Page 90 of Last Rites

“Kit?” Merrick asked.

I answered with a mute nod.

“He’ll be the final sacrifice in the name of our great god. His death will facilitate Eeus’s arrival.”

I’d suspected as much; I’d prepared for it. Merrick no doubt thought he had, too, but I knew something he didn’t.

“It won’t work,” I said, my face still downturned.

Merrick’s feet stilled as he stopped pacing. “What won’t?”

This was why I’d prayed.

I’d built the altar in the spare bedroom for exactly this purpose, making ready for this moment.

Merrick needed a vessel, and while I hadn’t initially known filling that role might require me to die, I was still willing. That was the key. That was what Merrick had wrong.

He’d gotten this far by forcing things. Father’s death, Levitt’s, taking over the farm… But this was one thing he could not control, and if I gave myself to the cause, if Eeus overtook me, then Merrick wouldn’t be able to control me, either.

It was a final stand. A last chance for the people of Ashpoint. For the world. For Kit, who deserved more than anything a life free of this place. I’d brought him back into it, and I intended to free him from it once and for all.

Raising my head, I met Merrick’s narrow gaze.

“I know the ritual,” I told him. “You need a willing sacrifice. Kit isn’t willing.”

His head tilted, almost taunting. “How do you know that?”

“Kit would never die for this,” I replied. “He would only die to stop it.”

Merrick puffed a breath and waved me off. “He will die regardless. And if Eeus is just, so will you.”

He was playing at dismissive, but I saw the glint in his eyes. The slight pinch of unease. The worry that I wasn’t quite the fool he’d always declared me to be.

It was an opportunity I readily seized.

“If you’re so eager for me to die, sacrifice me instead,” I said and relished the hiss of Merrick’s sharp inhale. “I offer myself in Kit’s stead. If you want this to come to fruition, you need someone willing. Take me.”

My half-brother rounded on me and strode forward to close the gap between us. Seated as I was, I had to look up to meet his gaze. I stayed as quiet as I could, cheeks wet but expression set, daring him to deny that I was right.

His lips twitched and his eyes darted around at the others gathered. It was a long, stifling moment before he crossed his arms and sneered, “You don’t have a speck of good sense. Not even the barest amount. You would plead for death?”

Words caught in my throat because, of course, I didn’t want to die. Kit didn’t want me to, either. He swore it would ruin him, but I couldn’t believe that. As long as he was alive, he had a chance at happiness, and gods, I wanted him to be happy.

I lived for his soft smiles and fleeting moments of joy. I supposed I could die for them, too.

“It would complete your glorious work. Serve a grand purpose,” I said, wishing my voice sounded a bit less choked. It only got worse, though, when the last sentence tumbled out. “All I’ve ever wanted was to be useful.”

Merrick stared. But he didn’t argue.

“There truly is a first time for everything.” Shaking his head, he turned away. “You’re a fool, Penwell.”

He hadn’t denied my truth, so I wouldn’t refute his.

Instead, I simply nodded. “Better a fool than a coward.”

He glanced back, green eyes dark in the shadow of his brow. His expression was fully mystified, like he wasn’t sure he knew me at all. I’d had the same revelation about him months ago, and it was about time that he realized I wasn’t the bumbling idiot he thought I was.

With a beckoning gesture to Fletcher and one of the other Sentinels, he grunted a gruff command. “Take him to the caverns and assign a guard. I need to prepare.”