“That’s why you’ve brought me, then?” he asks, knowing it’s an overstep. “The queen wishes to own everything, but you—you’ve always known exactly what you want, Commander.”
Kensy stares him down with an expression one would give a child, condescending but still warm despite the disappointment. It’s a familiar look, one Basuin knows to mean that he’s not clever enough to understand.
“It’s your choice, Bass. You can stay in Shaelstorm and help me. Live out your duty honorably.”
Basuin closes his eyes, chest tight.
“Or I’ll send you home.” Kensy’s chair creaks as he sits back down, an ankle thrown over his knee. “Back to Ankor.”
Chapter 4
Kensy doesn’t leave any time. They pack their things and leave at first dawn. Basuin doesn’t see Tehali before he leaves on his journey into the forest, and whether by design or not, he’s grateful for it. He doesn’t know what to say to her, not yet. Congratulations sounds rueful. You deserve it sounds biting. You should be happy sounds patronizing and mean, and hurt and sad, and angry, and all the things he won’t dare to say aloud.
Soldiers don’t have feelings—they aren’t ordered to. And Basuin is still just a soldier.
“Do you smell that, Bass?” Kensy’s hand falls heavy on his shoulder. “The greenery here is fresh. I wish we could bring it back to Ha’riste when we go.”
Xalkhir is a dry, barren land. Browns and grays color it bleak, where the only green is in the capital, transplanted from the lush valleys of far off and conquered lands. Maybe every war they’ve fought was to steal the warmth and beauty from others to gift to the queen.
No, they went to war with Grimmalia because Grimmalia was the last country that worshipped the gods Xalkhir outlawed. Or, at least that’s what his ma told him. That his father went to war and died over the gods she spoke to, on the nights when Bass could not sleep on the hard floors of their shack and sneaked an eye open to watch the glow of lavender light fill the room from his mother’s prayer-eyes.
Mercel, the first continent Xalkhir colonized, believed in the gods. And they fell—just like Grimmalia will.
As if it might glean something from Kensy, Basuin says, “This is the gods’ land.”
Kensy moves past him, stepping over an overgrown root and ducking under the leaves branching out from the forest. Then, he pulls his machete from his hip and in a clean arc, swipes upward and slices through the thickets of the forest. It falls around him in green jewel-tones.
“Then they should start talking,” Kensy says. “If this is their land, they should lead us to the artifact.” Kensy presses his hand against a low-hanging branch and swings his blade again. It cuts. “I won’t hesitate to make my own trail if they don’t.”
This forest is huge, taking up the entirety of the island and stretching far beyond what the watchtowers can see. And within it, Basuin knows there are gods. He can feel it, prickling the dark, dense hairs on his skin. Dead, perhaps, but there are gods.
Basuin still doesn’t know what happened to all those gods, the ones who died. He’s never known a god as a body. His mother said once, they had them. Bodies. But when they died, they ran through the land, like blood running through veins. They found hiding places, gravesites and burial grounds to mark themselves as real, but their magic waned under all that earth.
That’s what his mother called them, at least. Hiding places, not shrines. They weren’t homes—no god has a home, truly. And now, on this island, he still doesn’t understand it.
Basuin isn’t the most brilliant, but he isn’t dumb. Kensy doesn’t believe in the gods. He probably tricked some poor fool into spilling his guts, then killed the damned man for being a god speaker anyway. This island wasn’t picked for conquest—whatever artifact Kensy is looking for, it must be powerful.
All Kensy believes in is war, and power, and weapons built by man.
But Basuin is a soldier, so he treks behind Kensy gripping his mother’s godstone tight, begging in old prayers he hardly remembers the words to. He fears what Kensy will do if they can’t find this artifact. Basuin might never leave Yesua. That, he doesn’t mind so much. Death wouldn’t taste so bitter in his mouth. But Kensy destroying a land the gods reign over—the idea quickens his heart, pounding in his ears.
He searches for signs and spirits. His mother taught him those, before he enlisted, when he was still a child and believed there was magic pooling in his mother’s palms. Look for markings unable to be recreated by animal or man. Seek out shadows moving faster than eyes can blink. Find trails of light left behind by souls passing through the waters of life. Difficult in a forest such as this one, where the roots of tall oaks have branched out and grown intertwined with one another. Where fallen tree trunks close off paths, creating a maze.
When he looks up at the sky, he can no longer see the northernmost watchtower of Shaelstorm.
It’s when he’s resting against a tall, wide tree, panting as his hand palms the rough bark of the trunk he leans on, that Kensy becomes irritable. Basuin’s strength is failing him, sweat dripping into his brow. He’s lost stamina. Ever since Valkesta—
“Captain,” Kensy calls, a few yards away and waiting. “You’ve lost your fight.”
Basuin wipes the sweat from his brow and struggles to compose himself. “Not at all, Commander. We press forward.”
But Kensy doesn’t move, even as Basuin pushes off the tree, slides down a hilly mound of dirt, and strides toward Kensy. Instead, all he meets are those ice-cold eyes, stormy and narrowed by Kensy’s blond brows.
“And what of the gods?” he asks. “Have they spoken to you yet?”
No. And no matter how tightly he presses his jade stone into the grooves of his palm, they won’t. His ears are washed in the buzzing of the forest as he strains to listen for the gods. It’s the dead leaves crunching beneath the leather soles of his boots as he strides across the forest. The birds chirping at one another and the flap of their wings as they take off into the sky, excited or maybe fearful. The swell of the wind like an inhale, ruffling the forest canopy in exhale.
Before he was dragged to this island, Basuin never would’ve thought things might be easier if Kensy was dead. Back when Kensy spoke to Basuin with camaraderie and respect, as if they both held the same rank. Two men, nothing but a war in common. Now, it might be easier if Basuin had never met Kensy at all. Never joined the military, never shipped off to Grimmalia, never became what the civilians of the capital city called a hero.
