Chapter 35
There are no tears left to be shed. The sting of his eyes is the sting of fire, of heat, of anger, of fury and of rage.
It boils through every part of his body.
Every limb, every bone, every nail, every hair.
Covers him and burns through him like the itch of the poison ivy he got into as a boy, before he knew it could sting as much as it did.
I’m fine, he tried to tell his mother when she came close with a balm that smelled of grass and something astringent.
Even if you are fine, she said, pulling one of his reddened hands toward her, that doesn’t mean you should let your hurt continue to hurt. We make remedies so we can soothe the pain and heal the sick. Doesn’t the itch drive you mad?
Yes, he admitted to her, and then he let her smooth the pasty balm on his rash. The relief of it made him cry, and his mother laughed.
My Basuin, she cooed. A son who feels such emotions, so fully. You are full.
Of what? he asked her.
Everything. Joy, and sorrow, and sometimes anger. But it is better to be full than empty.
Are there people who are like that, Ma?
Yes, she told him, pulling him close and kissing his hair. People like that are the ones who let their pain linger instead of soothing it away. They like the hurt, because it makes them feel less empty.
He understands it now—Kensy, and Isaniel, and him. All the same, hands sunk into different vices. What would his mother think if she saw him now? Would she cry for him, or would she give him that proud smile, the soft one with knowing eyes, now that he’s become a god?
His whole body feels like he’s lit aflame, standing atop a funeral pyre. There are two gods inside of him, eating at what’s left of him. Blood pounds between his ears as he runs through the forest, growling and snarling until foam bubbles on his maw, southbound.
In true god form, Basuin phases through the trees as if they are nothing to him.
They shake and sway in terror of him, bowing their heads as he goes crashing through the woods.
He feels free. He feels what Kensy craved so violently, so brutally.
Enough to kill for—enough that it killed him in its stead.
A power no one else can rip from you. A strength that only comes from godhood.
But Kensy was wrong. Basuin has lost so much, even as a god.
A bright blue-white light sparks to life beside him, and when his eyes shift to look, it’s the deer-girl.
She prances through the forest beside him on the air, one long stride met with a skip, then starting over.
Then, she bounds even further than his legs reach, taking flight to zip in front of him.
Basuin runs, and the deer-girl turns to look at him. She tilts her head in that same way again as the trees rush by them.
What did you think of her?
He huffs a laugh. It makes him sound like the wolf-man.
Whip-smart, he tells the deer-girl. Full of grace. So much grace and diplomacy—I’ve never met anyone like her. And beautiful. She was so beautiful it hurt at times.
Beautiful enough to kill for? the deer-girl asks.
Something from deep below, the wolf-man or his own soul, reaches up and squeezes his heart until it simply turns to blood.
Beautiful enough that I shouldn’t have—but I love her too much not to kill them anyway.
Basuin closes his eyes. And when he opens them again, he sees Ren.
The deer-girl moves with the same grace, the same arm’s-length dance, that Ren always did.
Twirling away from him, slipping out of sight, playing right on the edge of his vision.
It’s her, really. How much of Ren was the Forest God and how much of the Forest God is Ren?
How much of him is the Wolf God—and how much of him is Ren, now?
There are no camps left. Basuin destroyed them all, remains left behind and decaying.
But the further south he gets, the more damage he sees.
He skids through the center of the island, the Crying Trees almost entirely decimated.
Ko’s home. The only thing left—too hard to kill, maybe—is the elder tree, which was supposed to sever Basuin’s tie with the Wolf God.
A beacon of this forest and its proof it won’t die willingly.
He cries, howling into the night. All his fault.
All his fault that they’ve burned down this forest, cut these trees down where they stand like enemies on a battlefield.
Godless, soulless. His fault. Treason.
Basuin’s pace quickens, gunning for Shaelstorm.
They’ll pay for the damage they’ve done.
No more sabotage. No broken weapons and barren fields and shriveled grains.
No more nightmares. Basuin won’t stop at driving them out of his forest. He’ll squash them like bugs, hunt them down like prey, paint the forest with their blood and leave it as a warning.
There, in the distance, he can see smoke rising. With the forest cleared, there’s almost a straight shot to the bastion. It makes him snarl, ferocious, bleeding from his gums from gnashing his canines together.
