The Second Death of Locke — Chapter no 23

twenty-three

CAELAS AND CLEOC, WORKING together after realizing the ruinousS possibilities of the situation they found themselves in, decided the best course of action was to blast the entire business wide open. Grey helped as much as she could as they wrote to the sovereigns of the other three nations, urging them to come together to discuss the unfolding situation surrounding Locke. The letters to Luthar and Eprain were, as Grey surmised, diplomatically threatening.

After the missives were sent, Scaelas himself walked Grey to a room in the imperial wing of his fortress. Night had already fallen. She felt the ache of the day on her, the lack of sleep from the night before catching up. Ola, Brit and Eron were already sleeping in rooms near hers; Scaelas left his own guard to watch them overnight.

In the hall, Grey hesitated. She didn’t know when she would next have the High Lord alone—she figured it was a rare occurrence.

“Why did you send that letter?” Torrin asked. “Claiming Severin survived.”

There was no reason to keep it from him, not anymore. “I was afraid,” she said. “I was only a girl. The soldiers you sent to look were not kind or gentle. I didn’t want you to find me.”

“Ah,” Torrin said, so quiet she barely heard.

“What do you know about the Isle’s death?” Grey asked, since he had opened up the door to questions.

To her surprise, he answered immediately. “Your father,” he said. “He told me about the Isle’s failsafe. He wasn’t even supposed to know—it is the way of the Isle’s sovereigns to keep their own secrets, even in marriage.

But your mother loved your father—probably in spite of her upbringing.”

Grey pretended to be very interested in the stitches of the tapestry hanging on the wall near her rooms, running her fingers over the edge of the fabric. “I know she did,” she said. “And he loved her too.”

“More than life itself,” Torrin agreed. “I never understood it—don’t get me wrong, Maryse. I, too, adored your mother, when I got to know her, but I did it with a heavy measure of fear. She was a striking woman. She had this look, and when she turned it on you—well. One would wish they were dead rather than being on the receiving end of that look.”

“I remember,” Grey said; she herself had been on the receiving end of that look more than once. “But he made her smile. She was always laughing, in private, when they were together.”

“Some would call that a weakness.”

Grey shrugged; she wouldn’t. “But the failsafe,” she said. She could not stand here talking about the love her parents once had for one another, remembering all the ways that love had led to their deaths.

“Yes,” Torrin said. He nodded to her room. They stepped inside, and he locked the door behind them. He went to the fire, burning with light violet flame, a static working from some unknown mage, and leaned against the mantel, staring into the flames. “We were drinking together, late into the night, one evening when he came to visit—we did that more than I should admit, when we were reunited—and your mother had already retired for the night. Severin was just a boy; I don’t remember if you were even born then.

“It’s a protection from the Isle’s gods. The risk of power is that it is coveted. It was understood that someday, others might turn on the Isle and all it stood for, so when each child in the direct line came of age, they were told the truth. If the Isle was ever set upon, if all hope was lost, there was a choice: the line could continue if all others died to save one. If they gave their lives, both their power and their magic, the one with the best chance of saving the line would survive.”

Grey stumbled back, her back hitting the poster of the bed. She had suspected as much, but she thought it had only been Severin who had given

his life.

“All of them,” she said.

“Everyone on the Isle,” Torrin said quietly, “died so you could live.”

She crossed her arms over her stomach as if there was any way possible

to hold herself together.

“Do you wish it was him? After all this time, do you wish it was Severin who had lived?”

Torrin looked at her aghast. “Gods, Maryse,” he said. “How could you even ask me that?”

She didn’t know. She couldn’t speak. Some days, she herself wished it had been Severin who had lived instead.

Torrin crossed the room, taking her hand in his. He was tall, taller than her father had been, and broader in the shoulder, but there was something about him and his bearing that made her thoughts turn to Isaak the second she looked at him.

“I will do everything in my power,” he said, “to make it up to you.”

“Do you know,” Grey asked, leaning forward despite herself, “how to bring it back? How to resurrect the Isle?”

