Page 78 of Hellbound

Ksenia stilled, witnessing the guilt tearing her sister from within.

“What happened?”

Danika ignored her question, closing her eyes softly. “You know, you kind of remind me of her.”

Ksenia bit her tongue, weighing whether this was as good a time as any to reveal herself.

Through the many layers of stone above them, Ksenia’s bondsense picked out an unholy sound. It shook her inner being like an earthquake. Danika’s eyelids shot open and she paused in her movements, sensing.

It came again, louder, like seismic aftershocks.

Their eyes locked, Danika’s narrowed.

“Who are you.”

“Niks—”

She flinched, like she’d been struck. “Who told you that name?”

Ksenia kept her voice low, steady. She kept her hands out before her, despite every instinct screaming for her to just grab her sister and run. “No one told me. I know it because it’s me, it’s Senna.”

Danika pressed herself into her cot, her breath coming in short bursts. Tears broke free and tracked down her face. “I saw her head on the gates.”

“I know.” This wasn’t the tender, disarming, sisterly conversation Ksenia had hoped for. She brought her palms up. “Danika—”

Please see me.

The commotion drew the attention of the nursing staff at the end of the hall, and one of them made their way over.

Danika waved off the nurse and pushed herself off the bed with a pained cry.

“Danika. You need rest!”

“I’ll rest in my quarters, thank you.” She hobbled forward, and the nurse outfitted her with a sling, shooting Ksenia a dirty look.

Ksenia was beside herself, hands clenched.

Suddenly, she doubled over, her vision turning red and every sensation in her body heightening.

The beat of her heart rushed into her ears, warming the blood in her veins, and the need to fight and take life overtook her. Her pupils narrowed, adrenaline coursing, and she flung herself out of the bed. She swayed on woozy and unsteady feet and pushed past the last few medical staff.

She clambered up the staircase, past servants and castle attendants, and out of the grand foyer where nobles shot her dirty looks and shouted when she jostled through them.

The bloodlust had never filled her mind and body like this before, and she wasn’t sure what would happen if she stayed around innocent people.

It was unlike Vornaya’s call, who barbed her mind with horrific hallucinations and taunts but never drove her into a bloodied frenzy.

This was primal, deep, and unquenchable.

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.