Chapter 31
Her training sessions with Brina, Tomek, and Mirko took up her every waking moment, and deep in the night, she stole away to the forge to help her sister. Learning the languages of Gras and Dren, along with their cultures, fried her brain, and she often woke up with the pages stuck to her cheek.
Her morning lessons with Mirko left her drained from their time in the morgue or coated with questionable liquids and powders from their poison lessons.
She even followed him to the hospital wing as he advised on more complex medical cases.
Despite being a “traitor,” the staff was amicable and even excited to see him.
After lunch, she found particular enjoyment in talking with Brina about Grastelian ore and blacksmithing, and her studies of Gras accelerated as her interests grew. She eagerly consumed everything available about weapon design and alternative uses of the ore.
In the late afternoon, she met with Tomek.
Though he was shy at first, he proved to be a patient and excitable teacher, fondly recalling Drenvar and teaching her the customs. He even went so far as to patiently correct each mispronounced syllable that fell from her mouth as she recited old stories and legends from dusty books back to him.
By evening, she was exhausted, mentally and physically, but still pushed herself to the limit in the relentless sparring sessions with Bohdan. He never gave her an inch, a break, or a moment’s respite as he battered her from every angle.
And amid everything, she planned her next kill according to Varka’s designs. It perfectly aligned with Vornaya’s nagging, creeping back to the surface.
All that practice—for what?
She ignored her intrusive voice and focused on the table before her. Upon it was a white powder, a glass goblet of water, a low-burning candle, and a vial of green crystals with a texture as coarse as salt.
Mirko gestured a fingerless nub at the glass dish before him, heaped high with the finely milled white powder.
Ksenia watched him with cautious interest, her scarf hiked over her mouth and nose as he delicately scooped a pinch onto the end of a metal stir stick and deposited it into the clear goblet of water.
The moment it touched the liquid, it fizzled and disappeared. Leaving not a single particle behind.
Her brow furrowed, studying the liquid as Mirko lifted it to the light. It remained clear, with no occlusions, color, or viscosity changes to the naked eye.
Dangerous.
“Drink it.” He set the glass in front of her.
“That’s a terrible idea.” She scowled and pushed it back before crossing her arms.
“Suit yourself.” He snatched the glass forth and, before anyone could stop him, drained the entire goblet in a single gulp.
Suicide was one way to escape his situation, and Ksenia wouldn’t blame him.
“You’re insane…” she breathed, settling back in her chair with nothing to do but observe him with wide-eyed mortification.
“You have to be, to be Sevrant.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, a knowing gleam in his eyes. “If you know your poisons well, you’ll be fine—now, what do you remember about sleeper’s bane?”
Ksenia racked her mind through the countless concoctions Mirko had forced her to memorize.
“It belongs to a family of poisons that require a reactive agent. It can remain dormant for a few days until it denatures within the body.”
He snapped his fingers and beat his palm joyfully against the tabletop. A cloud of dust spiraled from the dish before he tempered his enthusiasm.
He dug his fingernail against the corked vial of green crystal. “This reactive agent needs to be burned to do the trick. The victim inhales the fumes and—well, I’ll show you the result.”
Ksenia watched the madman as he uncorked the tube and took out a pinch, sprinkling it gingerly into the candle’s open flame.
A flare of green engulfed the flame for a moment before an acrid smell wafted from the candle.
She shrank back, pulling her scarf even higher.
“It doesn’t smell that great, but that’s all that is for you—a bad smell. For me, however…”
His lids grew heavy over his sharp gray eyes. His jaw went slack, and he slumped back against his chair, out cold.
The goblet smashed to the floor.
Ksenia flew to his side, pressing her fingers against his pulse. The steady beat calmed her nerves, and she roughly shook his shoulders, only for his head to loll forward upon his chest.
The guards and Ksenia shared a glance, unsure of their next actions.
For a long moment, he was still, his chest rising and falling softly as though within a deep slumber.
Ksenia pulled him to lie flat against the stone floor.
Then—a breath.
She staggered away from him as he sucked in a sharp, clean inhale, as if he had been drowning.
Mirko’s chest convulsed, and the veins in his throat jumped with a violent pulse before his eyes fluttered open.
He blinked slowly, and a flicker of recognition crossed his face as he focused on Ksenia with an unnervingly calm expression.
