Archive of Our Own

The Doomsman of the Valar struck unpredictably. It had been an ordinary grey autumn morning, at least until the small hunting party that had ridden out from Amon Ereb returned hours earlier than expected with Maglor slumped in the saddle of his second-in-command, eyes glazed and blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

Maedhros was in the courtyard before the alarms had even finished sounding. He felt suddenly very cold, although the climes here were much milder than they had been in chilly Himring.

“We were ambushed,” Lithiel explained, although that was patently obvious from the black-feathered arrow protruding from Maglor’s breast. By the look of it his lung had been pierced.

Maedhros stared at him. He tried to speak, but the only thought he could summon was Again? Again?

Frightened, perhaps, by his silence, Lithiel was still talking, but she closed her mouth abruptly when Maedhros motioned for quiet. “Get him down,” he ordered, and an instant later his brother’s weight was in his arms, head resting against Maedhros’ shoulder. Maglor’s breath rattled alarmingly in his chest. Blood wet his lips when he tried to speak.

“Hush,” Maedhros said, not ungently. “Have you not yet learned the value of silence, Káno?”

But Maglor’s dark eyes, trained on Maedhros’ face, were bright with some animating urgency. He coughed and tried to speak again, succeeding only in spraying bloody saliva onto Maedhros’ tunic. Over his head Maedhros raised his eyebrows in a pointed, silent question to one of the guards at the gate, who nodded: yes, the healers were on their way.

Maglor, still agitated, raised his hand to Maedhros’ face. He must have pressed it instinctively to his wound during the frantic ride back to the fortress, for he left a bloody handprint on Maedhros’ jaw. Brand me, then, thought Maedhros, with a vehemence he had believed extinguished in himself; and I will carry your mark always, as though I needed another reminder of my sins — but it was only hyperbole, and the blood would wash off, and Maglor’s presence would be erased from the fortress just as easily. Maedhros had lost enough, now, to know that life went on no matter how many corpses piled up behind you.

But not Maglor — not Maglor!

His brother was still attempting futilely to speak. He made a horrible gasping noise.

“Káno,” Maedhros said, meaning to sound even and soothing, but his own voice came out in a croak.

Maglor’s mind — all quicksilver brightness, even now — touched his and he nearly recoiled. He had not permitted anyone to communicate with him via ósanwë since the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. But Maglor had clearly decided that the situation was desperate enough to overlook this. His voice, even in thought, was musical. The children, he said (or rather, he gave the fleeting thought-impression of small hands and high voices and terrible, wrenching guilt), please, Nelyo — the children—

“What?” said Maedhros, for a moment truly baffled; but Maglor did not finish the thought, his body limp and heavy in Maedhros’ arms. He had fainted, only fainted, he was not dead yet — no matter how much he looked like Caranthir had, with blood staining his mouth a vicious garish red and the rest of his face very white, he was not dead yet.

The healers arrived at that point, and bade Maedhros carry his brother up to his own chambers so that they might examine him better. Then Maedhros must release him, and sit beside the bed clutching his hand instead. As much as he wished to look away, he forced himself to watch the whole gory procedure, as the arrow was cut out of Maglor’s flesh to be examined, and the puncture in his breast salved and bandaged. It was as Maedhros had feared: there was blood pooling in his lung. It was an injury that generally killed Elves in days rather than hours, but it killed them all the same.

“With luck he may yet survive, my lord,” said Orchalwen, the chief of the healers; but at the look on Maedhros’ face she quailed and said nothing more.

There would be a dreadful symmetry to it: he, his father’s firstborn, the last son left to carry the shackles of their Oath. Might Maedhros rail against it nonetheless? Was there any point in trusting now to Kinslayers’ luck? Surely not — there were no gods that would listen to him, after all he had done. But once the healers had left them alone, Maedhros twined his fingers with his brother’s and prayed anyway.

Elros and Elrond knew nothing of this until some hours later, when they woke late and disoriented to discover that Maglor had not, as was usual, come to rouse them for the day. They managed to dress themselves — it was not so difficult, even if buttons were still a challenge for their small fingers — but the question of what to do about breakfast was a harder conundrum.

“Maybe we should wait,” Elrond suggested. “He might come later.”

He looked nervous. Maglor had never failed to come before.

“He’s never this late,” Elros said. “Let’s go and look for him.”

They crept through the fortress on silent feet. Amon Ereb was not very large, but Elros still found navigating it puzzling. Every corridor looked the same: grey stone floors and grey stone walls with irregular slits instead of windows. The only decoration was the occasional tapestry, which was often spotted with strange dark stains, and anyway you could not see the images very clearly in the dim light.

Sirion had been built from wood, for the most part, and yet it was full of colour: the Edain liked to paint the outsides of their homes in red and pink and yellow, and many of the Elves had taken to making stained-glass windows, casting rainbow-hued light over the boardwalks. And of course, there had always been the blue of the sea stretching out, out, out and up to meet the blue of the sky. One felt almost colour-blind in Amon Ereb, by comparison.

The door to Maglor’s bedchamber was a little ajar. Elros had been inside, once or twice, when Maglor had brought the twins along to fetch some sheet music or a book. That could not have prepared him for the sight that greeted him through the crack in the door: Maglor unconscious and chalk-white in his bed, blood matting his hair to his forehead and trickling from his mouth. Maedhros was sitting beside him, but before Elros and Elrond could do more than take in the scene before them, he had glanced up and spotted them. (Maedhros’ ears were sharp; most people did not notice Elros and Elrond when they did not wish to be heard.) His face was near as pale as Maglor’s.

“Eluréd, Elurín,” he said, his voice hoarse. “What do you want?”

Elros glanced at his brother. Maedhros did not seem to have noticed his mistake. But Elrond was quiet, hanging back a little. Maedhros frightened them: he was so grim and cold, and Elros had never once seen him so much as smile. Maglor claimed there was no reason to worry, and that Maedhros would never harm them — but he had also warned them, in no uncertain terms, never to disturb Maedhros at night, nor to touch him unexpectedly. And on the rare occasions that Maedhros interrupted their lessons to ask his brother a question, Maglor would go out into the corridor and talk to him there, closing the door behind them.

