Chapter 24
With Ren’s forgiveness, Bass feels renewed. Alive, again, and more determined than ever to understand Kensy’s plans for the forest—and for Ren. It’s a familiar feeling, out of breath and running straight ahead toward battle. But not as a soldier, this time. As a god.
So why does he still feel so powerless? His palm pressed gently against the back of the world, hand guiding the shoulders of the forest forward. The forest’s body brushing against his side, her hip bumping his when their gaits match, crossing congruently every few steps.
Once, before, Ren would have stretched the distance between them into something easily measured. But now, he doesn’t know what to call the small breadth of space separating them that she closes without even noticing.
How can he feel powerless when this power is one he’s worked so tirelessly to gain?
It’s so human, to trust someone. And Ren was human once. Just as he was.
“What was the forest like?” he asks when they stop by a creek to refill their waterskins. “Before the army came.”
“Peaceful,” Ren answers, eyes cast down to the water.
“Don’t give me that,” he shoots back. “What was it really like?”
She cuts a glare at him that isn’t as intimidating as she must think it is. But then she hums, tilting her head and capping her waterskin. “Brighter. The sky wasn’t filled with smoke. And louder. The spirits were so much livelier than they are now. It’s so quiet now, so—”
The river splashes. Ren’s hand cuts through the water as she catches herself on the bank, curled over in pain. Her gasp is swallowed by the run of the river. Bass darts forward, one hand on her back, the other searching for whatever wound has found her.
“Where?”
Ren coughs, wiping her mouth on her arm. “It’s all right.” But then she coughs again, holding her stomach. A spatter of blood covers her chin. She wipes it away again, quicker this time. “It’s nothing.”
But she sits at the river, still hunched over, even as he tries to help her. “Can you stand?”
She breathes heavily. “Give me a moment.”
When he finally picks her up off the ground, carrying her weight until she can get her feet underneath her, Ren pulls the hem of her shirt up to reveal the bruising—purple and blue marring her stomach. The taste of sick rolls over his tongue and dries his mouth.
Ren pants, her eyes glassy with pain as she looks at him. “Can you heal me? We need to go—a spirit is calling for me. I have to save them.”
His eyes go wide. Scar aching. “You’re hurt.”
“I have to save them,” she snarls at him, and the agony in her voice can’t crow over the fear that shakes her words. “Please, Basuin.”
He can’t deny her. He could never deny her anything anymore. So instead, he presses his hand to her body, coated in red magic, and concedes.
“Okay,” he says. “We’ll save them.”
Together, they run through the forest—Ren is faster, but his strides are longer. She dances through the trees, twisting and turning, but he barrels through even as the branches whip and scratch his skin. Birds scatter overhead.
“We’re close,” Ren calls back to him.
“I can feel it,” he answers. The sky darkens. The smell of smoke curls in his nostrils. He holds his breath because he’s already sick enough at the sight of Ren’s bruises. The army is close again. Too close, just as Haaman told them.
All too quickly, Ren skids to a stop, and Basuin nearly crashes into her. He pants, looking over the top of her head into a parting of trees. A sea of white and red. Valkesta.
And in the middle of it all, Kensy.
This is a nightmare. He’s trapped again. He needs to wake up. Wake up. Wake—
Ren takes one step backward, into him, and his hands fall to her arms to pull her tight to his chest. This isn’t a nightmare at all. He’s wide awake. Ren needs to run. Please, run.
Kensy, standing among the wreckage of dying spirits like some king conqueror, upright and stoic, turns his head to look over his shoulder at them. The corner of his lip is pulled into a snarling grin.
A harbinger of destruction.
“So,” Kensy takes a roundabout step to face them. “You’ve found yourself a god.” His lopsided grin shouldn’t be so menacing. Basuin growls, a deep-rooted fear in his nonexistent heart reaching up to escape his throat. He wants to blame the wolf-man for it.
