Page 1 of Chained to the Horned God

VALOA

I come to gagged and shackled, half-drowned in pitch darkness that tastes of rusted iron and mold.

The stench down here is enough to peel skin from bone—rank with piss, blood, rotting meat, and human despair.

Someone retches not far from me, the sound wet and weak.

It mingles with the ever-present groan of the ship’s belly, the creaking wood like the bones of something long dead, still shifting in its grave.

The chains bite into my wrists as the ship lists.

I slide half a foot before slamming into another body.

Skin against skin—feverish, trembling, slick with sweat.

I can’t tell who it is. Doesn’t matter. There are too many of us down here to name.

Too many eyes dull with hunger and horror.

Prazh is gone, and all of us from it have been shoved into this floating tomb.

My head throbs where they struck me. Left temple, swelling like a goose egg. I don’t remember falling. I remember fire. Screams. That smell when a home is burning with all its memories still inside. Then blackness. Then here.

My throat’s raw. The gag’s nothing more than a rough strip of canvas tied too tight, soaked through with blood—mine and others’.

I breathe through my nose, shallow and shaky.

Salt crusts my nostrils. The sea air trickles in from somewhere, barely enough to hint that the world still exists beyond this hold.

Someone whimpers. A girl, by the sound. Young. Younger than me.

I roll toward her, ignoring the pull of shackles grinding bone. “Hey,” I croak, the word shredded by the cloth gag. She doesn’t hear me. Or she does and doesn’t care. Probably the second. Nobody has the luxury of hope anymore. Not here.

A cough explodes to my left, hacking and wet, and then someone else starts shivering uncontrollably.

I know that sound. It’s fever. I’ve heard it under better roofs, with better tools.

My father’s voice floats back to me, rough as sand: When it rattles the lungs, that’s when it’s ready to kill. Move fast, girl.

Move fast.

I dig my fingers into my belt, feeling through the grime and sweat for the pouch. Blessedly, they missed it. The elves searched my skirts but didn’t bother much with the lining. Too many bodies. Too little time. Or maybe they didn’t think a healer was worth the effort. Good. Let them stay ignorant.

With trembling hands, I fish out a wad of cloth—old, but clean enough.

Pressed herbs wrapped in thin leather, tied tight with sinew.

I work the knot with my teeth until it gives, all while praying the boat doesn’t lurch hard enough to send me sliding again.

My shoulder’s already bruised black from the last roll.

The herbs smell sharp even through the rot—mint, feverroot, dried slices of bitterbell. I press a pinch of the mixture to the roof of my mouth, chew until the paste burns, then spit it into the cloth. It’s not the most sanitary thing I’ve ever done, but it’s what I have.

I crawl toward the coughing man, dragging chains behind me like a damn ghost. He’s thin.

Gaunt, more bones than skin. His eyes flutter when I touch his shoulder.

I don’t know his name, but his fever’s real.

Skin hot as boiled stew. He mumbles something I can’t understand.

Probably doesn’t matter. I press the cloth to his lips.

“Swallow,” I whisper. He flinches. “It’ll help.”

He doesn’t. Not really. But he tries. I lift his head. The cloth soaks through. He chokes once, then quiets.

My hands are shaking. No water. No fire. No basin. But I can still help. I have to.

A boy whines in the corner. Maybe six? Maybe eight? I can’t see him, only hear the weak cries between the groaning of the hull. Someone else moans beside him, too far gone to form words. Another hour and they’ll be gone.

I bite my gag to keep from screaming.

“You okay?” a voice asks, cracked and male. Older. Across from me, barely a shadow. A flicker of kindness in the dark.

“Still breathing,” I manage through clenched teeth. “Can’t say much else.”

There’s a laugh. Dry. Distant. “Then you’re better off than most.”

He’s not wrong.

Time drips slow. Like the water leaking down the wall beside me, steady and relentless. Somewhere above us, someone shouts. A whip cracks. Then silence again, broken only by the gentle rhythm of misery.

I work through the bodies. Tying cloths, checking pulses, muttering names I make up to keep myself sane. A girl I call Reya dies sometime after the second pass. Her lips go blue. Eyes open, but empty. I close them with fingers I can barely feel.

I don’t cry. I haven’t got the water left for tears.

Then I find him—a boy, no more than ten, curled against a broken beam. His breathing’s ragged. Blood paints his chin. Internal. He blinks up at me, lashes clumped with salt and filth. I hold him.

“It’s okay,” I say. “You’re safe.”

It’s a lie. But maybe it sounds pretty.

His fingers twitch in mine, once. Then he goes still.

