When the Phoenix Cries by kimikocha

Chapter One: The Fire

This chapter in its entirety depicts nonconsensual sex (rape) and its immediate aftermath. No comfort is provided to the survivor in that aftermath, and the survivor remains and believes themself to be in a situation where additional like acts will be perpetrated against them. Please exercise discretion according to your best judgment.

Read Chapter One: The Fire

Angels are jealous of such loveliness;
The flesh which they inhabit and possess
Is not to them indifferent,
And they resent
Infinitely the profane caress.

—J. Robert Oppenheimer, “Epithalamion.”

 

The king’s chambers are as opulent as the rest of Númenor’s grand palace. Colorful mosaic tiles spiral out in repeating patterns on every flat surface of the walls, the results of what must have been hundreds of hours of painstakingly precise craftsmanship. Thick rugs cover most of the cold stone floor, woven with intricate star-like motifs which, to Mairon’s eye, bear close enough resemblance to be deemed a bastardized form of Fëanorian heraldry.

As for the bed in which he finds himself — its four posts and full canopy are encrusted in golden filigree. Sheer silk are the curtains — for summertime, presumably. The air is heavy with perfumes, spices, and the saltwater scent of the ocean. Far beneath him, beyond sound and sight, volcanic magma churns within the earth.

Above him…

Pull yourself together.

Against the bare soles of his feet, the sheets are cool to the touch. Raised lines of embroidery adorn the silken coverlet; minute lines of golden thread catch the sunlight from the window. Mairon studies it closely, though his tone is idle as he speaks. “Such fine artistry.”

The weight on the bed shifts. The voice of the one in his company issues from somewhere in front of him. “Tribute.” That voice has gone deep, rough-edged with desire. “From the coast.”

“Ah.” There’s something in the king’s inflection on those words. “And was their tribute well-received, your majesty?”

“It was a wedding gift.” At the edge of his vision, the corners of Ar-Pharazôn’s mouth draw back, his chin jutting forward in a semblance of pride as he surveys what lies before him. Those strikingly pale eyes — Mairon sees them, and something closes in his throat. To flinch in this moment, to look away, is the wrong thing to do — and yet he cannot bear the opposite.

He brushes his fingers over the lines that mark the outspreading limbs of the great tree, casting an exacting eye in search of a information writ into the fabric. Ar-Pharazôn did not attain his crown by right, that knowledge rises before him; and it is the way of Men like him to seek their immortality in the shadows they leave behind…

Mairon’s mouth is dry, dry as the barren desert from whence they took him. He wets his lips; as if from a great distance, he sees those bright piercing eyes drawn to the flicker of his tongue. “I recall that for your people, it is customary to entwine the names of those newly wedded upon such gifts.”

A sharp-edged sort of smirk. “It is.”

“One wonders, perhaps, if those who brought your majesty such tribute were… misinformed, at least initially, as to the name of your majesty’s wife.”

The slap takes him off guard. Mairon tastes blood — careless, the voice in the back of his mind says coldly — and manages to set his teeth in time to catch the backhand. Beneath the sternum, tucked into flesh wrought beneath his ribcage, his’ fána’s heart quickens.

(It matters, Annatar, of course it matters.)

He should not react. Eyes like sea-glass seem to pierce straight through him, riveted. Ar-Pharazôn is watching for his reaction, a reaction Mairon does not wish to give — yet he has already given it. He’d flinched when the king struck him. So small a thing, but it seems to jar something loose. It is only his fána which thinks it ought to be frightened, not he.

Some part of him notes that the king has yet to remove the inmost layer of his tunic. There is danger here, but little he ought to concern himself with. More important is the opportunity he sees, the opportunity he would reach out and seize if only his accursed mind could recall how to do it. His thoughts scatter like frightened mice.

A low, satisfied chuckle. “Not used to being on this end of the sword, are you?”

“Is that what you said to your ‘wife’?” An idiotic thing to say, he risks losing everything he’s played his hand for, but the volcanic rage that pounds through him in this moment feels so much better than the terror and grief welling up below.

Someone snarls, somewhere — it might be him. Or is he laughing?  If so, his stupidity is beyond compare, but he cannot help himself. Half-mad he is in this moment, a bestial, wild thing — “Are there any that would have you by choice?” he hears someone ask in his voice, as cutting and cruel as he knows how to be. “Or has it forever been your way to take that which is not freely given?”

A vicious clout about his face — one, two, more, he doesn’t know. Blood wells in his mouth and spills down his chin where his teeth cut into his cheeks, his lip. Setting his jaw is beyond him now; he’s all but forgotten that he should. Pain lances through his head as a dissonantly loud crack sounds in his ear. Creaks sound from the bed’s timbers; the mattress shifts.

A shadow falls upon him. Heavy hands marked with the rough, thickened bumps of sword calluses seize hold of his knees, shoving his legs unceremoniously apart. Overbalancing, his back hits the covers — and it is then, of all unmerciful moments, that Mairon finds himself suddenly and hideously — present.

He is vulnerable in this fána, and he curses his own stupidity for leaving himself in it. The form of Annatar, the form he’d spent more time than he cares to admit making lovely for one now forever lost to him — it was rank idiocy not to think to shed it for something less beautiful earlier. You brought this on yourself, he snarls viciously in his mind. Fool! This is your own fault. You know the ways of mortal Men. How could you be so careless?

The raised lines of embroidery on the coverlet — they’re digging into the bare skin of his back. If Ar-Pharazôn fucks him into the mattress, he’ll have those patterns imprinted into his naked flesh when the king is done, and the thought makes bile rise in Mairon’s throat.

“At least pull back the bedspread first,” he snaps before his stupid, stupid mind has time to think better of it. That’s not— it isn’t—

He sees no need to ask your leave to have you; what stroke of idiocy led you to think he’d care for your comfort as he rapes you?!

Black rage descends across Pharazôn’s features — apologize, Mairon hisses to himself, yet cannot force his recalcitrant tongue to do it — and a heavy hand closes upon his throat. Too hard, the thought flits across his mind like a blade flaying him open, Tyelpë thought it wasn’t safe but Tyelpë isn’t here you idiot — then his words vanish in a shocked burst of pain as a closed fist strikes the unprotected flesh of his stomach.

Once. Twice. It stuns him, leaves him retching and sobbing for breath as the pressure on his throat eases up. Too late he realizes that he’s let his useless excuse for a fána go slack in his strangling — but though he’s present enough to notice, he hasn’t the strength or wit to resist as Ar-Pharazôn finishes rearranging him. The mattress shifts with the body pinning him, fingers close on his leg, and the king’s got Mairon’s thighs spread so wide his knees touch the bedclothes — lungs compressed, feet hanging awkwardly in the air. He has no one to blame but himself.

It’s not your fault, whispers a voice very like Tyelpë’s — but who else could be at fault for Mairon’s own carelessness, his incompetence, his failure? For getting himself into this position to begin with, and then leaving himself no feasible means of escape from it?

—Not that he wants to escape. He knew this might happen, it was part of the plan, it wasn’t stupidity, he doesn’t want to get out of this, he doesn’t — but he doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want Pharazôn, and he doesn’t want anyone to have him like — this, uncaring of the choice he would make—

(Breeches down, Lieutenant.)

— it doesn’t matter, but—

(It matters, Annatar. Of course it matters.)

The hand is back on his throat before he has the chance to speak, squeezing. Those pale eyes fix down on him from above with an eerie sort of curiosity, bordering on rapture. Mairon knows he should not cry, everything in him revolts at the thought, but his fána might not give him the choice. An unmistakable slick weight bumps his thigh as Ar-Pharazôn shifts his weight, gaze trailing down. There’s a twitch at the corner of the king’s bearded mouth.

“They say the Ainur can change their forms at will.” A faint crinkle around his eyes, and an unmistakable hint of a smirk. “Considerate of my adversary to leave a port of entry.”

Sudden rage, bitter and blazing, forces words past the breath whistling through Mairon’s constricted airway. “They know nothing.”

Broad strong fingers rough with sword-calluses reach down between his legs and — take hold of him where he is tender, twisting mercilessly, crushing-tight. A shriek strangles in Mairon’s throat before the pain fully registers, then turns to choked coughs and retching as a dull, nauseating ache pounds through his lower abdomen. His feet slip and scrabble at the sheets, back arching as he tries to raise his hips to ease the pressure, until a further vicious twist leaves him pliant and shaking and he realizes—

—Ah. This was punishment. He was meant to submit, not to struggle. Mairon should have known that — should have known how to handle it. The grip on his throat eases up, and a thumb prods at the soft underside of his jaw.

“Perhaps it was foolish of me to believe I could take you like any other foe once vanquished,” Ar-Pharazôn murmurs to him, appreciative gaze wandering over everything he never had a right to see — lingering on his damp flushed face, at the tears mingling with sweat on his cheek. “My wife would call it the height of hubris to imagine that I, a mortal Man, could do aught with one of your kind against your will. You like this, don’t you? You want it.”

“No,” Mairon whispers, the hoarse word falling from his tongue without conscious thought. “I don’t want this. ‘Tis not my choice. If wouldst not — profane me so — wouldst not have me at all.”

He hates the way his voice cracks and trembles, the way his language slips into a form archaic to those who never saw Beleriand fall. Above all he hates the painful hope that swells in him, great and terrible as morning — it will not work, he knows it won’t work, Tyelpë could say what he pleased of choice but Tyelpë knew nothing—

Pharazôn scoffs, and his heart falls to the bottom of his stomach. “Sauron, the Deceiver, would have me believe he speaks truly.”

A sob breaks through his control — through him. “I speak the truth. What reason have I now to lie?”

The king quirks one corner of his mouth, eyes cold and humorless. The hand between Mairon’s legs gives his flesh a derisive little shake. “Your purposes are your own, but your lies are plain to see.”

(Report, Lieutenant. And do not spill unless I give you leave.)

“No!” There’s no pressure at all on his throat now, yet his breath comes as a harsh, labored wheeze. The world seems to be tilting out from under him, and he can’t seem to get a grip.

“Flesh— flesh will do as it will,” Mairon chokes out in half a whisper, hating himself and the sound of his own voice. “Yet in this its will is not mine. I desire this n-not.”

“You don’t?” Ar-Pharazôn’s voice is soft, low, a husky growl — his pupils slightly dilated, breath coming heavier through parted lips. “Truly?”

A light, almost gentle stroke of fingers between Mairon’s thighs leaves him rigid with terror — no, no, let him not be forced thus, not — beneath that mocking gaze — he cannot, he would rather die — until the grip turns cruel and rips a wail from his chest and leaves him sobbing in its wake.

“No,” he hears himself snarl through his tears, as bitter as he is desperate. “I don’t. Already thou didst bring me here unwilling, in shame. Thus thou hast me now, thus thou wilt have me if thou stayest thy course. No lover of mine art thou — I did not make this flesh for thee.”

At his last statement — a stupid thing to say, stupid — stone seems to descend on the king’s features. The hand between Mairon’s legs vanishes abruptly and — slaps him, hard, where he is tender. He jumps and shrieks and covers his mouth, shuddering sobs wracking his fána. A pathetic sight he must make, cringing and crying, his hair a tangle, snot mixing with the tears running down his flushed face — but he cannot help it. Above him the king’s breath is heavy, too close, cold eyes drinking him in.

“Suit yourself,” Pharazôn says, shifting his hips and reaching for himself. He looks down at Mairon and flicks one of his nipples, drawing a miserable squeak. Mairon stifles a pained whimper in a closed fist, biting down on his knuckles as a hot slick weight forces its way inside him.

It hurts. It’s too much. The pain is all wrong, jagged lightning bolts shooting up his spine and a sickening pressure inside him that cramps his stomach and leaves him sweating and cold and panting as he tries to accommodate it.

“Wait,” he chokes. “No, wait—” This is so much worse than he remembers.

