At least the wolf-man told him what he was made for. To protect her.
“But you’re not alone anymore, Ren.” Her grip in his shirt tightens. “I won’t let you be alone ever again.” He cannot fill the vacancy Ko’s left behind, but he can help Ren plant rice and rain lilies in the shape of him.
The one thing he’s always promised her is that they would figure this out together. From the beginning, that was his pledge. Together.
“I know,” she says, curled up against his chest. It’s heavy, this feeling. “But I wanted to. I wanted to kill.”
The admission sears into him. His inhale is sharp.
“I think of killing all the time,” she whispers. “I have wanted to kill, but I won’t do it. I won’t. It isn’t right. I’m not made to kill.” Then, she tucks her head beneath his chin, slotting herself perfectly in his embrace. Her tears run rivulets between his collarbones. “You’re the only one I could ever tell that to, Basuin. You’re the only one who could ever know that.”
“I’ll do it,” he says. It burns so brightly inside him, the space he’s carved out of his ribs for her. “I’ll kill for you.”
Ren stiffens in his grasp, and he almost regrets it. Almost.
After a long moment, she asks, “Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” he answers. “I would kill anyone if it meant protecting you.”
He would’ve killed even Isaniel for her.
It’s inside of him—so much anger and so much guilt, and it’s ruptured into pain like bones breaking to shred through muscle and flesh. It’s cutting. Heavier than the armor he dresses in, and heavier still than the burden of the gods. Fuck what the wolf-man says—fuck whatever duty was bestowed upon him in return for a third chance at life.
Basuin will give up everything. Gladly put his warring hands to use. All for Ren. Just for Ren.
“Do you fear it?” Ren’s voice is quiet. “What will happen if you can’t protect me?”
Yes, the hole where his heart used to be begs him to say. That he fears her death.
“It infuriates me,” he says instead. Ruins him. “I’m angry that they would come here. Angry that they’ve destroyed the forest. Hurt you,” he stresses, and his hand turns to a fist so quickly that the shock of it makes him release it. “I won’t let it happen.”
Fuck whatever debt he owes. Everything he owns, everything he is, belongs to Ren now. Even his fury. Even his rot.
“But all anger stems from fear,” Ren says, her hand right over the space where his heart should be. Her fingers press to it, itch for it. Like she wants to see if it’s there the way he’s always searched for hers.
Yes. He knows this because he fears for Ren the way he feared existing in a world without his mother. Because he feared Kensy, and what Kensy would do to the forest. He feared what he might be if he was no longer a soldier. He feared godhood.
And Basuin still fears exactly what she’s asked—what happens if he can’t protect her?
Ren will die, and it scares him.
“War and peace coexist.” Ren tips his head upward until their eyes meet. Twilight, she’s twilight. Her eyes could be the night sky or they could be stars of silver or they could be where the horizon and the ocean meet, tear-filled and still beautiful. “There cannot be one without the other. You can find peace even at war with them. But if you want peace, then you must forgive yourself.”
Ren reaches for him now, pulling him down until their foreheads press together. “Forgive yourself,” she repeats.
Basuin breathes, heavily, and rests his hand along the back of her neck.
“Have you?” he asks.
She’s silent, and then her fingers curl into a fist resting against his chest. Basuin takes her cheek into his palm, a thumb on her jaw, and brings her mouth to his. He would die to taste peace from her lips. To know what it’s like. To swallow her whole and feel what it means to embody peace.
The way she answers his silent request is with a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth, before she returns to take his bottom lip between hers.
“I swear,” he says, breath against her gossamer lips. “I swear I will protect you, no matter what. Only death will stop me.”
And without hesitation, Ren laughs. But it’s laughter filled to the brim with fear. “But whose death will it be?”
In the darkness of his mind, his howl is a harmony to the wolf-man’s own.
