Chapter 32 Penny
Penny
Kit’s explanation of what awaited us in the town square was vague, but foreboding.
Not every recruit had survived the poison Oath; a few succumbed to the fate that had almost befallen me.
We knew for fact that Reimond was among the deceased, and the thought of seeing Thoma bereft and grieving was as daunting as the possibility that Rosie may have died, as well.
I hadn't seen her since our clash at the house. I hadn't apologized for misleading her or hurting her. Regret haunted me, and I resolved to make amends the moment I saw her because she had to be alive. She simply had to be.
The walk into town sapped my strength. Snow covered the ground and heaped on the rooftops, bringing clinging cold that bound me up with chills until Kit draped his cloak around me and hugged me to his side.
He glanced at the houses lining the path on either side of us, ensuring no one watched, before kissing my temple. “You can lean on me,” he said softly. “You're sick, after all. Recovering.”
I snuggled against him, not wanting to argue. “Aren’t you recovering too?”
“I’m not too weak to hold you, Pen.” His hand curved around my ribs. “Not ever.”
He might not have been weak, but my knees certainly wobbled—and not from the exhaustion—as we forged ahead.
Approaching the square, it became obvious why the walk here had been so quiet.
The citizens and even the vendors had left their shops to flock to the street in front of the Ossuary.
They formed a semi-circle of somber gawkers even larger than the crowd that had turned out to receive Kit and me when we returned from our second Oath.
The people clustered so densely that it was hard to peer around or through them, but that didn’t stop me from trying. Morbid curiosity drew my focus to something I feared I didn’t really want to see. I was so intent that I didn’t notice Violette approaching until she was nearly on top of us.
“Kitten!” she gushed, closing in and forcing me out from under the cover of Kit’s cloak as she cupped a gloved hand to his face. She tipped his head side to side, inspecting the purplish shadows ringing his eyes and his raven curls glossy with oil. “Oh, gods, you look a fright.”
Kit started to sway back from her, then set his stance. “I’m alive.”
Violette nodded, suddenly solemn.
I barely thought to hide my sneer as the redheaded woman whipped my way. Her expression was rife with exaggerated sympathy. “Pretty Penny. Brother-in-law.” She patted my cheek. “I heard you had an especially hard time. Hemlock is such nasty stuff.”
“Where’d you hear that?” Kit asked. A growl edged into his voice.
Violette glanced at him, and her mouth twisted in a frown. “You know, I’m not sure,” she said then turned quickly back to me. “But I’m glad to see you survived. Merrick will be pleased, as well.”
Considering I wouldn’t have put it past my brother to double dose me with poison, I doubted he would celebrate my recovery. I worried Violette might drag us to him next, keen as she was on family bonding, but to my relief, she ushered us toward something else entirely.
“They saved a place for the recruits near the front.” She pointed. “Best view from there.”
I tracked the angle of her finger to a narrow channel cut through the crowd. Otis and Isla were seated on a long, low bench. The siblings looked haggard, even from this distance.
Violette hurried ahead, and I stared after her without moving until Kit sidled up to me again and threw his cloak across my shoulders.
“Come on,” he said. “Can’t keep them waiting.”
Since frailty was my excuse to cozy up to Kit, I overplayed it a bit.
I wanted Violette to see my hands all over him for a change, though in reality, it was far subtler than that.
We walked through the parted crowd and took our designated seats, and I leaned into the crook of Kit’s arm.
We’d never been close like this in Ashpoint, so even his hand tucked around my side, obscured by the folds of our cloaks, felt scandalous.
A woman in a fur-trimmed cloak walked out to stand between two wooden tables. Her beady eyes and stringy, graying hair were familiar to me, but I didn’t place her in my memory until she opened her mouth and I saw the row of jagged, pointy teeth.
It was Matina, the woman who had interrogated me when Kit and I first arrived. I shrank from her inspection as she scanned the row of initiates.
“Welcome, all,” she said in a gravelly drone. “A new day is upon us. We gather to pay homage to Eeus, and to celebrate the sacrifices given in his honor.”
Behind her, the Ossuary doors opened, and two figures emerged, each carrying a naked body.
My eyes widened, and I battled between the urge to look away and the need to understand what was taking place.
