Alyce had been a vision of beautiful confusion; her untamed nest of russet hair was a match to her round, honest eyes. Childish in one moment, wise in the next. Blushing and scowling. Easy to read. She reminded him of someone. Someone dead, maybe.
He wasn't sure how long she'd been gone. He'd drifted again. The cold had returned unbeknownst, biting at all of his fingers and toes. Why was he out in the wilderness?
The crippling pain in his head scrambled back.
He felt, rather than saw, the energy burst coming. Better he did. It surely would have blinded him had he looked directly at it; the crimson shot was bright enough to chase away the darkness.
Ethos shifted his weight. The burst seared by, warming his face, and made deafening contact with something behind him. A tree, most like. True to form, something cracked and fell and shook the earth.
Kyrian stood a way out, hands still aglow, crimson light buttering snow with its syrupy bloodlike coating. He hadn't said much to begin with, but seeing Gladius in such a state had clearly done a number on him. A certain fortitude had hardened his sneering exterior, robbing him of the contemptible bearing that he seemed to easily come by.
Ethos considered his far-between options, knowing at heart that it wouldn't take long for the snow to gravely harm his feet. He'd have to end it as quickly as possible. The taste of oupir was in his mouth, but he didn't remember producing any. It deadened the cut on his lip. The bruise on this chin. The pain in his ribs. By the time that he stood, even the feel of the cold was gone.
It began without warning. Kyrian tensed as Ethos stepped into a lunge. They clashed once or twice, the gap gone between them, and then, just as abruptly, they split apart. Like Ethos, Kyrian had been assessing his foe and found an unexpected match. Thus, a reevaluation was in order.
It continued on like that for a time, with few attacks ever landing. Strategy in lieu of brawn. Ethos stole every chance he could get to relieve his feet of the elements, but Kyrian ensured the contrary. Both of them knew who would win the waiting game. Only one was strapped for time.
But Ethos wouldn't let it come to that. He'd sooner retreat, sooner take the loss. He liked his feet too much to lose them.
There was a palpable shift in the atmosphere. Suddenly Ethos was being pushed back, grounded rather than airborne, near rather than far; the snow fell harder, impeding sight. A terrible sinking feeling developed. Kyrian had just been testing the waters.
A volley of bursts came barreling through the darkness. Ethos dropped to wait it out, but the trees followed after, snapping and popping and forcing retreat. He scrambled away best he could, slopping through grounds upturned by the fight.
He couldn't outrun it. Ethos pivoted and vaulted the deadfall, sliding beneath the final felled pine to tear through the soil beneath the snow. Kyrian, beyond, doubled back; too slow. Brambles hungered out of the earth and swallowed the ill-fated councilman whole.
Everything but the wind fell silent.
Ethos advanced on the nest, breath misting. His throat was dry. Without stopping, he scooped up a clump of clean-looking snow and sucked every last bead of water from it.
No amount of groundwork could have prepared him for what came next. He registered the heat, of course, the impact, and the vague sensation of having his spine collide with a tree ten paces behind him, but it took him some time to grasp what had happened. It was all he could do to see straight. A part of him knew that he'd hit his head in the explosion. A larger part was thinking of Alyce. He used the tree as support to stand and shook it off, disoriented.
Kyrian was approaching, fast. He looked angry.
Not for the first time, Ethos said, "You don't understand what happened."
"I don't want to know how it happened, savage. Understanding won't make it untrue."
Ethos staggered, seeing double. In one powerful cloudburst of dirt, a massive goromac sprang from the earth and came down, hard, on Kyrian's position— a giant whale falling back on the sea.
It came as a shock. Like the smoldering log that had run through Gladius, Ethos felt unwittingly watched over, but even so he feared what it meant. Was he losing control? It seemed like it. But he couldn't allow himself the distraction. He'd worry over it later. Kyrian was meandering from the wreckage. The anger in his eyes had intensified into hate.
Time to go. Ethos thought himself very sensible for realizing it. But as he turned to make the leap, Kyrian closed the persistent gap. How, Ethos would never know. He should have been safe with twenty paces between them. But two hands had him by the throat and his toes were barely grazing the snow, so asking about the specifics was out. Frozen bark raked at his spine.
Choking, Ethos did the obvious thing and instantly went for Kyrian's eyes, but Kyrian only craned his neck to avoid a harmless scrape of nail. Ethos felt like a child. He kicked blindly, words coming out in gasped aspirations, and in all his wild desperation and panic, Kyrian's expression took a smug turn, unmasking the man he'd been in his youth.
