Kit searched my face while his own showed concern. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? You hid the grave well. The clearing in the woods should have been safe. No one could have found that without being told where to look.”
I stood, dumbfounded, slowly taking in what I’d been told. Kit had no reason to lie to me. And, given the questions he’d posed and evidence he’d laid out, I couldn’t deny his logic.
I’d wondered since the moment I’d discovered the grave disturbed how anyone found it. The marking was nondescript. We’d even replaced the underbrush and the sod we’d cut away to disguise our digging. We left that clearing almost exactly how we’d found it.
I felt nauseous and a bit faint. The previous night’s light dinner followed by no food yet today had my head already swimming. That and the growing sense of betrayal and utter stupidity at not having seen Merrick for what and who he was had me swaying on my feet.
Kit reached for my arm, pausing as if asking permission before taking me by the elbow and leading me to the sofa.
We both sat, turned toward each other with our knees almost touching. He moved his grip farther up my arm and left it there, steadying me as he spoke.
“We need to come up with a plan. We have to explain your presence here in a way your brother will believe.”
“I’m your recruit,” I replied in a flat voice, reciting the party line.
Kit ducked to catch my gaze. His expression was almost apologetic. “I may be able to sell that to the Right Hand because we were friends as children. I can play on those old loyalties, but your brother doesn’t trust me. And I don’t believe he’ll trust you, either.”
18
Kit
The rest of the day, Penny hardly said a word aside from apologizing for spending so much at the market and reiterating that he’d pay me back every copper. The visible relief when I assured him that I didn’t need him to repay what was spent on necessities was the only time I saw anything remotely resembling a smile on his face.
The next morning, while he cooked the breakfast he insisted was his responsibility to prepare, I sat in the kitchen with him. He made do with the worn skillets, frying up onions and links of cased sausage, and it wasn’t until he piled the food onto plates and settled beside me at the table that he spoke.
“You called Merrick a Shroud Warden. Does that mean he’s in charge?”
I took a bite of sausage before responding. “It means he’s one of the most powerful people here, but he’s not in charge, no. There are obviously no wards or militia outposts this far out, so there isn’t any oversight from them, and Ashpoint doesn’t run like a normal town. There are noelders, and generally the community doesn’t get a say in who runs things.”
Penny took up his fork but didn’t start in on his food. “I’m sorry. I think you told me about this on our way to the farm, but it was so much to remember.”
“The Right Hand is in charge,” I reminded him. “Violette’s brother, Levitt, is the current one, and he oversees everything. The Shroud Warden ranks just below him. He provides council to the Right Hand and monitors the Oaths to ensure they’re done properly.”
We ran through it again: below the Shroud Warden, there were four others: the Sentinels of the Death Watch, one for each of the cardinal directions. Symbolically, they were the guardians of the secrets of the cult, though they had once been actual night guards. Their job was to ensure the protection of the original Bone Men camp.
But now, safe in the mountains with Ashpoint hidden from the world by the walls of the corrie, they were no longer needed to keep watch, so the positions became more ceremonial. They administered the Oaths along with the Shroud Warden and meted out punishment when ordered by the Right Hand.
My father had begun his rise through the ranks as a Sentinel when I was eight, and he had thoroughly enjoyed those particular jobs. They gave him an outlet for the cruelty he’d kept hidden during the first few years of my life, and it only got worse from there.
Penny pushed his food around his plate and kept his eyes down even after I finished. “Merrick must have been here a long time to get so high up.”
I took another bite of sausage and gave him time to mull it over. When he didn’t say anything further, I pressed on. “When did he join the militia?”
Penny shrugged. “About ten years ago.”
A decade would have been plenty of time for Merrick to undergo his Oaths and insinuate himself into a position of power, assuming he’d found his way to Ashpoint immediately after leaving the farm. With members of the Bone Men across the province living what looked to be regular lives to help support the cause and recruit others that might have something to offer, that wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.
“I don’t think he was ever actually in the militia,” Penny said before I had the chance to suggest the same thing. “I’ve never seen him in uniform. He was gone for training far longer than he should have been. And once training was done, he was deployed constantly except for planting and harvest. Even then, he never stayed longer than he had to. I just… never thought much about it before now.”
I didn’t like seeing him so dejected. Merrick had clearly been a shadow over Penny’s life for a long time, and even so far from home he couldn’t escape it. Aside from how much harder it would be to justify Penny’s presence here, it made our current plan impossible. If the Oliver brothers came face to face, it would no longer be as simple as Penny slipping away once he got what he came for or was assured his father’s bones were gone. And with as small as Ashpoint was, I doubted I could keep them apart for long.
Having him here was a liability that I wasn’t sure I could afford.
“Maybe it would be best if you went home,” I said.
Penny looked up at me with a scowl. “What?”
I sighed and set down my fork. “With Merrick being the Shroud Warden, what we planned is twice as dangerous. Even if we’re able to find your father’s remains, if your brother finds out you’re here and what you know, he won’tlet you leave. But if you go tomorrow before first light, you can get back to the farm, and he’ll be none the wiser. Your family needs you too much for you to get stuck here.”
