Page 11 of Hellbound

Rise from your ashes.

A scream ripped from deep within Ksenia. Wet, ragged, raw as torn flesh.

Trapped in her own dead body, the darkness was absolute.

She was being smothered from every direction, but she held on to her will.

She summoned what little strength she had left.

Because she wasn’t done with the butcher king.

This body was just a spent husk. She reached for the rage where it always lived, and her heart cracked open, revealing a molten core that incinerated her from the inside out.

The sparks seared the flesh and boiled the remaining blood.

She stoked the rage and let it breathe the air from her lungs till it consumed her entirely.

A thousand sensations assaulted her, spreading through her like wildfire. Tremors racked her as she was forced back into existence, bones reforming, sinew snapping, every muscle fiber knitting together in paralyzing agony. She was mute as she writhed, save for a pained whimper.

She was being stitched back together, back to life. Her skin stretched taut, covering weak fingers and limbs that were outgrowing the nest.

Bone gave way with wet snaps, her whole and new body forcing itself through the ribcage of the old in a dark spray of blood as she tore free.

Her lungs burned from the acrid night air, her airways drowned and gasping at once. She could now feel every inch of herself, brought back from the void, naked to the elements. The first thing she saw through dilated pupils was the crescent moon. She slammed onto the frozen ground, environmental sensations rushing back in dizzying force. Her chest convulsed, retching.

A heartbeat.

Another.

A life to weigh, a soul to lend. A kill each week, and I’ll extend. Vornaya’s cruel voice lacerated Ksenia’s new eardrums, and she burrowed into the mud, desperate to escape it.

Vornaya lifted the thin blade, examining it as it caught the moonlight.

Caromir. She tested the name on her tongue. A fitting name for a kingkiller. Her fingers tightened around the mahogany hilt. And the chain that binds you to me.

She hurled the blade into the dirt, narrowly missing Ksenia’s splayed fingers. Don’t think you’ll be free of me, just because you cannot see me...

The frost melted, beading into dew. The air’s temperature rose tenfold. The petrifying gray receded, color returning to the trees and grass.

Ksenia cracked an eye open to an empty clearing and what remained of her old corpse beneath her.

She stifled her scream as she staggered away, weak as a baby deer.

Cold sweat coated her skin as she drew in a breath, the stench reeking of viscera.

Slowly, she retrieved her dagger, her fresh skin prickling at the bit of metal.

She lurched from tree to tree until she reached the forest line, each step becoming more solid as her sense of equilibrium returned.

She no longer shook from weakness, but rather from the nakedness of her body as she made her way back to the empty cottage.

The light of dawn spread over the townscape, burning her sensitive retinas. Darkened, drab buildings rose in a crooked line, each leaning slightly into its neighbor as if sharing a secret.

4

Rats skulked along the buildings and alleyways, their beady eyes tracking her as she shut the doors.

She fought the bile climbing up her throat as the pool of congealed blood greeted her in the center of the room. She tore her eyes away and focused on dragging the wooden bed from the corner of the room.