Heart of Embers (Thorin Oakenshield Love Story)

Chapter 11

Dis breezed into her room at some kind of ungodly hour of the morning, ripping open her curtains and chirping

"Wake up! Time for breakfast and the tour I promised you."

Arien groaned. "What time is it?"

"Time to get up," Dis answered brightly. She leaned in so her face was mere centimetres from Arien's. "Don't tell me the mysterious elf-girl from the west likes to sleep in."

Arien snorted. Clearly Dis didn't understand how most people liked to be woken up. Or have a sense of personal space.

"What is wrong with you?" she muttered as she sat up and rubbed her eyes.

"Oh, you're just like Frerin," Dis groused as she pulled open Arien's wardrobe and chucked a green shirt and brown trousers onto the bed. "He once threatened to gut me if I woke him up early again."

Arien couldn't resist smiling. "And did you?"

"Of course." Dis added a pair of socks to the pile of clothes. They were odd. "He promised to wallop me in the training room later. But it turns out, he was the one lying on the floor with a bump the size of a tennis ball on his head. All I'll say is that Thror was not happy."

The Princess came and sat down on the bed next to her. "You should see what Thorin does to the people who annoy him."

"I don't think I want to, thanks. He already hates me."

"Believe me," said Dis, grinning. "If Thorin hated you, you'd be dead already."

And this was the person Dis had teased?

"Now," Dis said, standing up and walking to the door. "Get those clothes on and meet me in the dining hall. And if you can't find it, then you really need a tour."

***

"I never realised just how big this place was," Arien said as she and Dis made their way to the treasury.

The Princess had shown her the entrance to the throne room, saying it was disrespectful to enter it fully, after they'd gone to the royal's quarters. She'd been amazed at the sheer splendour of those rooms, the tapestries hanging from the walls, the high, beautifully decorated windows, and the carved dwarvish runes on the walls.

Dis had then shown her the healer's halls, where all dwarves skilled at healing lived, and where you went if you were ill or injured. The pleasant smell of herbs and medicines wended through the rooms in those halls.

"It's one mile up and down and twenty miles wide at ground level," Dis told her in response to her comment.

"Really? That's... huge."

Dis nodded, then quietly touched her shoulder and pointed to the room below them.

Arien let out a gasp of amazement.

The room was huge, the ceiling incredibly high, pillars stretching out at equal intervals, but that wasn't what caught her eye.

It was the stacks and stacks of gold and jewels, silver and ornate necklaces, goblets and crowns and trinkets that took up the whole room. The treasure hoard of Erebor.

"This... this is all Thror's?" she stammered.

"Unfortunately," Dis muttered.

"What do you mean?"

"Only that Thror is... not himself. He hardly spends any time away from the gold."

"But he was..."

"It doesn't matter," Dis said, tossing her hair behind her shoulder. "Now it's time for the smithy and the mines and the forges."