The Second Death of Locke — Chapter no 20

twenty

N THE SMALL HOURS of the morning, Grey was roughly awoken byI something coarse and wet being pressed to her face. She inhaled sharply, pulling back, but there was a hand against her hair and something smelled awful, like bitter bile.

She knew the scent. It smelled like the death of the Isle, like screaming in her ears, like the end of everything.

“Kier?” she tried to say.

There was a sound across the room, a muffled shout—she couldn’t see anything but shapes in the dark, one holding a cloth over her mouth, and the smell made something animal and furious rise up within her. She struggled, but was held fast by strong hands. She bit down, her teeth sinking through the towel into something fleshy that swore and drew back. She sat up swinging, groping for her knife under the pillow until her fingers closed on the hilt, mad and feral.

Her eyes were streaming, fuzzy; she couldn’t see clearly—and she couldn’t feel Kier. She couldn’t feel him beside her, or grappling for her power in the tether that connected them as easily as breathing.

She slashed out and met flesh, felt hot blood on her hands. She could only just see the shapes: three of them, large, looming over her. More in the

room where she couldn’t see.

“She’s armed,” one of them called.

“No one said they’d be together,” another seethed. She heard a strangled noise, a half-gasp across the room, the sound of something solid meeting flesh and bone. She knew the timbre of the noise even though she’d never heard that sound from him. Kier.

Grey fought. She slashed with her knife, connecting more than once, relishing the profanity that spilled from their attackers. The hand fell away from her face, but the damage was already done—no matter how she grappled with the tether, she was unable to feel Kier nearby, even though she heard him fighting just as surely as she was.

She knew the smell. They’d drugged her with breakbloom, a flower Eprain had found and cultivated for its abilities to dull magic, making it impossible for a mage to draw on their well.

It was the same drug, the same poison Eprain had used to splinter the tethers on Locke as they razed the Isle. The same poison that kept the High Lady from sensing the destruction they wrought.

But the men around her did not have the tight, fast Eprainish accents, nor lilting like Scaelan—their Idistran was broad and flat. Luthrite or Stratan, but she couldn’t tell which. The people in the room with them were either typics, unaffected by the heady scent, or strong enough fighters without their powers—even a whiff of breakbloom broke every tether in the surrounding area for at least a few minutes. It was reserved for extreme situations.

Perhaps it was a comfort, Grey thought as she fought, terrified, that she and Kier were considered an extreme situation.

Then there was a knee heavy on her back, pinning her down. Fingers on that sensitive spot on her neck, the one that made her vision crowd with dots. A hand gripped her wrist, pressing hard.

“Stop fighting,” a voice growled in her ear, “or I will kill you.”

She tasted blood and bitterness in her mouth. “Kill me, then,” she snarled, and she swung again. The last thing she saw was a grim face through streaming tears, and the outline of her own mage on his knees in

the corner with a blade to his throat.

Everything went black.

Grey came to an immeasurable time later, breakbloom cloying on her tongue. Her senses felt dulled, and she was still unable to feel Kier, but at least she could see. She choked on the gag, heavy on her tongue; there was too much saliva in her mouth, her chin wet with spit and blood. The gag itself had been soaked with the bitter floral solution.

Her hands were bound behind her back, the rope biting into her skin; her feet were bound too but they had long since lost feeling. She sat at an awkward angle. Her head rested on someone’s shoulder. She lifted it with a jolt, coming to full consciousness.

“Mmph.” She followed the noise. It was Ola next to her, also bound and tied, a nasty-looking scratch running from her temple to the parting of her hair, jagged and bloody. She had clotted blood in her eyebrows, her eyelashes, crusted down the side of her face. Grey spotted Brit just past Ola.

They were in a narrow stone room, cold and damp. She scanned the space —Eron was straight ahead of her, and then Kier… Kier.

He was bound similarly, lying on his side, dressed only in trousers and boots. His face was slack and he was covered in blood—for an awful moment Grey feared he was dead, until he took a quick, rasping breath.

Judging by the bruising, she surmised that at least one of his ribs was broken.

Grey herself wore Kier’s shirt and her own shorts, and Kier was similarly attired in the loose trousers he’d gone to sleep in—their captors had not bothered with providing coats or blankets, even though the cold chilled her to the bone.

Always the healer, she surveyed, taking stock: Ola’s wound was ugly but hopefully not life-threatening; Eron was bleeding from his arm and had a black eye, but nothing further; Brit looked mostly fine besides a few scratches. She could not see the source of Kier’s wound, which was worrying—if he’d been kicked unconscious, there was the potential for a concussion or brain damage, and that was something she couldn’t stomach without some panic. But it was also possible that he was incapacitated by other means, and there was no way to know until she could see him up close.

