Isaniel is dead, Isaniel is already dead—
Captain? Isaniel says in that slick, slithering voice of his that Basuin would swear was poisoned like a snake’s fangs, tongue rolling over his teeth, and Basuin whips his head around so quick that the vertebrae in his neck crack.
For a moment, for a flash, Isaniel is standing there. In the middle of the small village hut, the leather straps of his back scabbard crooked and hanging too loose—Basuin always laced it up tighter for him, tighter. So it wouldn’t slip from his shoulders, less broad than the other men. If only he could tighten it now, grab the laces again and pull Isaniel to him, feel his breath ghost along his neck. To fumble with the belt of Isaniel’s harness that was always more work to get off than it was to buckle around his trim waist.
He’d do anything for Isaniel to laugh that haunting, sultry laugh he always saved for when he snuck into Basuin’s bunk during shift change, when the other soldiers wouldn’t catch them.
He’s desperate for it—and then blood pours from the holes in Isaniel’s armor, drenching his tunic and running between the cracks of his mail. No, not this again. He can’t touch Isaniel again. Basuin’s hands are dangerous. He has to apologize before Isaniel dies again.
Then, Isaniel’s hand grabs his shoulder. Touches him.
Basuin lashes out—all that anger, that hurt, that fear. He lashes out, fist curled. Swings, all air. Something hot and rotten bursts from him all at once. It smells of sulfur. Of blood and ash. Like fire ribboned between his fingers. A wave of red magic, pulsing and splashing, jumps from his fist and fills the hut in a bloom of panic.
Don’t touch him. Don’t touch him, Isaniel.
But it never was Isaniel who reached for Basuin first. And as the red glow of magic wanes, Basuin remembers Isaniel is dead. The body who stands a few feet away is too tall to belong to Isaniel. Nor to Yaelic, nor to Ren.
A man, hair long and trailing the floor, flinches away from the red god magic that’s exploded from Basuin’s heaving body. The sleeve of his robe has burned to smoldering cinders, revealing a stretch of pale skin beneath with a muddy-red burn. Basuin’s mouth goes dry.
“My apologies for startling you, Wolf God,” the man speaks, but Basuin’s scrambling to his feet.
“You—” Panic laces his throat. He can hardly speak. “Are you all right?”
Basuin doesn’t know what to do. He moves toward the man, reaching to tear the still-burning sleeve from its wearer, but the man jerks back. It sends another shot of icy panic through Basuin.
Shattered ceramic on the tent floor between them. Blood dripping from his fingertips. Isaniel flinching away from Basuin’s red-stained hand. Eyes full of disgust.
He snaps his fingers into another fist—and another burst of uncontrolled magic floods the room awash in the same color as new blood. The man is quick. Prepared enough this time to dodge. But the sparks of magic catch on Basuin’s sleeping mat. The black mark in his palm burns like the wound is fresh as he chokes.
“I’m sorry,” he tries to say, but it’s swallowed up by pure panic and rage coursing through him. His nonexistent heart beats and squelches in his ears. His hands are so hot now, like he just touched the still-cooling iron stew pot. He needs to beat the fire out of that pot. Drink the stew until it boils this feeling in his belly. Kick and scream until that pot cracks down its side, until the stew seeps out from it and sizzles on the fire, steam filling the house with something awful.
But the man in front of him is still burned, more red and angry than even Basuin is now, as he backs toward the wall.
“I haven’t come to harm you,” he says, voice somehow still calm as he pulls the tatters of his sleeve away.
“I didn’t mean to—” Basuin can’t even speak. “I don’t know how to—”
Cap’n, we oughta stop! Curk shouted, so far away underneath the screaming of the wind. It’s not worth our lives, too!
You’d leave your brother behind? he shouted back, digging his heels into the frozen earth. You’d give up on Tomaas?
He isn’t there, Bass! Isaniel yelled again, again, and again. He isn’t fucking there! Stop!
Basuin grabs his own shaking arm, digging his nails into his flesh in the real world, not in his glass-blown memory. Panic is still building within him, a sob bubbling up in him. Smoke fills the hut. It smells so much of death and he doesn’t know what to do. He’s trapped, halfway in a dream and halfway in a memory, and the man in front of him has paid for it.
Once more, Basuin reaches out toward his victim. And then a small hand catches his wrist, gripping it like a shackle, all bone and twist. In the blue light of god magic, Ren’s eyes are narrowed into sharp obsidian. It could cut into him. Though he cannot see her mouth from behind her arm reaching out to clip his wrist in her hand, he knows her lips are set in a harsh line of fury.
Behind him, her magic stamps out the fire he’s started. He isn’t breathing—no one seems to be. All he can do is stare into Ren’s dark eyes, which sear into him with judgment and distaste.
“You’re just like them,” Ren seethes. “You hurt the forest, you hurt my people—just like your people came here to do.” She doesn’t release his wrist.
Basuin flounders, biting his tongue. “It was an accident,” he says in lieu of an apology. He thinks he should, but it doesn’t slither out of his mouth. He can’t make himself say the words.
“Do you always feign ignorance for your crimes?” she snarls at him. “You would hurt anyone if it meant fulfilling your needs, wouldn’t you?” The spark of anger in her voice is so different than he’s heard before. He nearly recoils in surprise, her words aimed for his throat and choking him. His mouth tastes of smoke.
Ren breaks her grasp around his wrist, unbinding him. Bass staggers back, free. When he can finally pull his eyes from hers, the man he burned is gone. Fled from the wrath of the Wolf God.
“I didn’t mean to,” he stutters out, but it changes nothing. Feigning ignorance for a crime. That’s how soldiers operate. No—no, it was never ignorance. It was duty. Under oath and command. Soldiers had an excuse; they were given one. Kensy is the one who dragged him here. It’s Kensy’s fault.