Ar-Pharazôn grunts, shoving further inside, and pauses to brush away a stray lock of hair stuck to Mairon’s cheek. “Don’t worry. You’re supposed to bleed the first time.”

Why did he even bother asking? All Mairon can do is lie there and squirm, sobbing open-mouthed into his own white knuckles until Pharazôn takes his hand by the wrist and pins it down at the side of his head. He doesn’t want this, he doesn’t, and how much easier would this be if he did — Ai, Tyelpë, see what thine instruction hath wrought!

At the edges of his mind like cruel ghosts sent to taunt him lurk memories that strike like ice through his heart. Fingers in his mouth and soft hands in his hair, a sweet crooked smile and ridiculous questions — do you like this? Concerned dark eyes, and a fatal question fallen from his tongue like glass upon the floor — does it matter?

It does not matter, Mairon snarls to himself as sorrow and despair well up within him. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t, and yet the grief in his chest could be an ocean to drown all the land in tears. He is older than creation itself; he has walked through fires of madness that melted other Maiar down and emerged the other side his own. Still in the face of this he is too small a thing, too frail — there is a ringing in his ears and his fána’s limbs have turned insensate.

It’s too much. He cannot contain this storm, this ocean is too deep; it swells and swells and crushes him from within until he screams from the pain of being forced to contain it.

It matters, Annatar. Of course it matters.

*

When Pharazôn finishes with him, he stays on top of Mairon, gasping, for what feels like an eternity. At last he withdraws, and Mairon whines through his teeth at the sting. Even that movement hurts. A glance down tells him that he has been bleeding, more than he should.

It’s not urgent. He’s bled worse.

Slowly, Mairon draws his knees together. His thighs ache; his legs are shaking. Cramps still twist his stomach, though the intrusion is gone. Every bit of tender flesh he gave this fána when he crafted it all those years ago feels bruised and… raw, as if in his efforts to get those pain-sounds out of Mairon the king had resorted to sandpaper.

An awful thought. Mairon will have to accustom himself to showing his pain before it really hurts.

(As thou should.)

He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t — but it doesn’t matter, does it? Tyelpë is gone, and Pharazôn is here.

At his side, the king’s breathing is slow and even — relaxed. Cold rage rises in Mairon at the sound of it, as if— as if— think you that I could let a beggar enter where a king stood before?

He cannot abide it.

“Well met,” he whispers, taunting. Mairon’s voice sounds foreign to his ears, hoarse and cracked and gone to madness; but shattered as he is, naked and befouled with sweat and seed and the blood that still seeps from the open wound that is his flesh, he has nothing else left.

Ar-Pharazôn looks at him, eyes narrowing. It matters not. What hurts can the king inflict that have not been done to him before, by hands both greater and far more loved than than such a Man could ever be?

“Well met, indeed,” he rasps again. That fey laughter bubbles up in his throat again, but he hurts too much to let it surface. The bed’s canopy swims above in his vision, out of focus. “A true worthy heir of Melkor art thou! A king who suffers to be subject of none; who waits not for the divine, but makes his own right. Perhaps the master of the fates of Arda lives again in thee. Perhaps thou shalt succeed where once he failed; perhaps thou shalt be the one to break the gates of the world at last and make thine own eternity. Well met, beloved, well met.”

At last, Ar-Pharazôn is silent. It is no solace that Mairon should have the last word. A barren wasteland stretches out before him, dead earth bearing naught but the scorched and twisted remnants of every hope he’s ever built. He is lost in it. He is lost.

Leagues distant, beyond sight and sound and life, he feels the fire. Liquid fire that churns deep within the island’s belly — restless. It calls to him, its voice an echo of the same low-rumbling murmur in which he himself sang it to life in the earliest moments of creation. It calls to him, and he answers.

It is a wild thing, the fire. No weapon is this, for there is no controlling it. It heeds no master, cares not for friend or foe, and will not abate in ferocity until it deems itself spent. “To call it forth would be madness,” Mairon once told Melkor. Wisdom and love prevailed then, though he suffered for it.

To call it forth would be madness.

Mairon calls to it.

The fire answers.

*

A far shorter distance away, in the eastern wing of the palace, Ar-Pharazôn’s royal physician lifts his head in puzzlement. Was that—? But no, no — it must have been nothing. Only his weariness. He looks back down to his notes.

Just outside his field of vision, in an untouched alchemical flask held securely with a clamp, a ripple crosses the surface of the liquid contained within before swiftly fading away.

---

Chapter End Notes

Mairon's italicized flashbacks to events from his relationship with Melkor are quotations from / references to Mertiya's "lost and beyond recall." The refrain "It matters, Annatar, of course it matters" comes from AdmirableMonster's utterly delightful modern silvergifting AU, "Five Gold Rings."

Chapter Two: Rescue

Read Chapter Two: Rescue

One thought in my mind went over and over

While the darkness shook and the leaves were thinned—

I thought it was you who had come to find me,

You were the wind. 

—Sara Teasdale, “The Storm.”

 

 

On the third day following the return of Ar-Pharazôn and his armies from Mordor, in the early morning, a little girl wanders across the great courtyard of the palace, barefoot. Clad in a rough homespun tunic, she sticks out like a beggar among princes — but none of the guards on duty seem to notice her. Only Zadnazîr, the servant tasked with sweeping up the fallen leaves this morning before dawn, looks up — and stops sweeping.

The child turns and looks straight at him, and a strange shiver runs down his spine. Those rings upon her staff, chiming softly as she makes her way over… he’s seen nothing like that in years. Not since the ships brought him here in his youth, but he remembers the stories, the faded paintings in the temple. There are those who have learned the ways of the world, and in so doing have learned how not to be subject to it. The staff carried by the ones who walk in darkness to force open the gates of every hell…

“Hello,” says the little girl, looking up at him curiously. “Do you remember me?”

“Perhaps…?” A whisper of a memory, or a dream — broken bodies at his feet, and blood on his hands. A trick of the mind, or one of his fancies, for that has never happened in his lifetime — though all the same, unease curls around his heart.

Zadnazîr glances at the guards. None of them seem to react.

“Don’t worry.” The child reaches up and, very gently, pats one of his hands gripping the broom. Her fingers are tiny and cool to the touch. “They won’t notice. I didn’t know you could see me, but you’ve always been good at seeing things. I thought you might remember, but it’s okay if you don’t! I’m not mad. It’s hard to remember. Most people don’t.”

Who are you? The question crosses Zadnazîr’s mind, but with a strange stroke of fear he realizes he’s not sure he wants to know the answer. “Why are you here?”

“For someone I love,” the little girl says, sunny and cheerful — though something in her eyes stops him short. A shadow of sadness glimpsed for but a moment, terrible and far older than her seeming years.

“Is there anyone you don’t love?” Zadnazîr finds himself asking.

“No.” Whatever he’d glimpsed is gone in an instant, the child grinning and sticking her tongue out at him. “That’s a silly question. I’m sorry I scared you — I didn’t mean to. I love you very much, you know. No matter what.”

He’s not sure what to say to that, or if indeed it requires a response.

“You can have this if you want it.” She holds out her hand, and Zadnazîr accepts the offering without stopping to look. A tiny carved figurine of a fox lies in his palm, its eyes closed and mouth curved up in a smile. Almost as if…

“You can give it to someone else if you don't like it. I won’t be mad,” the little girl tells him. Zadnazîr shakes his head, almost frantic, and closes his fingers with the tiny fox cradled inside.

“Or not,” says the child, her eyes crinkling up as if she’s smiling. The rings on her staff chime softly as she steps back. “He’s no more magic than any friend is, but you can tell him anything you can’t say out loud. No matter what it is, he’ll never think you’re not worthy of love — and neither will I. I don’t think you’ll see me like this again for a very long time, but I’m good at hearing things if there’s ever anything you want to tell me.”

“Thank you,” he chokes out. The little girl inclines her head, smiling truly now.

A moment later he blinks, and she is gone. The great palace doors won’t be open for at least an hour yet, but somewhere up ahead he hears a telltale creak.

Another one of his fancies, perhaps. For when Zadnazîr looks, the doors seem to be as closed and locked as they’ve always been.

*

A few hours later, all hell breaks loose.

It looks like a flaming meteor, streaking down from the sky toward the courtyard — but what lands is a creature, wreathed in shadow and flame, with great dark limbs and enormous skeletal wings. It dwarfs the Elf that clings to its back by a height or more, kneeling for a moment to permit its passenger to slide off before standing.

The Elf… there’s something strange about him. The air around him almost seems to shimmer, distorting, as if in proximity of intense heat. Clad not in armor but in robes of deep blue, he carries a long-bladed glaive which he draws from its sheath across his back and holds out before him as he strides across the courtyard toward the great iron doors. The creature wreathed in shadow follows at his back, drawing from itself a gout of blazing flame that it grips in its claws like a great sword.

It is intense heat radiating from them. An alarm goes up as the palace guards fall back, unable to close the distance. Bolts fired from distant archers burst into flame before reaching their target, falling in ashes to the ground. At their approach, the iron of the doors grows hot to the touch, then begins to glow — even the most dedicated of the guards recoils, falling back — then begins to buckle, bending inward as the Elf strikes them open with the butt of his glaive.

“I am Tyelperinquar, called Celebrimbor, Lord of Eregion,” he announces, his voice ringing coldly as he gains the entrance hall, “And I am here for my husband.”

“Your husband?” There is no sign of the king, but among the petitioners and nobles gathered against the walls of the chamber, a woman stands forth. Diminutive in stature, with dark skin and piercing grey eyes showing beneath the drape of her veils, her low voice issues forth calm and authoritative. “Who is he, and why do you seek him here?”

“He is Annatar, also called Mairon, a Maia.” The air at the base of the dais where the woman stands grows uncomfortably warm, but neither she nor the two ladies at her side fall back. “He was taken prisoner during Ar-Pharazôn’s last conquest of Arda.”

“I see.” The woman gives a sharp nod, and is silent for a moment before she speaks. “I will lead you to where he is kept, upon the following assurances sworn unto the names of your fathers. You will take only your husband, not your vengeance. Should your husband desire revenge upon Númenor for his captivity, you will restrain him. We shall hold this matter settled and our accounts balanced upon your husband’s return to you, and there will be no retribution sought for any act done before this very moment. You will swear this, or I will be silent, and you may tear all Armenelos to its foundations and never find him.”

A spark ignites near the dais. One corner of the long rug ending at its foot bursts into flame. Tightly, the Lord of Eregion nods.

“You have your assurances.”

“That will do. Come with me.” Smothering the flame with the sole of her shoe, the woman casts a cool eye over the rest of the hall. “The rest of you will keep your peace, if you value it. I will not wager the lives of all in this court, of all of you, in war with an enemy that may land on our doorstep, over one prisoner — no matter how prestigious he may be. If the king should feel otherwise, I bend my will to his guidance — but as he is elsewhere at present, it is my duty to act as best I may in his stead.”

*

As the woman leads them away from the hall — not through the main corridors, but through a strange narrow passageway which opens up from an alcove — the creature with Celebrimbor speaks for the first time. His voice is a low rumble which vibrates in the bones, deeper than the foundations of the earth. “Who’re you?”

“Forgive my lack of courtesy.” The woman, still veiled and with her ladies at her side, navigates these passages as if she were born to them. “I am Tar-Míriel, daughter of Tar-Palantir, King of Númenor, and his sole progeny. Of late I am called Ar-Zimraphel, by command of my husband.”

“Pharazôn.” Celebrimbor utters the word low in his throat.

“By his will, yes.” Briefly, Tar-Míriel glances back. The unspoken words seem to hang in the air: his will. Not mine. “Ever the Eldar have been friends to our people,” she says, looking straight ahead and seeming to choose her words with care, “Though I fear of late we have not been friends to you. I asked your assurance that you will not take vengeance because I… believe you may find reason for it.”

