Page 46 of Last Rites

Kit’s voice, those warm, low notes I would recognize anywhere, came from behind me. I whirled around and found the door on the opposite side of the landing closed. Merrick’s office, not usually a chamber I would dare to enter, but Kit was in there, and I needed him.

The door banged against the wall when I burst through it, scanning the space with frantic eyes. Merrick sat behind his desk, turned to my invasion with a look of surprise. Kit was on his feet nearer the center of the room. He, too, appeared alarmed by my intrusion, or maybe it was the state of me that gave him a fright. If I looked half as horrible as I felt, I must have been shocking.

I practically threw myself the few feet to him, launching into his arms and hugging on so tightly it made my muscles quiver.

“H-he doesn't like me, Kit,” I wheezed, my face pressed against his shoulder. “And I-I don’t like being there w-without you. I won’t go back. I can’t.”

Merrick groaned as Kit tried to peel me off enough to look at my face. His efforts were fumbling at best, and I was no help, latched on and sniveling.

“Pen?” Kit sputtered, apparently still registering my arrival. “Who doesn’t like you?” He gave me no time to reply before adding more questions like items on a list. “What’s all this? What happened?”

He picked at my sleeve smeared with the muddy oil that covered half my body. It felt like I’d rolled in the stuff. Basted and battered myself to be fried.

I hugged Kit harder while my brain churned through responses I could only hope made sense coming out. “I dropped a horseshoe, and knocked over the oil, and I fell. And Cedric was mad. He held my arm over the coals, and…” My face twisted into a grimace. “Gods, he hates me, Kit. He hates me so much. And I… it’s everywhere…”

For the first time since my arrival, I was tempted to pull back because I was getting my mess all over Kit’s clothes. He was dusted with powdery white. Bone dust, he’d told me, and I should have been revolted, but instead of withdrawing, I started trying to worm my arms under his robes to get to the core of him. The man beneath the Shroud Warden’s mantle.

I kept grasping at him, refusing to let him stray more than a few inches from me as I rambled on. “And that’s… did you know that’s why the barn burned? Because I spilled the oil, and I⁠—”

“And you nearly killed yourself and your sister.” Merrick’s voice was calm and faintly cruel. Too blunt for me to hear right now. Too casual in his mention of death when I felt so near to it.

“Stop it,” Kit hissed at him.

When Merrick rose from behind his desk, Kit turned to shift me away from my half-brother’s scorn.

“Is there any job you can’t manage to ruin?” Merrick drawled. “Perhaps I should assign you to sit on your hands and stay out of the way. Though I’m sure even that would end in disaster.”

“Enough. He won’t be in the forge again,” Kit snapped. “He won’t be anywhere today. I’m taking him home.”

Merrick scrubbed his hand down his face. “Naturally. How could we possibly conduct business while my half-wit of a half-brother is in distress?” Sarcasm dripped from his voice.

Kit plucked my fingers loose of where they’d cramped around the hilt of the knife. After working the weapon free, he tucked it in his belt, then took my hand in his. With a tug, he wheeled me around, my back to his front, and he nudged me toward the door.

“Good afternoon, Merrick,” he growled. What should have been a farewell came out like a threat, every syllable sharp enough to sting. Even I winced at the venom in his tone as he concluded, “We’ll finish this in the morning.”

Kit’s steady presence at my back was a comfort, but I wished more than anything he were walking beside me. Still, I couldn’t ignore what mattered most: he had chosen to stand between Merrick and me. My shield, always. But even Kit’s broad shoulders couldn’t block the sound of Merrick’s parting jeer as it followed us into the hall.

“You know, Kitingor,” he called, “you may not need to worry about what I’ll do to him. Penwell might just manage to be a greater danger to himself than anyone else.”

The echo of Merrick’s chuckle rattled around in my brain on the long walk across town. Kit kept a stranglehold on my hand, but he didn’t pause long enough to let me cling on again.

Once we were inside the house, that changed. Kit had barely crossed the threshold before he scooped me up with one arm behind my knees and the other across my back. I sagged against him, no longer minding the dirt, oil, and bone dust. I was just glad to have my arms around him again and my head pillowed against his shoulder as he carried me to the bathroom.

The panic that chased me out of the smithy had worn off, and now I felt more embarrassed than anything. I kept quiet, swallowing apologies and explanations while Kit got us situated in the bathroom, then started filling the tub. When he pulled my knife from his belt and set it in the sink basin, I cringed.

I’d made a mess, all right. Of the blacksmith stall, of our clothes, of Kit’s standing with Merrick. The fact that I’d dashed through the town square wielding a dagger like some kind of madman would have its own consequence. And all because I’d dropped a damn horseshoe.

I could blame the restless nights or the tension that had kept Kit and I apart for weeks, but ultimately the fault was mine. And while Kit quietly eased me into the tub and climbed in after, I couldn’t shake the assault of negative thoughts.

Kit tried to leave me in Eastcliff. He’d seen this coming. He’d predicted so clearly that I would be a source of trouble. A menace to myself and others. A liability.

A godsdamned curse after all.

The warm water should have soothed me, but I couldn’t relax. I stayed balled up, stubbornly resistant to Kit’s efforts. When he spoke at last, soothing words about keeping me away from Cedric, about keeping me safe, I wanted to cover my ears.

I didn’t doubt him. He killed a man to protect me, and I had watched it destroy him. Every time he stood between me and harm, he took the abuse instead. I was hurting him. With my vulnerability, my ineptitude, my existence. And no amount of offerings or prayers to Eeus would remedy that.

Washed and dried, I stood beside the tub while Kit scrubbed a towel through my hair. I had yet to say a word. I couldn’t even hold his gaze. My skin was warm from the bath, but I felt wrung out and cold beneath it. When he finally dropped the towel and took my head in his hands, I looked up at last.