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Chapter 60 - 59

Anouk had never experienced a dream, so it came as a shock to wake from a nightmare. And while she couldn't recall what had terrified her, the sharp spike of panic still piercing her gut was enough to call off sleep entirely. A nearby sound put a knife in her hand— Ethos, sleeping beside her.

Relief eased her hammering heart. She'd forgotten. She swallowed and put the knife away, cursing the tremor she'd given herself, and then sat there briefly to steady her breathing, eyes low on her bed companion. The urge to rejoin him was a compelling one, but restlessness drove her out from the blankets, out from the warmth of the shelter that Ethos had pitched against the fore bulwark.

How she mourned a true cabin. But Syan was widely afeard among the crew, so when Ethos provided their quarters to her as retreat, Anouk didn't try to stop him. As a result, there were hardly any men below deck; none, in fact, save for the holders. It was Sei alone who dared proximity, and even so, he dared it only because he'd been told to. Guard duty was solitary enough to give him the time to himself that he'd earned. 

The main was inarguably the busiest deck, presently where the nightmen worked and the daymen slept. The shipmen spared of system demands were there in the sheltered steerage, dotting the darkness with glowing cigars. Snow had begun to fall during her time asleep, and it had formed a fine sheet across the decks. A lookout stood portside: Griswold, a midshipman from her father's old crew. Orrin was busy fussing with canvas, unsnarling tack lines and making noise. And someone was singing— a sea chantey, from the sound of it, and Anouk sought out the source until she spotted Roland Scoresby aloft in the crow's nest; he'd draped himself over the parapet siding, eyes lost in the clouds.

Anouk ascended the afterdeck. Sam Grayblood was manning the helm, oddly enough staring down at his finger. Maybe he'd struck gold. He glanced up when she asked, "Any problems?"

He quickly wiped his hand on his coat. "None worth waking you for."

"Take a break. I can suffer the long stand a while." 

"I'll swap out with Clancy soon enough."

"Not until dayrise. Take a break."

He scowled at her. "Go back to sleep, woman."

"Curse it." Anouk squinted out at the world beyond the swaying lanterns. It was horribly ominous, knowing that mountain peaks were about without being able to properly see them. Riftward, they'd braved the dicey summits for days, scraping hull on the rare occasion. "How are your eyes without the moon?" she asked. "Have they adjusted?"

"Aye. Just me and the fog."

"Can I get you anything?"

"I've a bit of a throat on me."

"I'll get us a drink, then. Hang tight."

But the trusty transceiver suddenly whirred, and its powdered contents jumped at attention. Anouk waited, eyes on the acoustic horn, until the transmission patched itself through. "Retaliant to Echo," the voice hailed. "This is Peter. You read?"

Anouk waved Sam quiet, an elbow bent on the apparatus. "Echo here," she sang. "We read well high water or hell. Who's this Peter? Peter who? Identify yourself, seadog."

"Give it a rest and put him on."

"He's asleep."

"He can't be."

"He can and he is."

Peter sighed. "Then wake him."

Anouk exhaustedly rolled her eyes. "Is this a business call?" she asked. "If you start in on him like you usually do, I'm probably gonna hafta cut you."

"Aye, it's business," he said. "My business. Wake him."

A near-formal command, more tired than angry. The whelk. So she gave Sam a nod and returned whence she came, eyes on her boots so as not to slip in the snowbroth. Nightmen watching. Daymen sleeping. Oro's fussing. Roland's singing. Griswold on lookout. To the last, she indicated the helm and instructed a cup of ale be delivered.

The lean-to was just as she'd left it, of course, and Ethos was no exception, though at some point he'd rolled over onto his belly. She happily joined him, at first on her hunkers, and then under blankets and quite pleased to be there. He stirred when he felt her playing with his hair.

"Anouk," he greeted, voice muffled. "You've been outside."

"Oho," she cooed. "Did you notice me gone? Did you cry? Did you grieve?"

