30. Penny
Penny
W ith Kit gone, I was left on my own. The other recruits hardly counted as company, even Rosie, who stepped from her place in line to come over and offer a sweet smile.
“You ready?” she asked.
I cocked my head up at her. “Not really,” I admitted.
Rosie flapped her hand at the towheaded man seated beside me, motioning for him to scoot down the bench and make room for her to squeeze in. Then, she sat and grabbed my hand, holding it atop my knee.
Despite her proximity, my gaze drifted to the hall where they’d taken Kit.
Rosie hummed a soft sound. “You’re worried about him.”
Worried wasn’t the right word.
I was concerned, fearful, and filled with dread about what lay ahead, but I also felt profoundly at fault.
Kit ran from this place, then spent his life hiding from it.
What right did I have to drag him back here?
Did I truly believe our efforts would do enough good to outweigh all the bad?
And there was so much more bad yet to come…
When I didn’t answer aloud, Rosie carried on. “He’ll be waiting for you when he’s done, you know. When it’s your turn.”
I nodded.
Minutes dragged by. I tried not to listen, too afraid I would hear Kit’s cries of pain and unsure what I would do if I did. This was not something I could stop for either of us. That knowledge sat like a stone in my belly until the hooded figure who had taken Kit away finally came for me.
Rosie offered a wave I didn’t have the heart to return as I allowed myself to be led deeper into the building. When the hallway opened into another room, I froze at the sight before me. In the center of the space, seven branding irons protruded from a brazier.
The Right Hand and Merrick sat together on the far side of it, watching me through the bowl of fire.
A third chair was positioned with its back to me, and a shirtless man stood beside it, similarly facing away.
He turned to my entry, and I wondered how I could have mistaken his dark curls and rigid posture for anyone else.
When Kit’s eyes met mine, I wished immediately to be near him. But the open seat seemed ominous, and my desire to stay away from it and the licking flames moored my feet in place.
Four cloaked figures lurked, two on either side of the brazier, like executioners awaiting their next victim. They were the Sentinels Kit had described when explaining the events to come. The tallest of them took a curled sheet of paper offered by the one beside him and held it out to read .
“Penwell Oliver,” he announced as though I hadn’t already been summoned. “Step into the light.”
My shoulders slumped as if making myself smaller might convince them to look past me. It wasn’t how Kit told me to behave—far from it—but no amount of deep breaths or reminders to hold my head up and keep my eyes level made the task any easier.
“Oliver?” Levitt repeated before I could speak. His red hair looked as bright as flames in the firelight as he turned toward Merrick. “Penny the farmhand,” he continued. “What was his surname, I wonder?”
I glanced up and caught Merrick’s narrow glare before he fixed it on the ground instead. “Unimportant, Your Eminence.”
“Un related , you mean? I doubt it.” Levitt waved his hand toward me. “He even looks like you, Merrick.”
The statement chagrined my brother, who appeared as ready to flee this place as I was. He didn’t answer the accusations as Levitt continued.
“I trust you have good cause for keeping such secrets. And while you’re at it, an explanation as to why this young man is Kit’s recruit instead of yours?”
Merrick’s answer eked out through gritted teeth. “I have ample cause, Your Eminence, and explanation I will gladly give later. Privately.”
Kit had turned away, so I barely heard him mutter, “Perhaps you couldn’t see his potential over your own massive ego.”
Across the fire, Levitt’s stern face broke into a smile as he chuckled. “Very well. Merrick, we’ll speak about this later. In the meantime, we know who presents this recruit. Step into the light, Penny. We’re ready for you.”
At last, I walked forward, taking timid, creeping steps until I arrived at the chair. I didn’t sit, instead waiting for some sort of instruction. I lingered long enough to cause Kit to look aside.
His face was drawn, and his mouth firmly shut.
There was the slightest pull around his eyes, some mixture of worry and pain.
My gut twisted as my gaze traveled downward, already fearing what I would see.
Kit’s chest was inflamed, his skin stained red beyond the borders of his phoenix tattoo.
The raised design was freshly charred, the flesh raw and peeling.
Tears pricked my eyes at the sight, but I blinked them away before tugging off my shirt and lowering myself into my seat.
