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Maglor—brother, dearest, hateful creature—slunk into bed after dawn. Autumn’s chill clung to his skin, skin that was at once pressed against Maedhros’s, chapped lips against his temple, a palm cracked with dryness between his legs. “Don’t be angry,” Maglor murmured with a voice smooth and sweet as honey, but underneath—underneath—spoiled bitter.
A shudder rocked Maedhros. Maglor withdrew. His gray eyes flickered across Maedhros’s face, darkening like smoke thickening, and then he collapsed onto his pillow. “Worth a try,” he said, muffled. His knee struck Maedhros’s hip as he hiked up his leg and hooked an arm under it. The toes of his cold foot snagged in Maedhros’s nightshirt.
That his sleeping habits had ever been endearing! Maedhros shifted to the edge of the mattress, but it wasn’t a simple matter, getting out of bed. In the cold months it was hardest, except when spring came with rains that made it harder still. His body popped, creaked, cried out. He shuffled to the window where sun leaked between the shutters and pushed them open. Blinding light! Squinting, baring his teeth at it as some Orc might, he blinked and blinked, then turned away to find Maglor with his pillow drawn over his face.
“The sun bids you up! Will you deny her?”
Maglor did not move.
“She is evil, I know. But it’s your own fault that you think so. Now will you deny her?”
Maglor did not answer.
Maedhros leaned back against the wall. A pathetic little creature, Maglor was, unable to bear the light. They, brothers, the first alive and the last, were not so different in that. Thinking such did not lessen Maedhros’s anger—for wasn’t that the very issue?
It was the children’s fault. Not their moral fault, no, for children could not do wrong, as Maglor had taken to reminding Maedhros. They were innocent: and it was in their innocence that the fault lay. Maglor’s heart broke on it; he wept for it. His pity overcame him. When Maedhros had tried to leave the children in a cave with food and water, spears with the shafts snapped to fit their size, directions to build a fire to attract the people of Balar, Maglor said he would not stand for it. They were like not to be found, or to be found by bear or wolf: they were like to die. He said, “It’s not right.”
Maedhros’s mouth was dry as the ash falling over Elwing’s ruined settlement. “Right?”
“Yes! To whom do I speak, brother? Celegorm?”
Maedhros reeled. Had he not, he would’ve backhanded Maglor across the face. He should have. Maybe then he would’ve gotten his way. But he reeled, and Maglor’s eyes—smoke, darkening—narrowed at the promise of victory. “I will not leave the children to die,” he said, so they didn’t.
For Maglor, it quickly became more than that. As the tattered people of Fëanor traveled east, dragging two miserable orphans through the wilderness, burying them in cloaks and blankets because their small frail bodies could not bear even the mild chill of spring—how fast had Dior’s sons died, Maedhros wondered—Maglor kept company with their minders. “Elrond hates walnuts,” Maglor told Maedhros, and, “Elros can play some flute.” Once he crawled onto their pallet after Maedhros had lain there sleepless for hours, and when Maedhros asked what had kept him, he said, “Elrond wet the bed. He wouldn’t stop crying.”
“And that was your problem?”
They lay facing each other, Maedhros holding Maglor close. Maglor twitched. “Do not be cruel.”
“Cruel,” Maedhros said, and laughed. A dry, cracking laugh. “Do they know? Shall I go to them and tell them that Maglor, sweet Maglor who soothes them when they cry, pushed their mother into the sea?”
“You would lie to them.”
“Would I?”
Maglor made no answer. Maedhros rolled on top of his stiffening body, forcing him onto his back, shoving his hand into his hair to tug his head into place. He kissed Maglor and tutted when Maglor didn’t kiss back. “Are you too good for your brother’s affection? Better than me now, because of the children? But your care doesn’t redeem you. It taints them. You are poison, Maglor; we are—”
Maglor shoved him. Maedhros landed hard on his hip, and pain like lightning seared up his back. He gasped—or did he? Certainly stars burst across his vision, and by the time he blinked them away Maglor crouched above the pallet, a furious animal, looming.
Or a frantic brother, leaning over Maedhros’s sickbed. “I’m sorry,” he said, grabbing at Maedhros’s shoulder. “I am sorry. Are you hurt?”
“Come here,” Maedhros said.
Maglor lay down next to him. He flinched when Maedhros, shifting, grunted in pain, then held still as Maedhros brushed hair from his cheek with his stump. “We are poison,” Maedhros said, “to all but each other. And you’ve trained me well, these last years: I cannot sleep without you. So tomorrow. Come to bed on time.”
Maglor said, “I’ll try.”
