31. Kit
Kit
The whole way back to Ashpoint, I didn’t cry.
We arrived back at camp to find Isla bound and held by Fletcher and Matina. I did apologize to her after the Sentinels loaded us into the cart and struck camp in a hurry, though she brushed it off as unnecessary.
When she looked at me, where I’d expected tears, there were none, just smug determination.
“This was my idea,” she said. “I would have done it regardless of whether or not you wanted in on it. If I have to go down, at least I did it giving the people in Forstford a fighting chance. I’ve made my peace with the gods; they can find no fault in me. ”
After that, I stewed in panic and despair.
Vi made sure to grind it into me for hours that we were making a hurried retreat because the militia was flooding Forstford.
That they’d find Penny and Rosie and string them up like they did to every Bone Man they got their hands on.
That I’d failed at absolutely everything I’d set out to do.
“Except for saving Forstford,” Isla had said with a sinister half-smile that looked more like an expression her brother would wear.
Neither of us spoke again until we crossed through the gates of Ashpoint at sunset days later and the Death Watch unloaded us from the back of the cart in front of the Ossuary.
“I don’t regret knowing you, Kit,” Isla said as we were marched through the double doors and toward the atrium. “But I’m sorry we couldn’t stop this.” Her icy eyes met mine, equal parts sad and resolute. “That much I do regret.”
I didn’t get the chance to respond before Matina and Fletcher jerked Isla toward the stairs to the left of the room, and toward the cells.
Violette peeled off for the staircase on the right, heading to tell Merrick she’d done what he couldn’t and brought me back in chains.
That left Klaus to urge me on to the ritual room.
Inside, he took a torch off the back wall and drew my Penny-menacing knife from his belt.
The blade had become like an extension of me, always at hand. It was supposed to be used to defend against men like Klaus—cowards hiding behind unearned authority and poised to inflict senseless pain—not be wielded by them. I may have killed with it, but it was to save Penny, to save my friends.
And yet, it couldn’t save me.
Klaus gestured to the open trapdoor. “Walk. Try anything, and I’ll stab you.”
I didn’t doubt he would.
The trip to the caverns felt endless. My eyelids were heavy from sleepless days in the cart, my shoulders screamed from having my wrists bound behind my back, and my hands alternated between numb and aching in a vicious cycle that made me wonder if there would be permanent damage.
Small blessing that I suspected I’d be dead long before that could be confirmed.
It was dusk by the time we ascended the stone steps up into the bowl of the corrie with the caverns yawning before us. The kilns were dark and cold, and there was no sign of anyone else. We were alone.
Klaus sheathed my knife and then took hold of the bindings around my wrists.
They scraped against rope-burned flesh and made me hiss, but he didn’t seem to notice or care, just pushed me forward and into the largest cavern.
With only the light of his torch, I had to rely on his steering to traverse the narrow passages and winding halls.
Clearly, Merrick’s efforts to clear the caves out had been successful. The air smelled damp, but the rock beneath my feet was dry. And when we reached the main cavern, the only sign of our efforts was the larger pool at the foot of the left wall fed by the tiny trickle from the ceiling.
The Vessel showed no signs of damage. Worse still, the scaffolding was gone and the grotesque construct looked complete.
The last time I’d seen it, the head was missing, but it had been fitted in place since.
It was shaped like a skull, though not quite human; there was no jaw or mouth, no teeth, just the vague suggestion of a nose, and two dark, vacant holes for eyes.
Atop the head was a crown with a band made of human vertebrae.
Finger bones, strung together with silver until they were longer than any human finger, protruded upward from the band and curved slightly back like they were beckoning me closer.
Klaus kept me moving, past the Vessel and through another passage I’d never been down before. Several twists and turns later, it dead-ended in a chamber barely large enough for the two of us to stand side by side.
Klaus set his torch into a sconce at the entrance and reached past me for a set of manacles chained to the back wall. He shoved me against the wall to the right and planted his shoulder between mine to keep me from moving while he replaced the ropes on my chafed wrists with the cold iron bands.
