“You’re all right, Captain,” she tells him, rather than asking. He’s glad for that. “We’re nearly to the bastion now.” Then, she yanks something off her belt and shoves it into his trembling hands. His fingers recognize the yak fur of her waterskin, and gratefully, he pops the cork and tips it back against his mouth.
The clean water washes away the taste of blood he isn’t sure is real—from his bitten tongue—or his imagination.
He wipes his mouth on his sleeve as Tehali takes her bladder back to hook at her waist again. Through it all, she hasn’t let him stop moving, eyes glancing over her shoulder at their commander as though she worries he might see.
And she should be worried. Basuin should be worried. If Kensy were to see him having another attack—
That’s what got him here. On the island Yesua. Brought him to the Shaelstorm Bastion.
If Kensy saw him having another attack, he would discharge Basuin for good. A captain who panics in the middle of battle is a dead man. And Basuin would rather be a dead man than be discharged. Pulling him from the front lines was shameful enough.
He doesn’t thank Tehali, but he doesn’t snap at her to stop coddling him either, which is as grateful as he can be right now. His chest still cries for reprieve, smoke stinging his eyes and the taste of blood coating his mouth. But in a blink, Basuin stands before the iron-barred gates of the bastion, following the rest of his fleet inside.
Shaelstorm is lively. More so than the legion’s headquarters back in Ha’riste, the capital city. The citizens of Ha’riste are all products of the war, trudging through the city of mud and stink and gambling on whether they will die from famine or from a shanking first. Shaelstorm is warmer than he thought it would be. He passes by soldiers who have shed their cloaks and outer layers, whose sweat glistens upon their backs in the golden sunlight.
One such man, bent over a forge that glows brightly and emits a heat unlike any other, stands to stretch and wipe away the waterfall of sweat from his brow. His eyes roam over the soldiers marching off the Ha’ria Drokha in an easy curiosity, until his gaze falls upon Basuin.
The man barks out a laugh. Basuin’s first instinct is to clench his fists at the disrespect, the soles of his feet hot and itching to barrel down a soldier beneath his rank who would dare laugh at him. But then shame floods him, and his fingers unfurl.
“It’s an honor, Black Wolf,” the man shouts at him, a grin on his lips and a snicker cutting through his teeth.
“Watch it,” Tehali snaps back, and Basuin can see how the soldier’s legs straighten and his chin raises to greet her at attention, that simpering smile wiped from his dirty mouth. Once, Basuin had the power to make men cower that way.
Now, he’s laughable.
Basuin shakes Tehali’s hand from his shoulder gruffly, sick to his stomach at the thought of her protecting him yet again. He picks up speed, stomping through the trail and past the other men from his fleet to get away from her—from that lone soldier, from Kensy—and she reaches for his elbow in protest. He jerks away.
“Enough,” he says, looking over his shoulder at her with eyes hot like embers, words as sharp as the sword on his hip. Basuin doesn’t look long enough to see how her face might contort into fury, or maybe something worse. He pulls away and lets his long legs carry him past the gates of the Shaelstorm Bastion.
Chapter 3
Shaelstorm looks out over the water they arrived by. Standing at the top of the southern watchtower and holding his mother’s jade stone as he looks over the balcony, the view is the one good thing he’s found since beginning the journey to Yesua. From up here, the ocean can’t draw him back. The salt in the wind isn’t enough to pull him into her depths.
After scaring off the soldier on watch duty, it’s quiet. The sun sinks down, melting into the horizon, as his fingers fumble with the stone sitting atop his sternum.
Captain, Aless reached for him with hands stained red, am I going to die?
Sa-cha, he prays now, to the god of the Winter River, please tell me that Aless has found peace at the mouth of your body.
But there is no answer to his prayer. There never is.
Some people deserve to go to the Winter River—kids like Aless, who died honorable, horrific deaths—and rest undisturbed in sanctuary. The beautiful afterlife; the peaceful death, where Basuin’s mother went. And then there are people who don’t deserve to go to the Winter River, like Basuin.
When he was a child, his mother used to try and teach him. She explained her connection to the gods as a tree still growing its roots, reaching far down into the groundwater of the earth and searching for sustenance, unfurling and extending until it found its life source.
Your heart-bone is the tree, she told him, tracing a line up his sternum and tapping against the hollow of his throat. You must reach and stretch and grow, my son.
But no matter how tall Basuin grew, no matter how much he stretched himself thin between his duty to his mother, to his deities, and to his country—the gods eluded him. And still, even as he carries his mother’s godstone and prays on every sun dawning and every moon waning, they do not call for him. He listens, but they do not speak.
He misses his mother.
The sound of footsteps, quick but steady up the stairs of the watchtower, makes him tuck the warmed jade back inside the collar of his shirt. Basuin stares out at the water as his visitor comes to stand beside him. All is quiet again for a moment, sans the crowing of birds in the trees that have yet to be cut down. Then, his visitor grabs onto the balcony bars, slipping their legs through the holes in the wooden banisters to sit dangerously on the edge.
The familiar sight of Tehali’s many piercings, hair braided tight along the side of her head to show off her golden trinkets, makes him sigh, shoulders slumping.
“This island is grayer than mine, but still feels like home.” She stretches out, breathing a noise of relief out through her pierced nose. “I miss it. Don’t you miss home, Captain?”
A prickle of annoyance hits the back of his neck, but he brushes it off. The air between them is left unchanged, unending. He doesn’t answer.
