Page 6 of Chained to the Horned God
Not quite safety.
But close.
Hope.
2
BARSOK
The human girl’s still here. Still alive. That alone makes her interesting.
She doesn’t sit like prey. She perches, back to the wall, knees pulled up, hands pressed against the grime-coated floor like she owns it. Most break by the second hour. Cry. Plead. Shiver so hard I can hear it over my own chains.
She doesn’t. Not her.
Valoa, she said last night. In a voice rough with salt and death and stubbornness. She’d bled all over the floor by the time she told me, but there was steel under it, not rust.
I glance over as she shifts. Her lip’s split worse now, crusted and black at the edges. Her eye’s going purple fast. But she drinks from the cistern again, both hands cradling the stone bowl like it’s sacred.
“You rationing that water?” she asks, voice low.
“Always.”
She nods like that makes sense. She wipes her mouth on the back of her wrist and stares at the moss above the trickle. “You know,” she says, “I used to dream of waterfalls.”
I grunt, tapping the side of my shard against the stone. “You’ll find a lot of things don’t make it into dreams anymore.”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
She doesn’t ask for my name again. Already got it. Doesn’t ask what I am. That’s what they usually start with. Whatareyou? How many men have you killed? Is it true you eat the bodies?
No. And if I did, I’d be fatter.
She watches me as I drag the blade across the floor, each stroke ringing out through the dark like it’s marking time. That little shard’s more than a weapon. It’s a reminder. Of when I stopped waiting to be saved. When I carved through a cell door with one arm busted and two ribs broken just to get one swing at the elf who broke my ship.
Didn’t kill him.
Got thrown in here instead.
“You ever used that?” she asks, gesturing to the blade.
I nod.
She doesn’t look away. “On who?”
“Elves. Mostly.”
She snorts. “Can’t say I feel bad about that.”
“Wouldn’t make a difference if you did.”
She frowns. “Do you ever talk like a person? Or is brooding your whole vocabulary?”
I raise an eyebrow. “You prefer screaming?”
“I prefer not dying.”
“You’re already ahead of the curve then.”
