Chapter 16
Claire’s contract takes forty-five minutes to break.
Forty-five minutes of pulling silver chains so deeply embedded in her soul they’ve become part of her spine, her ribs, her heart. Forty-five minutes of absorbing seven years of pride, not the sharp, instant hit I got from Barnes, but a slow, excruciating flood that fills me like poison.
I am perfect. I need no one. I am sufficient unto myself. Help is weakness. Vulnerability is failure. I am complete, flawless, beyond reproach.
The pride screams through every cell, and I have to hold it while I work. Have to keep pulling the chains free while the sin tries to convince me I don’t need to finish, that Claire should stay bound because she’s clearly inferior, that I’m wasting my talent on someone so weak.
“Raven.” Seraph’s voice cuts through the roar. “You’re losing yourself.”
I am not losing myself. I am finding myself. I am discovering what I truly am: exceptional, extraordinary, the best sin eater who’s ever—.
No. No. That’s the pride talking.
I grit my teeth and pull the last chain free.
The release is like a dam breaking. Seven years of accumulated pride pours into me all at once, and I hear myself gasp or scream, I can’t tell, as my body tries to contain something it was never meant to hold.
Too much. It’s too much. I’m going to die. I’m going to burn from the inside out, and the last thing I’ll think is how perfectly I died.
“Breathe.” Croesus’s hands are on my shoulders, grounding me. When did he move? “You can hold it. Just breathe.”
I breathe. Force air into lungs that feel like they’re full of glass. Force my heart to keep beating even though it wants to stop under the weight of seven years of someone else’s arrogance.
Claire gasps. A real gasp, her first genuine breath in God knows how long. The silver chains dissolve into light, and she cries, deep, wracking sobs of relief and shame and freedom.
“Impressive.” Seraph stands, moves to Claire’s bedside. He touches her forehead gently, and she falls into what looks like genuine sleep. “Seven years. Most sin eaters would have died attempting that.” His silver eyes find mine. “You’re stronger than I expected.”
“We need to leave.” My voice comes out strained. The pride is building, swelling, trying to burst out of my skin. “Now. I need to purge this.”
“Of course.” Seraph inclines his head. “The deal is satisfied. Claire is free. You succeeded.” He looks at Croesus. “She’s remarkable. If you ever tire of her...”
“I won’t.” Croesus’s grip on my shoulders tightens. “We’re leaving.”
The transition back through the mirror is agony. Reality bends, inverts, and the pride hates it, hates being moved, being controlled, being anything less than the center of the universe. By the time we materialize in the House of Gold, I’m shaking so hard my teeth are chattering.
“Ritual room,” I manage. “Need to...”
“I know.” Croesus steadies me. “Can you walk?”
The pride surges. Of course, you can walk. You’re not weak. You don’t need help from him or anyone.
“Yes.” I pull away from his hands, force my legs to work. They cooperate barely. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
“I said I’m fine.” The words come out sharp, imperious. “I can handle this. I’ve been doing this for eighteen years. I don’t need you hovering.”
He goes still. Then: “As you wish.”
I walk away before he can say anything else. Before the pride can make me say something worse. The corridors shift around me, but I navigate by instinct now, following the pull of the ritual room like a lodestone.
The ritual room doors are closed. I shove them open, stumble inside, and nearly collapse before I reach the altar.
No. No. I’m not collapsing. I’m stronger than this. Better than this. I’m—.
I’m dying. The pride is killing me. Seven years of it, concentrated and vicious, trying to convince me I don’t need the ritual, don’t need to purge, don’t need anything except my own exceptional self-sufficiency.
My hands shake as I light the candles. Seven white. Seven black. Seven red. The flames blur together, and I blink hard to focus.
I step into the circle. The wards snap into place. The pride screams in protest, but the circle holds.
I take up the athame. The knife feels too heavy. My left arm burns where the tattoo will form, but I press the blade to my other forearm and cut anyway.
The pain is sharp and immediate and grounding. Cuts through the pride just enough for me to remember the words.
“Ex carne mea, te expello.” From my flesh, I cast you out.
The pride fights every syllable. Tries to choke the words in my throat. Tries to convince me I don’t need this, I’m above this, I’m too perfect for such crude measures.
“Ex anima mea, te solvo.” From my soul, I release you.
Blood drips from my arm. More blood than usual. I cut deeper than I meant to, or maybe the pride made me cut deeper to prove I could take the pain. Either way, there’s too much blood pooling in the circle, dark and viscous.
“Non sum superbia.” I am not pride.
