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Hope hurts a great deal.
Caranthir feels it stabbing at his ribs, shortening his breath. He feels it churning in his stomach at mealtimes, making it difficult to force down any food.
Worst of all, he isn’t even sure that all his brothers have it.
Curufin certainly doesn’t. Curufin has taken to sneaking down into the mine alone, reappearing with bruised and bloodied hands, as if he’s been trying to carve gems from the wall without the help of tools.
“Curufin, you’ll give it away,” Maglor scolds, when he reemerges the latest time. They are all in the study waiting for him.
Curufin only sneers. “Any of these sniveling lay-a-beds who think they can take what is ours are welcome to try.”
Maglor flushes, dark and angry, but Celegorm steps in between them and tugs at Curufin’s wrist. Celegorm is the only one who dares touch Curufin, since.
“Come along,” he says. “I am taking Huan for a run.”
They will keep within Rumil’s lands, well away from the grave. Caranthir is not invited. He knows all of this at once.
This leaves him alone with Maglor, who lifts a hand to his mouth as if to bite his nails, then drops it.
Caranthir might have thought that Maglor would look taller, without Maedhros to compare to, but he doesn’t.
“Only three more days,” Caranthir says. “Maitimo promised.”
Maglor nods. He does not look at Caranthir.
“You know,” Curufin says, in the thoughtful tone that could not be trusted even in the east, “he had a shot.”
They are in Rumil’s study again, with the door locked as always. Maedhros left the key with Maglor, the key he took from Athair’s purse. They are not watching over the mine and what is concealed there, today. Instead, they are cleaning old guns and fitting out new ones. Athair had forged and carved fresh pieces, and they were left behind on his workbench.
(When.)
“Who?” Caranthir asks.
It is just the three of them--Celegorm and Curufin, and Caranthir, who is between them only in age.
“Maedhros.”
Curufin never calls him Maitimo anymore.
Celegorm’s hand closes tight around the bore in his hand.
“What do you mean?” There are many things that Caranthir has refused to question; he is not Curufin. Looking at the haunted hollows under Curufin’s eyes, he hopes he never will be. But Maedhros has been gone for days, and Athair has been—
Caranthir must know.
“He could have killed the man who shot Athair,” Curufin says, and he does not even glance up from the oil rag in his stained and clever fingers. He does not even stumble over saying Athair’s name, though Caranthir has not heard it from his lips since—since. “He had a clear shot, and his gun in his hands.”
Celegorm’s lips twitch, as if words are not quite ready to leave them. Finally, he manages, “Perhaps—”
“Oh, no,” Curufin overrides him, with too much power in voice and eyes (lifted at last) for a boy of sixteen, a boy who sobbed and begged at his father’s bedside. “You cannot question it, Celegorm. You were not there, as I was.”
“Fuck you,” Caranthir spits, and he tosses down his half-assembled weapon. The door slams behind him, but it brings no satisfaction.
(Where would he run?)
Maedhros needs to come back quickly. Maedhros and Amrod will not set things right, exactly, but if they return, at least Caranthir can imagine living. Living, all seven, upholding Athair’s name and memory. He’ll show Maedhros and Amrod the grave himself.
He’ll tell them it was peaceful, even though he knows that silence is not at all the same as peace.
Yes, Caranthir will show them where Athair is buried, even though he himself has not yet visited the place.
None of them have.
There are hooves on the bridge.
Caranthir runs (this is where he should run) and sees only Homer. Homer, leading Alexander by the bridle. Alexander’s legs and belly are caked with mud.
There is...Caranthir realizes that the stabbing in his ribs wasn’t hope at all.
(There is no one else.)
“He’s not dead,” Celegorm shouts, so fiercely that not even Curufin argues. “He’s not fucking dead.”
“I didn’t say he was,” Maglor shouts back, only Maglor is crying, and both his voice and his slim shoulders are shaking. “But what am I supposed to do?”
There is a strange, terrible silence. That is not a question Athair—or Maedhros—ever asked. At least, not that Caranthir heard.
