He drops to a crouch, creeping forward. Whoever is in the forest doesn’t make a sound, disappearing behind a thick-trunked oak into another throng of trees.
Bass rushes them, leaping out—but there’s no one there. No one at all.
He breathes, hard. A trick of the light. He turns to head back to camp.
There, a flash of golden hair. Isaniel.
No, fuck. It can’t be. It wouldn’t. Paranoia trickles in like ice water in his veins. Bass whips his head around, looking at all angles of the forest. Isaniel.
But when he looks back, Isaniel is gone. There was nothing ever there.
He’s been fooled by his own mind. Again. Nothing at all.
Basuin sinks to his knees in the middle of the woods, breathing heavy and quick. That space in his chest is buzzing, like it’s been set aflame. He’s been through this before—seen it before in the darkness of his quarters, from his bed in the healing bay. Isaniel’s ghost come back to haunt him.
It will never end.
There’s an ache filling him as he trudges back toward camp. The feeling of Ren’s hands on his face, calling to him, waking him from what she believed was a nightmare. If only he could feel that again. The softness of her. How is her skin so honeyed, still? After all the fires in her forest?
He falls to his bedroll, lying beneath the stars, catching his breath. It’s over now. It’s just a memory. Isaniel is buried beneath the snow on the Valkesi Mountains, never to return. He’s at the Winter River. Basuin must get to the Winter River, before Kensy can.
Basuin has to get there first.
He’s the last to fall asleep, still wracked with worry, and the first to wake, mouth dry and back aching. He sits up with a quiet grunt, rubbing his scar until the itch is gone, wiping the crust of sleep from the squinting crack that blurs his vision.
When he stands to stretch his legs, turning to head into the woods, he’s stopped with a pit sinking into his stomach. An oak tree stands shrunken before him, no leaves on its withered branches. A large, uneven square has been cut into its trunk and stripped of bark. And in that trunk, words have been burned into the flesh.
YOUR GODS CHOSE WRONG.
Basuin chokes. He steps forward, placing his palm to the marred trunk—but it collapses, the tree shattering into dead wood to reveal a broken heap of a man dressed in long robes. Ko’s long hair is stringy along the forest, matted to his face with blood.
He drops to his knees, hands hovering over Ko’s body. “Ren!” One hand to Ko’s face, the other searching for a heartbeat. “Ren!” he calls again, voice ragged.
Movement starts, quick and chaotic, as Bass’ shouts make it across the camp. And then, a scream. Agonizing. Pure unfettered pain. It rings out so terribly that even Basuin flinches with the ache.
Haaman wails—an animal that’s lost its mate—tumbling to the ground on their hands and knees before they can even reach Ko’s body. They howl, head pressed to the dirt, and he can’t bear to look. The sound of Haaman’s screams vibrate through Bass’ bones.
Ren slides across the ground on her knees, clutching Ko’s face. She searches for something, then arranges Bass’ hands on Ko’s cold body. One on his chest, one on his stomach. She doesn’t say a word, one hand on Ko’s forehead, the other on his throat.
Clenching his eyes shut, Bass floods Ko’s body with all the magic he can, following Ren’s lead. Her magic is more graceful and confident—much like she is—and his magic intertwines with hers to power it.
And then he’s tackled, hands pulled from Ko’s body, rolling across the forest. Haaman is bawling, making inhuman sounds like the screech and squawk of a bird.
“Haaman!” Ren yells, but her hands don’t stop pumping healing magic into Ko.
Bass struggles beneath Haaman. He needs to help revive Ko. But Haaman takes his head and slams it upon the ground—once, twice. Bass’ vision shutters.
“You killed him!” Haaman’s fist strikes Bass’ jaw. Then, his nose. Pain explodes as it cracks over his skin but Bass doesn’t try to stop them. He doesn’t raise a single hand to them.
Haaman strikes again, tears and spit dripping from their face onto Bass, and misses. Their hand hits the ground and Bass hears the snap of bone. Another scream is torn from between Haaman’s teeth. They just switch hands, punching Bass again. And again. Until he tastes blood in his mouth.
There is no Ko to calm them. And Ren, when he has a split second to look, is slumped over Ko. Haaman’s fist whiffs by, but their fingers catch in his hair and whip his head back into the ground a third time. Stars burst in the back of his mind.
“Haaman,” Ren calls again, her voice exhausted. “You have to stop. You need to come to him.”
Then, Haaman’s weight is off him and they’re shrieking again, kicking at the ground as they’re pulled away. When Bass opens his eyes, vision fuzzy, Yaelic has risked violence to wrench Haaman away.
Still crying and heaving, Haaman crawls on all fours toward Ko’s body, collapsing atop him. Basuin’s stomach twists. It’s sickening to watch. Horrific. If he squints enough, this forest turns into a battlefield, strewn with dead men and women and all their body parts.
