Basuin kicks his sheets off from where they’ve tangled around his legs and falls out of bed, stumbling to the mirror hanging on his wall above his wash basin. There is no light, but his hands know where the matchbook sits near his oil lamp. With clumsy, panicked fingers and a seared thumb, the match strikes and his quarters illuminate in a faint glow, light enough for him to peer into the mirror.
When he removes his hand from his left eye, there’s no wound. No blood or fester or rot. Just a jagged scar running from above his brow down past his cheekbone. He can still taste the pain in his mouth like someone ran their sword through his tongue. As though he were chewing the copper coins of beggars, tarnished from rain.
Hanging around his face in limp, tangled strands, his hair is a mat of sweat, dirt, and blood. But in the dim light of the lamp, he can see what seems to be the dark, dried flecks are simply shadows from the darkened room fading into the long locks of raven that tumble over his shoulders.
Every night, he sees them without fail. The broken bodies of dead men, hacked and slashed into pieces like a king might saw through a raw steak, their blood lit up on the snow. Basuin had never seen a color as brilliantly red until he saw the remnants of his squadron laid out and screaming for help, rubies spilled across the ice.
Captain, they called for him, hands still twitching. Those gods you believe in… Will you ask ’em to take me to the Winter River? I’d like to meet my sister again.
He plunges his face into the shallow wooden basin, the water as cold as the snowfall felt when he laid in the berm, waiting for death to come and send him away from this world. He stays there, not breathing, until his lungs burn. And then he pulls back up with a gasp, drinking down air, water running down his copper skin with a shiver.
On nights like these, Basuin wishes for things he knows can’t come true. To scream, or to cry. To sink to his hands and knees in his private quarters and sob until his throat is raw and his voice is nothing. To go back and change it all. To go back and tell himself that Valkesta is a trap—before they march to their death.
His hand darts underneath his cotton sleep shirt, yanking at the leather tie around his neck and pulling it free. The stone, light and weighty all at once, sits in his palm as he closes his fingers around it. The uneven edges, smooth from something before his time, are familiar against his skin as he squeezes it tight.
If he could see his mother again, he would tell her that he loves her.
Staring at the ceiling, rolling the old jade stone between the ridges of his palm, Basuin lays in his bed and doesn’t sleep. He moves and shifts with the waves rocking the ship and replaces the images of that snowy battlefield—that icy graveyard—with the last memories of his mother.
My Bass, she called him, her frail hand squeezing his. Strands of gray mingled with the inky black mess that was her hair. He would have to brush it again for her, braid it back loosely so she could sleep.
The gods say you’re destined, she told him. Destined for something awe-some.
I’ll be great, he said to her. I’ll be a war hero. I’ll bring peace to our home, Ma.
Awe-some, she amended for him. But war, my son, does not bring peace.
Like Basuin, Commander Kensy is up at dawn as well, leaned over the Ha’ria Drokha’s bulwark to watch the sun rise up from beneath the ocean. And it is a sight, no doubt—how the orange rays cast the waters in gold like an illuminated script only the nuns and their habits know mastery of. It shimmers, something magic, as the sky above their heads turns from a deep violet to an indescribable pink.
It smells of morning and sea salt, the air on the main deck. Crisp, but not fresh.
Though his hair is cropped short, Kensy’s blond locks are disturbed by the early breeze blowing off the ocean, which ruffles through the wavering sails dyed a menacing red. He no longer dons his cloak, but rather wears a pair of dark trousers with a white shirt tucked into the hem, not so unlike Basuin’s own outfit.
“This land is beautiful,” Kensy says, perhaps sensing his presence from behind.
“There’s not much land to see,” he answers, and Kensy looks back to catch Basuin’s dark eyes in his blue gaze. Then, Kensy huffs a laugh and gestures for Basuin to join him at the bulwark.
“Bass,” he says, almost melodically and not like Basuin’s mother would. “Maybe you can’t see it, but this will all be ours one day soon.”
“You wish to own the ocean, too?” he asks.
“The queen wishes to own the ocean, and while she’s at it, the rest of the land.”
Basuin shakes his head, letting his chin drop to his chest so he can stare at the waves, glittering golden with dawn’s light. “The ocean can’t be owned.”
With another laugh, Kensy pushes off the bulwark and turns to lean back against it, elbows hanging over the sides as he stares at Bass. He has that grin on his face, where his teeth flash dangerously, that makes Basuin not want to meet his eyes.
“Is this another one of your god-things, Bass?” Kensy licks his chops. “Is there an ocean god I should know about?”
It pricks at something deep inside him. Makes his hands feel hot as he curls them into fists and tucks them under his arms where they’re crossed over his chest so his commander cannot see. Against his chest, warmed by his skin, his mother’s jade stone grows heavier with Kensy’s flippant words.
Ithika, he knows her name to be. If Ithika were to hear Kensy’s words right now, the Ha’ria Drokha and all its men would not make it to shore. But Basuin can’t say so, won’t lay her name at the feet of a non-believer of a man. Basuin is a soldier—he’s not a preacher, and they didn’t build a church in the barracks either.
Gods don’t belong here anymore. The queen made that clear when she outlawed them; when the legion began arresting priests and killing god speakers.
And almost as if Ithika hears him, stone flat to his skin and growing ever warmer, a wave roars up and reaches for the sun as it climbs higher into the sky and crashes against the hull of the ship, rocking them both where they stand. Basuin raises a thick eyebrow at Kensy, whose laugh doesn’t reach his icy eyes.
“Did you pray for them to make proof for me?” Kensy asks, teeth straight and lips curled.
