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Nerdanel sculpted a statue, once, of a faceless form in clay. The hands she detailed down to the very curve of the nailbeds, the line of the shoulders she smoothed and polished, then remade. Where nose and mouth and eyes should be, she left rough divots, the stucco of indecision.
It was a self-portrait.
That first day, when she wakes, leaving does not even occur to her. Perhaps it should have. Perhaps, as the wife and mother of murderers, she should have fled the wreckage with nothing more than the clothes on her back and the boots on her feet.
If she had, she’d be dead now.
Nerdanel loses two weeks of July, deep in fevered oblivion that tears her away from the knowledge of who she is and whom she loves. When she wakes—cold despite hot sunlight—her hands look pale and thin. She holds them up before her face, then touches her clammy cheeks.
“You nearly died,” says the nurse beside her, whisking away a sick-pot. Whether she is curt because of her accent or because of something else, Nerdanel does not know.
She touches her lips. Her mouth is sour, but she does not remember vomiting. She does not remember much of anything. Slowly, her hands work up to meet the coils of her sweat-damp hair. She supposes she is grateful that they did not cut it off, as is sometimes done for fever patients.
She would miss it; her only beauty. That is a vanity she shares with her eldest, vanity for auburn tresses, though he is also blessed by every other feature—
Maitimo. It hits her like the slap of cold water to a sleep-warm face. The rest comes rushing back, the gates of her mind opened. Her babies, all seven of them—gangly or grown, youngest or eldest. And Feanor, who would worship her imperfect body, and chide her for discounting any aspect of the loveliness he saw.
Feanor, gone in the dark. Gone with all her sons.
Nerdanel shuts her eyes against the memory of blood and screams, the thought of their souls bent hellward.
She wishes the fever had taken her. She wishes that she had not woken at all.
A clay-knife is a useful tool. Sharp, but its incisions may be mended by the mere application of a blunt fingertip.
She receives generous—if not gracious—care, and knows she has Olwe to thank for it. He is wise, wiser than she deserves. In truth, she feels as if she, too, is to blame for the roster of deaths. If she had let Feanor go—if she had not defied him—
The result would be the same.
She hates that he wields that kind of power.
She hates that she cannot hate him at all.
Fingolfin arrives two days early and three weeks late.
Nerdanel is well enough to leave but she has nowhere to go. She assists with the hospital’s work—raising seven sons trained her in a host of basic tasks—and no one calls her a murderer.
Most, at first, do not speak to her at all.
(But she bandages the shattered arm of a man who survived the bridge. She looks into his eyes and fears to find forgiveness there. If she is forgivable, she will still not be worthy. And even if she is, they are not.)
Her husband’s family visits her. Aredhel is tongue-tied. Fingon is blank with a grief that comes closest to matching her own. Finrod and Anaire try to cheer her, but she is quickly tired by their smiles.
Fingolfin is like all and none of these.
He visits her on the last day of his unintended stay. It is the seventh of August, and many days too late.
“There is a place for you,” he says. He looks like Feanor, but not in the ways that matter. “In our caravan, if you wish it.”
Nerdanel shakes her head.
“Then—” She cannot tell if he expected her answer, but he rallies quickly. “When you are well enough,” Fingolfin says, “I am sure my mother will pay for your return.”
Return.
Nerdanel remembers exactly how it felt to put her arms around each son.
“I would be grateful.”
Fingolfin does not belong here. He is strong and handsome, competent and noble, and yet he does not belong in any of the spaces she has ever seen him inhabit. She has always wondered where he would most want to be; she has never asked.
Friendship was not meant to be their lot.
“Nerdanel.” He does not look at her. He is looking at the wide window, and just as she is, he is seeing something else. “They are still your sons.”
Nerdanel is too tired to be driven to anger. “I know that.”
“I know you do.” He has his hat in his hands. He does not look rugged, for all that he is strong. Anaire is a fine lady, and Fingolfin is a businessman. How will they survive in the west?
How will anyone survive in the west?
Fingolfin adds, at last, “He is still my brother. I will only say that to you.”
He leaves, and Nerdanel settles back against her pillows, with her hands against her face.
Beneath her fingers she can feel nose and mouth and eyes, the softness of skin and the hairline wrinkles, the uselessness and indecision.