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He is nearly weightless.
Gelmir expected his arms to strain under the weight of this soul new-wrought, to feel in his body the same gravity that sang within him; for he had known the moment his brother first breathed of Arda—presence rippled along his spirit like daybreak. He had rushed back from the orchards at a sprint, reaching the gates just as his cousin passed in search of him.
But the bundle Guilin sets in his arms is feather-light, wrinkled as a mole-rat, and snuffled grunts rise from the woolen wrapping as the infant settles against his brother’s chest. He is not even the length of his forearm.
Gelmir holds him like glass.
“Speak, onya,”1 Guilin urges, then laughs as the tiny face turns to root against Gelmir’s arm. “Speak, that he might know thy voice.”
He draws a finger along Gwindor’s cheek. It is impossibly soft—like freshly risen dough, he thinks in quick amusement, the loaves his mother kneads each enquië2—then he shifts to trace his finger along the tiny row of fingers. “Gwinig,”3 he murmurs as they fold around his knuckle and he too laughs, delighted. “Take my hand, little one. I am here.”
—
When he shoves the barrel aside, Gwindor is already shaking, his breath coming in gasps and fingertips bloodied from scrabbling against the rock and wood. Gelmir swears under his breath and pulls him free of the crevice. Foolish children…he must have been wedged there an hour or more, alone in the back wall of the wine cellar.
“Hold thine eyes to the far wall.” Gelmir’s arms are about him as he collapses against the stone. The boy has ever feared the dark, the many small, constrained places within the caverns that lurk sightless and breathless amid the stone—the other children have learned of it. “Match thy breathing to mine. Slower, honeg, steady and full.” The child’s hands tremble as they clutch his brother’s tunic and Gelmir runs a hand over the matted hair, slowing the rhythm of his own breathing. “Number the gems of the sky, gwinig. Can you say them with me? Twenty stars in Heaven’s Hunter.”
Faint and shaking, Gwindor’s voice joins the rhyme, “Seven in the Sickle bright.”
He rests his head against his brother’s shoulder and Gelmir feels the drumming pulse begin to steady.
“Thirteen stars crown Anarríma.”
“A thousand weave the netted light.”
—
Gelmir kneels. The air of Tol Sirion is crisp with the bite of early spring, the river full and singing. It is fitting, he feels, cohesive in some way to join the King’s Guard here on the watchful isle, the waters rushing past in chorus with his own spirit.
“Hold my oath bound in love and fealty,” Gelmir recites while the king grasps the proffered hilt, “my service in steadfast faith.”
Gwindor watches at their father’s side, his face eager amid the gathered crowd. His features have begun shedding the roundness of childhood and Gelmir feels a pang at the shift.
“All my days I pledge in service to my king. Bond of word made bond of heart, unto death defending with blade and body.”
His brother had held the new sword in awe when Gelmir dressed for the ceremony, his fingers tracing the signet of the Guard.
When I am of age, I shall follow after thee.
Gelmir shivers again. A foreboding arose at Gwindor’s words that had nearly turned him from this rite. But still he kneels, still he binds his oath, still he bows under the blessing and takes the sword the king returns to his hand.
—
The gates open to admit two shrouded figures—Atani men, the both of them. Dark-eyed and sharp-featured, they linger in the arched passage and ask for the lord of the tower.
“Gorlim!” Edrahil’s voice carries through the courtyard, broken and hoarse from the battle, half-choked by the smoke as his sprint outpaces Orodreth’s. “Arthad!” He is beside them in an instant and catches the foremost by the arms.
Guilin cannot hear the words that pass between them, but he watches the desperation carve lines upon the captain’s face.
They are lost, then.
He is not dead. Gwindor was adamant when Edrahil returned in the night, haggard and wounded, empty handed. The host had been swept in two and the king ambushed with the remainder of his guard. He could not reach them. My brother is not dead. I would have felt in my own if his spirit had gone.
Would Gelmir’s brother be adamant still? Guilin strains his ears as Orodreth reaches the passage and the message is delivered. He cannot hear a word. With an effort, he draws his eyes from the gate and turns them to Gwindor in a hopeless query. His son’s face is a mask, expressionless.
—
Edrahil kneels. The air in the great hall is taut like the aftertaste of lightning. It is fitting, Gwindor feels, a recompense in some way that they share the same fall—his king who led them to ambush, the captain who returned without his brother.
No oaths of faith has he broken this night, Gwindor reflects as Edrahil returns the crown to the king’s hand. His own were broken upon Tol Sirion when the messengers came. He had looked upon the king’s prostrate form and foresworn any fealty the moment they bore him to the healers while Gelmir was forsaken in the Fen. And Barahir’s men said the prisoners were blinded.
“You remain my king,” the captain’s voice rings out, “and theirs, whatever betide.”
Gwindor feels himself tense at the words. Somewhere within him a child’s outrage clamors, for they have turned on Felagund like wildcats, toying and wearying before the kill.
All my days I pledge in service to my king. Gelmir had sworn it so. Gelmir had wished it so.
Yet still Gwindor stands in silence.
Finduilas shifts from his side and for the first time he knows her anger, cold and sharp, and their mingled thought fractures.
—
Gwindor’s breathing is frantic. His fingers claw at the rock and his palms slip on blood, on the sludge that seeps through the mine shafts.
He should never have attempted it. The stone scrapes each shoulder, it keeps his head bowed nearly to his wrists. He can hardly draw a breath.
A scream presses at the back of his throat.
Close thine eyes, gwinig. The memory of his brother’s voice is precise. Number the gems of the sky.
“Twenty stars in Heaven’s Hunter,” he whispers in a shaking sob, dragging himself forward. “Seven in the Sickle bright.”
The Talath Dirnen opens around him, the vast canopy of sky soaring beyond sight. He breathes deep of that imagined air and remembers his hair trailing through the wind. He had clung to his brother’s waist against the speed of their father’s stallion and Gelmir’s hand rested over his wrists in reassurance.
Gwindor fills his lungs and forces himself forward as wind brushes his face in tandem with memory and he shivers.
Wind brushes his face.
His eyes fly open and a sliver of sky blazes through the slag, Elbereth’s jewels fierce and brilliant, welcoming as he pulls himself free of the mines.
—
He is nearly weightless.
The fëa is present, tangible and steady, but the hröa is an afterthought. It hovers, insubstantial yet beneath the hoary yews, an uncertain companion in the spirit’s venture.
Gwindor knew the moment his brother’s decision was made—warmth rippled along his spirit, presence he had not felt since the horror of Anfauglith—and he passed Námo’s messenger as a blur upon the plains, galloping north ere the summons arrived.
The fëantarwa’s4 stillness is disorienting after the mad rush. But the figure that stands before him is whole, achingly familiar, his spirit as vibrant and fierce as the hour he rode north from the guarded isle.
Gwindor steps forward as one in a dream.
He will not see you, the Maia at the gate had advised. The body is capable, but oft we find the soul carries forward its wounds till the healing is complete. Speak early that he might know your voice and find an anchor incarnate in the memory.
“Mírenya.” Gwindor’s voice trembles through the silent grove as he reaches out, his own sight fumbling through his tears, and he grasps his brother’s fingers within his own. “Take my hand, dear one. I am here.”