22. Kit
Kit
When I arrived at the Ossuary the next morning, I was physically exhausted, but what we’d done overnight left me feeling surprisingly energetic.
Finally, we’d done something that might actually give us a real chance to succeed in what we came here to do.
If the Vessel was badly damaged, it would give us time to turn the rest of Ashpoint against Merrick and his vision of suffering before he could complete repairs.
We could give these people the community they longed for and spare them the pain the Bone Men had always told them was necessary to find it.
There were a handful of stragglers in the atrium when I crossed through, speaking softly off to the left of the hall to the ritual room.
They waved when I approached. I returned the greeting and continued on my way, thankful when they didn’t try to stop me to talk.
Better not to risk being late and draw unwanted attention to myself.
Though, when I pushed through the door, that became unavoidable.
The scene inside was reminiscent of the one I’d found the morning after the tunnel collapse. All the workers were gathered in the middle of the room, but there was no idle conversation like there had been last time. Instead, all their heads swiveled toward me when I entered.
Merrick, who had been pacing at the foot of the dais in front of them, pulled up short and spun to face me as well. His face flushed purple with rage.
“You!” he bellowed.
In the space of a blink, Klaus and Fletcher appeared on either side of him. They stalked toward me in tandem, and Merrick jabbed a finger in my direction.
“You did this! Everything was fine and going well until you came along, and now we’ve had two disasters within the week.”
I took a reflexive step back when they reached me, but Klaus seized my right arm and Fletcher my left. They took up positions behind me, their grip tight enough to bruise as they held me in place.
We’d suspected that they would figure out the flooding was done intentionally, and that there would be repercussions.
But considering the tunnel was the only way in and out of where the Vessel was being built, I hadn’t expected them to have time to gather the means to get up the cliffs to investigate the flooding and find our dam so quickly.
Then again, maybe they hadn’t. Maybe Merrick knowing I spent months scheming against him with Levitt was enough to presume to lay the blame on me as soon as the damage was discovered.
We’d been careful not to leave any signs of who might have been involved, so my only hope was that the lack of definitive proof would hobble him in terms of meting out punishment.
Though Merrick wasn’t in the habit of following the rules.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, feigning confusion. “What happened?”
Merrick gestured wildly toward the tunnel.
“You thought that flooding the caverns would damage the Vessel, but all it’s done is delay completion by a few days.
” He dropped his voice so it didn’t carry back to the gathered workers.
“I hope this was worth watching every one of your worthless followers die. Their bones will be among the last we need to finish our work.”
My mouth went dry, and my stomach rolled.
I’d been so excited by the prospect of taking real action that I hadn’t stopped to consider the consequences.
There was still a part of me that was relying on our movement being too big to wipe out completely, but I should have known that Merrick would burn it all down if that’s what it took to stay in power.
I overestimated our position here, and now we were all going to pay for it.
“I had nothing to do with this, Merrick.” Desperation crept into my tone. “This or the cave-in.”
His mouth twisted in a sneer. “We found a chisel left behind in the rubble of the tunnel!” he roared. “Deny it all you like, but someone is trying to sabotage the work, and I see no one here aside from your people who would have cause to do so.”
The door opened behind me. With Klaus in the way, I couldn’t see who entered, but when Vi and Matina ushered Penny around to my left with his hands bound behind his back, it was like all the air had been sucked out of the room.
His wild, teary eyes met mine, and his terror was palpable.
His hair was a tangled mess, his chest fluttered with rapid, shallow breaths, and there was drying blood streaked from his nose to his chin.
Merrick stepped forward and gave his half-brother a once-over before leveling an irritated look at his wife.
“We told him this was his execution march,” Vi said, sounding far too pleased, “and he tried to run like a coward.”
I wanted to reach out to Penny, to reassure him that I’d think of something to get us out of this, but panic wiped my mind blank.
“I told you not to tell him,” Merrick said.
Matina bared her sharp teeth in a grin. “But I like it when they run.”
There had to be a way to stop this. I refused to let it end this way. I wouldn’t watch Penny die. But even if I threw myself on Merrick’s mercy, insisted that I alone did this, he’d kill Penny anyway. He’d make me watch. He’d make it hurt.
