Page 31 of Chained to the Horned God

VALOA

S moke drifts like ghosts through the streets of Kharza, curling around toppled statues and charred doorways, seeping into every crack like sorrow made visible.

The city moans beneath our feet, its bones fractured, its breath a shallow rasp.

The fires have mostly burned themselves out, but the air still tastes like ash and memory.

Half the noble houses lie in ruin. Gutted shells, their once-gilded facades blackened and broken, weep soot down marble steps.

The market square is littered with debris—splintered carts, blood-slick stones, broken glass that crunches underfoot.

Some of the bodies have been cleared. Others still wait.

There is no singing in the aftermath.

But there are eyes.

They follow us through the silence. People, dazed and dirt-streaked, their clothes torn and their eyes wide, emerge from hiding.

They come slowly, blinking at the light like animals crawling from a den.

Their gazes latch onto us—onto Barsok, tall and battered, blood dried along his side.

Onto Sharonna, her sword still in hand, her chin raised high despite the tremble in her limbs. Onto me.

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.”

He paces slow, each step deliberate, his eyes sweeping the crowd. He sees them all. The wounded. The widows. The fighters with bandaged arms and the children with soot-streaked cheeks. The gladiators. The former slaves. The nobles stripped of silk and pride.

“I propose elections,” he says, voice unwavering. “A council. Chosen by the people. By vote, not violence. A city led by those who’ve walked its streets. Who’ve felt its weight. No more kings. No more collars.”

For a heartbeat, there’s silence.

Then the dam breaks.

The roar swells like thunder—raw, electric, uncontainable. Fists pump the sky. People scream. Cry. Embrace. The sound washes over us in waves, a flood of something feral and free.

He turns to me.

“This was your idea,” he says, not shouting now, just speaking to me like the rest of the world has melted away. “You gave me something worth fighting for.”

My throat closes. I want to say something. Anything.

But words don’t come.

So I take his hand.

And hold it like it’s the only thing that matters in this new world we’ve made.

The stars spill across the sky like scattered jewels, bright and sharp and countless.

Their light pools in the creases of ruined stone and broken towers, painting the skeleton of Kharza in silver.

It smells of ash and new earth, of rebirth, like the city itself is breathing different now.

Slower. Softer. Hope clings to the air like mist.

I sit beside the fire, legs crossed, shoulders wrapped in a blanket that still smells like blood and Barsok’s sweat.

The embers crackle low, casting dancing light on the faces of those who remain.

The wounded sleep nearby. The children doze against their mothers.

Gladiators whisper in the shadows, voices soft with wonder and exhaustion.

Then I see him.

He’s moving through the crowd like he’s part of the night, bare-chested, his skin streaked with old soot, new scars. He carries no weapon. No crown. Just a calm I’ve never seen before. The kind of peace that comes after the storm has finished tearing you apart.

He stops in front of me.

My throat tightens.

Barsok drops to one knee.

Not like a ruler.

Not like a warrior.

But like himself.

My Barsok.

“I love you, Valoa Pell,” he says, and his voice is raw velvet, thick with feeling, trembling with more courage than I’ve ever heard in a battlefield shout. “Will you be my mate? My equal? My flame in the dark?”

Tears hit my cheeks before I know they’ve fallen. Hot, salt-slick. My breath breaks against the lump in my throat. My heart tries to punch out of my ribs.

“You… you idiot,” I whisper, half-sobbing, half-laughing. “You’re late.”

His brow furrows.

“I decided that weeks ago,” I say, my hands reaching for him, shaking. “Yes. Yes, you beautiful, bull-headed bastard. I will.”

He surges forward, pulling me into his arms like he’ll never let me go again. His lips find mine, desperate and sure. The kiss burns and heals in the same breath.

Around us, someone starts cheering.

Then another.

Then all of them.

The sound rolls through the square, a wave of joy and noise that bounces off the stone and crashes into the stars.

But we don’t hear it.

Not really.

All I hear is his heartbeat, steady as the tide, whispering that after everything, we’re still here.

Together.