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Confirmation reaches them in the spring that Elwing of Sirion has the Silmaril.
It takes as long as the spring only because they weren't looking. They can stretch the oath that far, they can be disinterested in knowing - but now they know, and so there it is. Elwing of Sirion is twenty-three. Half-man, so fully grown. Sirion is a city of refugees. Elves and Men and, since there are Men, children. Elwing herself has infant children.
They debate whether to send messengers. Debating is allowed, even protracted debating. The Oath, these days, is loud in their minds, and louder when they're pushing it like this, but they drag out the debate for a few months. Messengers will probably be shot on sight. The last time Elwing of Sirion received news of the House of Fëanor it would have been the news that her brothers, twins, aged seven, had not survived the sack of Menegroth.
They send messengers anyway. The messengers are shot on sight. They have good armor, Fëanorian armor, and return home injured but not lethally. Maglor's songs no longer stitch them together. War makes you worse at healing. Maglor's songs are more powerful than ever - he can knock back a wave of approaching enemies, he can make a blade's next touch deadly, he can make them faster and more impervious to danger, but he can no longer do healing.
Maedhros, when he thinks about this, thinks that perhaps there needs to be part of you that is not broken for healing spells to draw on. Or perhaps the Enemy is amused to strip that away first. Perhaps the Enemy finds it suited to the theme as the Oath tugs and yanks and twists them into violence against the lands they once defended and the peoples they once sheltered.
They send messengers to Sirion again. The messengers deliver a plea for the Silmaril, an offer of anything at all in exchange. The messengers do not return at all.
The Enemy is many many hundreds of miles from here but at night Maedhros can hear him in his head. Is it so implausible that I really let you go? the Enemy likes saying. You serve me better free than you ever would have willingly.
The Oath allows them to work slowly. They begin planning the sack of the refugee camp even more slowly than the Oath allows, so slowly that its currents are constantly tugging at them. Any slower and the currents would erode all the things they care about which are not the Oath, and it would be a disaster to go to Sirion once they've been stripped of their capacity to care about anything that is not the Silmaril. So they do not hold out forever. But they work as slowly as they can.
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They confer for a moment. Sauron tests whether he can hurt her by breaking several bones, remotely, from where he's standing on the ground. Morgoth is not amused. He lights a section of the ground on fire and tells Promise to go stand there.
"Don't make noise," he says, and they confer a while longer.
imeanforever
She stops screaming.
Eventually there is not enough of her to be awake.
Eventually there is not enough of her to be awake.
He stops the fire at that point. He keeps the area clear and one fragment of his attention on watching her heal.
imeanforever
Well, she's not doing it very fast. You wouldn't know it was happening, to look at her. But she's breathing.
He can be patient. Every once in a while he sends her orc names, in case she's conscious enough to get back to work.
It's only a fragment of his attention; most of it was preparing to war with the Valar, and still is.
imeanforever
If nothing heals her she's just going to sort of be an unconscious breathing burned husk for weeks.
The Silmarils do healing. Isn't that helpful of them! There they are, all three of them, twinkling and healing.
Melkor is many millions of years old and not very impatient. Sauron is impatient but also, it happens, distracted.
She's still getting orc names occasionally.
imeanforever
She has not yet recovered the ability to talk, so she doesn't have to do anything with them.
Eventually Sauron is less distracted. He comes over, stands next to her, heals her. "For Melkor a million years is not a long time," he says. "For me it rather is, and you've had your extended convalescence. Order Maedhros not to give you any orders."
imeanforever
She looks around. He's not here. Don't give me any orders, she relays by telepathy.
"Order him to tell me how I can get you to stop thinking privately."
Can't be done, Maedhros responds at once. It's an innate feature of fairies.
imeanforever
Promise doesn't have to contradict him. She doesn't have to act like Sauron knows how to give good orders.
He looks exasperated. "Tell him to come here, and not take any other actions."