He’s going to kill Sa-cha.
Kensy hungers for power and feasts on those below him to get it. This has always been true, and Basuin hates that he ignored it for so long. His own need, to still be something good, allowed this. But Kensy was never evil—not until he dragged Basuin to this island to colonize in the name of the queen. Not until he killed a wolf and made to sacrifice her pups so he could lure the gods out. Because if Kensy was evil, it would make Basuin evil, too.
It was never in the name of the queen. It was all a ruse. It was in Kensy’s want for power; his want to win. Kensy doesn’t want to outlaw the gods. He wants to kill them. Become one.
“It was wrong,” Kensy growls. “They chose wrong. They should’ve deified me.”
“I was dead,” he tries. “I didn’t ask for this.”
Kensy killed him. That’s why he’s a god now. It’s Kensy’s fault—it’s all Kensy’s doing. And here Kensy is, wanting the very thing he forced upon Basuin.
There’s a moment, a dead, long moment, between them. Ren is still beside him, unmoving and without even the sound of her lungs. Ren died, too. She drowned in the ocean surrounding this island, saved by a god without a body, primed to be deified in the same way Kensy primed Basuin to be his dog.
“The gods spoke to me, too,” Kensy says, a countenance filled with pride. From under his armor, he rips a stone from around his neck and holds the leather string out for Bass to see. A black stone—a godstone—hangs from it like a dead man hangs from a noose.
“You never believed in the gods,” Bass says, biting back the shake in his voice.
Kensy wraps his godstone around his wrist. “I always believed in the gods. But unlike you, I don’t worship them. The gods spoke to me, and do you know what they said?”
From the Winter River, there arose a god.
Basuin’s heart thunders in his chest. The gods never spoke to him—they never spoke even a lie to him—until he was possessed. Until his god took his body and made a home of it.
And that god was Sa-cha, and he was good.
“They said I could kill a god.” Kensy pulls his gun from its holster. “And I did.” His grin is rotten and smug. “How do you think we got to this island, Black Wolf? Do you think Ithika offered it up?”
Ren takes a step back, eyes wide. Her fingers twitch at her side, shoulders drawn in defense. But he can’t take his eyes off Kensy. He can’t show a moment of weakness.
Ithika has long been dead, Ko told them.
“Of course not,” Kensy continues. “I orchestrated this moment. I slaughtered Ithika and took to her waters. I offered up this island in the name of the queen so that I could kill this god, too.” Kensy’s boot kicks at Sa-cha’s statue. “The god of all gods.”
Sa-cha’s shrine.
“That’s not possible,” Basuin grits through his teeth, body rigid. “Ithika—”
“Do you know how many gods like you I’ve had to kill?” Kensy interrupts, eyes wild and teeth mean. “Hosts I’ve had to massacre to get what I want?”
Hosts. Gods without a body. Gods like him—Gods like Ren.
“Do you think you’re the first?” Kensy straightens and stands at a lazy attention and it sends a shattering of ice through Basuin’s veins. “Do you think you’ll be the last?”
“Ithika has been dead,” Ren finally speaks. There’s no emotion in her voice at all. Purely blank. Iced over. “You killed her last host.”
The waters Ren died in—Ithika’s first death. And then, the death of Ithika’s host, who protected her waters—Kensy killed them so he could reach the Winter River. Well, here they are now. They’ve walked right into another trap, just like Valkesta.
Gods damn him. He did it again.
“I did,” Kensy says. “And you know what?”
With the butt of his gun, Kensy breaks Sa-cha’s idol clean in half.
Something inside Basuin shatters. A piercing ache, burrowing deep into his guts. He reaches, and his hand doesn’t belong to him anymore. The shrine crumbles into the water, hissing with steam. It curdles his innards. The wolf-man lets out some half-whine, half-snarl sound and it vibrates through Basuin’s ribcage.
Beside him, Ren doubles over, clutching her chest and heaving, gasping for air. The pain infects her too. Her eyes blown wide, struggling to breathe.
“No,” she whispers. A bright ray of light beams from the broken shrine and into the sky to the godrealm.