Open flames ignite on bare stone, licking up the wall only a few hands-breadths away. The lady closer to the queen bites out a foreign word which sounds like a curse, pushing her charge back.

“Forgive me,” says Celebrimbor, his voice frighteningly even. “My anger is not with you.”

“I have heard of the marriage bonds of the Eldar.” Tar-Míriel gives him a long, piercing look. “Then you know of what I speak.”

White-hot fire flashes across the ceiling — or is it fire? The air itself seems to burst for the briefest moment in its wake, a frighteningly loud crack echoing down the corridor, and a strange scent like a rainstorm lingers behind.

It’s answer enough, whatever it is. The queen looks away for a moment, fiddling with something beneath her long robes and draped veils — removing a thin silk glove from her hand and holding it out. Rotating it, palm-up, palm-down. Displaying the unmistakable darkening of bruises about the wrist.

“I know what Pharazôn is like,” Tar-Míriel says simply, without emotion. Her hands do not shake as she withdraws her hand and begins to replace the glove. “It might be said that your husband’s capture was a mercy for myself. Not so for him, I fear, for what restraint a prudent king might show in the treatment of his queen would have little reason to show itself in the treatment of a captured foe whose name is feared by many. I release you from your assurance not to seek vengeance for your husband’s unkind treatment, insofar as it pertains to those who were unkind.”

At her left side, one of her ladies — taller than her by far, with dark eyes near-crossed by strange entwining scars — makes a noise and stares hard at Celebrimbor. Flames flicker in the air around him, distinct from those wreathing the shadowed creature at his heels.

“Peace, Lôminzil.” Tar-Míriel casts a significant glance over the flames before meeting Celebrimbor’s eyes once again. “Forgive my frankness. I thought it prudent to advise you thus before you see your husband’s condition, for though your anger is an understandable thing, I would much prefer not to be incinerated by it should his state come as a shock. Come.”

*

Outside, the city of Armenelos is in… not quite chaos, but something approaching it. Disguised, several court historians slip out amongst the crowds, writing some words in shorthand and committing others to memory. Some say the palace is under attack; others murmur of divine vengeance, and pray to the Lady of the Still Waters for her blessing. Only minutes have passed, but many saw the meteor; those in the immediate area now see the guardsmen assembling along the walls.

Inside the palace, senior historiographer Sakalkhôr strides along near the king as Ar-Pharazôn diverts their course toward the inner chambers. The king’s guard would have had him well on his way to safety by now, but the king has gotten word of what transpired in the audience hall and wishes to countermand it.

Whether it is good or ill, wisdom or foolishness to do so is not for Sakalkhôr to consider. It is only for him to record, which he has done for some years now. Unassuming, with an air that few notice and fewer remember, he is a strong choice for the position he holds — one which subjects every word, act, and deed to scrutiny and records them, whether flattering or not, in full.

None are permitted to read the histories in full, for the information they contain could lead to death, not least for those who write them. Already Sakalkhôr and his fellows have recorded the manner of Pharazôn’s rise to power, and many deeds following it. They know what he has done. Even unto the Lord of Mordor himself — word travels fast, and suspicions prevail that Sauron would seduce the king. Yet Sakalkhôr himself, secreted away in a hidden place, heard the words that were said.

“I desire this not.”

It bodes ill, though the historians would not opine as such within their annals. Preparations were already underway to preserve the histories should Pharazôn choose to open them, as he has indicated he may do. Draft copies have been made in triplicate and hidden in secret; now, provisions are being made to remove copies from the island of Númenor. For the historians suspect what they will not write: that in doing this deed Pharazôn has sown the seeds of his downfall, and perhaps his kingdom with it.

…They had not anticipated that Sauron would turn out to be wed — to the Lord of Eregion no less, and Sakalkhôr privately suspects that tongues will wag about that for centuries. Nor did they expect that his heretofore unknown husband would come storming the palace to demand his return. Such are the reasons the historians write what they see, and not what they think of it — for what wisdom could they have that would have foreseen this?

Time will be the judge of Ar-Pharazôn’s wisdom, but Sakalkhôr, for his part, takes care to remain at some distance. His notes are written on paper. If his body burns, they’ll burn with it.

As the king — who does not know the palace’s secret ways nearly so well as his queen — leads them round a corner near his chambers, the air grows suddenly hot. Discreetly, Sakalkhôr turns a fresh sheet of paper and tucks the last one through a slit in his robes into the packet strapped to his waist, the top portion of the linen envelope sewn into the cloth which binds his breasts. Tightly enough to still their motion, not tightly enough to hinder his breath. His notes will be safe there if he needs to run.

“Sauron, his husband,” Ar-Pharazôn sneers to the captain of the guard, drawing his sword. “Will the might of Eregion rival that of Númenor? I will lay waste to him. Let the catamite join his master in his sorrows, and rue the day he ever thought to challenge us.”

Unwise, Sakalkhôr thinks, though he does not write that down.

*

Mairon is still in Pharazôn’s chambers. Clad in nothing but his flesh, for he would sooner rend himself to pieces than let the king array him, he has arranged himself cat-like on a couch within the distance his chains will permit him and made sport of terrorizing Pharazôn’s servants.

…A little. Only a little. They are as enchanted by his fána as any who look upon it, and a great deal more wary of the ëala it clothes than their king. That is wise of them, Mairon thinks with a hint of magnanimity. No more than a hint, because they continue stealing glances. They’re unnerved when they find him looking back, more so when he refuses to look away. A little pull of his magic lets him hold concurrent stare-downs with everyone in the room, and if they compare notes later they’ll find a contradiction of him seemingly looking in multiple places at once.

Droll. Truly droll. Mairon prefers feeling vague dark amusement to feeling… anything else he could be feeling. But the servants are gone now, and he’s alone with his thoughts.

The breeze which blows through the open window carries the scent of the ocean, so strong he can almost taste the salt water. Spices, herbs, a strong hint of cypress.

He despises the perfumed oils the servants used in the bath. If Mairon cared to stink of mold-infested eaglewood, he’d turn into a rotting tree. The whole exercise was infuriating, in fact, and he bitterly resents the painful gratitude he’d had to feel for… whatever his name was. The lead one. Abrazîr, or something like that. The one who looked him in the eye and nowhere else save when necessary. The one who’d motioned his fellows away with a tilt of his head when under their hands Mairon first began to shake, and then began to cry. The one who’d stroked his hair and held him, who always asked before touching him and used words like may I.

As if it was a question.

A farce, all of it — for what would have happened had Mairon said no? He’ll tear them apart, rip them all to bloody shreds. They have to die, for doing this to him.

There’s not even a guard on him, is there? No, wait, there is one — two, in fact, standing at the doors. He can hear them breathing, see them if he uses his magic to slip an eye over the back of the couch. They’re good at their job, good at blending into the furniture. Were the same ones in the room when—?

Mairon shudders, drawing his knees up toward his chest and hugging himself tightly. The clink of the chain sounds deafeningly loud in the stillness as he lays his head down. If he cries, he’ll have to do it silently.

There is such rage in him, he notices, even in his despair. Good. It thrums with a bright silver melody, singing I will kill him. Rip his guts out through his mouth. Slit him open from neck to navel and rip his heart out with my bare hands. Burn away his vile flesh and let his bones crumble into ashes.

That sounds about right, Mairon thinks, oddly cheered. Even in the empty space where his ëala had cradled his dear friend Gothmog’s depleted flame till recently, he feels an echo of the low-rumbling protectiveness he used to feel. As if this were not all his own fault to begin with; as if it were not his own failures that saw him unwilling to Pharazôn’s bed, or his own weakness that saw him unable to effect his own willingness.

(I see thy fear, Lieutenant.)

This would be so much easier if he were willing. It seems Mairon has forgotten the trick to making himself… unwillingly willing, and that desolate thought forces a choked sob through his clenched teeth. For he knows why he’s forgotten, and it matters not except for how very much it does because he cannot lose sight of the fact that Tyelpë is not here. He’s in Eregion where he belongs, and Gothmog has left him too — he’s alone in this place and no one is coming and why would they try, he is nothing and has nothing and there is nothing left for him save vengeance.

I am coming for you, Annatar. I’m here.

The words come as though wreathed in silver, ringing true and shining-bright. Startled, Mairon goes very still.

…Tyelpë?

*

The heat wave strikes as the king’s party rounds the corner at the final corridor, and Ar-Pharazôn bites out a vicious oath. Sakalkhôr is too busy making his notes in swift shorthand to react, but it feels almost physical, like walking through a wall of flame.

The captain of the guard doesn’t like this. He speaks up. Ar-Pharazôn pauses and looks back over their group, orders one of the guards to return with reinforcements from the nearest tower — the soldier splits off, but they will be moving forward. Again the captain speaks, his voice low and urgent: their foe is no warrior but a spirit of flame, a sorcerer, who has much reason to hate them and may have capacities they do not know. They should wait for reinforcements.

Ar-Pharazôn shakes his head, declines to wait. He will not be the king who permits this outrage upon his inner sanctum. Nor will he be the coward who falls back at the final moment. To Sakalkhôr’s eye, he seems agitated.

“Your majesty—”

The king cuts the captain off with a gesture.

Wary for his own survival, Sakalkhôr falls to the back of the group, then farther. He’s sweating like a swamp under his robes, but perhaps that will keep his notes damp enough to survive if things go south — he can only hope.

As they draw nearer the king’s chambers, the heat grows more intense — like passing before the open doors of the great clay ovens the kitchens keep burning night and day to bake bread. Even in his light summer robes, Sakalkhôr won’t be able to bear this for long — he can scarcely imagine what the guards ahead of him are feeling in full armor. He’s sweating under his robes, but the exposed skin of his face and hands feels bone-dry, almost taut enough to crack.

Along the walls, square glazed ceramic tiles painted in shades of blue stretch up to the ceiling, their designs aligned to create interlocking patterns mimicking stars and flora. None of the alcoves common in the rest of the palace are to be found in this corridor — too easy for assassins to hide in them, Sakalkhôr recalls. The great doors to the royal chambers are easy to spot, situated at precisely the midpoint of the hall and ornamented with carnelian and gold leaf—

Ah. That’s different. The doors are standing open.

Tar-Míriel, it seems, made it here first.

“With me!” Ar-Pharazôn snarls to his guards, and charges forward.

*

Mairon is not in tears when the alarm goes up. None of those feelings are gone, but for a moment he basks in the sheer fury coursing through his veins — wreathed in bright silver, white-hot and murderous. Intoxicating and resplendent, it makes him feel like himself again — like Annatar, like Mairon, like a Maia whose hands have wrought the hearts of mountains and called the lightning to strike down his foes at his feet. He feels glorious.

Tyelpë? He would adorn that name in gold, write it in blazing, burning flame; he would hold it in his being, cradled close as his dearest friend. No insult could there be in that, for Gothmog — or Kosomot, son of Melkor, to those whom he holds dearest — has been Mairon’s beloved since long before the Firstborn woke, and has been more loved than many a lover.

Tyelpë, Tyelpë, Tyelpë. Mairon rolls that name around on his tongue, listening to the guards behind him shift to attention at the sound of the alarm. If Tyelpë is here—

I am here.

With those words come a mass of images, sensory data — iron doors aglow, metal buckling in the heat. A nearby banner catching flame, the Númenórean crest disappearing into smoke. Shadow and flame, a brand of fire — skies above and oceans below, skeletal wings and distant land.

