More than just about nun assassins, Sybella’s past is shades darker than Ismae’s. It’s a slow tale though with her detailing the who and the what and the when and later the how *sob* bit by bit, but it was good too because how her history is laid out, we know precisely who she is and what she’s suffered. So that her doubts and mistrust? All that makes sense, but still there’s more. Everything she’s gone through, is what’s led her to where she is; she’s driven to somehow right the numerous wrongs done (to her, and to others) so that at the start we have a woman more than capable, but with little things coming out, these have her doubting her worth, doubting her place, and questioning things she’d not before considered. Then there’s that unexpected ally given a likeness between them, in who they are and in what they do as well as a matter of fact way that both of them are in the need for them to fulfill their roles. How about this,You know how I like Terrible so much? Not for being the perfect hero matching up seamlessly with the perfect girl, but because of the ways he looks and for him being upfront about what he does and why he does it. Well, I’ve found someone like him in the Beast here. It’s his imperfection that pulls her (and me) in. And then there’s the balance between them, how she’s equally imperfect I how dark she lives her life. Sybella is so much like Ismae only… darker and thus sadder. And if thinking of Beast has me recalling Terrible, then she has me thinking of Chess. Nothing any of them go through is easy. She’s in a bad position and doing what needs doing; then there are those moments that have her questioning positions and rightness and wondering of… things. It’s all her questions piled up on her past that have her coming out as more than just nun assassin. There’s a surprising sensitivity in her that you’d think burned out of her from everything else, but it’s not. Instead she swings from being decided, then being unsure all the while scared but hiding it in what she does and how well she does it. But scared of what precisely? The monsters in this live up that descriptive. A father who’s ambition has him doing the most terrible of things and the people around him doing things the best they can to cope. And it’s in this, that a sadder more twisted thing develops.Dark, this one... and I liked it4.5/5
