The Second Death of Locke — Chapter no 16

sixteen

ER CHEST FELT LIKE it was splintering to pieces. Something warm wasH pressing on it, hard enough to break her. Her eyes were already open when she focused on the bleary shape above her. It was his hands on her heart, forcing it to beat.

“I have you,” he said. “I’m not letting go.”

He didn’t have to. Grey closed her eyes and slipped back under.

“Grey.”

She was back in herself, back near her own body, though she had no memory of leaving or returning. Her name was soft, insistent, in a voice she wasn’t fully certain of—she was conscious that her head hurt, an endless beating pain behind her eyes. She hissed at the pressure of it, the wet heat of her mouth, the taste of metal. She did not think she could move—every limb was cemented, paralyzed, as if someone had draped a great lead-lined blanket over her and tied her to the ground.

Hands on her forehead, brushing her hair away—something cool.

“Grey,” they said again, then more distantly, “Captain. She’s stirring.”

“Our fucking luck to lose the healer,” someone else said. Brit.

“Go be unhelpful somewhere else,” Kier snapped.

Movement. More shuffling. Something warm and dry was on her cheek, then a door closed elsewhere. All other voices ceased—all other noises cut off. She stretched her hands and felt fabric underneath them; nice soft fabric, not the bedrolls they’d been using for the last two weeks.

The emptiness stretched out inside of her like a raw wound, like

something had been cleft from within her, leaving her a bloody shell in its wake. She moved her hand to her stomach as if to prove it was still there—a hand caught hers and something tried to spark to life in that emptiness.

The migraine flared. She hissed against it. His lips brushed her forehead, and she sank back into nothing.

She came awake like a small vessel cresting over a wave. She sucked in a breath, asleep and screaming one moment and awake and screaming the next, her throat cracking and bleeding again, and the dark was so full and awful and complete— Noises sounded in the other room, but in this one, she sat straight up into nothing. The fire ceased—Grey stopped screaming. She opened her eyes.

She didn’t know where she was—an enclosed space, dirt floor, thatch roof. She was in a small room, alone, even though he’d promised she wouldn’t be.

A shape darkened the doorway. She knew it as she knew her own heart.

Kier stepped into the room clutching a magelight to his chest—not his, not without her; this one was pale green—and kneeled down before her.

“Are you here?” he asked, and she didn’t understand. She reached for his face, ran her hand across the new beard and felt a deep, throbbing ache in her middle. The tether was limp and empty inside of her.

“I can’t feel my power,” she said, unable to contain the edge of panic.

He shifted his weight to sit cross-legged next to her, drawing her out of the blankets and into his lap. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “I feel it. There’s just—there’s so little left. You need time. We used… a lot.”

She buried her face in his chest, searching for memories, even as the dread rose like bile inside of her. “What did I do?”

Kier paused. “I don’t know if—”

“Tell me.”

Pause. “We killed them.”

“How many?”

Pause. “Forty-three. All of them. Mages… and wells.”

The breath left her in a whoosh—she remembered the catastrophic ache in her gut, the implosion of forty-three hearts at once, the massive death that drained her to the bone.

“I didn’t know,” Kier said carefully, “you could do that.”

“Mm.” She let her eyes slide closed, let that unspoken grief unfurl through the tether. He gripped her harder. “Don’t get used to it.”

“I won’t.”

He was quiet for a moment and she listened to his heart, the beating of it, forcing herself not to think about forty-three lives lost in the blink of an eye, forcing herself not to think of the thousands who went down with her lost nation. So much destruction, so much pain, all because of her.

“Grey.” There was hesitation in his voice, and she wanted to weep. This was why she’d hidden herself for so long. She couldn’t bear it, now he knew the truth of her. “They never named the heir to the Isle, before it vanished. Because you weren’t of age.”

She felt the fear in her chest—but this was Kier, and he already knew.

“No,” she said. “They didn’t.”

“Was Attis right, then? Did it pass to you when Severin died?”

Grey couldn’t meet his eye. In her young life, her mother had one rule: do not reveal who is to inherit. Do not reveal who is a mage and who is a well. Do not reveal what power you do or do not hold. Even now, even though this was Kier, and she trusted him with her very soul, she did not know how to speak the words.

She remembered being eight years old, Lot and Kier both looking at her as they hatched a plan. She remembered the lie, like poison in her mouth.

But because it was Kier, she didn’t need to lie.

“No,” she said.