Underneath his hands, Ren trembles. Terrified, or raging, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t want Kensy to look at her. He shouldn’t be allowed to even know of her existence. He’ll kill Kensy if he tries to touch her.
The dead, and dying, and bleeding, and twitching bodies of the rabbits laid at Kensy’s feet make Basuin boil alive in his own skin. A black eyeball rolls to look at him, its owner’s hindleg still thumping as if it can escape from its own death.
Help me, the spirit begs him. I’m so afraid.
Basuin’s nostrils flare. “You did this.” A statement; not even an accusation.
Kensy laughs. “Of course I did.” He sets a hand on his belt, a holstered pistol at his side. “I forget you’re as dumb as a dog, Bass.”
It stings, but he barely feels it under the rolling waves of anger. “Dumb enough you thought you could manipulate me. Dumb enough you thought you could bring me here and make me do your dirty work.”
Dumb enough to do it for nearly a decade.
When did that start? When had their camaraderie transformed from friends, to favors, to force, to foe?
For years, they’ve been on the same side of a fight.
For years, Basuin thought Kensy only wanted the best for him.
Kensy said he would help Basuin climb to success.
But all he did was turn Bass into a war machine that killed when Kensy said kill.
They used to just be two men who had nothing—no family, no friends, and nothing to love. Nothing but war.
Maybe they’re still that. So why did Kensy turn out to be so cruel?
And now, Kensy’s lips press together in a knowing, snaking smile.
“Dumb enough that I did.”
No, this isn’t war. This is Kensy doing what he pleases. Being needlessly cruel for the fun of it. Killing for sport, hunting for game.
Basuin knows war best of all—and Kensy no longer wants war. He wants blood.
Resentment, mean and sticky, builds in his chest. But it’s Ren who moves, who pulls from Bass’ grip to throw herself toward Kensy. If his hands weren’t so used to holding on to everything so tightly with dread, she might have slipped his grasp.
“How dare you,” Ren seethes. He knows the look she wears even without seeing her face—she’s looked at him like that before. “You are lesser than the rot of this forest. Even from rot, life can grow again. You are nothing,” she spits at him, still lunging, a viper with all her viciousness.
His teeth are locked around her name, caging it in his mouth. Kensy won’t hear it. He’ll kill Kensy before he lets Kensy learn anything of Ren’s.
Kensy quirks a brow at Basuin, a familiar look they’ve shared. “You’ve always liked them so feisty, old dog.”
“Shut up,” he barks back. The ring of broken bodies circling Kensy makes his hands tight.
If he could shelter Ren behind his body, stow her away from Kensy’s gaze, he would.
But he can hear the quickness of her breath.
The heat of her skin brought by anger. He lets her go, reluctantly, and stands beside her.
Partners. “You don’t get to speak anymore. ”
“Is that so?” Kensy chuckles.
“I told you this island was protected by gods.” His eyes don’t leave Kensy’s. “Did you think you could get away with your cruelty? Do you think you’ll be forgiven for your crimes?”
Kensy just laughs again. “Who will be left to crucify me when I burn this forest to the ground?”
It’s not like you would have killed him, Basuin had said.
Then why didn’t you? Ren had asked him. Why didn’t you kill him instead?
The wolf-man lunges and snaps and breaks Basuin’s skin with its teeth. It cracks his bones and rebuilds them with the foam from its jowls. The wolf-man howls.
Basuin growls low. “Me.”
He darts forward. Reaches for the sword strapped to his back and runs for Kensy. Ignores the still-twitching rabbits that litter the forest floor. Hands enveloped in red. Hot. Magic. No human thoughts left. Only wolf. Only god. Only the Wolf God, who possesses his mind, his heart, his body.
And the soldier boy still lurking in the bones I pick your meat off, he thinks the wolf-man says. Or maybe it’s him now. Maybe it’s always been him.
The soldier boy who was betrayed by the very mentor who made him.
Basuin snarls, sword gripped in both hands, and aims for the canine grin Kensy’s still wearing. Monstrous blue eyes still alight in glee.