All the same, Elros would have to speak to him now.

“We want Maglor,” he said, more timidly than he meant. That wasn’t true, either. He wanted his mother. “We’re hungry.”

Maedhros’ mouth twisted in a way that made his stern visage seem downright ugly. “Maglor is indisposed right now,” he said. “You shall have to fend for yourselves. You know the way to the kitchens — someone there will feed you, if you ask.”

Elrond found his voice. “What’s wrong with him?” he asked.

“Go on,” said Maedhros, instead of answering. “You have no need to linger here.” He got up to close the door, although the twins had scampered before he reached it.

Twenty minutes later found Elros and Elrond reviving a little over some bread and cheese in a corner of the kitchens. “Everything looks better with a full stomach,” their Ada used to say cheerfully — but Elros did not want to think of Ada. He licked the last smears of cheese off his fingers and wondered how to ask the question at the forefront of his mind.

Elrond said it for him. “Do you think he’ll die?”

“I don’t know,” Elros said doubtfully. “He didn’t look very well. But he’s an Elf, isn’t he? Elves heal quickly.”

“But if he does die,” Elrond persisted, “what will happen to us?”

“Maybe they’ll send us home,” Elros suggested.

“Elros,” Elrond said quietly, and with a surge of unhappiness Elros remembered. They had no home. Maedhros and Maglor had burned it down.

He was not going to cry.

“He won’t die,” he decided. “He can’t be that sick.”

Elrond did not look convinced.

Maglor was a restless sleeper. As a newborn he had earned his father-name by waking, squalling, every hour of the night; in his careless dreamy youth he would often creep into Maedhros’ room far past Telperion’s waxing, claiming that he could not sleep in his own bed. He had spent long hours at Maedhros’ bedside in Mithrim, waking the instant Maedhros cried out in his own fitful slumber, and since the Nirnaeth Arnoediad Maedhros had never woken from a nightmare without Maglor already beside him. “I sleep lightly,” was all he said, when Maedhros asked how he had arrived there so quickly.

But now — now Maglor lay very still and quiet on the bed, as though he were dead already; and there would be no waking from this nightmare, nor would Maglor’s steady voice be there to promise that the torment was passed, and he was free.

The healers came to examine him at irregular intervals, each time with nothing to offer but grim confirmation of the worst. Blood was slowly filling Maglor’s lung. He would die, choking on it, if they did not find some way to remove it.

“Then find a way,” Maedhros said. “Look at the quantities he is bringing up every time he coughs! Can you not clear his lung any faster than he is doing himself? Have you not been tending to such hurts for centuries?”

He was not sure when he had started shouting. Orchalwen looked frightened, but Maedhros could not bring himself to care. In all the racket Maglor had not stirred, Maglor who was always so alert to the smallest sound even in his sleep, Maglor who was dying—

The healers were not there. When had they left? It did not matter. Maedhros fetched a bowl of water and a cloth and began to bathe Maglor’s clammy forehead, but his hand was shaking, and when he accidentally scraped over the shallow cut on Maglor’s forehead the cloth came away blooming red. Cursing, he balled it up and flung it at the wall. What use was he in a sickroom? It was Maglor who was gentle, Maglor who could sing for hours at a bedside, drawing one floundering in unconsciousness back towards the light.

Maedhros stared at him. “You are making a dreadful fuss for so small a hurt,” he said, trying to mimic the steady, calming sound of Maglor’s sickroom voice, but his throat tightened too much to get the words out. And then, “When you are well again I shall be most wroth with you—” But his voice caught halfway through the sentence. Finally he settled on, “Káno, don’t die, please, you can’t die,” but even that felt like a falsehood.

Slain you may be, and slain you shall be, they had been told — and slain they had been, all except Maedhros, who wondered sometimes if he would yet live to see the breaking of the world. Perhaps this was it. But it would be a slow death for Maglor, and an ugly one. He must have dealt many such deaths himself: the bodies had still been warm when they had left Sirion. Not all had been bodies, either. The justice of the Valar was very fitting, and very harsh.

Some hours later — Maedhros was never good at keeping track of time, after long decades on Thangorodrim — there was a sound at the door. It was the children again, Elwing’s small sons. They were peering through the crack in the door with round eyes.

“Again?” Maedhros asked. He had no energy to raise his voice. “Did I not tell you yesterday that Maglor cannot tend to you right now?” Had he? Or was he simply imagining his previous encounter with the boys? Dior’s children haunted his nightmares; perhaps they had progressed to shadowing his steps by daylight too.

“We wanted to see him,” said one of them, in a small voice. Maedhros was not sure which. He could not tell them apart.

(That was a lie — Maedhros’ youngest brothers had been the first twins born to Elf-kind. He knew that it was Elros who had spoken, the bolder child, the one whose chin lifted in the same defiant way his mother’s had before she had jumped. Elrond was the softer-spoken one, whose dreamy grey eyes always seemed to be half-looking at something else. But it was a lie Maedhros intended to maintain.)

He gestured ironically towards his brother’s body. “Well, there he is,” he said. “He is not terribly interesting company at the moment, I must confess.”

Elros gave Maglor a long, considering look and then said, without looking at Maedhros, “Is he going to die?”

“Yes,” Maedhros said curtly, “unless they find a way to heal him, which they cannot.”

“What’s the matter with him?” Elrond breathed. His voice wavered almost tunefully — no, Maedhros would not think of the comparison. This half-mortal child could not replace what he stood to lose.

“An arrow to the lung,” he said. “He is choking on his blood. Now, Maglor might say that this is no sight for children — for my part, I think the pair of you have witnessed far more distressing things already. All the same, I would ask you to leave. I have no wish to entertain you at present.”

The children vanished so suddenly that Maedhros briefly doubted they had been there at all.

“They are your project,” he told Maglor, once they were gone. “Wake up and deal with them.”

Maglor did not respond.

The children, please, Nelyo, the children—

“If you die,” Maedhros said. His mouth was very dry. “Káno, don’t die.”

