Chapter Text
On the days before feasts in Tirion, it has long been customary for my cousins to gather in my family’s gardens. The Fëanorians live just beyond the bounds of the city, since my half-uncle refuses always to be contained and sometimes to be civil. Grandfather Finwë and Grandmother Indis keep chambers for them in the palace, hopeful that they will use them, but to these they rarely go.
Of late, our garden meetings have been rare too. Unrest flourishes among our family like vines: some of us would pull it out by the roots if we could; others seem intent on cultivating it.
I am of the former lot, of course, and thus relief courses over me when I see my two eldest half-cousins enter the gate as the twilight mingling of Laurelin and Telperion sets in.
They are talking in low voices, and when I leap up to welcome them, they seem surprised.
“Findekáno!” Maitimo is terribly grand today—silver drips from his ears and neck, his robes are the color of dark wine, darker than his hair, and his fingers glitter with rings that pinch mine when I clasp his hand.
“We thought to find this place deserted,” Makalaurë says, laying a hand on my shoulder in greeting. “And everyone gone in.” He wears the same colors as his brother, and they should suit his pallor and dark hair all the better, but he is a lesser star in Maitimo’s light.
We all are.
I say, “It is early, yet.”
Maitimo is chewing his lip. He only does this when he is worried, and my joy at seeing them fades somewhat. “Yes,” he answers. “I suppose it is.”
“Then sit and talk,” I suggest. I, for one, am not eager to sit around the long tables and pick over meats and fruits that, while delicious, sit like lead in an uneasy stomach.
The vines of unrest are inescapable.
They exchange one of those famed Fëanorian glances, by which they seem to communicate wordlessly yet eloquently, and sit by either side of me on the long stone bench.
“You have braided gold into your hair,” Makalaurë observes, inspecting one plait with his long fingers. Maitimo is busy fretting with his rings.
I ask, “Do you like it?”
“This is why Tyelko teases you,” Makalaurë tells me, amusement dancing in his eyes. “You are among the eldest of our cousins, yet you ask whether we like your appearance.”
I feel myself blushing deeply, and that of course makes both Makalaurë and Maitimo laugh. It sounds genuine, and my heart warms a little from its earlier chill.
“I only ask the two of you. I care not at all for Tyelko’s opinion.”
Makalaurë chuckles. “What about Findaráto’s?”
“Perhaps.”
“Atarinkë will give you his opinion whether you want it or not,” Maitimo says. “His appearance consumes him. He stole my favorite earrings last week and has not returned them.”
“And you mind,” I jest, “Though your appearance does not consume you?”
His eyes are still silver, even in competition with Telperion. “I only take what is mine.”
“And sometimes, not even that,” Makalaurë observes, so quietly I barely make out the words. Beside me, Maitimo stiffens.
He rises, as abrupt as one so graceful can be. “Let us go in,” he says. “We should not be late.”
Arafinwë, Ëarwen, and my golden-haired cousins are all ringed round Finwë and Indis. My father and mother, my brothers and sister—they are here too.
I see the remaining five Fëanorians, but I do not see Aunt Nerdanel.
Nor do I see my uncle.
The feast begins without him.
My—our—grandfather’s tables are arranged for dining so that the vast center of his throne-room is left open. I remember dances, year in and year out, where breathless maidens whirled in my arms, happy to have a prince for a partner even if he was not their first choice.
(Maitimo, of course, was the first choice. After charming Findaráto, and smooth-voiced Makalaurë, I was lucky to be a distant fourth.)
Grandfather Finwë still holds dances, but I pray there will not be one tonight. The wine is too sweet; it swells my throat. I am seated between Carnistir, who makes no conversation, and my sister, who makes too much. I am very fond of Írissë, despite her occasional taunts, but every jibe and jest seems too sharp tonight. Let there be no dancing—the very revelry of it would tempt our fate.
Fate?
I swallow the rest of my wine.
I am not Makalaurë. If I am remembered in our people’s songs, I know not for what it will be. All my own playing is composed of his work or someone else’s, save for the rhymes that tell of bright homes and smiling hopes. Makalaurë sings of tragedy and triumph; I have not the talent—if talent, indeed, it is.
We do not dance, but we throng and gather between the tables, many with a goblet still in hand. Írissë darts off to find Tyelko, since they have been fast friends almost since her birth. Turukáno’s dark head is bent close to Findaráto’s light one; they seem to be examining something, likely a piece of jewelry or a scrap of parchment.
As ever, I seek out Maitimo, but before I can speak to him, the door of the hall flies open.
It is Fëanáro. He wears robes as red as a wound, and there is a naked sword in his hand.
All the assembled draw back against the walls, the edges of the tables. It is like Fëanáro has cut himself a path without even trying.
Or perhaps he is always trying.
“My son,” Grandfather Finwë says, rising from the seat he held until now. There is an expression on his fair face that I belatedly recognize as fear. “How come you here, late and—”
“Uninvited?” Fëanáro’s face gleams like a white gem, each facet sharp and fractured. “Pray continue your celebrations, for it seems clear to me that my absence denies you no contentment.”
Atar steps forward, and I am cold all over. Atar is always wise, often grave, and does not choose a fight if he does not need to—except with his elder half-brother. “Dare you to speak to our father in such a way, in his own hall?”
