32. Penny
Penny
The horse was frothing, and my backside was numb by the time I came in sight of Ashpoint’s gates.
Considering the Sentinels’ head start and the circumstances that forced them to abandon Forstford, I didn’t anticipate a warm reception, and I wasn’t surprised when a small troop of guards bolted into the road with weapons drawn.
I jerked on the reins, drawing my mount to a stuttering stop. The halt was abrupt enough that I nearly toppled off, clinging to the saddle and digging my knees into the mare’s heaving sides to stay seated.
Once she settled, though still huffing and tossing her head, I raised my hands. My brow lowered over my eyes as I scanned across the men blocking the path and the one situated a dozen or so feet back with a crossbow trained on me.
I fixed my gaze on the man nearest to the center of the group and announced as coolly as I could, “I think the Right Hand is expecting me.”
They made quick work of it, at least.
I was yanked off the horse and deftly bound, arms behind my back but feet free so I could follow as they marched me ahead.
Through the gates, into town, and down the path that wound through the square.
We approached the Ossuary, drawing all manner of stares and murmurs from those milling about town.
My focus was on the Ossuary, on the window near the top that I knew belonged to Merrick’s office. All my wrath, my indignation, and whatever words I was allowed to speak were for him. And I’d had plenty of time to plan what I would say.
I moved with head high and spine straight, refusing to let myself be dragged or to show the exhaustion that threatened to cripple me.
I wanted Merrick to see me strong and unafraid.
My weariness, my tears, and most importantly my terror…
I would keep those to myself. They would be my secrets for as long as I could keep them.
My guards took me inside, deep into the building to the ritual room where Kit and I had received our brands months before, and where we had collapsed the underground tunnel not one month prior. The Sentinels were all gathered in their ceremonial robes, but my half-brother was notably absent.
They dragged up a chair and tied me to it, anchored in place in the center of the room. Everyone stared, whispering amongst themselves through sinister smirks, and I stared right back, full of spite and ire.
“Where is he?” I asked, my voice echoing off the cold, stone walls. “Where is Merrick? I demand to see him.”
Of course, I had no ground to stand on. No authority that would be recognized here or anywhere, so no one answered.
“Have you told him I’m here?” I demanded. So much for my plans to hold my tongue until my conniving half-brother showed his face. “He’ll want to know, I assure you. If for no better reason than to gloat.”
“You can wait quietly, or I’ll gladly silence you.” Fletcher produced a handkerchief from the folds of his robes. It would work as a gag, and I’d had enough of that from the militia. The militia who I desperately hoped weren’t far behind.
The worry that they weren’t had plagued me on the days-long journey here. Cruelly and often. I’d run away like a thief, and I had no assurance they would take to that kindly. They might think me a trickster or a traitor. Worse, a lost cause.
If I was too far gone to be saved, that happened long before the clash in Forstford.
It might have happened the day my father died, or when I showed up on Kit’s doorstep begging for help.
For months, I’d been running from responsibility, dodging fate, and denying the possibility that Kit was right and I’d been wrong all along.
Before I could snipe back at Fletcher, Merrick emerged through the door in the floor.
My teeth clacked together when his blonde head poked out, and I twisted my arms against the ropes that bound me.
“Is that my half-brother I hear?” he mused, and I wondered if he’d been lurking on the other side of the hatch, waiting to make a dramatic entrance.
“You don’t need to tell us, Penwell; we all know you can’t hold your tongue in the moments it would be most prudent.
You could take a lesson from Kitingor. He at least has a measure of restraint. ”
The comment knocked the air out of me, so my words came out as a breathless squeak. “Kit’s here? He’s alive?”
Merrick reached floor level and closed the door in his wake, then fussed with his ceremonial garb before fixing me with a look. “For now.”
I sagged in my chair. I’d been so empty a second before, but the space was rapidly filling with a maelstrom of emotion I couldn’t contain.
I should have tried harder, though, swallowed it down or grasped it in my fists because I sounded so small and pitifully desperate when I whispered, “Can… can I see him?”
Merrick’s brow crashed down, and my hopes fell with it.
“Can you…?” he sputtered. “What do you think this is? You’re in no position to be making requests, save that I spare your pathetic life and, frankly, I’m disinclined.”
The pressure inside me was still building, doubling and redoubling until I was choked with it. My sight blurred with tears I couldn’t wipe away, and they quickly spilled out, streaking my face with heat.
