Kensy doesn’t lie. Kensy never lies. He reaches for his rifle and Basuin runs. Flees into the forest, darts behind the trees. A shot goes off—too close, so close. It rings in his ears. Kensy didn’t lie. The wolf-man howls until it shatters his eardrums, the same pitch as the bullet cutting through the woods. Something surges within him, more god than human, and the trees blur past him as he sprints faster than ever. Gone faster than Kensy can catch up.
Kensy meant it—and it lingers like the blood coating his tongue. He’ll do whatever it takes. Burn down this whole forest to get what he wants, like Basuin burned Ulenski. A victory and a funeral march, all in one.
Basuin can’t go back to Shaelstorm, but he can’t stay here, either. Kensy’s threat wasn’t meant for Bass. It was meant for the gods. He should’ve known better; he should’ve known from the start.
But there’s too much hanging in the balance now. Messy gods and duty and murder and death. His choice is just. He’ll go to the elder tree and give up godhood. He’ll give Ren’s magic back so she can protect her people. And he’ll be out of the picture.
When Basuin returns to Gyeosi, Yaelic runs to meet him. The boy clings first to his shirt, then gives a proper bow. He yaps on, like a pup would, about how he spent his day. How Ko taught him about Gyeosi, and how he and Hami are still fighting, but it won’t last, it never does with them. And that there are newcomers. Refugees, from the south.
All he can think of, trembling hands tucked under his arms as Yaelic walks back to their hut alongside him, is that Kensy isn’t going to stop. He won’t stop until the forest is completely burned to the ground, until he finds that godly artifact for Queen Ye’suite.
And when he sees Ren, sitting among other spirit villagers, he nearly turns to meet her. To warn her. Kensy told him that first.
Warn them that we are coming.
Basuin pauses, staring straight across the village at her. She sits with the family of refugees, their heads bowed to her in thanks, but Ren holds his gaze instead. Her eyes are narrowed in that same glare, still soured from their earlier argument. Until something changes, and then her face softens into something else. Realization, and then confusion—a new weariness—moves in. It deepens the frown on her mouth, and Basuin hates that.
Then, behind her, a refugee raises his head. His eyes are full of hatred. Regret, and hatred, and blame, all pointed straight at Ren.
Refugees, from the south, where the army has razed clean.
Part of him wants to put himself in between them—shield Ren from those hateful eyes. But a better part of him knows she would first cut his throat.
So he swallows and continues onward, heading up the stairs with Yaelic pulling at him.
Ren can worry about the forest. Basuin is done being a god. She’ll get her magic back, Basuin will die, and everyone will be happy.
These are her lands, and her people, and her problem. Basuin’s presence is a pitfall. No more hurting spirits. No more learning tricks and playing games to try and make magic that doesn’t even belong to him. None of it. This was a mistake.
Basuin coming here—Basuin being deified—was a mistake. And the sooner he leaves, the better the chance Ren has at saving her own forest. Right?
Something heavy presses into his spine, fissuring his bones. The weight of his supply pack when he carried it up the mountains and into Valkesta. The weight of the bodies they recovered, strapped to two soldiers each, and the pieces they found in the snow that they shoved in a bloody pack and carried back down to the encampment.
Can Ren really stop Kensy—alone?
Chapter 14
This time, it’s he who finds Ren—in hopes for a goodbye, maybe. Pitiful of him, to want something so simple from her, when their common ground is found in spite. But he can’t deny himself. Not when this will be his last night.
The moon is shadowed by passing clouds threaded with silver light. She stands beneath it, still awake, leaning against the knot-rope railings and staring up at the sky. He climbs the steps to meet her, weight held by the rope-spun banister, and looks upward to gaze at the moon as she does. The moon god has a name, but he can’t remember it. If his mother still lived, she would scold him, warmly, but all the same.
“Hwai-ga,” Ren names her, just as he considers asking. “Do you think them enemies?”
“Who?”
“Elka and Hwai-ga,” she says. “The sun and the moon.”
Bass looks over, but Ren keeps her stare steady. The silver light pouring from the sky illuminates her face in a way that looks magical. Godly.
“No,” he says, taken aback. “They’re lovers. My mother told me their stories. How Elka would warm the sky because she knew that Hwai-ga gets cold without her. So Elka blanketed the world, hoping it would be enough to keep her love warm.”
Ren’s lips slowly, so slowly, curve into a smile. The smallest of smiles.
“How sad,” she says. “To watch your lover from such a distance, not ever being able to touch them. All you can do is try and leave your warmth behind for them to remember you by.”
Her words are a blade driven between his ribs, aimed for a heart he no longer has. It knocks the air out of him completely and Bass covers his mouth to keep from wheezing. How sad, indeed. He remembers so much of his time spent watching Isaniel from afar, curbing his glances so as to not arouse suspicion. The little things Isaniel would leave behind, proof that he existed and slept in the same cot as Bass, because by morning, he’d already slunk out of Bass’ bunk and snuck back into his own.
Not only sad, but somehow unkind in its own way. Maybe he should see it as a kindness, as he always saw Elka’s heat as a kindness to Hwai-ga.
