The Second Death of Locke — Chapter no 18

eighteen

HEY AGREED THEIR LEAVE would start the following day—first there wasT to be a dinner held in their honor, to thank them for delivering Cleoc’s heir. At the inn they were led to, they found they had all been given separate rooms. Ola and Brit offered to stay with Sela, along with the two guards the commander had insisted accompany them. Eron went to the room assigned to Grey. No one commented when Grey collected the clothes left for her from Eron’s room and moved them into Kier’s.

But Ola’s eyebrows said more than any of their mouths.

Once everyone was more or less where they were supposed to be, Kier closed the door behind them. They stared at one another for a moment, the

silence desperately loud.

“How much time do we have?”

“Not much,” he said, unmoving. “Cleaned up, dressed and downstairs for our escort before the hour.”

Grey slipped off her coat. He raised an eyebrow. She crossed the space between them in three easy strides and pushed him against the door. She rose on her tiptoes, leaning her weight against him, and kissed him as sweetly as she could.

“And then,” she said against his mouth, “after dinner?”

He laughed, warm and certain, his hands coming to her waist. “I suppose I have a demonstration for the nation of Locke.”

She nipped his ear lobe. “Not the whole nation, surely.”

He moved quickly, sliding his hands down to grip her thighs, pulling her up into his arms, turning them so she was the one against the door. Both froze as the wood clattered in the frame, waiting for someone to check on

them—but nothing.

Grey sighed, relaxing against the door, locking her legs around Kier’s waist. It felt so safe to be in the unyielding circle of his arms, his weight pressed against her, his focus hyper-fixated on the small section of skin where her neck met her shoulder and the span of her collarbone— “Kier,” she said, tilting her head back to give him more access. But.

“Hmm?”

“Are you positive you don’t want to be a master?”

He pulled back so quickly her back came away from the door—but she was safe in his arms, always; he would not drop her. He did set her down,

very gently disentangling from her.

“Yes,” he said.

“But you always wanted it. Titles, promotions… to be a commander. To go to unknown shores. To see the world.”

He laughed, looking at her with a bizarre incredulity. “I always wanted you,” he said. “And I still can’t believe… that I have you. I think I do.”

“You do,” she said, shy under the weight of his gaze.

He pushed her hair behind her ears. “We can see the world together,” he said, kissing her forehead. “We can be free together.” He kissed her nose.

“Is that freedom?” Grey asked.

He cupped her face in his hands. She rested hers on his chest, relishing the heat of his skin through his shirt, the beat of his heart against her palm.

“It is its own kind of freedom,” Kier said.

She wasn’t sure about that, but it didn’t matter because he leaned in to kiss her, pushing her a heady sense of certainty. “We should clean up,” he said a few moments later. “We can talk after.”

Grey raised an eyebrow. “After the after. We have plans, Seward.”

“After the after,” he promised.

They separated. He called for a bath, then Grey went first into the small bathroom, washing for an inordinately long time because hot water was a luxury. She vaguely regretted not inviting Kier in with her, but it was good to have time alone, to think of nothing, to stare at the wall with a hazy sense of peace as the water warmed her cold bones.

She went out into the room wrapped in towels and shy, which was odd, because she’d just been thinking worse thoughts of him, and because they’d seen every inch of one another’s bodies in a non-romantic context already

(she’d touched his intestines, for sea’s sake); but Kier was in a chair by the window, half-undressed, flipping through a book. Grey paused, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She didn’t think she’d ever stayed at an inn that had a bookshelf in every room. The High Lord had clearly spared no expense.

“What are you reading?” she asked. “Does Scaelas stock anything saucy?”

“It’s mine, actually.” To her surprise, he flushed. “I, um, found it in a

shop. In Pista.”

“What is it?”

He held it up, and Grey squinted at the title. It was, to her surprise, a book on the history and customs of the Isle of Locke.

“Kier…?”

“I wanted to know everything I could,” he said quietly, not quite meeting her gaze. “And I didn’t want to burden you with the telling.”

She leaned back against the door. “And have you learned anything?”