“If he dies,” said Elrond.

“So what?” Elros said, louder than he meant to. “So what if he dies?”

“What will happen to us?” asked Elrond. “Maedhros doesn’t want to look after us. What will we do?”

“Maglor doesn’t look after us, either,” Elros said. That wasn’t true, but he didn’t care. “Just because he — just because he wakes us up in the morning and gives us lessons and sings to us—”

“Elros,” said Elrond.

“He isn’t anything to us,” Elros said. “He’s just a murderer. I hope he does die.”

“Elros!” said Elrond, genuinely shocked.

Elros was shocked by himself too. But he did not want to backtrack. “What? He deserves it. After what he did to Sirion — and — and Naneth—” His eyes were stinging.

“Does he?” Elrond asked, his voice low. “Does he deserve it?”

Elros changed the subject. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. This is our chance. Maglor’s the only one who ever cares where we are, and he’s sick. Maedhros doesn’t even remember our names! We have to find the perfect moment to run away.”

“Run away where?” Elrond demanded. “Our home is gone. Besides, the woods aren’t safe. There are orcs about.”

“That’s just what Maglor says,” Elros scoffed, “because he wants us to be too scared to try running away.”

“Something attacked him,” Elrond pointed out. “Or do you think he’s just pretending to be hurt?”

Elros shrugged, unwilling to back down in the face of this logical argument. “Maybe,” he said, something hot and dark rising in his throat, “Maedhros did that.”

Elrond gaped at him.

“He’s a Kinslayer,” Elros said. “They both are. Maglor admits it.”

“Maglor’s his brother,” Elrond protested.

“Maglor never wants us to go near him,” Elros said. “Because he’s dangerous. He’s killed people.” He paused, dramatically. “Maybe he’ll kill us.”

Elrond went pale. “He wouldn’t,” he said. “Maglor—”

“Maglor’s dying,” said Elros. “Not that he’s any better. Remember Naneth’s brothers?”

They had never actually been told about their Naneth’s dead brothers; it was just the sort of thing you overheard in late-night whispers when you were supposed to be asleep — I wonder if the twins look like them, and Eärendil, I only wish I knew what happened—

But everyone knew that Naneth had had two older brothers when she lived in Doriath, twins like Elros and Elrond. The Fëanorians had killed them when they were no older than their sister’s sons were now. Why would this time be any different? Why would Maedhros spare them when he had shown no such mercy to their uncles?

“Elros, stop it,” Elrond said. “You’re just trying to scare me. Maedhros wouldn’t—”

He looked over Elros’ shoulder towards the doorway of their bedchamber and took a breath.

Elros whipped around to see Maedhros standing by the door. It was impossible to say how long he had been listening to them; his scarred face was expressionless.

Elros lifted his chin. He would not cry, even if Maedhros loomed over him like a mountain, and Maglor had once warned them that Maedhros never went anywhere without a knife.

“I came,” said Maedhros, his voice gravelly and utterly bereft of inflection, “to tell you to go to bed.”

This was unexpected. It had been two days since Maglor’s injury, and in that time Maedhros had ignored Elros and his brother entirely.

“We aren’t tired,” said Elros, on principle.

They told Maglor that every night. It usually earned them a bedtime story — not that they wanted stories. Maglor wasn’t their Ada. But, Elros grudgingly admitted, he did tell stories very well, and he did all the different characters’ voices perfectly.

Strange, to think that if Maglor died they would never hear one of his tales again.

Maedhros did not smile ruefully, as Maglor usually did before settling himself into his storyteller’s pose. He stared at Elros and Elrond as though he did not entirely recognise them. “Go to sleep,” he said eventually.

“Is Maglor getting better?” Elrond asked, in a very small voice.

“No,” said Maedhros, and then he turned around and walked out.

“He heard you,” Elrond said, once they were sure Maedhros was gone.

Elros tugged open the chest where they kept their clothes. They were down to their last set of clean nightshirts, and neither Elros nor Elrond knew how to do laundry. “He didn’t care,” he said, more confidently than he felt, as he passed Elrond his nightshirt. “You saw him.”

“Do you really think he’ll do it?” Elrond asked nervously. “Once Maglor is—”

Elros wanted to say Yes, that’s why we have to run away, but it was impossible to lie to Elrond. “I don’t know,” he said. “He could.”

Elrond looked a little sick. He chewed on his lip for a while as they got dressed for bed, and then said, “I think I could heal him.”

Elros had been wondering that, too. “The bird?” he asked, and Elrond nodded.

It had been, perhaps, a little over a year ago: a summer’s day in Sirion, of the sort they would never know again. Their Naneth had been busy with her queenly duties, as she often was; Elros and Elrond had been playing by themselves on the beach. (Naneth fretted about that sometimes — What if they fall into the water? she had asked Ada once. There is nobody even watching over them.

Ada had laughed, his rich sky-shaking earth-rumbling laugh. Lord Ulmo watches over all my line, Elwing, he had said. The Sea shall never harm them.

Elros missed the Sea.)

The seagull chick had been lying limply in the sand, its little wing broken. It had clearly been there for some time already when they found it, for it could manage no more than a small sad squawk when Elros reached out to pat its head.

“It’ll die,” Elros had said, unhappily.

Elrond had put his own small hand over the chick’s broken wing. “No,” he had said, his voice strong suddenly, ringing with some inner power. “No, it won’t.” A brief burst of light—

The chick got up and flew away, its wing mended.

“It’s not the same,” Elros said now. His throat was aching. The sand beneath his feet, and the knowledge of Naneth nearby and Ada out on his boat but he would always come back to them, and the sound of music and laughter from the beach, and the Sea, the Sea, the Sea! How could you begin to mourn it all? “You’ve never tried it on a person before.”

“No,” said Elrond, “but Maglor was telling us all about Songs of Power, remember? They aren’t that different. I think I could do it.”

Elros wanted to cry. His brother looked thoughtful, as though the question of Maglor’s healing was merely an academic one, a test of his powers and not — not a giving in, an acknowledgement that they did not want Maglor to die. And they did, they did. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, harshly. “Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you will.”

