Page 84 of A Sin So Pure

How many times had he brought me into a barren room, the concrete floor forever stained with red-brown splotches, and shoved me towards a “traitor” restrained at its center? How many times had he told me my magic was a mercy compared to what he would do to them? How many times had he slit a man’s gut open, made me watch their entrails spill onto the floor, and told me that their deaths didn’t have to be gruesome?

Guilt was how Pride convinced me to use my magic as a child. Because my touch didn’thaveto hurt. I didn’twantit to hurt. That is, until I became desensitized to the violence.

Cruelty is learned, and I took to it quickly.

I scrub my hands over my face.

I don’t have time for guilt. It does nothing for me now.

Relaxing into the chair, I slide the first book from the stack over to me and flip open the cover. And then, I read.

Hours pass before my eyes burn, much like the funeral pyres of the late soul-stealers I’ve come to learn about. It seems that even thousands of years ago, the Unseelie Court was still wary of those who wield death so freely.

My migraine had faded to the background with the distraction, but it’s back with full force, an incessant pounding of a pickax through the left side of my skull.

I may be driven, but I know when I’ve reached my limit.

It reminds me of grade school, when studying for a test; after a certain point, the information doesn’t stick, and it’s better to sleep and start again in the morning.

After I say my goodnights to the fae researchers still studying away at the other tables, I don’t rush back to my room. Instead, I explore, letting all the information I learned tonight sink into my being.

Not one of the ancient fae in the books I’d read had the ability to control the methods or times of death. It was always touch-and-die.Poof. A quick lightning strike.

With each word, my gut sank deeper upon the confirmation that I am what I thought long before Pride took me in: an anomaly.

“You’re special, Nora. That’s all.”

My mother’s words hadn’t comforted me the stormy night my magic revealed itself, and they don’t comfort me now.

I stroll through each of the circular levels in the complex, mapping out the rooms and exit points, the latter of which are few. Every exit corridor leads back to the main entrance Silas had walked me through earlier.

A bit of an operational security issue, if you ask me.

I stop by the kitchen and snag some bread and dried meats from the cupboard to hold me over until the morning. When I finally get back to my room, I barely strip off my clothes before I fall into plush bedsheets and drift into a fitful sleep.

The next day isn’t much different, with not one Silas or Wrath sighting as I stay holed up in the library. Though, after I snag a late dinner, the cook whips up a special tea for the pain thrumming in my skull.

I startle awake on the third morning to someone pounding on my door.

Sucking in a ragged breath, I take stock of my surroundings: the fresh but soft linens under my fingertips, the natural stone walls draped in tapestries, and the blessed absence of my migraine. Sunlight peaks around the curtains of my window overlooking the mountainside.

The knocks continue, followed by Silas calling my name in a sing-song voice.

“Nor-ra!”

“Gods, give me the strength to deal with this man all day,” I whisper.

I murmur curses under my breath as I rub the crust from my eyes with my palm. Yawning, I throw a dressing gown on over my underwear and head to the door. I crack it open, but only as much as I need to wedge my face between it and the doorframe.

“What?”

Silas lifts a golden apple to his mouth and bites, the crunch of his teeth piercing the crisp flesh loud in the empty hall. Juicegathers at the corner of his lips; he catches the budding droplet with a swipe of his tongue.

“You slept through breakfast,” he says.

“Okay.”

“So, I brought you an apple.”

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