Page 8 of Chained to the Horned God
“You’re not what I expected,” she murmurs, voice low but steady.
I don’t respond. Let her fill the air with words. Let her think this cell is less than what it is. Talking’s a bad habit. Makes you remember things. Faces. Homes. Smiles you won’t ever see again.
Her voice lingers, though. It doesn’t scrape like most do. It’s jagged, yeah, but not cruel. Wounded, but not hollow. She sounds like someone who bled but didn’t break. That’s rare.
She turns slightly to face me. “Do you ever stop sharpening that thing?”
“No.”
“Why?”
I tilt my head. “Would you rather I stopped?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe I just want to hear something besides that damn drip for once.”
“Then talk louder.”
She does. “What’s your name again?”
I sigh through my nose. “Barsok.”
“Barsok…” Her eyes narrow, mouth parting slightly as the name rolls through her mind. “Wait.You’rethe minotaur who killed five miou in the pit last week?”
I shrug. “They bled easy.”
She barks out a laugh—sharp and sudden, like it surprises her as much as me. She claps a hand over her mouth like she wasn’t supposed to make that sound, like laughter might draw the wrong kind of attention even here, under rock and rot.
I watch her laugh, and something shifts inside me. It isn’t rage. It’s not that beast that claws its way out when the gates open and the crowd screams for violence.
It’s something smaller. Warmer. It unsettles me more than any blade ever has.
I grunt, shake my head, and go back to the blade. The scraping steadies me. It grounds me in this filth. In this cage that smells like blood and mold and old bones no one bothered burying.
She moves closer. Not much. Just enough to break her own rules. Close enough I can see the glint of intelligence behind the grime on her face. She’s watching me now, not like I’m an animal, but like I’m a puzzle missing a few pieces.
“You don’t talk much, do you?” she asks.
“No.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Waste of breath.”
She makes a face. “What, talking to me’s a waste of breath?”
“No. Talking to most people.”
She leans her head against the wall and exhales. “Well, I’ll take it as a compliment, then.”
I don’t correct her.
The cistern trickles on, the only constant rhythm in this damn place. The sound of dripping water echoes between us, more alive than the rest of the dungeon combined.
She scratches at her wrist, winces, then glances at me. “You know how to reset a finger?”
“Maybe.”
“Mine’s jammed, I think.” She holds up her hand, showing me her pinky—swollen and turning a shade of purple that shouldn’t belong on skin.
