They had all lost their minds the moment she arrived.

One breath and the air in his halls turned sweet with it. One step and the marble groaned beneath her feet like it knew she did not belong. She was not of this world, and yet she fit too well, like a memory the land itself had forgotten.

It had begun the way all madness does—with awe. She appeared near the river’s bend, wrapped in clothes not woven by elven hands, eyes wide and stunned like a creature torn from its den. The guards had brought her in with soft voices and low bows, thinking her perhaps a Maia, or something sent by the Valar themselves.

And for a time, Thranduil had been curious. Reserved. Measured in the way only an ancient king could be. He had let her speak. He had listened. He had watched.

And then the others began to notice.

Elves—noble, foolish, reckless—began to court her like moths around flame. They brought flowers to her chambers. Sang beneath her windows. Argued softly in the corners of feasts about whose house she smiled at first. Even his steward began brushing his hair more often, suddenly fond of passing her in the corridors with scrolls he did not need to carry.

And that would not do.

She didn’t know what her presence stirred in them—how she tilted the gravity of everything. She hadn’t seen the way centuries-old loyalties frayed just from a glance. But he had.

So he had acted.

Gently, of course. Elegantly. With the firm velvet of command.

She now resided in the royal wing. Her room overlooked the garden—protected, silent. The guards did not answer questions about her. The door only opened when he allowed it. And she, sweetly bewildered, had not resisted. Not fully.

He made sure she wanted for nothing: silk robes of his court, meals chosen to suit her odd palate, trinkets from every corner of the realm. And though she occasionally cast him that uncertain look—the one that suggested she knew—she never demanded to leave.

Now she sat beside him in the study, tucked against the long velvet cushions of the divan while firelight painted golden arcs across the floor. She read from one of the books he’d given her, legs curled up, utterly unaware of how many letters of courtship he’d intercepted that week. The parchment still sat in his desk drawer, sealed in wax and drenched in perfume, as if that could reach her before he did.

It was laughable.

As if they thought he would share her.

He watched her, pretending to read. The book in his hands had not been turned in twenty minutes.

She did not fidget. That was something he admired. She was composed, always—though he could feel when her thoughts drifted elsewhere. He did not like when her eyes wandered to the windows. When she seemed to long.

“You are restless,” he murmured, closing his book slowly, the words sliding like wine over the edge of his tongue.