For herself, the assessment was short: she’d been hit hard on the cheek by something, and she felt the hot, irritated swelling on the left side of her face. The breakbloom was heavy in her stomach and awful on her tongue, but she was otherwise all right. When she flexed her hands, she felt the crusted blood on them cracking, but she did not think it was her own.

She managed a look around their surroundings. There was a door in the corner, cloaked in gloom, with a knight on either side, standing guard

silently. A high window let light into the room, but it would be impossible to reach, and it was covered in bars anyway.

She looked at Ola. Ola looked back, as if she could read Grey’s mind, and shook her head. There was no way of escape. With the breakbloom on their tongues, none of them could tether—not that it would do Grey any good, with Kier unconscious.

Kier. She couldn’t stop looking at him, her terror growing.

She couldn’t say how long they sat bound in the dank, dark room. She tried to inch closer to Ola, to loosen the other well’s bindings, but they were all tied so tightly it was impossible; besides, when one of the soldiers near the door saw her moving, he came and kicked her in the ribs.

She suffered the blow and did not try again. She cursed herself for letting her guard down, for going to sleep with only one knife, for not waking when Kier was apparently wrenched from her. She’d never slept so soundly in her life—Kier’s arms around her must’ve lulled her into a false, deadly sense of security.

Some time later, he woke with a great exhalation and went straight to panic—it was agony to watch him, unable to move or speak words of comfort, though she tried to shuffle in his direction. When their eyes locked, she saw all the words he couldn’t say there and tried to make her expression as calm as possible. I’m alive, she thought at him uselessly. I’m alive and so are you, and though I cannot feel you, I can see you, and soon I will find a way… The door swung open, heavy wood hitting the wall. A retinue of guards entered, swords drawn, cautious. No surcoats. No crests. No way to tell which nation they fought for.

Enough guards streamed in for two to take each prisoner. Though she wanted to, Grey knew it was best not to fight, not yet; she could not guarantee that she could get everyone out safely if she did, and there was no point in getting killed for no reason. She did not resist as two of the guards grabbed her arms and hauled her down a stone hallway, toward a large atrium. She stumbled behind Ola, keeping tabs on Eron’s ragged breathing behind her, and she could only just feel Kier. She still could not tether, not with the gag soaked in breakbloom, but she could feel the blunt edges due to their binding, and the headache was easing ever so slightly.

She grappled with her well, waiting for the instant they removed the

gag, and found her power whole and sound. She gritted her teeth against the fabric. If anything went wrong… She remembered Severin gripping her hands. Then, he was nine years younger than she was now, and still so much braver.

In the atrium, they were shackled to the wall a few feet apart from one another. The guards were conversing now, in quiet tones—their accents sounded Luthrite, but she couldn’t be certain. She shifted her weight from leg to leg, trying to keep herself from going numb. The stone against her back was wet with rivulets of water, chilling her further.

She leaned her head back anyway—Kier was chained next to her, just out of reach. The side of his head she hadn’t been able to see was crusted with blood. He’d been hit by something—the hilt of a sword, she thought— and it looked like it hurt terribly.

If she could just tether to him, push some power into him, she could negate the worst effects—maybe put her hands on him, try to force a tether with contact, if that would keep him stable. But with the breakbloom on her tongue, she was absolutely useless.

A soldier walked into the room, dressed in armor. Not just anyone, Grey realized, taking in the embroidered sash he wore across his chest, over his breastplate and surcoat: a master at least, possibly a commander. She couldn’t remember how many Luthar had, nor why they would take them prisoner.

No. Not Luthar. Grey squinted. Though the commander’s crest was Eprainish, the guards that accompanied him wore a mix of Eprainish and Luthrite crests on their surcoats.

Eprain and Luthar were working together. She could not even begin to grasp the implications of that: if both turned on Scaela, using their combined forces… She was not sure if an alliance with Cleoc Strata was enough to save them from that.

The commander paused, taking them in. Grey felt her muscles tense without being told, a shakiness in her thighs, a catch in her breath. Kier glanced over, and she felt the useless pull of him, trying to tether to her power, unable to.

“And this,” the man said, his eyes scanning over them, “is the retinue that led the false Maryse of Locke across the country.”

