For the love of a Dragon (Thranduil fanfic)

Chapter 16

Thranduil put his head on top of mine, implicitly showing off our height differences, and together, we looked up through to the sky, enjoying what little light of the heavens shone through to the ground.

Suddenly, a rustle sounded from behind us, disrupting the peaceful silence. Thranduil and I exchanged a look.

He pushed me behind him, drawing his sword. "Stay behind me," he said. Even though I knew how to defend myself perfectly fine, I was still in no state to fend for myself - I was still weak from my injuries from Dol Guldur. I had a strange feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach; like bees swarming in a hive; something telling me that whatever was lurking in the shadows was not something - or someone - I wanted to see.

I was right.

Out of the bushes hobbled a haggard old woman, hunched over a cane. I went still.

To someone else, perhaps, anyone else, she would look harmless - nothing more than a sweet old lady. A pensioner lost on her way. 

But I knew otherwise.

She was the bane of my life. She was the cause of my pain. The cause of my scars. The cause of my heartbreak. The cause of my torture, my walls; she was the root of every bad thing that happened in my life after I had run away from these woods all those years ago.

She was the cause of my curse.

I stormed past Thranduil, a thousand years worth of anger bubbling to a point in my veins as I threw off her hood. Her head jerked up with unnatural speed for a woman of her age, and her blood-red eyes instantly snapped to mine. Those eyes...those eyes I still often dreamed about and woke up quaking with fear in the middle of the night...

I froze as her eyes seemed to penetrate my very soul, breaking into my mind and unfolding and unveiling all the secrets and memories I had locked away; every trauma, every death, every swipe of my blade, every breakdown I had ever experienced. They all flashed by my eyes so intensely that I couldn't take it. I screamed out in pain and fell to my knees, blinded by the faces and flashing lights that seared my eyes.

"Celegwen!" Somewhere in the murky distance, I heard Thranduil's voice cry out and barely made out his figure as he came rushing to my side. "She....she cursed..." I managed to speak as the world spun like stars. I frantically grasped his hand, eyes wide. "Me...." My voice crackled, failing, and no more words came from my lips.

"Stop!" Thranduil commanded, trying to muster the voice of a king but panic seeped in as his voice began to break. "Stop whatever you are doing to her!" He leaped up from my side and swung his blade at her waist, but it simply swiped through her, no damage done. Though it sent burning pain through my neck, I cocked my head, confused. Thranduil widened his eyes in alarm and grasped my hand tightly, falling to his knees.

She laughed. Wrinkles on her face that would look beautiful and carved on anyone else looked vicious on her. "You fool!" she sneered. "Nothing can kill me!" A dark cloud spread out from behind her, and her eyes turned to black pits as she began floating above the ground like a ghost. She was a spirit; a curse that did not belong in this world - 

The thought halted as my heart suddenly felt as if it was shrinking; as a strange yet powerful pain tore through my chest. I howled out in pain, as I felt something vital in my neck snap.

"Celegwen!" Thranduil cried, trying to hold onto my flailing hand as he fumbled for his sword. 

"It's....her....she's...." I groaned in pain. "Her curse...."

From behind us, the sorceress crowed out an unnatural laugh. "The wench's curse has taken its course, O King," she sneered. "And now since she will not serve the One, I have no further use of her." She clenched her fist, as a blast of pain sliced through my heart and I rose up and fell back onto the grass, squirming in the dirt, writhing in pain.