He sighed, his eyes flickering shut. He stepped back. “I don’t,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

Grey nodded, trying to ignore the acid in her stomach. He wouldn’t have known, she’d suspected, but that hadn’t stopped her from hoping someone else held the answers for once.

“I should have forgotten that letter. I should’ve kept looking,” Torrin said.

Grey looked up at him. She had spent years of her life wishing she’d heard those words, but now that she did, they were empty. “You should’ve,” she agreed. Except if he had, she never would’ve stayed with Kier. She looked away, swallowing down the lump that threatened her. “You will tell me the minute you hear back?”

“Yes,” he said. “And I will trust Cleoc for your benefit, though it makes me uneasy. We will do everything in our power to find him.”

Grey nodded. They had no other choice.

He took leave of her and she shut the door behind him. Though she was exhausted, she forced herself to bathe, to wash away the remaining grime and to apply more salves and ointments on her cuts and bruises. The one on her stomach was particularly nasty; her face looked worse than it felt. Once she was clean, she braided her hair and pulled on a nightdress someone had left for her, and let herself slip away to sleep.

That night, when she dreamed of the death of Locke, it was Kier’s hands

that held hers as the power rushed between them. Kier’s bruises on her skin.

Kier’s body destroyed when the world exploded.

It was still dark when she woke to someone shaking her. She blinked up wearily to find Brit’s form over her. They were already dressed, a magelight

glowing blue between their fingers.

“Wake up. There’s news.”

She hurried to dress, leaving her hair in its braid. Outside her door, Ola waited—“Letting Eron sleep, though he might kill us for it,” she said through a grimace—and the three of them followed two of Scaelas’s guards to a bigger council chamber than the one from the day before. There, Cleoc and Scaelas waited with their commanders and a number of other high- ranking officials. Grey wished, too late, that she had rebraided her hair.

“We’ve had news?” she said, accepting the bitter, dark coffee someone offered her. She glanced at a clock on the wall. It was just past four in the morning.

“Epras and Luthos have agreed to meet,” Cleoc said. “You are right.

They have allied.”

“And Nestria?”

“They remain silent, thus far.”

Grey nodded. She felt the eyes of the other knights on her; she could basically taste the confusion coming from Commander Reggin and his Hand. A few eyes widened when one of Cleoc’s guards pulled out a chair and Grey slipped into it, as if they were expecting Ola or Brit to claim the seat. Perhaps, Grey thought darkly, it was because both looked older, and had brushed their hair, and did not have a bruise covering half of their faces.

“We are to meet Eprain, Luthar and an ambassador from the continent in two hours’ time,” Scaelas said. “We have patrols on the sea, in case they attempt to do anything beforehand, and we have petitioned for the release of Captain Seward.”

Grey blanched. They often petitioned for the release of soldiers taken prisoner outside of the allowable context: more often than not, they were returned dead. And if Kier was killed for naught—if Kier was killed at all… she would raze the entire island. She would swallow it all with the sea in the depths of her grief.

“If I may, my lord?” Commander Reggin started. Scaelas inclined his head. “Your highness,” Reggin said, turning to Grey. He said the title like it burned his tongue, but he continued all the same. “We have arranged two companies from Scaela and have accepted two more from Cleoc Strata.

These soldiers will accompany the High Lord and Cleoc as they negotiate

the release of Captain Seward.”

Grey glanced over at Torrin. “And I…?”

“You will remain behind our forces, in the fortress and safe,” Torrin said firmly.

Grey scoffed. “I have been in your forces for nearly a decade, and I have not died yet.”

“You will not risk yourself,” Torrin said, acting again like her father. If he was trying to make up for sixteen years of lost time, this was not the way to do it.

Grey felt Ola’s hand heavy on her shoulder. Fingers dug into her flesh.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “If you are meeting, I need to be there. If you are discussing my future, I need to hear it.”

“She has a point, Scaelas,” Cleoc said mildly.

“I will not reveal you as Locke,” Torrin said firmly. “Not when they would accept Seward’s death and leave you safe.”

Grey could not allow herself to think about the possibility. “Then don’t,” she said. “Take me as your own guard. I will stand behind you and listen,

but I will be there.”

