Page 94 of Last Rites

Not a single person spoke out.

When we reached the altar, the guards drove me to my knees facing the crowd at the front corner where Penny’s left hand was secured. My own hands were bound to the same iron ring while I searched Penny’s face. A sheen of tears made his green eyes glassy, and I struggled to school my own expression so my horror wasn’t so apparent.

His fingers stretched toward mine, and I caught them, clinging tightly to his hand.

“Why would you do this?” I asked, my broken voice betraying the agony that buffeted me in unrelenting waves. “You were safe.”

Penny gave my hand a squeeze and forced a smile. “It’s going to be okay, Kit. You know this is the only way. I’m ready for this.”

I didn’t get a chance to tell him that I wasn’t ready before Merrick spoke.

“Did you forget my promise, Kitingor? That I would start with my half-brother and you would be made to watch?” He gestured at Penny. “So, I will take my vengeance for all the two of you have done, and I will turn it to the glory of Eeus.”

There had to be some way to fix this. Some way to put this right. There had to be something I hadn’t thought of yet that could stop this situation from reaching what Merrick claimed was a foregone conclusion.

I refused to believe I was powerless, even here. Even now. But I wasn’t above begging.

“Merrick, please,” I gritted out. “If you need someone willing, I am. It’s me you’re angry at, so let me do this and let it be done.” My voice shook, but at least I sounded sure. As confident as I could be staring down certain death. “Let me atone for the both of us.”

“Come now, Kitingor,” Merrick purred, “You’ve known all along that this would end with me standing above both of you, holding all the power.”

I tried not to blink and loose the tears pooling in the corners of my eyes as I sputtered futile protest. The only other thing I could say that might give him pause, even if I wasn’t sure I believed it myself.

“This won’t go the way you think it will. You have fundamentally misunderstood Eeus and what he represents.” I spoke loud enough for the crowd to hear, because maybe if I couldn’t stop it, they could. Because so many of them came here looking for community, not for this. Not for misery. Not for death. “He’s not about cruelty or suffering, but about the strength found in community in the aftermath of it. He doesn’t bring adversity; he follows it to bring comfort.”

“Bold of you, who has never been faithful, to try to explain Eeus’s nature to me,” Merrick said through a dark chuckle. “I have dedicated my life to his glory, and I will be richly rewarded.”

“You don’t have to go through with this!” I blurted, still clinging desperately to Penny’s hand. “You could stop⁠—”

“Enough!” he barked. “Someone gag him. I grow weary of his protests.”

Fletcher pulled a kerchief from his robes, and I turned back to Penny, my pulse pounding in my ears as tears finally rolled down my cheeks.

“Sweetheart, I love you. I will always love you. I’m sorry.”

Penny’s fingers wormed between mine as his own tears overflowed. His breath hitched, and my name escaped him on a wheeze. “Kit…”

“I’m right here,” I promised through a sob. “I’ll be right here the whole time. I’m not going to leave you alone.”

The knotted fabric came around me from behind, silencing any further sentiments. Penny didn’t speak, either, alternating between choked cries and gasping for air to fill his damaged lungs.

Merrick stepped closer to the altar and bent over us both, now with knife in hand. But it wasn’t a ceremonial blade, it was mine.

To see him hold it sent a chill down my back. When I forged that knife, it had been almost a private joke with myself, something more intimidating than a kitchen knife to ward off unwanted guests intent on disrupting my small, peaceful life. But it was more, now. It was safety, security. The weapon I used to protect the very man I made it to threaten.

Now, that knife would end him.

“For your sake,” Merrick said to Penny, “I hope Kit kept this sharp.”

For all the horrific things I’d ever had to witness, this was the one I couldn’t bring myself to watch.

I squeezed my eyes shut as the knife descended and a brittle hush fell over the chamber. In the silence, the squelch of the blade plunging into Penny’s flesh was deafening, and then Isla’s scream rent the air.

34

Kit

Isla’s scream reverberated in the cavern, and for several excruciating seconds, everything else was quiet. Then Penny gasped, and his hand wrenched around mine as his body convulsed.