“I’ve got you,” he repeats, finding a handhold at the roots of the tree to press himself out of the den.
And then the wood cracks above him.
It sounds like a rapture. Like lightning striking through the nothingness of the Blacksalt Sea, grounding itself in the sediment of tortured souls.
The den is collapsing, aflame. The tree above his head caves. Basuin pulls himself out of the den faster, hoping to beat the lightning home.
He doesn’t, and the Blacksalt Sea is only its name—Black.
Chapter 5
When his eyes open, the forest looks unfamiliar. Thick smoke has blanketed the sky in white, unnatural and too calm. Behind him, the fire still rages—he can hear it, roaring and threatening and spitting at him. But he doesn’t look back. That fire will swallow him up if he turns to face it.
In his blistered, scratched, bleeding arms, the wolf pups have stopped squirming. He can’t feel their heartbeats, nor the work of their lungs, but he knows they still live. They must. When he glances down, he makes out three tiny, still bodies—two white, one black.
But he has to move. The fire, it’s behind him. Crackle, pop, roar.
Ma, he prays, godstone beating against his chest as he runs. I’m sorry.
Basuin isn’t sure where he’s running, but he knows it’s away from the fire. It’s almost like the trees part for him, bending to make way for his journey as if they know he’s trying to save these pups. He doesn’t stumble, not once. He can’t afford to.
He dodges another oak and then he sees it—fresh water. Glittering just on the horizon.
Pressing the pups to his body, cradling them like children, he sprints toward the river ahead. But there’s a voice, calling over the shaking pants of his heavy breathing. He skids to a stop, a fork in the trees, ears alert. He hears her. From the right.
When Basuin turns to look, down a smoke-entrenched path as dark as the waters he arrived here on, a shadow dances through the fog. A body. She calls to him, speaks in a tongue he can’t understand, but he knows. He knows she calls his name.
Basuin. He’s sure of it. The gods say you’re destined.
The jade stone on his neck sears his skin, enough that he hisses and tears his eyes away from the shadow. There’s another path, tall grass and vines and gnarled tree roots, but the river is just past it. He has to get the wolves to the water, clear the debris from their eyes and make sure they can breathe again.
He flees toward the water, determined. So many lives have been lost. Not only in Valkesta, but in every Grimmalian city the legion stomped through in their crusade. There is so much death and not enough life, and so he must—he must—give these poor pups a chance. Animals like these, that walk on four paws instead of two feet, are innocent.
Humans shed blood for grace, not for survival.
He sprints forward, and then a woman steps out from the edge of the forest and walks toward him. Doesn’t she see the fire behind him—does she not smell it? It warbles in hunger, looking to consume everything.
Her eyes, piercing and dark, meet his and widen. Now she must see it—the raging flames chasing him. Basuin picks up speed, racing against it. He has to reach the water before it’s too late.
The woman thrusts her arms out on either side as if to stop him, shouting, “Go back!”
Go back to where?
“You must go back,” she commands. “You’re making a mistake.”
“Fire!” he shouts back, lungs stinging and out of breath. “Get to safety, there’s a forest fire! Run—”
But the woman never moves. She stands there, frozen, blocking his path with eyes that reflect the flames crawling through the forest behind him. The fire spits embers at him, flecks of soot burning his damaged skin. She won’t move, even as he speeds toward her.
Basuin braces the wolf pups against him with one arm, reaching out to grab her and pull her to safety.
But she jerks away just as his fingers might gloss over her skin, eyes frightened, darting back into the woods and disappearing. As if lightning strikes the ground again, the smell of burned earth and ancient bones, a bright light flashes before him and he recoils, blind, again.
When he cracks his eyes open, all that’s before him is crystal-clear waters, gently lapping against the bank. Two wolf pups slink out of his arms and onto the ground. As soon as their paws pad toward the river, their white fur blows away like the seedlings of an adolescent dandelion, and soon they’re just shimmers of bright green light, fading into something that shines from the water. It’s like he blinks and they’re gone, without even a howl or a cry or anything at all.
In his arms, still and silent, the black pup turns to sand and trickles from his grasp.
He blinks again and a black wolf sits in front of him, looking up at him, tilting its head at him. The entire forest smells of blood and Basuin slaps a hand over his mouth and nose to fend off the stench. The wolf laughs—shakes its head at him—and then once more Basuin blinks and the wolf morphs into a man.
