Chapter 31
Qia heals the rest of Bass’ wounds, chasing away the ache and the dizziness that remained. Yaelic stays close by, but sticks to Qia when Bass heads into the forest for some air that isn’t thick with death.
Ren disappeared, taking Ko’s body with her. He hasn’t seen her since.
The forest isn’t quiet and that’s what he likes. There’s life here still. The fluttering of birds’ wings and the croak of frogs. Buzzing insects and breezy canopy. Even the light, shimmering through the leaves, makes a sound that reminds him of a bright, melodic hum.
He should look for Haaman, even if he’s the last person Haaman wants to see. Him, or Ren. But Bass doesn’t want them to be alone out there, grieving their lover. He knows what that grief feels like. It wrapped Bass in its tight cocoon, suffocated him slowly, bit into him like glass.
Haaman shouldn’t have to fight that by themselves.
Bass climbs the nearest oak tree he can find, smoothing a hand over its bark and murmuring a short apology.
The trees will grieve, too. Every spirit will feel Ko’s death in some way.
He finds footholds in each branch until they thin out and the leaves begin to sprout densely, then he sits to rest his back along the trunk and survey the forest.
Kensy’s cruelty knows no hesitance. Even if Ren doesn’t wish it, this is war. And Bass—well, Bass is best at war.
He’s torn in half by indecision, perhaps for the first time in his life. Part of him is screaming to run at Kensy now, to take off by himself and hunt his commander down. End this, here and now, before anyone else gets hurts. But the other half of him can’t bring himself to leave without Ren.
Ren said she wanted to go together. But Ren doesn’t want war, either.
Haaman wasn’t wrong. He would’ve soaked up all the bullets for Ren if he could, but as sharp and killing as their words were, they weren’t wrong.
Bass should have worked harder to protect them.
He should’ve gone against Ren sooner, met the legion head on and tried to save more spirits.
Should’ve killed Kensy when he had the chance—should’ve bore Ren’s anger, or hatred, or disappointment.
He should go now. Track Kensy down, meet him at the Winter River, and kill him like he was meant to. Made a god to.
He has to kill Kensy.
Hami and Ko are yet another weight of guilt sticking to his back, something to carry in the grooves of his armor. Inaction—his fear every time a wound breaks Ren’s skin—has made him weak. Protecting Ren should’ve meant protecting the forest, too. But he forgot. He won’t let himself forget again.
He’s going to kill Kensy.
Bass leans his head against the oak he sits upon, staring up at the sky. There’s so much distance between him and the godrealm. He reaches for the godstone around his neck, but there’s only skin and bone there. Maybe his mother could comfort Ren now. He would like that.
And, like the thought called for her, Basuin looks down and spots Ren wandering through the forest. If he didn’t know her so well by now, he’d call it aimless. But Ren’s never done anything without a goal in mind.
Without a second thought, Bass drops from the tree and lands on his feet right in front of her. The only thing that hurts is the creak in his knees as he stands, thirty years of war still in his bones.
Ren doesn’t startle, but she does take a step back as if preparing herself to twist away from his touch.
He doesn’t move toward her, though, and she doesn’t jerk away from him.
He should say something, but his mouth doesn’t move.
He can’t say a word; doesn’t know how to comfort her.
So they stand there, staring at each other, waiting for the other to break the silence.
It’s him, first. Because Ren’s nose is blushed and her eyes glassy. The last time he saw her cry, it was as beautiful as it was painful. Now, it cuts through him like a knife carving meat away from bone.
“Sit with me,” he says, because he can’t think of anything else but pulling her close and kissing the crown of her hair.
Ren’s eyes fall. “I was searching for Haaman.”
If he had a heart, it would ache. The blinding hole in his chest is too empty—the wolf-man has stolen into the shadows of his organs. He aches despite it.
Bass stretches his hand out toward her, fingers unfurling. His god mark runs red, magic pressing beneath the surface of his palm. And when she takes his hand, her god mark slotted to his, Bass’ whole body jolts. Like lightning’s struck, birthed him into a new man.
He doesn’t tell her not to worry, and he doesn’t say that Haaman will come back.
He doesn’t say anything at all, but he leads Ren toward the tree he climbed earlier and shelters her beneath it.
Ren tucks her knees beneath her, leaned toward him, and Bass spreads his knees and leans back against the oak’s trunk.
It’s quiet—a bird chitters above their heads, singing a song that no one returns.
Ren hasn’t let go of his hand, and Basuin hasn’t let go either.
