31. Kit
Kit
A fter the look Penny and I shared when he stopped beside the chair, I almost put a stop to everything.
The terror on his face was undeniable, and I’d never seen him look so defeated.
Even rebuffed and discouraged back at the pub in Forstford, he’d had an indomitable presence.
But now, it was like he wanted to fade into the darkness at the edges of the room and cease to exist.
And I’d brought him here.
I fixed my eyes on the brazier and dug my nails into my palms to keep from reaching out to him.
Any show of weakness or coddling would give Merrick reason to convince Levitt to refuse Penny entry, and I couldn’t risk that.
This was what Penny wanted, and I wouldn’t sabotage him to soothe my own guilt.
Time seemed to slow, dragging the minutes of bearing witness to his suffering out into what felt like hours. With every whimper and whine, I ground my teeth to keep from telling the Sentinel to stop.
By the sixth brand, my fingers were numb from clenching, and my jaw ached, adding to the lingering pain that throbbed across the skin of my chest. It was almost over. That was the only thought keeping me on my feet while my knees threatened to buckle.
And then Penny spoke, begging for mercy in a voice so broken that I almost lost my grip on my composure.
Merrick started to rise from his seat with a malicious grin plastered to his face, but there was no chance I was letting him speak.
“If you ask them to stop,” I said, turning to face Penny, “they’ll stop.”
He blinked up at me. Tears rolled down his flushed cheeks and his eyes were unfocused.
He looked relieved, and I was torn. What I’d read in his letters home floated to the forefront of my mind.
I knew how much he wanted my approval, how much he liked me being proud of him.
He’d said in passing how homesick he’d been and, as much as he wanted to prove Merrick wrong, there was a part of him that wanted to go home.
If he stopped them now, he could go back to the farm and his life there.
He wouldn’t have to suffer through any more of the atrocities that were to come.
But then I would be alone. And, selfishly, I didn’t want to go back to that house and its ghosts without him.
I didn’t want to face this hell by myself.
I didn’t want to lose the only person who thought I was a good man.
And the odds of Merrick letting Penny leave and not making a play for the farm were less than slim.
I hated myself as I pressed on. “But if they stop, you have to go. It’s over.” I motioned toward the Sentinel at the brazier. “It’s one more piece. You’ve made it this far; you can finish this.”
Penny’s ragged breaths frayed my nerves as I waited for his response. I must have put on a brave enough face to sway him because he gave the slightest nod. The Sentinel lifted the last branding iron from the fire.
Penny would never forgive me for this.
The Sentinel spoke, and Penny repeated the last of the tenets. “I give up all attachments, recognizing that material possessions and worldly connections are transient. I will strive to detach myself from the illusion of permanence, finding contentment in the present moment and the divine.”
I wanted to look away as the final strike of the brand bit into Penny’s flesh, but I couldn’t.
I’d done this to him.
I’d set him on this path against my better judgment and hadn’t fought hard enough when he decided he wanted to be more than a layperson. The utter misery on his face was mine to own. He was too gentle for this, but there was no going back now.
Levitt spoke from his seat on the dais as the Sentinel returned the iron to the fire. “Welcome to the fold, Penwell.”
I tried not to notice Merrick watching as I hefted Penny from the chair.
The younger Oliver sagged against me, sparking a wave of pain as he brushed against the raw skin of my brand.
I endured it and curled an arm around his shoulders to keep him on his feet.
He was in no state to wrestle his shirt over his head, so I grabbed it and tucked it into my belt before practically dragging him from the ritual chamber.
Back in the atrium, the other recruits were too busy talking amongst themselves to notice while I leaned Penny against the wall.
“Think you can get your arms into this?” I offered my shirt. “Hopefully, it’ll be loose enough to be more comfortable than yours. ”
He sniffled and looked past the shirt at my face. “What about you?”
I gave a quick shake of my head. “Don’t worry about me.”
Penny swayed as I guided his left arm into the sleeve. Sweat beaded on his brow with the pain.
I tugged him in by his right arm, not trusting his legs to hold him. “Lean on me,” I said softly. “I don’t want to have to scrape you off the floor if you fall.”
His head dropped onto my shoulder, and his hair brushed my cheek.
My maimed chest protested the effort as I reached around behind him to guide his right arm into the other sleeve.
Doing up the buttons with him huddled so close was no easy feat, but I managed to get at least half of them before I gave up.
“Think you can make it home?” I asked, wondering the same thing about myself.
He nodded weakly and eased himself back. After a couple of deep breaths, he started toward the door.
Penny made the return trip to the house in silence, pale-faced and exhausted.
I couldn’t help but wonder if he was cursing the day he’d knocked on my door.
Surely this wasn’t how he’d seen things going when he sought me out.
He’d come seeking an easy answer, a quick solution, and instead, he followed me like a sheep to slaughter.
He sank onto the couch as soon as we got inside.
The blank look on his face made my stomach churn with guilt, so I took my time building a fire in the hearth to avoid staring at him any longer.
But the heat of the flames against my bare chest proved unbearable, so it wasn’t long before I settled onto the other side of the couch.
“I’m sorry I asked you to come here,” Penny said so softly I almost missed it under the popping of the kindling.
When I looked over, tears were running down his face .
“I’m sorry they burned you.” His voice hitched. “I’m so sorry.”
I scooted close and rested my hand on his knee. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. I never should have dragged you into this. I should have let you stop them. I should have let you go home and forget all about this.”