“You’re right,” Elrond murmured, and put out the oil lamp for the night. That was another thing Maglor usually did when he tucked them into bed — he said that the lamp might burn their hands. But Elrond was fine. What did Maglor know, anyway? They did not need him. They were big enough to take care of themselves.

It took Elros a long time to fall asleep, and judging by the sound of Elrond’s breathing, his brother found it no easier.

Maglor did not stir when Maedhros came back into his sickroom. For a moment Maedhros thought that he was dead in truth now, that the precious minutes he had spent attempting to wrangle Elwing’s sons were the last his brother had spent in the world; then he registered the laboured sound of Maglor’s breathing. He drew a shuddering breath of his own and sat down in his chair again, taking Maglor’s limp hand in his.

The children, Maglor had said; and Maedhros had gone to them, had he not? He had done as Maglor had asked. Now he only wished to keep vigil by his last, most cherished brother’s bedside, and watch him slip away.

As a general rule Maedhros slept little, and only then when Maglor badgered him into it; now he did not want to close his eyes at all, and lose what little time he had left with Maglor. Nevertheless he must have nodded off at some point, for he found himself dreaming: the softly-falling slow muffling his footsteps, and his brother’s blood staining his tunic, and the despair, the despair—

“Eluréd,” Maedhros gasped, coming awake with a jolt, “Elurín—” But however far he walked he would never find the lost children, and Maglor had not come awake to soothe him. Maybe he’ll kill us, Elros had said. Well, he was right to fear it. Maedhros knew he was a monster. Soon there would be nothing left but this endless bitter self-recrimination, and these small dark-haired boys with their eyes following him accusingly like all Maedhros’ sins embodied. Was this truly all Maglor would leave him?

Sometime near the dawn Maglor woke, if that bleary motion towards consciousness could be called waking. His eyes flickered open; for a moment he stared at the ceiling in blank non-recognition before drawing an alarmed breath. His gaze shifted towards Maedhros, lips moving soundlessly.

“Easy, Káno,” Maedhros said, trying to sound gentle, and not as though he was watching the last thing worth living for crumble to pieces before him. “It’s all right.” But it wasn’t, and he was never the one whose voice held power to convince.

Maglor had lost his voice once or twice before — after the Dagor Bragollach, when he had sung with all his power in the poisoned, smoky air, he had not been able to speak for weeks. It always panicked him, who was otherwise so composed; now his hands were fluttering anxiously on the coverlet, and his breathing was growing faster and unsteadier.

“Are you worrying about the children again?” asked Maedhros, who had known Maglor longer than anyone else in the world. He took Maglor’s hand. “They are fine.”

There was a little measure of relief in Maglor’s dark eyes.

“Was it worth it?” Maedhros asked him. “All that effort. They do not love you — they cannot, after what you did.” Cruel, to say it even as Maglor lay dying. Maedhros had long known that he was cruel.

Maglor looked at him and said nothing. He seemed not even to have the energy to speak mind-to-mind — and now, at the end, Maedhros regretted it. He wanted to hear his brother’s voice again, aloud or otherwise. It was Maedhros’ way, he knew, to never appreciate a blessing until he had lost it.

“You need not look at me so,” he said. “I will not harm them.”

Maglor’s fingers squeezed his convulsively, as though seeking to reassure him.

“Are they your only concern?” Maedhros asked. “Have you no qualms about leaving me?” That was unfair, and yet—

He thought of waking frightened and disoriented in the camp at Mithrim and finding Maglor by his bedside every time, of the long years in Himring when Maglor would ride over to see him within hours of Maedhros sending for him, of weeping into his brother’s shoulder after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. Maedhros had been the centre of Maglor’s world for so long, and now, selfishly, he resented the change.

Not that it mattered, now that Maglor was dying.

“I did not mean that,” he said. “I am sorry, dearest.”

Maglor blinked heavily.

“Káno,” Maedhros whispered, “what am I to do?”

Elros had not realised how much sound Maglor carried with him until it was so abruptly muted. Even when he was busy he sang at his work, and when he was on watch-duty he kept up a stream of amiable chatter with the other guards, and over mealtimes he filled the grim silence with stories, or lectures on history — he always seemed very concerned with the twins’ education — or just idle musings. He never seemed to want a response, either: he simply could not abide quiet. It made Elros contrary; on occasion he would stubbornly refuse to open his mouth no matter what was said to him. He did not want to talk to Maglor. He hated Maglor.

Still, it was very strange, to see how suddenly the fortress fell silent without Maglor. It left too much time for thinking, and there was a buzzing in Elros’ ears that would not abate.

“My head hurts,” Elrond announced on the fifth evening after Maglor’s injury, while they were playing in their room.

Elros was not terribly concerned by this. Elrond was prone to headaches, as though all the thoughts in his head were pressing against his skull, and they had never led to anything serious. “I can get you some water,” he said.

“I don’t want water,” Elrond said, and then he started to cry.

Elros thought he understood. He leaned forward and put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I miss them too,” he said. “Ada and Naneth.”

Elrond cried harder. “I want Maglor,” he said.

Elros drew back instantly. “You don’t,” he said. “You’re just saying that. You don’t mean it.”

“What if I do?” Elrond asked. “I like Maglor. He’s nice and — and his stories are good and he never tells us off and when I have a headache he always makes me feel better—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Elros said. “He’s a Kinslayer. And if you don’t want him to die that — that means you don’t love Ada and Naneth any more!” It means you don’t love me, he wanted to say, although the words would not come out.

“That isn’t true!” Elrond said. “I do love them.”

“Then how,” said Elros, “how can you,” and then he stopped.

Elrond wiped at his eyes. “I want to go and see him,” he said. “Please, Elros.”

“He isn’t going to make you feel better,” Elros warned. “He’s too sick.”

“It’ll make me feel better to know he’s still alive,” Elrond said, with conviction, and he got up and led the way out of their room and through the corridors to Maglor’s. Elros trailed after him, unsettled.