The first soldiers who see him run. Basuin grins.
Are you prepared to end this war? the deer-girl asks him, eyes blank and glowing white.
I should have ended it much sooner, he answers. But I loved her.
Captain Basuin, the Black Wolf, she says it like she’s scolding him. Always decisive, isn’t that what you told them?
With one last long, painful howl, Basuin lunges. First, for the farms that Ren kept barren and lifeless. With one long swipe of a paw, claws stretched out, he destroys one of the fields and takes the barns with it.
Screams and shouts begin to stream from Shaelstorm. He barks a laugh as he tears through another farm, and another, and another. On the exterior walls they’ve built to keep the forest out, he snatches a flaming torch and the force of his jaws splinters it in his mouth.
From the watchtowers, the soldiers begin to fight back. With war cries, they let loose arrows of steel at him. He doesn’t even feel them, as if the arrows run straight through his fur and out.
Basuin leaps over the wall and crashes into the bastion, maw full of fire.
Some men are running and some are standing and fighting.
Swords drawn, spears in hand, others loading their rifles.
He skids through all of them, nails on cobbles, swiping out at the soldiers with giant paws and clawing through them like they’re made of paper. Bits and pieces.
Then, he crashes, head and body, into the grain sheds. The Wolf God spits fire as he bashes through the wooden sheds, the bags of food they’ve stored inside going up in an instant. The scent of fire and ash spreads through Shaelstorm.
A gun fires, echoing through the night. A prick of pain runs through his back leg as something wraps around him, tight. He turns, looking behind him at the soldiers who’ve raised their guns to him.
On his hind leg, where a bullet was drawn, thick roots covered in dirt and moss twine together and solidify into a forest-made armor. Another soldier shoots—into his stomach. But roots grow out of his body, from his ribcage, to ribbon through him and create the same living armor as before.
The Wolf God laughs, voice dark and growling and not all his. “You are foolish to think you can kill a god you’ve wronged.”
Another gunshot, into his haunches. Another plate of living forest armor to cover his body. Rage and fury and grief mix in his gut until it bubbles up into his throat and he snarls at them, lunging.
His teeth sink into the first body he finds.
He tears that man in two. Then, he skewers two more soldiers on his canines, crunching down on their bones and drooling them back out from his maw in a mix of blood and entrails.
The air tastes of something sweet and smoky.
There isn’t enough fire. Not enough of it.
Magic collects on the surface of his body, unable to contain itself within him.
His black fur glows red, ominous and dangerous, and when he rears back and opens his jaws again, flames burst from his mouth.
The Wolf God breathes in embers, spits fire onto the bastion, and everything goes up.
This place burns. Shaelstorm is swallowed up by the very thing they’ve destroyed his forest with.
This isn’t cruelty. It’s punishment. The same thing that brought him here.
He can’t tell what they shout and scream and cry at him while they shoot their guns.
More and more root-armor pads his body with every bullet they attempt to lodge into his skin.
He sweeps them up in his paws and plays with them, teases his prey right before he slams his snout into them and breaks their little bodies. Kills them.
“Please!” someone shouts above the rest. His head snaps to them, sunk low to the ground and ready to pounce.
A man drops to his knees, bows his head to the ground, crying.
“Have mercy, please! Gods, have mercy, we are weak. We are wrong. We are only human!” he prays, sobbing with his face pressed into the dirt.
Other men toss their weapons in futility and do the same, dropping to the ground and bowing, begging for mercy.
“You would ask for mercy after what you’ve done?” he growls at them, teeth dripping with blood. “Insolent men. You beg for forgiveness even in the wreckage of what you’ve destroyed!”
The Wolf God howls, neck stretched up to the missing moon.
“Gods, have mercy,” another begs. “Gods, be good.”
He slams into another building, destroying one of the large barracks, shredding through wood and setting it aflame with a snuff from his snout. And then he lunges for another. The mess hall, he remembers. He thrashes it and breathes fire into the building’s bones until it catches like a match head.
He turns for the next barracks, but a woman stands before him. Small compared to him. She’s shed her armor already and bows her head at him, hands upturned and palms stretched out to him in surrender and prayer.