It stunned me. More than that, it hurt, like clawing open a deep wound and starting it bleeding again.
Merrick was a driven man. An intolerant man. A cruelman. And, while I floundered for a reply, one burst out of me of its own accord.
“You lied!” My exclamation resonated in the cavernous stairwell. “About everything. You stole Father’s body and brought it here. You let me believe it was my fault?—”
“Penny…” Kit’s eyes went wide in horror.
This was nothing we rehearsed. If anything, it was the opposite.
It took a moment to shake the knowledge that I was disappointing him. I risked us both with my recklessness, but anger and grief had me in a chokehold, and they wouldn’t relent until they’d wrung everything out.
“He’s gone, isn’t he?” I asked Merrick, clenching my fists in an attempt to look angry and not like I was desperately clinging to a hope I should have given up weeks ago. “I’m too late.”
Tears threatened, but I swallowed them while my brother glowered at me, wholly unmoved.
“Of course he’s gone,” Merrick replied. “Was that the reason you came? Did he let you believe…?” His gaze flicked over to Kit, who remained paralyzed with shock. “You knew better than that,Kitingor.” Merrick sneered. “And you ought to be ashamed. Taking advantage of a simpleton to buy your way into our midst.”
I bristled. “Kit didn’t take advantage of me! I came of my own accord.”
I had come farther and risked more than I thought possible. Since the night before, I’d been grappling with the likelihood that it had all been for naught. Now that I was certain my efforts were in vain, the weight of that knowledge was crushing.
“I only wanted to say goodbye,” I said without conviction. “One last time.”
Merrick cocked his head, and his ceremonial necklacerattled. “What do your mother and sister think of all this? That you would abandon them in their time of need to chase after a dead man’s bones?”
Alwaysmymother.Mysister. Never his. He insisted on being set apart, as though we weren’t his family at all.
I backpedaled till I hit the wall, then pressed against it as though pinned there. “I was only to be gone a little while…”
Looming overhead, Merrick appeared even more severe. Shadows stained his features. “I think you’ve been gone long enough,” he said, then pointed down the stairs to the unseen exit. “Go home, Penwell. You don’t belong here.”
He’d told me the same thing about my own home. Made me believe I had no placeanywhere. I was lazy, strange, and stupid. I didn’t fit in at Ashpoint either, among people who worshipped a dark god while I feared his curse. That was why Kit had been reluctant to bring me and so ready to shoo me away the moment an opportunity presented itself.
Catching Kit’s dark eyes, I found them pinched in concentration. I expected him to agree with my brother, but instead he spoke up sharply.
“Gods, you really are an insufferable ass. Have you nothing better to do than prey on those you view as weaker than yourself?”
He looked so strong and brave that I wished I could duck behind him rather than cower against the wall, but I stayed put as he continued.
“Last I knew, the Shroud Warden was a position of honor, not one of vindictive tyranny. You must think very little of yourself to gain so much from making others feel small.”
Merrick’s expression ran the gamut from seethinganger to cold placidity before he responded in a low voice. “Well done, Penwell.” He looked at me with eyes so much like my own. “You’ve found someone with as little sense as you have.”
I sucked my lip between my teeth and bit down, doing what I could to combat the sob that swelled from my chest. It only made him angrier when I cried, and to do so now with Kit looking on would shame me so badly I wouldn’t be able to bear it.
Merrick spun from me to Kit and ascended the step between them so they were chest to chest. “You should know the farm isn’t his to give.” He stabbed a finger at me. “I pledged it long ago, along with my unfailing loyalty to Eeus. Some of us are not swayed from our convictions by petty disagreements with our fathers.”
Kit and Merrick stood nearly eye to eye, but Kit was broader, and the way his arms flexed against the sleeves of his shirt spoke of a physical prowess my brother couldn’t hope to match.
“There was nothingpettyabout my father slaughtering unwilling people to bend Eeus to his will,” Kit replied. “It was depraved. Damned. I wanted no part of it.”
The conversation had taken a turn toward things I didn’t understand. I stared at the two men posturing on the step above me, reluctant to intervene even if the mess we were in was of my own making.
When Merrick snorted and tipped his head toward me, I summoned the courage to speak again.
“F-Father left the farm to me,” I stammered. “He passed you over.”
Perhaps he was wiser than I knew.
