Night lay quiet over the camp, the fire crackling low as the Company settled into their bedrolls. Kíli, ever restless, lay on his stomach poking the embers with a stick.

“Has anyone,” he asked suddenly, “ever been in love?”

A few dwarves groaned. A few laughed. But something in the question struck deep—too deep.

My breath caught before I could hide it.

I meant to say nothing. I have meant to say nothing for over a century.

But silence tightens like a vise around grief long buried, and the fire flickers, and suddenly the weight of years presses too hard.

“Yes,” I hear myself say.

Every head turns.

Kíli blinks in astonishment. “You, Uncle?”

I stare into the flames, because I cannot bear their faces—not for this. My voice is low, roughened by something older than exile.

“She was… Teleri,” I begin, the name of her people almost too painful to speak. “A princess. Cynthia Singollo, daughter of Olwë.”

Balin sits upright. The air shifts.

I swallow hard. I have not spoken her name aloud since before Erebor fell.

“She settled me,” I say quietly. “In ways I did not understand then. In ways I still do not understand. She made the world… hush.” My hand tightens around a stone near my knee. “I was young, and too proud, and she saw through all of it. I did not know I could be softened until she looked at me.”

A brittle laugh escapes me. Not amusement—pain.

“I was to keep my distance. Thráin forbade it outright. Thrór warned me of folly. But I—” My voice breaks. “I would have defied them both. For her. Gladly.”

The fire pops, sending sparks upward like dying stars.

“She was promised to another.. Fëanáro Finwion,” I force out, “but I did not care. Not then. Not when she spoke to me of the sea. Not when she laughed. Not when she… when she made me feel as though the Mountain’s weight was not mine alone.”

My throat tightens. The world blurs.

Kíli whispers, “What happened?”

I close my eyes I feel the tears in the back of my throat

“The Kinslaying,” I breathe. “Her own Kin...the Ñoldorin… they took her from the living. From me. Fëanor.. her own betrothed..” A tremor runs through me—not rage, not grief, but the terrible mix of both. “That is why I can scarcely look upon Elves without pain. They remind me of what I lost—of who I lost.”

Silence swallows the camp. Even the fire seems to hush.

“I loved her,” I say, the truth finally free. “More than crown, more than duty. More than my own family would ever understand. And I buried that love with her. It has never left me.”

Bilbo’s face softens “Oh… Thorin,” he murmurs, voice small but sincere. “I’m terribly sorry. Losing someone like that—someone you loved so dearly—must have been… unbearable.”

A long moment passes.

Then Gandalf, who has been quiet at the edge of the fire, exhales a slow, thoughtful plume of smoke.

“Thorin,” he says softly, “you spoke her name truly? Cynthia Singollo?”

I look up sharply. The wizard’s eyes glimmer with something I cannot read.

“Yes,” I answer, confusion and ache twisting together. “Why?”

Gandalf leans forward, staff resting across his knees.

“She is not dead, Thorin Oakenshield.”

My breath stops.

He continues gently, as though unveiling something fragile:

“She survived the Kinslaying. She endured exile. And she has risen far beyond what her sorrow foretold.”

The ground tilts. My heart stumbles.

“No,” I whisper. “No… she—she fell. She—”

Gandalf shakes his head.

“She lives. She is the High Queen of the Teleri now—the Sovereign of Taur Im Duinath. The Rivers answer her name.” A faint smile touches his lips. “She breathes still, Thorin. The Sea did not surrender her to death.”

My world—built on grief, shaped by loss—shifts beneath me.

She is alive.

And the firelight trembles as if the earth itself reels with me. My voice roughens as the firelight shifts.

“…If she lives, as you say, Gandalf… then I must see her.”

I look around the circle, meeting each gaze with quiet resolve.

“Company of Durin's Folk, my friends … would you follow me to Taur Im Duinath? I can march no further unless I know the truth with my own eyes.”