…Have they come without notice? Seemingly hostile, and alone? That is nothing short of madness. Not even Gothmog at the height of his power could make war on the legions of Númenor alone. And Tyelpë — his grandfather’s blood runs in his veins, that is clear, and a fierce burning ache bursts through Mairon’s chest at the thought that the power of Tyelpë’s lineage might come forth for him, but — Tyelpë is not a warrior by trade, he is strong, but—

I’m almost there, murmurs a voice, and they are in a stone passageway and the queen is a prisoner is leading them upward and almost there…

Well then, Mairon thinks with a vague sort of hysterical clarity, he’d best not try to destroy the palace. There is rage and there is hatred and there is the ferocity of love burning bright: the love that knows that Tyelpë has done something that could be his end and if Ar-Pharazôn dares to lay one finger on him Mairon will — rip his head from his shoulders burn him let his brains boil in his skull let his eyes burst and melt in bloody sockets and — Ar-Pharazôn will not hurt Tyelpë.

Magic comes with him scarcely knowing it. Flames rise from the couch’s brocade upholstery as the metal band at his throat goes red-hot, then molten — “You there, stand up,” the guards are saying, and Mairon is rising with a vicious laugh on his tongue, twisting the collar off like so much clay.

“Don’t worry,” he tells them coldly, with his voice low and smooth and a mad grin on his face. “You won’t bleed.”

Screams die in their throats as the blood in their veins comes to boiling, searing them from the inside out. The sound of armor hitting tile rings through the room as their bodies collapse to the floor without spilling a drop of blood.

Satisfaction.

…It occurs to Mairon as he stands there that this may have been unwise. There were reasons he hadn’t done this earlier. He’d fought until he fell when they took his city, exhausted and overwhelmed; he knows that even he cannot fight forever. All Mordor will fall, his mighty people brought to ruin, and Tyelpë — could Eregion stand against the might of Númenor? If she couldn’t, would Tyelpë—

No. He cannot. Mairon won’t let him. Panic sears through his chest as he calls on his eyes that see everything, frantically calculating the distance from Armenelos — Gothmog, you traitor, you have to take him somewhere safe, why did you bring him here!

Mn, says his friend’s voice, so low Mairon can scarcely hear it. ‘s persuasive.

I’m not leaving you with him, snarls a much louder silver-bright voice, a moment before the door slides open.

*

Of all the assignments Ar-Pharazôn could have given his Royal Physician, this one… isn’t the worst, but Lilóteo can still think of a lot of things he’d rather do. This was the command given him: “One of his kind ought to heal faster. Have a look at him, see if anything’s wrong.” A quick word with Abrazîr told him the rest.

A wretched business, all of it. Lilóteo’s cared for Tar-Míriel for years, but he doesn’t know the first thing about how the physiology is supposed to work for… some sort of fire-spirit, Maia — whatever they’d called the captive. Mairon, that’s his name. Lilóteo’s read a very little about the Elves — the one essay he’s seen buried in an old moldering collection that escaped the purges of Ar-Gimilzôr claimed that they die when forced, which, well, doesn’t appear to be the case here (unless the death is lingering?). It also claimed that bread would not rise for elven men, which — the translator, evidently skeptical, had left a footnote indicating that they were translating from another translation and that the language used in the translation indicated a literal impossibility, not a matter of custom. Lilóteo thinks that will be of little use, and the slave, Mairon, is not an Elf anyway.

On the bright side — if there is one — Abrazîr had confirmed Mairon to speak Adûnaic, and described him as cooperative. ‘Only hurting’, he’d said in his mild coastal accent, with its slight softening of the t. Only hurthing. Which is… not great. Lilóteo doesn’t have the bedside manner for this, or he doesn’t want to have to, or — something.

What is he supposed to do? It’s not as if he’s going to be convincing Ar-Pharazôn to cease raping his captive — not when the king has already ignored all the natural philosophers’ warnings about the possibility of a devastating fire in the palace, or the real risk of this slave incinerating Ar-Pharazôn one day. If that happens, Lilóteo can’t say he doesn’t think the king will deserve it. In the meantime…

As he steps through the first set of doors in the hall leading to the king’s chambers, he hears the alarm go up — and ignores it. Intruders? Probably aggressive petitioners. It’s that time of day. A faint clattering sound from somewhere isn’t out of place in a palace bustling with life, particularly with how close things are in this area with all the furniture. Honestly, why Ar-Pharazôn insists on jamming all the fanciest bits of furniture he gets as tribute into his own personal chambers, Lilóteo has no idea.

In brisk steps, he crosses the sizable antechamber and pushes the door open to announce himself. “Lilóteo, R—”

He stops short, nearly swears.

Zcerneboth’s cunt.

“You look like shit,” Lilóteo informs the person standing naked in the middle of the room before his mind catches up with his mouth. Which is an accurate assessment. At a glance, it’s evident that Mairon has been beaten and strangled — along with everything else.

But he also appears to be unrestrained. The couch beside him is on fire. He’s looking right at Lilóteo with blazing golden eyes. Both of the guards are collapsed on the floor, and there’s a faint odor of burnt hair and flesh in the room. This is not good.

Low in his bruised throat, the fire-spirit laughs. He doesn’t sound amused.

Lilóteo tries for a step back, then goes perfectly still with a bitten-off curse as a white-gold flaming brand appears in midair, tapering to a point aimed directly at his throat.

“Do not move.” Unearthly beautiful even in his state, the creature stalks around the couch and closer, cat-like, his bare feet soundless on the floor. “How very observant are those who come to glory in their king’s triumph.”

“I’m — I’m not glorying!” Lilóteo voices his protest rather loudly, because that train of thought seems likely to get him killed as part of this creature’s vengeance. He might deserve it, but he’d rather not die. “Shit, man. You think I like this or something? Because I don’t.”

“No? You take no joy in your enemy’s humiliation, then?” Midway to the door, the spirit stops, beckoning. A great pressure falls upon him, and Lilóteo moves forward as if drawn on a puppeteer’s strings, the fiery blade held level to his throat. He winces as the doors swing shut behind him.

“No!” he retorts. The spirit, Mairon, studies him with a sort of abstract disinterest, one polished copper eyebrow faintly arched. It seems like a good idea to keep talking. “You’re not my enemy. I don’t even know you. Bojemoi, what the fuck could anyone possibly do to deserve that?”

Suddenly, the air around him grows thick and frighteningly sweltering. Flames leap up from Ar-Pharazôn’s bed, the chain looped round the bedpost glowing suddenly red-hot. The spirit’s eyes bear down on him, blazing like the sun. “Do not lie.”

“I’m not — fucking — lying!”

A moment passes. Two. Then abruptly it is over. The strange pressure vanishes from the air, the warmth dying down to something far less terrifying. At his throat, the fiery blade winks suddenly out of existence. Mairon looks at Lilóteo with something akin to disdain, head tilting microscopically to one side.

“I require a corridor of open space, preferably fifteen meters wide, preferably open to the sky,” he says shortly, a hoarse rasp now discernible in his otherwise-musical voice. “If no such space exists in this keep, I will create one in an exterior-facing wall or, if necessary, in the roof. You will lead me to the nearest such location which is adjacent to the fewest number of archers and no cannon turrets capable of firing inward. You will do this, because someone I care for has entered this place, and if anyone so much as lays a finger on him I will reduce this place and all inside it to ashes.”

“I—” The air in the room is growing unseasonably warm again. Lilóteo edges toward the open window, weighing his chances of survival if he jumps out. Probably not good. He’s seen a case of a drunk soldier fallen from the palace walls who survived, but this is higher than that. “I don’t know that much. I’m just a physician.” Was it a good idea to disclose that? Probably not. It’s getting hotter. “The, uh, the antechamber outside is pretty big, and I think that’s an exterior wall?”

“Not long enough,” Mairon mutters, seeming distracted. There’s a click-scrape sound from somewhere near the bed, and the flame-spirit’s gaze jerks up as a panel slides back and two tall creatures stride into the room.

They seem like him in aspect, of a kind or similar. One is… indistinct, like shadows in deep water. That one lingers behind the first, who seems lit from within by starlight, with dark hair and eyes not unlike Lilóteo’s people. The one Mairon cares about — is that one of them? It seems likely. But in that unguarded moment, something seems… odd. Joy or relief would not tighten the spirit’s shoulders so, nor keep him rooted to the spot instead of moving forward to greet the two as they enter.

“Annatar—!” The first one takes a jerky step forward, then stops, gentling his movements a little. His eyes are trained above the neck, on Mairon’s face.

“Tyelpë…?” It comes out in a sort of whisper, like a low-burning candle at the end of its wick. Mairon’s chin dips down slightly, throat working as he swallows. “Kosmoko? You came. I… I am sorry,” he says in an old form of Eldarin. Or at least, that’s what Lilóteo thinks he says — the form is close enough to be identifiable, but much too far for him to trust his translation.

The dark presence at the back seems to… coalesce a bit, giving a vague impression of glowing embers and a broad chest. Kosmoko, that’s its name? It sort of… rumbles. Mairon murmurs something in a voice too low to quite catch, chin dipping a little lower.

The first one, Tyelpë, starts speaking in the same archaic Eldarin almost too fast to follow: a strong declarative affirmation with the null modifier indicating positive knowledge of the absence of limits, something like ‘yes, with certainty, or in accordance with natural laws’, something something, something about — sin? Blasphemy? Negation. Strong negation. Negation that strong might be rude, but it’s a gentling tone of voice. Quiet. Almost entreating. Fumbling with the sash of his outer robes, Tyelpë takes a hesitating step forward and says something. May I?

There’s a pause. Mairon lifts his chin a little. His lips go thin and pale, the corners of his mouth pulling down. But he says yes, and please, and everything seems to crumble. Tyelpë goes to him, shrugging off the top layer of his robes, and drapes the blue silk around the other spirit’s shoulders. Mairon’s hands tremble as he pulls his hair out from under them, motions a bit jerky as he ties off the sash; the knot he makes is simple but very neat.

They look at one another. Tyelpë reaches out toward Mairon, not quite touching. His face is very still, shoulders very tight, and — Lilóteo decides to take his chances and run for the door. Because suddenly flames erupt from a huge section of the rugs and the whole couch is on fire and—

The architects who built this palace really should have included better means of egress from these things. If he lives, Lilóteo is going to have something to say about that. If he lives.

No one stops him as he twists the knob and jerks the doors open, bolting outside and making it partway across the antechamber before Ar-Pharazôn himself appears in the main doorway — shit. He has his sword drawn, as if that’s going to be useful against these creatures. In theory Lilóteo is supposed to prostrate himself, but instead he gasps “Your Majesty,” and gets out of the way, flattening himself against the cabinets nearest the door.

This is not going to go well. Not that Ar-Pharazôn doesn’t have it coming, but Lilóteo would like to not be collateral. Thankfully, the king ignores him, heading straight for the doors he’d just exited with a few of the royal guard in tow — and a historian, whom Lilóteo only barely avoids colliding with as he tries to slip out the doorway.

The historian jumps, then exhales sharply, shoulders slumping, and plunges a hand into his robes with his eyes on Lilóteo. “Thank the gods.” He’s certainly taking his time at the doorway, though Lilóteo steps back to let him pass — and he can’t get around, because there’s a huge, heavily ornamented stone table preventing him from opening the door all the way.

“We need to leave,” Lilóteo hisses at his colleague. Behind him — a great wave of searing heat washes over, and he coughs. There are raised voices.

“Just a moment,” mutters the historian, scowling, eyes transfixed on whatever is happening behind him. “Damn it—” Suddenly with a furious jerk and the sound of tearing fabric he’s withdrawing what looks like a wad of… old undergarments, with toggles still attached to eyelets dangling from loose threads. “Take that with you,” he says, shoving the whole bundle into Lilóteo’s hands.

“You need to leave, too!” Lilóteo snaps, just before the doors slam shut of their own accord. Fuck. He jerks his hand away before touching the knob — it’s burning hot. Maybe the wet cloth—

“Don’t burn my notes!” the historian hisses, taking cover beneath the massive stone table. He’s furiously scribbling in his little stack of paper, eyes fixed on the tableau in front of him. Something rumbles; there’s a clash of metal against metal.