“Severin was a mage, wasn’t he?”

Grey squeezed her eyes shut. “Yes,” she said.

“He was never the heir to Locke. It was always you.”

You lied to me, he did not say.

She didn’t answer. There was no need to. The heir to Locke was always a well, and if the firstborn was a mage, or typic, then another child would take the Isle.

“Can I put you down? I want to see your face.”

She didn’t want him to see her, but she needed to see his expressions.

She needed to know how he looked, now that he knew she had kept this from him: this, the biggest secret of all. “Yes.”

Kier shifted, laying her on her back. She missed the warmth

immediately—she couldn’t imagine sitting up on her own, let alone seeking him. Her spine felt oddly unarticulated.

He moved to press his hand to her cheek, stroking softly. “Is that what happened?” he asked, so quietly it broke her heart.

She looked away, tears coming to her eyes despite herself. He didn’t need to clarify. Is that how you killed them all? he didn’t ask. Is that how you destroyed Locke?

“Yes,” she said, her voice breaking. She closed her eyes, wishing away the truth. “They thought… they thought that if they controlled Severin, they could control power. And they tried to take him. But it was never my brother. They needed to control me.”

Kier took a breath. Held it. Then he nodded, and kissed her forehead. It took her a second to feel something odd, a pulse of light crawling up the tether—it was like warmth inside of her, nestling in that empty cavern where her power usually resided. She felt it, warm and glowing, a new sort of power, and her bones didn’t feel quite like they were not where they were meant to be anymore. She opened her eyes.

“What was that?” she asked.

Kier gazed at her evenly. She felt the wall against her arm; she pulled herself up so she could lean against it.

“Where are we?” she asked instead, rubbing at her eyes. She wasn’t wearing her shirt anymore, but rather a large blanket wrapped around her, and her vest underneath.

“Sorry,” he said, noting her gaze. “You bled or vomited on everything else, so Ola gave up trying to keep you dressed. We’re in another shepherd’s hut, further down the valley. It seemed… safer.”

Grey nodded, taking in the small room. There was a bed frame against one wall, stripped metal, no mattress. This one had a real wooden door, too,

but it was shut.

“Do they know what I am?”

Kier winced. “They suspect as much,” he said.

There was no point worrying about that, so Grey forced herself to move past it, even as she felt her secrets unraveling beneath her. “How long have I been asleep?” she asked.

“Two days. Nearly. You didn’t even stir when we moved you. Scared the life out of Brit—they would’ve thought you were dead if you didn’t make

so much noise.” He winced. “Not exactly the safest way to travel.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… go.”

Kier moved to her legs, stretching them out in front of her. His hands found her calf, massaging the place she was always sore. “We’re alive

because of you.”

“That’s not true. You did the magic.”

He shook his head, slow and reverent. “That’s not… Grey, surely you must know how impossible your power is.”

“Clearly not,” she said, leaning her head back against the wall. “You know what I am. What that means. What that makes me.” She wanted to close her eyes and sleep for three more days, possibly forever. Kier’s hand stilled, as if he could feel the self-hatred leaking through every pore. Yes,

they lived—but for what?

“Grey.”

She opened her eyes. He sat very still in that way she could never manage—she always had to be moving. Even now, her fingers were caught in the blanket she wore, tangling in the edge. He swallowed hard, and she watched the movement of his throat. He was half the boy she knew, the boy she grew up with, modified with at least a quarter scar tissue and a new broken nose and beard, and yet… and yet he was the same. The same but different, and she could only feel an aching sadness inside of her when she thought about him growing older. She wanted to know the changes in him

by heart.

“You nearly died,” he said.

“Yes.” There was no point in denying it. Even now, with every movement, she felt like she was one slip-up from the grave.

“And I…”

Grey swallowed back the lump in her throat. This was where it would come: this was where he would tell her that she had corrupted herself with

that power. “Yes?”

“I can’t imagine… not having you.”

She smirked, the corner of her lip tugging up. A seed of bitterness sprouted in her stomach—she wondered if he couldn’t imagine not having her, or not having her power. “Retirement is coming soon, Captain,” she

said. “You’re not sick of me yet?”

“That is absolutely not what I mean.”

She laughed, the sound aching inside of her. “I’m your power. Too much power. If you lose me, you’ll never do magic again.” She didn’t know why she was saying this, why it hurt so much. She wanted to curl up here and for them to leave her alone, for her shame to consume her whole.

