Page 52 of A House of Gold
I’m not perfect. I’m not exceptional. I’m just a woman with angel blood who eats sins to keep people safe, and that’s enough.
It has to be enough.
“Redi ad originem tuam.” Return to your origin.
“Redi ad dominum tuum.” Return to your master.
I pour the blood onto the floor until I feel the pop of it under my skin. There’s no golden fire, no dramatic conjuring, but my blood knows what to do. It always has. It hits the edges of the purification circle and ignites, white flames springing up around me, fed by my angel blood and my will and my desperate need to be free.
The pride screams.
The sin pours out of me all at once, not gentle, not gradual, but like vomiting razor blades. I can feel it tearing its wayup my throat, leaving destruction in its wake, and I’m on my knees now, hunched over the stone floor. The silk dress pools around me, blood-soaked and ruined, sticking to my skin where the fabric has absorbed too much. My hands are braced against the obsidian floor, blood still dripping from my arm, and I’m coughing up golden smoke and the lingering taste of someone else’s arrogance.
It hurts. God, it hurts. Like every nerve is being stripped bare, every cell scoured clean. Like dying and being reborn in the same agonizing instant.
And then it’s gone.
I’m myself again. Just Raven. Tired, hurting, hollow. Ordinary. Enough.
I slump forward against the altar, my forehead pressed to the cool marble, trying to remember how to breathe without the weight of borrowed pride crushing my lungs. Blood is still dripping from my arm, pooling on the golden circle beneath me, but it’s slowing. My body is already healing, faster than normal humans, one gift of the angel blood running thin through my veins.
“Impressive.”
I’d forgotten Croesus was there. I look up to find him crouched just outside the circle, watching me with those unnerving gold eyes. There’s something in his expression I can’t read. Something that might be wonder, or hunger, or both.
“I’ve seen sin eaters work before,” he continues, his voice quiet in the candlelit space. “Your grandmother, once, even though she wasn’t working for me in that capacity. Others, over the years. But I’ve never seen anyone do what you do.”
I wipe blood from my mouth with the back of my hand. “What do you mean?”
“They took the sins mechanically. Efficiently. Like swallowing medicine.” He tilts his head, studying me. “You feltit. All of it. I watched you become Barnes, with his arrogance, his desperation, his certainty of perfection. You didn’t just carry the pride. You were the pride.”
“That’s the job.” My voice comes out rough, scraped raw from the purging. “Can’t break a contract without understanding what it is. Can’t purge a sin without feeling what it does to people.”
“It would be easier if you could.” It’s not a question. “If you could take it without letting it touch you.”
“Easier isn’t always better.”
“No,” he agrees, still watching me with that unsettling intensity. “I suppose it isn’t.”
I drag myself to my feet, legs shaking but functional. The circle releases me, wards falling away like a held breath finally exhaled. I need to clean up the blood and the candles. Need to wash the ritual from my skin. Need to sleep for about twelve hours straight.
But Croesus is still looking at me like I’m something he’s never seen before.
“What?” I finally ask, too tired for games.
“You purged it in under ten minutes.” There’s a note in his voice I don’t recognize. “Your grandmother took time.” He’s right; her rituals always took longer than mine, but they were always so much cleaner, more controlled.
“I’ve had practice,” I hedge.
He’s quiet for a moment, and I can see him calculating. “You started at eighteen?”
“Yes.” I gather the candles, blowing them out one by one. “Gramms’ started training me at eighteen, but the first real absorption wasn’t until I was almost nineteen.”
“And your grandmother? How long did she teach you?”
“Why do you care?” The question comes out harshly with my exhaustion.
“Because I own your services for a year.” He stands, moving closer, and I resist the urge to back away. “You live alone. You have a sister you’re protecting. You’ve been eating sins since you were a teenager. You’re more powerful than I anticipated. You’re—” He pauses. “—stubborn. Defiant. Unwilling to simply accept your circumstances.”