Factually, Lilóteo was not using the thick envelope-like flap attached to the undergarments to grab at the doorknob, which is not working. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Putting his shoulder into it, he shoves, trying to force the door from the inside. It doesn’t budge, because of course it doesn’t — these doors are heavy. Probably designed against such efforts in case of an insurrection in the palace.

Shit. He coughs; his eyes are watering. Covering his nose and mouth with his loose sleeve, Lilóteo shoves himself in next to the historian under the table and surveys his options.

The far side of the antechamber is wreathed in flame and shadow. With startling clarity he sees the starlit spirit, Tyelpë, gracefully wielding his glaive against Ar-Pharazôn. His movements are fluid, showing no sign of weariness, and he has the superior reach, though he seems not to be pressing it. Shoulders slumped, breathing hard enough to be heard across the chamber, the king seems to be struggling. Mairon — is that him, standing close to the far wall? Yes, that’s him. He seems to be clasping something in his hands, though his head is up, watching the combatants. There’s no sign of the guards, unless — ah, yes, that shape on the floor is probably one of them. Lilóteo knows there are several doors on the wall opposite the bedchamber — it’s hard to make them all out, but surely there’s a servants’ stair here somewhere?

Zcernoboth’s cunt, he really might die here. He jabs the historian with his elbow. “How do we get out of here?” Historiographers have a knack for showing up where they’re not wanted. Maybe they also have a talent for getting out.

The historian jabs him back, a lot harder. His eyes remain fixed ahead. “Servants’ stair is through the farthest door, on the left. Or—” Finally, he glances briefly at Lilóteo. “Try the concealed passage in the social room. Just move the desk out of the way.”

“Move the desk out of the way, and—” Lilóteo coughs. “Ach, do what?”

“Just move the desk out of the way. That’s all.” Without looking back at him, the historian unties the calabash from his sash and holds it out to Lilóteo, then fishes a rumpled wrapping cloth out from one of his sleeves and drops it unceremoniously in the physician’s lap. Fumbling the stopper out from the gourd’s neck, Lilóteo wets the cloth and covers his mouth and nose.

Across the room, Ar-Pharazôn takes a bloody wound to the thigh and bites out a curse. Disengaging, he falls into a wide stance in front of the bedchamber door — close enough that he could conceivably retreat inside and lock himself in, though Lilóteo has no idea how bad the fire might be at this point. The whole antechamber is brighter now; the guards’ forms are clearly visible on the floor, and Lilóteo can make out the tall form of the indistinct shadow-spirit close to Mairon.

He can also see pale-bright flames flickering through the air like lightning flashes. Fuck — if that actually is lightning of some sort... perhaps staying put is his best option for now.

“So this is how the Lord of Eregion thanks me for ridding Middle Earth of its greatest threat.” Ar-Pharazôn makes a noise like a laugh, dark and ugly, breathing hard. “He is Sauron, Lieutenant of Morgoth, Lord of Mordor. And you would come to his defense, calling him your husband.”

“He is, and I would,” Tyelpë says curtly, advancing a step. Dancing lights glint off his bloodstained glaive. “What did you think would happen when Sauron’s husband got here? Or d’you go around thinking that all husbands are like you?”

Snarling, Ar-Pharazôn retreats with his guard up. “I would—”

He never gets to finish that sentence. A ghostly form appears in the doorway behind him, far smaller than he but beyond his vision, and silent. Not a ghost but a woman, and Lilóteo nearly cracks his head on the table jerking up in shock — that is Tar-Míriel, unveiled, clad in sheer layers of rippling silk. Metal flashes in the light — she snatches hold of her husband’s vest and buries her dagger under his arm.

Lilóteo sees the arterial spurt as the king’s blade clatters to the floor. But he knows that even a dead man walking can kill another before he dies, and without thought of what he’s doing he’s scrambling up, the world seeming to move in slow motion. Ar-Pharazôn is whirling toward the queen, even as Tyelpë’s glaive lays open the flesh at the back of his thigh, just above the knee — his hands are flying toward his head, which jerks suddenly to the side with a sickening crack — Lôminzil, the queen’s bodyguard, has her by the shoulders and is spinning her away from Ar-Pharazôn as his body over-balances and crumples backward in a heap.

His body jerks once with a truly horrendous sound that Lilóteo recognizes as bones grinding and flesh and connective tissues tearing, then lies still. Mairon steps forward, casting a disdainful eye over the corpse. The bruises still visible at his face and throat stand out in stark relief.

“He will not be moving again.”

“Thank you, Lôminzil. You need not protect me from a corpse.” Tar-Míriel steps out of her guard’s hold, prodding the inert body of her husband with a silken shoe before leveling a rather cool stare at Tyelpë, whose face is white. “Perhaps I led you to believe that I would not interfere. But this kingdom is mine to rule, not yours.”

“He could have killed you.”

“So he could have. I suppose you may take that up with Lôminzil, if you like. The choice of whether or not to risk it did not belong to you.” With an air of finality, the queen turns to Mairon — Sauron, Lilóteo supposes. A relic of the First Age, a creature more of legend than life. “I hope you will hold that to be sufficient vengeance.”

He tilts his head, uncannily catlike and graceful. “You did not choose to do that before.”

“Nor did you.”

Mairon — Sauron — whatever his name is supposed to be, inclines his head briefly, then glances over the rest of the room before looking back at the queen. “Perhaps you lack the political power to retain your throne after such a coup,” he says, as though it is an abstract observation.

“Perhaps I do.” Tar-Míriel stares back at Mairon, unflinching. “Perhaps that rapist’s supporters will have me killed. Perhaps my kingdom will fall into civil war. But I advised that rapist against heeding your counsel, and I would not fall into the same trap.”

“You presume much if you think I offer anything of the sort.”

“Ahem,” says Tyelpë, who had been cleaning and sheathing his blade, at the same time as the shadowy indistinct spirit at Mairon’s side lets out a sort of… rumble. The starlit spirit goes to Mairon, hovering briefly as if hesitant to touch, until Mairon himself gives a little nod and leans into Tyelpë’s shoulder.

The overall effect is something like a cat winding itself around a person’s legs. It would be… peculiarly heartwarming, were it not for the fact that Lilóteo can both see and smell the tendrils of smoke trailing from the doorway of the bedchamber.

Fuck propriety. “We need to evacuate,” he wheezes through the historian’s rumpled wrapping cloth, trying to get his lungs to cooperate. “Get a fire brigade up here.”

Mairon glances toward him, arching one eyebrow slightly as if vexed by some minor nuisance. “I suppose you must.” Behind Lilóteo there’s a faint metallic rattle, followed by the sound of wood creaking and splintering. Through watery eyes he looks back to see the main doors burst from their hinges, the historian ducking his head as he scrambles out from under the table.

“One might consider not permitting furnishings to be placed in such a manner as to hinder routes of egress,” says Mairon, with a sort of pleasant collegiality that frankly makes Lilóteo want to throttle him. Even though he fully agrees, and will have a great deal to say about it if he makes it out of here without succumbing to smoke inhalation.

Which he might. He can’t breathe. His chest feels tight.

“…lungs are weak. You will get him out of here, now,” Tar-Míriel is ordering, and the historian is slinging one of Lilóteo’s arms around his shoulders, wrapping an arm around his torso, and hauling him toward the door with a grip on his sash. “We will address the council in the Spider Room, if Nilûphêr hasn’t told one of your colleagues as much already. If you see anyone, sound the alarm to clear the area and send a fire brigade. You three, it seems ungracious not to offer you hospitality, but I believe I recall hearing that you intended a prompt departure?”

“We were,” Tyelpë is saying, and that is the last thing Lilóteo catches as he’s stumbling out the door.

*

Far, far away, beyond the circles of the world, a little girl uses a staff ornamented with softly chiming rings to nudge open the gates of night and steps through them into the void.

It is never quite the same place when she comes. This time it is rather dusty, a great stone hall cluttered with bits and bobs of half-worked metal and glass and parchments covered in smudged scribbling. A cluster of enormous mushrooms erupts from the earth at the front of the hall, and she stops to stare up at their gills in open-mouthed fascination before the hall’s other occupant startles her out of her reverie.

“You again.”

“Oh!” The little girl blinks, looks up, and gives the nearest mushroom a pat on the stem before running across the hall and throwing her arms around the indistinct, shadowy creature who sits in a tall chair at a stone table. “I’m sorry. Your mushrooms are beautiful. I didn’t mean to ignore you. How are you feeling?”

The creature’s form seems to shiver violently for a moment, rippling like waters in a pond and resolving into something a bit clearer. Tall and broad, largely masculine, with an impression of sharp carnassials glimpsed through torn cheek muscles. Ice blue eyes regard the little girl for a moment, expressionless, before looking away.

“You have maggots in your arm,” she informs him, standing on tiptoe to peer curiously at the creatures in question.

Answer comes this time, a low growl. “I rot.”

“Well, part of you does,” says the child, matter-of-fact. She leans her staff against the edge of the table and holds out her arms. “Pick me up?”

A grumbling sound. “Why?”

“‘Cause I’m short. And you seem like you might want a hug. And I wanna see what you’re working on. Can I sit in your lap?”

Further grumbling as the creature hoists the child up. Before them on the table cluttered with dust-rags and scrap paper and odds and ends sits a large reflective metal hemisphere, its rounded end resting in a cradle. A hollow depression at the center of the hemisphere’s flat top cradles another metal sphere in turn, this one dark grey. More metal spheres and hemispheres lie amid the table’s clutter; the largest of these, with an opening drilled through the center of the rounded end, lies flat side down a few inches from a sizable half-filled wine glass.

The little girl regards it all curiously, leaning forward to peek through the opening of the extra hemisphere. There’s nothing inside — just the table.

“Your circles are pretty,” she informs the creature holding her. “What is it?”

“A weapon.”

Her brow furrows. “Like cannonballs?”

“Sort of.”

“…Can I touch it?”

“No. It’s dangerous.”

“But it’s pretty. And it won’t hurt me!” she complains, pouting. Then, swinging her legs a little, “What are you going to do with it?”

An impression of a vicious half-smile, bare tendons and muscle stretching over bloodied teeth. “I’d like to wipe the entire isle of Númenor from the face of existence.”

“Oh.” She twists around, peers at him curiously. “Are you gonna do it?”

Ice-blue eyes seem to stare right through her, now cold and impenetrable. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Mairon doesn’t deserve my interference.” The creature isn’t looking at her, though he is. He’s staring… elsewhere, somehow. “I have done him injury enough without casting shadows on him now. If he would destroy Númenor as vengeance, I have no doubt that he could do it.”

A small hand reaches up, patting the creature’s cheek. “You miss him, don’t you?”

Those teeth are snarling, chipped but sharp all the same. Maggots crawl half-visible through gaps in reddened flesh. “I tortured him. I raped him. I made him scream and left him weeping, and taught him that to ask for mercy was tantamount to treason. I taught him to view suffering at my hands as a gift, and when that proved insufficient, I sought to inflict on him his deepest fears and made him thank me for that, too.”

“I think you brought him joy sometimes, too,” the child says softly. “But you did hurt him. You hurt him terribly, for a very long time. And still, you miss him. What will you do now?”

“Rot,” the creature growls, staring somewhere off in the distance.

---

Chapter End Notes

The historians and historiographers of Númenor were inspired by the Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty.

The mysterious little girl is an OC from a previous fic. In that story, the name she uses for herself is the Adûnaic word for 'death', though it is explicitly noted not to be her full name.

