Page 179 of Hellbound

Each one, painted with that same pleasant expression.

Each holding a Radegast that’d caught the hellish light of the forge.

“Kill me, Ksenia.” Dozens of disembodied voices flowed in unison. “Isn’t that what you came here to do?”

The nearest one lunged at her, and Ksenia whipped Caromir through his neck with satisfying precision. His head rolled, and she could feel that heady surge of power. Strength flooded her muscles, speed sharpening her reflexes.

Her victory was short-lived as Karsan slumped to the floor before her.

They looked at one another, then simultaneously lunged at her. Their hands closed on her body wherever they could grab—fisted in her hair, clawing at her face and throat, holding her feet in place.

Then another appeared, and another, and another.

She screamed as she wrenched her arms free to carve through them with increased frenzy, the rush of power and strength feeding her hunger for more.

“Stop, stop!” They cackled, their lost limbs and hacked bodies piling on and around her. One bit down on her flesh, nothing but an armless stump on legs.

Blood sprayed across the stone.

Karsan’s bodies piled higher.

Eventually, some tried to flee, dragging their bloodied bodies and each other over the floor, but Ksenia bore down on them just the same.

Her need for violence became a bottomless pit as she stood amongst the lifeless bodies.

Crackkkkk!

The air split before her with a fissure, and the tinkling of sharp glass had a musical quality as it fell around her.

Ksenia stood in the center of a slaughterhouse.

Blood coated every available surface. Her clothes were sodden with viscera.

Around her lay the bodies of children who had tried to flee only to run straight into her blade.

She jerked her head back to find Danika.

Her sister lay crumpled against the far wall, clutching her bloodied abdomen. Her face was waxy, eyes wide with horror.

“Senna…what—” Her words were paper-thin; she was teetering between life and death.

Ksenia’s breath came in sharp bursts that never reached her lungs. The world tilted around her.

Her eyes were blown wide, pupils contracted. Her hands fisted in her hair, clawing through the strands before gripping tight and pulling—the individual hairs snapping until her scalp burned with the pain.

“No, no, no,” she whispered between gasping breaths, her body rocking back and forth on unsteady feet.

Karsan stood, untouched in the center of it all, still smiling that small smile, his hands slowly clapping.

“You are magnificent.”

She staggered backward, her hands covered in innocent blood, Caromir thrumming with excitement in her palm.

This was beyond what she could have prepared for.

It felt so real. The hallucinations touched her.

Her hands slammed to the ground as her body crumpled, her breath whistling from her lungs too quickly and shallowly.