Page 23 of Chained to the Horned God
I turn my head.
Valoa stands in the archway.
Her arms are folded across her chest, one foot planted ahead of the other, hip cocked just enough to tell me she’s trying to look unimpressed. Her hair catches the firelight, glowing like it’s been kissed by a forge. She’s pretending not to watch. Failing miserably.
“Enjoy the show?” I call out.
She rolls her eyes, but her mouth twitches at the corners.
“You boys done measuring each other?”
“Depends,” Durk calls back, “You got a ruler on you, healer?”
She groans and flips him off. He barks laughter all the way out of the yard.
She walks toward me then, slow and deliberate. Her boots crunch in the sand. There’s a tension in her shoulders, but not fear. Not anymore. She’s seen too much, sewn too many wounds shut, listened to too many dying breaths to flinch now.
I straighten as she stops in front of me.
“You’re limping,” she says.
“Got hit.”
“No shit.”
She kneels and touches my side, fingers pressing gently against a bruised rib. I hiss through my teeth.
“Cracked,” she mutters. “You’ll live.”
I study her face. The faint smudge of soot on her cheek. The bruise darkening near her jaw from when one of the other healers shoved her. I want to ask who did it. I want to break their knees.
But I don’t.
Instead, I say, “Thanks for the snakemilk.”
She looks up, surprised. “Wasn’t me.”
“Still. Thanks.”
We stay there a moment, close enough to share breath. Close enough for the world to blur. She leans in just a little, then stops herself. I feel the same pull. The same ache.
But not yet.
Not tonight.
She steps back. “I’ll bring you more salve.”
I nod. She turns and disappears into the shadows again, like a ghost wrapped in copper and fire.
I stand there in the sand long after she’s gone, heart pounding in time with the memory of her touch.
7
VALOA
The stench hits before I even push through the infirmary doors. Rotting blood, sweat-soaked linens, and the sour tang of infection—the kind that clings to the walls like mold. The air’s thick, wet with breath and agony, the sound of coughing layered over low groans and fever-slick murmurs.
I know what this is.
