Page 65 of Chained to the Horned God
They look at us like we hold the sky.
I don’t know what to give them.
“Where’s Beltran?” I ask, voice ragged from smoke and screaming.
Sharonna nods toward the infirmary, what’s left of it. “Inside. Alive. Barely.”
We move quickly, pushing through the thick heat of the corridors. Beltran lies on a crude cot, his skin waxy, bandages soaked through. His eyes flutter open as we enter, pupils shrinking in the light. A breath hitches in his throat. His hand lifts, trembling, reaching toward Barsok.
“Come here,” he rasps.
Barsok kneels beside him, his massive hands swallowing Beltran’s pale fingers.
“You did it,” Beltran whispers. “You stopped him. You saved them.”
Barsok doesn’t speak. His jaw works, but no words come out.
“You need to lead them now,” Beltran continues, his voice barely a thread. “They need strength. Hope. You.”
Barsok shakes his head, slowly at first, then harder. “No. I’m not?—”
“Yes,” Beltran interrupts, squeezing his hand with surprising force. “You are.”
The breath that leaves Beltran’s body is sharp, sudden. His head lolls back. He doesn’t die—not yet—but his eyes close. His grip slackens.
“He’s unconscious,” I say softly, checking his pulse. “But stable.”
We leave the infirmary, stepping back into the wounded sunlight. A crowd has gathered, quiet, waiting. Watching. The survivors, the broken, the damned. Sharonna steps forward. Then Durk. Then the other gladiators. One by one, they kneel.
A beat passes.
Then the crowd erupts. Cheers, ragged and raw, rise into the smoky sky like a prayer.
I turn to Barsok.
He looks like a king.
But he shakes his head.
“I’m not what they need,” he murmurs, his voice lost beneath the roar.
I take his hand.
“You’re what they have.”
The platform groans beneath our feet, warped from fire and time, but it holds. Just like us.
The sun breaks through the clouds for the first time in days, golden light slicing through smoke and ruin, spilling across the square like something holy. The people are packed in tight, shoulder to shoulder, still caked in ash and fear, their eyes turned up to the central platform with a hunger that feels heavier than any chain I’ve ever worn.
Barsok stands tall in the middle of it, scarred and steady, his chest bare beneath his tattered sash, blood dried in a jagged streak across his side. His horns glint in the morning light like blades. He looks like he belongs there, not because of some birthright or conquest, but because he’s survived. Because we all have.
His voice rolls out over the crowd, low and thunderous.
“No one should rule by right of blood.”
The words hang there, echoing across the plaza, biting into silence like a storm.
“No one should own others. No man, no beast, no house of gold or name carved into a gate. We’ve bled enough for thrones and gods and banners. If we are to live, truly live, we must choose a new path.”
