The forge hissed, molten metal spitting sparks against stone as the messenger spoke words that turned heat to ice.

“Lady Singollo of Alqualondë… still lives.”

My grip on the hammer faltered.

After all this time. After the sea ran red beneath the fall of her people and Olwë's swan-ships.

She lives.

Curufin went still at my side, as if expecting the walls to crack. The messenger swallowed.

“They say she crossed the sea to Middle-earth. She is sovereign now. Queen of Taur Im Duinath.”

Sovereign. Queen. Not a wanderer. Not lost.

Queen.

I turned my head, slow as a blade being drawn.

“She was at the harbor,” I said quietly. “The night of the ships.”

The messenger didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

I could still see it — white-haired and furious, seven feet of moonlight and obsidian will, spear in hand as she barred the pier. No fear. No trembling. A princess of Alqualondë standing against the greatest smith of the Noldor and his seven sons.

She nearly threw me into the sea myself.

And I… I gave the order anyway.

Her kin fell. The swan-ships fell into the sea. The harbor turned to ash. Alqualondë… wiped from Valinor.

And she vanished in the smoke.

Most assumed the waves took her, like so many others.

But she did not. She endured.

The messenger’s voice shook. “She will never forgive what happened at the harbor. She is now the Queen of the Teleri that found refuge.”

A bitter smile touched my mouth.

“Good,” I whispered. “Forgiveness is a cheap thing.”

But then he spoke the final offense:

“They say she keeps company with a dwarf-king. Thorin Oakenshield.”

Silence collapsed over the forge.

A dwarf. Gold-blind, and proud in his tunnels of iron.

Curufin stepped back. Not out of fear… out of understanding.

The furnace glowed higher, leaping from the anvil as if called by my anger. The metal in front of me split apart under the heat.

“She hates me,” I said. “And she chooses a dwarf for comfort?”

My jaw clenched. Memory cut deep.

She once faced me with a spear leveled at my heart. The Black Swan of Alqualondë — born with white hair and sea in her veins, fearless even when she should have run.

Now she stands alive. Queen of her own realm. And a dwarf dares stand at her side?

Curufin’s voice was barely a breath. “What will you do?”

I set the hammer down with perfect calm.

“I will go to Taur Im Duinath.”

His brows lifted. “To ask forgiveness?”

“No.” I turned toward the dark corridor leading out of the forge. “Forgiveness is not mine to have.”

Then, colder:

“But that dwarf will learn who knew her first. Who she trusted before the world changed.”

The furnace behind me glowed white-hot, as if it understood.

“Prepare the horses,” I said. “The River Queen will face me again.”