Chapter-1 The Sin

“Forgive me, father, for I have sinned.”

My days at the convent followed a rhythm so precise it felt borrowed rather than lived. Wake. Pray. Serve and repeat. It was methodical. But I’d learned to love it.

It was easier when the hours told me who I was. When I didn’t have to decide what to feel. Or what to remember.

Mother used to say that when a woman knew exactly where she belonged, God spared her the burden of choice. A wandering mind is the devil’s playground, she would warn, tightening my braids as if even my thoughts needed restraint.

So I scrubbed the chapel floors until my knuckles burned. I folded linen with reverence. I kept my eyes lowered and my heart obedient. I told myself this was peace. That the voices haunting me would stay away if I chant God’s name loudly.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

That the feel of cold hands and dead eyes wouldn’t follow me here, not in the God’s home. Mother said if I’d be a good girl, I wouldn’t be punished. God wouldn’t leave me again.

But why was I being punished for sin I didn’t commit? Why Sister Agnes lied? Wasn’t she scared of God? Or was I too easy to be blamed. Like everything else.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” I panted breathlessly as another strike came. This time, my body jerked, and the salad I had for lunch threatened to come out.

The whip whistled through the air before it met my back, splitting across my flesh, tearing the cloth, as if God Himself had raised his hand against me. My knees buckled and stone kissed my skin.

“Again,” Father Mathias said calmly. And I could imagine him standing there, hands crossed behind his back, wearing a look of disappointment. The calm in his eyes. The worst part.

I dragged air into my lungs. My vision blurred, saints melting into shadows along the walls. Their pointed eyes watched, realizing what happen when you go against the rules. That there was punishment for every sin.

“Forgive me, father…” I could barely whisper. “For I have sinned.”

Drip.

Something warm slid down my spine, I didn’t need to look to know it was my blood. Blood was familiar, it was always the price I had to pay. Price of obsolescence. Price of being a sinner.

“What sin you committed, Anastasia? Tell the God, repent your sin, ask for his forgiveness.”

I wanted to laugh, or scream or confess everything, things I’d never done, things I’d only dreamed, things that had been done to me. Would that satisfy God? Would that be enough?

“I lied,” and I lied about lying.

The strike came harder for that.

Pain bloomed, exploding behind my eyes. I cried out despite being familiar with being punished.

“Are you ashamed of that? Do you think you should be forgiven?”

“No.”

Father Mathias scoffs. “Suffering is purification. You should be grateful god still sees fit to correct you.”

Correct me. As if I were a crooked line that needed straightening. As if I were wrong at the core.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to disappear into scripture, into the routine, into the lie that this place was sanctuary.

But sanctuary doesn’t lock its doors from inside. It doesn’t smell like fear and ask you to bleed for someone else’s sin.

“You are not to interact with men. Sister Agnes said you tempted him, that your eyes lingered. It invites attention.”

A sob lodged in my chest.

I remembered her hand on my shoulder. The softness of her voice when she told me God tested His most devout servants. I remembered believing her.

I didn’t look at the man. I didn’t know he was there. I just helped him.

“She wouldn’t lie,” he added. “A woman of God fears judgment.”

So did I.

That was the cruel joke.

Another strike landed, lower this time, and my body folded completely. My forehead hit the stone and stars burst behind my eyes.

Instead, Father Mathias’s shadow fell over me, blocking the candlelight. “Decency,” he said. “That is what you lack, Anastasia.”

I swallowed, my throat raw.

My fingers curled into the stone.

“As long as your mind strays toward material things you will never find God.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “And a woman who cannot find God is already lost.”

Lost.

Mother’s voice rose unbidden in my head.

Pretty things make women weak, Anastasia.

Wanting is a sin.

If you suffer quietly, God will see you.

“I am trying,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure who I was speaking to anymore. Him. God. Her.

Father Mathias straightened. I heard the faint creak of his boots as he stepped back.

“See that you try harder,” he said. “Or next time, prayer will not be enough.”

Then he was gone.

The door closed with a sound that echoed too loudly for such a holy place.

I stayed where I was long after his footsteps faded, my cheek pressed to the cold floor, my body trembling now that permission to endure had been revoked. My breath hitched. A sob slipped out before I could stop it.

