Chapter 39
Her final mark.
Karsan’s chambers were less opulent than Ksenia had anticipated.
No garish displays of wealth, just a measured elegance in his trademark crimson. Heavy curtains framed the balcony doors, and a bed that was double the size of her own dominated the center of the room. The headboard bore the Saranov crest in gold inlay.
The floors were cold, polished obsidian. So dark that they reflected the candlelight and the fireplace like still water on the black lake.
A sprawling mosaic consumed the entire ceiling, depicting historic battles and coronations with gemstones and glass.
Ksenia pressed herself into the shadows behind the headboard and waited.
Lady Milena’s nightly ritual was as predictable as the sunset. She would descend to the royal wine cellar personally—trusting no servant with the selection—and return with a bottle specifically chosen to match her observations of Karsan’s mood that day.
Then, she would prepare the chambers: light the candles, draw back the bed linens, and artfully arrange herself to greet Karsan when he arrived from his evening councils.
The bedroom door opened with a soft click.
Milena glided in with that same glacial grace that Ksenia had almost bumped into at Kindling. She set down a bottle of deep burgundy vintage on the fine writing desk before stripping off her fur-lined cloak and gloves.
Her brunette hair was partially down, silvered threads catching in the firelight.
She began uncorking the bottle with practiced efficiency, her back to Ksenia.
Ksenia crept forward, Caromir vibrating with excitement in her hand.
Milena whirled, the corkscrew’s jagged spiral missing Ksenia’s face by inches.
“So, you’re the assassin,” Milena snarled. “I knew it was a matter of time before I was targeted.”
Her eyes darted to the door.
“The guards? Don’t bother. I changed the rotations.”
Milena’s chest rose and fell more quickly.
They circled one another, Ksenia blocking the bedroom door, backing Milena toward the balcony.
Ksenia raked a hand through her hair. “It’s nothing personal, really.” She lunged.
“Get away from me, harlot,” Milena sneered, the corkscrew slashing across Ksenia’s cheek with a splatter of red.
Ksenia countered with Caromir, driving Milena onto the balcony.
The night air hit them both, carrying the scent of fresh garden blooms below.
“You won’t win,” Milena hissed, breaking the wine bottle against the stone balustrade. She brandished the jagged glass at Ksenia. “Karsan will hunt you down.”
She abandoned her corkscrew and attacked Ksenia with renewed ferocity. Ksenia caught her wrist, slamming her against the stone railing.
They grappled, both fighting for position. Glass crunched beneath their feet, the floor slippery with wine.
Milena’s free hand moved like a striking snake, a silver hairpin from her tresses in her hand.
The needle-like pin pierced Ksenia’s side and a sharp, burning pain spread like fire through her ribs, so hot it was freezing.
Ksenia gasped, her vision blurring for a heartbeat, Milena’s sickened grin swimming in her vision.
Poison.
“Imagine how well Karsan will reward me for turning you in. He’ll finally make me queen—”
Ksenia drove Caromir through the hollow of Milena’s throat. Her hand slackened on the poisoned needle, cold eyes widening with shock.
Ksenia’s knees buckled under the combined weight of power rushing through her system and the poison burning through her veins.
Milena’s body sagged against Ksenia, blood pouring from the gaping wound at her neck.
It ran hot and sticky down Ksenia’s front.
With her rapidly depleting strength and focus, Ksenia shoved Milena’s body over the balustrade, breathing hard.
She watched as it struck the ground with a crunch beside a grave marked with a pale headstone, painting it crimson.
Vezna Beranek. Terribly perfect.
The bloodlust and power that hadn’t yet settled into her body further added to the disorientation.
She had minutes—maybe less.
The ground began to sway, her breath stuttering as she swung her own leg over the balustrade, gripping the trellis full of roses.
The thorns bit into her gloves, but she kept lowering hand over hand, foot over foot. Each movement sent fresh waves of burning pain through her side, radiating from the puncture wound.
The trellis groaned beneath her weight but held. Rose petals scattered over her head.
Her descent was controlled chaos, hands desperately gripping thorns and vines, her boots scrabbling for purchase.
Halfway down, she faltered.
She fell the remaining few feet, hitting the garden path hard enough to drive the air from her lungs.
Karsan’s private garden surrounded her, eerily beautiful in the moonlight. The roses rustled, and the moon pulsed closer and brighter than before. The puncture wound at her side throbbed, every heartbeat spreading the poison further through her body.
Her vision wavered, then focused on Milena’s broken body.
But something was horrifyingly wrong.
Her body twitched, bones cracking, rearranging as her nails dug into the grass by Vezna’s headstone.
Her arm twisted as something wholly inhuman took hold. Ksenia scrambled backward, hitting the low stone wall, eyes wide.
Milena’s body jerked upright, limbs spidered, mouth slackened, and she smiled through her slashed throat.
Ksenia sprang to her feet and bolted to the garden’s exit. It seemed to stretch with each step, the end becoming a pinprick in her vision.
And behind her, Milena’s spasming body blurred in the shadows.
