37

Ethos found her sitting in the snow, guided by her deathlike stench. The creek was a pleasant aural percussion, crisp and clear as the day itself, tainted by an upstream corpse. She'd donned a different set of clothes; boots, pants, and an Olddenwear coat. They suited her, as all clothes did. Her russet fall of wavy hair was drawn to the side, exposing her jawline and half of an ear.

She didn't turn, but he knew she'd heard him. He stood there beside her for a short while, sharing the view of the creek. "A snake used to live in this water," he said. "I'd play with her sometimes, tell her what having legs was like. I was still new to the clans back then. Needing friends, I guess." He didn't feel like sitting in the snow, but he did. It was melting a little and quick to steep. "She took a bite out of Shima one day," he went on. "Thinking back, she must've been spooked or something. She wouldn't have bitten someone for no reason. I'm not sure if I was aware of that at the time. But I thought I'd be praised if I brought her carcass back to the hollow. Shima was…" He paused there, remembering the disgust in her eyes. "I didn't understand what I'd done wrong."

Una stared forward. "Cats do things like that."

"I'm not a cat."

"How did you do it?"

He glanced. "How did I do what?"

She was looking back at him, impassive. "How did you kill your she-snake?"

Taken aback, he swallowed. "I crushed her skull. It was quick."

"And my father? Were you quick with him?"

He held her eyes. "I wasn't slow."

Una's vacant expression imperceptibly filled. She searched his face for answers. "Why aren't you making excuses for yourself?" she asked. "Why let me think the worst of you?"

"Nothing I say can fix what happened." Ethos gazed back at the creek. "I'll never apologize," he said, firmly. "I'll never talk about it. Hate me if you have to."

"It's almost like you want me to hate you."

"A part of me would deserve it."

He suddenly felt her fingertips brush the side of his face, jagged nails grazing skin. Her voice was a spring of icy tension. "Could you look at me, please?"

He did. "I'm not a nice person, Una."

She'd come a little closer, hair dangling, throat curved. Her honey-colored eyes were wounded, desperately searching his. "Then why do I feel so close to you?"

Ethos persuaded her hand down. He held it, to keep her calm. "We depart for Flint tomorrow," he told her. "People are going to start paying attention, which means it's time for you and Peter to function as a unit. Understand? Even if it's just public appearance."

She shook her head. Once. Twice. Ten times— more. "It's supposed to be you," she insisted, voice rising. "I can feel it."

"Una, I killed your father."

"You said we'd talk when the mark was gone." Her hand gripped him back. "The feelings I have for Peter aren't as strong as the feelings I have for you," she whispered. "It's like we have a connection, something that sets us apart from the rest."

A tiny voice was laughing at him. It was telling him to be the bad guy. The discussion would end if he lied outright. "We decided together that you and Peter would do this," he said, instead. "You both have names that people respond to. They'll have an expectation in mind."

"That doesn't mean we should end our relationship."

"It wasn't a relationship. It never was."

He'd spoken sharply. She frowned. "What was it, then?"

"You didn't cause trouble when you made all the rules." Ethos averted his eyes, but then forced himself to watch her reaction. "Like I said, you did some things that you probably shouldn't have," he said. "I mostly returned your advances to discourage you from making life more difficult for me."

She recoiled, hand at her chest. "I thought you liked me the way that I was."

"I did," he replied, which was true. "You were interesting."

"So I'm not interesting anymore? Is that it?"

"That's not what I meant." He tiredly watched her pull at her hair; she wasn't well in the mind, he knew. He could read it in everything that she did. There were deep, dark, self-inflicted scratches all over her inner forearms. "Karna needs its guardians," he said. "If things go our way with Eadric and Alma, I'll be there for you whenever you need me."

Una's eyes had drifted low. They quickly returned to him, flashing. "Peter says you're theirs."

He ignored her. "He won't be accepted as king without you by his side."

"They'd accept you," she said. "They'd accept a Redbeard."

Ethos glared. "Don't call me that." 

She must've thought his expression was amusing. She laughed. "Does it bother you?" she asked. "I hope it does, really. I do."

Ludo remembered Hans Redbeard vividly. Blue-eyed. Uppity. Shorter than one would expect him to be. He'd possessed a wily air of intelligence, fearless and eager and sly— but not evil. They hadn't needed to speak the same language to understand one another.

Ethos had been with them for six years before Ludo noticed the resemblance. 

"We leave tomorrow," he repeated. "The Battlefrosts will provide sanctuary for the tono until I've dealt with Eadric. They can have the forest when it's over." Una's eyes had wandered. He caught them and held them deliberately. "You and Peter will make it work. I've seen it happen. It'll work."

