The horses grow uneasy before I do.

Their ears pin back, hooves scraping at the moss-soft earth as the trees shift—too quiet, too watchful. Sunlight does not fall here; it filters like silver smoke, cold and thin, brushing the skin like a warning.

I know these woods.

I know them far better than I want to.

Gandalf reins in at the tree line, staff braced across his saddle. “We wait here,” he announces. “She will send someone.”

My stomach drops.

“She?” Fíli asks. “Who’s ‘she’?”

Kíli grins. “An elf? A witch? A forest hermit?”

I grit my teeth. “Turn us around.”

Gandalf glances at me over his shoulder—far too mildly. “We have business within these borders. The path ahead belongs to her. We do not enter uninvited.”

My pulse spikes. “Then we go elsewhere.”

“No,” Gandalf says.

It is a single word. It lands like a stone.

Ori shifts nervously. “Mister Gandalf… whose woods are these?”

Gandalf almost answers. Almost.

But I see the flicker in his eye. He knows exactly what he is doing.

I dismount, boots hitting the earth harder than intended. “We will not linger here. This is Teleri territory, and I will not risk my Company by—”

“Your Company?” Bofur snorts. “Thought you hated elves.”

“I do not hate—” I cut myself off. “We do not mix. That is enough.”

“That doesn’t answer who ‘she’ is,” Kíli says.

I ignore him.

Gandalf clears his throat. “These lands belong to the Lady of the Living Rivers. The High Princess—”

“Queen,” I bite out before I can stop myself. “She is Queen now.”

The Company turns so fast it is a miracle no one topples from a saddle.

Kíli’s eyes go wide. “Uncle… how do you know that?” I grit my teeth. “We do not need Teleri lands—”

He looks at me over his shoulder. “You fear her.”

The words hit like an axe haft in my ribs.

Behind us, the Company murmurs. Kíli leans to Fíli, whispering, “Who is she?” I ignore them.

“I fear no elf,” I growl.

Gandalf hums. “No. Not an elf. But perhaps a memory.”

My hands tighten on the reins.

I stare into the treeline—cold, pale light flickering like memory.

A white braid. A birch circlet. Silverduin water clinging to eyelashes as she laughed, once, long before everything fell apart. Of pale hair falling like moonlit silk.

“Because I knew her,” I say quietly. “A long time ago.”

Fíli raises his brows. “Knew her how?”

“Poorly,” I snap. “Now mount up—we ride south around the border. I will not be here when her patrol arrives.”

But Gandalf only sighs, maddeningly patient. “Thorin, she offered safe passage.”

“Did she,” I mutter.

“She did,” he repeats. “And she is expecting us.”

Cold moves beneath my ribs.

Expecting us.

Of all the roads. All the forests. All the days left in this cursed journey.

“What happened between you two?” Ori asks carefully.

“Nothing,” I say too fast.

Kíli smirks. “So something.”

“Enough,” I growl.

The wind shifts.

The trees stir.

And then— a soft ripple runs through the leaves, silver-white as moonlit water.

Hoofbeats. Measured. Graceful. Approaching.

My throat tightens.

I know that sound.

Gandalf straightens in his saddle. “She approachs.”

I swallow hard and force my shoulders square.

I can face dragons. I can face exile. I can face the ruin of my home.

But her?

After all these years?

After the way we ended?

Mahal help me.

My heart lurches painfully against my ribs.

No. Not now. Not like this.

I stare at the treeline ahead, where sunlight parts as if in deference. My pulse thunders in my throat.

“I am not ready to face her,” I breathe, too low for the others—yet Gandalf hears.

“Few ever are,” he murmurs.

The birches sway, parting like a curtain of living silver as she enters the glade atop her white cow elk. Moon-silver armor catches the light—etched with mithril that shimmers like water over stone. A white cloak flows behind her, clasped at the shoulder with a sigil of a crescent moon above two entwined rivers.

Her hair falls loose—white as fresh snowfall—glowing against the living birch crown upon her brow.

Every motion she makes is quiet power.

And I… I forget how to breathe.