The door to Maglor’s chambers had been kept locked since his injury — another change, for he liked to leave it open to hear what was going on in the corridors, and he had told Elros and Elrond more than once that they were welcome to come and find him if they ever needed anything. Elros had never taken him up on the offer, but Elrond had once, after a nightmare.

Elros had told himself at the time that he had been sleeping too deeply for Elrond to wake him, that was all. Otherwise his brother would never have gone to Maglor. But now—

Elrond pressed his hand against the doorknob and hummed a single note, very softly. (A memory: Maglor sitting cross-legged on their floor, a little array of scrap metal pieces before them. “The trick is in catching the resonance of the steel,” he said. “Try it, Elrond.”

Elrond had tilted his head and produced a warbling note. Elros, arms stubbornly folded, had refused to try, and Maglor had not pressed him. Maglor never pressed.

“That is good!” he had said, pleased. “A little higher — there!” For one of the pieces of metal — an old broken arrow — had started to vibrate.

Elrond had looked so delighted that Elros could not scowl, but neither did he say anything while Maglor praised his brother effusively.

“But how do I get it to move?” Elrond asked.

“That,” said Maglor, “requires modulation: you must inflect your note a little, just as though you are asking it a question. You must be polite, after all. It is not an exact art.”

Elrond tried, and produced no response from the arrow. “It didn’t work,” he said, disappointed.

“It does not always work,” said Maglor. “Think of it as — well, sometimes fate hangs very tightly in the balance. You might nudge it, and it will fall one way or the other, but it is impossible to say which. Try again.”)

The lock on Maglor’s door slid open.

He was still lying unconscious in his bed; the harsh, heavy sound of his breathing filled the room. Maedhros sat in his usual spot beside Maglor, watching his brother with a strange tender expression Elros had never seen on his face before. He felt suddenly as though he were intruding on something very sacred. If it were Elrond lying white-faced under the covers, he dared to imagine, and then drew in a sharp breath because the image was too painful to contemplate for longer than a moment.

Maedhros looked up at the sound. “Back again?” he said.

“We just wanted to see Maglor,” Elrond said, sniffling a little.

Maedhros stared at him and then shrugged. “I suppose it is something of a relief to you,” he said. “Maglor has done you great ills, after all.”

“We wanted to say goodbye,” Elrond said.

Maedhros looked rather blank.

“You are aware,” he said eventually, “that were it not for Maglor and me you would be safe with your mother in your own home right now?”

“We know,” Elros said crossly. What business had Maedhros telling them how to feel?

Maedhros’ gaze shifted to Elros. There was a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes. “You are curious children,” he said, sounding almost interested. The next moment the deadness had leeched back into his tone. “Say goodbye, then, if you will. He cannot hear you.”

“I thought he slept lightly,” Elrond said softly.

Maedhros glanced at him again. He looked surprised. “Usually,” he said, “yes.”

Elrond went to stand beside Maglor and took his hand. His eyes were brimming with tears again. “Goodbye, Maglor,” he said. Then he gave a sob and ran out of the room.

Elros stood frozen for a moment, wondering how Maedhros would react to this. But at that moment Maglor stirred a little, and made some small sound of pain. His brother’s attention was immediately diverted. “Go on, now,” he ordered without looking at Elros, bending low over Maglor. “You have said your goodbyes.”

Elros hadn’t, but he didn’t care. He went after Elrond.

Maglor stopped waking, even for short periods. His pallor was worsening, his gurgling breaths growing fainter; he no longer had the energy even to cough. “There is nothing to be done,” Orchalwen confirmed at last. “I am — so sorry, my lord.”

Maedhros stared at her. She had followed him since the days of Himring. Maybe one of these nights he would finally snap and wake up standing over her bloodied body.

Usually thoughts like that were a sign to go to Maglor, who would talk him through it, and promise him that however far he had fallen he was not yet so low as to turn on his own people, who had all stained their hands for him time and again. Maedhros did not believe him exactly, but it was enough to hear Maglor say it. His first and last little brother, the baby he had held at scant minutes old, his confidant, his second, the clear voice cutting through the clamour in his mind: it was unbearable! How could he bear it?

A part of him wished, now, that the torment of dread would just end, and Maglor would die; then he hated himself for wishing that, and rating his own misery above his brother’s life. Then again he remembered that the still greater torment of grief lay ahead, at which point he switched to praying that Maglor would linger in the world of the living longer yet; but that was selfish too, for Maglor was in pain, as every twitch of his ears and flex of his fingers made clear.

Not that Maedhros’ prayers would make any difference. There was no mercy for Kinslayers, and he did not expect any.

His thoughts turned to their small hostages, who had wanted to see Maglor before he died; to Elrond, who had wept for him. Maedhros had not predicted that. Yes, the children were dear to Maglor; yes, his eyes were always brighter and his smile easier after time spent in their company, or fretting over some detail of their care; but there had never been any reason to suspect that his affection might be returned, even in some small degree. After what they had done to Elwing, to Sirion — it was obscene.

And, the pettiest part of Maedhros’ heart cried out, what right had they to mourn him? Had Maglor been by their sides through all the long dark fall from grace — was it them he had followed, unquestioningly faithful, into slaughter and atrocity? They had known him less than a year. They could not love him as Maedhros did.

“Perhaps I should not be surprised,” he said, brushing a few strands of Maglor’s tangled hair off his forehead. “You are — you are not hard to love, Káno.”

Had he ever said it while Maglor had been listening? Surely he had, in look or deed if not in words themselves. Surely Maglor knew.

“It does not matter now, anyway,” said Maedhros. His voice sounded eerily calm, even to his own ears. Perhaps Elwing’s sons, no doubt eavesdropping outside the door, would wonder to hear it. “But I wish—”

Maglor’s face was so still and white. It would not be long now.

“I wish,” said Maedhros, but his throat closed before he could finish the sentence.

Elros glanced at Elrond. His brother’s eyes were damp.

Come away, he said in Elrond’s mind. He took his wrist and tugged him away from Maglor’s door and down the corridor.

“He’s so sad,” said Elrond, once they were safely ensconced in their own chambers.