“You say it like that’s all it is,” he said.

She stared up at the ceiling, thick thatch and mud. “Isn’t it? No matter what we are—you’re my mage. I’m your Hand. Perhaps we were fools, all those years ago. It’s a piteous thing, to only draw from one person forever and ever, to expect that.”

He paused. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Do you really think that?

Do you really think I think that?”

She couldn’t be certain where all this bitterness was coming from— maybe it was from death being such a close thing, the grip of it still cold on her neck; perhaps it was the memory of Locke behind her eyes, the press of Severin’s hands in the moments before everything went dark. He’d only been fifteen when he died, still just a boy. He never grew up into anything because he tried so hard to save her, and what had she done? Killed him, just like she’d killed everyone else who ever loved her. All the power of Locke, and she’d squandered it—and for what?

Maybe it was because she knew in her heart that they could not retire to the countryside. There was no peaceful happiness in their future. She had never felt more certain of that fact, and she mourned the loss of it with a raw desperation she barely understood.

She was the heir to Locke, and she was bound to Kier, and she would

drag him right down with her.

“Go away, Kier,” she said.

“Do you think,” Kier said, furious but level, “that I regret binding to you? That I regret taking you as my Hand? That I regret all of the lives we’ve taken, so that we could survive? Do you think I don’t know what it means to be yours?”

She opened her eyes, met his gaze. There was that anger again, so rare, so beautiful in vitality. She felt so lost and he was so goddam alive.

“No,” she said. She clawed for something, feeling desperately the weight of all those heartbeats silenced. She could not analyze the last part of his speech—it would be her undoing. “You have seen the worst of me.

You cannot…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

Kier looked at her, and she felt something open up inside of her, something that made a flood of warmth bloom in her chest, that killed that sprout of bitterness. It took her a moment to realize that the emotion was coming from him, emanating from the tether. It was that earlier feeling, that warmth, but so much stronger. So much more.

She remembered the press of his mouth against hers, the desperation in his kiss when she was certain they were going to die.

“Kier?”

“Grey, beloved, you absolute fool—if that was the worst of you, then you remain a saint among us.” He shook his head wonderingly. “And I have been trying to make you see me as more than your mage for six years now.”

She could not believe this. She could not understand the high color in his cheeks, the light in his eyes. He was so far away from her, the entire distance of her body, and it felt like miles. Even if she wanted to cross them, she wasn’t sure her bones would agree, so she kept her cautious distance. She needed to know that she understood, that she wasn’t scaring him into a confession he didn’t mean now that he knew what she was capable of.

“I adore you,” he said, all in a rush. “No—no. Listen. I… I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you for years, maybe forever. Sometimes it’s all I can think about, and I can’t breathe because it’s so heavy on my chest that I… I might be holding it alone, the only thing about you I can’t be certain of. It’s agony, Grey, the not knowing.”

She could only stare at him blankly as the words clicked uselessly against her brain. She could not imagine it, him saying this to her, him thinking that she could not immediately feel the same.

Kier let out a breath. “Okay. It’s over. It’s done. I will… go.”

He stood awkwardly, that knee giving him trouble, and despite the wrongness in her spine, Grey lunged forward and caught him around the waist.

“Captain Seward,” she said, holding fast as he dropped to his knees and turned to face her. He kept his other hand on her ribs for stability—she was grateful, because she wasn’t sure how she’d remain upright otherwise. “You fucking cretin.” Panic flickered across his face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He laughed, the noise more of a scoff, harsh and disappointed and maybe even disbelieving. “You never kissed back,” he said.

She sucked a breath, the realization running straight to her stomach.

He’d always been affectionate, yes—and she’d thought nothing of it. But every time he’d touched her, every time he’d kissed her forehead or her temple or the back of her hand, every time he’d folded himself around her… perhaps each moment had been its own confession.

And she, in her endless attitude of I bet you say that to all the girls and at least half of the boys, had utterly ignored it. She’d argued herself out of any possibility that even the most obvious sign was just another affection she didn’t deserve.

“Fucking seas, Kiernan,” she growled. Grey leaned across the chasm between them, grabbed him by the lapels of his worn coat, and pulled his mouth down to hers.

They’d kissed before—not like this, never like this, not even when he had kissed her the other day—but his lips to her lips in a move she always wrote off as chaste. After battle, when they were alone again and alive, or sometimes before bed, when he’d kissed her temple and then her mouth. He probably imagined he was stealing those kisses, Grey thought desperately, before any thoughts washed away in the overwhelming headiness of him.

