Chapter 33
The forest sounds like bells—like the ringing of the bells in Ankor.
They rang when his mother fell ill. They rang when his father returned from war as nothing but ash.
They rang when the villagers burned the church down and drove Basuin and his mother to the outskirts of the forest. Gods, they tolled, don’t exist.
They never did rebuild upon the ashes of the church. Sometimes he wonders what might replace it now, if Ankor still stands. If they built more little village houses, or if they built a casern.
He can feel it again—the press of the wolf-man against his body. The smell of singed fur as it grows along his skin. The blood of his nails as they sharpen to claws. They’re merging into one, he and the wolf-man. The hole in his chest is filling up with red magic and burgeoning anger.
The moon, silver soldered to the sky as they run through the woods, begins to blur into the wisping lavender of dawn. The sun hangs just below the earth and the first streaks of light—not even knowing that it’s light yet—begin to creep up on the shadows of the forest.
He hears them, the bells. They ring loud in his ears. His grasp on Ren’s hand tightens.
“What will you want to do?” Ren asks, breath steady even after all the land they’ve crossed. “When the army leaves.”
Bass, struggling to catch his breath, asks, “What do you mean?”
“Will you want to leave?”
It almost makes him stop in his tracks, halt their movement. He hasn’t thought of it. Ren can’t leave the forest—she’s a god. And not just any god, but the god of this forest.
“No,” he answers. “There’s no place for me in Xalkhir anymore.” If Ren isn’t with him, it doesn’t matter. Basuin can’t imagine a world where she isn’t beside him anymore. He doesn’t care that he’s bound to her. He would still go wherever she goes.
Ren nods, but doesn’t say anything else.
“We could rebuild Gyeosi,” he says then. The image of it is familiar. His hands, scarred, working to thatch a roof. Carving large oaks who no longer have a spirit into a home. Something on the outskirts of the village. He’s done it before.
“We could,” Ren says, a twinge of wonder in her voice. “Would you live there?”
“With you?” he asks.
“With me.” Her twilight eyes meet his and something warm runs through him, like a heat that belongs to him. Giving life to his veins. Damn him, he should kiss her. If he took two steps he could.
“Then, yes,” he says. “I would build a home.” A home for the two of them.
A smile curls Ren’s perfect lips. “Would the Wolf God provide for his people?”
“As much as the Forest God provides for them.”
He wants it. More than anything. For them to rebuild Gyeosi together, build a home together, build a life together. To wake up with Ren in his arms and kiss her forehead and—and to tell her how beautiful she is. Because he hasn’t yet.
Basuin can’t lose her. He can’t.
There’s a grim, heavy feeling in the air.
Like something isn’t quite right. He’s felt it before, the hair-pin grenade waiting in the pit of his stomach, on the cusp of exploding.
It’s leaking out of him in streaks of red magic.
If he closes his eyes, he’d feel the wintry blizzard of Valkesta upon his cheeks.
When he marched the five of them up the mountain, he felt just like this.
The way Ren shifts through the trees has changed and he knows she can feel it too. There’s something static on his skin. Buzzing and lightning and insect stings. Inside him, the wolf-man howls, but it isn’t a war cry. It’s a cry for help.
Ren stops, and out of instinct, Bass moves to stand in front of her. But she holds out an arm, blocking him.
“Wait,” she says. Then, she reaches out.
Her hand meets something, palm glowing blue.
There are indentations on the air in the shape of her fingers—an invisible wall.
Beyond it, the forest looks as it always has.
But under the shimmer of blue magic, there’s something else.
He can’t see it, but he knows it’s there.
Ren turns her head, twilight eyes gone big. “This is Sa-cha’s domain,” she says, voice dropped to a lull. She takes a long breath. “This is where everything ends. Isn’t it?”
Kensy is on the other side of this wall. Basuin has never been good at guessing games. He is decisive and stubborn and he knows, without a doubt, that Kensy is just beyond this wall of magic, waiting for Basuin in Sa-cha’s domain. His bones, weary and war-worn, know it.
This is what Kensy always wanted.
With a breath, Bass takes Ren’s hand in his, their god marks pressed together. He’s terrified—can already smell the blood of her and it hasn’t yet spilled. He can’t protect her. He’s never been able to save anyone.
This really is his last chance.
“I’m with you,” he tells her, gazes locked and hands entwined. Forever. Until death. Until he is nothing because he is nothing without Ren. Everything he knows and everything he desires is so easily her now.