Good, Elros would have said, a few days ago. But it was hard, having heard the quiet anguish in Maedhros’ voice, to believe that.

“Maglor’s nice,” said Elrond. “He’s always nice to us.”

“He wasn’t nice to Naneth,” said Elros.

“No,” said Elrond. “No, he wasn’t.” He sniffed, and then said, “He loves us.”

Elros was growing to realise that. “It isn’t enough,” he said fiercely. “He isn’t our Ada. He isn’t anyone, just a — a Kinslayer. I won’t love him, I won’t, I won’t.”

“Elros,” said Elrond, and then he held out his thin arms.

Elros and Elrond did not hug very often. They were too big for that, Elros had thought; but today he felt very small, and very frightened. He went over to his brother and hugged him tight.

“I don’t want to leave him to die,” Elrond said against Elros’ shoulder. “If I can save him.”

Elros knew what his brother had decided, even if Elrond himself did not know just yet. Elros had known Elrond longer than anyone else in the world. Still, if there were at least justifications he could make for this—

“Maybe Maedhros will kill us, if Maglor dies,” he said.

“Maedhros won’t,” Elrond said, with conviction. “He’ll be too sad.”

“Then,” said Elros.

Elrond looked at him sadly. “I have to try, at least,” he said.

Of course Elrond had to try. Elrond had never seen a broken thing he didn’t want to save. It still did not feel fair.

“He killed people,” Elros said. “Lots of people.”

“I’m better than him,” Elrond said, with sudden equanimity. “That’s why I have to try. It isn’t really for him. It’s for me.”

Elros sniffled, and Elrond gave him an understanding look. “I still love you best, you know,” he said.

“I know,” said Elros, and he managed a watery smile for his brother.

There was a small tap on the door.

“What,” Maedhros said, dully. This was all that would be left, now — Elwing’s sons with their awful grey eyes and their small fearful faces haunting his footsteps, and no Maglor.

The door pushed open and the children came in. They did, indeed, look rather afraid; they had both also been crying. Maglor’s hand in Maedhros’ was cold. He did not care if the children were upset, he told himself.

(Maglor cared — Maglor spent long hours worrying about their welfare, their education, whether or not they had enough blankets at night when the fortress grew chilly. Had any of it mattered? None of his fretting had sufficed to save him from his deathbed. The Valar had no mercy to spare him.

They made him happy, Maedhros told himself, that is something, that they made him happy — but it was too little to cling to, now.)

Elrond was in the lead — strange, for it was usually Elros who appointed himself their spokesperson. He was wringing his hands, but he fixed Maedhros with a nervously determined look. “We wanted to see Maglor,” he said.

“You already have,” said Maedhros. “You came to say goodbye to him.” Perhaps they had not — perhaps he had hallucinated that. Or perhaps it was Dior’s sons who stood before him now, waiting to lead Maglor into the shadow-realm where they had been lost. Well, he would not let them: they would not take his brother so easily.

He realised with a start that he had got to his feet, and that the children in the doorway were trembling. No — no. If Maedhros was half-mad he was not yet fully so; he would not hurt the children Maglor loved while Maglor still clung to life beside him.

He sat heavily back down and tilted his chin towards his brother’s still pale form. “Well, he is here. See him.”

Elrond crept forward and came to stand beside Maglor. Then he put his small hands on Maglor’s chest.

“What are you doing?” Maedhros asked, sharply. “The wound is there. If you are trying—” Could the heirs of Doriath, the small princes of doomed Sirion, have some nefarious plan in mind? Maglor had never believed such suggestions. They are children, Nelyo, he had said.

Children we have wronged, Maedhros had pointed out.

But there was no use dwelling on the memory of Maglor’s voice now, when he would never hear it again! All the same, if Elrond was trying to kill Maedhros’ brother—

Maglor took a single, heaving breath.

“Káno,” Maedhros said.

Elrond’s eyes were half-closed with concentration. He had not moved his hands from Maglor’s chest, which was now very still. Maedhros could not hear him breathing at all.

The tipping-point, the edge of the precipice, the moment when fate might fall in one of many directions — but we are Doomed, Maedhros found himself thinking, Mandos said so himself, so he cannot possibly live — oh, please, only let him live—

Maglor took another shuddering breath. Beneath his closed eyelids his eyes were moving in rapid, random directions, like those of a spooked horse.

“Káno,” Maedhros said again. Elrond stepped back as Maedhros pulled his brother into an upright position and put a basin in his lap, just in time for Maglor to vomit a stream of blood into it.

“Ugh,” Elros said quietly, behind them.

Maglor coughed and spluttered; but when he gasped for air again his breathing sounded clearer than it had since he had sustained his injury, with no awful gurgling sound. He coughed once more, and no fresh blood glistened on his lips. When Maedhros put the back of his hand against his brother’s mouth, he felt the soft brush of an exhalation on his skin, faint but unmistakeable.

“It’s better now, isn’t it?” Elrond said softly. His eyes were shining.

Maedhros stared at him, unable to believe what he had heard. That Elwing’s son could—

“Go and fetch the healers,” he said, and the children padded out of the room.

Maedhros was still holding Maglor. He pressed his lips to his brother’s forehead. “Are you with me?” he asked.

Maglor made no response, but the pained downturn of his mouth was easing.

“I don’t understand,” Maedhros said. “He’s only a child.”

Lúthien, people said, had healed the wound on Beren’s severed wrist with the power of her tears.

“And if not how,” said Maedhros, “why?”

When the healers came, they confirmed it: Maglor’s lungs were clear, and the puncture in his breast was healing cleanly. He would be well again within the fortnight.

The children, who were growing bolder, came back in once the healers were gone. Maedhros stared at them for a long time. “Why?” he asked again.

Elrond looked at Maglor with a pleased expression. He shrugged.

“Thank you,” Maedhros said, in a low voice. What else was there to say?

Elrond said, “When will Maglor wake up again?”

“Soon, the healers say,” said Maedhros. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Good,” said Elrond.

