Page 181 of Hellbound

It delicately lifted from the metal before suddenly rushing back into the hollow cavern of her being.

Not air. Not breath. But something wholly her.

The piece of herself that had been caged within the blade, used as part of a pact that made her kill, and kill, and kill.

Her knees buckled. The sensation was like being struck by lightning made of memory and feeling.

And a terrible but beautiful sense of choice returned to her blood-covered hands.

It forced her to see it for what it was. Not through the numbed detachment of an enslaved murderer, but the monstrosity of her own making.

She stumbled away from Karsan’s body, shaking uncontrollably as every single life she had taken till that moment crashed over her like a shoal beneath the waves.

Her feet brought her to sink in front of Danika, her gaze half-open, staring into the beyond.

“We were supposed to escape together—” Ksenia’s voice was cracked and raw. “I’m a monster—”

Her bloodied hands reached out to Danika with infinite gentleness, pulling her close.

Danika’s lips parted. “Stay…sharp.”

Tears cut clean tracks through the blood on Ksenia’s cheeks.

Eyes ringed white.

A rattling breath.

Stillness as Danika passed.

Then, Karsan laughed.

42

“Ideserved that.” Karsan sat up, brushing himself off as if he’d taken a tumble.

His robes were in tatters, but his body was actively mending itself before her very eyes.

She had killed him and watched his heart pulse and stutter.

But now he stood. And breathed.

His tissue wove itself together, blood plucking into the air in crimson droplets, rushing back to his body to flow through veins as skin wrapped itself over his wound and made him whole once more in the matter of a minute.

The terror that crawled up her spine was primal, instinctive.

“You’ve been toying with the gods. So have I.”

Danika’s final warning echoed in her mind.

Her body screamed at her to stay frozen.

But she threw herself at Radegast, quicker than Karsan.

Her fingers closed around Krahomor’s handle. The cold bit into her palm, deeper than ice, colder than death itself.

Karsan’s eyes widened as he lunged for her.

Too late.