Her smile softened. She fixed his hair and asked, "Are you okay?"

He couldn't follow her mood shifts. "I'm fine," he replied. "Are you listening to me?"

"I'm listening, but you've got this really strange look on your face." 

"Has Eadric said anything to you about your condition?"

"Just that he'll cure me if I make you kill the tono."

"But you don't know if he actually can."

Shrewdly, she said, "We could always find out."

Ethos ducked away from her hand. "Don't joke about this."

"Seventy-two," she remarked. "That's how many tono were left when we talked about this back at Kacha's. Now there are fifty-four. They're going to die one way or another." She suddenly coughed and spat on the ground. A big black glop in the snow. "You don't even care about anything."

Her teeth were dark, dyed by the muck. "You're sick, Una."

"And whose fault is that? Mine?"

"It's mine. I know that."

She seized his shirt. "You never should have brought me back."

The black stuff was the source of the stench. There was no mistaking it. The full force of it fanned against his face as she spoke. Ethos gagged and shrank away, but she followed along like some sort of ghoul, clawing at clothes with her yellowing nails. Fabric stretched. Fabric ripped.

And then she bit him. Nothing about it was meant as a joke. She tore into his arm like you'd tear at a pork chop, like a dog at a hambone. He shouted, wordless, and roughly lashed out, not really aiming for anything specific. He caught her in the side of the head. She fell and went still.

Ethos was frozen, stunned by the unexpected attack. He said her name to see if she'd respond, but he couldn't even hear his own voice. He said it again, louder.

Una groaned in the snow. "You hit me."

"You tried to eat me."

"You hit me."

"You tried to eat me."

She rolled over. "Don't be a pussy, darling."

Ethos cautiously crawled to her, circumventing the noxious black glop. "I'm sorry I hit you," he said, taking a knee. "Don't get up. Tell me what's going on."

She was a mess. Her face was besmeared with blacks and reds. "I'm hungry."

"Yeah, I get that," he said, drily. "When did this start?"

"Now. Just now. It seemed like a good idea." Abruptly she began to cry. She covered her eyes and turned on her side, shoulders shaking, mostly silent. "I'm sorry," she wept, sounding strangled. "I'm not well, Ethos. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it."

Ethos heaved a sigh. He rubbed her back while she had it out, sensing that they were all reaching their limits. "Peter and I are riding out tonight," he said. "I can't take you with us. Not as you are."

She sniffled a couple of times and looked up. "Where are you going?"

"Not far. We're meeting with Eadric at dawn."

"Are you going to be alright?"

Seeing her so distraught and unkempt, it came across as a strange thing to ask. Ethos smiled down at her, charmed. "Yeah, I'll be alright," he said. "Don't worry."

"But he's your father," she stressed. "You've never had one of those before."

Ludo knew otherwise, but they weren't about to argue with her. "I'll try to find a cure for this," Ethos promised. "Whatever it is."

She scoffed, teary-eyed. "Why bother?"

He studied her very seriously. "Would you rather I kill you?"

Una stared. Quietly: "No."

"Then that's why." 

She stood and cleaned her face with her sleeve. "Though it's anyone's guess why you'd go through the trouble in the first place," she said. "You clearly have reservations about me."

Ethos thought back to their fights. "The old you wasn't afraid of anything," he said. "Especially me. We were quietly at war, thinking up secret evil plans to expose each other for what we were." He shook his head at that. "Peter thought the world of you. He refused to see it."

Una's willowy shadow fell over him. "Refused to see what?"

He grinned up at her. "That we were both monsters."

"You make it sound like you enjoyed our war."

"Oh, I did. I did. Sometimes. But you'd take it too far." 

She touched his hair again. Putrid nails, raking. "By making life difficult?"

Ethos returned to his feet to stop her from reaching out. "It's in the past," he told her. "There's no point in analyzing something you can't remember." But Una was suddenly staring hard at him. She was nearly his height, a muddied vision. He asked, "What?"

"I demand to know what I did. I have the right."

He smiled a little. "A demand," he echoed. "My weakness."

"I'm serious," she said. "It's been bothering me and I deserve to know."

There was fire in her eyes, evocative of those early days. "You used to enjoy compelling Peter," he answered. "You knew that I wouldn't seriously hurt him, so you used him a few times to rough me up, remind me of who was in charge. It ended when I figured you out."

Una looked horrified. "No, I— I wouldn't."

"You did, but it's fine."

"How can you even bear the sight of me?"

He shrugged and wiped his blood off her cheek. "Easily."