Maedhros came to find them the next day himself. “Maglor is awake,” he announced, interrupting the game Elros and Elrond were playing in their bedchamber. “Would you like to see him?”

Elros was not entirely sure he would, but Elrond said, “Yes, please,” pushing himself eagerly to his feet, so Elros found himself trailing behind his brother as Maedhros led them back to Maglor’s room.

They found Maglor sitting up in bed, his face pale but his eyes bright. Maedhros went to his side and spoke to him quietly in Quenya, and Maglor squeezed his fingers and said something back in a reassuring voice. Then he caught sight of Elros and Elrond and his face broke into a smile. “Elros, Elrond!” he said. “Thank you for coming to see me.” His voice sounded as it always had, lilting and musical, every sentence a song. Elros liked the sound of Maglor’s voice, when he thought about it.

“Are you feeling better?” Elrond asked.

“Yes,” said Maglor, “much!” He gave Elrond a serious, considering look. “I am told it was you who saved me, Elrond. I am very thankful.”

Elrond’s eyes were wide and thoughtful. “I didn’t want you to die,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean—” He broke off, confused.

“It doesn’t mean,” Maglor said evenly, “that what Maedhros and I did was right, or that you should not be with your own mother and father right now.”

Elrond started to cry. “I miss them,” he said.

“I know, little star,” Maglor said, in the same gentle voice he always used with them. “I am so sorry.”

Elrond, weeping, flung himself into Maglor’s arms. Elros stiffened. They had never so much as accepted an offered caress from Maglor before, let alone given one of their own. But now Elrond was crying into Maglor’s nightshirt, his thin arms wrapped around Maglor’s neck. “I want to go home,” he said. “I don’t want you to die. Please don’t die.”

Maglor hugged Elrond back. “I am not going to die, Elrond,” he said softly, and eventually Elrond cried himself out.

Over Elrond’s dark head Maglor looked at Elros. He said nothing.

“I don’t want to hug you,” Elros said.

“That is all right,” Maglor said gravely. “Thank you, Elros.”

“I didn’t do anything,” said Elros. He felt churlish, and hated it. Why was Maglor being so nice, after what Elros had said about him? Did he not know that, if Elros had had his way, he would have been left to die? “It was all Elrond.”

“You came to see me,” said Maglor, “and I am very glad you are here.”

Hesitantly, Elros came forward and then reached for Maglor’s free hand (the other being occupied with patting Elrond’s back soothingly). Maglor’s skin was warm — it was real, then. He was getting better. His palm was calloused, like a harpist’s palm, or a swordsman’s. You could not tell the difference; but Maglor’s touch was always very gentle, all the same.

“Well,” said Elros, “I am glad you did not die.”

Maglor laughed aloud. Elros had not realised until that moment how much he had missed the golden sound of Maglor’s laugh. He looked at Maedhros, who was hovering in the doorway, his gaze fixed on Maglor’s face. “Thank you!” he said. “So am I.”

Maglor improved swiftly. Soon he was staying awake for an hour or two for a time, and attempting to feed himself the invalid’s broth he was given, and showing a renewed interest in the songs he had left half-finished before his injury. The colour was returning to his white cheeks, and his voice, so long unused, had not lost any of its indefinable sweetness. Maedhros rarely left his side. He had been neglecting his duties for days, but he did not care; it was enough to sit by his brother’s bed in contentment as he had done so long in agony, and watch over his sleep, or else when he was awake to listen to his chatter. Maglor was good at that, filling the room with a bright string of inconsequential words that required no response from Maedhros beyond the occasional hum of acknowledgement.

“You are very quiet, Nelyo,” he observed at one point.

Maedhros just looked at him.

Maglor’s eyes softened. “Come here,” he said, and he shuffled aside as best as he could, making space for Maedhros to sit beside him on the bed.

Maedhros came. He let his brother slip an arm around him, and felt the warmth of his living body close against his own. The world was not yet done with miracles, maybe.

Maglor leaned his head against Maedhros’ shoulder. “It was very hard for you,” he murmured.

It was impossible to deny this. “Káno,” Maedhros said, “if you had died—”

“I did not die,” Maglor said. His hand found Maedhros’, and squeezed his fingers.

“I would have gone mad,” said Maedhros. “I think perhaps I did.” Maglor’s eyes were clear and bright, and he was listening attentively. Maedhros had not thought to have a moment like this again. Gratitude, so long foreign to him, was suffocating him. “I spoke to you often,” he said. “While you were unconscious.”

“I know,” Maglor said slowly. “I think I heard you, in a way.” He smiled at Maedhros: a tired smile, but a real one. “Nelyo, I would not — I will not forsake you, as long as it is in my power.”

It was a declaration of love and loyalty far beyond what Maedhros deserved; nor, being churlish, was he willing to accept it without question. “You nearly did, though. You would have, were it not for them.”

Maglor exhaled, half a melody. There was no blood flecking his lips now. Why could Maedhros never appreciate a blessing? Maglor said nothing, but neither did he lift his head from Maedhros’ shoulder.

“Why,” said Maedhros, who never knew when to let go, “did you ask me about them at the first? Did you think I would harm them?”

“No,” Maglor said evenly. “Why would I think that, Nelyo?”

The old show-your-working method, forcing Maedhros to explain every twist and turn of his convoluted thinking or else admit that he was spiralling. Maglor had been using it for centuries. “Because of Dior’s sons,” he said. “They were frightened I would kill them, did you know? I came across them talking about it.”

“Poor children,” Maglor murmured. “You might speak to them about it, later.”

Maedhros knew he should, but he was not yet willing to admit that. “They are not a pair of orphans you coincidentally found by the road, Káno,” he said. They had had this conversation many times before, and he never prevailed. “Elwing’s sons, Thingol’s last heirs! They will never love you, who have slain so many of their kin.”

“And yet,” said Maglor, “Elrond healed me.”

Maedhros looked at him, and said nothing.