Ethos spat in his face. Blood. Oupir. Spittle, dripping. Kyrian dropped him in revulsion. Ethos scrambled away, coughing, and used the last of his strength to take off.
His tono blood must have sensed his urgency; shadows congealed and assisted his flight. Ethos hardly noticed Kyrian's grip on his ankle, but it was this that kept him from surfacing the forest. He pushed harder and harder— as hard as he could. The crows pushed with him. They pushed as one and struggled and vied until they were topside, shooting the moon.
Kyrian was shouting, but he wasn't worth the glance. The concrete veil of clouds sucked them in, threw moisture and storm and rage in their eyes, and Ethos confessed to a nonreaction as they burst into tranquil sky just beyond.
Absent of wind. Absent of sound. A great, bright moon. Manifest freedom.
But Ethos was tired. The crows all left him, one by one, absorbed by the night like so much black ink. Gravity sank her talons in deep and reeled him back at the ground far below.
Ethos pretended it was an adventure while Kyrian screamed in his ear.
"You're going to fall."
"I won't always be here to catch you."
Ethos lost his precarious footing. He reflexively reached for the closest branch, but missed it by a hair. The ruthless plummet knocked air from his lungs.
"Told you so," the gravelly voice continued. "No shame in knowing your limits."
The inverted woodland spun, greener than it had right in the fall. The temperate breeze was hugged by birdsong. Ethos stared skyward, dazed. "You were supposed to catch me."
Laughter, briefly. "I don't remember making that a rule."
Ethos tried to rise, wincing some with the effort. He spotted the clansman quickly; Ludo was only a rock's throw away, sitting doleful atop a felled tree, gazing out at the sun. Ethos said his name, got him to glance, and asked, "I passed out?"
"Yes. You're dying."
"Did you come here personally to pick me up?"
It was nice to speak in the old tongue again, but Ludo was lacking his usual spark. "I suppose so," he replied. "You know where we are, don't you?"
"Course I do. I made it. It's mine."
His answer must have been wrong somehow, because Ludo rose to his mighty feet and heaved an even mightier sigh. "Come," he said. "Walk with me, tree mouse."
He was unreal, built like a shaggy tower, and Ethos was a child again, experiencing it for the very first time, he as tall as the ferns and the foxes. "Where are we going?"
Ludo looked down at him. Something dimmed in his vibrant eyes. He turned away, moving gently between the trees, a tree himself in many ways. "You like games, don't you, tree mouse?"
"I used to," Ethos replied, at his heels. "The stakes are different now."
"Oh? Are you afraid of what will happen when you lose?"
He scratched at his belly. "Wouldn't you be?"
"Yes, well, you're not exactly…"
"I'm not exactly what?"
Ludo's expression was hidden, but he sounded on edge when he spoke. "You're still missing some pieces, tree mouse. You've heard me say it before. It makes you hard to predict sometimes."
Partly teasing, Ethos ventured, "Maybe I'm better without all the pieces."
"If that were true, I doubt you'd hate living as much as you do."
Ethos slowed, mud in his toes. "I don't hate living."
"Then stop trying to get yourself killed. You're an adult now. Act like it." When Ludo received no reply, he glanced back. "Are you listening?"
"I don't want to be an adult."
Ludo sized him up. "I can see that."
Ethos glared, little hands fisting. "You're just a figment. Ludo's dead."
"Yes, he is." Ludo pressed on, ducking a branch, antlers combing through leaves. "You may be the sort of person who functions best after glimpsing true failure," he continued. "If that's the case, I wish you the best. The climb back up isn't easy."
Ethos quickly made chase. "Hey, wait for me."
Heed Pond emerged in the bracken. It was a struggle to keep up; Ethos toppled past the tree line and skinned his palms in the gravel beyond. Ludo didn't offer to help. "The understory plants were hard on you as a child," was all he said, headed pondside. "Come join me when your clothes fit again."
Ethos was holding his pants up. He swallowed his pride and complied. "You were father enough," he called out, growing taller with every stride. "I know I used to wish for one, but you were enough for a lifetime or two. Nagging me."
Ludo turned. His smile finally reached his eyes. "Pathos didn't impress?"
"Hardly," Ethos grumbled, remembering. "He was stiff and gloomy and full of old lies."
"You think he was lying?"
"I think he was vague. But it doesn't matter, really."
They convened by the water, having a sit and cooling their feet, both of them groaning for different reasons. Ludo broke the silence first. "The day of the fire, we spoke about anger," he began, softly. "Do you remember? Do you remember what you said to me?"
"I remember. I said I didn't have any."
