The council chamber is loud with Men shouting over each other, papers slapping against tables, boots squelching on wet planks still swollen from the flood. Smoke clings to the rafters. Bard is trying to restore order. Thorin stands like a carved statue beside me. Dwalin, Balin, and Kíli form a wall of dwarven presence at his back.

And I stand there pretending the world feels steady beneath my boots.

It is not.

My heart hasn't felt steady since the day I let her go.

The great doors at the far end of the hall open.

And silence crashes down like a thrown hammer.

She enters.

Her hair is pure white, falling like straight river-silk down her back, catching the lantern glow in a way that makes even the broken chamber look like a king’s hall. She wears the bearing not of a roaming exile, not of the uncertain princess I once knew—

—but of a High Queen.

Rulers change rooms when they enter them. She changes the air.

And she is not alone.

Legolas walks beside her, offering his arm, and she accepts it with the ease of someone who has done so many times before. He leads her through the ruined hall with a still, solemn grace that makes my pulse thicken. His posture is protective, almost ceremonial. She moves with quiet authority, and he moves with her as though the world makes more sense when they share the same breath.

Legolas lowers his head when he seats her. Then he stands beside her chair. Close. Too close.

My chest tightens.

Kíli notices immediately. He leans toward me, whispering, “Fíli… breathe.”

Balin glances over with the gentlest pity I’ve ever seen. Dwalin mutters something coarse under his breath.

And Thorin… Thorin does not even bother to hide the way he pinches the bridge of his nose before murmuring, “Lad. Keep yourself together.”

As if that were easy.

As if my heart hadn’t just been torn open in front of kings, captains, and half of Laketown.

Because once—before crowns and war and madness— I had offered her the beginning of courtship.

A carved token shaped like a river-leaf, smoothed by my own hands, polished until it gleamed. In our customs, it wasn’t a declaration. It was a question.

And she accepted it.

She accepted it.

Her fingers brushed mine that night beneath starlight. She smiled in that soft way of hers, the way that made my ribs ache. She tied the carving into her belt for a single evening, and for that one night, I allowed myself to hope.

But Thorin intervened.

Not cruelly. Not carelessly. But firmly.

“You are my heir,” he said. “Your path is tied to Erebor. Hers… is not.”

She was destined to lead her people. To rebuild what exile had stripped away. To become what she is now— a High Queen whose presence commands silence in a shattered hall.

And I—

I was destined to remain in the Mountain. To be steady. To be dutiful. To be unbound.

So I did what a prince must do.

I let her go.

I remember her in exile—moon-pale hair loose, laughter soft as shoreline wind, her hand brushing mine when she passed me bandages in the dark. No crown, no throne… just her, close enough that I almost believed I could keep her. My chest tightens—

“Fíli.” Thorin’s warning snaps through the memory. “Steady yourself.”

Now I stand here— watching her in full regality, settled into her rightful place, with Legolas at her side like he belongs there—

Legolas’ eyes cut toward me—sharp, knowing. His posture straightens, hand resting on the hilt at his side as if to mark a boundary. No words, just a silent message: mind your distance, dwarf.

and my stomach twists so hard I have to curl my fingers into fists to hide the tremor.

She lifts her head slightly, surveying the hall. Her pure white hair drapes over her shoulder like moonlit snow. Her crown reflects softly against the lanterns.

She looks every inch the sovereign she was born to be.

And I—

I stand across the room, beside my king, choking on the truth I buried years ago.

What have I done?