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There are no marks on his son’s hands, save for the scuffs and bruises familiar to any child.
It is an October Sunday. Feanor is watching Nerdanel, is watching Maedhros, is watching Maglor and small Celegorm—who (like all Feanor’s children) is perfectly formed, and does not resemble a fresh-stewed dumpling, no matter what that scoundrel Orome may say.
“These are griddle-cakes,” Feanor explains, to fill the unusual silence. Maedhros blinks up at him. His eyes are greyer than Feanor’s own. That can only mean—Miriel, mother, and a warmth that is ever pain. “They are heartier than their French cousins, but we must still keep the batter light.”
His hand closes over his son’s small fist. He feels Maedhros’s body go as taut as a string pulled tight against him.
“See? Stir it quickly, smoothly.” He does not say (for it would be foolish to), there is no reason to be afraid.
(Nerdanel scratched him with her nails, in her rage. He never saw her so angry as that; never dreamed that she could be angry, at him, as if he had become an enemy. In his dreams that night, he was a boy of eleven or twelve, and Melkor Bauglir was his schoolmaster.
Feanor was powerless.)
“Maglor is old enough to eat one, isn’t he?”
“Of course.”
Maglor is sitting cross-legged on the floor, scratching with his soft charcoals on a sheet of butcher-paper. He shows no interest in helping with the preparation of a meal, but he is young, yet. Not quite three years old.
Nerdanel is slicing strawberries until her hands are red. She does not look angry, but nor will she look Feanor in the eyes.
“Athair,” Maedhros says carefully. “Did Grandfather teach you?”
“To make griddlecakes?”
“Yes.”
“No, he was not much of a cook. He taught me how make the turner, which shall toss them up into the air.” And Feanor shows him the slender piece of metal, almost like a spade, that Nerdanel has used since before they were even married.
(He has always been clever with gifts.)
“Toss Gorm into the air,” Maglor says, distinctly, not looking up from his drawing.
“Celegorm,” Nerdanel says calmly. “Can you say Celegorm, Macalaure?”
Maglor shrugs his shoulders.
Maedhros smiles, close-lipped. “Maglor is still very little, Athair.”
“I know.” Quietly, as if they share a secret—but not one that Nerdanel will dislike. “He is not a brave, grown boy like you are.”
(It is for his own good! he cried—and if you could only see how well he bore it!
How well he bore it? Bleeding and burning? His fingers were so swollen he could scarcely hold his spoon!)
(If you ever do something like this again, Nerdanel told him, her eyes blown almost black, I shall leave you.)
Maedhros has stirred the batter admirably, sweeping the spoon in long, measured strokes, and then the first cake is sizzling on the griddle.
“Tell me when it is ready,” Feanor says. Maedhros furrows his brow and wrinkles his pert freckled nose.
“It is ready.”
Celegorm wails. It is all he knows to do. Nerdanel lifts him from his cradle, her hands still stained red and—
“Oh, yes, you are right, son. It is ready.”
Maedhros insists that the first cake go to Maglor. Maglor spent the first year of his life round-cheeked, plump of leg and dimpled of elbow. Maedhros has always been willowy and thin, but now Maglor, too, has become delicate.
Maedhros worries over him.
Feanor prides himself (still) on a knowledge of Maedhros’s worries.
Maglor smears charcoal and butter on his face, but deems the fresh griddlecake a success. Feanor flips three more and presents one to Nerdanel, one to Maedhros, one to himself.
“Thank you,” Nerdanel says. The corners of her lips smile, but her voice is not quite there, yet.
It has been three weeks.
(The collar was for Rumil, but in Feanor’s dream it was on his own neck. Melkor Bauglir’s hands were tighter than iron, colder than iron, horribly soft.
Feanor could not breathe.
Was this what Nerdanel wanted?)
“Thank you, Athair,” Maedhros says, flashing his sun-bright grin.
“Thank you,” Maglor agrees, though the words are somewhat muffled. Crumbs are all over his face and hands. Celegorm noses against Nerdanel’s neck. He is hungry, too, and she lowers her arm and her bodice for him.
Feanor hates the raw-edged youth that clings to his nightmares, to his doubt. He finds that staring at his wife does not make her return his gaze or his goodwill, and so he turns to his sons.
Their spilling curls, red and dark, are burnished by the sun.
(When his little eldest plunged the needle beneath the shell of his nail and did not make a sound, the world felt somehow—
—safe.)