“I’ve never left this island,” Ren says, gaze turned upward to the sky. “I’ve been here since I became the Forest God. It’s all I’ve known.”
It’s the first time she’s admitted it out loud—that she was once a human, before.
“You’re bound here?” he asks.
“No.” Ren turns her head away from him. “I’ve always feared the ocean. I can’t remember it well, but I was just a child when I came here. The water—” Ren swallows, “—scares me.”
Her voice is an echo-chamber of fear, full and unending. She won’t let him see her face, but she sheds the spikes she wears on her skin for this one moment. He’s looking. He hopes Ren knows he’s looking at her.
“How did you come to the island?”
“She saved me,” Ren says, her hand falling to his knee. “The gods gave me life and let me grow. Then, when it was time to repay my debt, I became the Forest God.”
Debt begets debt that is never repaid. Basuin hooks his pinky around hers.
Ren was human, just as he was. But Basuin died old, with a life lived, even if he was nothing but a soldier. Ren was a child; a little girl, who died and became a shrine. How lonely she must have been. How gracious the gods were—how cruel they are.
Ren plays with his mother’s godstone, all worried jade and desperate prayers. “I was jealous of you,” she admits. “I’ve never spoken to the gods before. Not in my whole life.”
The light streaming through the forest canopy creates a halo circling Ren’s hair. There’s a shimmer of red amidst her umber strands, a color he hadn’t noticed before. A single bright tear rolls down the plane of her cheek, catching on her moon-curved jaw.
“Despite it all—despite how I treated you—you were kind.” Her voice is so small. “Kind to Yaelic, and Qia, and Ko and Haaman. Kind to every spirit. Kind to me.”
His mouth is too dry to speak, his tongue heavy.
“You always admit when you’re wrong. I can’t do that.
” She hangs her head, tears falling from the soft slope of her nose.
“I had no one to guide me. No parents and no gods,” she whispers.
“There was only Ko, who taught me how to wield my magic. But he’s gone now, and I don’t know—I don’t know what to do with this vacant space beside me. ”
Ren stares down at her trembling, empty hands. “What if I did it wrong, Bass? What if I’ve been wrong all this time?”
Basuin reaches, harbors Ren’s cheek in the shelter of his large palm, and turns her gently to look at him. Please, look at him. See that he sees her, that he won’t look away from her.
He’s never seen Ren as Am-sa, nor as his god. She isn’t the forest to him, a thing to protect.
She’s always just been Ren. Who hated him. Whose tongue cut into his bones, whose eyes daggered into his own. A threat. A curse. A treasure. Something mean. Something benevolent.
Someone who bleeds. But bleeds for the ones they love.
Basuin doesn’t give a shit if Ren doesn’t love him—he doesn’t give a shit.
He would do anything for her, even if she did nothing else for him.
He’ll bleed for her. Cut him open, tear him apart.
Fuck it, let the wolf-man hollow out his chest again.
Take his heart, and his organs, and his bones, and all he is.
Anything that’s left, he’ll lay at Ren’s feet. Even if she doesn’t love him.
Because Ren is afraid of water. And she was human once. And even she questions if she’s made mistakes. Ren sits here, now, and tells him that she fears water and that she was once human like him and that she might’ve been wrong.
Her tears are hot against his palm as she presses into his touch, and Basuin doesn’t care if Ren may never love him. As long as she trusts him, he’ll happily bleed out among these trees for her.
“And what if you were?” he asks, gently, as gentle as he can be after a lifetime of brutality.
Ren clenches her eyes shut and turns into his hand, trying to hide. But Basuin frames her face with both hands now, baring all of her to him. His calloused thumb wipes at the tears she cries.
“What if you were wrong?” he asks again.
“Then I’ve failed,” Ren sobs. “Then everyone who has died has died because of me.” When she looks up at him, her dark eyes glitter behind pools of tears in distress.
“My first friend—my only friend—is gone, and I am all who’s left to blame.
If I’d let you kill Kensy, Ko wouldn’t have died. You know that, don’t you?”
A laugh, mean and guilty, is wrenched from her mouth. Her fingers are so tight in the cotton of his shirt it might tear.
“What sort of peace is that?” Her voice is broken. “This isn’t the peace I promised. This peace brought death. I chose this.”
Another aching sob blossoms in her chest and it takes everything in him not to kiss her forehead, kiss that wrinkle of anguish in her brow and soothe it all away.
“I chose wrong,” she cries.
“You’re human,” he murmurs.
“I’m a god.”