Page 51 of A House of Gold
The knife trembles in my grip.
“Having trouble?” Croesus’s voice cuts through the roar in my head, smooth and mocking. “How unexpected. From someone so exceptional.”
Fuck him.I press the blade to my forearm, need to cut deep, need blood for the ritual, but my hand won’t cooperate. The silk of the dress he made me wear brushes against my wrist, whisper-soft and expensive, and I hate it all over again. Hate that I let him dress me up like some doll, some pretty thing to parade through Barnes’s office. The fabric is too fine, too delicate, too his.
The pride won’t let me hurt myself because I’m too valuable, too important, too perfect to mar with something as mundane as a purging ritual.
I’m better than this. Better than blood and pain and desperate measures. I should just will the sin away. Command it to leave through sheer force of superiority.
Except that’s not how it works. That’s the pride talking. But I can’t-I can’t seem to remember why that matters. Can’t remember why I need to cut myself, why I need to bleed, why I need to do any of this when I’m clearly fine.
“You’re going to die,” Croesus says, and his voice has gone flat. Clinical. “The pride will consume you. You’ll lose yourself completely, become nothing but arrogance wearing Raven Vesper’s skin. Is that what you want? To prove you’re exceptional by becoming exactly what you’ve spent eighteen years fighting against?”
“I’m not…“ The words stick in my throat. “I can handle this.”
“Can you?” He pushes off the wall, moves to the edge of the circle, but doesn’t cross it. He can’t cross it; the wards would keep him out even if he tried. “Then do it. Cut yourself. Bleed. Start the ritual. Or is the great sin eater too proud to save her own life?”
The words hit like a slap. Like cold water. Like...
Like exactly what I need.
Because he’s right. The pride is telling me I’m too good for this, too important, too perfect to damage myself with something as crude as a blade. And if I listen to it, if I let it win, I’ll be trapped. Lost. Everything I’ve fought to become—strong, capable, myself—will be buried under someone else’s sin.
I’ll become the thing I’ve always hated most: a victim of an angel’s contract.
“You manipulative bastard,” I whisper.
“Yes.” He doesn’t sound apologetic. “Now prove me wrong about you needing help.”
I press the athame to my forearm and cut.
The pain is instant and shocking and exactly what’s needed. The pride shrieks at the violation, at the damage to my perfect self, and that moment of outrage is enough. Just enough for me to remember who I actually am.
Not perfect. Not exceptional. Just stubborn. Just surviving.
Just me.
I drag the blade down my forearm, wrist to elbow, and blood flows freely. It soaks into the silk of the dress immediately, spreading like spilled wine across the expensive fabric. At least it’s black. The dress is ruined.Good. I hope it cost him a fortune.The pain slices through the pride, giving me space to think, to breathe, to remember the words I need.
“Ex carne mea, te expello.” From my flesh, I cast you out.
The pride fights me for every syllable, trying to choke the words in my throat. Trying to convince me I don’t need this, I’m above this, I’m too strong to need ritual and blood and desperate measures.
But I keep going.
“Ex anima mea, te solvo.” From my soul, I release you.
Blood drips onto the floor, charging the circle, and I’m dimly aware of Croesus watching from the outside. His gold eyes arefixed on me with an intensity that would normally make me uncomfortable, but I can’t think about that now. Can’t think about anything except the words I need to speak before the pride drowns me completely. The blood is warm against my skin, soaking through silk, dripping onto the inlaid gold of the purification circle.
“Non sum superbia.” I am not pride.
The sin writhes inside me, furious at being named, at being rejected.
“Non sum inanis gloria.” I am not vain glory.
My grandmother’s voice echoes in my memory: You have to mean it, Raven. You can’t just say the words. You have to believe them.
And I do. Gods help me, I do. Because I’ve seen what pride does to people. Seen it hollow them, turn them into brittle shells of certainty and arrogance. Saw the results of what it did to Barnes with his sunken cheeks and empty hollow eyes, the way he looked like he was dying from the inside out. I won’t let it do that to me. I won’t become another casualty of angelic cruelty.