I glanced at Kit and found him staring straight ahead, his features stony and set. He didn’t even blink.
I looked forward as well, though I found it a struggle to focus on the corpses being hefted toward the open tables on either side of Matina when I was so consumed with staring at the people who carried them.
Reimond’s long, lithe body draped across Anders’s burly arms. I searched the crowd for Thoma while bracing for the horror I expected to find on his face.
A cursory search did not reveal him, so I returned to the display before me and the person I should have noticed first. Rosie crept forward, struggling with the weight of another woman’s body.
It felt unseemly to scrutinize the woman’s exposed form, her breasts sagging and long brown hair swept back from her profile.
“Kit,” I gasped and grabbed his knee.
He gave a scarce nod like he understood, but I couldn’t keep myself from blurting out, “Kit, it’s Tessa.”
“I know.” He bobbed his head with more force this time. His arm around me had grown tight, fingers sinking into my ribs with painful pressure.
Matina waited until the bodies were stretched out, flat on their backs with their faces aimed toward the sky, before continuing.
“These initiates succumbed to the third Oath and, in doing so, served our god with their greatest and last. Now, we see their remains given to Eeus, that they may become part of his essence and his return.”
Anders and Rosie pulled out long, curved knives and set them on the tables beside the bodies. The blades glinted in the bleak, gray light.
Kit had warned me. He said that the initiates who had passed would have their remains prepared for Eeus. But I was a farmer, not a hunter. The only things I’d seen “prepared” in this manner were chickens and an occasional hog. To see a human treated the same way…
Nausea surged into my throat, and I choked it back down.
I scanned the crowd again, having lost track of Violette after she directed us to our seats, but she was easy enough to find. She and Merrick occupied high backed chairs against the outer wall of the Ossuary, next to Levitt. They looked like two kings and a queen lording over the ceremony.
The cold seemed to invade me, sinking from my cheeks to my feet as I gazed at the tables once more.
Front and center, Matina spoke louder than ever.
“We commit this sacrifice, knowing that suffering is the key that unlocks Eeus’s fondest blessings.
May our commitment echo through the void eternally.
” Stepping aside, she bowed to the initiates hovering over their dead peers before telling them, “You may begin.”
Anders’s face creased in concentration as he wielded the knife skillfully, starting at the top of Reimond's chest and drawing a line slowly down.
It was silent work, and he was quick about it.
Merciless. He carved pale skin from bone and peeled it back in nearly bloodless layers.
I knew enough from butchering pigs to realize they must have drained the bodies beforehand to keep the mess to a minimum.
While he progressed with little hesitation, Rosie had an entirely opposite reaction.
She shivered like a reed in the wind, fumbling with the knife and wiping the tears that raced down her cheeks.
I wished I could go to her and hug her, somehow shield her from the atrocity she was being forced to commit.
When she finally managed to take the weapon in both hands and raise it over Tessa’s lifeless form, I ducked my head into Kit’s chest.
Kit’s breath stuttered, and I wanted to cover his eyes too. Was this the kind of thing that frequented his nightmares? Bodies being butchered while people passively looked on?
Kit jostled me. “Pen, you have to…” He didn’t finish, but I knew.
Steeling myself, I turned forward once more, staring past the macabre display at the Ossuary’s arched wooden doors.
I remembered Edgar’s proud claims to have helped carve those towering works of art.
His contribution to the city center, a grand achievement.
I wonder who else would think of him when they looked at the old building, and how long his legacy would live after his death.
So much death.
I focused so hard I could have memorized the grain in the aged oak. I counted the bolts on the wrought iron hardware. And, when I was done with that, I started counting the cobbled stones stacked up the building’s towering edifice.
Only six initiates remained. Otis and Isla beside us, and Anders and Rosie before us. Our numbers had been cut by almost half in a matter of months, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever believed Kit’s claims more that this was a dark and dangerous place.
Nestling harder against Kit’s side, I curled my hands into fists and sat terribly still.
I didn’t look at Anders scraping his knife against Reimond's thigh bones and shins, flaying skin and muscle in sheets. I didn’t look either at Rosie, making a horrible mess of things as she muddled through Tessa’s guts, up to her elbows in viscera and sobbing.
Her cries were the only reprieve from the oppressive quiet.