“It’smuchtoo small.” I stretched my own arm across his waist so I could take his other hand and wind our fingers together. “I’m still worried I’m going to crush you. But this is exactly where I belong, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his sleepy voice. “Me neither.”
He drifted off and slept the remainder of the afternoon. I caught a few minutes of rest here and there, but never managed to fully fall asleep before jerking awake to be sure he was still breathing.
The sun was halfway below the horizon when a knock at the front door startled me out of a light doze. Penny started to rouse, but I combed my fingers through his hair to soothe him back to sleep.
The visitor knocked again as I was halfway down the hall.
“Give me a minute,” I muttered, kicking aside my still-damp cloak as I passed into the living room. By the time I reached the entryway, whoever was on the other side was rattling the knob.
I unlocked and yanked the door open, surprised to find one of the faceless messengers on the steps. Over his shoulder, I caught sight of a wooden handcart on the walkway, and my stomach lurched. A man, white as the snow but for the brown blood crusted around his nose and gaping mouth, was sprawled inside. His dead eyes bored into me. It took me a moment, but I recognized him, and my stomach rolled with renewed nausea.
It was Reimond.
“Good evening, recruit,” the messenger said, breaking me out of my horror.
I couldn’t stomach whatever ceremonial bullshit he was about to spout, so I cut in before he could continue.
“We survived. Piss off.”
He didn’t have time to protest before I slammed the door in his face. I leaned heavily against it until I heard the crunch of the snow under the handcart’s wheels retreating down the walk.
When I turned back toward the living room, Penny appeared in the doorway, bracing on the wall to keep himself upright.
“Who was that?” he asked.
I swallowed hard and blinked away threatening tears.Everything felt raw, and overwhelming, and the last thing I wanted was to pile grief on Penny’s shoulders when he was still so weak.
But I’d promised to stop keeping things from him. He would find out about Reimond soon enough. Better he hear it from me.
My legs quivered as I crossed to him and slid my arm around his shoulders. “Let’s get you back in bed, and I’ll tell you.”
The time it took us to get settled, face to face and tangled together under the blankets, wasn’t nearly enough for me to get my thoughts in order. It was hard to breathe through the sudden tightness in my throat when I realized that it had almost been Penny on that cart, tossed away like his life hadn’t mattered, like he was garbage to be hauled off. Even knowing he was alive and arguably well, pressed up against me just waiting for me to explain my sudden anguish, the prospect of handing his body over as another piece for Eeus’s Vessel was horrifying.
“It was one of the messengers,” I finally managed to say. “Checking to see who survived and collecting the bodies of those who didn’t.”
It took him a moment, but he caught my meaning and swallowed audibly before speaking. “Not everybody did.”
I shook my head. “He had Reimond.” My voice broke, and Penny’s arms tightened around me.
“What about Thoma?” he whispered as tears welled up in his eyes, too. “What’s going to happen to him?”
I wanted to tell him that I couldn’t bear to imagine it, not when I’d come so close to losing him the same way, but my voice failed me. I didn’t have the words to verbalize the agony it had been to watch him fade and wonder if he’d be gone by morning. To admit that I didn’t want to exist in aworld without him, because what would be the point if my heart died with him?
“I don’t know,” I murmured.
“They were going to get married when Reimond finished his Oaths.” A tear escaped the corner of Penny’s eye and dripped onto the pillowcase. “Now that’ll never happen…”
His breath caught with a sob that sparked a coughing fit and left him gasping. It brought back too-fresh memories of watching him struggle for air as he laid unresponsive on the kitchen floor.
I rubbed his back until he calmed, then mopped the tracks of tears from his cheeks with the corner of the blanket.
He pressed in closer, looking exhausted again. There was still a dry rattle in his lungs, but it wasn’t the shallow panting that would haunt my nightmares for weeks.
I cupped his face in my hands and searched his pale green eyes. Their spark was back, there was color in his cheeks, and his skin warmed my palms.
“You’re fine with me, right?” I asked softly.
