Chapter 10
The next morning, Varka’s smile faltered for the first time since they began sparring; she’d failed to draw blood from Ksenia. Her confusion was replaced with delight and surprise as Ksenia pressed her own advantage, nearly cornering Varka in the mirrored hall.
“Huh.” Varka huffed a short breath.
She released her opposite hand from behind her back—her chosen handicap lest she overpower Ksenia too easily.
“Let’s see how far you can go.” Varka pivoted hard, her heels grinding into the chalk on the floor, and swept beneath Ksenia’s lowered guard. Her parrying dagger came within a hairbreadth of Ksenia’s throat.
Ksenia turned away at the last moment, her heart beating loudly in her ears. She kicked up the loose chalk from the floor into Varka’s lowered profile, earning a growl as silt irritated the noblewoman’s eyes.
“Good,” Varka said as she cleared her vision.
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.
She ran her lambskin-gloved hand down the polished railing of the grand staircase in quick descent, eager to get on with her day. With just a few more days before she could enter the trials, she felt the confidence in her bones—like the chances were increasing in her favor.
The foyer was unusually empty. A wax-sealed missive bearing the Beranek crest lay on a round wooden table in the center of the hall, addressed to her.
She grasped the parchment warily, bracing herself for whatever asinine task Varka had cooked up today.
Perhaps it was an eviction notice to go live in the forest with a shelter of her own making, catch and cook her own game, and then return to the manor in time for her sparring lesson.
It was better not to get comfortable around Varka.
She broke open the envelope:
Senka—
The game is simple: by next sunrise, break into the royal armory in Hearth and bring me the sword with an emerald in the hilt. If I’m left empty-handed when the sun touches the manor’s spires, consider yourself spared from entering the Sevrant trials.
You’ll find that the armory’s west wall is less guarded when it’s raining.
Patrols double back every third pass. Guards carry keys on their belts.
Take one if you can; if not, the hinges on the northern door have been rusting for years and its locks are primed for picking.
Get out by morning and there’ll be a carriage waiting at the edge of the forest.
Think about the resources at your disposal.
—V,
All of her bravado evaporated. Break into Hearth.
Exactly what she had attempted to do several days prior, when she’d gotten her ass handed to her. And worse yet, Varka wanted her to steal something from within it.
Ksenia paced the marbled floor with a groan before stopping still.
Think about the resources at your disposal.
It had been a calculated risk that paid off to sit on her hands and prepare until sunset.
Ksenia found herself in the thick of the woods as she hacked away at greenery in a lesser-used location near Hearth—an aqueduct located at the bottom of the shallow cliffside beneath the castle.
A few years ago, Karsan had raided the entrance of the Vein with his Envorsen, fearing criminals were poisoning his wells.
He had boxed in the Vein-dwellers and torched their structures, collapsing what tunnels they could without compromising the foundation of Hearth.
It had since become a deserted place, with nature overtaking the entrance.
Bramble and vine crisscrossed in a locked thicket that obfuscated it from view.
After that, no one would have been crazy enough to venture there again.
Except Ksenia, of course.
Caromir melted through the greenery like a scythe. Overhead, Hearth loomed with its black stone brick. Green and black mineral deposits stained the castle walls as thick sheets of rain pelted them sideways.
Within the tunnel, Ksenia took several tries to strike her waterlogged matches before igniting her torch. The air was heavy with mold and the scent of standing water.
She wrapped a wax-wool scarf around her head and mouth to protect against the pungent mildew. She was thankful she had freshly waterproofed her leather boots—courtesy of Varka’s proffered wardrobe—as she stepped into a puddle swirling with refuse. She crinkled her nose.
In her gloved hand, she protected Varka’s missive from the water dripping from the ceiling. She turned it over in the torchlight to refer to the crude schematic of Hearth she’d drawn after poring over countless historical architecture books from the Beranek library.
The accuracy was questionable, based mostly on a hunch and supported by references from authors and architects.
Some of whom had designed structures or furnished the castle within, and theirs were personal accounts of the surroundings.
However, she chose to believe it was better than coming in blind from a sewer grate and hoping it would let out remotely close to her target.
Five hundred paces in, the tunnel had squeezed her into a hunched position that would’ve driven Danika crazy from claustrophobia. Her torch flickered weakly as condensation encroached, threatening to snuff it out.
A vault-like stone chamber widened before her, and she recognized it as the old cistern that fed rainwater and mountain runoff into one of Hearth’s abandoned service wells. It was no wonder why. Ksenia heaved; the smell of damp limestone, rot, and mold was overwhelming after decades of stagnation.
She wiped her mouth and focused on the cistern channel in the corner. The steps were slimy, and Ksenia tucked the missive carefully into her shirt, clutching the slick walls as she sidestepped around the basin.