Chapter 29 #2
Her knuckles turned white around the tong handles. She imagined their family home: low-ceilinged and made of rough fieldstone, stacked and mortared with clay. Packed earth beneath their feet. The thatched roof that their father had to repair after every winter with the girls’ help.
Simple wooden benches and a sawhorse table.
Their mother’s well-loved iron cauldron suspended over the hearth.
Both of them safely inside.
She imagined dragging their simple wooden bed frame to barricade the door. Along with the metal fittings and locks, it was one of the sturdiest parts of their house—but the wind-like resonance rattled it, threatening to take it off its hinges.
She braced her shoulder against it, eyes darting for other heavy objects: sacks of grain, empty barrels—their trunk full of wool blankets and animal furs.
She threw her weight behind it as it bumped and scraped over the rough-packed earth to meet the barricaded door.
Overhead, Ksenia could hear whole bundles of reeds, straw, and heather being peeled off the roof.
But in here, Danika had all the still air and silence she needed.
Every second she held it, the pressure built. Not physically, but somewhere deeper, behind her eyes, at the base of her skull.
The metal whined, the resonance bending and whipping painfully through both their minds.
“—Are you all right?” Danika asked with a wince.
“It’s under control.” She worked the muscles of her clenched jaw.
The wind didn’t tire. It pressed constantly, indifferent, seeping between the door and frame, looking for an in.
Ksenia was lightheaded.
Danika’s hammer rose and fell.
Then, she stopped.
“I got it.”
She opened her eyes before a perfectly straight, rough blade, a dullish purple and blue fading from the edges.
“Ready?” Danika tilted her chin to the quenching vat.
“Go.” Ksenia’s muscles snapped taut.
They had to lock the resonance in place.
Hsssssssssss.
Steam billowed into their faces, the smell iron-rich and slightly sweet.
Ksenia inhaled sharply, as if surfacing from the ocean after being battered on the shoals.
Danika panted and leaned against the vat, hair matted to her face and neck.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
Danika’s resonance tended to be lyrical, clear, and bright; whereas Ksenia’s was always drier, darker, but grounded.
But together…
They could shake heaven and hell.
The freshly born soulbound metal’s resonance was like a struck cathedral bell that shook the stone floors and moved the air itself.
They shared a smile.
“So…Are you going to tell me how you hurt your arm?” Ksenia’s eyes slid to Danika’s wrapped forearm.
Danika’s mouth pressed thin.
“I know it’s not from those.” Ksenia gestured at the kingsword prototypes on the rack.
“I’ve been working on something…” Danika’s chest rose and fell with a sigh.
Several moments passed.
Her eyes resisted meeting Ksenia’s. “…I’ve been working on something that can prevent bondsmithing for good.”
Ksenia’s breath stilled. It couldn’t be.
Danika had picked up their late father’s pursuit of developing a metal that could nullify bonds, rendering weapons and bondsmiths ordinary.
Ksenia threw her hands up. “This again? If we get rid of bonded weapons, people will just go back to killing each other the old-fashioned way. This is NOT our problem to solve!”
“Dad’s philosophy was right. Look at us! For decades we’ve suffered the consequences of bondsmithing,” Danika retorted.
Ksenia’s brows shot to her hairline, arms crossed. “You mean because there’s a tyrant who’s hell-bent on exterminating people like you and me instead of being removed from power?”
Danika’s eyes cut to the door.
Ksenia gritted her teeth but continued her barrage in quieter tones. “Why should our powers be rendered useless? You think he won’t kill those children when he finds out they can’t forge bonded weapons?”
“No—yes—it’s complicated.” Danika crossed her arms, angling her furrowed gaze upward.
Danika’s brown eyes were steely as they locked in a stalemate.
“You’re one to judge.” Danika’s voice was frosty. “You think I don’t know what you’ve been doing?”
Danika’s finger was an accusation in her face before it swung to Caromir at her hip. “Since I saw you in the Vein, your dagger changed. And it’s only gotten stronger.”
The color drained from Ksenia’s cheeks—she’d known she would have to face this at some point.
“Do you even know what happens to a hellbound blade that keeps feeding?” Danika’s anger was replaced by something worse. Fear.
“Don’t lecture—”
“Radegast wasn’t forged with compulsion.” Danika jabbed her finger at the dagger. “It was unlocked—kill by kill, until it developed a power of its own.”
Ksenia’s jaw tightened. “Caromir is not Radegast.”
“Not yet.”
Danika stepped closer, her voice low and soft. “Every hellbound blade has something waiting inside it. You don’t get to choose what it becomes—and by the time you find out, you’re too far gone.”
