The Second Death of Locke — Chapter no 22

twenty-two

LA INSISTED GREY WASH her face before the meeting with the High Lord,O because it was not meet for the High Lady of a nation to present herself while crusted in old blood, so she washed her face. She also brushed and braided her hair, but there was nothing that could be done about the angry bruise around her eye, or her split lip. She dressed in clean clothes offered to her shyly by one of the younger guards, and let Ola fuss over her with salves as Brit and Eron watched. Ola undid all her work on the braid and arranged her hair so it fell over her shoulders (“It brings out the flecks of brown in your eyes, and besides, you look more like a lady and less like a soldier like that,” which was something Grey couldn’t argue with). At least it hid some of the bruising.

“You have to look impressive,” Ola said, pacing back and forth across the small office they were installed in.

“I just have to look like me,” Grey said. “Like… my mother’s daughter.

My father’s.”

“And that will be easy?”

Grey thought of the way Scaelas kept peering at her the other night at dinner, and her belly clenched with the pain of an old familiar wound.

“Yes,” she said.

She was acutely aware that every moment they spent doing this was another moment Kier was imprisoned, or worse. They were in one of the tower offices, reserved for high-ranking officials visiting Grislar, and she felt her gaze going to the sea more often than not, searching for a boat in the distant expanse of the bay.

To her surprise, when the door opened, it was not only Scaelas and his

guard. Cleoc accompanied him, Sela on her arm.

Sela would speak the truth, and they would have to believe her. And though their beginning was rocky, Grey knew Sela would want to save Kier.

“Hand Captain Flynn,” Scaelas said as the combined guard filtered in, filing along the wall, the door shutting behind them. Cleoc moved easily to sit in an armchair by the fire, Sela standing at her side. Scaelas himself stayed in the middle of the room, dressed more simply today in a finely cut tunic with a waistcoat, breeches and boots. A single gem shone in his ear.

On his left hand he wore the heavy gold ring of state. “I was told you have an urgent matter to discuss.”

Someone must’ve informed him about Grey and Eron’s switch, or maybe he just knew. When he looked, he looked at her.

“Where’s Kier?” Sela asked, glancing around.

Grey stood. She looked at the High Lord. Vearn Torrin was his name, before he was Scaelas, before he had a nation under him; according to Grey’s father, he hadn’t gone by Vearn since he was in the nursery.

She had a speech ready on her lips, rehearsed with the others when they were alone, but now that he stood in front of her, the words fled. She looked at him, seeing his red hair and beard, remembering his hand in hers when

she was barely up to his knee.

“I didn’t want you to find me.”

Silence stretched over the room. Torrin staggered back as though she’d struck him. “I…”

She squeezed her hands into fists, nails biting into her palms. Her voice was tight in her throat, raw and painful. She felt the burr of her old accent, her true accent, slipping in, as it always did when she was upset, like she couldn’t hold the lilting Scaelan vowels on her tongue. “After. When the smoke was still in the air. They say you searched for nearly a year for any sign of survivors, but I didn’t want you looking for me. Severin told me not to, because there was no way we could be certain you’d keep me safe.”

His hand went to his chest, resting over his heart, as if she’d dealt him a fatal blow. He searched her face.

“I would have,” he said. “I would’ve done anything in my power.”

Grey held her ground. “You couldn’t guarantee it.”

“Alma,” he said finally, the pain flickering on his brow so quickly she nearly missed it. “You look so much like Alma. But you have Isaak’s eyes.”

Grey did not allow her gaze to soften.

Torrin took one step forward, then another. Hesitantly, waiting for permission, he reached out. Grey inclined her head. He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and gently moved her head so he could see the uninjured side of her face, then again, to study her bruise. She felt the rough fingers against her skin, his hands scarred with battle. He himself had been a soldier once, she knew—he’d fought in the wars, for the first decade; before his reign, he’d been in his father’s army, alongside Grey’s own father, before Isaak was married to Locke.

“Someone has harmed you,” he said quietly.

“Not for the first time,” Grey said.

He tilted her head back to face him straight-on. “I did look for you, at first,” he said. “And then the letter—” He drew a breath. “The letter. It was

you, wasn’t it?”

No hesitation. “Yes.”

He glanced away, at the window behind her head. “Grey…” he murmured, looking at nothing. “Of course, it’s just another nickname.”

“Maryse would’ve been too obvious,” Grey said. “Gremaryse was

impossible.”

“And Flynn?”

Grey pulled back. Torrin’s hand fell, fingers twitching. She crossed her arms over her chest. “I was fostered by a widow, on the coast.”

“You were here, in Scaela, the entire time?”

She looked at him, her High Lord, the only person alive who remotely resembled family. “I have served you as a well and sword for eight years now,” she said. “I have marched under your banner—and nearly died under it more than once.”