"Is that still true?"
Ethos sulked. "Everyone gets angry."
"You never used to." Ludo was smiling again when Ethos glanced over at him. The smile grew a little, sadly. "It was one of your missing pieces," he said. "You're growing."
Ethos studied him, curious. "What else am I missing?"
He laughed. "You don't know?"
"No, should I?"
"I thought you were supposed to be smart."
Ethos scowled and looked away. "Fine, then, don't tell me."
Ludo ruffled his hair like he used to. "I shouldn't have teased you. I'm sorry. I thought you would have noticed by now." He didn't continue until Ethos looked back at him. "Among other things, you were always incapable of love, Ethos," he said. "Love and hate. The big two."
Ethos frowned a little. "That can't be right."
Ludo's hand fell. "Why not?"
"I love you and Shima."
"No, you like me and Shima."
Ethos knew that he ought to be hurt. He ought to bite back, defend his good name. But Ludo was watching, and in his expression was infinite understanding. He knew the truth.
Caught, Ethos glared at the water. He tried to imagine how many times he'd sat there in the past and taken it all for granted. "I miss this place," he said. "I miss all of it."
"You miss it because it was easy."
"I was happy here."
"Maybe. Maybe a little."
Ethos returned, "More than a little."
"Maybe you've confused comfort with happiness."
"Too many maybies, Ludo." Ethos rubbed at his eyes. His head was suddenly spinning. It was like he'd forgotten a name, or a face, or like maybe he'd had too much to drink. "I think I was in the middle of doing something," he murmured. "Seeing you distracted me."
Ludo was quiet. "You don't remember?"
"You were supposed to catch me." Recognition clicked somewhere in one of his mind's darkest recesses. "Kyrian," he grunted. "I was fighting Kyrian." The darkness peeled back, exposing a world of unpleasantness. "He was scarier than I thought he'd be. He hardly talked at all."
Ludo asked, "Would you have preferred it if he'd talked?"
"I would have preferred it if I'd had my knife."
"It's been a tough day for you, tree mouse."
With feeling, Ethos agreed, "Tough day."
"But you take it well. Your fortitude has always impressed me."
"Fortitude, huh." Ethos raised his feet and let them drip. "I really like you, Ludo," he said. "You believe me, don't you?"
"I really like you, too, tree mouse."
"I wish you were real. It troubles me that you're gone." Ethos sighed and closed his eyes, drinking up sunshine. But Ludo was very quiet, so he glanced. "What's wrong?"
Ludo webbed his fingers together, edgily twiddling massive thumbs. Like Peter, his troubled brow gave way to brooding. "The plummet will kill you."
"It might," Ethos admitted. "Nothing goes the way I expect it to."
"What are you planning to do?"
"Plan?" Birdshadow moved over water. Ethos let his feet sink. "I'm all burned out," he said. "I'm weak and there's no talking out of a free fall. No plan."
"And if you survive it? What then?"
"Who knows. I suck at plans. I'm not Eadric."
"Shima would tell you to stay away from that man. He's dangerous."
"I know what he is." Shima had been a true guardian. "I keep seeing her, Ludo," Ethos said. "I keep seeing her out of the corner of my eye, like she's standing there with me, just out of sight."
"Her love could bring down the sun if it wanted." Ludo made a strange sort of sound; not quite a grunt, not quite a sigh. "I've been alive for a very long time, Ethos," he said. "I don't claim to have all the answers, but I know enough to understand some of what you're going through."
"You wouldn't be speaking to me if that were true."
"You tried to drown Oubi in this pond back in Farwell. I saw it."
Ethos stilled. He wanted to see Ludo's face, but was too afraid of what he might find. So he stared hard at his feet. "I couldn't be sure if that really happened," he swore. "I'm still new to this. It was like I was in two places at once."
"I know. I'm not judging you." Ludo took a calming breath. "You're powerful here," he said. "No one can deny that. But this is also where you're most vulnerable. Do you understand?"
Everyone kept asking if he understood. But this time… "No."
"The Heed is the heart of this garden you've built," he explained. "It's made of the same substance that binds all our worlds together." Ethos felt Ludo's hand on his back. It was large, too large. Too heavy. The part of him that was accustomed to violence felt threatened. "When you clashed with Oubi that night in Farwell, you instinctively brought him here," he said. "An ugly fight. A clumsy fight. I'd never seen anything like it."
"Ludo…"
"Ethos, taking a life in a place like this will do irreversible damage," he stressed. "It will stay with you forever. You're lucky that Peter stopped you in time." He paused there. Maybe he was waiting for Ethos to say something. "It will do irreversible damage," he repeated, quieter than before. "Sometimes, however, when left with no other options, it can save your life."