“Basuin!”
A small, soft, strong hand wraps around his arm.
“Stop.” Her voice is breathy in his ear. “Don’t kill him.” Not a command, but a request. Pleading.
He breathes hard. Panting, raging. Crimson magic drips off the edge of his blade. Kensy’s eyes are wide, his body tense. He’s afraid—not much, but a little. It’s enough. Basuin can kill him.
Basuin will.
But Ren’s other hand finds his shoulder and her arm twists around him. “Please, Basuin.” The Forest God, begging him for something. It’s rotten. Like Kensy. “I don’t want you to kill him.”
If she really wanted you to stop, she would’ve used magic.
No, no. She trusts him.
You are a protector. You are a killer. You will kill for her.
He will.
But in the brief moment of his hesitation, Ren pressed to his back and fingers curled in his sleeve, a hurried rustle of brush has his head snapping to where Kensy waits.
But he’s gone. Like he was never there at all.
Kensy’s sense of self-preservation is too keen.
His close familiarity with what Basuin can do—what tragedies he’s staged—bid him to run like a fucking coward.
A coward who Basuin could’ve slain dead, right here, to lay at Ren’s feet. A dog bringing back a grouse to leave as an offering to the altar that she is. Proof of loyalty.
Basuin yanks away from her, and she lets him go with a gasp. That alone cracks him. Breaks him in half. She trusts him. She trusts him. He just got her to trust him.
But his mind is red with blood. With lust and rage.
Hatred and betrayal. There’s still time to catch Kensy.
Basuin swallowed a god. He’s faster than Kensy.
But Ren’s stare on his back is too heavy, and he can’t move underneath it.
He whirls on her, sword in clawed fist, looking down at her through eyes that don’t belong to him.
“You don’t want me to kill him?” he growls in question.
“No,” she says, as if it were simple. “You can’t kill him.”
“This is what you wanted.”
“I never wanted this!” Her hand comes up to grip the wide collar of her shirt, right over her heart. Does she even have one? “I said I don’t kill. I won’t kill. You told me you wouldn’t.”
“I never said that,” he snarls at her. “I vowed to protect you—whatever that may cost.”
“I said I didn’t want war.”
“But war is here.” His teeth grind together. “If I kill him, it ends. It’s done.” Rage shocks through his spine. It aches, his want to kill. The need to slaughter. To end the war that Ren doesn’t want. To taste the blood of the man who betrayed him. Manipulated him like the dumb dog he is.
He’s a wolf now. He bites back.
“Don’t kill him.” Ren’s twilight eyes are pained, as if it hurts her. “Please,” she whispers.
Basuin lets his sword slip through his fingers and fall to the blood-wet ground.
He really can’t deny her anything anymore.
Slowly, he reaches for her hand still twisted in her shirt.
He unfurls her fingers from where they’re tangled in the cotton.
Ren takes her trembling hand and places it against his chest, right above where the wolf-man should reside.
There’s no flutter of his heart there anymore, only the hastened rise and fall of his chest. He closes his eyes, lets himself rest for just a moment.
“Thank you.” Her voice is so soft. So soft. So soft, he can barely hear her. It draws the wolf-man out of him, sings it sweetly back into its home among his ribcage. The boiling heat that frenzied him floods from his skin. The red of his magic recedes.
Once again, he’s just Bass, and she’s just Ren, and all that’s left of Kensy are the dead rabbits, black eyes glassy and gone cold. He failed Ren—and their forest—again.
Basuin draws Ren into him, sheltering her from the grief. She lets her head rest against his shoulder, hand still drawn to where the wolf-man lives in him, and swallows in defeat. The wolf-man paws, claws retracted, toward Ren’s fingertips.
If Ren won’t let him kill, then she will let him die. Because Basuin will die for her. That’s the duty he’s been given. The duty that brought him back to life.
He waits for the wolf-man to agree, but nothing ever comes.