Page 23 of Hellbound

Gilded portraits of the Beranek family, each wielding a weapon, were painted in traditional oil and hung side by side along the walls. Varka beckoned her deeper, and Ksenia couldn’t help but pause at an imposing portrait of a matronly woman with dark eyes and hair like Varka’s, though soft and curling down to her waist. Perhaps her late mother.

She was lovely, but most astonishing was the greatsword plunged into the ground, upon which she leaned her hand.

A weight lifted off Ksenia’s shoulders and she turned to find an older, portly woman with kind eyes working her sodden cloak off her back.

Ksenia held firm. Beranek Manor was nice, but it wasn’t safe.

“Meet me down here in the morning to begin our training.” Varka tossed a wave over her shoulder, disappearing into an expansive library, tomes and journals lining shelves that stretched to the ceiling.

The servant woman gave her a sympathetic smile before guiding Ksenia up a flight of stairs past a dizzying maze of rooms tucked in one of the manor’s side wings.

Ksenia gratefully bade her a good night, shutting the bedroom door behind her.

She gravitated toward the far end of the bedroom, where a fireplace of carved green soapstone had been lit, its mantle featuring woodland creature figurines. The firelight flickered against wooden floors laid in a herringbone pattern. Plush rugs muffled her footsteps, and she shed her boots to avoid tracking dirt into the pile. Arched ceilings soared upward to a central point in the square room, ribbed with black beams that mirrored a cathedral vault. Stained-glass windows were dotted with rain, dressed in thick, embossed velvet curtains.

Every texture was foreign, and to see all of it in one place—so richly dyed, so soft—overwhelmed her. The fireplace alone must have taken a stonemason years to chisel. And when she strode over to the four-poster bed, swathed with silken green curtains, she relished how her hand sank into the softness.

Stained-green double doors opened onto a balcony overlooking the lake. The entire room smelled of cedar and fresh linen, and she wondered whether any other lodgers had ever occupied the space.

She ventured into the bathroom. Within a glass-paned oculus in the ceiling, raindrops rang pleasantly, and down beneath it lay a sunken, oval-shaped marble tub. The walls and countertop were made of the same dark green soapstone as the fireplace. The smell of lavender and myrrh wafted from the tub; someone had already drawn her a bath.

She had never known a bathtub finer than a pewter trough in her childhood home, and she marveled at the structure.

She stripped off her tattered clothing and threw it into the corner. A wardrobe full of women’s clothing stood in the corner of the bathroom, suited for any occasion she could think of. Gingerly, she lowered herself into the steaming water, groaning as her skin and sore muscles acclimated to the searing heat. Her knots began to loosen, and she slid further into the water until only her face was left exposed at the surface.

Her hair plumed around her, and she closed her eyes.

Beneath the water, her mind was clear, sacred, and sharp. Despite the austerity and grandeur of the manor, there was an undeniable serenity to the ample space, and Ksenia was grateful for the moment of respite.

Later, she wrung the water from her thick, wavy hair and slipped into soft linen bedclothes she found in the wardrobe—in Beranek green, of course. With the crackling fire drowning out her noisy thoughts about Danika, her eyes grew reluctantly heavy as she heard the wind whistling between the gap of the balcony doors.

Ksenia soon found herself in the opposite wing from her quarters. She noted how strangely the portraits transitioned from oil paintings into a multitude of mirrors: silvered, then obsidian, like the smooth, undisturbed surface of the lake. She looked upon dozens of reflections—but none matched her visage. The hall seemed endless, but it was an optical illusion; before her stood a decorative floor-to-ceiling mirror, like a cathedral window, arched at the top and framed with iron laurel leaves.

She stepped forth to it, peering into the depths.

Within her reflection, a multitude of hands came from behind her, snaking around her body, grasping her shoulders, fitting around her neck, restraining her hands, and fisting in her hair. With a shout, she writhed, wildly fighting against their grip, only to find out there was nothing on her. She stared down at her body, then back again at the mirror.

Her eyes were two different colors: silver and black. She jolted away from the mirror.

“I lent you a little something of mine,” Vornaya said, her voice serpentine. “And you’ll go mad if you don’t repay me.”

When she blinked again, her reflection held Caromir, blood staining its surface, her hand, and the front of her bedclothes with a dark black wetness.

Tick! Craaaaaaaaack!

The fracture in the mirror started small, with a sharp, delicate sound. Then, it multiplied into a series of smaller cracks, like ice breaking across a frozen pond. Every fracture added to the growing chorus, radiating in all directions.

Ksenia braced her hands before her face, expecting pain from the shards. When none came, she opened her eyes; what she saw chilled her to the bone.

Every shard was a different version of herself. One was monstrous, featuring black-veined skin and blood dripping from the corners of her yellow eyes. Another: insane, laughing softly with her head tilted at an impossible angle, eyes bright. Yet another, dead, her lips blue and skin gray, eyes lifeless and cold.

“A life to weigh, a soul to lend.”

“A kill each week, and I’ll extend.”

Ksenia sat up in bed drenched in a cold sweat, her hair matted against her forehead and down her back.

Dawn was breaking, casting the lake in a silvery glow. She dragged herself out of bed and made ready for the day, tucking a muted green linen tunic with billowing sleeves that cuffed at the wrist into a pair of brushed brown leather pants with matching boots laced to the knee. She wasn’t sure what lay ahead of her, but dressing functionally was always the way to go.