"No. I guessed it on the grounds of you being cold and wet." Ethos turned his head to see her, one eye partly closed from sleep. "Oilskin foul in the bed," he observed. "Bad form, Anouk Battlefrost."

"We're high north, seabird. Oilskin foul in bed's half the fun."

He smiled. "It was fun enough without it." 

"You dog."

"I thought I was a seabird."

Anouk traced his jaw with the backs of her fingers. "Did you get much sleep?"

"I got enough," he replied. "You?"

"Enough."

The longer she gazed, the deeper his frown became. He caught her hand against his face. "What is it?" he asked. "Did something happen?"

"I was thinking you're sure to vanish, seabird."

He sat up a little— just to his elbow. "Did you turn us around?"

The guarded look in his eyes made her laugh. She fell into his unsuspecting shoulder, prompting a pleasant sound of surprise. Nose buried, she mumbled, "I'll miss your smell the most, I think."

He was quiet. An arm encircled her waist. "I'm not gone yet."

"I'll live as a hermit. I'll never groom."

"You're being dramatic."

"I'll bicker with the growth on my chin."

Ethos chuckled softly at that. He hid his face in the bend of her neck, pressing his lips to warm boroughs of skin. "You're young," he murmured, breath tickling. "You'll forget."

"But I don't want to forget, seabird. I want you to stay."

"I can't. It's too much of a mess."

"What if you survive?"

"That's actually what I meant."

Anouk found his eyes. "Then run away with me," she persuaded. "I ran with you when you asked me to, seabird. The least you can do is return the favor. We can go where no one will find us."

Diverted, he blinked and said, "But I can't."

"Oi. Why not."

He leered. "The truth is you frighten me."

She pushed him at the ground. "But you like scary things."

Ethos went without protest. His smile was bright in the darkness. "Maybe so."

"So live," she insisted. "We'll steal away Alyce and take to the sky."

The smile flickered. "You'd bring her with us?"

"You'd leave her behind?"

He tried to rebel from the deck, but she stopped him. He gave her a look. "She's cute now, but she'll be a force when she's older," he said. "She's dangerous."

"That's what they say about you, seabird." Anouk threw his coat open. She gestured disgustedly at his chest. "What's this nonsense?" she demanded. "Who gave you a shirt?"

"Vernon did."

"Vernon!"

"He saw that I needed one."

"That codfish," she sneered. "I'll have him skinned."

Ethos suddenly seized her wrist and carried them into a roll. Stark contrasts of night revolved in her vision. His eyes, when she found them again, were filled with silent laughter. "You're crazy," he said, and it wasn't an insult. "Completely."

And then he kissed her, really kissed her, as if it were for the first and last time. She lost herself in his scent, in his aura, ensnared by the warmth and the balsam and life.

But as with all things good, it ended. Ethos apologized once in her ear, and again when he returned to his back. "It'll be dawn soon," he said. "Syan's promised me Una's cure."

Anouk lightly rested her head on his chest. "Don't you think she'd have cured herself if something like that existed?"

"Obviously. I'm just curious."

"You'll still let me kill her, won't you?"

"Sure. As soon as she outlives her usefulness."

Ethos was silent a great while, it seemed, staring up into the darkness of their refuge. She could tell he was already leagues away, thinking ahead or feeling about for the things out of reach. "Oi," she whispered, drawing his eyes. "Where are you?"

He smiled for her. "I'm here."

"In part." She touched his face, his cheek, his lips. "Come back."

He kissed her palm and said, "Sorry."

Approaching footsteps quieted them, and a pair of boots appeared in the snow beside the lean-to. A cleared throat yielded Griswold, visible up to his hips. "Sam says cheers," he reported. "He also says to please hurry up and wishes deafness upon himself."

Ethos frowned a little. "That's a foul thing to wish for."

"Oh, aye," Anouk said, and she patted his chest. "Peter's on the line for you."

