Page 36 of Chained to the Horned God
“You need rest,” she says because of course she reads me.
“Not yet.”
“Tomorrow’s fight is bigger.”
I don’t argue. Not this time.
She climbs out. I hear the lock, the click, the turn of chains on the other side. Silence returns, thicker than the iron door.
I hold the wood minotaur figure in one hand, feel the heft of the memory.
When I ask her if she thinks about escape, I watch her hands fold over fresh bandages, slow and precise. She doesn’t look up at first—just straightens a line, smooths a rag, breathes deep. Her scent—her quiet—fills the cell like an unshakable promise. Then she meets my eyes and says, “Every hour.” She ties the knot, pulls the cloth taut, and finally meets my gaze again. Her lips curve, iron with longing. “But it’s not time yet.”
I don’t ask how she knows things like that. She doesn’t need alphabetized clues or spoken proof. She just does. She’s the steady drumbeat under the terror of this place. Better than prophecies.
Durk appears at the cell gate that night—his limp heavier, his armor scratched, exhaustion lining his face deeper than death. He drags in the heavy cot behind him and drops down across the floor. His voice rattles like metal on rock: “You’re going soft, man.” When I raise a brow, he swears again and adds, “You’re hesitating in the arena these days. Not killing as fast. Drawing the mess out. I’ll be damned if it isn’t because you think about her.”
I want to punch him. Instead, I open my mouth and shut it. His words hit harder than the ogre’s hammer. He tosses his head, boots scuffing the dirt. “Don’t risk dying for a feeling, Horned Storm. That shit kills more men than anything.”
I don’t argue—not because he’s right, but because the thought of being right terrifies me more. I swallow. I feel the sick weight of visibility in here—guards slipping scraps, whispers in the halls, the carved figure I carry tucked beneath my tunic like a beating heart. Maybe I am going soft. Maybe nights of her breath in my hair have turned me into something less savage than before.
The next day, the chorus in the stands shifts when I enter the pit. Lotor’s box creaks with luxury and disgust. He sipped wine as the twin-headed hydra died. Now he’s draped in silk again. His gaze flicks down at me in a tilt like he’s inspecting if the price is worth it. The crowd roars every time I turn, every time my shadow falls on jagged sand.
I face another match—a brute who fights with a war club bigger than my head. He swings once, with a sound like thunder. I hesitate—not enough to ruin the counterstrike, but enough that I see Valoa’s face behind the gates in my mind: worried eyes, clenched jaw. I grip the haft tighter. I spare him until I hear the snap of ribs, not because I think he'll rise again but because I want to return whole. This game is bigger than the kill. It's hollow if I lose myself for their cheers.
The blade comes down. The crowd gasps. The death is quick. The roar follows. I’m supposed to hold my axe up high. Instead, I wipe it on the sand, dirty it again.
Back at the cell, a guard brings water before the door opens wide. Valoa slides in like dusk easing across my side. She kneels beside me, presses a damp cloth to my cheek despite the gathering depth of bruises. She doesn’t say anything, only breathes strength into my skin.
When I ask if I should train harder, she leans forward, voice low: “Train smarter. Because I need you carving through that dumb show not as a star, but as everything I’ll find in the ashes.”
I stare at her mouth the moment she smiles—not for me, not to charm—but because she sees me. And that’s dangerous for both of us.
The rest of the war day is edges and shadows. Each fight I enter, I enter cleaner, faster, careful. They calibrate their bets accordingly. But I keep my secrets: the half-finished scars I carry because of her, the hesitation tightening like a knot in my chest only when the crowd knows my name too well.
Night falls. The torches gutter outside. I return to the cell. Valoa is crouched lighting a small fire in a brazier made from a rusted basin. Sparks spiral upward. I feel the heat—it’s small but enough.
Durk leans against the wall across the cell. I sit near Valoa, and there's no need for talk. Her fingers pull thread back through fresh wounds. Our thighs touch. Just once. Like a vow. I breathe her in. Her scent is parched dirt, lavender, faint cinnamon from the stew she stole for me.
Durk blinks and clears his throat like he remembers he’s guarding—not giving blessings. He staggers off to sleep. The cell door clicks shut.
Valoa stops stitching. She looks at me, head tilted, face battered but resolute. I catch her wrist again, careful. No words necessary. My thumb digs into her palm just enough to ground us both.
We lie side by side again. No spoken promise. Only presence. I feel the carved minotaur pressing between us in my pocket—and I tuck it into her hand. She lets it rest there. Closed fingers.
The chains rattle once when a guard passes outside the door, and we tighten around each other as though our breath alone is enough to hold us upright.
I close my eyes and feel safer than I’ve ever been in any battlefield.
Because of her.
Even if the world will always want to tear us apart, I choose to stand here a little softer. And hold on.
The air inside the cell tastes of iron and old sweat, but when Barsok kisses me, the world rewrites itself.
His lips brush mine with the careful reverence of someone touching something sacred, not just a woman. His body, so large and wild—black fur streaked with silver, shoulders broad enough to shield a battlefield—shakes with restraint. He’s spent his life holding back. Holding in. And now, in the hush between screams outside the cell, he lets me in.
“Valoa,” he breathes against my mouth, voice raw like gravel and thunder. “Tell me this is real.”
