“Isn’t it great?” Yaelic, trotting along beside him, asks with a smile. “Hami’s probably waiting for us.”
For Yaelic, maybe. Not for him, an enemy. But Yaelic’s grin glows in the village lights and Basuin can’t bring himself to dim it. Not now, anyway.
As if summoned, there’s a rustle in the brush to his right. His head turns, his eyes unfocused as his hearing takes precedence. Something takes shape and form as it moves through the foliage. Hami, maybe. Even the Forest God comes to a halt, steps ahead of them. As her footfalls pause, everything in their vicinity quiets as if bowing to her presence.
But it’s not Hami at all. From the underbrush peeks out the snout of a small deer, its head following as it stretches out from the foliage and shakes leaves from its back. There are sticker burrs caught in its glossy chestnut fur.
A fawn, the puff of its tail twitching happily with a step toward them. Just a baby. It looks at him curiously, glassy black eyes staring at him. Basuin leans back, ready to put space between them.
“Qia,” the Forest God calls out from behind him. “Come out, don’t startle him.”
With a snuff, the baby deer shakes out its fur again, and then a swarm of green light surrounds it, motes of dust like stars scattered across the sky. Before his eyes, like Hami had morphed into the wolf pup, the deer shifts and materializes into a human body. He tries not to blink—not this time—but the light is harsh and he flinches from it.
When he opens his eyes, a small girl stands in the place of the fawn. Roughly the same size, this girl seems to be a child as well, her features young. She wears a nervous smile on her lips, her eyes the same doe-like black as before. Her dark hair is pulled up into a long ponytail cascading down the back of the robe she wears, red fabric trimmed in gold, which moves fluidly as she bows her head to the Forest God.
“Sorry,” she says, glancing up and meeting his gaze. “I wanted to receive you all properly.”
“Don’t play coy,” the Forest God says, but her voice holds no anger. “You’re too curious for your own good.”
The girl bows her head again, deeper this time. “Sorry, Am-sa. Forgive me?”
The Forest God steps forward, smoothing a few of the girl’s loose strands of hair back, and Basuin catches the faintest smile taking over her mouth as she does. It’s a strange gesture, unlike the harsh front she’s put on in front of him. Maybe the ice in her glare is reserved only for soldiers, like him.
“Go, then.” The Forest God gestures toward Basuin. “Introduce yourself.”
The little deer-girl steps in his direction, also bowing her head, but not as deeply. “I’m Qia. I serve the Forest God.”
Basuin blinks down at her, grinding his molars, fumbling with his words. “Hello,” he says, unsure of what to say. “I’m Basuin of Ankor.”
“And I’m Yaelic!” He bounds toward Qia, bowing lower. “I serve the Wolf God.”
Qia gasps, her hands flying to her mouth. Behind her, the Forest God looks away.
“The Wolf God?” Qia stutters, her brown eyes widening into the moons that mark the month’s end. She bows her head again, hands wringing together in front of her. Basuin takes a step backward, grimacing. There’s a sore on the inside of his bottom lip that his teeth want to worry.
“I’m not—That’s not who I am,” he says, waving it off, his eyes glancing back and forth between Qia and the Forest God, the trodden path beneath him and the canopy overhead. He doesn’t know where to look. “I’m just Basuin, of Ankor.”
Qia looks up, brows furrowing in confusion. She takes in his figure, worry swimming in the depths of her doe eyes.
“But—” she starts, and is silenced by a wave of the Forest God’s hand which catches her gaze.
“Qia,” she calls again. “You can show them the way.”
In a fit of quick movements, Qia bows her head to Basuin first, then to the Forest God twice.
“Yes, of course, Am-sa,” Qia says, grabbing the skirt of her robes. “Come this way, Wolf God, sir. Yaelic, too.” She starts moving, her hands clasped together and hidden in the red sleeves of her robe. Every few steps she looks back to make sure they follow. Yaelic bounces right behind her, chattering about something, but Basuin stays a few feet behind.
The Forest God, as quickly as she came, disappears. She’s done that before—in the forest, as he ran to save the wolves. He lunged to grab her and she spun right out of his grasp, dissolving into the trees.
The wound the wolf-man made inside of him rings with a searing pain. Though he doesn’t bleed and there is no entry or exit made from his skin, Basuin aches. Not even a knife through his chest, not even a lead bullet, could hurt in the way this has.
There are other people in Gyeosi, he realizes, the further they move inside. Other spirits, maybe, but like Yaelic and Qia, they all look human. Small huts are carved out of the trunks of trees, tiny houses built from mud and fallen branches, quilted leaves and dried hay for roofs.
And more than that, sprawling roots from trees almost as thick as the watchtowers the Xalkhans build carry these homes as well. There are stairs made of thick slabs of bark linked by woven rope, ladders the same, that lead all the way up to the top of the forest until the canopy is so thick it blocks out the sky above.
Each spirit they pass greets Qia warmly, then shoots some version of a smile at Yaelic. But Basuin, they eye warily. Maybe he looks like a spirit, trailing after two children, still covered in ash. Or maybe, all they see is an enemy, like Hami did.
None of the spirits ask for his name, and for that, Basuin is thankful.
