No boy should ask to fight. To want to be a soldier.
“I’ll take care of the army,” he tells Yaelic, placing a hand on his small shoulder. “Don’t worry.”
Yaelic’s eyes close, and then he nods. “Yes, Captain.”
In the daylight, when his skin is clear of blood and no smoke lingers in his clothes, Basuin finds Ren sitting with Qia, young girl giggles mixing with the faint hum of a song under Ren’s breath. Qia’s weaving a mix of fronds and flowers together into a crown, which she places atop Ren’s head as she bows for Qia to reach.
“Perfect!” Qia claps her hands. “A crown for the Forest God.”
Ren touches it with gentle fingers. “It’s beautiful, Qia. Thank you.”
“Not as beautiful as you!” Qia chirps back, and Ren’s smile widens into something blinding. And she is. So beautiful, flowers in yellow and white circling her head like a halo, eyes golden and radiant in the light filtering through the canopy. But he doesn’t have the strength to tell her so.
Qia sees him first, bowing her head to him and to Ren, then running off. Ren turns to look at him, still wearing that smile on her perfect lips. She looks so easy right now—no pain, no responsibility. Just a woman.
Before she has a chance to greet him, he says, “I brought you something.”
Her head falls to the side in question. “What is it?”
Basuin sits across from her, hands cupped together to hide the trinket from view. Then, he opens his palms to her. A maroon-painted ocarina, clay shaped by someone’s careful hands. Ren’s lips part, fingers gently running over the holes.
“A hun,” she gasps. “Where did you find it?”
“We call it an ocarina in Xalkhir.” He glances past her other question, not willing to lie to her right now. “You called it a hun?”
Her brows draw together. “It’s the first word that came to mind. They would play these at…” Ren trails off, biting her lip. “I can’t remember.”
Instead of pressing, Basuin pushes the instrument toward her. “Did you know how to play?”
She shakes her head. “Do you?”
“No.”
Ren laughs first—bright and clear and beautiful. And he barks a laugh in response, unable to help himself.
“Thank you,” Ren says, taking the ocarina in her hands and turning it over and over, like she’s searching for the memory in the rounded surface of it. “Maybe I could learn to play it, one day.” There’s a hesitance in her voice. The unease of it all. That there might not be another day for her to learn.
Guilt hits him in waves. He feels torn from side to side. Drawn and quartered. If Ren knew how he’d pulled this trinket off a legion soldier laid face down and slain, she would hate him.
But if he doesn’t stop the army—if he doesn’t win this war in any way he can—then Ren will die.
Basuin crosses his legs beneath him. “What else do you remember?” he asks instead of letting his mind linger on that. He can’t.
Ren’s head tilts again. She chews her lip in thought. “I don’t know. But I remember that they played the huns. There were these… colorful things in the sky.” Ren puts the little wooden instrument in her lap to free up both hands. She paints her palms along their own sky now. “It rode on the wind. I remember running, but I can’t remember what it was. It was all different colors—red and yellow and black and blue.”
“A kite?” he asks.
Ren lights up yet again. “A kite. Yes.”
Bass’ lips curl into a smile. “So, you flew kites as a child, and they played the huns, and you ate gwapyeon.”
Ren’s eyes get faraway again, lashes dark and blinking away the wet sheen that makes her irises sparkle golden. “Yes, I did.”
He leans forward. “Was it fun?”
Now, she meets his gaze, and her smile turns into a grin with a hint of her teeth. “Yes, it was.”
If Basuin could, he’d capture this moment forever. Lock it in a bubble of red magic, create a barrier around them that no one could enter. He reaches for her, fingertips brushing by the delicate skin of her cheeks to tuck fallen strands of her hair behind her ear. She turns pink beneath his touch and his lips curl at the sight of her. He wants this forever, this kind of Ren. He’s terrified to lose it.