He stepped back. “And now you come to me as a nation. Not as my goddaughter, I presume.”

Grey nodded slowly, ignoring the muttering from the guards in the background. There was no sound from Cleoc, no change; Grey wondered if Sela had already told her, or more accurately, if she had heard Sela’s stories about their travels and guessed at the truth herself.

“I need your help,” Grey said.

In an upper room, they waited while Scaelas and Cleoc spoke to their necessary counselors. Grey, with no counsel of her own, kept an eye on the clock. Every second that passed could mean the end of Kier. She sat at a desk facing the window, writing two lists. The first was the names of those she trusted, those she knew she could rely on. Not all of them were physically close, which was an issue, but when she was back, and when she had Kier… The second list was her demands.

Behind her, Eron said, “Attis is accounted for.” He was skimming through the casualty reports from Mecketer, recently delivered at Grey’s request, searching for anyone else they knew who was missing or dead.

Grey swallowed hard, her pen pausing, remembering the spread of Mare’s blood. “Is she still at Mecketer?”

“I don’t know. We’ll need to ask.”

She had no loyalty to Klara Attis, but she could not imagine not being there if something happened to Kier. She would at least check in on the mage, at least tell her how her Hand had died.

Ola and Sela sat at a desk next to her, muttering over sketches. Grey did not have the mental capacity to understand what they were doing until Sela said, “Grey, stand up,” and withdrew a length of measuring tape from somewhere on her person. Grey blinked up at her, bewildered.

She’d been surprised that Cleoc had allowed Sela to retire here, to this upper room, where Brit and Ola and Eron restlessly followed Grey’s instructions as she tried to attempt to be the leader of a nation. But Sela had said, “Ma, they kept me alive for weeks,” so her mother had no choice, on the caveat that Sela brought a duo of guards to stand outside the door.

Grey regretted letting the girl join as Sela dragged her bodily out of her chair and pulled off her jacket. She announced measurements to Ola, who dutifully recorded them as Eron and Brit looked on. They all had work to be doing—Scaelas had provided Brit with a list of armory overages, with instructions for them to mark down what they could possibly use to outfit Locke; and before the casualty lists arrived, Eron was working out how many borrowed soldiers they would need to get Kier back, theorizing strategy with Grey when she was able to respond to him. Both were stationed by the window further down the room, where they could see the Bay of Locke clearly, watching for an enemy ship in case Luthar or Eprain moved early.

“What is all this?” Grey asked, allowing herself to be prodded.

“I’ve ordered you clothing,” Sela said. “A gift for your new position.”

“Thank you,” Grey said quickly, “but doesn’t that feel… trivial?” She did not bring up the fact that it felt trivial because Kier was gone and he could be killed at any moment, and her nerves felt gnawed to the quick, because Sela already knew all of that; she probably also saw the growing panic on Grey’s face the longer she was away from her task, her distractions.

Grey bounced up and down on the balls of her feet. Sela put her hands heavily on her shoulders to still her, like Grey was the child. “You must look the part,” she said.

“I don’t even know what the Lady of Locke is meant to look like,” Grey said.

“You’re the only one who does know,” Sela said, “but I can hazard a guess.” She removed her hands and wrapped the measuring tape back up.

“I’ve had Scaelas provide a list of tailors—I’ll have at least half a wardrobe for you by daybreak. A shame we’re not in Isidar—that’s the capitol of Cleoc Strata, you know—”

“We do,” Ola muttered, “as we are not uncultured swine.”

“—because I could certainly have a full wardrobe made for you overnight there,” Sela finished, barely missing a beat. She looked at Grey, the flicker in her eyes making something odd and vulnerable twist in her gut. “Besides keeping me alive, you gave me time when you didn’t have to.

I owe you for that.”

Grey took a shuddering breath. Maybe that was what it meant to be the High Lady of Locke. What it took. Time, when she didn’t need to, when it meant more to someone else than to her.

Kier, she thought, a little desperately. If only we get more of it. The tether ached within her, dormant and still, but at least she could feel its

presence.

Time, and a bit of ruthlessness.

“Sela,” she said, reaching to grab the girl’s hand. “Promise me you won’t come with us. You’re welcome on Locke, but only when it’s safe.”

Sela shrugged. “I can only do what I’m told.”

A knock sounded on the door. They all jumped, too uneasy for this. Grey fussed, her hand instantly going to check her braids, but her hair was still

down, and she only managed to hit herself on the bruised side of her face.

The others were looking at her. In a voice she hoped was chilly and regal, she said, “Come in.”

It was one of the High Lord’s house guard, one he’d brought with him from the capital. “You have been requested, your highness,” he said with perfect formality. Grey sucked in a breath, her hand gripping Sela’s for the barest second.