“We need to go after him.” Celegorm runs both hands through his hair. “After both of them.”
“No!” The violence of Maglor’s answer takes Caranthir by surprise—and he thought nothing could surprise him, thought nothing could hurt him, after Amrod and Athair and this.
“No?” Celegorm demands, his brows soaring.
“Everyone who has gone out has not come back,” Maglor chokes. “We aren’t losing—we aren’t losing anyone else.”
“You’re a coward,” Celegorm snarls.
Maglor reddens. “And you’re a reckless fool.”
Caranthir almost feels the punch himself. It snaps Maglor’s head back and sends him sprawling.
Caranthir and Curufin and Amras do not even breathe.
“He loves you,” Celegorm says hoarsely, looming over Maglor. “He loves you best, and you won’t even lift a finger to help him.”
Maglor’s face crumples, and he sobs, curling on his side.
Celegorm looks brave, Caranthir thinks. Maglor looks pathetic. Caranthir knows the others must see it too.
Celegorm drags his hand over his eyes. “I’m leaving,” he says. “Curufin?”
Curufin lifts his chin, lifts his fascinated gaze from Maglor on the floor. “I will not leave Athair,” he says, as if he is repeating words heard long ago.
Celegorm does not call him a coward.
Celegorm says nothing to anyone else, before he goes.
Maedhros must have sent Alexander home by a signal, Caranthir decides. A signal, a secret, a plan. He must have intended it.
If he was de—but no, Rumil was dragged back by his horse, and he still lives.
Rumil hasn’t yet woken, but he lives. The healers fear paralysis, whether from poison or an injury to his spine, they are not yet sure.
Caranthir sits by Rumil’s bedside, because somehow that hurts both more and less.
He knew he could not save Maitimo, not in all the ways that Maitimo has saved him.
He was going to try anyway.
Pray for us sinners, Caranthir murmurs under his breath, Now and at the hour of our death.
Maedhros thinks he is a dreadful sinner.
What does that make Caranthir?
He always though their mother understood Maedhros best. Always thought, despite this, that there was something the three of them shared, a special kind of love for all the others—wanting to heal the sharp-edged hurts. Not that Caranthir was very good at that. Not that he was beautiful and bright like they were, Mother and Maitimo.
Caranthir always thought that heartache should be a passing thing, when the hearts that hurt were as pure as Maedhros’s.
(He has known for some time now that no part of this is true.)
“Caranthir, is it?”
Caranthir lifts his head—he was staring at Rumil’s still hand, pleading for the twitch of a finger, for a sign of life—and sees that it is Ulfang. With Rumil and Athair and Maedhros gone, Ulfang is somewhat the master of the fort.
Somewhat. Celegorm and Curufin would say that Maglor bore the title—but now all that seems torn apart.
You’re a coward.
He loves you. He loves you best.
“Yes.” Caranthir does not say sir. Caranthir has to be Feanor’s son, and Feanor bowed to no one.
(Is Athair lonely, in his grave?)
“I think one of your brothers is fixing to leave.”
“Celegorm is going out scouting,” Caranthir says dully. “I know.”
“Nay, lad.” Ulfang sighs. “I mean the little one.”
Caranthir’s heart—Caranthir’s heart, which isn’t pure at all, because if Maedhros isn’t pure, if Maedhros is a sinner, Caranthir is just a fragment of ash in the light of God—
(It skips.)
Amras is stuffing some day-old heels of bread into his pack, and snuffling.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Caranthir barks, planting his fists on his hips. “I’ll tell Maglor, and we’ll—”
“You’ll do what?” Amras swipes at his runny nose with the back of his hand. “You’ll tie me to a table-leg? You can’t stop me, Caranthir. I’m not trying to hide but I’m not—I’m not a—”
A coward.
They are none of them supposed to be cowards.
