Page 43 of Chained to the Horned God
When I can stand again, I gather wounds with numb hands, stitch torn flesh and broken bones. The smell of burnt hair and acid from chimera venom etches into the cold stone. I taste iron. I breathe death. I tend what’s left.
Afterwards, the noble—draped in silk too fine for this pit—finds me at the edge of the infirmary, offering wine from his glass. He tilts it toward me. “I can transfer you to my house,” he says, voice too smooth. “Softer life. Privileges. A place beyond this vermin’s den.”
I look at him across the broken bodies and refuse his glass, spit slabbing across his wine like disdain’s swelling echo. He recoils as if I slapped him. Crocked laughter explodes from behind me—it’s Sharonna. She wipes her mouth with her sleeve, amber eyes bright with vicious humor.
“I hear house-slavery suits you,” she calls before swaggering out.
I feel the noble’s cold fury, his lean toward me until I see Barsok appear behind him—shoulders squared, body swallowed in shadow. I don’t speak. My jaw throbs. Barsok’s eyes blaze silent fire. The air tightens until laughter chokes in it. The noble’s blood drains beneath his polish.
When he speaks, it’s not words. It’s a growl low in his chest, reverberating like warhorn through my bones.
“I was polite,” he says. “Don’t mistake that for weakness.”
The noble stumbles back. Servants grip his arm. He’s escorted off, dignity flapping like torn silk. The guards close ranks instantly.
Barsok turns back to me. A broken man stitched together by promises and scars.
“Never again,” he says. Rage drips like boiling lead from his words. “Anyone ever tries that again…”
I swallow. Gratitude and fear well inside me.
No more words are needed. Valoa holds my hand as they fight to clean me. She whispers under her breath: “You’re safe now.”
Spare glimmers in her eyes. Hope trembles in our breath.
Because in the world beyond, everything warps. But in here, with her beside me, I know who I still am.
After the chaos of the chimera slaughter, Barsok becomes more possessive. Not in the way chains imprison, but as if he insists on guarding the fragile spark inside me. Every time I pass the cell door, there’s a hand near my waist—an instinct to redirect me when guards shuffle too close. When I stitch another gash at dusk, he sits outside, head leaning against the bars, watching me as if the world ends where my fingers work. His presence is both solace and storm.
One night, after a match slaughtered by Lotor’s exotic beasts, I step inside the cell to wash my training dress. He follows, closes the door, and steps right up behind me. His fingers brush the bruises on my sides as I lift water to rinse the blood and grime from my tunic. It’s protective. It’s careful. I turn, towel in hand, and lift my voice.
“I’m not your burden.”
I don’t mean it to hurt him. I only mean to breathe truth into this cage of us.
He pauses in the torchlight, the water dripping from my hands onto the stone. His eyes soften. “You’re not,” he replies softly. “You’re my reason.”
My chest aches. I swallow. I grip the towel tighter. His words hang between us, heavy and sacred.
But then something rattles inside me. The echo of chains. The smell of the infirmary, stale and scarred. The faint memory of the orc boy’s convulsions. I pull the towel to my chest and step back.
“Sometimes,” I say. “Part of me wonders if we’re just building sandcastles in the tide.”
He doesn’t reply. His jaw tightens. I take a breath to steady the storm rising in my belly.
“I don’t want to be your anchor,” I continue. Tears threaten—fury or fear, I can’t tell. “If it means I drown with you.”
Silence. Not the safe kind. The kind where worlds shift and something breaks.
Then his hand comes up and catches my elbow. Not holding me. Guiding me.
“You’re stronger than you know,” he murmurs.
I look into his eyes. I see vigilance. Watching. A man trying not to drown himself too.
“That’s why I protect you,” he says. “Because you keep me safe too—not with strength. With you.”
My vision blurs. I try to resist the swoon. Heart pounding, words swimming in my throat. But I fail. My knees weaken. I gasp.