He pulled her into him like he could sink into her skin and become one body. His hands were on her waist, thumbs digging into her ribs, fingers against her vertebrae. She tangled one hand in his hair, the other on his shoulder, mostly for balance. Out of her blanket, there was so much of her skin against the fabric of his shirt and so little of his skin against hers. She scrabbled at the bottom of his shirt, pulling it untucked so she could slide her hands over the planes of his stomach, her thumb rubbing against his newest scar. She hissed as his lips went to her neck. Something opened within her, the slice of a knife in the bottom of her stomach, and she felt the smallest shift as thin, staticky power returned to her.

She dug her fingers in, holding him against her. He nipped her collarbone. “Don’t push yourself,” he murmured against her skin. He kissed the edge of her jaw, the crest of her cheekbone. “You’re still unwell.” He pulled away so he could look at her, and she shivered at the loss of warmth.

“And everyone is worried—I shouldn’t keep you to myself.”

She moved her hands to his shoulders. “You could, if you want.”

He laughed, leaning forward to kiss her with an exuberant joy that she felt through the tether. “There will be time,” he promised.

But—as the ambush the other night handily demonstrated—there was no guarantee of that. Grey pushed down the rush of uncertain sadness and managed a smirk. “I’m surprised we made it this long without interruption.”

“Ah, I gave very strict instructions.”

He helped her back against the wall and wrapped the blanket over her

shoulders.

“Kier,” she said.

“Yes?”

“You don’t hate me?”

“I could never hate you,” he said, so sincerely it physically hurt.

“I mean, even now you know what I am.”

He was silent for a long moment, watching her face. “I’ve always known what you were,” he said finally, carefully. “Perhaps I didn’t always know what it meant, what it meant you could do, but it changes nothing.”

Grey nodded, letting herself relax. If Kier said it, above all, she believed him.

He stroked her hair tenderly, pausing after a moment, a smile spreading across his face. “Hand,” he said wearily, “do you ever not have blood in your hair?”

She tipped her nose up, grasping his hand. “Perhaps I could be convinced to try harder. Maybe during retirement?”

He leaned down and kissed her once more, a promise of things to come.

“It can’t happen fast enough,” he said.

It was Ola who came in first, Grey’s healer’s kit in hand. Her mouth was set in a grim line and she had dirt streaked across one cheek.

“Lie back, Captain,” she said. Grey did, sliding back on the tangle of fabric. She’d discovered after Kier left that it was a heap of coats protecting her from the wood floor, and had to bite her lip at the rush of emotion that came when she realized that everyone had donated their coat in this cold for the sake of keeping her warm.

She pressed her lips together as Ola moved down to palpate her abdomen. “Was anyone else hurt? I can—”

“Captain.” Ola pinched her side. “Stop being a hero and let us take care of you,” she said, exasperated.

Grey stopped trying to be a hero. She stared straight up at the thatch ceiling as Ola sat back on her heels to carefully brew a tea to ease her pain.

“Why ‘Captain?’” she asked, despite herself.

“Hmm?”

She propped herself up on her elbows, wincing, ignoring the scowl Ola aimed in her direction. “You have been calling me Captain, not Hand. Pretty much since the inn. That’s Kier’s title, not mine.”

Ola blinked at her owlishly. She handed over the hot mug and Grey propped her shoulder against the wall to give herself stability to drink. “I suppose,” Ola said finally, “we see you as equals. You and Kier.”

Grey gagged a little at the salty taste of the tea. “Do we have anything to consume that isn’t ghastly?” she muttered.

“You’re lucky you missed dinner. Eron tried to be creative to make us all feel better.”

Grey sighed, but she forced herself to drink. There was a timid knock at the door, and she and Ola looked up as Sela peeked inside.

“Come in,” Ola said. “I doubt we can do much more to offend Grey’s modesty.”

Grey shrugged. After years living in shared tents, she didn’t have much modesty to begin with. “Kier mentioned something about clothes,” she said, glancing down. Her vest was different, and she didn’t remember these breeches either—they weren’t the black ones she’d been wearing on the road.

Ola and Sela exchanged a look. Three wells in a room, Grey thought neutrally, and two as good as useless.

“Your clothes caught on fire,” Sela said.

“Not fire, really—”

“What?”