He held her eyes for a brief, solid moment. But then he turned, one hand gripping the roof of the shelter. He leaned forward to peer up at Griswold. "It's almost dawn, yeah?" he asked. "Are we still on schedule? Rift ahead?"

"Aye. We're in the clear."

"Good." Ethos glanced back, just once, at Anouk, and cropped his head back out. "Shut it down," he said. "All of it. We're no longer receiving transmissions."

There was a long pause, after which Griswold tamely said, "Aye, sir."

Ethos nodded, thanked him, and then watched him go off as instructed. After a few seconds, he sat up against the bulwark and sighed.

"Shut it down," Anouk echoed, whistling. "You so bad."

He smirked at her. "Quiet," he said. "It's time. I'm pulling the plug."

"If you do this, you've really got to mean it, seabird. I'm with you, but it's true."

Ethos didn't answer. He breathed into his hands and pulled on his boots, gaze low enough to avoid meeting hers. "He still thinks we're friends," he said. "It's terrifying."

"Aye, when it's obvious he's in love with you." 

His eyes leapt to her. But then he burst into laughter and returned to his boots. "Yeah," he said, with a shake of his head. "Maybe. It's gotten too ugly to identify."

"So that's why you've turned against him."

"Only in part. Better he hates me."

Anouk stopped his hands. "But what about you?"

Ethos glanced, pleasantly neutral, gently concerned. "Me?"

"Would you really rather be hated than loved?"

His concern faded. "Love is selfish," he said, so simply. "It appears out of nonexistence and forces upon us a set of impossible expectations, which it then resents us for failing to meet." He gave a small shrug. "So it's easier to be hated. There's no one to disappoint."

"But you loved Kacha, didn't you?"

"Yes, and it was selfish."

"But did you hate her for it? Did you fight it out?"

A small frown deepened his brow. "No. I understood. I kept my distance."

"Aye, see. It's not always hateful and out to cause suffering. Sometimes it's good."

Ethos was studying her in that way of his, eyes unflinching, focused, attentive. "You're speaking from experience," he knew. "Who was he?"

But she could hear an edge in his voice. She crept to him. "Are you jealous, seabird?" she teased, feeling giddy. "Does it put a twist in your skivvies?"

He watched her, unsure. "Don't bait me."

She chuckled. "He was a fighter," she said. "He didn't set out to be, but he was. Talked in riddles sometimes. More upstairs than he let on like, clutter in the attic. But he always made the right sort of calls, regardless of how they made him look. He'd have let the world think the worst of him just to keep it safe for a time." 

"Are you talking about me?"

"Aye, and you call yourself clever."

Ethos was staring, mildly confused. But then, gently, he reached up and held her face in his hand, thumb rough against her cheek. "Is that what you really think of me?"

"No bones about it. Pretty thing like you."

"You think I make the right calls?"

"Well, sure, seabird. Does that surprise you?"

"A little, I guess. You're not as easy to read as the others."

She leaned into his hand. "What others?"

Ethos made a vague, offhand gesture, as if at the world. "Them," he replied. "The others. The ones who came before you."

"Regular men call them friends, seabird."

That made him smile. His itinerant eyes lazily slid low. "We're friends?"

"More than." Anouk deliberately removed his hand from her face. "But I'll bet I'm not the first to think so," she said. "You have a way about you."

"How hurtful."

"Stop smiling if it's hurtful." 

So he did. A ghost of it lingered at his lips. "A way?"

"Aye, a way. You treat everyone the same, like they're special to you."

"That's contradictory. Everyone can't be special at once."

"Aye, exactly," she scoffed. "You might find yourself less troubled if you stop giving everyone the impression of being intimate with you."

His eyes were bright with quiet fondness, glazed with fatigue. "I can't help it if people misinterpret my interest in them," he said. "Which isn't to say I don't sometimes encourage it."

She leaned in as if to kiss him again. "Snake charmer."

"But I've never needed to do that with you."