I cradle him until the guards come.

The door slams open with a groan and a barked order in that serpentine elf tongue. Bootsteps thunder down the stairs. Two of them. One shouts, the other yanks the body from my arms without a word. I hiss, but I’m too weak to stop them.

They drag the boy out like he’s nothing. Just meat. Just garbage.

There’s a splash minutes later. Cold. Final.

I lean against the hull and count my breaths. One. Two. Fourteen. Sixty. My wrists throb. My mouth’s dry as dead leaves. The hold stinks of old blood and newer death.

The ship creaks again, louder this time. Like the ocean’s woken up. The wind howls outside. Rain drums above us. The sea is moaning. Long. Low. Alive.

That night I dream.

Not of home or my father’s crooked smile. I dream of blood. Fire. Chains snapping. Screams turning to silence. I dream of red eyes and black blades and teeth like daggers smiling through smoke.

I wake with salt in my mouth. Not tears. Not seawater.

Just the bitter bile of memory and the promise of worse to come.

The days bleed into each other, sour and shapeless, broken only by the rattle of chains and the moans of the dying.

I stop counting them. I stop trying to sleep.

Every time my eyes close, I see that boy’s face—the one who stopped breathing in my arms. The sound of his last gasp is stitched into the back of my skull like a curse I’ll never shake.

I keep moving because if I stop, I’ll shatter. I pour what’s left of myself into wounds and fevers, dirty wraps, whispered comfort. I press lips to brows slick with sweat, knowing most won’t make it. That doesn’t stop me. Nothing short of death will stop me.

The guards stomp through the hold now and then, barking orders or swinging fists for no reason but boredom.

They don't talk to us. They don’t see us.

We're not people—we're ballast. Even when one kicks over a water bucket and soaks my herb pouch, I bite my tongue until it bleeds rather than speak. It’s not cowardice. It’s calculation.

Some of them laugh when you cry. Some only hurt you when you make noise.

I’ve learned to listen for the laughter. That’s when they’re the most dangerous.

Today, the wood creaks overhead, and boots pound the deck. Then footsteps on the ladder. I glance up from where I’m wrapping a man’s busted hand with a strip of my sleeve. I recognize the cadence—Arkos.

Arkos is the worst of them. Even the other guards avoid his gaze when he grins. He grins a lot. Like the whole damn voyage is a joke only he finds funny.

He’s tall for a dark elf, broad across the shoulders, with skin like burned oil and teeth filed to subtle points.

His armor’s spattered with old blood that never quite washes off.

He reeks of copper and rot, like he bathes in old slaughter.

His eyes are yellow. Not like honey or gold—like pus. Sick, glistening, wrong.

He steps into the hold, scans us like meat hung on hooks, then points. “You. Red.”

I look behind me.

“No, no. You.” He grabs my chain and yanks. I stumble, but keep my feet.

I feel every gaze on me as he drags me out. No one says a word. Not even the old man with the broken nose who tried to shield a girl two nights ago. He hasn’t spoken since they beat him half-conscious.

The sun blinds me when we break into the open air. I blink against it, blinking past tears that are more from shock than anything else. The salt wind hits me hard—thick with fish and something fouler. The deck’s slick with blood, some of it fresh. A gull screams overhead like it’s laughing.

Arkos hauls me to the rail, shoves me forward until my chest hits it.

“Airing you out,” he says. “You look like shit.”

I don’t answer.

He steps behind me, too close. His breath ghosts against the back of my neck. “That hair’s too red to waste down there,” he murmurs. “Sun likes it. I like it.”

My stomach clenches. My hands curl into fists.

“Say something,” he purrs. “Beg. That’s what the others do.”

My silence enrages him. He grabs my jaw, yanks my head back. His fingers are wet with something I don’t want to think about.

“Not much of a talker, are you?” He chuckles, low and lecherous. “Good. You don’t need a tongue for?—”

I don’t plan it. My hand moves on its own. Fast. Desperate.

While he leans in to whisper filth into my ear, I twist my wrist and grab the hilt of the blade tucked under his belt. It’s small. Sloppy. A skinning knife, not a weapon of war. But it’ll do.

When he unshackles one wrist, I strike.

I jam the blade into his thigh, deep and cruel, right above the knee. I twist. He screams.

His voice is high-pitched and stupid. It doesn’t sound like him. It sounds like a boy caught stealing pies, not a monster caught mid-rape.

He staggers back, clutching the wound. Blood pours over his fingers, thick and black. I lunge at him again, aiming for his neck this time, but I’m not fast enough.