Page 58 of Godbound
I claw at the edges, but they crumble between my fingers. And within seconds, I’m waist deep, my mind racing.
A massive black snout of his dragon snorts in my face, its breath hot and foul enough to make my eyes sting.
The Red Hunter stands over me, his expression a mask of satisfaction.
“A sinner like this whoring worm could never win,” he sneers, dissolving the edge of the pit as soon as I try to pull myself up from a hole in the earth he created with his matter-shifting magic.
His voice is louder now, booming across the plaza as he lifts an iron-clad glove. “When I win,” he bellows, “the scum of Rust Hollow will work for the kingdom, repenting for their sins. They’ll be fitted with gauntlets and serve you without cost for the rest of their lives.”
Slaves.
He is going to make them slaves like during the last Thul'Barak’s reign.
My blood boils as he proceeds to list all the ways free labor would improve people’s lives and, most importantly, aid with the impending war with Lothagrom, a forever-expanding empire to the east.
I lunge forward, shoving both hands against the edge, my arms burning as I try to pull myself free. But the ground betrays me. Sand liquefies into sludge under my palms, dissolving beneath my grip.
I slip deeper, my stomach lurching as the earth engulfs me again.
The pull is relentless. The more I struggle, the tighter it grips me. The grainy mass presses in from all sides. I’m chest-deep in the sucking earth. There are no steps to grab. Every frantic shove of my arms only makes the muck pull higher, tugging at my clothes. My muscles burn from the effort to lift myself, lungs burning as the weight tightens across my chest.
Above me, the crowd’s laughter swells, the sound is thick withamusement. Their entertainment. My misery.
My hands claw at the surface, fingers scrabbling for anything solid and coming away with gritty mud. There’s no purchase, only more slurp and give, and the humiliation bites as sharp as the exhaustion.
When it becomes clear that struggling only prolongs the spectacle until the Red Hunter tires of watching, I force my body still. I stop fighting the pull. I breathe in short, ragged pulls, feel the mud hold me around the waist and sternum, and find a kind of awful balance between breath and sink. It isn’t surrender so much as preservation.
And with it, the words bubbling up in my throat finally find their way out.
“No!” I scream, glaring upward with as much conviction as I can muster, despite the suffocating press of the sinking ground around me. The crowd hushes slightly in expectation.
Above, Zyrel’s shadow stretches long against the edge of the pit. He tilts his head, his lip curling as he stares down at me like an insect writhing beneath his boot.
“No?” he echoes. He steps closer, his tall frame blocking out more of the fading light. The way he looms over me is deliberate, he wants me to feel small.
I force a shaky breath and summon what’s left of my strength. “The late Archpriest tried to take advantage of those women’s situation?—”
Zyrel’s laugh comes slow, rolling through the air.
“Advantage?” he sneers. “The old man did everything he could to rid Calcatra of your kind.” He pauses, letting the words settle. “Him not taking full advantage was precisely why…” His jaw tightens for the briefest moment, just a flicker of something unintended. Then, just as quickly, he smooths his expression and straightens. “... why the gods chose to remove him,” he continues in an easy, confident tone.
He turns in a slow circle, his long muscular arms spread wide in a metaphorical embrace of the crowd. He’s waiting, letting them simmer in the tension, drawing out the moment like a master showman before his final act.
Then, with a voice dripping in certainty, he delivers the killing blow.
“But when I am the Church’s supreme leader,” he declares, “I will set a bounty on the deliverance of the sinners. So no Crimson Tether cursed can hide from the Church ever again.”
The crowd doesn’t react immediately. The words land first, sinking in.
Then, like a slow-building wave, it begins. Gasps. Murmurs of understanding as they grasp what he’s just proposed.
I freeze. My mind stutters, recoiling from the weight of his words, their meaning sinking in like a dagger pressing deeper into flesh.
He is the Red Hunter by choice, hunting the cursed women for the sick pleasure of it. But if there was a bounty on our heads, if we became a prize to be collected, how long before desperation turns neighbor against neighbor?
How many would seize the opportunity to create the very problem they could solve for a reward?
How much would it take to force a kiss upon a helpless girl, condemning her to a fate she could never escape? Rust Hollow’s current living conditions would feel like a holiday compared to what awaits us if Zyrel becomes Archpriest.
