The table is rough-hewn, scarred by years of use, and heavy enough that it does not so much as creak beneath Beorn’s weight as he moves around it. He pours what looks like milk into thick wooden cups, setting them down with a force that makes the surface tremble.

I do not drink it.

Not yet.

Beorn speaks as he pours—of Azog, of the fall of his kin, of bindings and iron and fire. He does not soften the words. He does not dress them. He speaks plainly, as one who survived does.

Silence holds the room when he finishes.

It is Bilbo who breaks it, small hands wrapped around his cup, voice careful. “How many skin-changers are there?” he asks. “I mean—how many of your kind?”

Beorn pauses.

The room seems to wait with him.

“There used to be many,” he says at last. “Now there are only two.”

Bilbo blinks. “Two?”

My attention sharpens.

Two.

Beorn sets the jug aside and finally looks at us properly. “Myself,” he says. “And my daughter.”

Beorn does not rush on. He lets the words settle, lets us sit with them.

“She was not born gentle,” he continues at last. “Nor cruel. She was born aware.”

He reaches for his cup again, but does not drink. “She learned the forest before she learned speech. Learned hunger before comfort. Learned when to stay still and when to move so the world did not see her coming.”

His gaze is distant now—not softened, but sharpened by memory.

“I did not teach her to survive,” Beorn says. “I taught her to choose how.”

The word lands heavier than any blow.

His daughter.

My gaze lifts before I can stop it. “Another bear?” I ask, the question blunt, unadorned. If she exists, I need to understand what she is.

Beorn’s mouth curves—not into a smile, but something close to pride. “No,” he says. “She is a great Dire Wolf.”

The word great is not decorative.

A Dire Wolf.

The Company shifts. I hear a quiet curse from somewhere down the table. Dire Wolves are not creatures of comfort or control. They are hunters. They are pack-born. They are ancient.. powerful.

Beorn continues, unbothered by our reaction.

“We were kept for entertainment,” he says, voice even. “Bound. Broken. Worked until most of our kind forgot what they were.” His hand tightens briefly around the rim of his cup. “Only two of us broke our bindings.”

Beorn’s jaw tightens. That word does not sit easily in his mouth.

“Most learned to endure them,” he says. “Learned to live smaller. Learned to forget the feel of their own strength.”

His fingers curl once, slow and deliberate. “She did not forget.”

The room feels smaller somehow.

“She watched,” Beorn says. “Listened. Counted. And when she moved, she did so with purpose.”

He looks up then, eyes hard.

“That is the difference between those who survive… and those who remain.”

I do not ask who.

He answers anyway.

“My daughter broke hers first.”

Something cold settles in my chest.

“She was younger,” Beorn goes on. “Smaller. But she learned faster than the rest. Learned when to wait. When to strike.”

Younger.

The word does not comfort me.

Strength earned young is rarely gentle in age. Stone does not shape itself without pressure—and neither does the wild.

I imagine a creature that does not rush battle, but waits for it. That does not roar to be known, but learns the shape of silence instead.

My grip tightens around the table’s edge.

A Dire Wolf raised to think.

I do not know why the thought unsettles me more than claws or teeth ever could.

Beorn does not look at me as he speaks. He does not need to.

“She did not run,” he says. “She fought.”

Silence presses in around the table.

At last, one of the company, Dwalin clears his throat. “Will we meet her?”

Beorn’s gaze lifts then, sharp as a drawn blade. “She is hunting.”

That is all he says at first.

Then, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world, he adds, “When she is finished, you will know her when you see her---"

"---Ēostlīc is her name."

The words settle, heavy and final.

I look down at the untouched cup before me.

Two skin-changers left in this world.

And one of them is not a bear.