Page 2 of Chained to the Horned God
I cradle him until the guards come.
The door slams open with a groan and a barked order in that serpentine elf tongue. Bootsteps thunder down the stairs. Two of them. One shouts, the other yanks the body from my arms without a word. I hiss, but I’m too weak to stop them.
They drag the boy out like he’s nothing. Just meat. Just garbage.
There’s a splash minutes later. Cold. Final.
I lean against the hull and count my breaths. One. Two. Fourteen. Sixty. My wrists throb. My mouth’s dry as dead leaves. The hold stinks of old blood and newer death.
The ship creaks again, louder this time. Like the ocean’s woken up. The wind howls outside. Rain drums above us. The sea is moaning. Long. Low. Alive.
That night I dream.
Not of home or my father’s crooked smile. I dream of blood. Fire. Chains snapping. Screams turning to silence. I dream of red eyes and black blades and teeth like daggers smiling through smoke.
I wake with salt in my mouth. Not tears. Not seawater.
Just the bitter bile of memory and the promise of worse to come.
The daysbleed into each other, sour and shapeless, broken only by the rattle of chains and the moans of the dying. I stop counting them. I stop trying to sleep. Every time my eyes close, I see that boy’s face—the one who stopped breathing in my arms. The sound of his last gasp is stitched into the back of my skull like a curse I’ll never shake.
I keep moving because if I stop, I’ll shatter. I pour what’s left of myself into wounds and fevers, dirty wraps, whispered comfort. I press lips to brows slick with sweat, knowing most won’t make it. That doesn’t stop me. Nothing short of death will stop me.
The guards stomp through the hold now and then, barking orders or swinging fists for no reason but boredom. They don't talk to us. They don’t see us. We're not people—we're ballast. Even when one kicks over a water bucket and soaks my herb pouch, I bite my tongue until it bleeds rather than speak. It’s not cowardice. It’s calculation. Some of them laugh when you cry. Some only hurt you when you make noise.
I’ve learned to listen for the laughter. That’s when they’re the most dangerous.
Today, the wood creaks overhead, and boots pound the deck. Then footsteps on the ladder. I glance up from where I’m wrapping a man’s busted hand with a strip of my sleeve. I recognize the cadence—Arkos.
Arkos is the worst of them. Even the other guards avoid his gaze when he grins. He grins a lot. Like the whole damn voyage is a joke only he finds funny.
He’s tall for a dark elf, broad across the shoulders, with skin like burned oil and teeth filed to subtle points. His armor’s spattered with old blood that never quite washes off. He reeks of copper and rot, like he bathes in old slaughter. His eyes are yellow. Not like honey or gold—like pus. Sick, glistening, wrong.
He steps into the hold, scans us like meat hung on hooks, then points. “You. Red.”
I look behind me.
“No, no. You.” He grabs my chain and yanks. I stumble, but keep my feet.
I feel every gaze on me as he drags me out. No one says a word. Not even the old man with the broken nose who tried toshield a girl two nights ago. He hasn’t spoken since they beat him half-conscious.
The sun blinds me when we break into the open air. I blink against it, blinking past tears that are more from shock than anything else. The salt wind hits me hard—thick with fish and something fouler. The deck’s slick with blood, some of it fresh. A gull screams overhead like it’s laughing.
Arkos hauls me to the rail, shoves me forward until my chest hits it.
“Airing you out,” he says. “You look like shit.”
I don’t answer.
He steps behind me, too close. His breath ghosts against the back of my neck. “That hair’s too red to waste down there,” he murmurs. “Sun likes it. I like it.”
My stomach clenches. My hands curl into fists.
“Say something,” he purrs. “Beg. That’s what the others do.”
My silence enrages him. He grabs my jaw, yanks my head back. His fingers are wet with something I don’t want to think about.
“Not much of a talker, are you?” He chuckles, low and lecherous. “Good. You don’t need a tongue for?—”