They bit into every broken blister and bruised bone, but the short length of chain between them was a relief. The new position didn’t pull on my shoulders as much. It was by no means comfortable, but I would take whatever small mercy I could find in this place.
Once I was secured to his liking, Klaus stepped back and retrieved his torch. From the doorway, he smirked at me, his face ghoulish in the firelight.
“Get comfortable, Mister Koesters. You’re going to be here for a while.”
And then he left.
There in the dark, more alone than I’d even been, exhaustion took me to my knees. Sharp stones pricked my shins, but knowing it may be my last chance to feel anything at all, I couldn’t bring myself to move.
Besides, that small bit of pain didn’t hold a candle to the turmoil churning inside me. And yet, tears still wouldn’t come.
The stone walls seemed to close around me. There was no telling how deep inside the mountain I was, but I could feel it pressing down on me like miles and miles of dirt anchoring me into an inescapable grave. The weight of it all made my chest heavy and breaths come in short, rapid gasps.
I was going to die here.
Maybe not in this particular hole, but somewhere in this prison of stone. I’d had my last taste of fresh air, of sunlight, of warmth. All things I took for granted and wished I’d appreciated more.
And Penny… I should have looked a little longer that last time, held him a little closer, told him I loved him once more. Reassured him that I didn’t blame him for any of this, and that I didn’t ever want him to feel guilty for how this was always going to end.
But the worst of all was that I didn’t even know if he was still alive.
For all I knew, the militia had already sentenced him and Rosie to death for their connection to the Bone Men.
The thought of him dying at all, but especially dying alone, was what finally wrenched a sob from my chest. Because I promised I’d never leave him, and I’d broken it again.
I could feel his fear, his loneliness, his agony, and it compounded my own until I was drowning in it.
If we were both gone, who would protect his family?
Our family? There was no way to know if Thoma and Liam were able to get out of Ashpoint, or if they’d reached Eastcliff in time to get the Olivers to safety.
If Merrick rounded up our friends the moment we left for the seventh Oath, they could all be dead.
There might be no one left. I may have damned them all by association, and there was no absolution for that.
No one else was coming.
There was no way out.
It was over, and I failed.
All I’d ever succeeded in doing was making everything worse. In the end, I was alone anyway. Just like my father promised I’d be.
Cold sweat soaked my shirt and made me shiver in the chill of the cave.
My head grew lighter, and the echoing of my panted breaths sounded farther and farther away as consciousness faded.
I pitched forward, pulling the chain tethering me to the wall taut so I could press my forehead to the stone floor hard enough to hurt.
The sensation took the edge off my panic and gave me a chance to drag my focus away from past and future horrors and onto my breathing.
In for a count of four, hold, out for a count of four, hold again.
Let my lungs burn in their emptiness long enough that all I could think about was the next breath.
In for a count of four, hold, out for a count of four, hold again.
I repeated the mantra in my head until the tightness around my ribs eased and my mind quieted again. Empty and numb, but quiet.
In the ensuing silence, there was only one last thing I could do. Maybe I couldn’t stop all of this, but if the gods really did exist, surely they could. If anyone was responsible for fixing what the Bone Men broke, it was them.
“It’s your turn,” I whispered to the dark, to Eeus and Paneus, or whoever might listen. “We did everything we could, we tried, and we failed. Now it’s on you.
“Merrick is going to summon you into the Vessel and bind you to him. To his desire for suffering and destruction, because if he couldn’t have what he thought he deserved, then no one should. And if you actually exist, Eeus, and if you’re actually a god, how could you let that happen?
“And how could you, Paneus, if he’s supposed to be your lover?
I would do and have done everything in my power to protect the man I love.
So, why haven’t you? You’ve both had decades to do something, anything, but instead you’ve allowed the Bone Men to run unchecked.
To pillage our dead and destroy the communities you claim to foster. To kill anyone who gets in their way.
“So, do something. Put a stop to this before it goes any farther. You owe it to every one of us who has suffered under their darkness. To every person who came here seeking community and found instead a prison from which there is no escape because there’s nowhere else to go after you’ve been marked by this place. ”