“I cannot allow—”

“That is an acceptable compromise,” Cleoc said, sitting back in her chair, her gaze on Torrin cooling by the minute. “And if he refuses to armor you, Locke, you may act as one of my guards.”

Torrin looked between the two of them, clearly furious, trying his best to tamp it down. It took all of Grey’s focus not to smile sweetly at him.

“Then it is settled,” he said, shrugging. “You will come, but not alone.

Select one of your guard to accompany you.” He nodded to Reggin, signaling for him to resume his explanation of troop movements on the

map.

“It is settled,” Grey agreed.

An hour later, Grey and Eron were lined up with the rest of Scaelas’s guard, marching off to the meeting. Brit and Ola had protested, each volunteering in turn to accompany her, but if one of them perished, she could not imagine being responsible for splitting the pairing. For his part, Eron understood, reaching to squeeze her hand after the other two had stomped off to sulk.

With Grey’s hair up and braided around her head, and dressed in Scaelan armor, she looked like any other guard. She felt the comfort of armor settling over her, the weight of it as familiar to her as the feeling of her own power.

Despite her anxiety, she had to appreciate the beauty of the coast as they rode to the meeting point. This close to Luthar, there were no beaches; the rolling hills went all the way to the cliffs, which fell away into the sea below. When she and Kier were children, Lot would take them to similar cliffs, and they’d take turns jumping into the waiting arms of the ocean below. When Imarta found out, she boxed all of their ears for making her panic, but she did not tell the boys’ mothers.

“Gremaryse.”

She was brought out of her thoughts by Scaelas’s voice, and looked up to realize he had fallen back, riding next to her. He, too, wore armor, but no helm. His own crest was embroidered in gold.

“Have you come to scold me more?” Grey asked. Eron, glancing over, slowed to give them privacy.

Torrin looked at her, frowning. “I will not pretend,” he said. “If I had my way, you would be locked in a tower until we figured out the safest way to do this.”

“You could try to keep me locked up, but you would fail.”

“You know,” he said, “your father would not remain in a locked tower, either.”

Grey chewed her lip. She wasn’t sure how he could bear it, talking about them like this, without the grief swallowing him whole.

“When he died,” Torrin said, “I did not think I would make it. That first day, when the smoke hung heavy, I was certain— Well. We had not tethered in almost two decades, not since he was married and bound to your mother.

But somehow, still, I knew.”

Grey forced through the panic rising in her chest. “Are you telling me

this because you think Kier is as good as dead?”

“I’m telling you this because I care about you.”

“You barely know me.”

He looked at her evenly. “Does it matter?” he asked. “Maybe that is true, or maybe I know you better than you could ever imagine, because you are their daughter, and you are just as fearsome as they could ever hope you to be.”

She couldn’t go into this thinking of her parents and all the ways they never knew her. A beat of silence passed between them. Grey looked up ahead, catching sight of Cleoc, riding straight and tall among her guard. She wondered if she herself would ever emulate that instead of battle-worn stubbornness.

Finally, Torrin sighed. “Do you promise to run at the first sign of trouble?”

“Absolutely not,” Grey said. “Not without Kier.”

“I worried you would say that.” Torrin glanced at her sidelong. “You’re going to try to save him, aren’t you?”

Grey looked at him evenly. “I will do anything in my power to save him,” she said. “I’m sorry, Torrin. I know it makes me sound young, or impulsive—I can’t say I make a level ally. But if I had to choose between Kier and this whole sodding nation, I would always choose Kier.”

Torrin frowned. “Well then,” he said. “Whatever you do, I ask that you do it sensibly. I have already lost so many to this war, Maryse. And I ask that whatever you do, you don’t do it alone.”

“You won’t try to stop me? If I try to save him? If I do something foolish?”

He snorted. “If you’re anything like your mother, I don’t see the point in trying.” He glanced up the column. “Just do me a favor and don’t tell Cleoc.

It would be best if she only thinks you are a bad ally, and we leave me out

of it.”

“I can do that,” Grey agreed.

They rode in silence for a few minutes longer, Grey’s thoughts swimming with possibilities, with plans. As they crested the last rise, Torrin turned back to her. “You matter more than your power, Maryse. I beg you to keep that in mind.”

