The road to the Mountain tastes wrong. Not the stone, not the air, not even the blood we’ve already spilled getting this far. Something deeper. Something missing. I tighten my grip on my axe as we move through the narrow pass, boots grinding against loose rock, the Company spread along the ridgeline. We’re being hunted—I can feel it—but that is not what sits heavy in my chest.

It’s her, my Mate, and the silence she left behind.

The absence of teeth at my back, of that low warning growl when something moves too close, of her presence pressed into the world like it belongs there. I left her. The thought lands again, harder this time. I left her in the marsh. I knew my path was to Erebor. Knew it the moment Thorin called us to reclaim what was ours. But knowing it did not make it easier. Did not make it right. My jaw tightens. What if I never see her again?

The first Orc breaks from the rocks ahead with a snarl, and the rest follow like a flood of black iron and teeth. Too many. I don’t think. I move. Steel meets orc, my axe burying itself in the first that comes within reach, ripping free in the same motion as I turn into the next. The pass fills with the clash of metal and guttural roars. We’re outnumbered—I know it the moment the second wave pushes in. Kíli shouts somewhere to my right, Thorin’s voice cuts through the chaos ahead, Fíli moves like a blade through the press—but there are too many. Always too many. A hit lands across my shoulder, armor taking most of it, but the force drives me back a step. Another Orc lunges, and I bring my axe up just in time to split its jaw, breath coming hard, fast. The thought comes back, sharper than any blade.

What if I never see my mate again?

I snarl and shove forward, making space where there is none. Not like this. Not falling in some narrow pass with her still out there in the marsh, waiting—or not waiting, and I don’t know which is worse. An Orc swings low; I catch it on the haft and drive my shoulder into its chest, sending it sprawling. The press tightens again, they're closing in, the world narrowing to breath, steel, and the rhythm of survival. For a split second, I see it clearly—this is where it ends. Not enough room. Not enough men. Not enough time.

Then a sound cuts through it all. Low. Not Orc. Not dwarf. Not anything that belongs to this pass. A growl. It rolls through the fight like something alive, something that does not care for sides or numbers or war. Everything stutters. Even the Orcs. I feel it before I see anything—that shift, that presence, the world tilting slightly into something that makes sense again. Then she is there.

Not from the road. Not from the rocks. From above.

One moment the space in front of me is filled with enemies. The next—it is not. She drops between us with the weight of something that belongs to neither side, the impact carrying through the ground beneath my boots. The growl comes again, deeper this time, closer, and the Orcs falter—actually falter, their line breaking just enough to show the flicker of something like uncertainty.

I stare for half a heartbeat, chest heaving, adrenaline still hot in my veins.

Sávrë.

Of course she came... of course she did.

Something in my chest snaps back into place so sharply it almost hurts. I step forward without thinking, planting myself at her back, solid and unmoving, axe lifting once more as the fight reshapes itself around us.

A rough laugh pulls from my chest, low and edged with something fierce.

“Thought I told you to stay in your Marsh with your people. What are the Avari going to do without their Chieftainess?"

A rough breath leaves me, something tight in my chest finally easing as I look at her.

“Missed you...wild one.”

I mutter, low and certain, like it’s the simplest truth I’ve got. I glance back over my shoulder at the others, a sharp grin pulling at my mouth.

“Told you my Mate would come.”

The Orcs hesitate again. Good. Let them.

Because now— Now they have to come through both of us.