She paused to look at him. "No?"

"No," he promised. "You've seen my worst. No need to pretend."

"I like your worst." Anouk nudged his face with her nose, urging it to turn away. His skin was soft against hers. "Your best… your worst… I like it all," she murmured. "You're pretty and shiny and you said you'd be mine. You won't scare me off."

Ethos took a quiet breath, unbothered by her private affection. Some time passed before he spoke again. "It won't be long now," he said, throat buzzing against her lips. "Nothing will stop it once it starts. Not until it's over. Not if she's there."

Anouk slung her arms around him. "You'll be okay."

"Head home when Syan's dead. Don't stop for anything."

"Copy that, seabird. I'll wait there for you."

"I didn't tell you to wait."

"But I've taken a liking to your unmentionables."

He laughed in surprise and turned his face back. "You're relentless."

She smirked at him. "Just trying to cheer you up, seabird. I can see you're in a sorry state."

"Thanks." He hugged her close and held her there. She could feel his heartbeat. "The Monolith is at the bottom of Onaga Blight," he said. "There's old world technology on it."

Anouk nestled against him. "Aye, so?"

"Someone should know it's there. Better you than someone like Peter."

"Getting your affairs in order, are you?"

He casually kissed the top of her head, natural, like he'd done it for years. "Don't make me lie," he whispered. "I'd like to be survived by at least one person I didn't betray."

"And give you the satisfaction?"

"You satisfy me plenty."

"I don't want your dead technology."

"All I need is for you to be aware of it."

"Are you going to explain what it is?"

"Would you like me to?"

"No. Sounds troublesome."

"And that's why you're my favorite." Ethos gave her a squeeze when she sneered. "It's time," he said, voice light. "Let's see what Syan has to say."

She stopped him from crawling out into the wintry elements. He glanced back at her. "I'm serious about you, seabird," she stressed, holding his eyes. "If you're alive this time next year, come find me. If you want to rough it, we'll rough it together. If you want to settle, we'll roost. If you want to rule, we'll rule. Whatever it is. Even if it's to tell me off."

He seemed startled, but not taken aback. Leave it to someone like him to see sense. A year would give him the time he needed to better understand what he wanted to be, and it wasn't a stretch of months so cruel as to take away from Anouk's own plans. A year, she could tolerate. A year, at most.

He rested an elbow on his knee and smiled. "I've never seen you like this."

She let him go. "Your answer?"

"I'm sworn off rule. A year won't change that."

"It might. Come find me when your mind's made up. Say yes. Please."

His smile spread. "Alright," he said. "Since you've gone to the trouble of asking so cutely."

Anouk chased him out of the lean-to, suddenly slipping and blushing a little when he caught her before she could fall. They ended up laughing as they hobbled around to the forward companionway, poking fun and trading insults. The falling snow had begun to thicken, slush turned brown by decks unclean, swallowing boots, slopping down hatchways. The daymen were all reluctantly rising, folding their leathers to store in the nettings. Black skies gently rolled with thunder. 

Grayblood's voice could be heard abaft. "Throttle aweigh," he called— presumably, to handlers down below. "Send up Creevy to help with the sheets."

Faintly, someone replied, "Aye, Sam."

Ethos held the companionway open for Anouk. There was snow in his hair. He conveyed a subtle, roguish smile, like he'd caught the tail end of a joke, eyes filled with his characteristic laughter. The root of it was lost on her.

She scowled at him. "What?"

He just shrugged. It was a happy, unapologetic apology. 

The stench below deck had worsened, but she dared not complain to someone with sharper senses than she. So she suffered the rancid descent in silence, him at her heels, and felt the air wrap around her, muggy, dank, embalming her skin. Halibut left in the sun for too long.

Sei was seated and armed in the galley, a duster hiding his nose and mouth. His gaze didn't rise from his book as they entered. "She won't eat," he said. "I think it has to be alive. Be careful."