I cried without sound, the way I’d learned to. Tears soaking into stone that had already tasted too many of them.

“Why did you lie?”

The voice startled me.

I flinched and looked up.

Joura stood near the doorway, her hands folded nervously in front of her apron. Her brown eyes, too gentle for this place, were filled with worry. Candlelight softened her features, made her look almost unreal. Like someone who belonged somewhere kinder.

“I—” My voice cracked. I stopped.

She crossed the distance between us quickly and knelt beside me despite the blood, despite the rules. Her hand hovered for a moment, as if asking permission, before she touched my arm.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said softly. “You didn’t have to take it on yourself.”

She helped me sit up. The movement sent fire through my back and I hissed, but she steadied me, murmuring apologies as if she were the one who’d hurt me.

“I didn’t,” I said finally. “I didn’t lie.”

Her brows knit together. “Anastasia…”

“I lied about lying,” I corrected quietly.

She exhaled, something between anger and heartbreak. “Agnes invited him. You know that, don’t you? She always does. And then she pretends to be shocked when someone notices.”

I said nothing.

Joura sighed and rose, tugging me gently to my feet. I leaned on her more than I meant to. She didn’t comment.

We walked slowly through the dim corridors, I kept my eyes down. I always did.

My room was at the very top, tucked beneath the eaves, small, narrow, almost an afterthought. One bed. One desk. One tiny window that showed more sky than world. I’d liked it for that. It felt closer to God.

Joura sat me on the bed and fetched the cloth and ointment she’d hidden for moments like this. Her mouth tightened as she cleaned the wounds, her touch careful but practiced now that it was like the routine to tend my wounds.

“You bleed for others,” she muttered.

“Everyone bleeds,” I said.

“That’s not what I mean.” She tied the bandage with more force than necessary. “Why didn’t you speak for yourself?”

I stared at the wall. At a crack shaped like a river splitting stone.

“Because it wouldn’t have mattered.”

“It would have mattered to you.”

I shook my head. “I am not meant to matter.”

She froze. Looked at me like I’d said something obscene.

“You don’t believe that.”

“I don’t believe much,” I said. “Belief hurts.”

She sat beside me and sighs. “You can’t keep offering yourself up like this. You’re not a sacrifice.”

I almost smiled.

Sacrifice was the only thing I’d ever been good at.

Before I could answer, a sharp knock echoed through the small room.

A nun stood in the doorway. “Anastasia. You are called to Mother Superior’s office.”

My stomach dropped.

Joura squeezed my hand once before stepping back. “I’ll be here,” she whispered. “Please… speak.”

I didn’t promise anything.

The walk felt longer than it should have. Each step sent pain rippling through me, but I didn’t slow. Slowing was noticed. Weakness was remembered. And this place was the last place I’d like to be vulnerable in.

Five years and still, I couldn’t call this place home. My home was with people I loved, but now there was barely anyone I loved anymore.

Trauma change people, but mine had kept me same. I still relive those moment, those cold hands, feral eyes, the smell of blood, the cold stench of snow and red. Everything red. I was a coward five years ago, I still was.

I learned early that survival didn’t belong to the brave but to the obedient. To those who endured without asking why. To those who learned how to disappear while still breathing. \

The convent liked to call that devotion.

I called it repetition.

My feet carried me forward on their own, past doors that had heard too much, past walls that had seen worse.

By the time I reached Mother Superior’s office, my hands were trembling and I could feel the blood trailing down my spine.

Mother Superior sat behind her desk, fingers steepled. A folded paper lay before her.

“There has been a call,” she said without preamble, just like she did with everyone. “From Moscow.”

The word alone made something old and sharp twist in my chest.

I swallowed, looked at her white veil and wondered what difference white and black made. She didn’t know what Father Mathias did to me, or what Agnes lied about. But a sacrificial girl like me, a pathetic girl with unspeakable past and more disgusting sins, was worthy of standing in the convent. I should be grateful that they took me in, accepted me, but with it came more pain.

“It is… family business,” she continued, lifting her head. “Your sister insisted.”

I winced at my sister’s mention.

Her eyes softened, just barely. “You are to go.”

She paused.

“Your mother is dead.”