Ethos kneaded his forehead, feeling overwhelmed. "Save it how?"
"You can rob someone of the very thing that animates them," Ludo replied. "Like your mother, it can only be achieved by undergoing an assimilation of sorts, but it can also heal you of almost any wound." He leaned in, as if his next words mattered most. "If Oubi had truly died here that day, it would have turned this water black and changed you from the inside out."
"From the inside out," Ethos echoed, scoffing a bit. "It changed me enough."
"It did. I know." Ludo's touch went away. It left a cold spot behind. "The councilman would ruin you," he said. "Better a floater. Someone discreet."
"You're talking about the fall," Ethos mused, low-gazed. "There's no helping it, Ludo. I'll fall and I'll land and I'll let the gods decide what becomes of me. I'm not killing anyone."
Ludo laughed. Softly. "O guardian of grubs, you'd call me."
He was gone when Ethos mustered a glance. The figment. The ghost. Whatever he'd been. Ethos had almost forgotten about his inner fight with Oubi; steeped in confusion, he'd chalked it up to another vision or nightmare or such end. It wouldn't have been a first.
The pond was black when his eyes returned. He didn't move. He didn't even flinch. His pounding heart was movement enough, spurred by thoughts of what might be lurking down there in the dark with the fish at his ankles. His toes were like so much bait.
Very slowly, for safety's sake, Ethos recoiled. Much like the hands that had held Oubi under, the flesh of his legs was blacker than black, stained by the Heed, lifeblood of worlds. Fear stopped him short as the mark climbed higher. He forgot how to breathe. Someone had died. But who?
Something seized his foot. It sucked him in with frightening ease, tearing him from the shore.
Such strength, he marveled, blinded, submerged, nails scraping through ages of mud. He'd drown before he could reach the surface. He was dragged and wrenched, deeper and deeper, until it was clear that the dragging was that of his old friend, Gravity, and the wrenching that of his comrade, Kyrian, who, in his absence, had continued to scream in horror.
And Ethos could see why. Oldden Stronghold was coming up quickly to meet them. Given a start, he spun around— essential leverage to break free from Kyrian's panicked clinging. His reward was a blow to the back of the head. A heel or a knee, it was hard to tell. He lost his bearings because of it.
Kyrian seized him, eyes wild, and landed another blow: retribution for damning them both. Ethos could tell he expected to die. The fear, the rage, the sorrow, the terror—
Their bodies connected with the inner wall of the bailey. Ethos didn't feel a thing.
Silence, for a time, broken by crumbling debris. Atop a pile of rocks and mortar, Ethos ignored the ache in his bones and rolled over onto his stomach, clawing for earth, finding snow, blinded by dust and smoke from the wreckage. All he could see were his black, mangled hands as they carried him numbly through the destruction. He couldn't put them back to normal.
He emerged from the clouded rubble, coughing up blood and darker things. An elbow gave out. He caught himself. He could easily tell that something was wrong with his insides.
"Stop there, creature," warned a voice. "Stop or I'll strike you down."
A guardsman. Ethos considered taking measures to deal with him, but he knew a futile effort when he saw one. There were dozens more in the bailey with him, all of them armed, worse for wear from all the misfortunes that Ethos had set upon Oldden that night.
Ethos tried to stifle another cough and peppered the snow with bits of himself, spitting out the last of it. He sounded strange when he rasped, "I'm unarmed."
Someone knelt a few paces off. Ethos turned his face to look. "So it's you," the newcomer greeted, brown eyes cautious. "What's wrong with your body, boy?"
Relieved, Ethos sighed. "Michael."
"You know who I am?"
"I never got to ask what her name was."
Michael leaned in, straining to hear. "Whose name?"
"The saucier." Ethos gave his head a shake. "Too pretty," he said. "Made me nervous."
Michael drew a blank. Oubi had never seen him at a complete loss for words. The first guardsman inched closer. "Sir," he whispered to Michael, too loudly for Ethos not to listen. "What do we do?"
Michael chewed at his lip, conflicted. "I'm thinking."
Someone in the crowd shouted, "Kill it!"
Others bellowed the same and worse, but a sound from the wasted wall of the bailey silenced them better than Michael could have, had he tried. Head hanging, Ethos stared in horror at the ground between his hands, blood pumping ice to his stillborn heart. His mind refused to believe.
"Fall back," Michael told his men. "Fall back, I said!"