“A million things. But they left out the part about how astonishing you are.”

“Glad to see you’re just as much of a shameless flirt as always, Seward.”

She glanced down at herself, adjusting the towel. “I’ve heard some astonishing rumors about you, too, truth be told. Care to prove their merit?”

He laughed, but he put the book pages-down on the windowsill and stood. He had the sinuous grace of someone who knew, deeply, how every muscle in his body worked. He came close and cupped her chin. “We have thirty minutes, Flynn, and I need more time than that for what I’m planning.”

She laid a palm flat on his chest, fingers spread, over his heart.

Kier went to bathe, and Grey focused on finding something to wear.

Scaelas had kindly provided a chest of formal wear for each of them, approximate in sizes, so she had more than enough options to choose from.

She kneeled next to it, parsing through silk shirts and velvet vests and trousers and gowns. She found a deep navy gown, and though it wouldn’t have been her first choice otherwise, something about the pattern of leaves and vines reminded her of a similar gown worn by her aunt, Wren, on one of the many occasions she’d brought her three boys from Nestria to Locke to spend time with their cousins.

At some point, Kier emerged in a cloud of steam, and she very conspicuously did not look at him as he started to dress.

That didn’t stop him from glancing over at her in her chemise, his gaze scanning over the bare skin of her shoulders. “This is unlike you,” he said, nodding to the dress cast over the bed.

“Unusual times call for unusual attire,” Grey said loftily, buckling one of her dagger holsters around her upper thigh.

“Indeed,” Kier said, moving behind her for the briefest moment to press his lips to her shoulder, his hand tracing the top of the leather buckle she’d just secured.

“Are you always this cheeky with your lovers?” Grey swatted his chest and spun out of his grip.

He caught her, drawing her back against his chest. “No,” he said, leaning down to nip at her lower lip. “I’ve never been with someone I loved before.”

She would never get used to this. She allowed it for only a moment, her heart warm with light—but then she pulled back, because he was correct: they did not have the time to get carried away.

Maybe nothing had changed—maybe she only noticed it more. But his fingers skimmed against her arm when he reached over her for his trousers hanging on the wardrobe, and he didn’t brush past her without a touch to her waist or a kiss to her forehead. Maybe this was how he’d always been, a delicate ballet of stolen touches that she’d written off as his insistent grease- fire need for affection.

But now she was able to watch him with reckless abandon, without fear of him catching her—and truthfully, she could spend the rest of her days watching Kier doing the most mundane activities and still die happy. He’d cleaned up his patchy shave from the other day, so his jaw was pink and sharp; she longed to press her lips to the juncture just there, the soft shadow where mandible met throat, and she filed that away for later inspection. She leaned against the wardrobe, arms crossed over her chest, and watched as he pulled on a formal jacket. He had taken a cue from her, she suspected, and dressed in deep blue, his shirt unbuttoned a touch low in the fashion of the noblemen at court.

He was careful, straightening the cuffs at his wrists and the creases of his shirt, detail-oriented to a fault. When they were children, he used to redo

the corners of her bedsheets because they were not crisp enough for his liking.

She wanted to run her hands over that careful work, mess him up. She wanted to ruin him.

“We’re going to be late, Hand,” he said, not looking up from his ministrations, “if you don’t get your dress on.”

She sighed and pulled on the navy velvet, turning to the mirror and catching her own reflection as she braided her hair. Kier came without her asking and laced up the back of her dress. Grey watched his serious expression, then looked back at her own face. She pressed her lips together —she did not often see her reflection, and even more rarely did she see herself clean and finely dressed; she was both startled and unsurprised to find her mother looking back at her.

“You clean up nice, Fastria,” Kier said, hiding a smile as he tied his boots.

Grey rolled her eyes, straightening her skirts. He caught her a final time before they left the room. “One more night,” he promised her.

“One more night,” she agreed, gripping his hair just hard enough to mess it up.

She had been to formal dinners before, honoring commanders and masters and marking high holy days, but she’d always been a guest at one of the far tables with Kier, watching their soldiers like hawks for any signs of childish misbehavior. They’d never been the guests of honor themselves, and the feeling was, frankly, startling.

