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Amras brought the child to Himring in the Spring.
The pale shoots that passed for grasses in the wastes had only just begun to make their way sunward through the blackened, trampled earth, but there was a hopeful robin pecking away along the edge of the curtain wall where blown seeds and dirt had made a home. Maedhros watched the bird at work – it was easier than watching Amras, whose scarred face twisted as he begged.
“Take him, Nelyo. His mother’s dead, and all her kin. I’ll do him no good, hollow as I am, with all that space filled now by our Oath, and not by her.”
It was madness, but it had been madness greater yet for Amras to come, alone, through the orc-bands and the burnt lands, with the child balanced sturdily before him. And madness to have made the child, in the first place, with their father’s noose still tight about their necks, and Morgoth rising. Maedhros’ stomach churned at the thought of it – it was bad enough to see Celebrimbor grown to manhood in the shadow of their Doom, but now, a child?
The boy frowned up at him from where he stood clutching Amras’ leg, dark brows knitting with a familiar cast.
Maedhros knelt.
“What do you say, then? Will you stay here in the wastes, with the orcs and the stones? It’s no fine life, for a prince of our House.”
The fierce eyes flashed at him. “I’m not afraid.”
“More fool you. Have they taught you nothing, down there in the woods?” Maedhros sighed. “But which of us hasn’t said so, to fight off tears?” For the boy’s eyes had filled, now, and his knuckles were white where they gripped his father’s breeches. “Come within, anyway, and let’s see what’s to be done.”
A bath and a meal eased that tightness some, and the child curled into Amras’ lap with a sigh when they settled before the fire, wine to hand and servants sent to bed. He would be asleep, soon, Maedhros thought, watching him.
“Have you a name, son of my foolish brother?” Against his own better judgment, he reached to touch the midnight braids that spilled down the child’s back, stroking as the boy yawned and mumbled.
“Náro, Ada says. But Nana called me Rodnor.”
At Maedhros’ look, Amras shrugged. “Look at him. He’s our father’s grandson, and has his spirit, too. Artanáro he is, whether I willed it or not.”
His own eyes looked past the fire into older flames, then, and his mouth twisted. “It burns me, Nelyo. The damned Oath, working its way through me like a fire in a coal seam. Slow, but impossible to quench. I don’t want that for him. Let him be free of it, if he can.”
“Do you imagine he will be free of it here?” Maedhros jerked to his feet and paced to the narrow window, staring out, as he so often did, at the looming shadows to the North. “Ambarussa, this is no place for a child! Treeless, loveless…”
“Take him to Fingon, then. He needs a son.” Amras’ voice dropped, soft, into that vulnerable wound in Maedhros’ heart, and oh, it stung.
“Náro has the look of Finwë, as our father did, and Fingolfin, much to Atar’s dismay!” Amras laughed softly with the bitterness of hindsight, cradling his child and rocking as the small, dark head drooped heavily against him. “Let him be Fingon’s. Let him be King, in his own time, if it comes to it. You only thought you’d given our crown away.”
Maedhros stared: at the sleeping child, at the cracked shell of his youngest brother, burned and twisted, yet whole enough to have made something bright and new in the howling world. Amras stroked the boy’s head with his scarred hand and hummed.
“Ambarussa burned against me and I couldn’t save him, Nelyo. Please, help me save my son.”
Maedhros remembered Fingon’s hectic look in the last council meeting – the tight lines that had folded at the corners of his eyes and mouth when the assembled lords began again to speak of heirs. He had kissed that rue away, and in the heat of Fingon’s bed the hints and complaints had almost been forgotten. But it was only a moment’s ease, he knew. Politics would shave them ever closer to the bone.
“Nelyo.”
Maedhros was already calculating, considering timing, plotting the safest routes, the fastest and the least observed. Spring waters were rising but the floods meant fewer orcs; with any luck the roads would soon be clear.
He knelt at Amras’ side, slid his arms under the warm weight of the boy and lifted. It had been centuries since he had held so young a child, but the balance still came easily, and something in him settled as he nosed without thinking into Artanáro’s hair.
Amras watched him stand and shift the child against his shoulder. His own hands curled tight, determined not to reach and clasp and claim. He stretched an arm for the wine, instead, and drank deep as Maedhros paced about the room: learning the child’s breathing, adjusting to his weight.
“He’ll sleep deep and long – it’s been days since he let his eyes fall shut to dream. I’ll be gone before he wakes, to make it easy.” At Maedhros’ demurral Amras only smiled – some faint echo of sweetness flitted across his face, wistful, then wry.
“Thank you, Nelyo. And thank Fingon for me. Náro will do well there, in Barad Eithel: king’s son and nephew and grandson more than once.”
Amras stood. His eyes gleamed wet in the firelight, but the hand he wiped them with was steady.
“Send word, will you, later, to tell me his new name?”