Page 157 of Obsidian and Frost
“Something the Guardian Movement staunchly enforces. Yet I know better where you’re concerned. You excel at coloring outside the lines. Dealing with this heathen falls within those parameters. Not only is he dangerous, he is deeply connected to even more dangerous individuals. We need to cut out the rot. We begin with him.”
“Cassius—” he started to protest.
“If he is not imprisoned in The Void by nightfall, I will take his life.”
I blinked backto the immediate moment to find Sylas studying me, trying to determine where my thoughts had traveled to just now.
I hadn’t taken Sorin’s life, as Cornelius had done what I’d asked.
However, unbeknown to any of them, Ihadtaken the lives of the fourPuritasmembers who’d been with him when I’d decimated my way into the home he’d been staying in, those who’d tried to protect him because he was a high-ranking member of that organization.
I was a Celestial being, not holy or morally righteous.
And I suppose that day I had proven that.
In all the worst and most despicable ways.
It had weighed on me for some time after committing those acts.
Even though the weight of stealing lives away had been a great deal to bear, the logic of the acts themselves had been sound. More than that, it had been a necessary evil.
Sometimes despicable action was required and nothing less would suffice.
It was a brutal, reprehensible fact that those heathens had needed to perish that day.
They were beyond redemption, far beyond any sort of salvation.
Nothing but a stain on this world.
And more personally, both a stain and a horrific threat toher.
One I would not allow.
Just as I wouldn’t this day either.
“I will follow your lead.”
Sylas looked more than a little startled. “You’ll… what?”
I laid my hand on his shoulder and he flinched, not sure what to make of it.
“Have you taken a life before?”
“Why does that matter?”
“You have then.” I studied him, trying to use what Velra had been teaching me since I’d spent the night in her room a couple of days ago. “And it still hurts you.” He tried to pull away, but I held fast. I felt something within… within him. Similar to when I’d been able to see into Velra the day she’d lay dying—before the bond had been formed between us. It was a gift I could rarely summon on command and honestly one I’d assumed I’d lost when I’d become a Fallen. It had never been properly explained to me, but it was akin to judging a soul for either salvation or damnation. “You didn’t mean to… it was an accident.” A gasp escaped me. “Many… there were so many… and—”
He forcibly jerked away with a blast of magic that was so potent it had us both stumbling back.
“How are you burying all of that?”
“It’s called high-level compartmentalization.”
“It is incredibly taxing, especially to maintain. Especially when you are seriously ill. It would require magic to hold so powerfully.”
“Whatever you think you saw, forget it. It’s not your concern.”
“It certainly is when you believe you can carry out another massacre here and now while that is weighing on you. Beyond that… incident, you have taken lives before, but despite leading people to believe that you arejudge, punisher, and executioner,those were kill-or-be-killed situations. You do not do well with killing. It hurts you. How do you expect to be able to do so now—and with many?”
