6

The coastlander had positioned himself by the door— a subtle act of diligence that even Kacha had to praise. Considering the way he'd been scribbling for so long, she found it likely that he'd planned on suffering a sleepless night under her roof, if not to protect himself but to stand sentry over his curious friend. The hours had called his bluff.

Ethos shifted beside her, adrift. Kacha admired him from above and wondered if he'd known, if he'd been sure of his safety as he sailed into slumber. She lightly smoothed his hair and gave serious consideration to having off with him.

But instead she left him there, unattended. History repeating itself. Contorted cudgel in hand, she stood at the door for a questionable time, dizzied by her own incurable senses. And when Peter stirred to her immediate right, she thwacked him until he was still again.

The night was inevitably cold, yet not so inevitable perhaps as the shadow waiting in the distance for her. She embellished her arduous, customary limp, intending to instill in her visitor an illusion of confidence that could turn in her favor, should there be a need for violence. 

Crows circled with empty eyes, quiet for the first time in creation. 

It was a tawny man, full grown. He could as well have been a statue. But when she came within earshot, he asked, "Did you take him in just to irritate everyone?"

He looked the same as he had forty years ago, all planes and angles, poised. His graying hair had lengthened on his hunts away from the ageless village. "Pathos," she greeted, and she jerked her chin at their circling audience. "What's with them?"

"They're not mine."

"Then whose?"

"His, I imagine."

A hunk of granite would have been easier to read. There were yellowing bruises along his jaw, nearly healed, some scratches and scrapes. She decided not to ask where he'd come by them. "Spit it out," she commanded, forsaking civility. "Have your say."

"Why did you tell him about the pass?"

She closed some of the distance between them and searched his face, hungry to unearth an emotion from the eerie blandness of his bearing. "Spineless eavesdropping vulture," she sneered. "Did you bury your head in the sand when he came out to vomit? Coward."

He reacted as she thought he might: with a haunting indifference like falling ash. "The sooner he reaches Oldden, the sooner I'll have to act," he replied. "You understand why, I'm sure."

"Fool. We'd be extinct if there were truth to the witness."

"Then why do you keep to the wilds?"

"They suit me."

Finally— a small smile. "You were in her inner circle," he said. "You moved the fastest and sang the loudest. Wilder than the wilds." 

"That was a long time ago. Look at me now."

The smile dissolved. "Yes," he agreed, gravely. "Exile has aged you."

Still fresh in her mind. "How are Baroona and Ataia?"

"As well as they can be. They know I'm here."

"I can help stabilize the seal."

"It's in good hands."

"I'm stronger than Baroona."

A glimpse of exhaustion emerged. "You're banished."

"You won't survive another breach, Pathos," she knew. "I can feel it. You can, too. She'll come for Ethos and he's nowhere near ready."

"He'll never be ready," Pathos replied. "We just need a little more time to determine what our next move is. It's not up to me."

"I won't hurt him."

"Just talk sense to him. Talk him down from whatever he's planning before he's too caught up in the human world to know how to deal with his own."

"Sense? Fool. It's you who needs sense. If the old boys wanted him gone as a child, what makes you think they'll let him off grown?"

"Maybe they disagree. Maybe they think he's ready."

"They don't, and he's not. It's worse, him grown. You've seen his face."

She hadn't sensed any anger, but Pathos suddenly reached out and seized her. "We wouldn't even be having this discussion if you'd just left him alone," he said. "I'd have stopped you myself if I'd known that you were stupid enough to welcome him into your home like some long lost relative."

Kacha glared up at him, unmoving. "He asked to share my fire."

"It doesn't count if he just asks."

"He's not the enemy."

"We don't know that."

"Haven't you had crows on him?"

"Yes," he said, holding her eyes. "That's the point."

He looked afraid, and Pathos rarely lost composure. Just like his father. "Which part of it frightens you most?" she asked. "Is it the resemblance? The implication? The threat? What?"

Something clattered. Ethos was silhouetted in the entryway of the hut, pleasantly taken aback by them as he held the borrowed blanket to himself. He might have said something, but they were at too far of a distance to hear him.

Kacha turned back to Pathos, leered at the sliding return of his eyes. "My allegiance lies where it ought to," she said. "It always has. I'd be dead if the old boys were wiser."