Grey nodded, and did not say that she did not matter more than Kier. As

they came over the hill, she could see the grassy area set up for the meeting.

A murmur went through the guard as they spotted what lay beyond: Luthar and Eprain had brought nearly double the army of Cleoc and Scaelas.

“My lord,” one of the commander’s squires said, riding close to Scaelas.

“Shall we call for reinforcements?”

Torrin stood in his stirrups, surveying the mass of Eprainish and Luthrite forces. He swore profusely—then sighed. “No,” he said. “At the first sign of skirmish, call for a retreat. I will not let this dissolve into yet another pointless battle.” He glanced over at Grey, lips pressed together, and nodded.

The party of Scaelas, Cleoc, and their assorted guard split off from the soldiers and rode toward a small grouping in the middle of the field. Scaelas rode ahead, catching up with his guard, and Eron fell back in with Grey. It was a peaceful meeting—for now. At the first sign of harm, of attack by steel or magic, the guard was trained to surround the High Lord and get him to safety.

Grey surveyed the knot of people, her heart in her throat. There were about a dozen, all mounted—except for one. He stood between two riders— Grey thought it must be Epras and Luthos, unhelmed like Scaelas and Cleoc —dressed in all black. As they rode closer, she drank in the sight of him, the familiar bearing of his body, the wind rippling through his hair. One of his arms was in a sling, probably due to his broken collarbone, so at least he’d seen a healer. Next to her, Eron sighed in relief.

Kier.

She reached for the tether, struggling for any thread of him. She felt nothing, so he was still drugged. If they didn’t have breakbloom on his person—and drugs were forbidden within the shield of a diplomatic meeting, so he must have been dosed beforehand—it would be at least twenty minutes, maybe more, before she’d be able to tether.

“He’s alive,” she said, her throat tight.

“Of course he is,” Eron said, as if he had never doubted at all. He glanced over, offering her a crooked half-smile.

It took all of Grey’s will to fall into line a few paces behind Scaelas with the rest of his guard; all she wanted was to race ahead, grab Kier and run from this place. He wore no armor, unlike Epras and Luthos, and carried no weapons.

He glanced up as Scaelas and Cleoc approached, something flickering on his face—and then he looked at the line behind the sovereigns, and his eyes lit on Grey.

She reached out, but she could not tether. Kier took a half-step forward before he remembered himself. Imperceptibly, he shook his head, grimacing.

“Luthos,” Cleoc said, nodding to the shorter of the two men. He had hair black as pitch and slouched in his saddle. “Epras.” Epras sat straighter, his horse dancing under him. “Locke.” She did not reveal a thing as she greeted Kier. “You could have saved us a lot of trouble if we had spoken of this the other night, on different terms.”

It was a scolding, Grey knew, that was meant for her.

Kier shrugged with his good shoulder.

“It has been too long since we met like this,” Cleoc continued. “Since we spoke sensibly and peacefully.”

“I have no interest in your speeches,” Luthos said shortly.

“Then present your terms,” Torrin said, “and we can move on.”

Luthos and Epras exchanged a glance, and Grey was not sure what to read in it. She glanced at Kier again, but he was staring at the ground at her feet, his face unchanged. She reached for him with a tether, as if she could push all effects of the drug away with the force of her mind alone. She kept her hand resting lightly on the pommel of her sword, not quite able to calm her racing heart.

“We have found and recovered Severin, the lost heir to Locke,” Epras said. “As such, the High Lord shall restore his Isle, take a consort from my court and continue the line of Locke in the name of Epras.”

Torrin looked at Luthos—who was much younger than the other sovereign, Grey remembered, only a few years into his reign. “And you agreed to this?” he asked, incredulous. “You allied with Epras, and yet will allow him to seize control of power?”

“Epras is capable of seeing reason,” Luthos said flatly. “Unlike others.”

“All those years, and the heir was right under your nose,” Epras said, his tone dripping with contempt. “All those years, and the power could’ve been yours.”

“It was never the power I wanted,” Torrin said.

