The candles had burnt low in their brackets by the time Maitimo turned his face from the wall. Findekáno was kneeling at the bedside, his hands clenching the blankets.

"How long have you been here?" Maitimo whispered, his voice thin and cracked.

"Since dusk. You know." Maitimo must have heard him breathing, if nothing else. Findekáno had not touched him. Maitimo nodded once, twice, his mind somewhere else.

"Who lives?" he asked.

"Elenwë died," Findekáno answered, though Maitimo had had no tenderness for Turukáno in Aman, still less could he have now. "Arakáno fell in battle. Your father – but you know all the rest."

"My father and Pityo." Maitimo struggled to raise himself on his left arm, for it was greatly weakened. "Were there no others who died?"

"Many." It might have been a reproof, but for the gentleness of Findekáno's tone. "But it was not your fault. Makalaurë told me how it was."

"Would you have come after me, had I not stood aside?" Maitimo turned his head away, as if he could not bear the reply.

"I did not know." Findekáno's fingers were cold as he curled them round Maitimo's jaw, but the warmth of touching Maitimo's face spread through him. "I did not know, and I came anyway." He tugged Maitimo's chin to make him meet his gaze.

"I would not, had our positions been reversed," Maitimo whispered.

"Yes, you would." Strange, that of all things Findekáno should have confidence in that. "If for no other reason than that you would never leave one of our House to die."

Maitimo flinched. Findekáno's grip tightened and Maitimo jerked away, swallowing convulsively.

"I would have come for you," he said. "For you only."

"I don't believe you," Findekáno responded with utter certainty. He smiled, and Maitimo stared at him as if transfixed.

"You are more generous than I," he said at last. Findekáno, still smiling, stood and pushed him into an upright position while he shook Maitimo's pillows.

"There," he said, and helped Maitimo lie back more comfortably. He sat down on the edge of the bed, his hand resting on Maitimo's stomach.

"When did it begin, this rot?" Maitimo asked, his voice hoarse. Findekáno affected not to hear, instead rising again to fill a cup of water. "I meant it when I said that I would not have ventured to rescue any but you. If you had been at my side in Losgar, if you had been sleeping with me that night in Araman rather than giving comfort to Irissë, I would have lit torches with a will and used the flames to warm your hands." So Maitimo had noticed the chill of Findekáno's fingers. After the Ice, he had thought never to know heat again, but Maitimo's words were thawing his heart; he could already feel it beating faster.

"I don't believe you," he repeated, for since Maitimo had been dearest to his heart for many years, he could not consider him capable of such cruelty. Violence in fear, yes, in anger, but not the peculiar, sadistic delight of destroying a people's only hope.

Maitimo smiled for the first time, but it was unhappy, and savage in its unhappiness. "Well, at least we needn't ask where it began."

"No," Findekáno retorted with great swiftness, "for there was fault on both sides."

"The greater on mine."

"If the fault were of the House of Fëanáro, it is the fault of the House of Finwë," Findekáno said doggedly. "We none of us swore oaths, but followed you nonetheless. If there were no fault in us, the Valar would not have cursed us."

"That is matter for some doubt," Maitimo said, and the bitterness in his voice gave Findekáno some pause before he put his arms around Maitimo anyway.

"Nelyafinwë," he said, "you must understand. The House of Finwë must be the House of Finwë, not the House of Curufinwë and the House of Nolofinwë and Everyone Else. We must work together."

"I will work with you," Maitimo said, and his voice was so full of emotion that Findekáno embraced him tightly.

"We will find a way for our Houses to reconcile," he said, muffled in Maitimo's shoulder. "There are no stronger bonds than this, this of family."

The candles had only just been lit when the Sindar messenger reached them and the light threw shadows about the room, so deep that Maitimo almost feared to be swallowed up.

"Make him speak properly, Russandol!"

The messenger had no Quenya, however, or would not have spoken it if he had. He bowed himself out, leaving the three eldest brothers alone. Maitimo was silent for some moments, pushing some papers away from himself.

"Well," he said finally, his mouth twisted. "Which do you prefer, brother? Makalaurë or Kanafinwë?"

"Makalaurë, I suppose, but both to any Sindarin form." Makalaurë's tone was cautious, wary of Maitimo's intemperate temper.

"Is it not enough that they take our cattle and our clothes? Is it not enough that they take our crown?" Tyelkormo's voice had risen feverishly, and his face was red with the beating of his blood. "Must they take our names, also?"

"I cannot think it will answer," Makalaurë murmured. "An edict against a language is ridiculous. It cannot be enforced; words are too flimsy things."

"You forget," Maitimo said with the gentle irony of one who had seen too much to ever forget, "Quenya is spoken only by exiles. It is spoken only by those who have been cursed by the Valar. Who would wish to be taken for one of those?"

"I would," said Tyelkormo with passionate fierceness.

"Yes," said Maitimo, with terrible compassion, "but you are a son of Fëanor, and only the sons of Fëanor love the sons of Fëanor."

"Fëanáro," Tyelkormo snarled, but his voice cracked as he said it.

"Findekáno loves you," Makalaurë offered.

"Findekáno loves Arda Marred," Maitimo answered, with what he felt to be the greater truth. "And I suppose he will be Fingon now, or some such, for while his love for me is strong, so is his love for Nolofinwë."

"Are we then alone?"

