The air reeks of smoke and iron. Screams rise and die beneath the clash of steel. I move through it like a ghost, the weight of my sword an extension of my wrath—cold, disciplined, merciless.

The mountain looms ahead, a wound torn open in the world. And there—through the blinding snow and cinders—I see her. You.

Queen of Taur Im Duinath. Once my equal. Once my ruin.

Your banner cuts through the chaos, silver thread glinting against the storm. You fight with the same terrible grace I remember from the courts of moonlit rivers—swift, silent, a whisper before the strike. Then—an arrow, black-fletched, cutting through the mist.

You fall.

The noise around me dies. I do not think. I move.

The world narrows to the sound of boots in the mud, the fading rhythm of your breath. I drop to one knee beside you, blood painting the snow where your hand had been.

“Stay with me,” I say, but it comes out as command, not plea. I press my palm to the wound, fury warring with something far more dangerous—fear.

Your eyes find mine through the smoke. No accusation. Only the quiet knowledge of every word I left unsaid, every lie I told myself about what we were.

“Still so proud,” you whisper, the faintest curve of a smile. “Even when you bleed.”

The clash of steel and the shriek of war echo against the black stone of Erebor’s slopes. Fires bloom along the ridge where the Dwarves once stood; smoke coils skyward like a living thing.

I lift you into my arms, your blood warm against the cold armor pressed to my chest. Behind us, the mountain glows with warfire—not dragon’s flame this time, but the ruin of Men, Elves, and Dwarves alike.

“Do not die here,” I whisper, though my voice sounds foreign even to me. It’s not a command anymore, but something perilously close to prayer. “Not in this cursed valley. Not where I cannot follow.”

The ground trembles as siege engines strike again. I turn from the burning slope, holding you closer as I carry you through the chaos. And for the first time in an age, I do not look back—not at the mountain, nor at the past I set ablaze with my own hands.