“You are asking me why I love them,” said Maglor. “What do you wish for me to say, Nelyo? Sirion was the greatest of all our evils. We killed the boys’ family, and then we stole them away from all they have ever known. A cruelty we could not have imagined, had we not done it ourselves: we both know that.” He tilted his head to meet Maedhros’ eyes. “But you cannot tell me it is wrong to care for them now. And I do not do it expecting reciprocation. I never thought—” His chest rose and fell rapidly. His lungs were still not at full capacity. “They are very dear to me, Nelyo.”

“I know that,” Maedhros said.

“Then,” said Maglor, “do you claim that I am wrong to love them — or that Elrond should not have healed me?”

Maedhros’ arm tightened reflexively around him. “No! Never that. Only that — well, it was not something I ever expected of him.” He had been so certain his brother would die. Sometimes it still did not feel possible that Maglor was here, talking to him, his fingers curled around Maedhros’.

“It was kindness,” said Maglor, “which cannot be a sin.” He squeezed Maedhros’ hand again. “Are you not grateful, Nelyo?”

Maedhros pressed his lips to Maglor’s white brow. “Very grateful, dearest.”

Maglor was clearly tired, his eyelids beginning to droop. When Maedhros moved to lower him back onto the pillows he made a small sound of protest, nestling his head against Maedhros’ shoulder instead. It was not the most comfortable position, propped against the headboard with Maglor leaning all his weight on one side of him, but Maedhros did not have it within him to object.

His brother’s breathing had evened out, and Maedhros had begun to think he was asleep, when Maglor looked up at him and said, quiet but clear, “You still come first, Nelyo. Always.”

“I know, Káno,” said Maedhros. “I know.”

The next afternoon, the twins were sitting in Maglor’s bedroom, as had become their habit. Elrond insisted on it: they would either play on the floor while he dozed, or, if he was awake, listen to his stories. Elros had not protested. He was glad Maglor had survived, he had discovered. And there was something very gratifying about the brightness of his smile every time the twins arrived at his door, as though he had not quite dared to believe until that moment that they would come.

“It helps him,” Elrond said confidently one day, once they were alone. “Seeing us. He’s getting better.” Elrond had been very confident recently. He no longer deferred to Elros for every little decision, and he was voicing his own opinions more often. Elros found he did not mind this. Maglor said that twins did not always have to think the same about everything; that, in fact, that they could disagree and yet still love each other was a sign of growing up. Elros did not know when he had started taking Maglor’s word on things, but he believed that too.

“Maedhros!” Maglor said brightly, startling Elros, who had not noticed Maedhros at the door. “Come in. Have you come to sit with me?”

Maedhros’ scarred face was, as usual, unreadable. But then he broke into a smile. He looked very different when he smiled, Elros realised. “Think you that I do not spend enough time here already?” he asked. After a moment Elros recognised his tone as teasing. Maedhros, teasing! “In fact, I came to speak to Elrond and Elros.”

Elros met his brother’s eyes. Elrond looked as taken aback as he was, for all that he was curled contentedly on the bed next to Maglor. They had not seen Maedhros at all since Maglor had first woken. The afternoons they spent with Maglor were the only times Maedhros left his brother’s room. That was fine by Elros, who was still trying to adjust to the realisation that he did not hate Maglor — that Maglor was kind, even. Yet he had not forgotten the stab of awful pity he had felt watching Maedhros bend over his dying brother, oblivious to all else.

Maedhros sat down on the edge of the bed, keeping a distance between himself and the twins. He glanced at Maglor, who smiled encouragingly at him. Looking first Elrond and then Elros in the eye, he said, “Boys, I know you are afraid of me — and you have every right to be, after what I have done — but I promise I will never hurt you.” He smiled rather ironically. “I keep my promises, as anyone will tell you.”

“All right,” Elrond said softly. He was clutching Maglor’s hand.

Elros shuffled backwards a little, until his back touched Maglor’s legs beneath the covers. Then he said, “What about Naneth’s brothers?”

A spasm crossed Maedhros’ face. He closed his eyes.

Maglor sighed. “I did not realise you had heard that story,” he said, “else I would have set the record straight sooner. That was an evil deed, and one done without our knowledge. Those responsible for leaving your uncles in the woods were… punished, and severely. And Maedhros searched for them for days and days. He could not find them.”

Maedhros opened his eyes at that and fixed Maglor with a terrible beseeching look. He said something in Quenya, his tone anguished.

Elros thought of the times Maedhros had called them Eluréd and Elurín. For a moment he thought he glimpsed a memory not his own: snow falling swiftly in a dark forest, huddling beside his brother in a little tree-hollow to try to shelter from the cold, Maedhros’ despairing voice calling those same names again and again over the eerie wailing of the wind. He shivered.

“I know, Maedhros,” Maglor said in Sindarin, very soothingly. “And look: they are here.”

Maedhros looked at Elros and Elrond again and managed a smile. “So they are,” he said. He sighed. “Maglor is right, although you need not believe us. We have done all manner of evils, but we did not kill your uncles. But it matters little — they died either way.”

“I think it matters,” Elrond said thoughtfully. “That you tried to save them. And I do believe you.”

“So do I,” said Elros, surprising himself.

“Well, then,” said Maedhros. “My brother loves you both a great deal, you know.” He looked over at Maglor, fondly. “For his sake — and for yours — I would have you know that I will not harm you.”

“We know,” Elrond said earnestly; and then, to everyone’s surprise, he got off the bed and went over to Maedhros, putting his arms around Maedhros’ waist (which was the only part of him he could reach).

Maedhros went very still. Elros’ heart was in his throat — Maglor always said not to touch Maedhros without warning! — but then Maedhros relaxed, and brushed a strand of Elrond’s hair off his forehead. His hand was the size of Elrond’s face, but the touch was gentle.

Elros felt suddenly rather alone. He looked at Maglor, who was watching him with very soft eyes, and then came to a decision. Careful not to jostle Maglor, who after all was still recovering, he crawled over to the spot Elrond had just vacated, and after another moment’s hesitation curled against Maglor’s side. Thankfully, Maglor did not put an arm around him. But his warmth was reassuring all the same.

Elros closed his eyes. Maglor did not smell like the sea, and Amon Ereb was not his home. But this almost-embrace was a beginning.