Page 8 of Hellbound

“I will work your sister to her dying breath until she makes me a proper kingsword, not that oaf’s leftovers,” he whispered in her ear.

Ksenia’s gold irises were ringed with white, pupils shaking.

A cruel smile twisted his lips.

He cleaved her flesh in two, sinking his blade straight into her heart.

Ksenia blinked, her eyes awash with blood, and stared down at the silvery sword pinning her. Unbelieving.

Then, splitting from her being, an iridescent strand of silk tore away from her sternum, luminescent and impossibly thin, seeping into the blood-letting fuller of the blade.

Her fingers twitched imperceptibly, helpless to do anything but feel it.

She slid her eyes down to where it pooled in the groove like a glowing drop of dew before absorbing into the metal without a trace.

She wasn’t ready.

She wasn’t done.

There were more people she could help if only she could survive.

And yet, the choice had been made.

She faded, the tremble stilling in her fingers.

Bohdan’s gaze cast over Ksenia’s corpse.

The king staggered back with wide arms, his eyes fluttering closed as he angled his face skyward in the storm. An ungodly injection of power shuddered through his body as Radegast drank deep.

“That feeling never gets old,” he whispered between thin lips.

3

Ksenia’s coarse, wavy locks were twined through Bohdan’s fingers as Karsan watched him behead her corpse.

Blood spattered the ground. Her eyes stayed open. He averted his.

Her head swung from his fist as he stood stiffly, eyes trained on the distance.

When they had mounted their horses and retreated from the clearing, the forest was cloaked in a heavy silence.

The squall had cleared up, the moon spotlighting her headless corpse at the base of the tree.

Surrounding her body, the grass withered and desiccated, despite the fresh rain. The bark of the tree closest to her was petrified and gray, its leaves curled brown on brittle branches. The temperature dropped, hardening the mud in a ring around the corpse.

Despite the cold, there was a deep, pervasive heat warping the air above Ksenia’s body, like a coal with a burning ember at its center.

And it called to the dark.

A cloud of black smoke rolled over the ground in the clearing and seeped between the blades of grass and young saplings.

It stopped at the widening, deadened ring surrounding Ksenia’s sprawled corpse.

A spark of white light ignited in the air. The spark swelled, the shadows answering in kind as inky smoke rose from the pooling darkness, pluming into a slender silhouette. From the spark, a hand emerged: smooth and pearlescent. From the shadow, another took shape: gnarled, blackened, sharpened to a point. They existed in opposition, the darkness threatening to consume the light and the light burning brighter despite it.

The figure raised both hands to lift a hood from their face. Skin ashen and luminous. Cheekbones cut sharp, juxtaposed with lips the color of dried blood, pressed into a severe line.

They crouched and pressed a gnarled hand against Ksenia’s mangled chest. Her heart was still there—darkened and grisly with the unfulfilled grudges she carried. Iron and salt.