They said nothing—they could say nothing, gagged as they were. But Grey took in Eron and Ola and Brit and Kier; perhaps they were fools for letting their guard down, for getting captured, but they were still broken and fierce and hers. She would die for every single one of them.

“Who is in charge of this operation?” the commander asked.

“The tall one, with the dark hair,” one of the soldiers said. Grey’s head snapped in his direction, immediately sending her headache flaring, but she recognized the man who’d spoken. Though he now wore Luthrite garb, she was almost certain he’d been at the ball the night before. Judging by the way the blood drained from Eron’s face, he must’ve recognized him, too.

She remembered how drunk Eron was when she and Kier had left the night before—if the other man was a spy, searching for information, she had no idea what Eron had given up.

She could only trust that, even incoherent, he knew to keep his knowledge close to his chest.

Beside her, Kier stood straight and tall—a remarkable thing, to look so leaderly when he was dressed only in trousers, dried blood brown on his skin—and raised his chin at a defiant angle. The commander nodded to one of his soldiers, who stepped forward with a blade. Grey made a noise despite herself, struggling to move toward him—but they only cut his gag.

It came away wet, and Kier spat a knot of thick blood out when they removed it. He had to have some other injury, something else that Grey

couldn’t see.

“And you are?” the commander asked.

But Kier only stared defiantly, insouciant to the last. Grey loved him with a fierce, unholy desperation—she wished, more than anything, that he could pull from her and decimate every person in this room.

After too long of Kier’s silence, the soldier from the party spoke up.

“That’s Captain Kier Seward, sir.”

“Seward.” The commander crossed his arms over his chest and stepped forward carefully. “What are you?”

No answer from Kier, and the soldier didn’t try to respond either. The commander’s mouth twitched into a smirk. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll do things your way.”

The guard next to Kier moved before Grey could react, before she could think, striking him square in the shoulder. Grey watched his quick, pained

breath; she gasped herself as his collarbone cracked. She made a noise that sounded like an animal caught in a trap—the commander’s eyes snapped to her immediately.

“You were the two found together,” he said, and Grey tried to focus as much hate as she could in her gaze. If only her gods had given her the ability to do something with her power, she would smite this man where he

stood.

“Who is she?”

It wasn’t like Grey could answer with the gag in her mouth anyway.

Kier, too, said nothing.

The commander sighed. “Bring in the prisoner,” he said over one shoulder. A few of the guards scurried away to follow his order. For a heartbeat, Grey panicked—had they found Sela, too? She thought it would be impossible to get past her guard, but… He paced the stretch of stones in front of them. “I’ll make this quick.

The girl you returned to Grislar was not Maryse of Locke, but you know that. What I know is that you managed to eviscerate an entire company of trained mages and wells without a single blade, which is, frankly, impossible. Unless one of you is a Locke.” He scanned their faces, lingering on each one. “So who is it?”

Grey tried to breathe and tasted only poison. It was a mistake—it had all been a mistake. They never should’ve taken this assignment. She and Kier shouldn’t have stayed the night. They should have left the second they handed Sela over, taken their papers and run.

The guards returned with another person between them, their head and face covered with a dark hood. They wore the plain clothes and padded shirt that went under armor, caked in mud and dried blood.

“So nice of you to join us,” the commander said placidly, as if the prisoner had come willingly and not been dragged out of a cell.

There was no response. One of the guards discarded the hood, revealing her face. Hand Master Mare Concord stood looking dazed, gagged like the rest of them. Grey heard Ola draw a quick breath.

Mecketer was attacked shortly after your departure. That was what Reggin had told them—and none of them had thought to ask for a casualty list, had thought to check if Concord or Attis, who knew their mission and route and the details of their arrival, were safe.

Mare took in the group in front of her, and it was like the fight went out of her: her knees sagged, and she would’ve dropped to the ground if it wasn’t for the guards holding her arms.

“Has she been drugged?” the commander asked.

“Yes,” one of the guards replied.

“Remove her gag.”

He cut it away, and Mare drew a heaving breath, her eyes tracing back and forth over the others with growing dread. They lingered for just a second on Grey before moving on. Her top lip was swollen and split, as was her left eyebrow. Grey surmised that she’d be a patchwork of bruises under her clothes: she’d clearly been beaten.

“Is this your retinue?” the commander asked.

“Yes,” Mare said, her voice raspy. Grey remembered her eyes, wild with fear, as she’d saved her from death years before.

“They have been… uncooperative. Would you do me the honor of naming those involved, and telling me their specialties?”

Mare licked her lips. She looked up and down the line. “I don’t know—”

“Don’t toy with me, Concord.”

