The forges are still awake when the rest of Erebor sleeps.

I should not be here.

That is the first thought that comes to me as I stand in the shadowed archway, the great halls behind me quiet, the Mountain breathing low and deep. Kings do not wander alone at this hour. Husbands should be in their beds. I tell myself I came to check the night watch, to see that the fires were banked properly, that the Mountain rests as it should.

But I know why my feet carried me here.

Light spills from the forge chamber ahead—gold and red, alive. The ring of metal on metal echoes softly, followed by a sound I have not heard in longer than I care to admit.

Her laughter.

It stops me where I stand.

I do not step forward. I do not announce myself. I remain still, watching through the heat-haze and shadow as though this moment might vanish if I disturb it.

Ríkdâsha stands near the anvil, sleeves pushed back, copper-dark hair bound away from her face. The firelight loves her. It traces the lines of her arms, catches on the runes inked at her temple, glints against the metal she works as if the forge itself recognizes her.

Dwalin stands with her.

He is not close enough to touch. He never would be. He leans against a stone pillar, arms crossed, listening as she speaks—no, not speaks. She gestures. Explains. Her hands move with practiced certainty, the language of craft and heat and weight.

He smiles.

It is not a broad thing. Just the slight lift at the corner of his mouth. Familiar. Earned.

Something tightens in my chest, sharp and instinctive, and the word that rises unbidden is an ugly one.

My Wife.

The thought startles me with its ferocity, and just as quickly another follows, colder and far more dangerous.

When was the last time I stood with her like that?

Not as King. Not as Uzbad. But as the man who once watched her work and felt content simply to be near her.

I search my memory and find only fragments—meetings, councils, petitions, stone and gold and blood. I remember ruling. I remember reclaiming.

I do not remember the last night I came to bed before she was already asleep.

The jealousy fades into something heavier, something earned.

Guilt.

I see it now with brutal clarity: how she found her way back to the forges, how she stopped telling me where she would be because I had stopped asking. How silence settled between us not from anger, but from neglect.

She looks alive here.

Not lonely. Not waiting.

Alive.

The panic comes then, sudden and cold, a fissure splitting the stone beneath my feet.

I see it—an imagined future unfolding before me with terrifying ease. A Queen who does not need me. A woman who has learned to fill the empty spaces I left behind. A life that continues whether I stand in it or not.

Dwalin says something low. She turns her head, the corner of her mouth lifting again, and the sight of it steals the breath from my lungs.

I step forward.

My boot scuffs against stone.

Both of them look up.

Dwalin sees me first. His posture straightens instantly, respect snapping into place, but there is no guilt in him. No shame. Only awareness.

“Dwalin,” I say, my voice steady despite the storm inside my chest. “Leave us.”

He hesitates only a moment. His gaze flicks to her—not for permission, not for reassurance, simply acknowledgment. Then he bows his head and turns away, his steps echoing until he is gone.

The forge feels too quiet without him.

She does not speak.

She waits.

I move closer, stopping a respectful distance away, the heat of the forge warming my skin as though the Mountain itself bears witness.

“When did you stop coming to bed?” I ask quietly.

The words surprise me even as I speak them. They are not accusation. They are not command.

They are confession.

“When did you stop telling me you were down here?”

I look at her then—really look at her—and the truth settles with crushing weight.

It was not that she left me.

It is that I stopped seeing her.

The forges burn on.

And for the first time since Erebor was reclaimed, I am afraid—not of losing my kingdom, but of losing my Queen.