“You can’t go,” Caranthir says. His voice feels snatched away, and it falls to a whisper, because Caranthir is trying very hard not to be a coward but surely it is not wrong to be afraid. Athair is dead and Maedhros and Celegorm and Amrod are—
Are—
By the cruelest count, Caranthir has only three brothers left.
Amras is fourteen. He looks all of ten. And if Amras looks like this, somewhere, so does Amrod.
(God, God willing.)
Amras says,
“He asked me to go with him.”
(They waited together, when Athair was still alive. They waited together, and tried to pray together, and it all came to nothing but this.)
Caranthir kneels down. Caranthir reaches for his brother’s hands. It’s the sort of thing Maedhros used to do, when Caranthir was ten. Caranthir is as old now as Maedhros was then, and he does not feel it. He never feels like he is enough.
“This time,” Caranthir says, “If you must go—I’ll come with you.”
Curufin is in the mine. Maglor is in Rumil’s study with the door shut, keeping watch, or weeping, or both.
Maglor hated it here, even before they lost—everything—
Not everything, Caranthir realizes. His eyes flood with tear and his chest floods with something that might be pity. There are dangers in the dark and in the light, there are men who want to kill them and a hunter with an animal’s amber eyes.
But Caranthir will not lose everything, if he and Amras go together.
Caranthir leaves his prayer medal on Maglor’s pack. He means it as a promise—one that hurts like hope.
“Boys—” Homer protests, when they come to take their horses.
Caranthir has one of Athair’s guns on his hip. Amras does too.
“We’re not boys.” Caranthir sets his face like stone. His eyes are grey like Athair’s—all their eyes are, though Celegorm’s are touched by a little green, and the twins’ by a little hazel.
All of them can glare like Athair glared.
“Let us pass,” Amras says, chin up. The fort gates are locked, but no one stopped Celegorm. No one will stop them.
And Homer is a coward, so he stands aside.
It is two days before everything goes really wrong.
Two days that Caranthir scarcely remembers. They ride to the trading post (and that is their first mistake).
Even though they speak to no one, they cannot watch and listen without being watched and listened to. The place is crawling with orcs; men in drab uniforms with rifles slung over their shoulders and swaggering, searching steps.
(Athair came here, looking for Amrod, and maybe Celegorm came here, looking for Maedhros, and Caranthir isn’t a hunter, isn’t a tracker, but this seems like the right place to start.)
There is talk of Utumno burned. There is talk of more pay from up high. There is talk of dead comrades, and Amras shudders, and Caranthir, in horror at his own folly for coming here so brazenly, pulls Amras’s hood down farther over his flame-bright hair.
With the town a dark smear on the land behind them, they ride toward the foothills of the Diablos, and Caranthir finds that it is harder than he expected, to cover so much ground with any plan. He doesn’t have Celegorm’s skills. He doesn’t have Maedhros’s intuition.
The horses kick up clods of rain-softened earth; it did rain, several nights ago.
Caranthir prayed then, too.
“We must make for the river,” he says. He has his compass—bought in Beleriand, ages ago—and he knows that the river lies east.
(They don’t reach the river.)
“We don’t even know which way Alexander came from,” Amras points out miserably. “Or where Maedhros was going. He’s been gone for days. And we’ve been out here, for days.”
Caranthir wants to snap, You were the one who proposed this insanity, but that wouldn’t be helpful, and Caranthir really is trying to be helpful. “We’re not lost,” he says, squinting at the sky. “That’s good.”
“Of course we’re not lost,” Amras says. “They’re the ones who’re lost.” He slumps in his saddle.
Caranthir’s back is still stiff from the pine knots that dug into his spine all night. He’s supposed to be better at this. Better at saying the right thing, and finding the right paths, and knowing where in the myriad miles they should go.
(He knows nothing at all.)
Hoofbeats thunder in the distance.
They are not lost because Caranthir has been following the main trails. The ones with an occasional signpost, the ones battened down by many riders.
(This was their second mistake.)
“We need to hide the horses,” Amras says frantically, “but we should not follow each other, so the tracks are less obvious. Meet over there, in the thicket.”