They’d also never been in a diplomatic meeting-slash-hostage situation.

Grey felt positively posed, her and Kier flanking Sela. Eron, still standing in as Kier’s Hand, was on Kier’s other side. Brit and Ola fidgeted next to Grey.

They waited in a reception room in Scaelas’s summer residence in Grislar, overlooking the sea. Grey stayed closest to the window, drinking in the sight with a desperation that surprised her, seeking any trace of familiarity in that ever-changing ocean.

It was better than searching for familiarity in these rooms. She had been here, in this fortress-like palace, only once before, when she was a very,

very little girl. She remembered how she’d spent most of the time being carried around on her father’s shoulders as he laughed with Scaelas, while her mother, Locke, kept telling the pair of them to just be serious; you’re not boys anymore. She kept catching the memory of her father’s laugh, echoing in the corners of every room. If she was to make it through the night without breaking, it would be best not to think of that at all.

If only, Grey thought, they’d arranged this meeting within the military fort. She already knew there was nothing there to send her spiraling—she and Kier had worked at Grislar for nearly a year. They had spent so many nights on watch on the parapet, wind whipping their hair, listening to the call of the gulls and staring out into the emptiness of the waves.

The carpet was too soft, squishy and unstable under her boots. She kept shifting her weight anxiously, earning her a look from Kier over Sela’s head. The retinue stood at rest, hand clasped over hand.

Grey glanced every so often at the clerk across the room. He sat reading a book, sheets of parchment and pens spread out in front of him. He was to take a transcript of whatever unfolded between the nations—after all, it was still a hostage situation, and a diplomatic one at that, even if it was disguised as a party. Two armored soldiers flanked the door, staring straight ahead at nothing.

Grey let her gaze slip to Sela. “You okay, kid?” she murmured.

“Fine,” Sela said, her voice betraying her even if her posture didn’t. She looked impossibly different now with her dark hair washed and pulled away from her face, rouge on her cheeks and kohl around her eyes. A dress appropriate for her station flowed around her body, slate gray and structured on the shoulders, cut in at the hip in a fashion that was almost like armor. It made her look like a war hero in training, with her shoulders thrust back and her chin held at a severe angle—it reminded Grey of that night in camp,

when she had gone to threaten the girl.

She broke rest to squeeze Sela’s hand.

“What if she doesn’t want me back?” Sela said very quietly, so the soldiers on the other side of the big room wouldn’t be able to hear.

Grey broke fully, turning her head to look at her. “Of course she wants you back,” she said.

“But when I went to Lindan… She sent me. She didn’t want me here.”

Grey thought of her own mother. Not her cool hands or the silver of her

necklace, not the delicate kisses she pressed to Grey’s temple. She thought of the blades Locke always wore, the poison she kept sewn into her hair ribbons. She thought of all the ways, from such an early age, she’d taught Grey to be on her guard.

The legacy of Locke, her mother had told her, brushing Grey’s hair at night, is blood and betrayal.

“She was trying to keep you safe,” Grey said. “I can guarantee it.”

A knock sounded on the door, two quick raps, and Grey squeezed the girl’s hand once more before falling back into rest. The door opened, allowing for a sequence of guards; they were followed by a short, severe woman with ink-dark hair and a bear-like man with a red beard and russet hair, then eight more soldiers, who fanned out around the room, half of them keeping with the woman, the other half with the man. The woman paused three steps into the room, took an unsteady breath and pushed her shoulders back. She looked like she wanted to break into a run.

Sela broke first, staggering forward, then throwing herself at her mother —the guards moved to stop her, but Cleoc shot them a look so savage that Grey made a mental note to study it later, to figure out how to create the expression on her own face—and shuddered into her arms. The High Lady of Cleoc Strata pulled her daughter into her chest, her hand pressed firmly on the back of her head, holding her as close as she possibly could.

Grey noted Commander Reggin standing with the bear-like man— Scaelas, she knew; Scaelas, the High Lord, with his red hair.