“Gentlemen,” Cleoc cut in. She turned her gaze to Epras. “It is not your

role to rule Locke. He may be your prisoner now, but what happens if he kills your bride? Controlling power is not so easy.”

“Not if he’s bound to his bride,” Epras said, “as is the Isle’s custom.”

Cleoc sighed. Grey tried again for a tether, forcing through the fog of the breakbloom that clouded Kier’s system. Nothing.

“It looks like you have made up your mind, then,” Cleoc said. “Locke shall be restored, and Epras shall rule. But I will raze your Isle. I will kill your bride. I will destroy everything you create, Epras.”

Cleoc had never reminded Grey so much of her own mother. Not for the first time, she wondered if this was what the throne did to women like them.

“Then I will remove your power,” Epras said.

Cleoc raised an eyebrow. “How do you intend to do that?”

“Because,” Epras said, leaning forward, his smile poisonous, “I shall control Locke.”

“I believe we’re getting off topic,” Kier said quietly. “My lord, my lady, I have agreed to marry Epras’s choice and name her my consort. I have agreed to restore the Isle. But I will do it only on the understanding that the fighting will cease and the united council will re-form.” He looked utterly resigned to his fate. “There is no reason for the death to continue.”

“And you will restore power equally?” Scaelas asked.

A pause. “I will equip Epras and Luthos with a renewal of power,” Kier said, “since they have rescued me and restored me.”

Cleoc and Scaelas exchanged a glance. Grey drew a breath—so this was what they wanted. It was in Locke’s power to distribute wells unevenly; because Grey’s father had been Scaelan and their alliance was strongest, Scaela was the most power-rich nation when the Isle fell.

But now? Now it was all going to crumble. And Kier had agreed to it because he did not think he had the power for his promises to be fulfilled.

“We will not assent to that,” Cleoc said. As if sensing her unease, her horse danced under her. “All power should be restored equally—you cannot convince us of this farce. Locke is your prisoner, not your ally.”

Epras smiled thinly. “Semantics.” He nodded back to his soldiers. “And it matters not—we have brought the festivities here. Our chosen bride waits, and we have agreed to this meeting so you can witness the marriage—and our alliance.”

Grey’s heart dropped. Kier was still not looking at her, but it hardly

mattered. She reached. She prodded. She pushed.

The thinnest thread of her power caught, and it held.

She pushed as much emotion his way as she could: love and apology and fury and relief, as much as she could muster. She was so busy pushing that it took her a moment to realize that the only feeling Kier was sending back was cold, hopeless dread.

“Eron,” Grey murmured. “Something is wrong.”

“Besides everything?” he whispered back.

Grey focused on the tether, tuning out the meeting, which had devolved into bickering about land parcels and borders if an alliance was formed. She focused only on Kier, and the dread he was sending through the tether, and tried to answer with her own comfort.

She would not let him marry into Epras. She would not let him take this burden on—he could not even know, now, that he was truly a player in this game.

“If I do something reckless,” Grey asked, “will you cover me?”

Eron sighed. “Yes,” he said.

Grey turned back to the tether. She focused on Commander Reggin, imagining the firm lines of his face, trying to send the image to Kier. Kier frowned, glanced up. He looked at Grey, then at Reggin. Grey nodded, ever so slightly.

A pause. A beat. She felt the moment he started pulling from her—not enough to do any true harm, but enough to cause notice. Behind Scaelas, Commander Reggin straightened—then slumped in his saddle, sliding around. Not dead, but unconscious.

Scaelas turned, aghast. “Did you just kill my commander?”

Grey was already moving. “To Scaelas!” Eron cried, summoning the guard to close in around the High Lord, to protect him. “They have attacked!”

“To Scaelas!” someone called back. The sound of metal on metal rang through the air as the field dissolved into chaos.

Grey took advantage of the confusion. Already, the guard folded around them, Reggin’s Hand recovering his unconscious body. The guard raced away, bearing Cleoc and Scaelas off, as Luthos and Epras’s guards scrambled to fold around their own sovereigns—leaving Grey an opening.