Caranthir has not time enough to be ashamed that his little brother knows more than he does. But of course—the twins have often gone hunting with Celegorm, in the past months. Perhaps that is why Amrod thought he knew enough to go alone.
Holy Mary…
…now and at the hour…
They split up, looping off the road and dismounting, leading their steeds as carefully as they dare into the scrubby underbrush.
It is too late. A shot whistles over Caranthir’s head. He jumps back, against his horse’s flank, and the animal leaps away, braying, and charges out into plain sight of their attackers. Caranthir falls flat on his face, shoulder smarting from the sharp tug on the reins he let go, and he scrambles for his gun. Amras is at his side in a moment.
“Where is your horse?” Caranthir asks, winded.
“I tied him up. But what do we—”
What do we do?
“We have to stand and fight,” Caranthir says, and he grips his brother’s hand, because it was a mistake, it was all a mistake—
(This is how they are going to die.)
The men are orcs, and there are five of them. Caranthir has a dozen bullets in his gun. Does that matter, really?
He thinks it matters when one of the men aims at Amras, and Caranthir’s own hands lift the light piece, pull the hair-touch trigger, and shake with the sharp recoil.
He thinks it matters when the man falls with crimson blossoming over his chest.
Caranthir swore he’d never kill a man.
So what does that make him?
Two men lie dead. Caranthir’s ears are drumming and his heart is racing and he pushes Amras down beside him, down in the brush, hoping that they can hide, hoping—
(Hope)
If only they can go back. Back home. Back in time. Caranthir prayed and it did not good, swore and it did not good, and now it does not even have to be Mairon, the foul monster, to drive him to this destiny—this death.
Caranthir could not save his brothers, though he tried.
The third man’s head explodes.
It isn’t—it isn’t Caranthir’s gun.
Celegorm dispatches the other two before they even have a chance to aim and fire.
(What does that make him?)
You little fools, Celegorm will say, and he will shake them, will shake Caranthir into being a child again. A child who hasn’t killed anyone, because he doesn’t know how. You little fools, what are you doing out here? Don’t you know better than to go out into the wide world? Don’t you know that it is dangerous?
And Caranthir will answer,
Love makes us overlook terrible things, you know.
(Maedhros isn’t here.)
(Amras would have died, if Caranthir hadn’t chosen another death instead.)
Celegorm says nothing.
Celegorm slips down off his mare and his face does not look like Caranthir remembers, though its features are all the same.
His boots and coat are filthy. His spurs are caked with mud.
“How did you find us?” Amras asks, and starts crying, tears sliding through the dust on his face.
“I heard gunshots,” Celegorm answers. He glances briefly at the dead men, three of whom are his, and blinks. Huan lopes up beside him; Huan, who has filth dragged through his matted fur. “We were not far from here.”
Caranthir slips an arm around Amras’s shoulder. His hand feels sick and burned. His arm is shaking, or Amras’s shoulders are, or maybe it is all the same.
“We were looking for Maedhros,” Caranthir says. Celegorm has been gone for two days, and they have been gone for two days, and surely that deserves an explanation.
“So near to Mithrim?” Celegorm asks, in that same flat tone. “We are scarce a mile away.”
Caranthir bites his lip, because he did not even know. Is this luck? (Does it matter, really?)
Caranthir killed a man today.
He hates himself immediately, and absolutely, and he still thinks—
This should feel different.
“Did you…” Amras’s voice pinches off.
“Maedhros,” Caranthir croaks in his stead, because he can still do that. He can still love like that. The men on the ground don’t change that, he doesn’t think. “And Amrod. What did you—”
Celegorm reaches up and straightens the broad-brimmed hat atop his wild, burnished hair. He looks at them, one after another, and his eyes are hard and empty, like the hollowed barrel of a gun. (Two guns, and five men dead.) Yet Caranthir sees, too, in the dust that films Celegorm’s golden skin: tear tracks. Tear tracks rivered faintly along his cheeks.
Celegorm answers only,
“Our brothers are dead.”