Ethos managed to turn somehow. The same elbow gave out again, and this time he fell. The rubble behind him shifted; debris tumbled out of the smoke.
Kyrian appeared, bloodied, staggering. His eyes were too wide. His jaw looked unhinged. One of his legs was bent all wrong. Yet he continued to move, continued to walk. The crowd yielded a nervous retreat, its unified voice growing loud with unease. But that frightening glare was for Ethos alone. No one else existed. No one else mattered.
Michael intervened, stepping between them. "Kyrian, stop."
The crimson glow had returned to Kyrian's hands. Fingers rigid, half-curled at his sides, he threw out an arm to silence the intrusion. Ethos had yet to be on the receiving end of one such hit, but he could tell from the way Michael sprawled and went still that a single blow would finish him off.
Ethos tried to back away, bare feet sliding through snow. "I'm sorry."
"You," Kyrian seethed, jaw derailed. "You— "
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
He came, machinelike. "You— "
Frantic, Ethos kicked at him. "Stop!"
Kyrian caught his foot. Ethos tore at the ground, praying for nothing short of a godsend. It was all he seemed any good for. Hoping, praying, pleading. Kacha called Karna a fat-fingered fool, one who broke what kept it together. Maybe she was right. As hard as he tried to do the right thing, the powers that be seemed determined to break him. "Be what you be," she'd instructed, so stern, so beautiful in her angry compassion. "Don't be afraid to defy the system, to rise above it, to let it be damned."
Ethos twisted around, just in time, and pitched his entire weight to one side before Kyrian could take out his knee. He heard his own voice; it was wordless, involuntary— a primitive protest. Michael returned and held Kyrian back. To Ethos, he nodded once. It was a go-ahead.
Ethos neither questioned it nor gave a thought to what he should do. He just extended a mangled, pitch black hand and planted a single, most foul idea.
With a sound at first like a burning insect, a juniper branch burst from Kyrian's left eye. He clawed at his face and screamed; it was a deafening element in the silence, the guardsmen reduced to a stunned audience, blades touching ground. Michael backed a safe distance away, as the tree, bit by bit, tore through the councilman, fusing with flesh, snapping through bone, sprouting and splitting and worse with each second. Nightmarish violence, alive.
Kyrian's good eye spun wildly in its socket. It fixed on Ethos and froze there.
And then it was over. Bells were ringing somewhere. Woodsmoke spilled up into the sky.
Ethos felt like the only ugly person on earth. He collapsed to one side and curled up, exhausted, vision all but gone at the edges. People were shouting, running about. It came from a distance. He just wanted to sleep. Fourteen years wasn't even enough.
Someone pushed him onto his back. Michael. "I've got you," he said. "Let's get inside."
His eyes, though dark, had gone much darker. Black. Michael had likely been out of the equation since he'd taken the blow from Kyrian. Used to it, Ethos laughed. "Now it makes sense," he said. "I knew it was weird that he sided with me over a councilman."
"I didn't expect you to lose this badly."
"I didn't lose. I won."
Ethos wanted to cry— and maybe he was, because Eadric stopped making fun of him. He checked Ethos for weapons, very methodical, and then held him still to inspect for trauma. "You've really done a number on yourself," he grumbled. "Stay still."
Ethos would have retorted, but he suddenly couldn't breathe. An immense pressure was expanding in him, like a serpent uncoiling; fattened, slow. The pain of it crawled up into his throat, and he wildly clawed at himself to stop it. He was an echo of Kyrian, crying out despite efforts not to, fraught with the fear of meeting a similar gruesome end.
Eadric leapt into action. He put a stop to the clawing, tense with all the effort it took to keep Ethos from injuring himself. "Talk to me," he said, black eyes busy, scanning for a mortal wound. "I can't tell where the worst of it is. Where's it coming from?"
But Ethos couldn't even think, much less speak. When he opened his mouth, the sound that came out was mortifying. He resisted in earnest, burning alive, legs thrashing, mindless. Nothing registered.
Eadric cursed and glanced around. It took him some time to find what he was looking for in the crowd. "Peter!" he barked. "Quit staring and give me a hand!"
Ethos lashed out, not really aiming, too panicked to bother or even know how, but the heel of his hand connected solidly with Eadric's chin. Teeth clacked together. Eadric recovered, shook it off, and immediately returned the favor. Attacks didn't seem to land on him often.
Partly stunned, ears ringing, Ethos failed to notice when exactly Peter joined the struggle. He was just suddenly there, helping out, face turned away to avoid making eye contact.
And then perfect, merciful darkness.