The sin writhes, its fury at being named made manifest.
“Non sum inanis gloria.” I am not vain glory.
My voice is shaking now. I’m shaking. Everything hurts as the seven years of accumulated arrogance tries to tear me apart from the inside.
“Redi ad originem tuam.” Return to your origin.
I squeeze the wound to get more of the blood onto the floor of the circle. It hits the gold inlay and ignites, white flames springing up, fed by my angel blood and my desperation and my need to be free.
“Redi ad dominum tuum.” Return to your master.
The pride screams.
It pours out of me like glass shards, sharp and brutal and agonizing.
I can feel it tearing its way up my throat, leaving destruction in its wake.
I’m on my knees, hands braced against the obsidian floor, coughing up golden smoke and blood and seven years of someone else’s certainty that they needed no one.
It feels like dying.
It feels like being reborn.
It feels like forever.
When it’s finally over, when the last of the pride has burned away in white fire, I collapse forward, forehead pressed to the cool stone, trying to remember how to breathe.
I’m hollow, scraped out, empty of everything except exhaustion and pain.
The circle releases me. The wards fall away. The candles gutter and die. I lie there in the dark, blood cooling on my arm, the forty-sixth tattoo starting on my arm already while I try to find the strength to stand.
I can’t.
My body won’t cooperate. My arms won’t hold me. I’m done. Completely, utterly done.
The door opens and footsteps cross the room, stopping just outside the circle’s edge.
“How long have you been out there?” My voice comes out hoarse, wrecked.
“The entire time.” Croesus crouches beside me, and I can feel his presence like heat, like gravity. “You were in here for an hour.”
An hour. It felt like minutes. Or days. Time doesn’t work right when you’re purging sins.
“I’m fine,” I say automatically.
“You’re bleeding.” His hand touches my cut arm, gently, carefully. “And you’ve been lying on the floor. I’m never going to be able to keep you in a decent wardrobe.”
“Just resting,” I manage.
“You’re collapsing.” His other hand slides under my shoulder, helping me sit up. The room spins. “Let me help you.”
“I don’t need it.” The words stick. Because I need help. I can’t stand on my own. I can’t even sit up without his support. And now that the pride is gone, I can’t hide behind it anymore. Can’t pretend I’m invincible.
I’m tired and human and breaking.
“I know you don’t need help.” His voice is quiet. “You’ve made that abundantly clear. But you’re going to accept it anyway, because the alternative is passing out on this floor and spending the night here.”
He’s right, but I don’t have to like it or admit it out loud.
He helps me to my feet, or tries to. My legs give out halfway up, and he catches me, one arm around my waist, pulling me against his chest.
“I’ve got you,” he says.
And that’s when I start crying.
Not loud, dramatic sobs. Just silent tears sliding down my face because I’m so tired and I hurt everywhere, and I just purged seven years of pride that tried to kill me, and I can’t do this anymore. Can’t keep pretending I’m strong enough. Can’t keep surviving on spite and stubbornness.
“Raven.” His hand comes up to my face, thumb wiping away tears. “What is this?”
“I’m fine.” But my voice breaks on the word. “I’m just tired. I’ll be fine in the morning.”
“You’re not fine.” His gold eyes searching mine.
“I had to do it alone. That’s how it works.”
“It doesn’t have to work that way.” His jaw tightens. “You could have let me help. Could have asked me to stay with you during the ritual.”
“To what? Watch me bleed and cry and barely survive?” I try to pull away, but I don’t have the strength. “That’s not your job. You’re not my keeper.”
“For the next year, I am exactly that.” His grip tightens, not painfully, just firm. Grounding. “You are my responsibility. My employee. My sin eater. And I will not watch you destroy yourself trying to prove you don’t need anyone.”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.” His voice drops, dangerous. “You made a deal with Seraph without consulting me. Offered yourself as a wager. Risked your life to prove a point. And now you’re here, barely breathing, telling me you’re fine when you can’t even hold yourself up.”
Anger flares through the exhaustion. “What did you want me to do? Let Seraph take me for a week? Let him have access to me whenever he wanted?”
“I wanted you to trust me to handle it.” His gold eyes are blazing now. “I wanted you to let me protect you instead of throwing yourself into danger because you’re too stubborn to accept help.”
“I don’t need protection. I’m not some delicate thing you need to shelter.”
“No, you’re a human sin eater. You’re mortal, Raven. Fragile. Breakable. And you keep forgetting that.”
The words hit me hard. “I’m not fragile.”