Chapter Three: Homecoming

Read Chapter Three: Homecoming

Mairon has never been so glad to have his fána dressed. Subtly embroidered in bittersweet nightshade and globe amaranth, the deep blue robe he’s wearing is one he’s seen on Tyelpë many times; it’s a bit large in the shoulders, but never mind that. Tyelpë holds onto him like an anchor as they climb skyward, Gothmog’s enormous wings catching the wind Mairon shapes in their favor; and though the tethers Mairon has conjured will certainly do a better job of securing them than Tyelpë’s arm ever could, Mairon says nothing about it, curling tightly into the embrace.

‘Sauron’s husband’. Little as he cares for his enemies’ epithet, hearing that from Tyelpë had… startled him. It hadn’t… registered, somehow, that Tyelpë would know.

Well, Tyelpë says dryly, responding to his bafflement, It wasn’t that hard to figure out. Even before your best friend turned up and introduced himself.

Mairon curls in harder, utterly confused. Why didn’t you say anything?!

It didn’t seem necessary? Eregion’s gates are open to those who come in friendship. It’s a place where you can leave your past behind you. I doubt you’re the first of Morgoth’s former servants to turn up with a false story about your past, considering how little welcome those who fled him were able to find in the old days.

This… is something Mairon remembers, in fact. Vividly. Utumno and Angband were always easier to escape than might be thought, not least for the fact that there were always those who took pity. Thralls would flee and later return, either slipping back to their details or even knocking at the gates of the only home that would have them. Even when returning there meant punishment for leaving… it was always, always true that Melkor would take you back.

“My lord, I beg your forgiveness.” He recalls the time Lungorthin tried to leave, back in the early days of Utumno, and returned downcast when he found no welcome elsewhere. As Mairon and Gothmog and all else in the hall looked on, Melkor had risen from his throne and descended the dais. He’d gone to the cowering Úmaia and knelt down, taking both the supplicant’s hands in his own.

“You left my service and found sorrow. Now you return. And I say to you, rise up.” Melkor had risen, pulling Lungorthin to his feet. “For your failure you will suffer punishment that is just, as do all those who fail in my service. When it is done you will be stronger, and will be esteemed and glorified as all who serve me well. As for your return — for that, you have my welcome. I am pleased to see you again.”

The punishment was… brutal, he remembers that much. Or more accurately, he knows it was, because he recalls feeling deep unease in its wake. Mairon recalls few or no details of most punishments, including the ones he’d been through; he recalls more of his efforts to encode the whole system in writing, so that all could reference it and keep themselves in the clear.

This, though… this was early, before there were any codes, and Lungorthin was a good friend. Was, because something had happened later. Or — had it? He’d been fine. He’d thanked their lord for his discipline, as all were expected to do, and he’d taken up his place again — he was fine. Melkor was — reasonable, in those days. He wouldn’t have hurt anyone too much, not more than they could handle. The unreasonable part came later, after the Silmarils. Mairon is fairly sure of that.

Melkor. An uneasy frisson of guilt runs through Mairon — it’s been so long since he truly thought of his master. Or he has, but it’s been… different. He hasn’t…

“Please,” he’d whispered once, unreasoning horror squeezing words from his throat. His lord’s hand in his hair forcing him to bend, upon the dais with all eyes on them, this punishment was more than he could bear. “Master, please, don’t — don’t do this.”

“Wouldst thou defy me, lieutenant?”

“No,” he’d sobbed, “No,” and been torn apart.

A true worthy heir of Melkor, indeed. You raped me, Mairon thinks at the memory with no small hint of daring. That was rape. It ought to feel like triumph, but he feels strangely cold. It was the Silmarils, wasn’t it? He remembers how much things changed when they came. How could he not? All the same, somehow…

Let me swear myself to you, Lord of Eregion, he says suddenly, with an odd air of desperation behind it that he’s not keen to examine.

Startled, Tyelpë looks him in the eye, clearly scrutinizing him for… something. Why?

Because I want to. Please. Let me do it now.

Something about this evidently worries Tyelpë, though he’s not immediately sharing what. Mairon glowers across the marriage bond at his husband’s fretting, putting on his very best evil eye. Whatever thrice-cursed bit of absurdity is giving Tyelpë pause, Mairon will get this done or so help him—

You’re thinking very loudly, says Tyelpë, rather flustered. I just, I’m worried that you’re doing this because you think you have to, or something — and we’re wed, I don’t know what that — I don’t want you to ever think you have to—

What? Bed you? Mairon knows he’s starting to sound waspish. He can feel panic rising. We’ve already had that conversation. More than once. I trust we will have it again. You have never compelled me, you — all thou needst do if thou wouldst not compel me is simply that! Thinkest thou I believe every word from my lord’s tongue must be my lord’s command?

The brief, emotion-laden silence he gets from Tyelpë suggests his fear was exactly that. Mairon feels himself starting to relax. It’s — it’s an absurd fear, truly, because Tyelpë would never do such a thing, not even as punishment.

…The matter of punishment for every single thing Mairon ever did in Melkor’s service during the War of the Jewels might be heartbreaking, but Mairon is not going to think about that. Tyelpë will notice if he starts feeling frightened, and then he might not accept Mairon’s oath, and come hell or high water, Mairon will be swearing himself to the Lord of Eregion this day.

Very well, Tyelpë says after a moment, with a… somewhat worrying air of determination behind it, Then if I’m to be your lord, I swear to you that you are under my protection from this moment henceforth. No harm shall be permitted to come to you, by my hand or any other, unto the ending of the world. That is my oath to you.

That’s… What?! Mairon splutters, staunchly ignoring the large part of him that suddenly wants to either kiss Tyelpë senseless or fall weeping into his arms in this moment. No! Are you mad? You can’t swear that!

But I just did, says Tyelpë, who sounds almost… infuriatingly pleased with himself. Clearly, Mairon has wedded a lunatic.

You — forswear it, then! What if I betray you?! That particular gem comes spilling from his tongue out of sheer outrage, though Mairon can’t quite bring himself to care. Tyelpë, you can’t just — Melkor was — he—

He hurt you, Tyelpë says, low and quiet, and the fire in him burns so bright it could consume the world entire. I won’t let you be hurt again.

…You can’t possibly prevent all harm from coming to me, Mairon points out, though his protests are growing feebler. What if — what if someone wishes vengeance upon me? Upon Sauron? Punishment from Tyelpë is… probably not in the cards, it seems. Were this Mairon’s oath he’d extract his pound of flesh by standing the unfortunate under a freezing waterfall or some such — no hands necessary! — but Tyelpë is not that sort of cunning. Or cruel. A faint twinge of guilt flickers past.

Then we’ll work something out. You will come to no harm. Tyelpë reaches up, hesitating long enough for assent before stroking Mairon’s windswept hair away from his face. I am Eregion’s lord, and as I said, I doubt you are the first to enter her borders with a false tale of your past. The same assurance is there for all those who come in friendship.

You offer sanctuary to those who do not deserve it, Mairon murmurs, a little faint.

This was never about deserving.

Tyelpë’s strength… it is beyond anything Mairon has ever known. Eregion could not stand against even a shadow of Utumno or Angband, Mairon knows that for all but certainty, yet the strength of that bright flame feels as though it could save the world entire.

It’s certainly enough for a wayward flame to shelter in. Mairon ducks his head long enough to hide the indignity of his tears in Tyelpë’s shoulder before answering. “Then,” he says, as much out loud as through their bond, with his friend and the winds as witness, “With all other oaths of service being now broken and forsworn, I pledge myself to you: Tyelperinquar, called Celebrimbor, Lord of Eregion. You alone are my lord, and none other.”

He gets a remarkably tight hug for that. Tight enough that it hurts a bit, pressing on his bruises, but never mind that. He’s needed a hug for… some time now. Some part of him says that this should feel like failure; it does feel like treason, because it is.

A bit of unease twists through his spine — now you’ve done it, it says. You’ve thrown away the love of the only one who would always have you, the only person you could ever truly count on. But Mairon wants this, and that matters more than fear. Overcome, he clings tight and buries his face in Tyelpë’s neck to hide.

“I’ve had my fill of promising to serve anyone,” Gothmog rumbles after a bit, voice slurring with his weariness. He’s going to be out of commission for a while after they get back, Mairon can tell, and his heart truly breaks with guilt at that. “Broke my oaths ages ago. Don’ need a new lord to replace the old one. But I’ll not let either of you be hurt — an’ you can stop being stupid now, Mai, you’d do the same for me. Jus’… need sleep. Don’ do anything stupid while I’m sleeping.”

“I never do anything stupid!” Mairon retorts loudly, then coughs. His throat is still sore.

“Uh huh. Does stewing in Mordor for years, ignoring your husband and convincing yourself he hated you ring a bell? Jus’ wake me up before you do anything stupid. Promise.”

That was not stewing, that — fine. Fine! All right, Mairon grumbles, delicately swallowing down the painful-itchy lump in his throat. I promise.

*

Eregion by night is a hodgepodge of glowing lights and shadowy trees, streams and rivers and aqueducts. Odd as she is, with her patchy sprawl of habitation and absence of unity in her architecture, she is… beautiful, in her strange way. More than once Mairon has slipped into a flighted fána and brought Tyelpë up to see her from high above, and it’s hard not to catch a bit of that radiant, wondering joy singing through their bond into his heart.

Tyelpë still feels a bit of that wonder as Gothmog’s enormous fiery wings carry them toward the halls of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain. Only a bit, though. All three of them are exhausted beyond reason. The lights of the hall are warm and welcoming, safety, and the matter of landing is tricky enough that Mairon almost forgets to care how undignified it is.

Gothmog flies in this form infrequently, and much mislikes it. He’s not very good at it either, and while maintaining flight once airborne takes little from him, the takeoff is difficult and the landing is worse.

“When we get back — can we descend a bit slower this time?” Tyelpë hollers over the wind as they’re passing the Ered Nimrais, one arm wrapped protectively around Mairon as if he’s the one more at risk from a fall at this altitude.

It takes only a moment to realize what Tyelpë must be talking about, and Mairon winces in sympathy: Gothmog made this fána for battle, where he favored steep dives from great heights. It never worked especially well. Mairon seems to recall a lot of crash landings. He’s also not entirely sure Gothmog ever fully mastered how to land any other way — if his friend left Angband in flight, he’d usually return on foot.

Feeling rather self-indulgent and much enjoying this cuddly protectiveness, Mairon twines his fingers in the loose fabric of Tyelpë’s robe and pulls himself a little closer before breathing words into Gothmog’s heart. Can you glide?

A vague impression of skepticism. I am gliding, Gothmog would say, if he had the energy for it.

…Fair enough. Can you glide into the landing?

I guess. Muddy images of earth and rock, a long history of recollected attempts at landing turned into spectacular faceplants. Wobbling, unstable flight on the way down.

This close to the memory, Mairon can see what his friend is doing wrong. He’d had similar trouble himself once, but—

(White feathers float down softly on the breeze.)

—Mairon shoos the memory away. He’d had a good teacher, that’s all. Let me navigate?

Assent comes more in feeling than words, but after millennia of knowing Gothmog, it’s enough. Overlaying their minds enough to direct his flight while maintaining the awareness needed to continue shaping the winds in their favor is… challenging, and Mairon finds himself viscerally understanding Gothmog’s distaste for this fána the moment he finds himself partly clothed in it.

How does this thing even fly?! It looks airworthy enough from the outside, but from within, it’s so heavy and unresponsive that Mairon can scarcely believe it is flying.

From Gothmog, there’s a sense of satisfaction — I told you so — entwined with long-held frustration and discontent. He didn’t make this fána, Mairon realizes. Or he had, but — it wasn’t his, not really. His contribution was to stand very still as Melkor took up the great black knife and…

No, his friend says sharply, clamping down hard on whatever lurks in that part of his memory. We’re not going there right now. Still think you can navigate?

…Possibly? Mairon gives their wings an experimental beat. It works, kind of, but the sensation — or more accurately, the lack of it — is discomfiting in the extreme. He can’t tell how fast they’re flying, can barely tell what the winds feel like. Even the eyes don’t quite work right. Why didn’t you ever tell me you were flying all but blind?