“Thank you,” she said. She looked back at the others. “Can I bring my

guard?”

Ola raised an eyebrow.

“Of course,” the man said. “I will wait to escort you, if you would like to finish your business, your highness.”

Grey nodded, letting the door shut behind him, and released her breath.

“I don’t mean it like—”

“No,” Ola said quickly, “but you should have a guard.” She looked at Eron and Brit, something passing between them. “And it makes sense, for now, as long as you’re okay with it, that it should be us.”

Grey looked down at her hands, chipped nails, scarred from battles long since past. Who was she to think she could be sovereign? Could have a guard?

She ached for Kier. Longed for him in a space beyond thought, beyond words. It caught her every time she had one of these thoughts, every time she found herself needing counsel, or just someone else to tell her that she was not utterly ruining her namesake.

“I’ll have you,” she said, “if you’ll have me.”

A hand gripped hers. She looked to find Ola there, sure as always, biting as always.

“We had you as our captain,” she said. “It would be an honor to have you as our lady.”

“Okay,” Grey said. She took a second, forced herself to remain calm.

“Okay.”

With nothing left to discuss, they went out into the hall and followed the guard down the stone passageways and stairs. Grey walked with Sela, the others falling behind like shadows, in the same way Grey was taught to orbit Kier.

They arrived downstairs to a small, well-appointed meeting room

dominated by a large table. It was one of the council chambers, Grey thought, based on the anteroom, which acted as a holding area for guests until they were admitted. Cleoc and Scaelas were already seated in the chamber beyond, a small retainer of guards blending into the shadows between each of them. The rest of their counselors had been dismissed— perhaps, Grey surmised, the other rulers were not quite ready to reveal Grey as Locke. She had seen herself in the mirror lately; she understood.

Sela nodded once to Grey and took the seat next to her mother. Though Grey was at rest and content to stand, Eron pulled out a chair to the other hand of Scaelas. He did something with his eyebrows, probably a reminder that she was now publicly the Lady of Locke, and she would have less trouble if she acted like it.

She sat and allowed him to adjust her chair, and did not look behind her as Eron, Ola and Brit faded like the other guards. It was a comfort to have them behind her, to hear their familiar breathing.

Cleoc regarded her with open curiosity. Here, unmasked, she was Locke uncontested. She folded her hands in front of her on the table, conscious of her lack of finishing; that she was battle-made and bruised and nothing like a High Lady should be.

In another world, she would’ve been raised to live up to her title. Once she was fully grown, it would’ve been announced that she was the heir instead of Severin; in the tradition of Locke, he would have then been able to leave the Isle, if he chose. Until that time, she would’ve been shaped by her parents into something hard as iron. She would’ve traveled, maybe— perhaps been trained for a year in Lindan, like Sela, or one of the other nations on the continent. Probably not, though, since Locke tended to keep to itself. But she would’ve been taught diplomacy and respectful negotiation and the means of survival in enemy courts. She would’ve learned the words to say, the expressions to make.

But Alma and Isaak were dead, and had been for sixteen years, long enough that Grey had learned very few lessons. She clung to the ones she had, the ones she remembered, squaring her shoulders and sitting ramrod straight like her mother always used to.

“You must know I believe you,” Scaelas said finally, breaking the silence. “I’m just not certain how to convince my council.”

“You’ve already taken a risk on an imposter,” Grey said. “At least this

time you’d be correct.”

He inclined his head, allowing that.

She looked between Scaelas and Cleoc. “What did you decide, then?”

“Why do you need to recover Captain Seward?” Cleoc asked.

Grey searched for a way to explain her relationship with Kier. “He is my mage, your majesty.” She felt the tether inside of her, limp but there. She felt with an iron certainty that he was not dead. Harmed, maybe, but at least he was alive, and if he was alive, then she could still save him.

“Mages are replaceable,” Cleoc said, her finger dancing up and down the line of the pen in front of her. Grey did not know if Cleoc was a mage or well herself. Most of the sovereigns hid that information as if it was a weakness.

“It is non-negotiable. If you unite with me, you have me—and Locke, restored in full power—as your ally. Surely that is enough to entice you, even if you don’t believe me fully. I will keep my word.”

“You’re asking both of us to engage in open warfare with Luthar and potentially Eprain, if you are correct about their recent alliance,” Scaelas said, not meeting her eye. “Along with any outside allies they may have.”

“You’re already at war with both Luthar and Eprain.”

“I am not at war with Luthar,” Cleoc said. “And tensions with Eprain are easing. Why would I endanger my nation, again, for your mage?”