“You have to let me talk to him,” I said, and I knew every one of my plans for this encounter were ruined when I added on a ragged, “Please.”
The Sentinels stood silent watch as Merrick paced the space in front of me.
“Talking won’t save either of you,” he said. “The best thing you can do is prepare your defense, or perhaps begin to pray for mercy. You will soon be subjected to Eeus’s judgment. May it be thorough.”
I chewed my lip, hoping that would keep more futile pleas from spilling out. I’d asked for this. Rode across the province readying myself for it. I couldn’t crumble now.
“You’re wrong about him,” I said at length. “About Eeus. About his will. About what he wants by way of tribute or sacrifice.”
It was all wrong, and they all needed to hear it, even if they wouldn’t believe it.
Merrick lifted his left hand and stroked at the stubble on his chin. “You know, Kit said the same thing. Further proof of your shared delusion. And an assurance of your shared demise.”
My chin dipped to my chest, trying in vain to hide the tears that kept flowing. When I spoke again, it was a mumble.
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“Kit?” Merrick asked.
I answered with a mute nod.
“He’ll be the final sacrifice in the name of our great god. His death will facilitate Eeus’s arrival.”
I’d suspected as much; I’d prepared for it. Merrick no doubt thought he had, too, but I knew something he didn’t.
“It won’t work,” I said, my face still downturned.
Merrick’s feet stilled as he stopped pacing. “What won’t?”
This was why I’d prayed.
I’d built the altar in the spare bedroom for exactly this purpose, making ready for this moment.
Merrick needed a vessel, and while I hadn’t initially known filling that role might require me to die, I was still willing. That was the key. That was what Merrick had wrong.
He’d gotten this far by forcing things. Father’s death, Levitt’s, taking over the farm… But this was one thing he could not control, and if I gave myself to the cause, if Eeus overtook me, then Merrick wouldn’t be able to control me, either.
It was a final stand. A last chance for the people of Ashpoint. For the world. For Kit, who deserved more than anything a life free of this place. I’d brought him back into it, and I intended to free him from it once and for all.
Raising my head, I met Merrick’s narrow gaze.
“I know the ritual,” I told him. “You need a willing sacrifice. Kit isn’t willing.”
His head tilted, almost taunting. “How do you know that?”
“Kit would never die for this,” I replied. “He would only die to stop it.”
Merrick puffed a breath and waved me off. “He will die regardless. And if Eeus is just, so will you.”
He was playing at dismissive, but I saw the glint in his eyes. The slight pinch of unease. The worry that I wasn’t quite the fool he’d always declared me to be.
It was an opportunity I readily seized.
“If you’re so eager for me to die, sacrifice me instead,” I said and relished the hiss of Merrick’s sharp inhale. “I offer myself in Kit’s stead. If you want this to come to fruition, you need someone willing. Take me.”
My half-brother rounded on me and strode forward to close the gap between us. Seated as I was, I had to look up to meet his gaze. I stayed as quiet as I could, cheeks wet but expression set, daring him to deny that I was right.
His lips twitched and his eyes darted around at the others gathered. It was a long, stifling moment before he crossed his arms and sneered, “You don’t have a speck of good sense. Not even the barest amount. You would plead for death?”
Words caught in my throat because, of course, I didn’t want to die. Kit didn’t want me to, either. He swore it would ruin him, but I couldn’t believe that. As long as he was alive, he had a chance at happiness, and gods, I wanted him to be happy.
I lived for his soft smiles and fleeting moments of joy. I supposed I could die for them, too.
“It would complete your glorious work. Serve a grand purpose,” I said, wishing my voice sounded a bit less choked. It only got worse, though, when the last sentence tumbled out. “All I’ve ever wanted was to be useful.”
Merrick stared. But he didn’t argue.
“There truly is a first time for everything.” Shaking his head, he turned away. “You’re a fool, Penwell.”
He hadn’t denied my truth, so I wouldn’t refute his.
Instead, I simply nodded. “Better a fool than a coward.”
He glanced back, green eyes dark in the shadow of his brow. His expression was fully mystified, like he wasn’t sure he knew me at all. I’d had the same revelation about him months ago, and it was about time that he realized I wasn’t the bumbling idiot he thought I was.
With a beckoning gesture to Fletcher and one of the other Sentinels, he grunted a gruff command. “Take him to the caverns and assign a guard. I need to prepare.”