Basuin would beg her to, if she’ll keep looking like that. More a woman now than a god, with perfectly shaped lips and a soft sloped nose and kind slants for eyes, who was human enough to ignore him out of anger. Human enough to fear that he would leave her.
He could cry, she’s so beautiful. Gods damn him.
“You’re funny,” she says, and it’s so startling that he blinks. But she’s wearing that soft, downy look still as she stares at him.
“What?”
“I thought, at first, that you were selfish.”
That strikes him. Painfully. Then, honestly. “You would be right,” he says.
But Ren shakes her head. “I was wrong. You worry so much for others, care for them so much, but you hide it. You fear it—being afraid.”
Bass rears back. “Is that what you think?”
“I do.” Slowly, Ren pulls her hand away from his and he watches her flee. He wants to snatch it back, to intertwine their fingers, even now. “You claim to not be a protector, that you don’t want to be—but you do it anyway. Every person you try to protect is another fear to carry. Isn’t it?”
His hand tightens into a quick fist, bones aching. “Very funny of me, then.” Bass stopped trying to protect people a long time ago. The only reason he even cares to protect Ren is because of this godsdamned thing in his chest—
He beats his fist against his heart at the exact moment the wolf-man lunges, teeth bared, at Bass’ ribs to crush them. That’s not true. That’s not true at all. He knows it.
And just like that, the light she’s been projecting cuts off. He closes his eyes to pretend it’s been dark this whole time.
“I just don’t want you to fear me,” Ren finally says, her voice low.
Fear for you, he almost says. He fears for her. But maybe that’s the same as fearing her.
Instead, he presses his thumbnail into one of the lines of his god mark. “You’re the same way.” He can feel Ren’s eyes on him. “You try to keep everything at a distance. Even the forest.”
Eventually, his nail breaks skin and Basuin bleeds.
“But I don’t fear you,” he says. And he means it—even when he opens his eyes and sees the wrecked countenance Ren wears like a white flag.
Chapter 24
With Ren’s forgiveness, Bass feels renewed. Alive, again, and more determined than ever to understand Kensy’s plans for the forest—and for Ren. It’s a familiar feeling, out of breath and running straight ahead toward battle. But not as a soldier, this time. As a god.
So why does he still feel so powerless? His palm pressed gently against the back of the world, hand guiding the shoulders of the forest forward. The forest’s body brushing against his side, her hip bumping his when their gaits match, crossing congruently every few steps.
Once, before, Ren would have stretched the distance between them into something easily measured. But now, he doesn’t know what to call the small breadth of space separating them that she closes without even noticing.
How can he feel powerless when this power is one he’s worked so tirelessly to gain?
It’s so human, to trust someone. And Ren was human once. Just as he was.
“What was the forest like?” he asks when they stop by a creek to refill their waterskins. “Before the army came.”
“Peaceful,” Ren answers, eyes cast down to the water.
“Don’t give me that,” he shoots back. “What was it really like?”
She cuts a glare at him that isn’t as intimidating as she must think it is. But then she hums, tilting her head and capping her waterskin. “Brighter. The sky wasn’t filled with smoke. And louder. The spirits were so much livelier than they are now. It’s so quiet now, so—”
The river splashes. Ren’s hand cuts through the water as she catches herself on the bank, curled over in pain. Her gasp is swallowed by the run of the river. Bass darts forward, one hand on her back, the other searching for whatever wound has found her.
“Where?”
Ren coughs, wiping her mouth on her arm. “It’s all right.” But then she coughs again, holding her stomach. A spatter of blood covers her chin. She wipes it away again, quicker this time. “It’s nothing.”
