No Victory Without Cost by Tarion Anarore

It was not until evening that Maglor found Maedhros. Dust and smoke still hung in the air despite the wind that had risen up from the west, but the trees creaked and groaned on the foothills of the Ered Luin. Ever and anon Maglor would hear one come crashing to the earth.

He sat down next to Maedhros in the dry, fallow grass, unfastening his sword from its belt and laying it aside. He saw that, like him, Maedhros had yet to shed his armour.

“I have heard that the host of the Valar levelled the cliffs of Nevrast and that the sea has flooded inland as far as Mithrim.”

Nothing.

“I heard that they cast Morgoth before his throne and fashioned a collar from his cursed crown.” He did not mention the silmarils. He didn’t have to.

“They’ll have taken the jewels.” Maedhros’s tone was dark.

Maglor gave no reply. It was true, of course, what his brother said - and had left unsaid. But he wanted to breathe the acrid air and know it would soon be clean again, for an hour, an evening, before confronting thought of the oath again. He would have liked to do so indefinitely.

***

A messenger came saying that the sea had risen up to the forest of Region, and that Sirion was drowned. Maglor had seen for himself the flooding of the river Celon and the lowlands of Himlad, and now the river Gelion was churning furiously, the waters turned brackish and brown.

Maedhros was frowning at the letter in his hand. It was entirely too wordy, a testament of the ease of life in Valinor.

“Eönwë cordially requests that we appear for an audience with him. They’re camped on the south shore of where Ascar meets Gelion.” Maedhros’s tone was even, but there was both amusement and disgust in his eyes. “Fairer lands than Thargelion, I suppose.”

Maglor arched an eyebrow.

“There’s also a lengthy bit summoning all the quendi of Beleriand to depart for Valinor. You know, again.” Maedhros gave a careless shrug that belied his true sentiments on the matter.

“What do you make of it?” A flicker of emotion made Maglor’s chest tighten. Homesickness?

“Well, I suppose we ought to see what he wants,” Maedhros replied.

“And get the silmarils back,” Maglor finished wearily. Maedhros nodded, already putting pen to paper, delicately writing his reply to Eönwë. It still pained Maglor a little to watch him write, painstakingly avoiding smearing the ink as his left hand moved across the page. The reply was short.

I, Maedhros, son of Fëanor, and my brother Maglor, son of Fëanor, will as requested come to the camp of the Valarin host. We fully expect that the silmarils that Fëanor our father made and that were stolen by Morgoth will there be yielded into our keeping.

Maglor said nothing about the lack of salutation, though a frown tugged at the corners of his mouth. It was anxiety that found its way into his chest then; he hoped that Eönwë was less proud - and less naïve - than Thingol, Dior and Elwing had been.

He might have prayed had there been anyone left to pray to.

***

The pious words Eönwë had given in answer to their claim seared themselves into his mind. Words he had proclaimed there for all to hear.

The right to the silmarils of your father is forfeit on account of your many and merciless deeds…

It made Maglor’s teeth clench. Did the maia not understand? Could he not see? They were desperate. Mad, not fearing death. Relief was all he wanted.

He did not want to have to steal back the jewels, although the idea struck him as beautifully ironic. Stealing the treasure that had first been stolen from his family.

He held his sword steadily in front of him, with the casket of the silmarils tucked tightly in his left arm, Maedhros poised to strike next to him. As he stared at the wrathful host around him, it occurred to him that Eönwë was a terrible leader, to let his guardsmen die for the sake of the sacred jewels of Fëanor. He had thought the same of Elwing, and of Thingol and Dior. At least he had given these two the cleanest death he might - an arrow each through the base of the skull. The light would have gone from their eyes before they hit the ground. 

A cry came from the crowd. “Traitor!”

“Kinslayer!”

Maglor nearly smiled. ‘Here they are, calling for my blood. They are as bad as I am, yet they do not know it. I will die here tonight.’

But then the host was parting and Eönwë was striding through, denying the crowd what it wanted most.

Then he felt Maedhros elbow him sharply, and they ran.

Some distance away, they stopped. Maglor placed a silmaril first in Maedhros’s hand, then took up the other. It burned. It tortured. From the dismayed look on his brother’s face, Maglor knew that it burned him too. As he held the jewel for the first time in an age, he again thought Eönwë a poor leader - this time for letting justice slip through his grasp. He should have let them be killed. 

Maedhros would seek release in death, he knew. It would not be so for himself. He, Kanafinwë Makalaurë Fëanárion, would seek release in song, as he ever had.

Maglor stared at the silmaril he held - still held, though the pain never ceased. He was not even entirely sure that the pain he felt was corporeal, that is wasn’t all in his mind. It never left a mark.

“I don’t have a choice.”

But he did. He had always had a choice. And he had made it - again and again and again. The silmaril burned his hand, burned like steel red-hot from the forge fire, like saltwater on an open wound.

It burned like white ships rusted with blood.

It burned like ice that cracks underfoot.

It burned like the breath of dragons, like the whips of balrogs, like the plains of Lothlann and Ard-galen…

It burned like they eyes of a desperate king, like enchanted chains, like the venomed steel of orcs…and Easterlings.

It burned like the spirit of his father.

The deeds that we shall do shall be the matter of song until the last days of Arda.

Maglor Fëanorion would make it so.