Page 135 of Hellbound

Danika drew out the blade steadily, sweat pouring down her face.

Outside, heavy strikes bludgeoned the walls, and she readied her blade once more.

Her chest tightened, like something was closing around her ribs. Her nose ran warm, trickling over her lip.

When it was over, she was on her knees.

Formless dark bodies were mangled and piled atop one another around and in the ruins of their home. Walls half torn, snow falling freely through the bowed ceiling.

Ksenia panted, lungs burning. Her hand was welded shut around her sword.

The hammer strikes stopped, snapping Ksenia back to reality.

“Your nose.” Danika blinked at Ksenia and the bodies, then at the blade.

Ksenia drew herself to her feet, only to slump against the anvil, forehead nearly touching the cooling steel. “I know.”

“We should have bailed.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“That doesn’t matter—” Danika broke off, jaw clenched.

Ksenia finally looked up at her, holding a blood-soiled rag to her nose. “Blade’s done, isn’t it?”

Danika rolled her eyes, throwing down her gloves.

The competing metals were now a single, fused billet, glowing a dull blue and purple next to darkened steel, which she plunged into the quenching vat.

Danika muttered, pacing around the anvil a bit before tossing her a waterskin.

She drained it without lifting her head, then held out her hand for another.

Her linen tunic was matted to her skin, and welts had formed on her shoulders from where the protective chainmail had dug in.

Danika lowered herself onto a stool, back against the forge wall. She strode over and fixed Ksenia’s braid, peeling it off her sweltering neck. The sensation was instantly cooling.

“You don’t have to bleed for everything, you know,” she grumbled, pulling a lock a little harder than necessary.

Ksenia chuckled. “How else do I deal with things?”

Danika huffed a breath, tying the end of the braid.

“Thanks,” said Ksenia as she hauled herself to her feet.

She ambled over to the scrap bin and sorted through it, turning over pieces with her boot and picking up a few large chunks of steel.

“…What are you doing?”

“Personal project.” Ksenia set the pieces on the work table.

The next night, Ksenia retreated deep into the library, where stacks of papers and ledgers were strewn across the polished desk before her. She propped her feet up, scuffs from her dirty boots marring the surface.

She leaned her wooden chair precariously on its two back legs while she twirled a pen between loose fingers.

She had to throw Bohdan off her scent, but who she would pin it on—let alone how—was the question that evaded her.

She tugged at the laces of her corset, lost in thought as she reviewed dossiers of court members.