I gripped tightly to the sides of the chair while the Sentinel took the first iron from the fire.
My attention fixed on the glowing orange tip that hissed and flared angrily as the cloaked man turned it toward me.
My heart thrashed in my chest, and I wished for something to bite down on or a gag to silence the screams building in my throat, but there was nothing except my own weakening resolve.
Kit had warned me about this. We’d talked through it, but nothing could have prepared me for the dark room and the ghoulish shadows cast by dancing flames.
On the other side of the brazier, Merrick looked on. He didn’t think I could do this, but I would prove him wrong. I only wished I felt as confident about that as I had weeks before.
“Penwell Oliver, repeat after me.” The Sentinel’s voice echoed around the empty room.
My parted lips quivered as he spoke the words Kit told me he would.
“I pledge my heart, mind, and soul to the service of Eeus.”
Swallowing, I did as I was told, almost grateful for the need to focus on the words of the Oath and distract myself from the panic threatening to carry me away .
The Sentinel continued, “I will follow the path of adversity as revealed to us and dedicate my life to the fulfillment of bringing him into physical form.”
I repeated that as well, though not as loudly as Kit and I had rehearsed. There was no arrogance. No posture. No pride. I was only here to endure, spouting dogma I didn’t believe.
The text from Kit’s father’s journals haunted me.
It is such a small thing to wear the mark of Eeus…
My father’s death had set me on this path, but I felt suddenly lost. More uncertain than ever and far more afraid.
The Sentinel closed in, only a step or two, but any advance was enough to steal my breath. I sat, anchored in place, and flinched away as the scorching metal pressed into my chest.
Time stopped. Sound and sight blanked away, and my skin ignited with blistering pain. I bucked back in the chair. The potent stench of cooked flesh wafted to my nose.
The first thing I heard was my own breathless whine, petering out as the iron withdrew.
I blinked through a film of sudden tears and saw six more pieces of the complex serpent brand waiting to be applied.
My body began to shake as the Sentinel walked to the brazier and retrieved the next iron.
I didn’t dare look at my chest and see the damage there, but I felt the heat seeping in, cooking me alive.
Kit stood staunchly beside me. I wondered if he’d wished someone would hold his hand through his ordeal the way I wished he would hold mine now. A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have thought him the type for such affection, but things I’d seen and learned recently were slowly changing my mind.
My fingers trembled as they stretched toward his arm .
The Sentinel brandished the second iron, and the bark of his voice stopped me. “I pledge to answer Eeus’s call to return the departed to community,” he said, “and in so doing pursue a deeper understanding and connection with the divine and the dead.”
I stammered through the recitation as coherently as I could with the smoldering iron so close to my face.
Another glance at Kit found him facing forward, staring into a distant nothing. His jaw had a hard set to it, and his fists were clenched at his sides, leaving no room for my fingers to slip in.
When the next iron touched me, surprise added to the pain as I yelped and squeezed my eyes shut. The darkness behind my eyelids freed my mind to travel elsewhere, diving into memory…
There were plenty of places to make mischief for a child growing up on a farm, but my favorite was the hay barn.
Sayla and I would climb to the loft and jump off, landing and rolling in piles of straw until we were out of breath from giggling.
I found solitude there, too, a more open space than our crowded, two-bedroom cottage.
I could play make-believe with wooden swords my father had made or sit near the loft window and draw by moonlight on clear summer nights.
On that night, I thought myself alone, having scuttled away from the house with an oil lamp lighting the path as my bare feet raced along. I’d brought my bow and arrows to use on the targets I’d made when I was meant to be doing chores earlier in the day.
Upon reaching the barn, I tugged the massive, rolling door aside then pitted my lantern against the darkness there.
I trotted inside and paused to let my eyes adjust. Ten different bullseyes were painted with mud on bales of hay scattered around the space.
The way I had it arranged, I could take shots from almost any angle, but the best vantage point was the loft.
I scurried up the ladder, my progress slowed as I struggled to reach each narrow rung while pinning the bow and quiver tightly under one arm. The lantern swung from my other hand, its tiny flame shuddering.
“Penny Oliver, I’m gonna tell Mother on you!” My sister’s shrill voice made me start.