While he stared at my hand, tears beaded on his long lashes. He had a pretty sort of face, more delicate than most men, and the way my shirt puddled around him reminded me he was built that way, too. Lanky and tall, all muscle and bone no matter how many pastries he ate.
“I miss Sayla,” he mumbled. “I miss Mother and Father.”
That guilt was back, and I offered the only comfort I could think of.
“You know, we’ll be leaving Ashpoint soon, passing through other towns on our way to find our body. If you wanted to, you could send those letters you wrote.”
It took him a moment to realize what I meant, then his head whipped around.
“You went through my things?” he asked. I couldn’t tell if it was hurt in his tone or disbelief.
“I didn’t mean to pry. You left your sketchbook on the table, and I was looking at the drawings. When I found the letters, I thought they were pictures, too, until I unfolded them.”
“… And you read them?”
I nodded.
His cheeks flushed, and he dropped his eyes. “Oh,” he said.
He didn’t ask for details, and I wasn’t going to confess that I knew how much he fancied me. Those were his private thoughts, and I never should have read them to begin with .
“I’m glad you have someone to write to,” I said. “I’m sorry you can’t write them more often here, but we’ll find ways to send whatever you do.”
“Thank you.” A blink scattered tears across Penny’s freckled cheeks.
The house fell silent enough that the logs crackling and snapping in the hearth were almost startling. When it became clear he didn’t have anything else to add, I eased myself up off the couch.
“I’m going to get dinner in the oven. I’ll be back in a minute.”
I grabbed a clean shirt from my bag and carefully pulled it on as I crossed to the kitchen and lit the stove. Once it was hot, I tucked the stout pies inside and returned to settle beside Penny on the couch.
“What are you making?” he asked.
“Stout pies I picked up from the tavern this morning. It’ll be a bit before they’re ready.” I flashed a soft smile. “I figured you would need a night off cooking after everything that happened today. Let me take care of you for a change.”
He tipped sideways to lean against me, and I wound my arm around his shoulders. Pain radiated from where he pressed my shirt against the fresh burns, but I wasn’t willing to push him away.
“I like taking care of you,” he said.
“Well, it’s my turn tonight.” I tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. “You rest.”
We sat in silence until the smell of our dinner wafted into the living area.
I eased Penny back enough to make room to rise, and I ferried the pies from the oven to the coffee table.
When I returned with utensils for both of us, Penny was staring at the steam curling from the vent holes in the crust as if it were the only thing in the room .
“You all right?” I asked as I handed over a fork and knife.
He took the offered utensils. “I don’t know.”
Neither of us made any move to start eating. My stomach was a mess of nerves and nausea, and Penny looked to be on the verge of tears.
“Are you sorry you met me?” he asked.
I bumped my shoulder against his. “No. Why would you think that?”
“I made you come back here.” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “I made you start this awful thing all over again.”
It seemed we were both eager to blame ourselves for each other’s suffering.
But we’d both chosen to come to Ashpoint for our own reasons, and we’d both chosen to undergo the Oaths independent of each other.
Penny’s appearance on my doorstep may have been the catalyst to put me on this path, but it had only been a matter of time.
There was no way to be free of this place until it was destroyed, and a day would have come down the line when something else would have prompted me to return.
“I was always going to end up back here, Pen. It was inevitable, and I don’t want you to blame yourself for any of this.
” I draped my arm around his shoulders to tuck him back in against my side.
“Besides, if not for you, I’d be doing this alone.
And, if you hadn’t noticed, I enjoy your company more than most.”
He sniffled. “But they burned you.”
“I’m sorrier that they burned you .”
His gaze dropped to where the edge of the brand could be seen on his chest through the half-unbuttoned shirt. He let out a bitter chuckle. “It’s not like it hasn’t happened before; I was mangled already.”
“What do you mean? ”
Penny held up his hands, marred by old burn scars. “This isn’t unsightly to you?”
They’d caught my eye the first time we met, but I hadn’t given them much thought since. As far as I was concerned, the injuries didn’t define Penny or have any bearing on who he was, so they were almost unremarkable in the grand scheme of things.
“I guess I don’t really notice it,” I said. “It’s just a part of you.”
He dropped his eyes to where his hands curled into fists in his lap. “I certainly get tired of looking at it.”
A squeeze of his shoulder called his attention back to me.
“Everyone has scars,” I said softly. “Some are more visible than others, but they make us who we are.”
Penny's eyes dropped again to his branded chest, and his lips twisted. “Who does this one make me?”
I shrugged. “My recruit. A man who’s brave enough to stand up to the Shroud Warden and prove him wrong. A son who’s doing everything in his power to protect his family.” I couldn’t help a small smile. “Someone you should be proud to be.”
Penny ducked his head and scrubbed his arm across his eyes as he leaned against me. “It’s nice to not be known for the mistakes I’ve made in the past,” he said.
I’d thought as much when I’d read his letters, but it was becoming clearer how alike we really were.
While he wore the signs of his mistakes on his skin for all to see, mine were known by reputation alone.
They followed me like a dark cloud everywhere I went, tainting every new place and interaction.
Neither Penny nor I could ignore those stigmas, hyperaware of our own shortcomings and regrets, and I wondered how often we assumed the people we met were as aware of them as we were when they didn’t notice at all.
“Thank you for that,” Penny continued. “And for taking care of me tonight.”
I tipped my head against his. “I like taking care of you, too.”