Page 69 of Hellbound

The king had no reason to dispose of her; she was the last bondsmith.

Danika was useful to the king.

Danika—

Her focus homed in on a figure, slumped face down in an alleyway, flaxen hair matted with blood. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. But she drifted forward anyway.

She stumbled to a stop and crouched before the body.

Her hand shook as she took hold of the figure’s slender shoulder, clearing away their stringy, tangled hair.

Blood had leeched from Ksenia’s face, her lips gray and numb.

She turned the body over—

And revealed a sack of rotted produce. Nothing human at all.

Tears of relief sprang to her traitorous eyes, blurring her surroundings into a wash of black, brown, and gray. Worn bounty posters of bondsmiths papered the wall. The lanterns swung overhead, leering in and out of her vision.

She rose from her haunches and heard a familiar, haunting tune.

A bondsmith lullaby, sung out in the open.

An old tune that smithing parents would sing to their children, teaching them to keep time with their hammer swings.

It cut through the street noise—clear and achingly familiar. Ksenia’s feet turned her in the direction of the siren song.

The woman’s voice was pure and clear, and she found herself on a corner, watching a street performer dance and sing. Her dress was clean but worn, mended carefully with mismatched fabric.

Her tune brought Ksenia back to a fond memory.

Her mother’s slender hands on hers. Guiding her grip on a hammer too heavy for her small hands. The lullaby setting a rhythm, striking on the verse and resting on the pause.

A body slammed into her, and the air punched out of Ksenia’s lungs.

“Someone stop him, please! He stole my money!” screamed the street performer.

Ksenia’s head swam as she pushed herself upright. The street twisted and turned upside down as her vision cleared to find a man sprinting off with an old apron full of jingling coins.

The woman sobbed.

Try as she might, Ksenia was no help in her condition, and she desperately needed to make a kill. But she needed her wits about her to make the right kill.

Her vision swam, colors swirling before fading to black.

Ksenia gasped awake, and a searing pain lanced through her skull.

Her cheek was sticky, and she groggily lifted her head off a grimy, wooden surface.

She looked about herself: mismatched chairs and tables, a mug of dark and sour-smelling ale half drunk in front of her, and a one-eyed bartender.

She had somehow led herself back to the Crooked Lantern.

She caught sight of a few patrons in the room and quickly realized that, had it not been for Marta, she might have been robbed or worse by now. She had no sense of time in the Vein, but the clientele was vibrant in the tavern still.

At a square table that was pockmarked with gouges sat a man with beady black eyes trained on the tavern door—waiting for someone. His thinning black hair was pulled into a braid at his nape. Ksenia’s focus narrowed on the apple bobbing in his throat as he took a hearty pull of his drink. Dark ale leaked out of the corner of his mouth and splashed down onto his portly midsection.

He had several scratched gold rings on each hand, and one pierced through his brow.