The tavern at Laketown is cramped, smoke-thick, loud enough to rattle the beams. I sit with the Company at a long, battered table, a dwarrowdam at my side. Her head rests lightly on my shoulder, my arm wrapped around her out of courtesy more than comfort.

She is pleasant company. Warm. Kind. A distraction from the void I carved into myself decades ago.

Balin knows this. Dwalin knows it even better. The others think nothing of it.

Gandalf told me nothing of what he planned tonight— only that he wished me to meet a “potential ally,” someone whose realm might support our cause.

My expectations were low.

The door swings open.

Gandalf enters first, shaking sleet from his cloak, staff tapping on the floorboards. His smile is wide, confident, unaware of the ruin he is about to unleash.

“Thorin Oakenshield,” Gandalf announces, “I present to you Eärwa Singollo, High Queen of the Teleri, Sovereign of Taur Im Duinath.”

And then—

She steps inside.

Moon-silk catches the lantern glow—silver dress drifting like quiet water. Green moss-leaf embroidery glimmers across the bodice. Her long white hair falls freely down her back. Her birch crown breathes faintly, its living branches curling like gentled wind.

She does not belong in this smoky tavern. She belongs somewhere carved of moonlight and river-stone.

My breath stops.

I do not stand. I do not speak.

I simply freeze, my arm tightening around the dwarrowdam before I even realize it.

Her gaze sweeps the room.

Calm. Regal. Unbreakable.

Until it lands on me.

My heart slams so hard against my ribs I nearly drop the tankard in my free hand.

Balin inhales sharply. Dwalin mutters a curse so low only the two of us hear.

The dwarrowdam beside me stiffens. Slowly, painfully, she follows my line of sight.

Her face pales. She tries to pull subtly from my arm.

I cannot move. I cannot breathe.

“And one who comes not as an exile, but as a ruler restored. Her realm stands strong, her armies loyal, and she brings the offer of counsel and aid in your efforts to reclaim Erebor.”

He seems pleased with himself—as if he has accomplished something diplomatic, useful, wise.

He has no idea what he has stepped into.

She does not look like someone who once wandered the world alone.

She looks like a Queen who rebuilt herself from ash and tide.

And she has come with power behind her. An army. A realm. Authority greater than he or I ever possessed in our darkest days.

My breath dies in my chest.

The dwarrowdam beside me stiffens as she sees what I see.

Balin’s eyes go wide with old grief. Dwalin mutters, “Ah, hells…” The Company falls silent, unaware of the history but aware of the tension.

Gandalf, oblivious to the emotional catastrophe he has unleashed, continues brightly:

“I thought it wise for the two of you to meet. A sovereign restored and a sovereign yet to reclaim his home. Her aid may be… invaluable.”

He couldn’t have known. He didn’t know.

But as her gaze finds mine— as moonsilk and white hair and memory hit me like a hammer—

I know:

This is the one person I never truly healed from. And she has walked in while my arm is around someone who meant nothing at all.

Gandalf thinks he has brought together two strangers. Two sovereigns displaced from their homelands. Two leaders with aligned goals.

He does not realize he has just reopened a wound I never stopped bleeding from.

My voice fails me.

Her white hair frames her face like a memory I have tried to bury for half my life. The moonsilk dress makes her look like the night I lost her— the night pride and pain pulled us apart beyond repair.

She is real. And looking at me.

With my arm wrapped around another.

Gandalf, oblivious, claps his hands together.

“Wonderful! Now, let’s all sit and—”

He freezes.

Because he sees my face.