The way he said it— SneakyOne —was not a name. It was a title. A sacred thing.

Frodo looked down at his empty left hand—where Gollum’s fingertip had brushed his skin—and saw a single, fading scale of cold.

Then, as suddenly as a snuffed candle, Gollum’s demeanor changed. He cowered, whimpering. “But we can help. Yes, precious. Show you the secret way into the Black Land. Past the gates. Past the Eye. Gollum knows paths that were old when Sauron was a mewling spirit.”

And in that moment of hesitation, Frodo understood the true horror of his burden. Not the dark lords or the armies—but this. Becoming someone who would bargain with a starved, mad creature because the Ring made you believe you were the clever one.

Gollum’s face split into a grin so wide it looked like a wound.

Gollum.

“No,” Frodo whispered, more to himself than to Gollum. “I’m not like you.”

The creature didn’t attack. He crawled closer on hands and feet, his long fingers twitching and scraping over the stones. His head cocked, then snapped sideways at a grotesque angle.

“Sneaky… sneaky little hobbitses.”

SneakyOne.

Then a whisper, wet and chittering, sliced through the silence.

“No, Sam,” he said softly. “But we have to keep walking.”

The Shire was dark, not with the wholesome black of a summer night, but with the oily, creeping gloom that had bled out of Mordor. Frodo felt the weight of the Ring like a cold, contracting fist around his soul. Sam was asleep, his breathing a soft, trustworthy rhythm against a mossy root.