Ola shot Grey a glare. Chided, she went back to sipping her tea. “We didn’t see the whole thing,” she said, “and the captain is unwilling to give us details. But there was a great flare of light, and then you were screaming —Brit ran out to help because they’re incapable of following orders.”

“You were on fire,” Brit said from near the wall. Grey hadn’t even heard them come in. “Sorry—I’m supposed to tell you Kier is relieving Eron on watch.”

“He shouldn’t,” Grey said grimly. She set the empty cup down and

pulled herself fully into sitting position. She felt mildly better and annoyed about it. Ola took the cup and set to brewing a new blend of tea and herbs.

“He has been…” Ola searched for a word.

“Unmanageable?” Brit offered.

“Unstable?” said Sela.

“Stressed,” Ola said, glaring at both of them. “He has been worried about you. With good reason. Brit ran out, then they carried you back in, smoldering and naked, choking on blood, with a full company dead outside.

Mages and wells.”

Grey winced. She accepted the full cup Ola offered and tried to sip without pulling a face. “I’m sorry,” she said finally. “I didn’t mean for things to… end like that.”

Ola sighed. “Sela, sweetheart,” she said, turning to the girl. “Can you go fetch Grey some bread?”

Sela nodded and went out. As soon as the door shut behind her, Ola leaned forward. Brit moved in front of the door, their shoulder pressed against it so they’d catch it when Sela came back.

“That’s not normal power,” Ola said, an unsteady edge to her voice.

Grey was too tired for this. “Kier and I are bound,” she said, as if that was explanation enough.

Ola shook her head. “Magic can’t kill wells, Captain.”

Grey met her gaze. She felt half-dead and exhausted, but the weight of Kier’s confession had given her new buoyancy—perhaps, she thought, she was ready to gamble.

“If you’re trying to say something,” she said, “it’s best to get on with it.”

“You knew Sela wasn’t Maryse of Locke.”

At least that one was easy. “Leonie left notes. I knew she was too young.”

Ola grimaced, pushing that away. “Clever. But how did you know for certain that she wasn’t a Locke? How did you have that much power?”

Brit crossed their arms. “There are just a few things that don’t add up,” they said apologetically. “Nothing against you, Captain, but I’ve never seen Ola catch fire and burn all her clothes off.”

“You wish,” Ola muttered.

“It was a lot of power at once,” Grey said. “I can’t pretend to understand what happens when one uses that much power that quickly.”

Brit and Ola exchanged a look, as if holding some unspoken conversation. Brit raised an eyebrow and Ola shook her head; Brit seemingly disobeyed her advice. “Why were you crying out for Severin of

Locke?”

“What?”

“Severin. He was the heir, wasn’t he?”

Grey clamped her jaw shut. Just barely, she remembered what Kier had said to her when she first woke up: Are you here?

Where had she been before? Or more accurately, when?

She shook her head. “Can I have a shirt, please?”

“Sorry,” Ola said, handing her a soft gray one, too big, from Kier’s bag.

“But Grey—”

“I’m not going to tell you anything that endangers you or the mission,”

Grey said, struggling into the shirt. It hurt to pull anything over her head, hurt to move her arms like that. She knew, deep inside, that she should’ve been more alarmed: it could mean nothing good for others to know about her identity, and if Brit and Ola knew, then Eron probably did as well, and possibly even Sela. Sixteen years of hiding, all of it for naught.

But she didn’t care. She couldn’t find it in herself. All she felt was that empty hollow where her power used to rest, and the anxiety of being out of Kier’s eyeline. “We can talk later. After this is over,” she said eventually, when they wouldn’t move from their tense positions. “Is that answer enough?”

Ola and Brit exchanged a long look. “Yes,” Brit said finally.

“Good.” Grey slipped down in her nest of coats. “I’m going to sleep, then. Again. I’ve had enough of you lot for one day.”

Neither of them protested. Grey closed her eyes, pushed away the ache of her empty well and forced herself to sleep.

She woke again in the early hours of the morning to the pitch-dark hut. She sat up, relieved to find that her bones felt as they should and her skin was not aching in that oversensitive way it did when she’d used too much power. The only thing that hurt was her head, and that was to be expected after being unconscious for the better part of two days.

She squinted into the dark, making out two shapes nearby: Sela and

Eron, she decided, so Brit and Ola were probably on watch duty and Kier was… Anxiously, she reached through the tether, but she couldn’t find him there. She got up, wobbling a little, holding to the wall for stability. She felt steadier by the time she reached the door, just barely ajar. She pushed through it.

