Page 17 of Last Rites

I prayed no one would come in. Not tonight. Not ever. I prayed to whatever god would listen, be it Eeus or Paneus or another I didn’t even know. I prayed with my eyes squeezed shut and leaking hot tears until my prayers became dreams that whisked me into a fitful sleep.

6

Kit

“Oh my gods, he actually did it.”

Penny’s muttered words drew my attention to the Ossuary doors as they opened and a cluster of dark-robed individuals filed out. It took me a moment to see what he had, squinting against the morning sunlight, but when I did, I understood why Penny had gone green.

Merrick led the procession, pale and visibly sweating, with the stump of his right arm heavily bandaged. He’d wasted no time solidifying his claim to his title after Levitt’s death. Violette propped him up as he shuffled along, clearly in pain but attempting to appear unfazed. His hazy eyes—glazed over from whatever painkillers Harlan had likely given him—swept over the murmuring crowd and then landed on Penny and me where we stood off to the side, flanked by four of the men who’d been guarding our door. Merrick’s mouth twisted in disgust.

The Death Watch fanned out behind him, all taking up posts against the front wall of the Ossuary but for Klaus, who stood at Merrick’s right before the gathered inhabitants of Ashpoint. He held up a hand for silence, and the crowd hushed.

“We are gathered to bear witness to Merrick Oliver’s Ascension to the office of the Right Hand,” Klaus declared, his voice echoing across the square.

The main part of the ceremony must have taken place the night before since Merrick’s hand was already gone. Fitting he would do it behind closed doors where there was no one to question because I, for one, would have questioned everything.

There was no way Levitt died by natural means. Judging by the fact that Klaus was the only original Sentinel remaining, I had to assume that Levitt had proposed the vote to remove Merrick and install me as his Shroud Warden, and Klaus was the only one to remain loyal to the elder Oliver brother. He was one of the few who could have freed Merrick and Violette from their cells in the Ossuary. What happened afterward, I could only guess. Whatever end they devised for Levitt could not have been kind.

But there was no time to mourn. Not when Penny and I faced the same fate. Not when panic pumped through my veins with every frantic beat of my heart.

My hand tightened around Penny’s, and he clung back just as hard.

Klaus spoke the words of the Ascension vow, but the roar of my own thoughts drowned him out. Countless scenarios of how Levitt died and what became of his body wheeled through my head until I was sick with them. And, as Merrick repeated the words, I tried not to remember bearing witness to this ceremony when my father took on the mantle.

Just as that had heralded a time of immense suffering, I knew this would, too.

Klaus stepped back when his role concluded, and Merrick once again scanned the crowd.

“We have tarried too long,” he called out, voice hoarse but resolute, “and Eeus must not be made to wait. Under my guidance, we will ensure Eeus walks among us before the height of summer. We will complete his Vessel and perform the rites of summoning with haste.”

“What happened to Levitt?” someone in the crowd called out. The voice was vaguely familiar but, when I chanced a look at the townsfolk, too many people were murmuring to pinpoint who had spoken up.

“It was most distressing.” Merrick’s lips dipped in an attempt to look somber, but the twitch at the corner of his mouth gave his smugness away. “Levitt Yost was, along with three of the members of the Death Watch, murdered.”

Penny nudged his shoulder against mine, and I tracked his line of sight to where several guards were moving through the crowd toward someone in the center.

“That is part of why we have everyone gathered here this morning.” Merrick gestured around the square with his remaining hand. “We’ve discovered who is responsible, and he will be punished.”

Merrick indicated a man in the crowd just as the guards converged on him. They seized him by the arms and dragged him forward, jostling anyone who got in their way.

I recognized the man as the local fur trader, and I regretted not learning his name. We’d shared a meal at the house during the last resistance meeting. He’d been the one to press about my willingness to kill Levitt once I became Shroud Warden should he not be willing to work with us.

For a moment, I wondered if I’d been wrong and Merrick hadn’t been the one to murder Levitt. The fur trader had been quick to call for the old Right Hand’s death, so it wasn’t too farfetched. But that plan had been predicated on me being the Shroud Warden first. For him to remove Levitt from the board before all the pieces had been moved into place was not only unwise, but unlikely.

The guards dragged the man, shouting about his innocence and begging for mercy, up to face the crowd.

“This man will be executed in the same manner he murdered our beloved Right Hand,” Merrick called over the rising commotion and complaints from the gathered townsfolk.

Klaus stepped forward again. This time, a ceremonial knife glinted in his hand. He came up behind the fur trader, fisted a hand in the captive’s hair to yank his head back, then jerked the knife across the man’s throat. Cries of surprise and dismay rose from the crowd, a cacophonous crescendo that died out as quickly as it rose. Penny turned his face into my shoulder.

The guards released the man, who clamped his hands over his throat and crumpled to his knees. Blood bubbled through his fingers and frothed at the corners of his mouth, rapidly pooling beneath him despite his attempts to staunch the flow.

“In his execution,” Merrick carried on, voice level as if there wasn’t a person dying on the ground at his feet, “this man’s wrongs have been atoned for, and his bones will serve as a further sacrifice to the Vessel, as were Levitt’s per his wishes. I am also honoring Levitt’s wishes in my selection for Shroud Warden.”

He gestured toward Penny and me with his left hand, and I couldn’t comprehend his meaning until the guard gripping my right arm urged me forward.

I had no doubt now that Merrick knew what I’d been planning with Levitt. There was no telling how long he’d known, or if this was always how he intended for it to end. Regardless, that made me as responsible for Levitt’s death as Merrick was. Had I not agreed to take his place as Shroud Warden, Merrick would have had no reason to kill Levitt.