The Wind Fell Silent

19. Undone

"Now, if you want any chance of finding them, you will play nice, or you will return to your accommodations in my dungeons."

Before I had the chance to reply, or he had the chance to continue, the doors burst open and an elf scurried through. The king looked up, dangerously annoyed.

"What is it" he said menacingly, his gaze nearly feral.

"M-my lord" the elf stumbled out, "It is the captain of the guard, Tauriel. She has followed the dwarves. Some two hours ago"

"What!" Thranduil exclaimed.

"That is not all my lord, the Prince has followed her."

"And why am I just hearing about this now?" he hissed.

Quickly, the king rose from his throne and pushed past me, ordering a guard to watch me carefully until he returned.

Tauriel... I couldn't help but guess that she was the elf that I saw Kili with the night before. Though I knew her going after the company was fortunate (unless her goal was to bring them back which was unlikely seeing as this was news to the king) jealousy burned beneath my skin. Why would Legolas follow her if the king had not ordered it? Never the matter, I had to keep focused, I had to figure out a way to get Thranduil to release me. I had no weapons, no gold, no one who would come looking for me... wait a moment. The beginnings of a plan were taking root in my mind.

Suddenly Thranduil burst through the door. His face was red, and his eyes were angry. He was losing his composure which did not bode well for me.

"Out!" he yelled and the guard swept through the door. Thranduil stood over me and I trained my eyes on the floor.

"Now, as I was saying spriteling, I would be very careful about what I did if I were you."

"No, my lord, I would be very careful if I were you" I bit out, looking up to meet his gaze defiantly.

He smirked, "Why ever would that be? I have you imprisoned."

I felt a smirk of my own form on my face, "It is because you have imprisoned me that you should be worried."

"Why is that" he asked, as if humoring a child.

"Because you have stupidly imprisoned a sprite" I said, my voice growing more confident with each word.

"Tell me, king, has Legolas ever told you about Dishna, my feyanim?" Slowly realization began to crawl upon Thranduil's face.

Before he could speak, I continued, "Where did you think she was in all of this? Did you think she was hiding in my sleeve? You see, you really should have paid better attention because she is currently back home, raising a host of my people led by my brother" I could feel the gloating contempt from my words saturating the room. "Originally they were meant to combat the dark forces that poison the very forest you live in, but if they find that you have me in your dungeon..." I trailed off for effect "Well you will have quite the dilemma on your hands."

"And how, pray tell, will this 'army' be able to find you?" he was keeping his cool, but I could see defeat edging in at the crevices of his mask. It was time to go in for the kill.

I met his eyes in held them firm in my gaze, "Once she is within 200 leagues of me, Dishna will feel me and find me. And she will tear your kingdom apart stone by stone with an army at her back until I am free.

"But," I continued, "If you let me go, when the sprites come over the sea, you will gain a powerful ally."

It was obvious that Thranduil was less than pleased at being beat, but I had indeed beat him. For a long while he stared me down but eventually, almost tiredly, he sat back down on his throne with a look of defeat and nodded.

"Then I acquiesce, you are free to go."

My victory was short-lived for in my mind was only Kili. I needed to reach him as soon as possible and try to heal him the best I could. I knew that even with Dishna, my chances of healing a dwarf of even a deep cut were very slim. Sprites were created to heal the earth and the animals, not the likes of men, elves, dwarves or even other sprites. The energy it took to heal one of the four races was so immense that it would most likely kill the sprite who dared it. Very few, very powerful sprites were able to do this, but not me (especially not without Dishna).

However for the moment being, I tried to push such thoughts from my mind and focus on reaching Kili first.

I turned to leave, but stopped when Thranduil spoke again. The words that I heard issue from behind me gripped my chest with icy hands.

"Your love of the dwarf will be your undoing" he said. His voice held no anger or malice, but saddened wisdom. Without turning back to him I began to continue towards the door with purpose, but stopped when I reached it.

"Then I am already undone."

Author's Note

Hello! Exciting turn of events in this chapter, hopefully more in the next.

Special thanks to DivergentEmber for the continued support and feedback!