Maedhros’s anger sparked again. But Maglor was not like their infuriating dead brothers. It was he only who had led Maedhros by the hand to a secluded spot outside their camp after the second kin-slaughter—the first on Maedhros’s orders—and bedded him: because Maedhros had been hearkening to Mandos. “By Eru Ilúvatar, you are mine,” was Maglor’s vow, and his command, “I forbid you from leaving me. Do you hear me? I forbid it.” Who else could Maglor be, after that, than darling, dearest, the other half of Maedhros’s ruined soul?
So Maedhros pressed Maglor close and kissed his brow, and he said, “See that you do.”
In the morning, he went to the children. They hid behind their minder Rochen, clutching at his muddied wool tunic. “Don’t be rude,” Rochen chided. “A lord of our people has come to see you.”
One of the children leaned out, saying, “Ma—” He blinked. He shrunk away. Which one was he? Maedhros had no idea; it was the first time he’d looked into either child’s face. This one was round, sugar-sweet, and beginning to twist with fear. Would Dior’s sons have looked at him like that, had he found them alive?
In one swift movement, Maedhros crouched and took the round face in hand. The child paled, his lips trembling, and under Maedhros’s little finger, his pulse beat fast as a rabbit’s. What a contrast to how he had peered out from behind Rochen, hopeful at the thought that Maglor had come! Sickening, that hope. “Are you scared of me?” Maedhros said. “Good.”
He might’ve put the fear of Maglor into them right then and there. It was what he had come to do: tell them that Maglor, their sweet Maglor, had pushed their mother into the sea. As did I, he would say. As did we all. Don’t forget you are among enemies.
But the child was pale and trembling.
Maedhros drew away. The other child lunged to grab his brother, hissing in Maedhros’s direction. “Lord?” Rochen said.
“That’s all I needed,” Maedhros said and stood to leave.
What would he have done with Dior’s sons, had he found them alive? For he did find them: half-buried by a snowdrift and frozen dead. Not another soul knew of it. Not another soul knew how they’d looked, two dark-haired little children like their nephews after them, holding each other in their cold sleep. Their cloaks, shared. Their heads pressed together, one angled as if the child had meant to kiss his brother’s cheek. Maedhros had cried out. He’d touched them all over, frantic, desperate to find any sign of life. But when it was over, when he leaned back knowing they were dead and silence fell again, he looked at last into their faces. Round and sugar-sweet, they were, and peaceful. In their final moments, they’d felt no fear. They never would again.
Death, a mercy.
For hundreds of years, Maedhros had dreamed of dying. For thirty years, he’d dreamed of following Maglor into death, of lying down between cold stiff arms, made so by some wound in battle, of kissing cold stiff lips. Then he’d breathe forth, last of all his kin, dead of despair. A romantic dream, once, back when despair was wanted but not yet come, when there was yet hope for the Silmarils.
Maedhros woke from his doze to a hand on his shoulder. “Maedhros,” Maglor said, and Maedhros shuddered. Maglor withdrew. Had his face been open? It was shuttered now, and Maedhros was glad of it—and glad of the chill in Maglor’s voice when he spoke. “You ought not sleep at your desk. You’ll be in pain all day.”
“I’ll be in pain all day whatever I do.”
“Worse pain.”
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” Maedhros said with an affected shrug, left shoulder only.
Maglor looked down at his bracelets, expression thereby hidden, and tugged at some imaginary fault in the lay of them. Diamond struck sapphire. “I came to say I won’t be walking to court with you. I have an errand to run.”
“An errand.”
“I’m going to the kitchens.”
Maglor’s air was casual; maybe he hoped Maedhros would assume that because he’d slept through breakfast, he wanted food for himself. But an errand meant something for the children. What? A request for their favorite foods at lunch would take mere moments, and fetching breakfast leftovers minutes at the most. By the angle of the sunlight streaming in through the windows, court was not for another hour.
Maedhros grit his teeth. Asking was out of the question. “Don’t be late.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Maglor said, not at all an answer to Maedhros’s words, and turned away. The door swung open. Frigid wind swept in. Almost like an afterthought, Maglor plucked his cloak off its hook.
Here was an awful truth: the Lord Maedhros Fëanorion, murderer of King Dior and Queen Nimloth and all their children, had many followers. They lived in the fortress upon Amon Ereb, and in the town around the fortress, and in the countryside around the town. No Oath bound them, only loyalty and fervent belief—and the hope that their lord would provide for them. So most days, there were petitioners to hear.
Here was another awful truth: Maglor was late. A woman dressed in rags, clutching her weeping son to her side, asked for succor. Her farm: raided by Orcs. Her husband: killed in defense of their grain. From his throne Maedhros demanded a count of the Orcs, a description of them, an assessment of why they had gone for the grain. Were they hungry?
