He doesn’t mean it as a slight, but Haaman thrusts their arms out and the spiny feathers covering their skin seem to flex and harden again.
“Not a chance,” they say, and then they run back into the fray.
He follows, content to do the same—and then the howl of agony becomes the scream of a child.
“Hami!”
Basuin sprints toward Yaelic. That scream is a command, as powerful a guide as the magic linking him to Ren. He clears the battlefield, what used to be a village, charging through the army.
And there sits Yaelic, in the middle of the fighting, on his knees in front of an unmoving body. No.
But then there’s a soldier, sword raised above his head, glinting like a guillotine about to drop upon Yaelic’s neck.
No.
Inside him, the wolf-man breaks its own spine to contort into the shape of Basuin’s ribs. Its bones drive into his bones, its blood becomes his own. And its fury, not so unlike the boiling in Basuin’s gut, races up his throat until the veins in his neck thicken and pulse. His whole body burns with god magic.
The scar of his god mark burns. The wolf-man growls and rises onto both hind legs, sharp claws embedded into all Basuin’s organs as it snaps its teeth, hungry for violence.
He feels it in his left palm, a pulsating heat that grows until his fingers are tight around the soldier’s neck, god mark searing into the man’s flesh as a brand. Bass takes the soldier’s head and bashes it into his knee, and the force, backed by magic, ends the man’s life and he crumples in Bass’ hold. Bass tosses him away. He reaches for Yaelic.
At his touch, Yaelic screams. Jade eyes wide, tears streaming down his face, jaw unhinged. Boyish hands covered in familiar blood.
Fire rages around them, soldiers and spirits clashing. The air shifts and Basuin turns out of instinct alone to skewer a man on his sword. And another. And then another, before he can fire a bullet from his gun.
He walks circles around Yaelic and the limp, white body draped over the boy’s legs, killing soldiers before they can kill first. Acting as a barrier between the battlefield and this bubble of grief Yaelic rests in. The boy is still screaming. Howling, staring empty-eyed at his brother.
Basuin kills them all. He takes, and he takes, and he takes—just as he was taught. There is no god of death, his mother once told him. That belongs to us mortals.
The spirits who are left alive bring water from the creek to stamp out the rest of the fire. Basuin fights the ache of his muscles as he yanks his sword from the last body, hand trembling from exhaustion. Beside him, Haaman’s feathers are gone, replaced by blood that’s still damp on their skin. There’s a pain in their beady black eyes that speaks to the carnage and loss as they walk through the village, checking the bodies of soldiers to confirm they are all dead. There is so much blood. Too much of it.
But it floods Gyeosi—what’s left, at least. Red is washed away by the creek water, but not enough of it. It stains the forest floor.
Yaelic doesn’t move, nor speak, when Basuin crouches beside him. He sits kneeled amidst the sea of bodies, shaking, white fur laid across his lap. It looks like the white clothes of Ren, always clean and never stained somehow.
Hami’s fur is soft, warm, and still. Basuin’s god mark burns as he lifts Hami’s head, black eyes open, and glazes over with a film of tears. Then, a red glow encases its body, magic pouring from his hand into Hami, and a spirit rises from it. Yaelic is washed in red, head tipped up to look, the splatter of blood across his face blending into his skin in the glow of magic.
Hami, small and scared, stands in front of them now. His hands, the hands of a child, are balled into fists. Basuin might hurl. Hami’s eyes, shades darker than his brother’s, are stricken with fear and pain. His mouth parts as he shakes.
“I’m dead,” he whispers. “I think I’m dead.”
A crushing pain fills his chest as he reaches, hands coated in red magic, for Hami. Tears spill down Hami’s cheeks and catch on Basuin’s thumbs.
“I’m scared.”
“I know,” he says, voice low. “It’s all right.”
Hami cries into his dirtied hands, eyes shut tight. Basuin doesn’t hush him. He holds Hami through it, wiping away as many tears as he can, as the boy sobs through his own death.
“I’m sorry,” he tells Hami. If he was any better with words, had any sort of brain in his head, he’s sure he could come up with something better to say. But he can’t. And truly, he’s sorry.
And then Yaelic howls. His scream is so guttural it’s inhuman—all animal and all newborn and all man and all pain. Excruciating.
Yaelic falls onto his hands in front of Hami’s spirit, bawling. “No!” he cries, barely breathing. “Hyung! Please, Hyung, no—I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.” He reaches for Hami’s ankle, for anything to hold onto, but his hand passes right through the spirit. Elbows in the dirt, Yaelic crawls toward his brother, begging over and over and over.
This was the duty Basuin ignored. The command he shrugged off. Soldiers do what they are told. Gods are given duties—things to protect, things to grow, things to harvest. Basuin should’ve been here, in Gyeosi with Ren, protecting the forest from his people.
Protecting Hami from his own comrades.