The front room was smaller than the back: a worktable pushed against one side under the window, curtains drawn; two chairs beside it the only other furniture. Kier sat in one, hunched over the table, writing. A half- melted stub of candle was lit beside him, the light dim and flickering.

“Magelight would be more effective,” Grey said softly.

He looked up, an errant lock of hair falling across his forehead. His expression softened when he saw her standing, like that was a mighty, marvelous thing.

“I like the novelty,” he said. It was a bold-faced lie and she knew it—he couldn’t make a magelight without her, and he wasn’t going to draw from her. She reached within herself and felt the tether dormant.

“We used to do this back home,” she said carefully. “Candles. Fires burning in the hearth.”

He raised an eyebrow. “All that power, and you chose not to use it?”

It hadn’t seemed like an abnormality when she was a child. In truth, the Isle of Locke was a cold and brutal place: fire warmed much more effectively than magelight, and she’d always preferred the flickering of candlelight over magelight’s flat, unchanging glow; she suspected her mother was the same, and her grandmother. Her grandmother, Locke’s own mother and the Locke before her, was still living when the Isle was conquered. Grey had not watched the old woman die. Now, she recalled her weathered, wrinkled hands holding a candle as it burned, then tipping it so the wax pooled neatly in the middle of the parchment. She was the one who had taught Grey the lineage of her mother’s ancestors, guiding Grey’s finger up the lines of the tree. Her husband, Locke’s father, had been from Luthar, just as Locke’s husband was Scaelan; it was the custom for the sovereign to marry within the other nation states to renew power there.

Grey pushed the memories away. Those dusty books, the family trees, her grandmother’s body—all were lost to the sea.

“You can pull from me,” she said mildly. “I’m okay.”

“You very nearly weren’t.”

She shrugged, allowing this.

On her feet, removed from her cozy pile, she felt utterly filthy. Kier hadn’t been lying earlier when he accused her of having blood in her hair.

She was surprised he’d wanted to kiss her, but perhaps that was the thing about love. She didn’t mind him filthy post-battle. The sweat, the dirt, the blood—it all meant he was still alive.

She spotted vats of water near the door, two full, one nearly empty. She retrieved a cup and filled it with water, using it to wash her mouth. She found a packet of tooth tabs in one of the packs and chewed the chalky tablet into a paste.

“What are you doing?” she asked Kier after she rinsed her mouth. She already felt vaguely more human. She found a bucket on the other side of the room, probably used to hold water or feed when the hut was in use, and checked to make sure it was clean.

He sighed, sitting back. “Writing correspondence to Scaelas. I meant to yesterday, but you were…” He trailed off, leaving the state of her up for interpretation. “I keep crossing things out, rephrasing.”

She pulled off her shirt so she wouldn’t get it damp. Grey retrieved the soap from Kier’s shaving kit (his pack was much closer than hers, and his soap smelled nicer anyway) and poured a cup of water over her hair, leaning over the empty bucket. Her hair mostly contained, she started massaging the soap into it. It made a phenomenal mess, but at least she would be free of the filth of her sickbed.

“What are you doing?” Kier asked.

“Washing my hair.”

He sighed, the sound long-suffering. “You’re getting soap and water everywhere. Grey—how about I do that, and you can repay me by looking this over? Or write it yourself? I imagine you’re far better at it.”

She looked up from her bucket, wet hair dripping day-old blood down her face. “I’m a lady,” she said primly, “in every definition of the word.”

That was enough to get a smile out of him. He slipped down onto the floor on the other side of the bucket, kneeling so his knees framed the wood. “Just rest your chin,” he murmured, positioning her head where he wanted it. Grey relished the ache in her back, the dampness of her knees from the growing puddle, the cold of the water and the warmth of Kier’s

hands: all of it meant that she had survived, against the odds.

Kier massaged the soap into her scalp, his fingers deft and sure. She stifled a moan, turning her head and biting her lip.

“You know,” he said, taking the cup and pouring a stream of cold, clean water over her hair, “I imagined telling you my feelings a thousand times, in a thousand different ways. And yet I never imagined the evening ending

with your head in a bucket.”

She winced. “Sorry.”

“Grey, if I don’t spend the rest of my life washing gore out of your hair, then it’s not a life worth living.”

She laughed despite herself, then closed her eyes, focusing on his hands on her scalp, rinsing out the soap.

