Chapter 21
She lurched down a hallway she’d never explored as she fanned her flushed face and tried to settle her nerves.
The molten heat spread outward from her chest, every thump reverberating in her body as her muscles thrummed, like her body was waiting to be unleashed.
Portraits in the hallway became more vivid, and the lit braziers seared her retinas as she stumbled past until she reached a courtyard.
A cool, white mist swirled and flowed around her feet as the moon pulsed brightly overhead. The fog flowed between the pillars of the low stone partition that separated the space from the walls of verdant hedges before her: A maze, she realized with a start.
She tripped over her feet and leaned heavily against a lantern post by the wall. A throbbing resonance picked up in the corner of her mind, and she squeezed her eyes shut as it grew louder and louder until it became an unmistakable, discordant toll that looped into a continuous, foreboding hum.
Her gaze snagged on a thin gray ribbon, caught on the sharp leaves of the hornbeam hedges at the edge of the maze.
Petra. She’d been hovering nearby when Ksenia woke from the poison—what was she doing here?
Ksenia’s chest hollowed as she heard a child’s scream split the air from within the hedges.
She could hear the accompaniment of rapid but heavier footfall.
It sounded like several people were running between the hedges, their clothing catching on the prickly branches, leaves fluttering to the ground in their wake.
Ksenia leapt over the partition wall and ran into the maze.
A chill breeze swept between the hedges, and her hair tangled with the dense shrubbery. She swatted it free, pricking her hand in the process.
Her vision had strengthened from her last kill, illuminating every detail before her: a knobbly root sticking up in the grassy path. A severed finger in the corner of the hallway she bounded down. Sections of the hedge splattered with something dark.
The air was thick and metallic with the smell of stale blood.
Ksenia bounded around a corner, but then ducked back when she reached the source of the hellbound resonance.
Several paces away, a young nobleman dressed in a steel gray and navy vest retracted a polearm that’d skewered a servant man to an oak tree in the center of the maze.
“Something about this old tree always gets ’em.” He looked wistfully up into the foliage as if he were tending to the garden with blood.
Another man joined him with a laugh, his crossbow slung against his shoulder. “They always think they can climb to it to get out, or that if they reach it, the game is over.”
A third man approached the corpse to kick its foot. “That was hardly a good chase.”
Ksenia’s bloodlust was reaching a fever pitch. Her breath was slow and steady, her mouth slightly parted—the lingering scent of their victim’s fear mixed with the hunting party’s adrenaline.
Her pupils were blown wide, leaving only a bright yellow ring.
She caught the slightest movement in the swaying branches. A small hand clutching around the trunk in the upper reaches of the oak.
She glimpsed a small, scared face peering back at her.
Ksenia stepped out from the shadows of the walls and into the open.
“Where did she come from?” The nobleman staggered back and brandished his weapon in her direction.
“Did you pick up another one? I thought it was just the girl left!” his compatriot shrieked.
Between the polearm and Caromir, the cacophony of discordant notes began to harmonize and crescendo.
“I heard you were playing a game.” Ksenia’s head cocked. “I’m joining.”
Her eyes flicked from one target to the next. His two compatriots gaped at her, stepping backward, while the ringleader spun his polearm with ease, flicking blood from its gleaming blade.
“Of course, girl, we have room for one more,” he crooned. “We just lost one of our competitors.” He gestured with the butt of his polearm at the man, whose body had slid to the base of the tree with a gaping hole in his chest.
“Excellent.”
Caromir split the air and sank into the skull of the man closest to Ksenia. Her movements were so fluid, economical, and precise that no one registered that she had even unsheathed her dagger.
The remaining two screamed as blood sprayed in torrents and their friend collapsed to the floor.
An intoxicating rush flooded her system, a euphoric high that made bloodshed feel like the most natural, necessary thing in the world.
Careful, you don’t want to enjoy yourself too much, do you?
Maybe she did.
“Branimir—she just—killed Bran.”
“Quiet. Now, we make her pay,” the nobleman said shakily, extracting his own weapon. “It’s two of us, one of her.”
His friend trembled but readied his crossbow, his fingers scrabbling for a bolt before slipping around the shaft and dropping it.