“Hungry, lord?” the woman said, shivering. “I don’t know. All I know is that they’ve left us hungry.”
As she deserved! For remaining loyal to Maedhros the murderer, for dragging a son into this with her. Morgoth was no just judge, but sometimes—just sometimes—
Maedhros looked away, blinking into the evil sunlight.
At last Maglor deigned to arrive. The courtiers watching the proceedings rose to their feet, but for a moment only: Maglor gestured at once for them to sit. He liked to make a show of such indulgences. Indeed, after looking over the scene, he approached the woman and took her hand—only one, for he held a cloth-wrapped box under an arm—asking if she’d been given food and warm clothing.
Looking at her, Maedhros knew the answer. The woman shook her head.
Maglor gave her his cloak. He ordered that food be brought to her and her son at once—“and chairs as well! Whose idea was it to make these poor souls stand?” And he promised them further succor, should they choose to stay.
“My lord, I thank you!” cried the woman, and she embraced Maglor and wept on his shoulder.
Court ended quickly after that. Then Maedhros and Maglor sat alone in the hall, Maglor tugging at the ties around the box in his lap. Maedhros said, “You were late.”
“So I was,” Maglor said.
“I told you not to be.”
“You tell me lots of things.”
“As is your lord’s right. Now what is in that box?”
The cloth fell away, revealing a wicker lid. Maglor pushed it aside, and there nestled in gray linen were flaking pastries. Two of them, both the size of Maglor’s hand from the tips of his fingers to his wrist, with a red jam filling. “The chef did well, I think,” Maglor said and handed one to Maedhros.
They’d seemed larger to Maedhros, back when he was small. “The size of your head!” Nerdanel had said once, laughing, though they weren’t truly so large as that. For their size only were they special: a treat for holidays, when just one meant more than it usually did. There’d been no more of them after they went to Formenos. “Ambarussar are adults,” Fëanor had said blankly to Maedhros’s inquiry.
“You had these made for the children,” Maedhros said.
What was in his voice that made Maglor hesitate? Maedhros couldn’t hear himself. He demanded, “Answer me.”
“They had a rough night,” Maglor said, “but I also thought—”
The pastry tumbled to the floor. Maedhros stood three strides away. Little fingers sticky with jam—and smiles! The poor children had surely smiled, even laughed, because of Maglor. Poisoned.
“Maedhros,” Maglor said. His voice was a sigh; he was disappointed in Maedhros’s behavior. Maedhros snarled, then reined himself in and sneered. He turned on his heel to show Maglor exactly what he thought of the admonishment.
Maglor’s eyes were soot. “At the end of it all, when the everlasting darkness takes me,” he said, “at least I will go knowing I tried to be kind.”
His dark look, the words: they made Maedhros sick. He might’ve laughed and asked Maglor what it mattered. He might’ve asked him if he still thought his pastries, his so-called kindnesses, made him unlike Maedhros, better than him. If the everlasting darkness would not return him to where he belonged at Maedhros’s wretched side.
But they had been through all that a dozen times or more. “Don’t be late again,” Maedhros said, and left.
What would he have done with Dior’s sons, alive? Maedhros fantasized about it: tucking them into the folds of his cloak, spiriting them safely beyond the broken fence of their broken realm, leaving them at a Green-elf’s door to be raised right. An upbringing out of an ancient tale. Maedhros and Maglor lurked at its edges, the requisite monsters, and the Green-elf and her children found room in their hearts to pity them, because they were safe from them.
Sometimes, in Maedhros’s fantasies, there was no convenient Green-elf. There were only the monsters and the children. Would Maedhros have proven weak like Maglor? For the monsters had not slain the sons of Elwing like the sons of Dior before them, but Maglor was devouring them all the same.
“Lord Maedhros! I need help,” were the words that escaped that round, sugar-sweet face. It was Elrond who pleaded with Maedhros. He stood barefoot and without a cloak on the gray stones of the courtyard, his hands clutching at his sleeves, and he looked at Maedhros like Maedhros was his only hope in the world.
“Where are your shoes?” Maedhros demanded.
“Rochen has them,” Elrond said nonsensically. “Please. I can’t find Maglor anywhere.”
“Can’t Rochen help you?”
“He’s the one who—” Elrond’s fingers dug into his arms. “I beg of you, lord.”
He took one step back, two, a trick, for as soon as Maedhros stepped after him, he turned to run. He led Maedhros through a gate and towards the room where the fortress’s children were tutored. “What’s the matter?” Maedhros called after him.
Elrond did not answer. He jittered with nerves; his hands fumbled on the handle of the door. Maedhros opened it for him. The room was large, built long ago for many more than two children, but there was no question of where to look. There was Rochen by the windows, bent over, his hand in Elros’s hair: and there was Elros, tear-streaked and gagging. Rochen held Elros’s face an inch above a pool of vomit.
