It aches. Oh, it hurts. Agonizing and bleeding. Basuin tries to catch his breath.
“It’s different,” he croaks out. “With her, it’s different.”
“You’ve wanted for death before, but hear me, boy,” the wolf-man growls. “Your life belongs to her. It always has. But now, her life belongs to you, too.”
“What?” Basuin gasps, looking for the wolf-man. He whips his head around in the darkness, but it’s nowhere to be found.
In a blink, it appears before him, crouching to his level. “If you die again, little soldier boy, then she will die with you.”
Basuin’s eyes are wild, an ache overtaking his body. No, no, no—that can’t happen.
“No longer will death solve your problems, Basuin of Ankor,” it tells him, a laugh crushed between its canines. “You cannot squirm out of your duty any longer, even if you wanted to. Now, you have no choice.”
He chokes on nothing but the taste of blood. No, this can’t be true. Basuin doesn’t want to die anymore—he doesn’t. But what happens if he does?
You’ll go nowhere, Ren told him once. Not even to the Blacksalt Sea. He’ll go nowhere.
“And she’ll go with you,” the wolf-man says. “This is the sacrifice you’ve made. This is the sacrifice you’ll keep.”
It stands, leaving Basuin writhing on the ground. “But I’ll lead you there,” it says.
“Where?” he asks, gasping for the air that’s been stolen from him. He can’t die here; he needs to breathe. If he dies, she’ll die too. He can’t die.
“To Sa-cha,” the wolf-man says, a harsh laugh filling the darkness. “From the Winter River, there arose a god, and that god was Sa-cha, and he was good,” it recites in prayer. “Isn’t that what you asked for, little soldier boy?”
He coughs, choking, and the wolf-man dissolves into nothingness.
Basuin, someone calls as he lies on the floor. Basuin, wake up.
He doesn’t want to. Go away, go away, go away.
Basuin, wake up, they plead, voice so far from here. The darkness is sweeping him away, down the river, into the Blacksalt Sea.
Wake up, they say, hand on his face. And Basuin opens his eyes again.
Above him, Ren holds his jaw in her small hand, onyx eyes filled with concern. Her other hand is pressed to his chest, a blue glow tickling his skin. Bass captures it in his own, fingers swallowing hers, and she spooks.
Everything is murky, but this isn’t the darkness and the wolf-man is happily inside of the cavity it carved out for itself. Bass surges upward, Ren sitting back on her heels beside him.
“Are you all right?” she asks, voice rife with anxiety. “Was it a nightmare? You—”
He doesn’t listen. Bass takes the godstone where it hangs around Ren’s neck, his hand coated in red magic. He squeezes; magic bleeds into the jade. Ren watches him, jaw slackened as the words she wanted to say tumble out of her mouth.
Ma, he prays, eyes open and hands desperate. Ma, please, help us to the Winter River. Help me to find Sa-cha, before it’s too late.
Help him to save Ren. Because unlike Valkesta, where he ignored the prophetic visions laid before him, he’s listening. He’s seeing. Ren’s fate is right in front of him, killed and cut and dressed and pickled and plated. He sees it—he won’t let it happen.
Basuin is a god. It has to be different this time. Please, let it be different this time.
The wolf-man inside him stretches up and unhinges its maw, then howls so loud and so aching that Bass can taste blood in his mouth.
He looks up, his eyes finding Ren’s. Gorgeous, her eyes, all obsidian and sharp. Right now, she looks at him like he’s falling apart in her hands, and he’s tortured by how easily he could slip his fingers through the spaces between hers.
A bright ruby-red trail appears right over Ren’s shoulder, winding through the trees behind them. It stretches out until it’s a wisp, disappearing into the forest, and he knows this is what his sacrifice paid for.
Go, the wolf-man pushes him. Time will not be kind to you.
Much of the world hasn’t been kind to him. But his mother was, and Tehali was, and Isaniel had kind hands that made up for the unkind words he carried with every mug of ale.
