Half an hour later, the company arrived under the second standing stone and found that it was indeed almost identical to the last. It had been carved with the same sheltering hollow that looked down upon the road. This one was cut deep to withstand the colder weather and might almost have been called a small cave. Touching the cold, smooth surface, Fili guessed that the stones must have been rest-markers put there by the people that once dwelt among the hills and cut the road that they walked upon.

For a moment, he considered whether there would not be other places of shelter, stone huts even, similar to the one that he and Kili had found near the lost city of Ankor. They might offer a better place to camp than a half-open stone cave, but he cast the thought aside. It would take too long to search for them. Many long years had passed since civilized folk dwelt near to the mountains of Angmar, and any memory of them would be buried under the snow.

The writing on this stone was as unintelligible as the last, and the dwarves wasted little time trying to decipher it. Kili threw down his bundle of wood and began to lay out the fire while Fili took what little meat they had and prepared it for the cook pot.

There was no need to build the shelter with the stone behind and above them, and so once she had filled the pot with clean snow and set it beside Kili to await the fire, there was nothing left for Betta to do. She looked up the hill and saw a wide ridge many yards above that looked out north and east.

Without a word to the dwarves, she began the climb, forcing her tired legs to carry her up the steep side of the hill. The last light of the dying day painted the land around them with red and orange until the hills seemed to be splashed with blood or consumed by fire, but where the light could not reach it, the shadows lay cold and black as burnt coal. It might have been beautiful if not for the feeling of despair that hung over it all.

Fili looked up as Betta left the camp, and his eyes followed her up the hill. He frowned with troubled thought, not liking that any member of his company should wander far alone, but he did not call her back. Kili watched his brother, and his thoughts were no less troubled but by a wholly different thought.

"Where do you suppose she's gone?" he asked, once Betta was out of hearing.

Fili glanced at his brother, one eyebrow raised in a very pointed look. "Where do we each go in our turn after marching all day without pause?" he asked.

Kili frowned and shook his head. "That is not what I meant. She would not climb to the top of the hill just for that," he said. "Besides, I can see her from here, standing on that ridge. This is the second time that she has stood upon a hill and looked east. What do you think she looks for?"

Fili looked up the hill then turned back to his work. "I do not know her thoughts. You might ask her, but I do not know either whether she will give you an answer."

"No. But if you asked, I think that she would answer you. Our roles have been reversed and she is far more attentive to your words than to mine."

"I think that you have let your imagination run away with your reason," Fili said.

"Perhaps." The fire was lit and Kili put the pot of snow on to melt. He then stood up and, glancing at Betta on the ridge, he turned his gaze down to the road and the hills below them. He was restless, but the snow was deep and he was too tired with hunger to force a path through it that would allow him pace out his anxious nerves.

"Sit still," Fili said. "What worries you tonight?"

"It is nothing," he answered, and then, "I hope that it is nothing."

Fili looked up and saw that his brother was truly upset. He stood up and looked around the empty hills, but the land below the road was very dark and might hide anything.

"You sense some new danger here, in this place?" he asked. "Call Betta down. We should…"

"No," Kili said, waving away his concerns, "it is no danger as you think it. No orcs or prowling wolves that I suspect. It is something else, and while it concerns our guide intimately, it is for you that I am most concerned."

"For me?" Fili smiled. He might have laughed, but his brother's face was serious, and it took something very serious to trouble Kili's light heart. "What is this remarkable danger, brother? It must be strange indeed that you should notice it and I should not." He threw a too-small handful of meat into the boiling water.

"Indeed, and I am amazed that you have not, but then, you can be very daft about certain things." Kili smiled and shook his head at his brother's puzzled expression. "I have never seen a dwarf-woman turn your eye the way that our guide has on this journey. It is a surprise to see you so attentive to one of the tall folk… although, she is not very tall, is she? And she is stronger than most of the women of her race, and more stubborn. Her hair would be quite fine, as well, if it were properly washed and braided, but it is a shame that she was not blessed with some small wisp of beard…"

"I do not understand you. It was you who encouraged me to be more trusting and considerate of her," Fili said. "That cannot be what worries you, and Betta's lack of beard is no part of it."

