“Not much to tell,” the other man replied. “I was born and raised here. It’s always been home. My parents came here when Ashpoint was still barely a settlement.”
“What made you decide to undertake the Oaths?” Kit asked.
Reimond took his time chewing while considering. “It’s a funny thing. I spent most of my younger years insisting I’d never attempt it. I was happy to be a layperson, forever tending sheep. But I decided I should be more.” His eyes slid aside, almost abashed as they fixed on his partner. “For Thoma. He’s not easy to impress, but I figured it was worth a try.”
Thoma’s lips pursed. He tried to appear disdainful, but it was clear he was flattered. “You hardly need to risk your life to impress me.”
Reimond swallowed the ham and set his fork on his plate. “But itisimpressive, isn’t it?” He cast a glance around the room, earning nods of agreement, though I could tell Kit’s was reluctant.
“Or it will be,” Reimond added. “When I finish.”
Thoma slid his chair close to Reimond’s and draped his arm across the taller man’s shoulders again. “What’simpressiveis how you tolerate Anders for days on end. I think that’ll make me happiest when it’s over; I won’t have to keep company with that ass another minute.”
I smiled as I returned to the table with the coffee kettle in my hand. After filling everyone’s cups, I set the kettle on the stovetop and slid into my seat. I’d barely settled before Kit’s hand found my knee again.
My meal had gone tepid, but I didn’t mind. I made a dinner of bread and potatoes and avoided the ham. Kit indulged more than usual, and I hoped he wouldn’t get sick when we drank the poison later.
The chatter continued long into the night. Kit never let go of me and, when our guests stood to go, we walked them to the door hand in hand. After they’d gone, Kit filled our cups with the last of the coffee and a few drops of poison. Even that managed to taste sweeter after the evening we’d had.
I’d come to Ashpoint looking for my father’s remains, hoping to prove myself after a lifetime of shortcomings. I’d failed at my recovery effort, but I’d found Kit, a man who liked me more than anyone else. That might have been the greatest success I could have hoped for.
2
Kit
Two days after our dinner with Reimond and Thoma, a sudden storm kept us in from the forge for the day. The snow wasn’t heavy, but the wind whipped it into a fury, and with Penny’s persistent cough, I worried about him being out in the weather too long.
So, we built a fire and laid a blanket in front of it, then spent the morning curled together while combing through my father’s older journals. The sooner we found proof that he hadn’t finished his Oaths before he took his first position of leadership, the sooner I could take that information to Levitt. And if that information allowed Penny and me to move forward with our plan to take down the Bone Men from within and potentially avoid undertaking future Oaths, it was worth the misery of wading through every awful thing my father wrote about me.
After a few hours, Penny fell asleep face down in one of the books. That wasn’t unusual, as it was difficult to engage him in the research to begin with. He was easily put off by my father’s detailed descriptions of stripping the flesh from dead bodies and grinding bones to make bricks for Eeus’s Vessel. More thanonce, I’d caught him scowling at the text or grumbling under his breath about the “despicable man” who raised me and how I could have possibly come from such stock. Then he would grab my hand and squeeze it and refuse to let me see whatever passage had caused his disdain. I always made a note to find it later, curious what he was trying to protect me from.
I’dlivedit. I doubted it would surprise me.
Besides the boredom, my housemate had been tired for days. He passed it off as having been kept up by his cough for the past few nights, but I suspected the exhaustion was a result of the poison. The hemlock wasn’t helping me with my energy, either. It turned my stomach and sapped my appetite and left me fighting my own lingering fatigue.
Around lunchtime, a passing mention in one of the journal entries caught my eye and pulled my wandering attention back to the task at hand.
On the heels of my third Oath, I have tasted for the first time of the power Eeus intends for me. I have taken my place as a Sentinel of the Death Watch, but I have my sights on a seat much higher than this. As such, things must change, because looking upon my son now, I find myself profoundly disappointed.
My stomach dropped, and I tried to stop reading but couldn’t drag my eyes away.
So much for not being surprised.
Despite all my efforts, he remains too soft and mild. He lacks the devotion I have tried to instill in him, and while it could be excused before, I cannot have him undermining my authority here. He asks too much of me, expecting me to take time away from my responsibilities to tend to him. I intended him to succeed me when the time came, but I fear he will shame me instead.
He should be learning the tenets and studying the collectedworks in the Ossuary library. Instead, he dotes on helpless things. The goat kid the soap maker gave the boy last winter—against my wishes—now consumes most of his attention. He fusses over it constantly and has spoiled what could have been a perfectly good breeding doe so she’s as useless as he is.
I’ve a plan to fixthatshortcoming, at least.
Nausea that had nothing to do with the hemlock churned in my gut as a vivid memory seared across my mind.
There was snow on the ground that day too, but significantly more than now. It was a few days after my eighth birthday, and I’d spent the afternoon building snowmen with Levitt and Violette behind the apothecary. It was getting dark by the time I pushed into the house, red-faced with my nose running and my fingers numb inside my damp wool mittens. When I stopped inside the door to strip out of my sodden outerwear, the smell of roast meat made my stomach growl.
I was back later than I’d been told to be, so I knew my father would be upset if I took the time to feed the goat before sitting down with him to dinner. It would have to wait until after, but that would give me a chance to make her a warm mash to help combat the evening chill.
My father was seated at the table when I stepped into the kitchen, and I withered under his glare. The joy of the day bled away in an instant.
“You’re late,” he growled. “Sit down and eat before it gets any colder.”