Her eyes fell; they suddenly darted lower and widened. "You're bleeding."

She'd torn through the skin of his arm in the attack. He hadn't noticed, hadn't felt it. 

A ripping sound invited his gaze. Una produced a strip of cloth and quickly took it to the wound, wincing as she tied it off. "We can rinse it in the creek," she said, sounding nervous. "I'm sorry."

"It's tainted. I'll wash it later." He placed his hand on hers. "Slow down."

She glanced up, pained. "I'm so awful to you."

He smirked at her. "Nobody's wanted to eat me before."

"Don't make light of it." Una looked at their hands, hair curled back behind her ear. "I'll stand by Peter if he'll have me," she said. "It's the least I can do after everything that's happened."

"Thank you. It means a lot to have you on board."

Deeply, she exhaled. "And I'm sorry about what I said," she went on. "I know it must be tough to process this whole thing with Eadric. I don't want it to bother you. I didn't mean that."

Ethos stepped away. He didn't like how she was looking at him, as if he were something small to be pitied. He didn't want her pity. He didn't know what to do with it. "Nothing's changed."

She asked, "So you're not going to talk to him about it?"

"No. I'm not the real thing, after all."

"But what does that mean?"

"I'm still working on that part."

"Maybe he knows something you don't."

Ethos sighed again. He glanced and said, "Listen— "

He'd caught her licking the blood from her fingers. She stilled, eyes round, as if she could hide by doing so. Guiltily, she wiped her mouth. "Sorry," she sulked. "I'm really trying."

He could feel his headache worsening. "What can I feed you that isn't me?"

She actually smiled, but it wasn't lasting. She silently appraised him there, seeming so wearied and worn of it all. Firmly: "Did we plan to kill my father together?"

"I told you I wouldn't talk about it."

"Did we?"

"No. We didn't."

"But I'm not that upset."

"You don't remember him well."

"But I should still be upset, shouldn't I?"

"Yeah. Probably." Ethos readjusted the bandage. "I have a few small items to take care of before I leave this afternoon," he told her. "Would you like to join me?"

"Okay." She followed him into the trees. "You did well finding shelter in Flint."

"It's a start. I want their army."

"For what?"

"For Peter. Wulfstead's vulnerable to attack."

She made a sound like she understood. "We could take the north."

"Exactly." He studied her, sidelong. "You don't disapprove?"

"Of course not." Una was staring ahead, picking her way through the wilds with ease. Her gaze shone with dark approval. "This country is mine by right," she muttered. "It's high time you took the initiative to get it back for me."

"You sound like your old self again."

Her eyes slid to him. "Would you like that?"

The threatening air about her stirred. "I like both of you."

"Do you?" Lightly, Una reached out and took his hand. "Do you really?"

The vision hit him like a blow to the back of the head. He reeled into darkness, pulse in his throat, and promptly tripped over something solid. It gave as he landed. His hands sank in. A golden column of light flared in the distance, illuminating the narrow space. A tunnel, he saw, its grounds strewn with monstrous corpses. He was elbow-deep one of them, face warmed by its smoldering entrails.

A cold wind tore down the passage. His vision swam. People were suddenly shouting his name, calling for him to stand, but he couldn't; he was paralyzed there in the snow. Una appeared with her back to him, arms out to either side as if to make a great shield of herself. A familiar voice seared through the uproar. "Abomination," it purred. "We won't bring you back twice."

The snow heaved beneath him then, parted and moved and spat out a hand that seized his arm in a vicelike grip. A blond woman emerged, whiter than winter, and he was forced to fend her off when she viciously lunged for his eyes. She called him Eadric as he strangled her.

A sound, from behind, invited his gaze. Silence replaced the earsplitting chaos. A door rasped over a cobbled floor, spilling someone's shadow within. "Stay down," Eadric cautioned, unsmiling. "It's time we discussed the terms of your surrender."

Someone whispered, "Ethos."

Ethos stared, double-visioned, caught in the shadow.

"Ethos. Darling. Can you hear me?" Una was studying him closely, framed by the forest, bloodied and muddied and softly concerned. "Hey," she said, holding his face. "What did you see?"

Back in the present. Thank god. Ethos let his head gently thud against her shoulder. "Nothing."

"Lies, as usual, I see," she teased, holding him close. "You can tell me, you know."

He almost didn't mind the smell of her anymore. He laughed a little and couldn't quite stop. "It never gets any easier," he groaned. "I wish it would. Just once would be nice."

"It can't be any worse than what we've already been through."

He just continued to laugh. Curse all, Peter would say.