But she sits at the river, still hunched over, even as he tries to help her. “Can you stand?”
She breathes heavily. “Give me a moment.”
When he finally picks her up off the ground, carrying her weight until she can get her feet underneath her, Ren pulls the hem of her shirt up to reveal the bruising—purple and blue marring her stomach. The taste of sick rolls over his tongue and dries his mouth.
Ren pants, her eyes glassy with pain as she looks at him. “Can you heal me? We need to go—a spirit is calling for me. I have to save them.”
His eyes go wide. Scar aching. “You’re hurt.”
“I have to save them,” she snarls at him, and the agony in her voice can’t crow over the fear that shakes her words. “Please, Basuin.”
He can’t deny her. He could never deny her anything anymore. So instead, he presses his hand to her body, coated in red magic, and concedes.
“Okay,” he says. “We’ll save them.”
Together, they run through the forest—Ren is faster, but his strides are longer. She dances through the trees, twisting and turning, but he barrels through even as the branches whip and scratch his skin. Birds scatter overhead.
“We’re close,” Ren calls back to him.
“I can feel it,” he answers. The sky darkens. The smell of smoke curls in his nostrils. He holds his breath because he’s already sick enough at the sight of Ren’s bruises. The army is close again. Too close, just as Haaman told them.
All too quickly, Ren skids to a stop, and Basuin nearly crashes into her. He pants, looking over the top of her head into a parting of trees. A sea of white and red. Valkesta.
And in the middle of it all, Kensy.
This is a nightmare. He’s trapped again. He needs to wake up. Wake up. Wake—
Ren takes one step backward, into him, and his hands fall to her arms to pull her tight to his chest. This isn’t a nightmare at all. He’s wide awake. Ren needs to run. Please, run.
Kensy, standing among the wreckage of dying spirits like some king conqueror, upright and stoic, turns his head to look over his shoulder at them. The corner of his lip is pulled into a snarling grin.
A harbinger of destruction.
“So,” Kensy takes a roundabout step to face them. “You’ve found yourself a god.” His lopsided grin shouldn’t be so menacing. Basuin growls, a deep-rooted fear in his nonexistent heart reaching up to escape his throat. He wants to blame the wolf-man for it.
Underneath his hands, Ren trembles. Terrified, or raging, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t want Kensy to look at her. He shouldn’t be allowed to even know of her existence. He’ll kill Kensy if he tries to touch her.
The dead, and dying, and bleeding, and twitching bodies of the rabbits laid at Kensy’s feet make Basuin boil alive in his own skin. A black eyeball rolls to look at him, its owner’s hindleg still thumping as if it can escape from its own death.
Help me, the spirit begs him. I’m so afraid.
Basuin’s nostrils flare. “You did this.” A statement; not even an accusation.
Kensy laughs. “Of course I did.” He sets a hand on his belt, a holstered pistol at his side. “I forget you’re as dumb as a dog, Bass.”
It stings, but he barely feels it under the rolling waves of anger. “Dumb enough you thought you could manipulate me. Dumb enough you thought you could bring me here and make me do your dirty work.”
Dumb enough to do it for nearly a decade. When did that start? When had their camaraderie transformed from friends, to favors, to force, to foe? For years, they’ve been on the same side of a fight. For years, Basuin thought Kensy only wanted the best for him. Kensy said he would help Basuin climb to success. But all he did was turn Bass into a war machine that killed when Kensy said kill.
They used to just be two men who had nothing—no family, no friends, and nothing to love. Nothing but war.
Maybe they’re still that. So why did Kensy turn out to be so cruel?
And now, Kensy’s lips press together in a knowing, snaking smile.
“Dumb enough that I did.”
No, this isn’t war. This is Kensy doing what he pleases. Being needlessly cruel for the fun of it. Killing for sport, hunting for game.