That good, eh? His friend sounds a bit strained, though more alert than a few moments ago. I didn’t know. All of them felt like this.

It’s horrid. I cannot believe you spent millennia flying like this. Very cautiously, Mairon tries dipping a wing for a rightward bank. It… works, fundamentally, but it feels like trying to walk in a fána that has no sensation below the hips.

(That happened once, in Almaren. Not the first time he’d been injured by his own incompetence, but one of the few times he’d hid it so poorly that Aulë noticed. The memory used to be so humiliating that Mairon would flinch violently away from it. Now, it’s… honestly, almost… droll? But he doesn’t have time to think on it.)

White feathers and a mop of dark curly hair. He was a good teacher, and Mairon knows how to do this. All right, change of plans. We’re going to have to do this together. You know this form better than I do, and it’ll be easier for me to focus on the magic if I’m not fighting your fána at the same time. You fly, and I really will just guide you. Okay?

Mmhm.

They still land in a heap at the halls of the Mírdain, Gothmog falling forward onto his hands. Not much help for it, Mairon finds himself thinking as he withdraws from his friend’s fána. Not with how little that form wants to fly…

It’s still the softest landing Gothmog has ever managed, in a third or less of the time it should have taken with Mairon shaping the winds, and that feels like triumph enough.

“Annatar?” Tyelpë is pulling him up, supporting his weight — actually, no, he’s carrying him, and while Mairon’s admittedly tempted to let himself go limp and be coddled like a house-cat, on principle that feels like a bridge too far for his dignity.

“Mrph,” says Mairon, which was meant to be a moment. Wriggling, he gets his fána’s legs under him and promptly starts to faceplant — pain that he’s been doing a spectacular job of ignoring spikes through his pelvis and sparks rising panic.

“Carry me,” he orders Tyelpë, managing to sound imperious instead of shaken. Tyelpë can tell he’s lying, but Mairon doesn’t care about that. He’ll not be seen doing that limp up the stairs to their rooms. Everyone knows what that looks like — everyone will know what that means.

“I’ve got you,” Tyelpë murmurs, hoisting him up. There’s a faint note of years-old amusement behind the words at Mairon’s swift turnaround, but that’s acceptable from him. It’s mostly tenderness. Tyelpë wants to be holding him right now; wants to hold him close and keep him safe and maybe possibly never let him out of his sight. Ever.

Silently appreciative, Mairon slings an arm around Tyelpë’s shoulders and, after a millisecond’s indecision, decides to lay his head down. Whatever. He can look pathetic and bedraggled, this once. His fána is bruised about the face and throat anyway, and he’s not got the wherewithal to try and hide that. If anyone gives him trouble for it, he can terrorize them later — once he feels less like a vaguely dizzy bundle of raw nerves and violated flesh. Right now, he feels like engaging with precisely no one other than his husband and dearest friend, and to drill that point home, he closes his eyes.

…And promptly conjures an eye to hover nonchalantly over Tyelpë’s head, because a lack of engagement doesn’t have to mean a lack of observation.

Having changed into one of his usual flightless fánar posthaste — this one being on the small side — Gothmog starts heading off in the direction of the forges. “Gonna sleep,” he says without further ado.

Mairon has to say something snide. On principle. Don’t wake all Ost-in-Edhil with your snoring.

Shut up. Glad you’re safe, Mai.

A surge of warmth goes through him. Thank you, my friend.

Stepping out from one of the halls are a couple of the apprentices — working late, it seems. An Elf and a Dwarf. They lower their voices as they approach, and Mairon decides that he is not in fact sufficiently interested to keep bothering with his sight-magic. Some of the Mírdain are gossips, but these two sound more concerned than anything — he doesn’t recognize them, but they seem not at all phased by the eye floating above Tyelpë’s head, so they might be accustomed to him. His husband briefly exchanges a few less-than-interesting words with them before heading inside.

D’you want anything before bed? Tyelpë’s exhaustion is palpable, though he’s trying not to show it.

Small wonder. Mairon nestles into him, affectionate. After all, Tyelpë is now only the second Fëanorian confirmed to have set things on fire with his fury — oh, that does send a frisson through Mairon, even as he is — as well as the first known to have survived the occasion. Of course he’s tired.

Bed first, says Mairon. Bath after. Immediately after. In truth he’d like to scrub his skin off now, but he really is a bit lightheaded — probably overextended himself in Gothmog’s flight. Oops. Nor does he have any desire whatsoever to see to this by himself — he’ll collapse in a weeping mess at some point if history is any indication, and if he does that by himself he’ll probably do something… ‘stupid’, as Gothmog puts it.

Where d’you want to sleep?

That requires no thought whatsoever. With you.

All right. I’d — I’d like that. Feeling a great deal of painful relief at having him back, Tyelpë holds onto him tightly and — his tears are rising now. Fuck. All Mairon can do is hug him hard, as hard as he can at this angle, and whisper words into his heart. Some of them echo what he’d already said, standing there in Pharazôn’s — that rapist’s chambers; some of them are new.

Ai, love. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to leave you, I… I was foolish.

A wet laugh. Gothmog did say you were being stupid. Tyelpë is trying not to cry on him right now, given… everything. But it’s all right, Mairon thinks. It’s all right for him to cry. He has a right to, given everything before that.

He’s very wise. And a dear friend. A little push of magic to nudge open the door to Tyelpë’s chambers. They look nearly the same as Mairon remembers — there’s a bit more clutter than before, more books and odds and ends. The furniture is the same, mostly wooden.

Narvi’s little divan is a new addition, crammed up against one wall. The same old sorrow twists his heart.

There’s… a lot of clutter, the longer he looks. Tyelpë’s little round lamps, glowing warm with yellow light, have been rearranged a bit to accommodate it. As usual, his bed is unmade, piled high with pillows and blankets — and that blanket, the rather hideous knit one, is Mairon’s. Gothmog made it back in the Utumno days, when their friendship was new and Mairon loathed the cold. Ugly as it is, it’s soft and warm and so ensorcelled by now it’ll probably outlast Arda. Tyelpë must have purloined it from Mairon’s room after he left — and now his tears are rising.

I’m so sorry, Tyelpë.

Spatial clearance is a little tight in the bedchamber, and Mairon’s not over-worried about doing that limp in front of his husband. Gingerly, he hobbles the last few feet to the bed and sits down on the edge, wincing and shifting his weight a bit — he might steel himself to fix this fána tomorrow, now that he doesn’t expect it to be injured again. He’d made Annatar’s form to be beautiful, not durable. Or it’s just that he’s not used to this anymore. But the bed is as comfortable as he remembers, and as inviting.

I forgive you. Scrubbing away stray tears with the back of his hand, Tyelpë pulls two sets of sleeping clothes out of the large wooden cabinet and turns around to face him, unconsciously biting his bottom lip. Just… don’t do that again?

I won’t, Mairon tells him readily. I swore myself to you, my lord. Remember?

Tyelpë looks distressed, holding the clothes to his chest like a shield. That’s not— I don’t want you to—

“Don’t be asinine,” says Mairon — and coughs, which hurts. He’s going to have to at least fix that in the morning. Now you’re being stupid, he goes on tartly, even as tenderness swells in his heart and belies his sharp tongue. It hurts, this affection; it used to frighten him. It still does, a little, but. I love you. I want to stay with you always, you fool. There is no compulsion in taking that which is freely given.

Oh, he has truly missed that sweet, crooked smile; the way Tyelpë’s entire face crumples up when his smile gets even a little wider. I love you, too.

His husband is so happy to have him home — Mairon could bask in his joy forever. Tilting his chin up a little and peering up through his lashes, he reaches out. Come to bed? I need thee.

I— thou— A little flustered, still joyful but unsure, Tyelpë sort of helplessly waves the bundle of nightclothes at him. But. Dressed?

Thou canst be as dressed as thou carest to be, melince. Or as undressed. Though Mairon’s trying for a smirk, it softens into a smile. I would prefer to be clothed, but thou needst not be. I find thee rather pleasing to look upon. And I…

Mairon trails off. There is a yearning in him, some tender thing that aches in his chest. He knows not how to put it into words, but he does not hide it; almost without thought he reaches out across the bond with it, and Tyelpë understands.

He is warm, full of life; brown skin and lean muscle laid over a fiercely beating heart. Safely bundled in a loose undyed cotton shirt and trousers, Mairon nestles close to Tyelpë, tucking his head under his chin and splaying his palm over his chest. After a few moments he crosses their ankles too, though he knows from experience that’s not comfortable for long.

Thank you, he murmurs sleepily, kissing Tyelpë’s shoulder.

Mmm. Tyelpë is more than half asleep already. For what?

For everything…? For coming for me.

A moment’s hesitation, and Tyelpë buries his face against the crown of Mairon’s head. The arm around Mairon tightens. Strong and warm and loved, it will hold him through the night.

Any time, Annamírë.

*

Leagues distant, across mountains and rivers and open ocean, the streets of Armenelos are livelier than is usual at nighttime. Glowing lamps flicker across the city; the sounds of its many languages, of leather sandals on pavement and light cotton robes rustling in the wind, are slow to fade. The tea and coffee-houses stay open hours past closing, and the drinking and smoking establishments do better business than usual, hosting crowds of Númenóreans mourning their fallen king. Across those crowds, spies and historiographers make brief eye contact and look away, not wishing to burn their covers.

“It was a damned Elf. I saw it,” one off-duty soldier growls to a mesmerized audience between sips of fermented rice wine. “Landed right in the courtyard, like it was launched from a ballista.”

“One guess who launched it,” says one of the onlookers.

His meaning is so obvious that the historian a few tables away takes the liberty of scribbling ‘the Faithful’ in parenthesis in his notes. As the conversation turns darker and words like treason and drive them out are used, the establishment’s owner tugs at the collar of his robes and offers the group a free round before sending them off into the night. The liquor is strong; the crowd disperses, stumbling away.

At other teahouses, the mood is more somber. There is fear, and the desire for vengeance. There are those who see the king’s assassination as a political act of a rival nation, and some who call for it to be repaid in blood. Others remember the falling star in daytime, and whisper of retribution from the gods: the Valar have seen their defiance, and the time has come to repent.

Scattered brawls break out where those suddenly motivated to find faith intersect with those who blame the Faithful. None are killed. The city guard is on high alert. The messages coming from the palace are unified for the moment, and strong: Tar-Míriel, resuming the name her father gave her, is Queen. She rules over the Faithful and King’s Men alike, and gives no preference to one or the other. Her subjects are all Númenóreans, and in this moment should see one another as brothers and sisters. She will not see them fighting each other in the streets.

Her will is carried out. The king is dead; long live the Queen.

At the highest point of the city, upon the gentle slopes of the Tarmasundar, the smoke from the palace fire has yet to fully dissipate. Cordoned off in the fire’s aftermath, the eastern side of the central citadel is silent, occupied only by the guards assigned to keep interlopers out. The natural philosophers have issued a strong warning as to the structure’s safety, their point underscored by the difficulty of extinguishing the fire. Tar-Míriel has ordered her court removed to the western wing of the palace, and occupies the chambers she has been using within the stout northwest tower.

Within that tower, the Queen — or here, just Míriel — discreetly stifles a yawn as her lady Nilûphêr slips the rings from her fingers, then moves behind her and begins to draw the pins from her hair. Míriel had anticipated no sleep this night when she’d been widowed this morning, and it troubled her only insofar as sleeplessness clouds the mind; now, exhaustion is a leaden weight on her limbs.

Still, she glances toward the door at her back, visible in the looking glass. It remains closed, barred, and guarded. The occupants of this room remain the same as they were mere moments ago: the same contingent of guards, ladies-in-waiting, and other servants.