Merrick reached into his robes and withdrew a ceremonial knife from a sheath hidden there and wiped it on his sleeve.
The firelight from the braziers glinted off the blade, etched with Eeus’s mark, and sparked aching memories of watching my father use that same weapon in countless sacrifices here in this very room.
I couldn’t breathe.
Beside me, Penny jerked free of the Sentinels and scrambled for the door. Matina’s hand shot out and gripped the hair at the back of his head to yank him back. He yelped as she shoved him down to his knees before Merrick and wrenched his head back to bare his neck.
“No!” I pulled against Klaus and Fletcher’s grip, my voice emerging as a strangled sob. “Stop, please!”
“You leave those boys alone!”
Philippa’s shout cut through the air, and everyone turned to where she’d stepped out of the gathered crowd. Her gray brows were low over her eyes, and beneath her veneer of indignant rage, I caught a glint of fear.
“I did this,” she said.
Relief edged out my terror for the briefest moment before guilt and horror crashed in behind it.
“No,” I breathed, willing her look at me, to reassure me that she wasn’t about to do what I thought she was. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This wasn’t how any of us were supposed to go.
But her focus never left Merrick.
“I’ve been planning this for months,” she continued as she closed the distance between us, “long before those two came bumbling in here. Everyone was so busy watching them that no one was watching me.” She scoffed.
“You really should open your eyes and look around once in a while, Your Eminence, then maybe you wouldn’t miss what’s right in front of you. ”
There was genuine surprise on Merrick’s face. For a moment, he struggled for a response.
“There’s no way you could have done this alone,” he said at length.
She waved off his disbelief. “It took a few days and a bit of planning, but I managed. The only way Mister Koesters was involved was by unwittingly lightening my workload so I had more time to focus on this.”
The Right Hand ground his teeth as his surprise gave way to aggravation. “You realize the consequences of this admission, don’t you?”
“I’m not so proud as to let someone innocent be punished for my actions.” Philippa tipped her shoulders back and lifted her chin. “It’s enough to know that I, at least, am right with both of the gods.”
Merrick’s lip curled in a snarl, and he gestured toward Penny with the knife. “Let him go,” he growled.
Vi and Matina released him at the same time Klaus and Fletcher stepped away from me to cross to Philippa.
Penny struggled to his feet and I caught him as he stumbled into me, clutching him to my chest so tight no one could ever pry him away from me again.
He pressed his face into my shoulder, and I couldn’t tell if I was the one trembling, or if it was him.
Either way, it made undoing the knot of rope securing his wrists difficult.
But when the binding fell away, his arms came around my waist and cinched in until the breath squeaked out of me.
Klaus and Fletcher had Philippa by the arms when I looked over again. She still wouldn’t meet my eyes. I understood what she was doing, though, and that made it hurt so much worse.
She hadn’t been able to save her son from being swallowed by this place, and it haunted her.
She stayed to make it mean something, to try to make Ashpoint what she always wanted it to be.
For a time, she’d given us hope. We’d given her hope.
But she, like the rest of us, understood that sacrifices would need to be made if we wanted any chance of preventing the horrors that Merrick planned to unleash upon the world.
She couldn’t save her son, but she could save us.
“I do hate getting bloodstains out of this floor,” Merrick said idly. Without further hesitation, he jammed the blade between Philippa’s ribs and twisted.
Her body went rigid, her face paled, but she made no sound. Only when he yanked the blade back out did a scream tear from her throat.
Penny’s shoulders shook against me in powerful sobs. I could do nothing but hold him up and stare as Philippa sank to the floor into the growing pool of her own blood. Everything wavered as tears stung my eyes, but I refused to look away.
“This is what awaits all of you should you step a toe out of line from here on out,” Merrick barked at the rest of the workers. He pointed to the door with the bloody knife. “Dismissed.”
Everyone surged forward, breaking like a river around where Philippa lay, motionless. They streamed out the door, and I eased Penny away so we could get lost in the crowd, but a hand caught my arm.
Merrick’s face was twisted with anger, and he jerked me around to face Philippa’s body again.
“This”—he pointed at her—“wasn’t a pardon, only a delay. Now get out of my sight.”
I dragged Penny into the press of bodies hurrying for the exit, and it was all I could do when we hit the open air of the atrium not to break into a run.