“I couldn’t survive without killing.” Ksenia gritted.
“Then why don’t you get rid of it now that the trials are over?”
“I can’t!” Ksenia’s hands were sharp by her sides. “This is my survival, and that didn’t go away when I became Sevrant. It won’t change until I can deal with the king and make a change for the better.”
“Since when is becoming a cold-blooded killer making a change for the better?” Danika scoffed.
“What—You’re working for one right now!” Ksenia barked a short laugh. “You’re not above me. I saw you selling people out that night in the Vein.” She closed the distance until they were face-to-face. “You could’ve lied, but you didn’t.”
Danika reared back like she’d been slapped in the face.
“I should have never left you to go alone that night, Senna. I’m not blaming you, but these blades are a poison, don’t you see?” Danika whispered.
A pang of guilt hollowed the rage from Ksenia’s heart, and she forced herself to breathe.
“Niks, I know you want to help. But believe me when I say the only way out for me, for you, for everyone is through his blood.”
The broken rays of dawn began to filter through the sparse, narrow slitted windows.
Danika’s haggard eyes met Ksenia’s hard ones. “I think you should go. Now.”
“This isn’t over.”
Danika’s jaw tightened.
“I meant about this.” Ksenia’s finger jabbed at the blue-gray billet of metal between them.
“You know he’s going to expect more, and more.
” Ksenia jammed her hand into her pack and tossed her sister a flask, a little harder than usual.
“I’ll be back for the next one.” She slung the pack on her shoulder. “And yes—the other thing too.”
The next morning, Ksenia was wading through a thick syrupy haze when she got ready for her ceremony.
It’s just for show. It means nothing, she told herself.
Petra and two more servant women had brought an outfit she was to wear, along with a tray of food.
A gown made of oxblood velvet and silk with a neckline that sloped from shoulder to shoulder.
The sleeves were split at the top of her shoulder point, draping to brush the floor with their velvet folds.
The inner sleeves were spun from a fine, shimmering fabric that matched the sinuous fabric draped across her chest, forming the bodice and skirt of her empire-waist dress.
Compared to her wardrobe as a courtesan, this was subdued but so finely woven and textured that it was almost sacred.
A rectangular, velvet-embossed box lay tucked beneath a plate of pastries.
Ksenia’s hand paused over it before passing the sweets to Petra, who had been eyeing the confections since they arrived and had already stolen two.
“I only had one—I swear,” Petra said, her cheeks full, sugar dusting her lips.
Ksenia’s brow and lip quirked before picking up the box.
She turned it over and shook it.
Tink. The gentle sound of metal and perhaps glass.
She lifted the lid, revealing a glittering ruby diadem, nestled in a cushion of silk. A note fluttered out. The message and corners were inked with a gold-embossed design.
Lady Senka,
I’m not a man given to impulse, yet I find myself penning this note for the third time, unable to capture what I wish to say. Simply: I would like to see you—
Ksenia tore the note in half, then half again, letting the pieces flutter in the air before they hit the floor.
Damn Bohdan to hell for putting her in this loathsome position.
She would sooner cut Chancellor Valdren’s pudgy hands off than ever feign interest in him.
The servant women busied themselves with her hair, brushing out each tangle and snarl until it loosened and formed curled ringlets on her shoulders. They gathered the strands from her face, pulling her locks into a half-up hairstyle.
The diadem was nestled into her hair to complete the illusion. She might’ve won the role of Sevrant, but the position meant operating in the shadows.
Ksenia blamed the stifling corset for the churning in her stomach. Not the fact that she was conflicted about verbally pledging allegiance to the monster on the throne.
Her steps felt stilted as she followed Petra through the halls of Hearth.
It’ll be over and done with soon, she repeated.
She rubbed her sweaty hands, clasped as she stood before the wooden doors of the throne room.
On the other side, she could hear light chatter and the shuffle of feet.
At her belt, she had tucked Caromir into its sheath. She trailed a finger over the hilt, and it rumbled with a reassuring warmth.
She was ready to step into the den of vipers.
The doors groaned open before her.
At the back of the octagonal throne room, sitting in a high-backed chair on a raised dais, was the butcher king himself.
His washed-out blue eyes were half-lidded as they studied her.
His circlet was slightly askew on his brow, and on the arm of his throne sat Lady Milena.
Her sharp cheekbones and nose caught the light from the braziers in the room, the shadows dancing across her face.
The remainder of his court formed a half-moon shape around him, with the crescent points open toward the door where she stood.