Page 224 of The Sins of Silas

“Ulric?” I asked in disbelief. “I-I don’t understand.”

Silasturned to face me, his brows drawn together. “When my mother died, my father increased my training. Said I needed to be strong, ruthless, unfeeling. He began to take me on ‘hunts’, as he called them. Intel would come in about potential threats, and we would ambush and kill everyone…

“I was devastated when I learned you were dead, Lena. My whole world in those couple of weeks had shattered completely.” He sighed. “When my father had found me sobbing in my room after seeing your corpse, after I punched him for telling me to be glad it wasn’t someone ‘of importance’ who’d died, he pulled out a dagger. That was the first time my father used something other than his fists to harm me.” He pointed to the scar on his left cheek. “This was the first scar he gave me.”

I shook my head, fury bubbling inside of me. How could he do that to his own son?

“Ulric wished for me to be like him, cold and merciless. But to go out and end people's lives, seeing the fear in their eyes, hearing their cries as they begged for mercy…” He shuddered. “I hesitated. I wasn’t ruthless like my father or the more advanced soldiers. I imagined they had families, people who loved them. It felt wrong just to slaughter them like nothing.”

His throat rolled as he swallowed. “That’s when the beatings began.” His eyes fell to his lap. “My father would do it himself. Any time I showed sympathy, anytime I showed an ounce of compassion, I would be whipped.”

My breathing was unsteady as my hand continued to trace his back softly. He slowly eased into my touch.

“That went on for about six months. Eventually, whipping turned to cutting. Cutting to burning. Then back to whipping.” He shook his head. “I would go to practice so sore, but I couldn’t tell anyone. I was too ashamed. Sometimes, I would fuck up too close together, and I would be whipped over marks that were still healing, opening them up once again. Or burned over fresh burns. My back would constantly ache or itch. I'm shocked I never got an infection.”

His tortured eyes found mine again. “I thought it was the worst pain I could experience, next to losing the people I loved more than anything. But…” He released a shaky exhale, his voice a mere whisper. “I was wrong.”

He got quiet, and his body began to shake. His eyes shut tight, and his frown and clenched jaw told me that he was trying to stop from crying. I touched his cheek and pulled him to meet my eyes.

A few tears released as he bit down on his lip, and his voice trembled when he spoke again. “I’m going to tell you why I hate Roland, Lena,” he whispered, a haunted gleam in his eyes. “But you will not look at me the same again.”

My stomach fell at his words.

“It was noticeable to my friends that I had changed after the deaths of my mother and, unbeknownst to them, you. Even more so once my punishments began. Edmund and Hendry would ask me if I was alright, I’d lie, and that would be that.

“But one morning, after a particularly gruesome beating, Roland came up to me. I’d stood up for him before in the past when guys his age tormented him, and while I knew he appreciated that, I was still the Prince. He was never himself around me.” He sighed through his nose. “Until that morning.”

Chapter Sixty-Two

SILAS - FIVE YEARS AGO

The beating last night was especially gruesome—the whip splitting open my partially healed wounds.

We had infiltrated a small camp, a camp of witches, and I had frozen with my sword lifted to a woman clinging to a young child. I stood there as one of the older soldiers crept forward, plunging his sword into her chest and ripping the child from her corpse's arms.

“Show no emotion, show no mercy, or you will be beaten again.”

I didn't know how to do it. How could I ever be like him? I hated witches, believed them to be evil, but the desperation in that woman's eyes…in her child's…

“They are monsters. It was just an act, and you fell for it like the fool you are.”

It was almost impossible to go through the motions during training without crying out in agony. But no one could know of my beatings.

No one can know.

I rotated my hands, staring at how rough they’d become in the last few months. The skin on them was still primarily smooth, but I imagined it wouldn't last.

Maybe once the beatings were done, I could get inked. Perhaps I’d be able to hide all my scars with art one day. The thought of anyone seeing my back humiliated me, though.

I rested outside against the castle wall, Edmund and Hendry throwing me concerned looks. I waved them off, and they shrugged, wandering away.

I hated being distant from them, the only friends I had left. But what was I to talk about? They would notice something was off, and I didn’t want to speak about it.

A slight drizzle began, and I sighed, tipping my head up to allow the droplets to pepper my face.

I hated this life. The only thing keeping me going was ridding the world from the evil that took the two most important people away from me. And it turns out I fucking sucked at it.

When I opened my eyes, nearly all our soldiers had dispersed from practice, all except for Roland Aubeze, who was staring at me.

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