Page 49 of Hellbound

She mimicked his amused hum from dinner.

“Can I ask you something?” Her question made his brow quirk. “Do you ever resent it?”

“Resent what?”

Her smile was small, nasty. The wine had loosened her tongue. “Serving someone who will never make you king?”

The silence that followed was tense enough to cut.

“What do you know about resentment?”

His question flared her anger, driving the dagger she had intended to twist in him back into her gut.

What did she know about resentment? Resentment weighed over her shoulders like a cloak. She resented his very existence—that he stood there breathing while bondsmiths were killed. She resented that he’d found her at the forest line and marched her to her death. She resented that he’d been complicit in her murder and couldn’t recognize her face.

“I can imagine family dinners are awkward.” She ignored his question, drunk with rage. “Sitting at Varka’s table, barely acknowledged as a brother. Then going ‘home’ and being addressed as…” She tapped her finger thoughtfully against her chin. “I wonder what he calls you. Captain? Prince? Son? Tool?”

“Be careful.” He leaned closer, his voice soft.

Ksenia’s smile didn’t waver.

Nobody. Nobody was that perfect, that still. There had to be a seam in his mask. And she would find it and slip in to see where the real Bohdan lived.

Then she would get her hands on that version of him and squeeze until something gave.

She turned to leave but paused, looking back over her shoulder. “I’m sure the king appreciates your service; your hands are bloody enough.”

I can’t decide whether to call you foolish or bold.

She had no response to Vornaya’s statement.

She left the library, but behind her, and for the second time that night, she felt his eyes burning into her back with spite and something else she couldn’t quite name.

Ksenia wagered that she had now posed an adequate challenge to his impartiality during the trials.

Tomorrow would bring final preparations—Ksenia would absorb whatever wisdom and training Varka wished to impart before nightfall. When the sun set, everything would change. The potential champions would gather in Hearth and officially enter the trials.

15

Varka had been characteristically vague: meet Bohdan in the dungeons of Hearth at sunset to enter the trials.

The carriage dropped her off outside the unwelcome but familiar gates. She approached the guards with tension, but with her gold token in hand, everything had changed.

The guards stepped aside with respectful nods and an Envorsen materialized at her shoulder, wordlessly gesturing for her to follow.

He led her through corridors, down narrow stairs that spiraled endlessly into the castle’s depths. The chill air bit through her clothing, thick with the smell of damp stone and dust. Torches flickered in their iron brackets, casting their dancing shadows on the walls.

Finally, they reached the bottom and he pushed open a heavy door, reinforced with iron bands, revealing a large dungeon.

Bohdan’s piercing green gaze magnified on her the moment she entered, despite filtering to the back of the crowd of men.

The noise level dropped—then doubled.

Ksenia fought the urge to fidget, pinning her hands stiffly at her sides, the leather of her black fingerless gloves groaning. She wore an oversized black linen shirt with loose, billowing sleeves that tied at the wrists; across her torso, she had wrapped both sides of the tunic, folding the free edges and tucking them into a pair of high-waisted black leather pants. The breeches tapered at the ankle and were carefully tucked into black suede boots with a reinforced metal toe, similar to the pitons she’d adorned her boots with just a few nights ago.

She had draped a velvet cloak over her shoulders, which brushed her knees. Her goal was to be forgettable, part of the crowd, and nothing more.

How woefully naive she’d been.