Page 85 of Taming Chaos

A sinking feeling entered the pit of her stomach as her words fell on deaf ears. The drumming started up again. The Bartharrans started walking in a circle around her, chanting and making strange gestures with their hands. Someone handed a green robe to the leader. He draped it across his shoulders and pulled the hood over his eyes, casting his battered face in shadow.

Now he looked really scary.

The Bartharran was handed a long, curved dagger with an ornately jeweled hilt. Another Bartharran produced a golden bowl of liquid. Fragrant steam—reminding her of a mixture of jasmine and mint—rose from the bowl. The boss dipped the dagger in it, uttering a phrase in deep, resonant tones.

She heard the names Salu and Amanhiel many times. Clearly, the two were inextricably linked. The Goddess of the Stars and the God of Chaos. It had a nice ring to it.

Seph fought the urge to laugh and cry uncontrollably. The irony of it all! She was named after a goddess, and now she’d been mistaken for one.

The Bartharran rested the edge of his blade against her throat. Seph winced as the hot metal kissed her bare skin.

After a moment of disbelief, the terrible realization came crashing down upon her.

They’re going to sacrifice me!

“Don’t,” she uttered, feeling more helpless than ever before, even as anger welled up inside her. “He’s not your Amanhiel. He’s something much, much worse—for you. He’ll kill all of you, and all of this will have been for nothing.”

The Bartharran ignored her, his chanting becoming louder as he pressed the blade more firmly against her skin. Razor-sharp pain bit her neck right over the bulge of her trachea. She didn’t dare move; didn’t even dare to breathe.

Her own warm blood trickled down the sides of her neck in tiny rivulets.

This is it!

Torin! She closed her eyes, still believing he would make everything okay. She conjured an image of his face in her mind, remembering that expression; the intense-but-sweet one he got when he watched her, thinking she wasn’t aware.

Well, if she was going to go out at the hands of this fucking zealot pirate, at least she could do it while visualizing the only man she’d ever loved.

The only man who made her feel secure.

The only man who made her feel comfortable in her own skin, with no pretensions, no bullshit, no judgment, no expectations.

Just her, and him, and everything was perfect.

“Don’t kill me,” she whispered, no longer caring that the knife bit into her skin. “You’ll be sorry if you do. Sacrificing me won’t change your cruel existence. Only you can do that.”

But her words were lost on the Bartharrans, who had fallen into some kind of trance. As soon as this stupid prayer was over, she was going to be…

Suddenly, the pressure on her neck was gone.

What?

Seph’s eyes snapped open, only to catch the glint of the blade as he lifted it high into the air and brought it down.

The killing stroke.

But it never came.

That was because something was sticking out of the Bartharran’s eye. A knife! Not a Callidum one, though. It was made from silver Bartharran metal.

The chanting stopped. The boss Bartharran reeled back, clutching at his eye. He pulled the knife out, and a river of crimson poured down his cheek.

You’re here!

The naive Seph of two weeks ago would have been disgusted, horrified. The Seph of now—who had seen so much duplicity and strangeness and death since then—was exultant.

She turned to the side, craning her neck. The Bartharrans scattered as a dark shadow swept into the room. To her surprise, several of those furry nak nak ran before him, fierce and howling, as if they were his very own version of Cerberus, the many-headed hound of the Underworld.

What followed was the most surreal thing she’d ever witnessed.

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