“I’m not. I only know Seward and Flynn’s abilities. Captain Seward is an internal affinite.”

The commander looked at Kier for a long moment, eyebrows drawing together. “Internal. The report on our company stated that it was clean work that killed our men. Some kind of effect on the hearts, forcing all to cease beating. Does that sound familiar?”

“I cannot say,” Mare lied. The commander rolled his eyes and gestured to one of the guards, who hit her so hard that her head twisted. She coughed, spitting a tooth out onto the floor. When she looked up again, blood dripped down her chin. Grey forced herself to watch despite her growing panic. It was the least she could offer her.

“Yes,” Mare said weakly. “His specialty lies with the heart.”

“And Flynn?”

“His well.”

“On the end, sir,” the man from the party said, and Grey’s blood ran cold. Eron had not betrayed her, betrayed them, but now he would take the fall for her, and she could not stomach it. One of the soldiers grabbed Eron’s arm, following the gestures of the other, and pulled him forward.

“You’re Hand Captain Flynn?” the commander asked.

Without hesitation, Eron nodded. Grey could have killed them all. She fought against her restraints, against her gag, causing a scene. One of the soldiers moved closer, gripping her hair, pulling it back. She snarled and tried to knee him in the groin, but he punched her in the stomach. She saw a blaze of white and curled around the pain for one second, two, waiting for it

to pass.

“And who are you?”

“Officer Eron Fastria,” Kier said, the absolute bastard. “She’s a typic.”

With a raised brow, the commander nodded. Grey looked at Kier, desperate. He shook his head, just a fraction.

Don’t. She read the directive clear on his face, and more than anything she wanted to fight it, but she knew better. She knew what was at stake.

“Though this has been… enlightening, it is not what I’m here for.” The commander resumed his pacing, and Grey wanted, so badly, to kill him.

“Who is the Locke?”

Kier’s chin rose further, defiant. And the others… Though Grey glanced at them, not a single one looked at her. They all stared straight ahead, unreactive.

“Who is it?” he thundered, and Grey’s heart pounded. She saw the soldiers move on Kier but he shot her such a murderous look that she only stood there in shock and horror, damn her, as one moved on him, slashing forward. The side of Kier’s face that was already bloody ran red, and something wet fell to the floor—Grey couldn’t contain her sob when she saw it was part of his ear. And he… he only made a gruff noise, the shudder traveling through his body.

“If you do not hand Locke over to me,” the commander said carefully, “I will kill all of them and toss their bodies into the sea until one of them resurrects the Isle.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Kier said, his voice unsteady, a pain in the ass to the very end.

“I don’t care. I will do it anyway, and we will have no power at all.”

Grey tasted bile mingling with the breakbloom, and she could not breathe. And then Kier looked at her, so beautiful even with the blood, even though he was about to hurt her; and last night he’d whispered in her ear, You are going to ruin me.

He was right.

“The girl, this time,” the commander said, and the guards stepped steadily toward her. Grey braced for pain, but Kier moved—not far, not with his restraints, but he angled himself so he was just in front of her.

“Wait,” he said, his voice not quite his own—there was blood in it, and fear, and she reached uselessly for his tether. “Wait.”

The guards paused. She felt Ola looking at Kier, agony on her face, and then he straightened, wincing at the pain. Grey tried to lunge forward, to reach for him, to touch him in any way possible, but it was useless.

“It’s not Maryse you’re looking for,” he said.

Grey’s brain screeched to a halt. Mare’s face was absolutely unreadable.

The commander was almost lazy in his response, crossing his arms over his chest, moving closer to Kier as if to demonstrate that he did not fear him. “Oh?”

The legacy of Locke is blood and betrayal.

Grey sucked in a breath, tasting blood and poison. She didn’t know— she didn’t know how she knew, but she could hear the words Kier was forming before he said them; she could feel the swell of apology through the weak, slippery tether as she tried to force through the effects of the breakbloom to no avail. Don’t do this, she wanted to scream at him, but all that came through the gag was a muddled moan. Do not do this to me.

“It’s me,” Kier said, calm and measured. “I’m Severin, Heir to the Well, Lord of Locke, First Mage of the Isle. I’m the only survivor of the Isle’s downfall.”

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Your mother is not well. She sits in the garden for hours, under the tree where he lies. Imarta and I have tried everything, but she is inconsolable.

The dirt is still a black spot on the lawn, as if nothing will ever grow there again.

Please, Kier. If you’ve ever listened to me at all, listen now: come home. I cannot bury both of you.

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

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