Page 112 of Hellbound

Danika’s job was to finesse.

The steel roiled on the anvil before them, warping, twisting, like a live animal. They wrestled it flat with their tongs, and Danika continued to beat it down.

Ksenia cracked an eye open, her arms and core burning with effort.

Sweat dripped down Danika’s face as she hammered relentlessly.

Every ounce of Ksenia’s focus returned to her task, sweat pricking her nape.

Visualizations were key, and the familiar ones were stronger and more reliable.

She envisioned it: Danika at her anvil, outside in the field, exposed—wind tearing at her hair and clothes.

Her knuckles turned white around the tong handles. She imagined their family home: low-ceilinged and made of rough fieldstone, stacked and mortared with clay. Packed earth beneath their feet. The thatched roof that their father had to repair after every winter with the girls’ help.

Simple wooden benches and a sawhorse table.

Their mother’s well-loved iron cauldron suspended over the hearth.

Both of them safely inside.

She imagined dragging their simple wooden bed frame to barricade the door. Along with the metal fittings and locks, it was one of the sturdiest parts of their house—but the wind-like resonance rattled it, threatening to take it off its hinges.

She braced her shoulder against it, eyes darting for other heavy objects: sacks of grain, empty barrels—their trunk full of wool blankets and animal furs.

She threw her weight behind it as it bumped and scraped over the rough-packed earth to meet the barricaded door.

Overhead, Ksenia could hear whole bundles of reeds, straw, and heather being peeled off the roof.

But in here, Danika had all the still air and silence she needed.

Every second she held it, the pressure built. Not physically, but somewhere deeper, behind her eyes, at the base of her skull.

The metal whined, the resonance bending and whipping painfully through both their minds.

“—Are you all right?” Danika asked with a wince.

“It’s under control.” She worked the muscles of her clenched jaw.

The wind didn’t tire. It pressed constantly, indifferent, seeping between the door and frame, looking for an in.

Ksenia was lightheaded.

Danika’s hammer rose and fell.

Then, she stopped.

“I got it.”

She opened her eyes before a perfectly straight, rough blade, a dullish purple and blue fading from the edges.

“Ready?” Danika tilted her chin to the quenching vat.

“Go.” Ksenia’s muscles snapped taut.

They had to lock the resonance in place.

Hsssssssssss.