Dwalin stood in my doorway like a man approaching a cliff’s edge, shoulders tense beneath worn leather, brows drawn low in a way I had not seen since the Battle of Azanulbizar. Something in his silence stiffened the air.
“Out with it,” I said, setting aside the ledger. “You look as if you’re about to face a cave troll.”
He exhaled sharply. “It’s… about her.”
The world thinned to a single point.
Her.
Fifty years since I last saw you—fifty years since your white hair vanished into the birches of Taur Im Duinath while I stood rooted, a king carved from regret.
“What of her?” I asked, my voice low.
Dwalin hesitated—Dwalin hesitated—before finally speaking the blow that cracked something ancient in my chest:
“She’s to wed the High King.”
My breath turned cold.
“Which king.”
“Gil-galad,” he said quietly. “There’s talk he’s been courting her. Formal visits. Gifts exchanged. Songs sung in her name. They’re preparing a ceremony. Soon.”
For a heartbeat, I heard nothing—not the forges below, not the wind through stone. Only the memory of your voice, your touch, your absence.
Gil-galad. You. A wedding.
No.
I didn’t remember crossing the room. Or pulling Orcrist from its place. Only the cold steel in my hand and the way my pulse hammered like a forge out of rhythm.
“Prepare my ram,” I ordered. “Now.”
“Thorin,” Dwalin protested, “you cannot simply storm into her realm—”
“I will not stand idle,” I snapped, fastening my cloak at my throat, “while another king lays claim where I never should have let go.”
Dwalin’s jaw tightened. “And what will you say to her?”
I paused only long enough to admit the truth:
“I do not know.”
But I knew this much: I would not let fifty years of silence be the final word between us.
I rode hard from Erebor, wind tearing at my cloak, gravel scattering beneath the ram’s hooves. The land blurred—mountains, hills, forest—none strong enough to slow me. Dusk darkened to night. Lanterns flickered awake in far-off homesteads. Still I rode.
Toward you.
Toward the one realm I had sworn never to tread again.
Taur Im Duinath.
The Living Rivers.
Your kingdom of silver fog and birch crowned paths.
The forest felt me long before I reached it. The air shifted—thick, shimmering, threaded with river-light. Branches bowed inward as if considering me. The Moonwell’s power moved through the earth like a warning.
I dismounted, boots sinking into moss soft as memory. My ram pawed the ground uneasily, the forest’s breath coiling around us like mist.
I stepped forward.
The realm stepped forward with me.
Roots curled subtly over the path. Leaves rustled without wind. Silver fog drifted low across the earth, gathering in slow spirals as though summoned.
“You will not bar my way,” I murmured, though even I felt the uncertainty in my chest.
Another step.
And then I felt it— not threat, not magic—
you.
The fog parted in a soft exhale, unveiling a lone figure standing among the pale birches.
You emerged with the quiet gravity of moonrise.
Your hair fell in long white curls, haloed in faint silver—loose, unbound, untouched by time. A living crown of birch rested lightly upon your brow, its leaves stirring though the air lay still. You wore a gown of silver and dark moss green, the colors of river-shadow and starlight, its fabric whispering over the forest floor with every measured step.
There was no spear in your hand. No weapon at your side. You did not need them.
Your presence alone was enough to command an entire realm.
The birches seemed to bow around you, their pale trunks gleaming. The fog curled away from your feet. The river behind you whispered, as if greeting its sovereign.
You stopped at the boundary where light and mist met, tall and still and regal. Seven feet of moon-born power. Fifty years of distance and unsaid words condensed into the shape of one woman.
I halted as though struck.
“…Cynthia.”
Your eyes held mine across the silvered space—unreadable, ancient, steady. Not anger. Not welcome. Something deeper. Something I had no name for.
My hand tightened around Orcrist.