true—I can help you—'

'No one can, Elena.'

My heart snaps behind my ribs. He doesn't see, just as I don't see his heart, an already damaged thing, breaking even more. His soul is fractured, his love is in ruins, and it's my fault. I may not have started it, but I certainly finished it. My Star's heart has been tainted for the first time.

Before I can say another word to him, Thranduil storms out, a trail of cold wind swirling in the wake of his robes.  A wave of pain, almost like a nausea, courses through my body, and I find myself sinking to the floor on Thranduil's rug, weeping pitifully into my own hands.  I barely even feel the sting of my wounded leg.

Right now, I feel more vulnerable than I ever did with Avalor, or Avadhil and his friends, or even when I was underwater after my Fall.  All those times, I could keep my composure, and all those times I was then saved by Thranduil.  This time—oh, this time, there's no last minute rescue.  He's gone.  He doesn't care for me anymore.

Maybe it was all a lie.  Maybe he never even cared for me at all.  I cannot tell.  The famed intuition of Stars doesn't help me here. 

Just like Ellerian, I never asked for this, but I'm the reason behind it all.  I knew I had a task out there, and what did I do?  I let myself get ensnared by a false love with a handsome Elvenking.  If this is where our mistakes have lead us, maybe I should have just died on that very first night.  I should have gone back to where I belong, which I know now is not here.

I tried to break Thranduil's enigma, but all I did was break his heart.  We've broken each other, and from here I don't see how either of us can be fixed.

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