He abruptly shoved her away from him, buckling her knees, and she blindly felt for the walking stick that had slipped unnoticed from her miserable grasp, fingers raking through brittle topsoil. A gust of wind flung dust in her eyes: a telltale sign that he'd fled.

"Coward," she seethed, spitting aside. "I'll have your hide for that."

Someone touched her back. Ethos. She heard him ask, "Are you hurt anywhere?"

She glanced. His concern was striking, serious and honest. "Oh, you fool," she said. "Don't fear so openly for someone like me."

"What can I do?"

She shooed him away. "I'm fine."

There was a black primary feather on the ground, greater in length than a grown man's arm. Ethos was crouched beside her when he noticed. Elbows on his knees, hands clasped, he stared down at it, and then slowly— so slowly! —he looked to the sky. His eyes moved with ease between the stars, seeing in ways that only he could. 

"So, Kacha," he hazarded. "Do bird women eat grubs?"

Her fingers curled around the cudgel. "I'll thrash you if you've dirtied that blanket."

He smiled. "It fell while I was running."

"Fool." She tried to rise, but the deceptively simple endeavor betrayed her. Ethos must have taken her stagger as permission to sweep her up from the ground, because, after she'd steadied, he did. "Put me down!" she squawked, flailing in protest. "I'll have my birds peck out your eyes!"

"It's very cute how you threaten me." 

"I'll turn you to soup!" 

Ethos carried her back toward the hut, remarkably strong for a man of his size. "You've helped me without the expectation of reward," he said. "Please let me do the same."

She sulked, reasoned with. "Aren't you going to ask what I was doing out here?"

"No," he replied. "It's not my business who you speak to."

"You truly are a fool."

Ethos searched the starry sky again. "I'll admit it surprised me, seeing him take off like that," he said. "Flying looks fun."

"It can be."

"That's good."

"Be still a moment." The dark world slowed. Kacha wanted him to look down at her again, but he didn't. He just stood there, waiting. "Whatever happens in the future, you can return here if you need the shelter," she told him. "Understand?"

"I understand. Thank you."

Like pulling teeth. "Would you like to know why?"

He glanced, imparting a wily, playful grin. "It's because I'm so handsome, right?"

She sighed. "You fool. Put me down."

"But we're almost there."

"I haven't finished mending you."

Regardless, Ethos resumed his measured pursuit. His blanket was strewn in front of the open door ahead, painted in outpouring firelight. "I'll come back if I can," he eventually said, and his voice was quiet and carefully neutral. "I'll let you explain everything then."

Kacha let her head roll about. "Bah. Fool."

"Bah," he agreed. "Fool."

"I should have left you as a warning."

Chuckling, he set her down on an overturned feed bucket, charitably stooped until she no longer needed him for support. "Are you sure you're okay?" he asked, and he dipped his head sideways to see her face. "Kacha?"

"I told you I was fine."

"He shouldn't have pushed you."

"Why? Because I'm a creaky old woman?"

That made him smile from ear to ear. Laughter danced outright in his eyes. "You laid me out, remember," he teased. "Nothing about you screams creaky or old."

"Then cease your mothering. I'm not the young reckless one in this scenario."

Ethos chuckled again. He sat on the ground by her feet and drew the blanket into his lap, offhand, as if he were neither cold nor uncomfortable. Maybe he wasn't. Kacha silently marveled at the calm way about him, how he acted in harmony with the things around him. Her study of him paused on the bruise over his eye: the outcome of an overworked mind.

He was watching her, she suddenly realized. No longer smiling, he said, "If you have something to say, please just say it instead of staring."

Kacha laced her fingers on the head of the cudgel, resting her chin to reflect. "Be what you be," she said. "Don't be afraid to defy the system, to rise above it, to let it be damned. The world is a selfish fat-fingered fool who breaks the tools that keep it together. I turn black with hatred when I think of how it will try to misuse you."

"That's an awfully fiery thing to say to a stranger."

"Fool. You're no stranger."

"I know."

"Do you?"

"I dreamt of you once," he told her. "Years ago. You were sitting on a riverbank, telling stories to a tired trout who stopped to have a listen." 

"Oh? Were you the trout?"

"I don't remember." He leaned back, elbow hooked on a risen knee. She allowed him a moment to read the unspoken question in her eyes. "It used to happen a lot when I was younger," he said. "I thought they might be memories until I met Peter."