"We always have been." Maitimo stood to take his leave; Makalaurë and Tyelkormo stood with him. He paused as he went through the door. "And by the by, Makalaurë. I'd write that lament of yours in Quenya." Maedhros smirked. "No Sinda will care to understand a word."

And then there was one in the bleak morning light, for the others had died dishonourably and Maedhros was lost. The voice that rose above the crashing of waves and the screech of seagulls was broken and tormented, a voice that knew nothing of harmony.

It sang a lament, and the shattered ebb and flow of it made the song tear at the listener's heart more than the richest of baritones. Though he could not understand the words, Daeron knew the melody almost as well as if he had written it himself.

"A Noldo?" he called.

The stranger was silent as he came round the rock. "Yes," he said. "Or I was, once."

Daeron studied him, gazing at the lank dark hair, the whiteness of the face. When the stranger held out his hand, the veins stood out sharply in blue relief.

"You sang the Noldolantë," he said. "No Sinda would."

"No, they would not." The stranger's voice was soft, almost inaudible, and Daeron had to strain his ears to catch it. "And we would not love them if they did."

Daeron unpinned his brooch and spread his grey cloak upon the sand. "Come, sit with me." Solitude, to the Eldar, was often a necessary thing, but there was such a thing as too much of it. But the stranger was shaking his head.

"For a Sinda of Doriath to offer hospitality to a Noldo is a jest of no mirth and little kindness."

"I have sat down with the Noldor before and will do so again."

"Not now. Not with me."

"Are you a Fëanorian, to be so reviled by a Sinda?"

"Yes."

Daeron was silent. The spray of sea mist had dampened his tunic and the rolling of the tide almost touched his feet before he said, "Your people have done mine a great wrong."

"Yes."

"And I, too, have done the Sindar a great wrong."

"No greater than mine."

"No, not greater than that."

The hiss of the waves had wetted Daeron's boots before the stranger sat down beside him. His hands were thin, long-fingered and pale; when Daeron took them in his own he found that they were cold.

"Do you ever dream of it?"

"No," said the stranger, and his voice was rich and proud and his back had stiffened in his dignity. "I dream of sweeter things."

"And when you wake – "

"And when I wake, I am not in Valinor. No."

"You are only in – wherever this place is."

"I am a son of Fëanor wherever I am." The stranger's voice was distant. "Wherever I am, I am still Makalaurë, or Kanafinwë, and though I have no home, I have my name and my family's love."

"Though you have no family, and the House of Fëanor is less than ashes."

"I am still Mag-lor, if you must." He stumbled over the name, though he must have spoken it a hundred thousand times. It sounded bitter in his mouth.

"I am Daeron."

"Your name is a relief," Maglor said. "It means that my brothers and I were not the only traitors in this land."

"I have never slain kin."

"I have never broken faith with one I loved."

"Where is the Silmaril now?" Daeron was surprised when Maglor laughed.

"Out there." He nodded at the sea. "Find it if you like." He laughed again. "What a pair we make."

"Yours was the worse deed," Daeron pointed out.

"I know." Maglor was smiling and Daeron made the mistake of looking at his eyes. They were the same grey as any Noldo had, but here they were flat and dim; the life had left them, perhaps centuries ago. "But who were your family, Daeron? I never heard."

"They have nothing to do with this, at least." Daeron's boots were drenched to the ankles, but he paid no attention.

"Did they love you? Mine loved me. That was all any of us had, at one time. Only threadbare clothes and little food and our love."

"And that made everything worth it," Daeron said. He had meant to sound caustic, but in the end was merely wistful.

"Until they died, yes. And even then, there was Russandol." His mouth tasted the name with delight. "I was always closest to him. And now..."

"And now you have no one."

"I see them, sometimes." Maglor was smiling still; somewhere along the way it had become distorted and frightening. "Telvo and Pityo playing in the sand, Maitimo – Maitimo, not what this land made of him – walking by my side and I can hear Tyelko and Carnistir quarrelling. Father and Atarinkë are sitting on the rocks and talking in low voices."

He stared out over the sea. The edges of Daeron's cloak were soaked, but he gave it no mind. Maglor's face was transfigured with some wild rapture; wherever he was looking, he could not see the waves.

"Sometimes – only sometimes – I see Mother, out of the corner of my eye. She kisses Pityo's head, perhaps, or touches Maitimo's arm. When I see her, I always hope, just for a little while, that she sees me, too." Maglor's face was crumpling as he sank into wretched despair. "When I see her, when I see her properly for the first time, and she speaks to me, maybe she will forgive me."

"Maybe she will," Daeron whispered. Maglor turned to him, the agonised suffering gone from his expression.

"If you see her, will you ask her to?"

"I swear."

"No, no oaths." Maglor's smile this time was horribly, achingly benevolent. "Take it from someone who knows."

"I will ask."

Maglor nodded, satisfied. "And so you see, don't you, that I carry my family's love with me, even though I am one alone?"

"I see."

"Good." Maglor rose and began to make his way down the beach. He had waded in up to his knees by the time he seemed to realise and make for the shore again. He was a lonely figure, a shadow against the cold light of the sun. Daeron waited a while, but the lamentation did not rise again. Eventually, he stood himself, chilly and stiff, and began to walk in the opposite direction.

He was humming to himself as he went, and it was not for miles that he realised he was singing the melody of the Noldolantë.