“Hold still a second,” he said, and she heard rustling. He wrung out most of the water, then wrapped something around her head, lifting the mass of her hair. When a sleeve fell loose over her shoulder, she realized that he’d

wrapped her hair in a shirt.

“Won’t we need this?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I’ve lost more clothing to you on this mission than during the entire war effort,” he said, resigned, and she noted with some glee that he hadn’t realized just how many of his shirts she’d stolen.

“Kier,” she said before he could move away, even though there was a bucket of filthy water between them and she did need to clean the rest of her body before leaning further into any sweeping declarations. “Did you mean it?”

He stopped ruffling her hair in the shirt and looked down at her. “Which part?”

Grey chewed her lip. This whole afternoon felt like a fever dream, and to her credit, she wasn’t entirely dismissing the idea that it had been one.

“That you want to spend forever washing viscera out of my hair.”

He laughed, warm and safe and familiar, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I can think of no better way to spend our retirement.”

“But… our retirement.” She looked away, suddenly shy. “You know what it means.”

He smiled, but it was a sad sort of thing, weighted with understanding.

“We have time to figure out what the future holds. Now come on, my lady.

You foolish, courageous girl. Have a look at my letter.”

Grey released a breath. If he didn’t want to talk about Locke now, and what she had to do, then she was fine to put it off.

She read his letter. She read it over and over, top to bottom, until the words bleared together, making corrections with his pen. Finally, she said, “Give me a new sheet. My handwriting is better,” and he complied in an instant.

Halfway through, working on the phrasing of a line, she said, “Brit and Ola suspect the truth.”

He looked up from his own letter—when she’d taken over the diplomacy, he’d started one to his mothers. “I think Eron does as well. He said something about it when we were switching watch.”

Grey winced. “Apparently I… made the fact obvious.”

“I tried to stifle it,” Kier said. “Your screaming, I mean. I carried you when it got too bad, when Pigeon would go no further with you making such a racket on his back.” He sighed, putting his pen aside. “I’m sorry. I should’ve thought of a better explanation than none at all.”

“It’s not your fault,” Grey said, her brain caught on I carried you. How

far? How long? “Useless horse.”

“Mm.”

“What do we do?” She couldn’t avoid the not knowing, no matter how much she wanted to.

“It’s your call,” he said. She shot him a brief, withering glance. “No, really—Grey, it’s your life, your identity. This is not my mission, and even if it was, I would defer to you.”

Grey sighed, looking down at her letter. It had not come easily to her until she thought of her mother and grandmother, the lofty way they’d read her stories when she was a girl, and then it had seemed effortless. “I think I need to stop running,” she said carefully. “But I don’t want to make that decision with an army at my back.”

Kier nodded, considering. “Then we finish the plan as we’ve established it. We try for peace between Scaela and Cleoc Strata. Then you and me— and the others, if you desire it; if they too desire it—will go and try to figure out how to resurrect the Isle.”

She sat back, watching the light of the flickering candle. Her heart stirred with the anxiety of it, and something like hope. “Okay,” she said.

“Do you know how to do it? How to bring it back?”

Grey chewed on her lip. “Not exactly,” she hedged.

He raised an eyebrow.

“It can’t be as easy as me just… going into the sea. Bleeding. Giving some sort of offering. Because we grew up on the coast, and gods know you and Lot and I put one another through more than enough bodily harm. I’ve bled into the sea a thousand times, and I’ve never raised the Isle with that alone.”

“Not that I can recall,” Kier agreed. “There must be some other way to

do it.”

“I suppose there must be.”

Under the table, his knee nudged hers. “Does this mean I get citizenship?”

She crumpled one of the discarded pieces of paper and lobbed it at his head. “Only if you’re very, very good in bed.”

His eyes darkened, grin twisting with something that woke the tether up inside of her. They always flirted… but never with the potential of following through. “My lady,” he said. He reached across the table for her hand, leaning to raise it to his lips. “I look forward to the opportunity to prove myself.”

She kicked him under the table. He only laughed, leaving his hand twined in hers as they went back to their letters.

OceanofPDF.com

Solitude is the nature of Locke. Though it is the only nation in which the sovereigns sometimes share the title, the warm feelings of unity do not extend to the rest of Idistra: the Isle keeps its own secrets.

“Even the seas burned”: A Brief History of the Rise and Fall of the Obsidian Isle by Bell Owndig, University of Isidar

OceanofPDF.com