Page 35 of Hellbound

Ksenia leapt back. Her sword was useless in close quarters, and her eyes darted to Caromir, lying on the weapon rack.

It was too risky to wield it. Gods forbid Ksenia feed the blade’s hunger with innocent blood—she wouldn’t be able to live with herself.

Her attention snapped back as the heel of Varka’s palm smashed into the soft underside of Ksenia’s jaw, making her teeth click and stars burst in her vision.

That’s what she deserved for losing focus. Varka gave her a brief moment of reprieve as both combatants circled each other slowly, searching for an opportunity.

Varka sprang forward, her sword piercing the air where Ksenia’s head had been a split second ago.

But Ksenia had learned a thing or two about Varka’s technique, meaning she caught the parrying dagger crosswise on the guards of her sword. It wasn’t the sword that she had to worry about; it was this small, meddlesome dagger that Varka loved to disarm her with before its point kissed her throat.

A smirk tilted the corner of Ksenia’s mouth as she locked the dagger in place, quillons tangling together, and sent it flying out of Varka’s hand with a twist of her wrist.

The noblewoman leaped back, and for a heartbeat, her stance was rigid. Her eyebrows pressed upward as a wolfish smile tugged on her mouth. She relaxed into one hip, rolling her shoulders as she assessed Ksenia from head to toe.

A single, subtle approving nod was all Ksenia got before Varka turned on her heel and exited the hall. “You’ve improved, dear Senka.”

Ksenia worried her bottom lip between her teeth, ruminating on Varka’s words still hanging in the air. She had improved, yes. But she knew the truth.

She had turned Caromir hellbound with her malicious actions. She could have disarmed and tied up the headhunter while she got the boy to safety. If not for Vornaya’s blood pact, she wouldn’t have needed to kill him.

But she did. And in exchange for the sacrifice, both hellbound blade and wielder had received strength and speed.

She could still feel the twitch of his gullet against her blade as his blood gushed over her hands. How his muscles convulsed and reverberated against the cold metal shaft, and how his fingers had finally stopped twitching.

What worried her more was how intoxicating it’d felt.

It’d felt right.

Like she had done humanity a favor.

Like she could conquer the world if she wanted to.

Like she could kill the king, if she wanted to.

She focused on her reflection in the windowpane and clenched her hand at her side.

She would do what was needed to survive. But this was a slippery slope, and she required an anchor to steady herself.

She resolved to kill only those deserving. Simple. Just as she had done the night before, taking action to cut a putrid individual from society, and she would no doubt find more sources of this corruption to prune.

Her body had begun to acclimate to the difficulties and hardships. Bruises from their latest sparring session had already become yellow and green, as if a week had passed instead of a single night’s sleep.

Strength bloomed in her body; not a brutish, heavy sort of way, but light and compact.

Additionally, Ksenia’s resolve strengthened the more she considered her moral quandary.

If not her, then who?

Who would have taken action against that headhunter? In a kingdom that was unsympathetic to bondsmiths and their plight, no one would have protected that boy. The Bound Eye was a fledgling organization compared to the might of Karsan and the Envorsen. Although she had slaughtered the man in cold blood, she’d known that come morning, his body would be picked clean by rats and scavenging thieves and no one would investigate his murder.

That was the unspoken rule of the Vein.

She finished lacing her steel-reinforced corset with ease, then grabbed a stale slice of bread along with a hard cheese from her pantry stockpile.

Solitary time had become sacred to Ksenia for processing and thinking without the noise of other people’s thoughts or wants influencing her.

She could rely on herself.