Her father’s voice: Like when all the leaves go at once. We were boys together, you know—before I knew your mother.

She couldn’t run from the memory. Since she’d opened her heart to memories of Locke, they would not stop. She’d thought, after a whole childhood of keeping them at arm’s length, they were gone for good, only for them to come bursting back in at the first glimpse of someone who had known her.

Scaelas, her own godfather, when she was Gremaryse of Locke; who had known her from the moment she was born to the moment Locke fell.

But he took no notice of her. She supposed this was something to be grateful for—if he looked at her straight on, she did not know how she would react. She could not fight the sense that she was play-acting.

“Is she whole and hale?” Scaelas asked the High Lady. She pulled back

enough to look at Sela, to take her face in her hands. “I hope you find her as promised.”

Cleoc said something to Sela that Grey could not hear, but the girl nodded. “She is as promised,” she said, turning to Scaelas but keeping Sela in her arms as if she could not bear to let her go. “We can proceed as discussed.”

“Excellent. I will draw up the agreed terms and meet with you back in the council chamber. I’m sure you want a moment with your daughter’s rescu—”

He paused. He paused, and looked right at Grey, and Grey’s stomach lurched. She met his eyes timidly, waiting, her heart in her throat.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He recovered himself, tearing his gaze from her.

“Please excuse my mind—always on the edge of something, you see.”

More directly to Cleoc, he said, “I will have my commander escort you to the appropriate room when you are done here, and we can finish this happy day with feasting and merriment.”

“Thank you. I hope we can find an agreement shortly,” Cleoc said. If she’d noticed the High Lord’s oddness, she did not comment.

But Kier had noticed. As soon as Scaelas and his guards were out of the room, leaving the two original soldiers and the commander with Cleoc and her guards, he glanced at Grey with a brow raised.

She sent a quick jolt of assurance through the tether.

There was still the matter of Cleoc. She turned to them when the High Lord was gone, her eyes softer. “You did not harm her,” she said. A statement, not a question.

Kier bowed his head, moving easily into command. “I would never.”

A smile played on her lips, but it did not reach her eyes. “Even though, I hear, it would’ve been force to equal what she dealt you, Captain Seward,” she said mildly. “I know this is… a situation none of us expected. And you

may see me as your enemy.”

“As you may see us,” Kier said.

“But let that not be anymore. From this day on—no matter what happens between our nations—you have a place at my table. Cleoc Strata will welcome you with open arms for the deeds you have done for my daughter.”

“It was an honor,” Grey said. She did not say, Even though the First

Daughter stabbed my mage, because she was able to forgive and forget— mostly. Sela shot her a tight smile, as if she could read Grey’s mind.

Cleoc went down the line to each of them, pressing a kiss to the back of their hands and handing each a silver pin embossed with an obsidian moon, matching the symbol on the crest of Cleoc Strata. “An honor, in our nation,” she explained, “for those who have exhibited true bravery.”

Grey didn’t hesitate. She buttoned the little moon on her chest.

“Thank you for your kindness, your grace,” Kier said.

Cleoc nodded, then moved to wait by the door. Sela stayed back for a moment, her eyes wet, kohl streaked underneath. Grey leaned forward to wipe the streaks away.

“I’m sorry for all the trouble,” Sela said.

“Kid, you got me early retirement.”

“And six months of leave,” Ola said from the end of the line.

“And out of that fucking terrible encampment,” Brit added.

“Language,” Kier sighed, eyes rolling skyward.

“Will you visit?”

All hesitated. They’d been killing her countrymen for as long as they’d been fighting—but perhaps there was a way to move on from that.

“Yes,” she promised before the others could say no. She leaned in and kissed Sela on the cheek, then drew her into her arms.

Close enough that no one else could hear, with her face pressed into Grey’s neck, Sela whispered, “Will I see you on Locke?”

Grey’s fingers dug into the girl’s back, a warning and a thank-you.

“Maybe when you’re older,” she murmured into Sela’s hair.