Behind her, Ethos sounded amused. "You're talking to me now?"

"I was talking to Anouk. You can choke on your teeth for what I care."

Anouk opened the cabin door, and at once a fog spilled out from within, flecked by the gleaming sediment of the nest. Syan was curled in the corner, thick as a fattened swine. The light made her look wet to the touch, sultry, slick— more sharklike, perhaps. She stirred from her catnap and yawned aloud, stretching those overlong arms up high, fingers fused together, whelkish.

She noticed Anouk and sleepily leered, "Like what you see, descendant?"

Anouk crinkled her nose. "Aye, and how, ancestor," she said. "You should kill yourself."

Ethos peered in from over Anouk's shoulder. He whistled softly at the state of the cabin. "You've redecorated," he noticed. "Is it easier for you to breathe in this atmosphere?"

Syan writhed forward, belly sliding through dead bits of treebine. Her spine moved like it had too many parts. "Come in, boy," she invited, gesturing at the room's barnacled desk. "I've upheld my end and earned a good sit. Come join me."

He complied. "I'll hurt you if you try to eat me."

"Bah. Gamy, I wager. I like the portly look of your helmsman."

Syan's malformed body alternated between two distinct sounds. The first was a terrible squelch of viscera, while the second —and perhaps the more unsettling of the two— was a low, ceaseless clicking, like the voice of a dying cicada. It was impossible to tell which part of her was producing it.

Anouk opted, wisely, to wait by the door, torn between an urge to protect and another that wished herself to tasks elsewhere. "It's been three days," Ethos said, stooltop. "I've left you alone."

"Aye, you've been good," Syan agreed. "Are we out of time?"

"That's right. Please keep it simple."

Syan purposefully glanced at Anouk. "Miss descendant wants me dead," she said. "Tell her to wait outside and I'll talk."

"This is her ship. She's by right to be here."

"Aye, it is." Her gaze backslid to Ethos. "And what's hers is mine. By right and suchlike."

Ethos sat forward. "It's been three days," he repeated. "I've left you alone."

Syan laughed, "Aye, you've been good."

"Yes, I have," he said. "Now I need to know if there's a cure for this."

Her eyes rolled high, like she'd forgotten. "For this?"

"For what's become of you."

A smile played at her dry, cracked lips, cracking them farther. She nestled back into the coil of her vile, bloated appendage. "And if there isn't one?" she posed. "What then?"

"Then nothing. We uphold the agreement unchanged."

"And the one like me? The princess?"

"What about her?"

"What will you do with her?"

"I'm undecided. I'd like to hear you out first."

"There's a lovely vacancy in Roheim. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say."

Despite her taunting, Ethos showed little in the way of facial expression. "That kind of cowardice won't be repeated," he promised. "I'm not weak, not like Eadric was."

"Being cold doesn't make you strong."

It wasn't that he was cold, Anouk knew. It was just his nature, which wasn't quite human, and he'd never understand certain things because of it. She'd grown familiar with the confusion that frequently passed through his so-green gaze, grown to love it just like the rest of him. 

Syan must have caught a glimpse of it, because her wily smile faded. "Alma used to get the same look in her eyes," she said. "Like an animal trying to make sense of art."

He stared down at her hands for a moment before responding. "Parts of your body have calcified," he mused. "Your hands. Your face."

Indeed. She'd become some vile, arthropodic strain. "Metamorphosis, aye," she said, and her smile crept back. "Did I make you uncomfortable?"

"This isn't about me," he said. "This is about Una."

" 'Una.' " Syan spat it like one would a curse. But then she placidly rolled to her back. "She may not end up like me, remember," she said. "Ire's unpredictable. Capricious. Could be she's okay, for all you know. Could be she's worse. Could be she'll turn into a sparrow and glide up into the stars." With a soft whistling noise, she mimicked the ascent with her hand. "So long, wee beast."

Ethos closed his eyes and asked, "Are you trying to get me to leave?"

