Page 51 of Chained to the Horned God
I inhale and speak: “I have to tell you everything.”
His fingers tighten around mine.
So I tell him. About Beltran. About the whispers of assassination and sabotage. About the plan hidden in skirts folded over laundry. About Lotor sharpening kingship with fear and the possibility that tomorrow, they might break Barsok’s body to turn him into a weapon they can no longer control.
He listens. Jaw clenched. Eyes intense. Not scary—just weighty with every battle he’s already fought. I watch his breathing steady as I unfold the map, trace corridors through memory and rebellion, where soldiers sleep and corridors open with careful bribes. I hear my voice quiver on the sentence that saysescape is possible. I say it anyway. I add that hope is where power lives—hope in her hands, trembling, steady, tethered.
He nods once—slow, final.
“If we do this,” he says, voice low as worn leather, “we do it right. No wasted lives. No wild flailing.”
My heart thuds. I reach up to cup his cheek. “Agreed,” I say, voice steady. “We do it together.”
He leans forward, brushing his lips to my forehead—the spot where he first kissed in promise, when the world was still bigger than hatred. That kiss feels like a vow. Not to die. To rebuild. To fight bathed in conviction, not vengeance.
When we break that silence, it's not with words. It’s with resolve, heavy and soft, like a blade sheathed but sharpened.
There’s no turning back now. Every moment ahead is irrevocable. Escape isn’t optional—it’s inevitable. We’ve crossedinto danger. Smoke charged with revolution. I feel the iron in my veins quiver with purpose.
He pulls me into his arms—for comfort, for oath—for home. His breath rumbles. My hand tucks into the curve of his neck, brushing his scars as promise and prayer.
The world beyond us—the cold corridors, the shifting guards, the royal box cracks open again—feels suddenly smaller, weaker.
We are bigger now.
When I step away, I gather the map. I fold my tunic over it. I lace my fingers in his, thumb pressed to his warm palm. His pulse stills beneath my palm, heavy and real.
I tell him what needs saying. “Tomorrow night. When the bell tolls final. We move.”
He nods.
When we lie down, I feel something stubbing inside me—a word:freedom.Not the impossible fantasy of gardens or whispered names, but the real, brutal fight for breath, blood, body, allies, history.
He holds me until we fall to silence. The cell door remains closed. The allies shift. Whispers grow.
And in the quiet drift, I know—I don’t want to go back to living in this cage anymore.
That night,when the torches gutter low and the corridors hush beneath the final bell, we give up words entirely. Instead, we make love—slow, patient, unbroken. There’s no urgency, not like the pit’s demand. Just two bodies breathing in shared fear, shared conviction. His hands tremble as they explore soft scars I left on him. My fingers shake tracing the ridges where steel cut deep. Under each other's touch, both of us know this might be the last time we stand unbroken in darkness together.
I press kisses to his scars—along his jaw, over the seam in his side where muscle closed back on itself with my stitches. I let each kiss carry gratitude, apology, promise—that I found him beneath legends and rage, that I’ll fight even if tomorrow ends legend or man.
His arms wrap around me like a shield, his fingers tangled at my back. He holds me as if I might vanish if he breathes wrong. The cell is small and bare, but home in its fragile quiet. No banners, no chants, only us pressing breath into silence.
When we drift into sleep, I wake to his heartbeat drumming beneath my cheek. Heavy. Insistent. Alive. Mine echoes inside me the way fire roars against storm.
I curl toes into his side and whisper: “Whatever happens... don’t let go of me.”
His stillness answers before his voice. Then a slow nod against breathless midnight.
“Never.”
We drift back into darkness. No more words. Hearts pulsing war drum rhythms. Outside on the corridor, torches flicker and fade, guards shift overhead. But inside this tangled quiet, we are fierce and human and tethered—broken pieces pressed tight by love.
Some fears don’t evaporate with dawn. They linger in bones. But for tonight, in the scent of lavender oil and warm flesh, in the hollow thunder of breath across ribs, I believe what I whispered: I will not let go.
18
BARSOK