They were not needed for the meeting between Scaelas and Cleoc, nor were they invited. One of the soldiers led them to the ballroom, where a party was already in full swing, the room crowded with officers and higher-ups from Grislar and surrounding camps and courtiers that Grey only vaguely knew the titles of. Despite the fact that the whole retinue was the reason for the party, people only wanted to talk to Kier, so she hung back with Eron as Kier drew his own little crowd.

“The captain looks handsome tonight,” Eron said, sipping his wine, leaning against her so no one could cut between them.

“He always looks handsome,” Grey lamented into her own glass. She glanced over the rim just in time to see Kier laugh, the dimple deepening in his cheek, and sighed.

“I’m sorry for any marks on your record,” she said after a moment.

Eron shrugged. “I probably deserve it for feeding you poison for three

weeks.”

“Fair point, well made.”

He hesitated, looking around, probably checking who was nearby; but he didn’t realize that a crowded ballroom was sometimes the best place for

secrets. “Will you need help, Grey?”

“That’s Eron to you.”

“My question stands.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know what we’re going to do, or how to do it, to be honest.” It was odd to talk about Locke so openly, even veiled as it was. But there was no hiding from the other three: they knew who she was, what she was, even if she herself would not put it into words.

“You know you have my sword,” Eron said quietly, “should you need it.”

Grey glanced at him, registering the flush in his cheeks. “Don’t promise me that,” she said, reaching to lace their hands together. “Take your leave, Eron. You owe me nothing—none of you do.”

He started to say something, but they were interrupted by an announcement from the master of ceremonies, signaling the arrival of the High Court and the start of dinner.

They hurried to their places of honor at the high table: Grey sat between Ola and Kier, across from Eron and Brit. Scaelas sat on Kier’s other side,

followed by Cleoc and Sela.

“Any good gossip?” Grey asked her mage.

“None. At least three marriage proposals, though. It’s a tempting offer, to be a kept man.” Kier took a long sip of his wine. Grey pinched his thigh

under the table.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Incorrigibly handsome.”

She barely managed to hide her smirk, glancing at him sideways. It was just… it was just, he was the same as always, her favorite person, her beloved person, and she could not fathom that he felt any fraction for her of

what she felt for him, no matter how much he insisted he did.

She struggled to hide it, pushing away the heat in her stomach. Then, after a moment of thought, she tethered to Kier and pushed the heat toward him.

He blushed immediately, choking on his wine. When his eyes met hers again, there was a new, dark layer of want buried there.

“Timing?” he questioned. Under the table, his knuckles brushed the back of her hand.

“Mustn’t ignore the High Lord,” Grey said smoothly, flashing an innocent smile, dismissing him to engage with his neighbor on his other side. Kier sighed and turned his attention to Scaelas.

Across the table, Commander Reggin was speaking to Eron, who he thought was Grey. “I have already received requests for a transfer for you, Hand Captain Flynn,” he said, matter-of-fact, as the servers hurried to present the food while it was still hot.

Grey raised an eyebrow, eavesdropping. Kier tripped over a sentence.

“If you would be interested in remaining, I’m sure Captain Seward would understand.”

“You should think about it, Hand Captain,” Brit said, all mirth. They had, quite possibly, had too much wine. Grey kicked them under the table.

“Ah, I need a break,” Eron said. He looked at Grey, and she sighed— if she’d ruined his perfect performance record, he was taking her right down with him. “And I’m terrible with a sword.”

The commander’s eyebrows shot into his hairline. “Your accomplishments say otherwise. And I do have some very tempting offers…”

Scaelas must’ve gone back to Cleoc, because Kier joined the conversation as plates were set down in front of them. “Unfortunately, Commander,” he said with perfect politeness, “they can’t have my Hand.”

His own hand went to Grey’s knee, covered by the long draping of the table. “We’re retired.”

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Have you written the words, in earnest, to Grape? If you two keep carrying on like this, you’ll be making your confessions to her grave.

Letter from Lieutenant Lotrain Seward to Lieutenant Kiernan Seward, 9 years PD

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