Her hand followed the path of the arc, simulating a crash to earth. "Could be she'll end it herself," she sang. "Could be she'll take you with her like Alma intends to."

 He began to rise. "This is over."

Syan quickly sat up to stop him from leaving, but her thorny hand floated between them, uncertain, when he stilled of his own volition. Her fingers curled with an eerie creak of fossilized joints. "Let me see him," she requested, softly. "Please. Just one last time."

"No," Ethos said. "He's gone."

"You're lying."

"He's almost gone."

The ship shook— crewmen, about. Syan's flinty eyes narrowed. "You still need my cooperation," she said, voice as low as her infernal clicking. "Let me see him. It's not a request."

Ethos frowned. "You'd go back on your word?"

"I learned from the best."

"If it's revenge you want, I can't let you have it."

"We've all suffered enough," she retorted. "I just want to see him."

He was confused again, annoyed, maybe, searching for answers beyond him. "But why?"

She grinned at that. Her lip split open. A laugh fell out of her long, ghoulish throat. "Because I'm going to die today," she said. "Who else would I want to see?"

"He can't comfort you, Syan."

"Can he speak?"

"He can. It's just that he's not very comforting."

Syan laughed again. It was a quiet sound, a sound to pity. It quickly bled into seriousness. "Let me see him," she said. "Do it or your plan falls through. That's all there is of it."

Ethos glared. Regardless, he returned to the stool.

Anouk gave a start and said, "Don't."

"It's fine." He looked at his wrist, at the ghost of Redbeard's handprint. "I meant it when I said he was almost gone," he said. "Just stand by and make sure no one gets hurt."

Syan sent her a sidelong look, full of warning. "At ease, descendant," she murmured. "You'll get him back once I've had words with the other."

Anouk bristled. "I'm not above putting iron in you."

Syan deigned no reply. She assessed Anouk, ceaselessly clicking, sultry, slick, only turning away when she heard Ethos move. "Hurry up," she told him. "Your jackal is restless."

Ethos just looked up at her, head marginally tilted back with the rest of himself slouched forward, relaxed. Eadric. But Anouk didn't sense from him the aura he'd had in their previous encounter— it was a far gentler sort, almost imperceptible, dark and rich and much too pleasant to be an exclusively sinister element. He and Ethos, blending together.

"Ho again, Rick."

"Ho, Syan. Miss me?"

"Is a frog's ass watertight?"

"I'm actually not that intimate with frogs."

She laughed, sounding younger. "Today's my last, you know."

His eyebrows went up, albeit blandly. "Lucky you," he said. "Do I do it?"

"You? No. No, your claim is Alma. Haven't you been paying any attention?"

"I'm a bit lost, if I'm honest." He glanced around the cabin and paused on Anouk's position by the door. It was like meeting the eyes of a stranger. "Oh, right," he said. "The Rift."

Anouk cleared her throat and asked, "You know who I am?"

"Obviously. You should be trying to kill me."

"Nature's taking care of it."

"Is it?"

"Seabird says so."

"You can't trust him. He's me."

"He's not you. He's seabird. You're not even you anymore."

Nonreactive, Eadric just stared at her. He seemed incapable of anything beyond mild surprise. "He has a sedative sort of effect on me," he admitted. "I'll fall asleep if I'm not careful."

"Rick," Syan intervened, voice soft. "I have an offer for you."

His gaze gradually returned. "What is it?"

She was hugging the end of her awful appendage, its tip coiling over her shoulder, creeping. "The boy has no intention of upholding his end of our deal," she knew. "My guess is he'll have me killed as soon as my offspring collide with Oldden and the Bonesteels."

"That sounds like something we'd do. Go on."

"Do you have any pull in there?"

"Pull? No. Maybe. Why?"

"Oi," she grunted. "Pick one."

"Maybe. A bit. Don't look at me like that."

Her lip curled. "You're still as evasive as ever."

He flashed a tired smile. "I'm sure you mean abrasive."