Ren gives a curt nod, inhaling hard. Then, she presses her hand further into the wall. It gives, welcoming her inside, and every limb that travels through the shield is illuminated with blue. Ren tugs him after her, and he moves through it in the same incandescent blue light as she did.
And on the other side, the day has dawned.
A field of green grass and wildflowers stretches out before them, lush and plentiful.
Birds chirp and sing from where they sit in the trees, wings fluttering among the leaves.
The rush of water carries through the clearing.
Off in the distance, a waterfall careens down a steep cliff of rocks and feeds a creek running through the clearing.
In the middle, a fat, round statue sits decaying, bottom worn and stained by the constant stream of water.
And beside it, Kensy. Standing there, leaned against the idol with his cruel smile, blonde hair ruffled on a breeze. Waiting for Basuin.
He knew that Basuin would chase him all the way here. Kensy told the legion that he was dead. Kensy killed him. And still, here he stands, waiting for Basuin to show up.
“You’ve slowed down, old dog,” Kensy chastises. “The Black Wolf would have beaten me here.”
Basuin locks his jaw and curls his lips into a grim smile. “The Black Wolf would have killed you by now.”
The grin Kensy wears splits even wider. Like this is what he’s been waiting for since the day Basuin was assigned to Kensy’s fleet. Like this is what he’s planned since he promoted Bass to his old position—Captain of Ariche’s Fleet.
Calculating blue eyes stare across the field at him, then flick over to Ren with something sly in them. Bass’ fist tightens, heavy at his side. He won’t let Kensy anywhere near Ren. That’s a mistake he’s not willing to allow.
“You’ve become so bold, Captain.” Kensy kicks at the creek running over his boots. “So, this is what happens to dishonorable men when they are given the gift of godhood.”
Basuin blinks to keep his eyes from widening. He’s known—he knew from the moment that he saw Basuin with Ren.
Kensy notices his hesitance. He always does. “That’s right,” Kensy says. “I know who you’ve become, Wolf God.”
“Why are you here?” he fires back, hand itching toward his dagger. “What is it that you want?”
“Nothing so terrible,” Kensy answers. “I want what you have.” He leans his elbow on the statue to prop his chin up, eyes meandering between Basuin and Ren. “To be a god.”
If you kill a king, you take his kingdom. If you kill a god, you take its home.
Something thunders in his chest. The wolf-man growls inside of him and it reverberates through Basuin’s mouth. He swallows it back, the anger. The venom that courses through him. He was wrong again. Kensy doesn’t want to destroy the Winter River.
He’s going to kill Sa-cha.
Kensy hungers for power and feasts on those below him to get it.
This has always been true, and Basuin hates that he ignored it for so long.
His own need, to still be something good, allowed this.
But Kensy was never evil—not until he dragged Basuin to this island to colonize in the name of the queen.
Not until he killed a wolf and made to sacrifice her pups so he could lure the gods out.
Because if Kensy was evil, it would make Basuin evil, too.
It was never in the name of the queen. It was all a ruse. It was in Kensy’s want for power; his want to win. Kensy doesn’t want to outlaw the gods. He wants to kill them. Become one.
“It was wrong,” Kensy growls. “They chose wrong. They should’ve deified me.”
“I was dead,” he tries. “I didn’t ask for this.”
Kensy killed him. That’s why he’s a god now. It’s Kensy’s fault—it’s all Kensy’s doing. And here Kensy is, wanting the very thing he forced upon Basuin.
There’s a moment, a dead, long moment, between them. Ren is still beside him, unmoving and without even the sound of her lungs. Ren died, too. She drowned in the ocean surrounding this island, saved by a god without a body, primed to be deified in the same way Kensy primed Basuin to be his dog.
“The gods spoke to me, too,” Kensy says, a countenance filled with pride. From under his armor, he rips a stone from around his neck and holds the leather string out for Bass to see. A black stone—a godstone—hangs from it like a dead man hangs from a noose.
“You never believed in the gods,” Bass says, biting back the shake in his voice.
Kensy wraps his godstone around his wrist. “I always believed in the gods. But unlike you, I don’t worship them. The gods spoke to me, and do you know what they said?”
From the Winter River, there arose a god.
Basuin’s heart thunders in his chest. The gods never spoke to him—they never spoke even a lie to him—until he was possessed. Until his god took his body and made a home of it.
And that god was Sa-cha, and he was good.