There are more of them than would normally attend her at this hour, and the one now hastily putting her jewelry away is a man — but Abrazîr has been her spy for years. The intricacies of how the manner of her marriage was carried out have taught Míriel the folly of trusting members of her sex not to cooperate in her rape, and the ladies who tended her bath this morning were hired by her rapist. Even if they weren’t his spies, Míriel will not permit them here. Soft-spoken Abrazîr is… knowledgeable, in handling this; she feels safe in his company, and has need of reasons to feel safe in her chambers.

Ah. Míriel is weary. There is… precedent for it now, loathsome as it is, to gain the throne by raping its unwed occupant under the auspices of seduction. The trust she once unthinkingly gave the men of rank around her lies in pieces, shattered by the fact that her cousin’s plot had worked.

Perhaps she herself had put up little resistance, but for that she will forgive herself. What he’d done was unimaginable — of course she knew not how to counter it. Little surprise, too, that in her horror and shock she’d not had the words to gainsay the claim he’d put forth with aid of the so-called ‘priest’ he’d brought along to witness what he did.

‘What he did’. No, Míriel thinks to herself with cool detachment, she will not be so circumspect.

Her cousin raped her.

She will not dignify what he’d done with discretion. When she is finished with him, his name will forever be synonymous with what he was: a rapist.

“Your Majesty?” Nilûphêr murmurs, a hand hovering at her shoulder. Startled, Míriel blinks at herself in the mirror, then nods.

“Just Míriel,” she remembers to add softly as she stands, and is rewarded with a hint of a quiet smile. She looks over the rest of the room — over Aglarôth and her folk, fearsome warriors all, loyal throughout all these years and newly returned to her side. They had not, as Míriel recalls quite well, been given the chance to protect her the first time; now, they are ready.

“You know that you have my gratitude; know also that you have my confidence,” she informs them, permitting herself a true smile. “I shall rest easy this night, knowing you keep watch.”

Privately her anxiety remains, but that’s no fault of theirs — Míriel cannot imagine any circumstances in which she would not spend this night in fear of ambitious, unwelcome intruders. It would be unjust to trouble the Queen’s Guard thus, or insult them with her fears.

All of them bow, though Aglarôth does so with an odd slowness before clasping her hand to her chest. “Your Majesty.”

There’s a brief, awkward half-moment where it seems as if someone ought to be saying something, before Míriel inclines her head a bare fraction and heads over to the bed. Things used to be easier between them, but — it has been several years. They simply need to get used to each other again, that’s all. It’s possible the Queen’s Guard will betray her, but anyone could. Even Nilûphêr, whose hazel eyes track the queen’s footsteps.

Lifting the edge of the bed-covers, Míriel glances back. Nilûphêr is seemingly dressed for work, though her stance is loose, her shoulders relaxed. She catches Míriel’s gaze and tilts her head questioningly.

Míriel slides under the covers and moves herself to the center of the mattress, leaving an extra pillow at her side. “Will you stay?”

It is a question. It always has been.

“It would be my pleasure.”

Nilûphêr lifts a hand; there’s a flash of silver as a hairpin disappears into her sleeve. Loose chestnut curls spill down over her shoulders, showing touches of gold where her unveiled hair has caught the sun this summer.

In Númenor, there is a folk belief that odd traits like pale eyes and curling hair mark the descendants of elven mariners who once walked their shores, particularly in the north and west. That belief is at least a century out of fashion among the upper classes, Míriel included, but she’s never needed such a story to find this scarred woman beautiful.

Undoing the ribbons of her jacket, Nilûphêr slips her fingers beneath the quilted hem and works at the ties which bind the waistband of her overskirt above her breasts. The skirt falls away, revealing the long cotton trousers she wears beneath it. She catches her skirt before it hits the ground, folding it neatly and putting it aside. Moments later, her jacket follows.

This is what she has usually done, as is decent — any lady of Armenelos might appear thus in the company of her own sex. In this state, the layers of her garments would leave her little less clad than she was before. Solitude is rare in this region; commoners may have an entire family share a bed, and highborn women oft sleep beside their favored ladies-in-waiting — so often, in fact, that the comic trope of the male lover who disguises himself as a handmaiden is an eternal staple of Númenórean theater.

This night Nilûphêr hesitates, her expression unreadable. Her gaze lingers with an almost deferential air on the wooden lamp which hangs between them on its mount, ornamented with carven vines and emitting a soft yellow light.

“How unseasonably warm it is.” Her fingers twine idly through the strings and ribbons of her undergarments. “I expect no interruptions before daybreak. Perhaps my queen will not begrudge me a more comfortable manner of resting this night.”

All the blood in Míriel’s body seems to rush straight to her cheeks in an instant. She swallows. “As you will.”

Nilûphêr smiles broadly and tugs hard at the ties. Her clothes fall to the ground in a heap at her feet, and she sinks down, nearly going to her knees in obeisance. “All Hail the Queen.”

(The Queen’s Guard, being possessed of tact and common sense, do not hail.)

Afterward they lie close together, the two of them, despite the summer’s warmth. Around them, the sheer bed-curtains give the illusion of solitude. Nilûphêr’s breath deepens, grows slow and even.

After a time, one of Míriel’s guards begins to sing very softly. It’s a language she recognizes, though not one she knows. This language unique to Aglarôth and her people, one full of consonants and the sorts of sounds one must make in the back of the throat.

A sort of pidgin, they’ve told her, but they don’t know its name, or the name of its originating language. Something spoken by their parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles — Aglarôth’s people like their families large and together — but when asked its name, the children would just be told “Never you mind.” Putting two and two together, Míriel suspects it was the Black Speech, and that the adults hid the name from the children to avoid censure from the neighbors.

That was wise of them, if Míriel’s guess is correct. Aglarôth looks like someone with Orcish blood as it is — if the rest of her family is likewise, they’re lucky they weren’t run out of town. Bad blood with the Orcs runs deep.

As far as Míriel is concerned…

What she has seen of Aglarôth and her folk is a culture which Míriel does not quite understand, but which has done her no harm. Her guards’ folk are breathtakingly loyal to those they call their own, including Míriel herself. They suffer greatly if separated from their families, but have a sort of quiet, patient pragmatism in their approach to grief and other suffering. Their comfort foods tend to be… acquired tastes, for Míriel, heavy in fermentation and salt, but their cuisine speaks to a people well-accustomed to adversity.

They have never harmed her. Or — no, that’s not strong enough. They’ve risked their lives for her all these years. Some of them have died. And for what? What has Míriel done to earn this loyalty, save treat them as she would any other in her service?

Perhaps that is enough, but it seems unjust.

…It would be unwise in the extreme to take her good regard for the folk she knows as reason to hope for peace with Mordor. Even if it were not a political impossibility, her own people are one matter; Sauron’s are quite another. Míriel is not that foolish. All the same…

Ai, ai — how could she forget? She’s inherited the occupation of Mordor’s capital, and she’s going to have to do something with it. The original plan was ultimately to conquer and colonize the entire country, killing or driving out all the Orcs and other creatures of the Enemy who inhabit it. With the great city taken, Tar-Míriel need do nothing for that plan to proceed apace.

Gloomily, Míriel considers the political outlook for doing otherwise. It would be an uphill battle, and a risky move, because the King’s Men and Faithful actually tend to agree on this. The Enemy is called such for a reason. But — and Valar preserve her for taking inspiration from that rapist — her cousin had managed to install Sauron in his bedchamber, despite numerous warnings and misgivings. The same parties who found that idea droll would not support Tar-Míriel in calling off the cleansing of Mordor, but — at least some of them will be losing their heads if she has her way.

Probably there are some in her court who would feel discomfit at the thought of intentionally exterminating an entire people, no? Sauron is the oldest enemy of her people in Middle-Earth that she knows of, and even he was still drawing a fair amount of sympathy from those who realized what that rapist would do. Tar-Míriel’s trust lies shattered in the aftermath of being raped and usurped by her cousin, but her court may not be as filled with indifferent monsters as her distrust thinks it is.

…It is unlikely that she will gain anything by intervention. She would be spending political capital she doesn’t have, for a task that no one would thank her for doing.

…She does wish to reign in her empire’s expansionism until its current territory is better administered. Calling off Mordor’s cleansing in that context would be a mere side effect of her overall policy. But if she calls the army home from Mordor, she might well be calling it home to overthrow her. That rapist had the army’s loyalty, after all.

“Aglarôth?” This is a foolish thing to do, but Míriel is too tired to think better of it.

The singing stops. “Your Majesty?”

“Forgive my indiscretion, but do you… have family in Mordor?”

Only a moment’s hesitation. “I don’t know, Your Majesty. Our elders told us that if anyone asked, we should say our family fled from Umbar.” Speaking on behalf of all of them, it seems.

“You don’t believe it’s true?”

From outside the curtains, the sound of someone shifting their feet. “Umbar is a haven of outlaws, outcasts, and traitors.”

“…I do not doubt your loyalty.”

“Evidently.” Aglarôth says this with curious strength. “We are very grateful to be given a renewed chance to prove ourselves, Your Majesty.”

“Prove… what?” Míriel frowns.

“Despite our failure, you have accepted us back into your service.” That is an impassioned tone. “Not only that, you have permitted us resume the posts we held before, though we have failed you and do not deserve your mercy.”

“You — what?” Utterly at a loss, Míriel pushes herself up on her elbow and addresses the shadow outside her bed-curtains directly. It’s not very queenly of her, but… “Each one of you has served me for years, faithfully and with a courage that is nothing short of admirable. Where could you get such an absurd idea? Has someone said something to you?”

Have you in fact betrayed me, and chosen thus to express your guilty conscience?, whispers her paranoia. That, she shoves aside. Her evidence is against it, and if it were true, to accuse in the face of all this would be both unjust and cruel. She won’t heed that impulse.

“We know it for ourselves, Your Majesty,” another voice pipes up. Zôrzimril, one of the younger ones. “We should have died before allowing a traitor to rape you and steal your throne.”

Refreshingly blunt, this group. If there’s one thing Míriel has noticed during years of speaking around her cousin’s actions, it’s that refusing to use the word only drives home the shame of being one who had that done to her.

“You ‘allowed’ nothing.” Sitting up, she pushes the curtain back. “As I recall, you were not present to allow or disallow.”

Aglarôth’s face is very serious. “Nevertheless, we failed you.”

“Poppycock. That is the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard.”

Míriel registers the surprise on their faces and realizes that perhaps she’s been a bit harsh. Striving to soften her words, she goes on carefully, “Aglarôth, you… you and your folk were the first I heard to name what he did for what it was. ‘Rape.’ Do you recall? Everyone else was calling it ‘seduction.’”

A derisive snort. “Sounds a whole lot more willing, doesn’t it?”

“Well, I didn’t fight.” She exhales through her nose. “He even brought a witness, who could confirm I didn’t fight.”

“Yes, and then a whole lot of people stood around hemming and hawing and not asking you if you’d wanted it.”

That makes a bitter laugh rise to Míriel’s lips. “I suppose they did. Forgive me, Aglarôth, I wish not to speak on this further.”

“Of course, Your Majesty. Forgive me.”

“There’s no need.” She looks down at the rise of her knees beneath the covers for a moment. “What you said, back then… I have always remembered it. That, and the confidence with which you said it. There have been moments in the intervening years where I have found myself in need of confidence, and have sought to borrow it from the memory of others, such as you. For that, you have my gratitude. Know at least that in my eyes, all of you have ever been a strength and stay. You have risked your lives, and shown extraordinary courage. You have never failed me.”

Aglarôth bows deeply. Her eyes reflect the light in the darkness. “Your Majesty.”

“…And with that said, I’d best sleep.” Drawing the curtain on her sudden discomfiture, Míriel flops back once more against her pillows. Nilûphêr, wakened at some point during the conversation, yawns and throws an arm over her. “There’s much to be done tomorrow.”