Page 12 of Hellbound

Heaving, she peeled back a floorboard where a stash of threadbare but mended clothing lay along with a few keepsakes. The fibers of her tunic and pants were rough on her fresh skin, but she let the pain ground her. She wiped Caromir with the edge of her shirt and tested the blade within her hand, half convinced her reflexes had to be relearned.

Caromir felt…alive. More in sync with her than before. It pulsed with the quickening beat of her heart, as if it were an extension of her body.

She flipped it in the air and watched it spin, then caught it on its return, as if it were fated to be so.

She quickly passed it to her other hand, and it obeyed; not like a separate entity, but like a limb she’d forgotten she had.

A soulbound blade was an extension of a wielder’s will and amplified their greatest strengths.

She caught the yellow glint of her eyes in the shaft of the blade as it flew through the air. Ksenia sucked in a breath.

She tilted it, further examining her reflection in the polished steel. The blade was too thin to show her entire face—only vertical slivers as she turned it. The familiar but unsettling golden yellowness of one eye stared back at her, then disappeared. The curve of her tawny cheek was full, no longer gaunt. Her lips were plump and deep red, as if blood rushed just beneath the surface. Another angle caught her brow, her slender nose. Her black, wavy hair. Each piece looked like her, yet not, as if a stranger’s features were woven into her own.

And that frightened her more than anything else.

Tucking Caromir into a sheath at her hip, she had nothing left to ruminate on in the hovel.

Her soul and her sister were trapped at Hearth, the castle at the citadel. The sooner she sought her revenge, the sooner she could be free of this pact. She didn’t want to stay Vornaya’s servant for long. She pulled the hood of her tattered cloak low over her face and stole into the streets.

A fine mist filled the town as did commonfolk out for their early morning errands. Everything and everywhere felt new but familiar at the same time. Ksenia narrowly avoided puddles where stones were missing.

She had never noticed the decayed brick making up the guild hall, moss growing in place of the black mortar and making it look whole from afar.

The pest problem was worse than she’d remembered. Birds of carrion perched along the rooflines, their glossy black forms stark against the gray sky. They tilted their heads in jerky, curious movements, following her down the street.

The drunks at the tavern were earsplitting. The sound of breaking bottles in the alleyways made her head pound.

She wrapped her arms protectively around herself as she rushed on. Her body curved and dipped in places she wasn’t used to, as if she had been rearranged and the puzzle pieces forced back incorrectly.

She slammed into someone’s portly back and stumbled, caught off guard. The town baker smelled of flour, yeast, and warmth—the kind only a fire could leave behind. Familiarity momentarily soothed Ksenia before she recoiled.

She braced for the inevitable—curses, spitting, and the visceral hatred that came with recognition. King Karsan had driven her family name to infamy, painting them as monsters to justify his purge. Headhunters and Envorsen alike had been hunting high and low. She and her sister had managed to thwart them at every turn—until the previous night.

The woman yelped and turned to face her. “Slow down, child! Are you all right? You’re pale as death…” Her tone slipped from worry to wariness.

Ksenia stared back. Did she not recognize her face from the wanted posters? She hadn’t wanted to believe her foreign reflection, but it seemed true. She had an unrecognizable face and body.

“Sorry—wasn’t looking,” Ksenia stammered as a throbbing deepened in her temples and she clutched her head.

The woman didn’t help her up from the ground or stop her from slipping past, so Ksenia continued, her gait uneven.

A chalk grid stretched across the broken cobbles. Ksenia’s feet smeared through it before she noticed the children, waiting their turn.

“You’re messing it up!”

She stumbled past.

Behind her, their bright and breathless chanting picked up as they hopped the squares. “One fold, two fold, three fold, four—bondsmiths won’t be here no more!”

Ksenia’s head pounded. They had no idea what they were singing. Damascus folds were a testament to a bondsmith’s skill, each one compounding the power within a blade, deepening the pattern until the metal held incredible potential in the hands of the right fighter.

Her grandfather’s fold count with Radegast had been among the highest in their family’s history.

Now it was a hopscotch rhyme.

She bumped absentmindedly against a wooden fruit stall, bracing her hand against the beam for balance.

Her hands had no grip. Decades’ worth of calluses and toughened skin—gone. She cursed their soft weakness when she came away with a splinter. She yanked it free between her teeth and spat it out.