There is a gasp around me, around the room, but Fëanáro smiles like he anticipated, even wanted, such words. I see silver flicker in the light. He is turning the blade slightly in his hand, like the switching tail of a cat.
“Ñolofinwë,” Grandfather Finwë warns. “Do not—”
“Nay, let him!” Fëanáro answers. “Let him shame me, in the hall of his father—a hall he loves as much as the father, I deem.”
These are cruel words, and I flinch beneath them, but Atar’s voice steadies a little as he draws closer to my uncle. His brow is heavy with judgment, though, and that is when I know that nothing good will come of such closeness.
Long have my uncle and cousins forged true swords in secret; I am not complicit in deed but in silence. I know them too well not to know of this, and I have loved them too well to speak of it, even to Atar.
I think of this, too, when that deadly blade of secret make flashes high and sharp, level with my father’s heart.
Never has my uncle lifted his hand against any of his sons. Yet, I have seen them bear bruises of their own making after quarrels with him—Tyelkormo and Carnistir fight with each other or with my brothers, and once I even came upon Maitimo in their forge, beating a misshapen shield with his fists until his hands blackened and bled.
“Russandol!” I cried, though I had intended to slip away without a word.
The shield fell from the bench and clattered at his feet. He faced me, and I saw the rage flame in his eyes before he quenched it quickly with a smile so false it grated at my heart.
“Cousin,” he said. “Forgive me, I—”
It was unlike him. At least, unlike him as I know him—carefree and noble, the least quick-tempered of all my Fëanorian cousins, save Makalaurë.
Certainly, the kindest.
“You have injured yourself,” I said, and though I spoke as my mother might, I felt too young beside him.
“It is nothing.” He would not meet my gaze.
“What troubles you?” I knew, even before I asked, that only one conflict—one name—could answer that question.
“Naught but myself,” he answered, and turned his back on me, his gleaming hair swinging over his shoulders, drawing what little light there was in the shadowy forge.
I am stubborn and swift to anger. We both know this. More might I have expected him to come upon me, foolishly venting my frustration against some small matter, than to find him in the throes of a fury that looked too much like grief. “He has been unjust to you, has he not?”
“Káno.” His voice was pleading.
“You ought not to suffer for his…” I knew I could not say all that I wanted. I could not repeat what was said in Tirion, in my father’s house, by servants and nobles alike. I knew, too, that he could see me holding back. “You ought not to suffer for him,” I managed at last. “Do not ruin your hands.”
His shoulders lifted rather than lightened. Pride, I thought, instead of comfort. He half-turned so that I could see the faultless line of brow and nose and chin, nearly concealed by a curtain of hair. I could not see his eyes.
Softly, he said, “I am his eldest son. For him, I would ruin more than my hands.”
I move to dash forward, but I am stilled, with my father’s name unspoken on my tongue. A hand has closed round my wrist like a manacle, and looking down, I find that it is Maitimo’s hand. His grip is like iron. Seeing his knuckles gone white and bloodless, I almost wish that there were bruises there, if only so that I could witness some sign of life and anger in him, rather than the mask of death he seems to wear.
“You would take my birthright from me,” Fëanáro hisses. Even his voice is twisted by some darkness, some shape I cannot make out in the torchlight, in the glow of Telperion beyond the windowpanes. “You would rob me of my creation, of my own life’s blood.”
There is no other sound in that great hall; every breath is held. Turukáno and Írissë look at me, childlike fear on their faces, and I look back at Maitimo, imagining that the same fear is mine. Maybe it is.
There is blood staining his lip; he must have bitten it through. I wrench my hand, still in his grasp, but he does not let go.
My father’s face is calm. I am far from him, farther than a son should be, especially now. But keen are the eyes of the Eldar, keen are my eyes, and I see that his shine bright with tears.
I have never seen my father weep.
“Fëanáro!” our grandfather thunders, and yet his feet are like stones sunk deep in the floor; he does not move. The room trembles—we must all breathe, must we not?—and then freezes again when my father’s hand closes around the tip of the blade.
“Atar!” I call out, but it as if he does not hear me.
My father, the second prince, who looks more like a king to me than my uncle ever could, drags the point closer to his breast.
Blood runs bright through his fingers, yet he makes no sound.
The blade does not tremble. Nothing could soften Fëanáro’s heart, I am sure. Nothing—my aunt is not here to reason or beg. His sons are silent. I hear Maitimo’s voice ringing in memory:
For him, I would ruin more than my hands.
I wonder if my father, gripping that wicked edge, feels the same. I wonder if, after everything, my father still loves my uncle.
I do not wish to understand such love—such love that would tear at peace and test at patience.
(And yet.)
“You,” Fëanáro says, just as I am sure that my father will force the cutting of his own throat, “Do not deserve the honor of such a death.”
The sword falls. My uncle leaves it there, leaves us all there, a crowd of stiff-robed butterflies pinned to the walls of the throne-room.
Maitimo releases me. It is then that I realize—or at least, that I suspect—that he held me back not to save my father, or me, but only to see what my uncle would do.
“I must go,” he says, like one in a dream, and I feel my anger rise.
“You would follow him anywhere,” I spit. “And you would call it love and duty.”
I want him to ask me what I would call it. He bows his head and strides after Fëanáro without another word.