Ksenia darted forward and wrenched her blade from the corpse’s head with a wet sucking sound. She pivoted and leaped for the crossbow man’s neck. He squealed, pressing the trigger of his empty crossbow on instinct.
A flash of silver came from her periphery, the mirrored blade of the polearm slicing the air before her, and she leaned away, unfazed.
“I can’t chase both of you at the same time.” She cupped her hand and whispered to the nobleman, “If you run, you might survive.”
Seeing the hesitation in the sway of his spear tip, Ksenia ducked beneath its shaft and buried Caromir deep into the tender hollow beneath the crossbow wielder’s chin.
The edge of her blade bisected his tongue and buried into the roof of his mouth.
Dark blood filled the man’s orifice and spilled out of his gaping mouth.
That euphoric rush doubled back, and a terrible smile painted itself across her face. She was glowing with blood and anticipation.
The nobleman’s sense of self-preservation slammed back into his body, and he abandoned his weapon, sprinting down a path behind him.
Hellbound blades couldn’t replace cowardice.
“Your friend was right. I didn’t have anyone to chase this evening,” she called, walking behind him. “Thank you for fixing that.”
“Guards, guards!” the man screamed into the hedges. But no alarm came. No hounds. No help.
Listen…
She paused. His footfall pounded for the exit she had come through.
His feet crashed through the underbrush, turning every which way in search of the exit.
Her steps were even and light as she made her way back.
His body slammed against the hedge as he rounded the corner. Hornbeam leaves sliced his exposed skin, leaving his cheek bloodied and his eyes wild.
Ksenia stood in front of the exit, hands clasped behind her back.
“You know this maze well. I only know a little bit of it.” Her laugh was light. “I still chose right.”
“Who are you?” Spittle shone on his quivering lip.
She drank in his panic, her eyes wide.
“Someone who loves games, just like you.” She stepped closer.
“Stay back, stay back!” He threw his hands in front of his body, then tripped over the protruding vine in the grass and fell flat on his back.
Ksenia was upon him in an instant, kicking his hands out of the way and opening a seam from the soft paunch of his stomach all the way to his neck.
His shrill scream devolved into gurgling.
Layers of velvet and silk tore with a whisper as it gave way to organs as she opened him like a cadaver for dissecting.
Her breathing was meditative. Her heartbeat was an even, steady drum. Her mind was surgically sharp.
Afterward, she picked her way through the bloodied maze and back to the tree. She regretted arriving too late to help the servant man.
His head was slumped forward, arms slack by his side, as if he were resting beneath the oak tree. The pool of blood that seeped into the grass around him indicated otherwise.
“Petra, come down.” Her voice carried up into the higher reaches of the tree.
Wide brown eyes peeked around the trunk and Petra’s yellow blonde hair blew in the wind around her as she stepped nimbly from branch to branch, holding on to the trunk for support.
She ventured lower until a few feet separated them.
Ksenia stretched her hands upward, and Petra leapt to her like it was nothing. Like the blood wasn’t there.
Ksenia set her on the ground then knelt before her, turning the girl’s face back and forth in her hands. “Petra, are you okay? What happened?”
Petra gave her a curt nod, solid on her feet. “Ulrik told me to climb and hide. He told me that Lord Dmitri might want to play games because I’m fast.” Petra’s voice dropped, her fingers weaving through her curls and tugging. “But he didn’t hide as fast.”
Ksenia squeezed her shoulder, leaning in. Silence swept over them as they regarded Ulrik’s body at the base of the tree.
Ksenia broke the silence. “Ulrik was a good man who wanted you to be safe.”
Her chest closed like a vise. She had just committed three murders within Hearth, and it was only a matter of time before the bodies were found.
She closed her eyes and counted until she could calm her racing heart. “We need to go get cleaned up.”
Petra’s hand was surprisingly strong as she took hold of Ksenia’s clammy one and led her on a twisting and turning path through the hedges, toward another exit.
Tucked at the side of the courtyard was a section of overgrown ivy. Petra deftly parted the glossy green leaves and vines, revealing a seam in the wall and a latch.
A stone door hinged outward, and Petra pulled Ksenia into a low-ceilinged, darkened tunnel.