The air warped, the edges of her vision folding inward as the ground beneath her feet slanted at impossible angles.
She lurched from wall to wall down the never-ending hallway.
The firelight from the torches seared her eyes like hot pokers. She could hear the sound of dragging. Milena. Or something wearing her skin.
Shapes slithered just out of view. The fire burned red. The passing portraits whispered to her.
She slammed into a door, sliding down the wood. Paralysis was setting in.
Her diaphragm would stop functioning soon.
The door flung open. “There had better be—”
Milena’s body smacked into the wall down the hallway, a splatter of blood left on impact. She reoriented and skittered toward Ksenia, her neck flapping open.
Ksenia tried to scream, but she coughed up blood instead.
Hands. Too many hands, clutching at her face, her throat, twining through her hair, holding her limbs down.
Her nightmare made real.
A firm hand cupped the back of her head, crushing her body to theirs as they pulled her through the entryway and kicked the door shut.
She was deposited on a soft bed.
“Do you know who I am?” The voice was breathless. “Tell me your name.”
Cool fingers pried her eyes open, and her pupils lolled back.
A familiar face swam with the tapestry above the bed.
A riot of animals and flora rippled like waves on the black lake. Green eyes shone like beacons into hers.
The heat reached her neck, suffocating and sweet in its intensity as she focused her gaze on the person above her.
They remained sharp and solid against the fever dream, anchoring her to a twisted reality as her eyes memorized every line and angle with dizzy worship.
Metal pricked her arm, and darkness swallowed her whole.
The Vein was burning.
Smoke choked the narrow passageways and streets as crimson-cloaked guards dragged people from their stands. Ksenia stumbled through the chaos, unsure of what to do or where to go.
Varka stood before her, surrounded by a rush of people as they sought their escape.
“You were in the perfect position to strike, and you failed,” Varka said, her voice cutting.
Ksenia’s vision rippled at the edges as she blinked.
“You had the access. The cover. The plan. All you had to do was the one thing you’re actually good at.” The noblewoman stalked closer. “And you made it some kind of fucking performance.”
Ksenia stumbled backward.
“Because you wanted Bohdan to know it was you.” The word was branded deep in Ksenia’s stomach. Varka’s finger jabbed her chest. “You had Karsan in your sights, and you wanted to play games with his son.” She tilted her head, disgust in her eyes.
“Every one of their deaths is on you,” Varka said as she swept a hand across the seething masses. “Not Karsan. You.”
She blinked.
She was back in her family’s forge, but the fieldstone walls were crumbling, molded with decay, not moss.
The patchy stonework let in beams of orange, flickering light—a raging fire.
Ksenia’s pulse quickened. “Danika!” Her bloodshot eyes scanned for her sister, but she knew all too well what had happened. The same outcome that’d claimed her parents.
The silence responded to her, amplifying the rustle of fabric and the crackle of flames outside.
With trembling fingers, she pushed open the ash-covered door to a hellscape.
The entire city of Brannfels was aglow with ember and flame.
Two wooden poles were staked to the ground before her.
And strung up on ropes and tenterhooks between them: Danika, flayed and bloated with scavenging birds circling overhead.
Ksenia dropped to her knees, eyes wide, mouth gaping.
A soundless scream broke at the back of her throat.
The corpse twitched.
Was it a trick of the light? The heat shimmering through the air?
It couldn’t be.
“I—” The jaw unhinged, slackened. “—always knew.” Her tongue lolled, connected by a single strand of sinew. “You’d choose yourself in the end.”
The body swayed on the hooks.
“I did everything”—a long rattling exhale wheezed through her throat—“right. And it still wasn’t enough.”
Ksenia was unable to stop staring at Danika’s gaping sockets, picked clean by the rats.
Damp grass cushioned the impact as her back collided with cool stone.
She scrabbled away from a pale headstone, looking about her surroundings.
Back in Karsan’s private garden.
Cold fear gripped her heart as the world fell silent.
Her throat closed as she turned.
“This is what you wanted, right?” Karsan’s bemused smile painted his face as he kicked Bohdan to his knees before Ksenia. “Revenge.”
Bohdan’s eyes were ringed with white as he looked up to her.
“On him.” Karsan circled his son. “For dragging you to me.”
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.
“You’ve been trying to crack him for months.” He stopped behind Bohdan, his ring-covered hand on his shoulder. “You had him. More than once, you had him completely.”
His eyes lifted to hers. Tundra ice met quavering gold. “And yet, you didn’t deliver the killing blow.”
He tilted his head.
“Why is that?”
She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t scream.
Only the wet sound of her throat closing permeated the air.
“You wanted him ruined.” His smile widened. “And instead, he ruined you.”
She felt her heart crawl inward.
“Let me help you,” Karsan said softly, like a secret between friends.
A splatter of blood painted Ksenia’s face as Radegast skewered Bohdan’s chest from behind.
She screamed, and screamed.
Bohdan slid off the bloodied blade and Karsan casually cleaned it with a handkerchief.