And though she doesn’t look back at Basuin, Ren’s hand finds his shoulder. A small, soft, barely there touch. Her fingers gloss down his bicep until she finds a wrinkle in his sleeve. Then, she gives it a tug, beckoning him to start moving again.
So, he follows. But for a moment, even as he moves, Ren’s touch lingers. A second too long, like she’s hesitant on letting go. But after that small, staying second, her touch fades, leaving only the echo of her fingers behind.
Basuin was wrong about Ren.
She isn’t a woman who plays in the forest, who plays pretend as a deity getting lost in the woods. Ren is a god.
Chapter 16
Once, when he was still a soldier and had yet to see a promotion, Bass was told his biggest strength was his mind and how he lacked it. The plain rank-cloth he tied around his upper arm every day spoke to that. His first stripe earned was for following orders. His second stripe was for swordsmanship. His third came from a bet—when he dueled a squad sergeant and won.
But Kensy was the first to name Basuin’s real strength, the night before he promoted Basuin to lieutenant of Ariche’s Fleet.
Decisive, Kensy called him. No matter if your choice is right, you know what you want. You follow through. That’s what it takes to be a winner, Bass.
He still admired Kensy in those days. Captain Kensy, who chose Basuin to be his right-hand man. Captain Kensy, who understood sacrifice and how it would win a war.
Captain Kensy, other soldiers used to whisper, when he was still a mere sergeant. Didn’t you hear? He was part of that weird cult in Ha’riste, the one that steals orphan kids and puts ’em in the legion as soon as they can lift a sword.
Commander Kensy, who never seemed to feel loss.
The decision to leave is easy. He makes it as he walks Ren back to Gyeosi. As Yaelic slumbers on, Basuin gathers his things. It’s the worst part of leaving, that Yaelic won’t understand why it’s necessary. Poor pup has gotten so attached to a man he thought to be a god.
But Basuin knows he isn’t a god. The wolf-man, who possesses as much as it pollutes him, is an infection.
Inside him, the wolf-man replies by sinking its canines into the meat of Basuin’s chest and tearing a chunk away from the bone. It digs its snout into the mess it’s made of his organs, bloody and stinking of rot.
Tonight, he’s going to the elder tree. He’ll pray on his hands and knees to be relieved of this duty—to be returned to the Blacksalt Sea. Yaelic does not need him. He’s made a family out of the Gyeosi spirits. Hami will forgive him, once Basuin is gone. Ko and Haaman will help take care of him, too. They seem to have bonded, from where Basuin’s watched from a distance. And Qia will be a good friend to him, maybe more someday. Yaelic doesn’t need a caretaker.
Ren does not need Basuin either. He’s getting in her way—she’s made that clear.
There’s another time of twilight that arrives right before dawn. When the sky turns to lavender and the first stirrings of the sun’s coming warmth are felt. Bass slips out of Yaelic’s grasp and fixes the sheet over the boy’s curled, sleeping frame.
He doesn’t understand how Ren could’ve thought them enemies—Elka and Hwai-ga, the sun and the moon. The sky is painted with proof of their love, their colors mixed on the palette and stroked over the world. This dawn before true dawn, this first twilight—it feels so much like Elka’s hand stretching toward Hwai-ga, their fingers barely missing one another’s.
But they’ll pass each other by, as the cycle of day and night has ruled them so. Bound by duty, but suffering of love.
For once, the wolf-man is quiet, as if ignoring Bass now that he plans to leave. It tore him raw before, but now it lies on the floor of his chest cavity and stares at him through the darkness. Red pinpricks of light for eyes, always watching him.
But as he moves to leave Gyeosi for good, cool air fresh on his skin, the wolf-man presses its snout into his ribs and snuffs. It nudges him forward, and Bass descends the treehouse with no other thought. Something pulls him toward the center of the village and he follows. The wolf-man paws at him. His left palm itches where his mark is burned into his skin.
There’s a small cottage on the eastern side of Gyeosi with a garden of wildflowers attached. He’s seen it before, wondered how the flowers here grow so brightly under the canopy of the forest. But he’s never seen anyone come and go. As he approaches, the wolf-man whines. Bass swallows and turns on his heel before he comes too close, but the wolf-man nudges at him again, more unkindly this time, and Bass walks an edge around the garden instead. It smells so soft and fragrant here, so familiar.
Then, a voice. “Maybe he’s right.” Hushed, and more delicate than he’s heard it before. He can’t help himself. His god mark pulses and burns.
Bass slows his steps, keeping silent as he draws closer to the voice. He sticks to the shadows of the cottage, but peeks around the corner.
And there she sits. She’s perched atop a wickedly curved tree so nonchalantly—gracefully, as if the garden and the wildflowers and the entire forest has arranged itself around her. One knee pulled up to her chest, the other hanging down as her toes barely scrape the ground.
Ren stares up at the same lavender sky, her twilight eyes shining underneath the dimming moonlight.
“Maybe they aren’t enemies,” she continues as if she doesn’t know he watches. “Maybe not everything is a fight.”
He draws in a sharp inhale. She’s speaking to the gods. Does she speak to the godrealm, or is there a god inside her too—like the wolf-man?
Even from here, he can see the smallest downward curve in her lips as she frowns up at the sky. “But this is a fight. It was always going to be. So, I ask you this.” Ren’s small hand parts the breeze in a slow ascent, one finger outstretched toward the moon. “Did you send him as an enemy, or was he meant to be an ally?”
He freezes, ducking back behind the wall of Ren’s cottage and pressing himself flat to the darkness. She speaks of him. And though the wolf-man paws at him, claws at his ribcage as if it were a jail cell, Bass knows he should leave. He feels it in his boots, the driving need to bolt. But he stays.