"But it is. Perhaps I have been wrong in this, but is it not right for me to warn my brother when I seem him setting out upon a dangerous road? Who knows you better than I do, Fili? No woman has ever turned your eye or reddened your cheeks until now. You have twice given over your will to Betta's, and that is a thing that I have never seen you do for anyone, unless it was for Thorin… or our mother."

"You are mistaken," Fili said, but he was troubled in his heart. "I have treated our guide no differently than I have treated you on this journey."

"And does that not give evidence to my point? She is not your brother. Even before the wolves attacked, you had trusted her with one share of our watch, which was strange but reasonable enough at the time; but then, when the Ranger threatened to take her south against her will, I thought that you would kill him for it. There was murder in your eyes, Fili. That is not the mark of an indifferent dwarf."

Kili saw his brother's uneasiness and added quickly, "Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean to say that you are in love, only that you are on a path more perilous than the road beneath our camp. But if I am too late, and you have fallen by misfortune into love, then I will not turn my back on you – though I cannot say the same for our uncle. I wish only for my brother's happiness, however strange may be his choice in wife."

Fili had been staring with concern and surprise throughout this speech, but now he frowned and his face was confused. It was true that he had often felt how strange were his feelings toward their guide, but not until his brother gave name to it did he realize how his actions might look to another.

"I am glad to know that you would not abandon me to my shame, Kili," he said, "and I will not argue with what you may or may not have seen. You are right that you know me better than any dwarf, and better even than I know myself sometimes. Certainly, two weeks ago, I would not have cared if our guide should disappear, so long as I had got what I needed from her quest; it is as I have told her, that my opinion of her is very much improved. Where I stand now, she is under my protection and I would grieve her loss or injury, but I am not in love. It would be a strange dwarf indeed who could love outside his own race."

"Strange, but not unheard of."

"No, not unheard of, yet even if it were a common thing, it would change nothing. Even if your fears were confirmed, and my love for Betta was fully forged, there would be no choice in it for me. What heir of Durin would marry one of the tall folk? If you wish for my happiness, then know that there would be no happiness for me if I took a human wife. You say yourself, Thorin would not accept it. I may as well tell him that I would marry an elf, for all the love he would bear me then. Even for you who are not his declared heir, he would not accept it."

Fili frowned and crouched down beside the fire again, holding out his hands for warmth. "No, I must find my happiness with a dwarf-woman, or with no woman at all. That is the only choice that I have been given."

His words were firm, but his thoughts uneasy, and he felt a pain in his chest that was both familiar and yet a surprise to him. Often, in the past few days, he had reminded himself that once her quest was over, Betta would wish to go back to her own land; until now, he had not fully accepted that it would mean her leaving him. He had grown too used to her company, and the predictable way that she contradicted him at every turn.

Kili sighed and knelt down to stir the thin stew. It smelled bland and uninviting but made his stomach grumble all the same. He was relieved to hear his brother calm his fears, but in his heart he suspected that Fili was not being honest, with his brother or with himself.

"The meal is ready, if meal you can call it," he said. "I suppose that it is my turn tonight to retrieve our guide."

Fili looked up from his thoughts, and then he stood up. "No, I shall bring her down." Kili looked up in surprise, and he smiled.

"Do not be so nervous, brother," he said. "I see now the mistakes that I have made and know why our guide has refused to let me tend her arm. She has seen what you have seen and judged as you have judged me. If I have made her uncomfortable, then that is my wrong to right. I shall guard myself better in the future and with luck, win back her confidence before our journey ends. When the time comes for it, I do not wish to part with her on bad terms."

Kili nodded. He knew all of his brother's smiles, and this one was not genuine. He did not regret voicing his suspicions but wished now that he had seen and spoken sooner. He watched Fili walk up the hill to the ridge where Betta stood and wondered if his brother was not farther along that treacherous road than even he had guessed. Kili could only hope that if Fili was not willing to gainsay their uncle, then he was not so far gone as he could not turn back. There was some consolation in the fact that Fili himself had not been aware of his actions until now, and maybe knowing that Thorin would not approve would be enough to turn his eye toward one of the many dwarf-women who fawned over the next heir of Durin's line.

Kili hoped that it was so, although he did not have much confidence in the matter. He did know that, whatever path Fili walked upon, Kili would stand by his side and nothing short of death could part them.