Syan leaned in, flaxen hair falling around her face. "I can stop the howlings without bloodshed," she said. "I can tell them all at once to die. Just give me the shot I was promised."

Eadric studied her. A piece of her face chipped like dry terracotta. "I don't care," he said. "People die, Syan. It's how I maintain a sustainable population. You and Alma are coincidental."

Another bit of flesh chipped away. Syan's eyes went very round. "Did you incite this war?"

"I won't have a repeat of what happened back home." He shrugged at that, blandly. "Everything's changed, of course," he said. "A lot's happened since I put the Bonesteel uprising in motion. But even with Oldden in the state that it is and me at war with my own irredeemable clone of all things, it'll be worth the struggle to keep our people in Karna."

"But we're not supposed to be here, Rick. I know you agree. It's sacred ground and we're dragging our muddied boots across it."

Black ooze ran from the split in her lip. Before it could fall from her chin, Eadric reached up and caught it on the bend of his finger. "You're falling apart," he muttered. "Does it hurt?"

"Aye, change the subject. You and your irredeemable clone."

"I'm truly sorry you're still alive."

She sneered. "Cruel even when you try to be nice."

She'd confused him a little. He frowned and asked, "What do you mean?"

She let out a surprised bark of laughter. The clicking sound spiked. "And so ends the great Hans Redbeard," she sighed. "Evolved and dissolved. Forgotten and rotten."

He made a hard line of his mouth and said, "Maybe."

"I never answered your question, did I?" 

"What question would that be?"

"You asked last time if I hated you. I do." 

His furrowed brow smoothed over. "You're right to."

Syan flung a disfigured hand at him. "I can't even get a rise out of you," she said. "I dislike this Rick. I don't even know this Rick. This Rick is meek and fireless."

He forced another smile. "Just stick to the plan, Syan," he said. "It's unfair, but it's what needs to happen. You'll end up hurt if you try to fight it."

"I'll end up hurt if I don't."

"That's right."

"You'll get yours, Rick. Mark my word."

Eadric's eyes went hooded and low. His smile lingered, no longer forced, and it spread a little as he spoke. "I thought I'd be angrier," he admitted. "I thought I'd fight it more than I have. I was sure I'd at least be afraid." His gaze jumped back to her, nondescript. "There's no good or bad in here, Syan. No blame. I feel like a better person somehow."

"Better, aye. You've shed the monster in you."

"Maybe that's it. Maybe he's more me than I am these days." Strange and unfamiliar, he glanced again at Anouk. "Watch yourself," he cautioned. "I'm quite wretched."

The warning left a bad taste in Anouk's mouth. She fixed him with an impatient look. "You're not as infectious as you think, founder," she said. "Give him back if you're done."

"Yes, I think that's wise." To Syan, he imparted a rare gleam of sympathy. "I've seen it all happen already," he told her. "The howlings will reach and many will die. Yourself included."

"And Alma?" Syan pressed. "Will she die?"

"Yes. It'll end with us."

"Even you?"

"Even me."

She regarded him silently, herself torn in some private way. The black smear on her chin made her skin look bone pale. "It's annoying like this," she said. "Just go."

"I never stopped loving you." He'd cut her off. His small, resulting smile was earnest. "You'll be delighted to know that I hated it— the part of me that couldn't let go. I thought of you often."

Syan's expression didn't change. "You're my greatest failure."

"And you're mine. But I'm at fault for both."

"How unlike you to admit it."

"It's the boy. He's less prideful than I am."

"An improvement, says I. Nobody wants another Redbeard."

He chuckled. "Perhaps," he said, and he held her gaze. "Goodbye, Syan Littlefield."

"Come find me in hell, Eadric Haraldson."

Still smiling, he closed his eyes. "I won't seduce the devil for you."

"No need." She watched him go, smile and all. Hers lingered, faintly. "Bye, Rick."