"Did you dream him up, too?"

Ethos grinned, a flash of white in the darkness. "Aye, as he'd say."

"It must have been unsettling to meet him in person."

He shrugged. "It was a learning experience."

She repositioned, pursing a cheek. "Strange child," she mused. "To accept it so easily. Don't you ever wonder about yourself?"

His obvious disapproval of the suggestion was startling. She felt criminal. But the weight of it fell away with his gaze, which quickly lowered as if to spare her. "I used to," he answered. "But now it's more important for me to see this through."

"Don't use an old tragedy as an excuse to ignore new problems."

He wouldn't look up at her. "It's not like that."

She took his dangling hand in hers. "Be honest with me," she said, and when he tried in discomfort to pull away, she discouraged him by tightening her grip. "Don't shrug me off."

He sent her a cautionary glare. "My thoughts are private."

"I'm just trying to understand you."

"Let go of me, Kacha."

Red-hot pain exploded in her shoulder. Her hold on him shattered. But his reaction to her was a far worse grievance than the anguish he'd caused unbeknownst. She stared back at him, caught, a reflection of horror. 

So it was true.

Before he could speak, she insisted, "It wasn't."

But panic had already settled in. "I don't get you," he said. "The way you look at me, all the stuff you've been saying— "

Kacha couldn't suffer the outright fear in him. Recognizing herself as the source of it, she gathered him up in an effort to reverse the damage done, to mend him like she'd mended his arm. The shame only intensified when his stunned stiffness slowly relaxed. 

She waited for his breathing to calm. "There's something I need to tell you," she whispered. "You won't like it, but it's necessary. For me."

Chin on her shoulder, he said, "Your timing could be better."

She smiled a little, but it didn't last. The truth was dire. Time was short. "If you should ever face the woman who made you, I want you to run as fast and as far as you possibly can," she said. "Don't let her speak to you. Don't think about it. Just run until you can't anymore."

The midnight choir of katydids fell chillingly silent.

Kacha buried her nose. "Do you hear me?"

The wind. The cold. The dark.

"Ethos, do you hear me?"

Soft: "I hear you."

"Say it again."

"I hear you."

"Good."

The midnight choir gradually returned. "She's alive, then," he said, and she imagined him staring into the distance. "You know who she is."

Kacha drew back, held his face in her hands. "Listen close," she advised, conveying all the blunt wisdom she could muster. "Sometimes the bad things forget they were good. Sometimes they lose sight of themselves. Just try your best to remember that."

He searched her eyes. "She's bad."

"Would you like to know?"

"Not entirely."

"Then tell me when you do." She attempted to smile. "Be what you be in the meantime."

He watched her rise. "Did you know my father, too?"

An involuntary cackle spilled out of her throat. "Oh, Ethos," she sighed, and she extended a hand to help him up. "Don't you worry about him. He wasn't half as great as he thought he was."

Ethos scowled and took her hand. "You didn't have to laugh."

She led him back to the hut, shaking the sting from her fingertips. It was blissfully warm inside, a welcome change from the biting night, scented by blends of spices and smoke. "It's gotten late," she said. "You should get some rest while you still can."

Ethos saw to the door. "Okay."

She squatted in front of Peter, tugged on his ear to see if he'd rouse. Sleep looked good on him, she decided; it had stolen the sour dislike from his eyes, granting him the gentility that he so woefully lacked in daylight. "He needs some work," she thought to mention. "Why did you bring him with you?"

"It wasn't my idea."

"It was his?"

"Yes and no."

"I don't understand."

"I'm beginning to think he was meant to."

Kacha peered sidelong when he crouched beside her. "Why?"

Cheek nestled in the heel of his hand, he stared and answered, "I'm not sure yet."

His passive expression deterred her from pressing him. The paint from their last exchange was far from dry. "He's got northern blood," she said. "Hot blood. Angry blood."

"How can you tell?"

"His hair, for one." She leaned in for a closer inspection, nose crinkling. "Even his eyelashes are blond," she noticed. "The fool could pass for a thoroughbred."

"What does that mean?"

"It'd explain his temper, for one."

His voice had a smile in it. "It grows on you."

"So will a rash. Fool."

"Hey, now." He'd meant it reprovingly, but a glance exposed the laughter in his eyes. "That's my guide you're talking about," he said. "Have some respect."

