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She had woken early. The silver mist off the lake crept under the canvas to bedew their hands and faces, on these near-winter mornings. A cold lock of hair pressed damply at the back of her neck, but it was not for that that she shivered.
Fingon was gone.
“Oh, Christ,” Aredhel whispered, but Turgon, who was standing in the corner of their family tent—which they shared with Finrod, Galadriel, and Beren a good deal of the time—said,
“He’s with Maedhros. It’s all right.”
Curious, to hear that from Turgon.
Aredhel pushed herself to her feet, conscious of every joint recoiling, creaking. She had fallen asleep sitting up; that was the trouble. Her bones pretended to be older than she was, at eighteen, though summers and winters passing did not seem to matter or be counted, in the same way they would have, had she been kept in a New York bandbox.
Once, she had feared that cloying, threatening fate.
She did not miss that fear, nor did she love the memory of it. Nevertheless, she knew she would bind herself to any fate, if it meant that her family could be saved.
It was her father’s way. Her mother’s, less so, but her mother had not been a selfish woman by any means. Now she was dead.
Aredhel missed her like a lost limb. Fate and family were not rewards for such a loss; they were duties. Only Aredhel, unlike her father and unlike Fingon, did not spread the net of family so wide.
“I do not want to see Maedhros,” she murmured. It was too late, of course; she had seen him last night.
He had looked as though he was already dead.
“You will not need to,” Turgon told her, gruffly. “At least, not for some time. Come now. Are you going to eat, or wash up?”
She was not hungry, though she should be. She breathed in the sour sweat on her clothes, grimacing. Her skin itched with grime, too. Coming out of a stupor more than sleep, it all felt confusing and unbearable. Maybe one never became accustomed to being dirty. Maybe cleanliness was something to be safeguarded rather than practically dispensed with. Another advantage of the bandbox.
Why was she thinking of New York so much, this morning?
Because the world is changed.
“I’ll find some water,” she said, around her thick tongue. “Don’t wait for me.”
Turgon left her and Aredhel watched how the camp shifted in daylight. Men, women, and what children there were ate, talked, learned. Haleth was moving among them, stopping to talk to the newcomers with her hands deep in her pockets. Haleth did not waste words, and indeed was often content to let her companions engage in conversation amongst themselves while she kept her words for Wachiwi, for Fingolfin.
Aredhel’s head ached. She did not dislike Haleth, but everyone seemed like a stranger here, now that dozens of new faces had joined the ranks of their survival.
Everyone seemed like a stranger, now that the Finweans were close by the Feanorians again, separated only by the deceptive depth of a body of water.
She drank from the pot where Wachiwi had boiled mint—it was almost tea, but gone cool, and the flavor faded—then crossed the camp, keeping well away from the tent where her father and brother were saving her cousin’s life.
Amrod was still dead, though. Celegorm had been very certain that Amrod was dead.
Celegorm…
Her thoughts seemed to summon him. Summon him, and a red-haired boy who had to be Amras. That pained her. Aredhel knew there would be trouble, as they came running together up the low ground that lipped both lake and bridge, and so she pushed away that pain.
She was wearing trousers—they all wore trousers now. Still, as she quickened her pace, her hands went to her hips as if to drag up her skirts.
The sentries stopped them. Celegorm was half-mad; Aredhel could see that at a glance. More than half, perhaps. Huan was tense beside him, but not threatening. Huan was wiser than his master.
“You’ll come no farther,” Wister said. He was reasonable, but not entirely patient. “This land ain’t yours.”
In one of his ordinary moods, Celegorm would have said, like hell it isn’t, and led with his fist. But now his face was set like stone, and his hands were at his sides. That was what frightened Aredhel.
“My brother is lying inside your fucking camp,” Celegorm said. “I’ll see him.”
Amras was very pale. He was past Celegorm’s shoulder. They were at that growing age—Amras and Amrod and Argon.
Only, two of them were dead.
“Wister,” Aredhel said. “It’s all right.” Wister wouldn’t take her word for it—though he liked her—so she nodded, with her best Finwe look. “My father allows it.”
“And Haleth?”
Shit. He wasn’t letting her off easily.
Celegorm had a hand on the gun at his belt.
“Haleth, too.” She was lying, but she hadn’t lied to Wister before. You always had one lie. And she hoped—she hoped—no trouble would come of this one.
Wister motioned to the other sentry. One of Haleth’s, too, named Uri. They weren’t letting the freed slaves stand guard yet. Most were still recovering, and all of them were untrained. Unknown.
Celegorm stalked past her. Amras followed. Neither of them had so much as looked at her.
Something broke in Aredhel. It might have been her heart. “Celegorm! Damn you, wait!”
She had a hand on his arm because she’d always known, and always touched him with a sister’s careless liberty. She sensed her mistake through her fingertips as he stiffened, but he did not wrench away. His eyes were cold; his voice, somehow, colder. “Did you know?”
“I’ll not be twisted by your tricks! I just helped you get in. Both of you!” She had had precious little light to see Maedhros by, in the night.
It had been enough.
“Amras knows where to find him,” he sneered. “We don’t need you.”
His hand forced hers aside.
Aredhel waited. Not crying, not despairing, because she wasn’t a child and nobody had died today. She was still Celegorm’s friend.
He burst from the tent like a deer scared up from forest cover. She ran after him—but he was the better hunter, and now, the swifter creature.
She would not catch him. Huan passed her, too, and Amras.
They were running for their lives—or perhaps for Maedhros’.
“Let them pass!” she screamed, terrified that Wister would raise his gun. “Let them pass—they mean no harm!”
Another lie. Her second, but no shots rang; no fire rained.
They were over the bridge in no little time. How had it happened, like this? How had they known to come, and why had they run away from the brother who was returned to them?
Aredhel, half-blind in too much light, wondered what they had seen in the tent. What Celegorm had seen, for it was always him she’d known the best.
She’d have to learn herself, someday soon.