Page 184 of Hellbound

“Your time is coming, butcher,” she sneered. “You’re scared to bear the weight of punishment the way you freely doled it to others.”

Karsan’s jaw clenched with a quiver, blinking.

His skin bleached white as bone.

Then, he left.

Ksenia leaned back against her cold bed.

The presence of her soul only weighed heavier now—a burden she had fought so hard to reclaim, only to find it unworthy. She tried to defy Karsan’s demonization of bondsmiths.

And instead, she became exactly what he wanted everyone to believe: a weapon, with a human face, leaving bodies in her wake.

Petra. The bondsmith children. Danika.

She meant to be the hand that pulled them to safety. Not the blade that cut them down.

And beneath it all, the knife that twisted the deepest: Bohdan had seen what she was capable of. Every ugly, blood-stained piece of her.

Whatever he thought of her now, she had wholly earned.

There had been some spark of hope within her. Despite her best efforts, she had begun to cling furtively to the idea of them and all the mess that entailed.

She had promised him that he wouldn’t have to live his lie after killing Karsan.

But somehow, he hadn’t died. Not when she had pushed his own hellbound blade deep into his heart.

Her body seized with silent sobs with remorse for what she’d done and what she’d become.

The monster Karsan had always known she was.

The monster Bohdan could finally see.

The monster she couldn’t escape.

43

Aheavily armed contingent of Envorsen escorted her to the great hall for the execution. The morning light filtered through the rose window, casting Ravenka’s gem-studded reliquary with a cold glow.

The central pews had been removed to accommodate the crowd of nobles and peasants alike who’d come to spectate. They silently parted in the center to allow Ksenia to walk down between the massive stone pillars to her execution.

The silence in the hall was anything but; it was thick and expectant, the sound of the Envorsen footfalls and Ksenia’s dragging chains amplified and echoing into the rafters.

A beam of multi-colored light shone over a solitary prayer bench that was situated in front of a shallow stone basin.

On either side of the kneeler, a pair of familiar faces.

Bohdan’s jaw was stiff, his shoulders held steady as his eyes fixed on a distant point beyond her face.

His hand rested steady against the pommel of his sword, but his knuckles were bloodless, tendons standing against his hand on edge.

Opposite him, Mirko’s face was grim and drawn with lines. He ran his hand roughly through his peppered, coiled hair, his eyes dropping from Ksenia’s back to the floor.

Directly before the stone basin, Karsan’s throne.

Against the ancient stone of the great hall, the polished wooden throne gleamed obscenely.

Ksenia could feel his presence before she heard a single footstep approach. A change in the very air made her skin crawl with recognition.