Page 102 of Last Rites

“Of the Bone Men?”

“Of imbalance. We’re here to put it right.”

“We?” I echoed. “You and Eeus?”

Another nod. “He will do his work, and I will do mine.”

“And then it’s done.”

The ground beneath me quivered, the smallest shake. I glanced down at it. The dirt, the grass, the flowers dotted across the landscape.

“Stay here,” Paneus urged, and I wondered if I had a choice. “Just a moment longer.”

Another shudder, and I squeezed my eyes shut, wondering what was happening in the real world to disturb the stillness here. But rather than sight, I found feeling. A levity the likes of which I’d never known. A release, an outpouring, and I looked up at Paneus with arms outstretched, bathed in golden sun.

From the fields around us came new motion—not a tremble, but a rush. The thunder of wingbeats preceded a flock of birds taking flight. There must have been hundreds, speckling the blue sky with blurs of brown, red, and yellow. They stirred up a breeze, enough to gust over my cheeks and ruffle my hair as I watched them ascend.

They were souls.

Those bound to the Vessel were being freed, escaping the prison of bone and the burden of a false curse. I watched them swirl and dart about, moving in joyous unison and always up, up, up, and I knew my father’s spirit was among them. The assurance tugged sharply on my heart. Like there had been a thorn stuck in me all this time, and it was finally removed.

I succeeded. I came to save him, and I did. We did. Kit and I.

“Look,” I whispered, still stroking Kit’s cheek. “Look, darling, do you see?”

I watched them climb, freer than anything, and I felt lighter too. Relieved, and similarly unburdened, and it was then I realized Kit was gone. No longer in my lap. No longer here at all.

A cold flush of panic washed over me, and I turned to Paneus who stood by, now holding out a hand.

“I’ll take you to him,” he said.

Without question, I took his hand and he lifted me out of that world and into my own.

We were in the cavern again, surrounded by what was left of our community. It seemed to be about an equal divide between those standing and those strewn about as lifeless corpses on the stone floor.

The sight didn’t shock me as much as it should have. Perhaps some of Paneus’s peace still lingered, or maybe I understood more than I realized. The souls that had been unleashed weren’t only from the Vessel, but from this gathering, too.

Among the dead were Matina and Fletcher, and just beside the altar, Merrick sprawled, body still and glassy eyes fixed on a distant nothing. It chilled me to see him like that, or maybe that was the air in the room, tainted by death and absence.

In the middle of it all, the Vessel laid in ruin. The bone bricks that had been so carefully mortared were broken apart, and the thing looked quite dead itself. A slain beast.

With so much to see, it took longer than I liked to find Kit. He stood near the altar, a few feet away. The bloody knife lay at his feet. The knife Paneus and I had pushed on him, because he needed to be a willing sacrifice, too. And even though I’d known then what that meant, I was still alarmed at the blood soaking his clothes, radiating out from a hole in his shirt.

I sprang into motion, reaching him in seconds and grabbing for the wound on his chest that I knew had to be grievous. When my fingers pressed the area, the skin was smooth but for a single raised scar. Blood slicked my skin, and I fought the urge to recoil, realizing it was senseless since I was equally bathed in the stuff.

I was still checking him, hand fully inside his shirt and feeling for an injury that was no longer there, when he stirred. He’d been awake before, but elsewhere. Maybe lost in his mind like I had been.

He sucked a sharp breath, and his hand flew up to catch my wrist. I met his eyes just as they flashed with a dull glow, then returned to the usual dark, bottomless brown.

He blinked, and I did too, scattering tears I hadn’t felt building.

“Pen?” he rasped. His fingers tightened around my arm. “Is it you?”

My chin barely dipped before Kit threw himself against me hard enough to knock my breath loose. He clung so tightly my ribs creaked, and his fingertips dug into my back. Desperately clutching me while his chest heaved with stifled sobs.

I hugged him back, relishing the warmth of his body in the too-cool room. The peace of Paneus was beginning to wane, making room for a flood of worse feelings. Memories of pain and fear, holding Kit’s hand as tightly as he held me now, watching the world grow dark.

“Kit…” His name left me as a gasp, and he drew back.