"Dumb fox," she retorted. "Try saying that without the grin."

It spread. "The grin does as it pleases."

An enticing creature, more charming than he knew. Kacha put a stop to it by bumping him hard enough with her shoulder to throw off his center of balance. "So this guide of yours," she posed, for fun, while he teetered and saved himself from a fall. "What do you have on his parents?"

Ethos returned to the balls of his feet. "Not much," he admitted. "The dad's a fisherman. I'm under the impression that he drinks and gambles more than he ought to."

"Classic coastlander. And the mother?"

Even before he spoke, Kacha knew by his face that he'd either lie or withhold. "We shouldn't be doing this," he said. "It's not right."

"Fool. He'd do the same to you."

"Gossip about me with a bird woman?"

"You've forgotten that he already has."

Ethos slouched forward until he could rest his chin on his arms. "Peter's the sort of person who prefers to know everything," he explained. "I don't normally mind. Life would be boring if we didn't have our little flaws to stir things up occasionally."

"May I say something?"

"You don't need my permission to speak."

The near mirror of him, Kacha studied his profile. "There are going to be lasting consequences to this crusade of yours," she told him. "Before you go much farther, you should give some thought to the extent of his involvement. Raise enough dust and he'll never be able to see his family again."

His eyes coasted to her. "I'll send him home at dawn if you agree to take his place." He smiled at her expression of open surprise. But then his words sank in. "It's okay," he said, gently. "I can list off plenty of reasons not to. There's nothing wrong with it."

"I might've said yes," she muttered. "Don't act like you already knew."

"It wouldn't have made sense if you'd said yes." His restless fingers found a shoot of straw by his feet. "We're all in our own little worlds," he mumbled. "Peter's time in Nahga was over the moment he followed me into the wilds. I know that now."

"Far be it from me to hinder his thrilling destiny as your own personal shepherd."

He continued his uneasy fiddling. "Shepherd or not, I saw him commanding armies long before I ever knew he existed, same as I saw you with that trout," he said. "Whatever happens in the weeks ahead will set him on the path to his calling. I doubt anything can change that."

"Have you tried?"

"Yes," Ethos said, dispassionately. "He calls me inattentive."

"Ah, so that's why he ran out earlier," she crowed. "You wander off when his back is turned."

"It's not that we don't get along, because we do," he reiterated. "It's just difficult to look someone in the eye and know in advance that you'll only disappoint them in the end."

"What else have you seen of him?"

He rubbed his face, wearied, and then stopped, mouth hidden by a hand. "Messing with the future is against the rules," was all he'd say. "I'll just have to see how it pans out."

Kacha studied him. "Do you understand what this means?"

He glanced. His eyes smiled. "Do you?"

"Fool. Prophets always die in their sleep. Always."

"I'm no prophet," he chuckled. "Last night I dreamt that a pine marten was giving me attitude. I'm as mystic as a block of wood." 

"I disbelieve."

"Disbelieve all you like. I should be lucky to have such a quiet death." The last word lengthened into a yawn, and it seemed to remind him of the hour. He turned on his heel and scanned the space for a seemly place to retire. "Please see to Peter's head before you call it a night," he said, going fireside. "If he doesn't notice a bump in the morning, I won't make you apologize."

Kacha blinked. "You were awake?"

"Drifting, more like."

"I was playing with your hair."

"It felt nice," he replied. "It reminded me of home."

Peter was an easy target to scowl at. "Unfair," she said. "You're just going to forge on without me while I waddle toward my doom of becoming a senile old bat who prattles on with river fish."

"It would be nice if you could come with us."

"Fool." She resisted the urge to look at him. "You're kinder than necessary," she said. "You'll be loved and hated for that."

"Shima always tried to leave everything a little better than how she found it." Another yawn broke through, longer than the first. "I'm just following her example."

"She must have been a fine sort of beast."

"She was." He paused. "I'm sorry for hurting your arm earlier."

"There's nothing to apologize for."

"You cried out."

Had she? 

"Goodnight, Kacha."

"Goodnight, dear fool."

The night was a tranquil one, pleasantly calm both above and below. She took it all in, listened to the fire, the breeze, the bugs, and smiled dejectedly. "And so it was that the rising sun spoke," she softly recited, some forlorn song from years long past. "And the things over which it governed ran."