The morning smells of frost and steel. The sky hangs low over the encampment, gray as old stone, the kind of sky that presses down until the world feels smaller beneath it.

Banners ripple across the valley — dwarves, men, elves — uneasy alliances stitched together by fear, not trust. I stand at the ridge, watching them, my hand resting against the hilt of my sword. The leather bites against my palm.

Gandalf approaches in silence, staff tapping once against the frozen ground.

“You’ve said little since dawn,” he remarks.

“I have no words worth the breath,” I answer.

“Then perhaps,” he says quietly, “you’ll have patience for someone else’s.”

I turn toward him, voice clipped. “Say what you came to say, wizard.”

His gaze drifts past me, toward the horizon. “You should know before the battle begins — Taur Im Duinath rides beside the Greenwood.”

My jaw tightens. “An alliance, then.”

Gandalf’s eyes meet mine. “A marriage.”

The word lands like a hammer to the chest. For a moment, I hear nothing but the blood in my ears.

I take one step closer. “You lie.”

“I do not,” he replies evenly. “It was sworn before the Valar themselves. The River Queen of Taur Im Duinath is now also the Queen of the Greenwood.”

Dwalin, standing nearby, freezes mid-motion. Balin’s head lifts sharply. Even the younger dwarves pause, eyes darting between us like men caught in thunder.

The world narrows. My throat aches. I force the words through gritted teeth. “Is it because she loves him?”

Gandalf’s expression doesn’t soften. “No,” he says. “It is because she could no longer love a man who hated everything she stood for.”

The silence that follows is sharper than any blade. Dwalin mutters under his breath, voice rough with pity and anger both. “I warned you, lad. Told you pride would cost more than gold.”

I look away, but the image forms anyway — her banners beside Thranduil’s, silver and green entwined, her crown catching the same light as his. A peace I could never give her.

That image burns worse than dragon fire.

“She was mine,” I whisper, too low for most to hear — but Dwalin does. He shakes his head, quiet.

“No, lad,” he says. “You let her go.”

Below, horns begin to sound — the call to arms, the cry of war. I do not move. The frost cracks beneath my boots, the wind carrying the faint shimmer of banners that no longer belong to me.

The River flows elsewhere now.