He spotted the powder and the vial strewn across the wooden table. “Ah, this isn’t the first time I’ve ended up on the floor. We were doing a poisons lesson, huh?” He chuckled.
Ksenia’s mouth gaped. “You mean, you don’t remember how you ended up here?”
He idly scratched at his nose. “Nope. It’s a great sleep aid if you can get your hands on it.”
Ksenia considered the possibility she’d have to use sleeper’s bane on herself that very night.
She pressed her fingers against her temples, her eyes fixed on the woven runner rug beneath her as she made her way to her quarters. She kept her gaze straight to avoid focusing on the hallucination of blood oozing from the mortar between the stone bricks she passed in the hallway.
It’s not real. It’s not real. Ksenia’s hands tremored.
Her next kill couldn’t come soon enough, but the stakes were higher, and she couldn’t afford any mistakes by rushing.
You know what you need to do if you want your sanity intact… Vornaya’s voice was soft and low.
Her irritation led her to fling the door of her room wide open, smacking the stone wall.
But her mood spiked further.
She had believed that Bohdan wouldn’t go so far as to disturb her inner sanctuary, but she was quickly proven wrong.
Her desk was buried under weapon inventory logs, patrol rotation schedules and field reports filed in triplicate—because apparently a single copy of nothing useful wasn’t enough. She cleared it with a sweep of her arms.
She slumped against the edge of her bed, the mattress sinking beneath her.
Her thoughts turned cruel and dark as she devised her payback.
A soft knock at her door snapped her back.
Big brown eyes peered at her before Petra darted past and clambered onto the sumptuous bed.
Ksenia tsked. “Silly girl, did Bohdan leave all this for me earlier?”
Petra nodded, bouncing on the mattress. Then stopped. “Oh! He also sent me to tell you to prepare for an audience with the king in an hour.”
Ksenia’s mind went blank, her schemes disappearing, and in their place, cold dread.
This was an inevitability after she swore her oath to the king.
Her gut twisted at the reminder that she would have to keep up the appearance of being under his compulsion. And that involved doing whatever heinous thing he asked without reasonable question.
She recalled the contentment that had fallen over his court when he asked each one to pledge fealty in exchange for their safety.
Their vapid, jovial, downright agreeable faces.
Karsan’s compulsion planted his suggestion into their minds as if they conjured the thoughts themselves and believed it wholeheartedly.
Bohdan always obeyed Karsan without question, but his behavior struck her as different from the herd.
She had never known him to be anything but sharp and acutely aware, even in the presence of his father.
Had he ever bloodlet to pledge fealty? Or was he telling the truth that his loyalty to his father was so unshakeable that Karsan trusted him without question?
She rubbed the back of her neck unconsciously as she climbed the staircase to Karsan’s study.
His sacred retreat occupied a corner tower of Hearth, its walls dominated by tall, diamond-paned glass that wrapped around the chamber’s sides.
No one except Karsan had a key.
Her footsteps were heavier as she scaled the black flagstone stairs one by one.
One moment, she was within that tower; the next, her mind was pulled into a vivid replay of the past.
She fisted her hands at her sides, nails digging into her palms as she fought off the intrusive memories of Karsan’s hand pressed to her windpipe, and the sharp, smooth slice of Radegast through her chest.
Her heart clenched spasmodically, as if speared by the blade still. She steadied herself against the wall.
The past has teeth, but it feeds on the present. Do not let it feast, Vornaya counseled.
A shallow comfort arose in the thought that, although Karsan had killed her once, he was utterly unaware of her new face and body, enough to let her claw her way into his inner court.
After another moment’s reprieve, she wiped the sweat from her forehead and neck and continued her climb, reaching the landing.
The door to his study was utterly unremarkable—plain, dull brown planks, outfitted with a simple-looking iron lock that matched dozens of other service doors throughout Hearth.
A soft but bright chime resonated from it.
Unmistakable.
Ksenia’s hand hovered over the curved black iron door handle. She could feel Radegast’s pulsation on the opposite side.
The handle twisted of its own volition, and the door swung open to reveal Bohdan’s figure. His expression was as impassive as stone.
He gestured for her to come through, one eyebrow lifting the barest fraction.
The study was a mess—rolled parchments overflowed from shelves, and books spilled onto every available surface. Leather-bound notebooks balanced on the windowsills, and loose sheafs drifted to the floor like autumn leaves.