Ethos looked back up at her. Slouched forward, relaxed. A little bit Eadric. A little bit seabird. The gentle aura remained in part, dark and rich and much too pleasant to be exclusively sinister. 

He blinked just once, heavy and slow. "Satisfied?"

"Eadric wants a bloodbath," Anouk intervened, standing fast against unearthly glances. "It's been planned out, incited like."

Ethos didn't reply right away. He studied her from below, steady as the sea. "Humans advance and multiply faster than any other cognitive species," he said. "Innovation. Evolution. Expansion. By nature they ravage the very ground that sustains them. They would destroy both themselves and the island if we weren't here to protect them from it."

Anouk couldn't read him. "You approve of it?"

"I dislike it," he said. "But I couldn't stop it even if I wanted to."

He'd changed again, undergone something without her noticing right away. "It's wrong, seabird."

"Fighting the inevitable yields greater disasters," he replied, and his eyes said he'd learned that fact from experience. "I know exactly what it is."

Syan made a sound of derision. "Culling the herd."

To this, Ethos threw a slanted glare. He suddenly seemed to fill the cabin. "The howlings will reach regardless of what we do," he reminded her. "Annoy me."

She stuck out her chin. "I could snap you in two."

"Yes," he agreed. "Please try."

 They shared a long, unpleasant stare before Anouk's patience wore thin. She moved aside to make space by the door. "Ethos," she muttered. "Let's take a walk."

Ethos stood without breaking eye contact with Syan. His words were for her. "This is the last time we'll speak," he told her. "So speak."

Syan glared. But she'd already flinched from him as he'd stood, already given herself away. "A deformed soul can't be mended," she said. "Your princess is what she is."

"See, that wasn't so hard." He wiped his dirtied hand on his pants and finally looked at Anouk. He calmly gestured her out and suggested, "After you."

So Anouk took the lead. But she ventured one last glance at Syan, and in the accursed co-founder's eyes was deep, incurable sorrow. Sitting there hunched among the dead treebine, cracked and bleeding out black on the bedsheets… it was hard for Anouk to belly the sight. 

Ethos shut the door. "You're angry," he knew. "She's not your mother."

"Quiet, pinworm. When did you learn about Eadric's plan?"

"I realized it the night I came to Flint."

"And it didn't occur to you that I ought to know?"

He frowned and explained, "You would have fought me on it."

She grabbed him, tight-fisting foul. "You don't count this as a betrayal?"

"No," he replied. "Both of us were to benefit by my omitting the information."

"Ballsch we were," she snarled. "There are thousands out there."

He gently took her wrists in his hands, eased her grip. "You're a nice person, Anouk," he said. "I didn't want to put you in this position."

"That's a shit excuse."

"It was plausible deniability."

"It was poor assessment and execution."

"I'm sorry." And he looked like he meant it, searching her eyes. He wasn't an overtall sort of man, but he seemed it then, dwarfing her. "It's not always easy to make right decisions," he said. "Sometimes it doesn't feel right at all. Sometimes it's not supposed to. I thought you understood that."

Anouk couldn't answer— not with Sei watching them like he was. She dragged Ethos away by his clothes, topside to privacy, hushed by the wind. The snow had blissfully ceased to fall. 

She turned on Ethos. "Don't ever decide for me, seabird," she said. "If a bed's what's needed, I'll make it myself. You got that?"

But he was busy looking out west, a strange inner light in his eyes. 

They'd come at last to the desolate Rift. Flat, lifeless, bleak and benighted, it welcomed them with open arms. Anouk squinted first behind them, to see how far they'd gone from the mountains, and then ahead, to what awaited. "We've made it," she said, ignoring a genuine pang of panic. "The installations should be in sight. Do you see them?"

A slow, gray haze was moving over the westerly land. Rain. Lightning brought a shock of clarity to the terrain. Ethos seized her arm. "Stick to the plan," he said, in her ear. "Don't wait for me."

An explosion tore into the starboard bow.