Grey turned toward her. Cleoc wanted a confession, she could tell—she wanted to see Grey’s weakness. She felt that simmering anger inside herself. She didn’t want to proclaim her love for Kier to them, because it was hers and she was not willing for it to be a bargaining chip. She wanted to hold that love deep and protected in her chest, keep it where no one could see it or hear it or feel it, and protect Kier in the same way.

“He is my mage,” she said again. “I know the old meaning of that does not persist on the mainland, but I am Locke, and it matters to me.”

Scaelas’s eyes snapped to hers. Before he could say anything, Cleoc said, “You cannot be both Hand and High Lady, loyal to your mage and your nation. There must be a choice there. It is easier to make it now.”

Grey stood, her feet moving before she had even fully made the decision to do so. “If you refuse to do this, allow me to make things easier: I will not negotiate and there is no need for me to prove myself. Either you lend your forces and assist in the rescue of Captain Seward, or you do not. Either you

unite with the nation of Locke and reap the benefits, or you do not. I cannot make that choice for you, but I will not stand here and listen to such distrust and doubt.”

“Hold on, Locke,” Torrin said wearily. “That’s not… that’s not what we mean. We have our nations to think about.”

“And I have mine,” Grey said.

“Then help us to help you,” Cleoc said. “Give us a reason.”

She did not sit. Torrin looked at her, a strange expression on his face, until he said finally, “Cleoc, if you will permit, I’d like to dismiss my guard and yours. Everyone in this room apart from the three of us.”

“Grey…” Ola started immediately.

“We have more to lose if she deigns to murder us in your absence,” he said, devoid of humor. He turned his attention back to Cleoc, quirking a brow. After a pause, a weighted moment, Cleoc inclined her head and waved a hand. Her guard shifted, looking uneasy, but they filed out with the Scaelans and Grey’s own retinue. When Sela did not move, Torrin looked at

Cleoc. “Your daughter?”

“I am—”

“Go, love,” Cleoc said, squeezing her hand. Frowning, lodging a lingering glance at Grey, Sela went out after Ola.

Grey sat back down. The three of them were silent for a long moment, all eying one another, until Scaelas spoke.

“You and your mage are very powerful.”

Grey looked at him coolly. “I am Locke,” she said. “You did not have to dismiss our guards to tell me this.”

“That was what I thought, until today.” Scaelas spoke slowly. “But another idea has occurred to me: that you are bound. I hope I am wrong, because surely, as Locke, you know the risks.”

Grey went very still. If Torrin was going to punish her for binding, scold her like a child, she was prepared to remind him that it would be overstepping on his part. She was no longer a Scaelan soldier, no longer within his control. There were no restrictions on binding on Locke itself.

“I don’t see why it matters.”

Torrin winced. “So you do not deny it?”

“No,” she said, without hesitation. “I am bound to Captain Seward.” It was a relief to speak the words so openly, to claim them. To claim Kier.

“Maryse,” Torrin said, his eyes slipping shut. “You didn’t.”

“Can she not bind? She is Locke,” Cleoc said, looking between them.

“Don’t speak to me as if I’m your child,” Grey said, her tone colder than she intended, but still not cold enough to encompass her emotions.

Torrin rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We have a conundrum,” he said, meeting Cleoc’s gaze in a way that Grey did not like. “Whoever controls Locke controls power. Of course, when we thought Seward was just a mage, it did not matter if he was being sacrificed to resurrect the Isle. If they had him try to call it back from the sea, it would be unsuccessful.”

Grey winced. It did matter, but not for the reasons Torrin meant. “It will be unsuccessful,” she said. “Kier is not a Locke. He doesn’t have the blood.”

“Ah, but that is where you are wrong,” Torrin said. Grey looked with alarm at Cleoc, but she looked just as confused as Grey herself felt, her lips pressed into a thin, grim line. “When you bind to a mage, as a Locke, they take your power as their own. He is the blood of your blood now; you and he are one in a complete exchange of power. That is the way of the Isle, Maryse. Binding is a sacred act, a union even stronger than marriage.”

True names are for Hands and husbands.

Grey’s heart thundered too loud in her ears. What else did she not know about her own nation’s rites? “So Kier…”

Torrin nodded. “Kier is now a Locke himself, and has just as much claim to the Isle as you do. He doesn’t need you. If he discovered the means to bring back the Isle, call it forth, Locke would rise to his command— granting Eprain and Luthar the Isle restored, and all power therein.”

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Over the years, I have managed to learn something about our opponents.

Nestria fight because they have to, but they would rather return to their ballrooms and parties. Cleoc Strata is just as vicious as its lady is rumored to be. Luthar is cunning, twisting our strategies into dust. And Eprain would rather poison you before battle than meet you on the field. Yet we are caught in the middle of them, forced to fight them all.

Journal of Hand Master Mare Concord, 7 years PD

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