There was no time to think about monsters. As Elrond cried out, Maedhros strode across the room, grabbed Rochen by the collar, and slammed him into the wall.
It had begun with the pastry, the children explained as they and Maedhros crouched outside the room. Elros had eaten his and half of Elrond’s, and felt sick, and been sick. But then, really it had begun before that: Rochen was already angry. Earlier that morning, Elros had fallen asleep during a lecture. So when he threw up, Rochen made him sit with his knees nearly touching his shame. He’d taken the children’s shoes so they couldn’t run, then left to calm himself. Elrond had run anyway, and Rochen had lost any calm he’d regained when he’d returned to a room with only one child in sight.
Maedhros tucked the children into the folds of his cloak. “We’ve never liked Rochen,” Elrond declared, shaking Maedhros off. “Have we, Elros?”
“You liked him at first.”
“I did not!”
Elros shrugged. “We haven’t liked him for a while. But Maglor’s never listened.”
“He’ll listen now. I’ll tell him,” Maedhros said.
The children looked at each other. “You’re trembling,” Elrond said in Elros’s direction, but he wasn’t speaking to Elros.
“That’s none of your business,” Maedhros said, and horror of horrors, Elrond smiled.
Maglor came at the summons of Maedhros’s mind. Maedhros pushed the children towards him, and he swept them into his arms and kissed them. Maedhros trembled harder. “Rochen!” he cried, standing to his full height, and pushed his way back inside.
Rochen played hurt. His throat made an awful wounded sound when he was told he wouldn’t be welcome on Amon Ereb again. Maedhros sneered at him, at his plea that he had a family to look after. “Did your family fight for us at the Havens?” he asked, and when Rochen nodded eagerly, pathetically, as if this would win him leniency, Maedhros laughed. “Then why don’t I banish them with you?”
Banishment! It was the least any of them deserved. Maedhros craved it for himself. The Oath had poisoned him, and transformed him into poison, made him the author of ruin. So he thought to leave it all behind: his vow to his father, his vow to his people. Even his vow to his dearest, his hateful brother, dragged out of him by forceful kisses under the canopy of Doriath.
But in Maedhros’s fantasies of haunting the Green-elf and her children, Maglor haunted them with him. In his dreams of death, Maglor died before him. He was selfish, Maedhros was, not so different from his brother, selfish and hateful and the other half of Maglor’s ruined soul. And Maglor would never leave if he could help it, in life or in death. He had the children to think of.
“You hypocrite, preaching kindness!” Maedhros cried when Maglor slipped into their apartment.
Maedhros was no longer trembling, shuddering, all those weaknesses of body that plagued him—but Maglor was. His skin was the color of milk. “I didn’t think that Rochen could…”
“Did you not? Rochen, murderer of innocents at the Havens, incapable of cruelty! A fine vision.”
Maglor shuddered. Maedhros advanced, crowded him against the wall. His fury burned hot, but so too his vindication. Here was Maglor shown his place. His hand brushed up the side of Maglor’s neck, then seized his chin.
He never tired of looking into Maglor’s eyes. It was in them—in their wildness, in their light—that Maedhros saw the brother he yet loved. “You fool,” he said, his words gentle though his grip was firm. “You want to believe the best of everyone, but the people on this hill: we are all rotten.”
Maglor licked his lips. “You aren’t. You only wish you were.”
Maedhros slammed him into the wall. Maglor yelped—surprised! Hateful creature, in his blindness. Maedhros ought to have screamed at him. He ought to have thrown him out of the room. But for a moment he held Maglor there, watching as Maglor cringed from him but chose not to fight, chose to submit to Maedhros’s punishing hand.
Maglor knew what he had done in trusting Rochen. Was Maedhros better than him, because he was not blind to the rest of it? What difference did it make? Here Maglor was, frozen in his guilt, exactly where Maedhros had wanted him. One soul, together again.
A long breath. A lean forward. Maedhros kissed Maglor’s wrinkled brow. Then his temple, then his cheek. “Maedhros,” Maglor gasped, voice breaking. His arms wrapped around Maedhros and pulled him close, and he extended his neck for Maedhros to lay his claim.
“I loathe you with every breath I breathe,” Maedhros said.
And Maglor said, “I know. You think I don’t know?”
Later, much later, in the dark of the sun’s sailing under the world, Maglor slept with an arm hooked under his leg. Maedhros traced the bruises he’d left on Maglor’s skin, and kissed them, and teased them with his teeth. But Maglor didn’t stir until gray light began to leak between the shutters. Then Maedhros lay with his back to the window, and Maglor hid his face in Maedhros’s hair.