Page 180 of Hellbound

Her limbs tingled, growing numb as the panic consumed every rational thought.

Not from fear.

From something worse.

With Radegast, Karsan had made her dance and made her kill. Made her obey.

She had prided herself on being untouchable. Unbreakable. Untamable.

Something fundamental shattered.

Her numb fingers clawed and curled against the ground, breaking her nails, clenching into a fist as she brought herself to stand.

Everything dissolved as she felt her jaw unhinge in a primal scream of anguish.

The monster within answered.

She struck him like lightning, her newfound speed and strength coursing unbidden through her veins, and he could scarcely blink his eyes open before his own blood spilled.

Up close, he was smaller, frailer than she remembered. The illusion of royalty stripped away—just a feeble old man in a crown and silk robes. How this man was responsible for the annihilation of her people seemed unfathomable in the moment.

She was surgical, cutting at his shoulders, across his back, slashing at his open palms when he lifted them in defense.

Radegast clattered to the floor.

Karsan fell to the ground, his blood making no difference to the mess.

His thin lips parted to form words, and Ksenia interrupted them.

She flayed him with Caromir’s wicked edge, from the hollow of his neck to the bottom of his stomach as he screamed.

It. Wasn’t. Enough.

Her bare hands dug into his chest cavity.

Tearing.

Pulling.

Breaking.

His ribs snapped beneath her grip. His nails dug at her cheeks, at her eyes, but it didn’t stop her.

His grip finally weakened, and he fell slack to the ground.

Ksenia was finally sated, looking at the weak pulse of his heart of darkness in a broken nest of bones.

She drew herself up to full height, picking up Radegast within her wet hands.

She drank in the fear of his blood-flecked eyes, the way life was fading from them.

Death was too kind a punishment, but to rid the world of his rot was the greatest kindness she could give after all the bloodshed.

She drove the hellbound kingsword deep into his heart, slicing through tendon, sinew, deep into the beating, convulsing muscle that kept the butcher king alive.

She did it for Danika, for Petra, for the children, for the bondsmiths and their families that came before her, and those who died standing up against the king.

It began quietly, like the pale gray light before dawn breaking over the mountain ranges—a blue waft of smoke that spiraled through the shaft of the blade to form a glowing bead of dew upon the fuller.