The council murmurs around me, but the words barely reach my ears. Elrond speaks of the Ring, the growing shadow, alliances—but my thoughts drift like ash. The Company stands behind me, oddly quiet. I feel Kíli’s eyes on my back more than I hear anything spoken.

Then the light changes.

A hush moves through the elves, subtle but sharp. Heads turn toward the archway, and something in my chest goes tight before I even understand why.

I look.

She steps into the courtyard.

Twenty years vanish in a single breath. Her moon-pale hair white as new fallen snow falls loose down her back, her birch circlet catching the morning sun. Her gown moves like quiet water, silver and dark moss green embroidered leaves. She walks with the same calm grace I once knew at arm’s length—closer than any crown ever came to me.

My heart stumbles hard against my ribs.

I remember the last night I saw her. I remember choosing duty over her—telling myself a dwarven king could not take an elven queen, that my people would bear the shame of it. I convinced myself it was wisdom. Strength. Necessity.

But as she walks into the council now, radiant and sovereign, I know the truth:

There was no wisdom in letting her go. Only fear.

Then he appears beside her.

Galdor of the Havens. Teleri. Tall, graceful, too near her by half a step. He inclines his head toward her, speaking low, his sleeve brushing her arm as though he has any right.

Heat flares in my chest—sharp and sudden. But beneath it spreads something worse: the realization that if she turns to another, it will be because I taught her that I would not stand with her.

“Uncle…?” Kíli whispers behind me.

I do not answer. My hands grip the chair. My jaw locks. My breath shortens as Galdor leans closer to her, as if speaking something meant only for her ear.

But I am looking only at him. At her. At the span of space between them that should have belonged to me and does not.

I told myself I would have been shamed to stand at her side. But the true shame is this: being the one who let her walk away.

If she chooses him, it will not be because he is elf and I am dwarf. It will be because when it mattered, he would stand at her side and I stepped away.

“Thorin,” Balin murmurs behind me, tone cautious. “Lad… breathe.”

Before I know it, I’m standing. The scrape of my chair on stone cuts the courtyard in half. Every gaze swings to me—elves, men, hobbit, wizard.

Galdor turns, mildly confused, still far too close to her.

My voice leaves me before I can temper it, low and rough with twenty years of regret:

“Step away from her.”

Silence falls like a dropped blade. The Company stiffens. Even Elrond stills.

I am not afraid of being seen beside her.

I am afraid of being remembered as the king who watched from a distance while someone else stood where he should have been.

Galdor blinks once but does not move. He shifts a little closer—perhaps without thought, perhaps with it—and his hand hovers near her sleeve again.

My vision narrows to a single point.

I take a step forward, voice dropping into something dark, something I have held back for two decades:

“Do not touch her.”

The words crack through the air, sharp as an axe on stone.

Gasps ripple through the gathered elves. Dwalin shifts his grip on his axe, just in case. Balin exhales something like a prayer. Kíli stares at me as if I have just torn open my own chest.

She stands across the courtyard, tall and pale, her gaze on me—steady, unreadable, a memory made real again. I do not know what she feels. I do not assume it.

But for the first time in twenty years, I know exactly who I am:

Not a king ashamed of loving her.

A king ashamed that he ever pretended he did not.