The council hall was loud with voices—hobbits arguing over maps, dwarves debating routes, Gandalf insisting he had everything under control. Steel clinked. Ale sloshed. Tempers ran hot.

Then the doors opened.

Silence split the room clean in two.

She stepped across the threshold—white hair falling unbound down her back, a silver gown trailing pale and silent against the stone, a birch crown living upon her brow. Seven feet of river-born grace, carved from moonlight and winter.

No elf in the room dared speak. Even the hobbits forgot their tea.

I stood before I realized I’d moved. Something old and unfamiliar twisted beneath my ribs.

Zabadnêl. My heart-chosen.

The word escaped softer than breath, but Balin heard it. Dwalin went still beside me. Kíli stared as though he’d seen a legend step out of song.

She did not look at me. She did not bow. She merely existed—and the hall bent around her presence.

I took one step forward.

But another voice reached her first.

Legolas.

He moved toward her with quiet familiarity, every line of him composed, elegant, irritatingly graceful.

“You crossed half a realm to stand here,” he said, voice soft as snowfall. “And I know how the Moonwell hates to release its sovereign. Taur Im Duinath breathes through you.”

He spoke those words like a man who had walked her riverbanks, who had learned the language of her forest himself.

A faint, subtle warmth touched her eyes.

Not for me. For him.

Legolas turned to the table—turned to me—and said plainly:

“She did not come at Gandalf’s request. She came because I asked.”

A heartbeat of silence.

Bofur swore under his breath. Ori dropped his quill. Gandalf rubbed his temples like he had foreseen this and regretted everything.

Then Legolas spoke the words that split stone from steel:

“I am Courting Her Elegancy with the intention of Marriage.”

My hand closed around the hilt of Orcrist—not drawn, just held. Steady. Silent.

She still had not heard my name. She still had not seen my face. She did not even know I existed.

But dwarves do not yield simply because another man reaches first.

And I am a king.

Slowly, I straightened to my full height. Her gaze swept the room—calm, regal, unreadable.

Then, for the first time, her eyes found mine.

A beat. A breath. A moment that settled deep in my bones.

This was not finished.

Stone does not step aside for a breeze.

Not even a fair-faced, soft-spoken woodland prince with a bow.