Page 45 of Last Rites

Penny

No matter how much time passed or how much progress I tried to make, my days at the smithy didn’t change or improve. Cedric continued to find me as buffoonish as ever.

I steeled myself against his comments, mostly by learning to ignore him entirely. I had plenty else to think about. More pleasant things like fields of yellow flowers and the bird nests full of hatchlings tucked into the eaves around the square. I worked and daydreamed like I used to on the farm when it had been Merrick scorning me instead.

If he, or Cedric, needed to say things, let them. I didn’t need to hear them.

I thought about my prayers, as well. I’d continued after that first night, visiting my makeshift altar and talking to the darkness when I couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t sure if I was heard, either. Maybe Eeus was the same as me, too busy with his own thoughts to give much care to mine. But I kept trying.

Trying like Cedric was now, telling me something important. Something I didn’t realize until it got away from me.

The metal, specifically, escaped my grasp. The horseshoe I’d been moving from the forge to the anvil slipped loose, and the angry, orange piece of steel plummeted toward my feet and made me stagger back.

Cedric was near, but not as close as the vat of oil used for quenching. I dropped the tongs in the haste of my retreat and stumbled into the barrel. My heart rate spiked as the force of the collision upended it, sending viscous liquid spilling across the dirt floor. I was still scrambling, first trying to catch the thing and right it, then going down along with it. Into the swelling puddle it made while Cedric roared curses overhead.

Oil slicked up my arms and soaked my pants and backside as I sat in the dirt, gasping and gaping at the horseshoe lying innocuously a few feet away. I stared with wide eyes while Cedric grabbed my tongs and scooped up the shoe, then flung it carelessly back into the coals, where it landed with a flurry of sparks.

Tossing the tongs aside, Cedric loomed over me, shouting words that rang in my head.

“Did you think the godsdamned thing was going to bite you?” He stabbed a finger toward the discarded shoe. “If you drop something, just pick it up and get back to work. We’ve a job to do here. And your job is not to sabotage me, determined though you seem to be.”

With my heart in my throat, I couldn’t muster a reply. I blinked up at him, fighting back the tears he must have seen threatening by the way he rolled his eyes.

“No, no,” he growled. “Not this again.”

Cedric bent down and grabbed my arm.

“We’re going to deal with this. Get your ass up,” he commanded while hauling me to my feet.

His fingers slipped in the oil that coated my skin and seeped through my clothes, making me feel chilled. It wasn’t cold out, but I found myself shivering and stumbling again as the larger man dragged me toward the forge.

The closer we got, the bite of cold became much harsher. It burned, confusing my senses and flooding me with panic.

“It’s just heat,” Cedric was saying, fighting my squirming by grabbing my shoulder with his other hand. He thrust me in front of him, ever closer to the bed of scorching coals. “Won’t burn you if you’re not stupid about it,” he rumbled. “Not gonna grab an ember, are you? You can’t be that dense.”

Twisting my arm, he stretched it out. The light of the coals glowed in the gloss of my skin, making the white lines of my burn scars seem stark. Oil fueled fire. Fed it. And now I was doused in the stuff, being fed to the heat that felt too much like licking tongues of flame.

Sounds burst out of me, almost inhuman cries. It was the barn fire back in Eastcliff. The mission in Wendwood. The woods outside Millfield with Anders squeezing my neck.

Cedric was squeezing, too. My shoulder, my elbow, pushing pain into my body while my skin ached.

I cried and bucked, kicking and thrashing until the man was practically holding me suspended above the coals. Words were strangled by sharp breaths and eventually coughs. Lungs filling with heat and smoke that seared me inside and out.

But he only had one of my arms. I could move yet, and I reached to my belt. It was the only rational thought I could latch onto. Get the knife. Do what I should have in Millfield.

Fumbling, I pulled the dagger from its sheath. The blade glinted wicked in the low light, and Cedric must have seen it because he dropped me all at once.

I hit the floor in a heap, fingers wrapped around the knife’s hilt as I scrambled. Cedric bellowed more words I didn’t hear—I’d gotten so good at tuning him out—as I lurched past him. Barely standing and scurrying like a hunted thing, I raced out of the shop.

My pulse thundered in my ears, and tears blurred my sight as I sprinted across the town square. At first, I was running blind. Away was my only purpose. Away from the threat of fire and the fury of the man who shouted after my retreat.

But as I ran, a destination presented itself. The Ossuary stood tall at the edge of the clutter of shops and civilians, and I cut a path toward that, narrowly dodging people who’d stopped to stare at the ruckus I was raising.

My ribs were rattling by the time I reached the Ossuary’s doors and hauled them open. Barreling through, I bolted past the atrium table and the men sitting there. They said something, too, but I was still burning. Muscles and lungs on fire as I raced up the steps toward Kit’s office.

On the top level, I rounded toward the room where I hoped to find him. It was a foolish wish, perhaps, since I knew he spent most of his time underground, but my feet had led me here with little regard to thought. And when I found the door open, and the office beyond empty, my fragile heart threatened to break.

I panted and shook, hand still wrenched around the knife until my head cleared enough that I could hear.