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I am in Mithrim. I am living and breathing in Mithrim, eating and drinking and sleeping. Nobody has killed me yet.
There is wealth here, of a different sort than I saw at the vineyard, at the Mountain, in men’s pockets, in women’s precious hidden stores. Here is food, and laughter, and guards pacing or practicing their aim.
And somewhere within these stone-and-mortared walls, he is. Russandol, no longer a picture in my addled head, but real and alive.
I am told, also, that he is healing.
I thought his friends saved him only to let him die. I could not imagine him living, before. I realize now that I wanted him to be dead—for his own sake, not for anybody else’s. It was not fair to ask him to live as the gored, whimpering creature whose face was scarcely a face any longer.
Whose face, whatever it was, I could not bear to look upon.
How I hate that boy who turned away. How I hate myself, and dig my fingers against the weeping bandage at my shoulder to teach myself a lesson, when Aredhel is not by my side.
Aredhel is his cousin, and quite unlike him. Nobody is like him, here, save his redheaded brother whose unrecognizing glances tear at me.
Don’t you know what I did? I would ask him, if I were brave. Don’t you know who I am?
I tried to broach this with Aredhel, but she wouldn’t let me. For all that she is unlike Russandol, she reminds me of every woman who was ever kind to me. Only, I do not think she has ever been—hurt. She seemed so surprised, when Glaurung thrust her into his room. I knew then that she was still her own.
What I did to help free her I would do again, for her sake. And I know I am grateful that I did not remain behind to face Glaurung and his knives. But I am not free.
Not in Mithrim.
I know Bauglir would laugh, to see me here. Sometimes I fancy that I can hear him.
Everybody is kind to me, except for Gwindor, who keeps away from me, and the two children. They come close to me, daring me to shoo them away.
I think they used to be kept with the other workers whose lot I never shared. They have the too-clever looks of that sort. Of my sort. They point at me and whisper, and I do not try to win their favor.
I let Aredhel lead me where she will because it seems to make her happy. I owe her a debt, and though I can never repay all my debts except in one particular and final fashion, I do want to make her happy.
She shows me the garden when I am feeling a little stronger. She asks me if my shoulder hurts, and it does, but I lie to her and say that it is better. Sometimes I wonder which window is Russandol’s. What must he have thought when he heard my name? I don’t believe that he bears any love towards me, despite the message he sent—no. No, it must be pity alone.
A dreadful prospect: I am sorry that I am alive to be pitied by him.
Curufin frightens me, but he looks at Mother’s knife with great interest, and I do not want to be rude. Struggling to remember words that have poured over me like water half my life, I tell him what I know about the hammers and the anvil and the forge and the way one turns sheets and rods of varying thickness.
As I speak, I watch Aredhel flit away, like a ray of light disappearing in a cloud.
I want to run after her. I don’t. This is part of my debt.
All well and good, Curufin says to me, with the knife still in his hand. Now, try a horseshoe.
Would he kill me, if he knew?
I would, if I were him.
I want to die. Why shouldn’t I? Russandol is alive, and I am alive, and the injustice is more than I can bear.
Celegorm frightens me most of all, because he reminds me of Mairon.
When Curufin leads me to the stable instead of the forge, and Celegorm is waiting there with the twin of my knife in his hand, I do not make a sound.
He hisses hot hatred into my ear, and tells me the truth Bauglir never did:
He killed my mother. Celegorm. He split her open, like he shall split me open.
He calls this justice, but if he knew me—if he truly knew what I have done—he would be much crueler.
I do not tell him who I am. I feel my mother’s blade against my throat, I hear how she bled.
I wait to be the sacrifice—the payment of the debt.