She tethered, pushing power at Kier. A scream as two of Luthos’s guard

fell with no apparent reason; Grey felt the slice of the deaths as Kier pulled from her. Behind her, she heard Scaelas calling for his forces to retreat.

“Go, Eron,” she urged—she would not risk him, too. He spared her only a glance before he shook his head. “I’m commanding you to trust me,” she begged. “Run.”

He hesitated, looking at her for a half-moment more before he turned, following her order.

“Get Locke!” someone shouted. Grey nearly looked over her shoulder— but they were screaming about Kier.

Kier ducked out of the way of a Luthrite guard trying to grab him—she pushed another swell of power at him and felt the answering tug. And then she was over him, so close—she reached out her free hand and he grasped it, his foot finding the stirrup as he launched behind her onto the horse’s back.

His arm wrapped around her, half hug, half for balance, and she felt his agony through the tether.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he snarled into her neck even as he pressed a kiss to the leather of her pauldron, as close as he could get to her skin.

“Saving your ass, as usual,” Grey said. He straightened and pulled from her, more easily now that they were in contact. She stripped power from the wells around her, trying her best to focus only on enemy forces—which was not difficult, as Luthos and Epras now directed their companies only at her.

She turned the horse and rode back toward the sea, the cliff; back toward Scaela’s retreating army.

“I love you,” Kier said against her skin, even as he ripped another rope of power from her middle. She hissed at the sensation—they could not keep going this recklessly.

“Save your declarations for when we’re off the battlefield,” she said, wincing as he directed his power at another mage.

She focused on those wells, even though her head ached, and tore the power from the root. She tasted blood in the back of her throat as Kier cut them down.

“Grey,” Kier said, his voice bleak. “Look.”

She did. From the top of the ridge, she saw Luthar and Eprain’s full companies spreading out, forming an arc to cover every escape route—

coming straight for them. She glanced on either side, but they were walled in, and faced with the cliffs behind them. The riders were bearing down on them, and fast.

“Do you have enough?” he questioned, testing the tether.

“No,” she said. She swallowed hard—even if she pulled from the other wells on the field, it wouldn’t work. She was too tired, too depleted. If he tried to kill the riders who bore down on them, he might take her out, too.

She looked at him. “Do you trust me?”

He grinned, the sight like a hot metal brand on her heart. “Indubitably.”

She glanced at the cliff. “It’s time for us to get out of here.”

Kier dismounted, swinging Grey off with one arm as she dropped down, too. Like children, he gripped her hand as she turned to face the cliffs. She pulled off her helm, casting it aside. It wasn’t high enough to kill them— only high enough to hurt.

Gremaryse, Grey thought to her patron namesake as they broke into a jog. If you ever thought to claim me, now is the time to do it.

Together they picked up speed, racing to the edge of the cliff. When the empty air came, Grey was ready for it.

They fell and fell, the air pushed from her lungs as they hit the surface of the water. The sea was merciless and terrible. As she dropped, falling through the dark, she clawed for any idea, any instinct of what she was meant to do—but she only felt her own cloudy terror. And now, still miles from the place where Locke once was, she felt the dark sea coming to claim her.

She reached for the surface, but she could not find it. She fought out of her armor, weighing her down, drowning her. She couldn’t find Kier, either; she could only feel his pain and panic echoing in the tether like an animal cry. She opened her mouth, and the water swelled inside of her. She gasped, choking, and then she wasn’t swimming at all.

Forget about us, someone called in the back of her mind.

She opened her eyes, the salt water burning, and tried to claw for air. “I remember!” she shouted into the sea, where no one could hear her, where no one would watch the High Lady of Locke as she died. “I will never forget.”

I gave everything for you. She heard Severin’s voice, curling in the back of her brain. I gave everything. And what would you give, to bring it back?

Grey squeezed her eyes shut against the raging sea. Take it, she thought desperately, salt water invading her lungs. Whatever you want. Whatever you need. Take it all.

A hand grasped hers and tugged just as the sea started to roil.

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And Retarik laid her hand upon Kitalma’s breast. Between them, the power glowed with divine golden heat. The Isle shook as Kitalma spake, “You are mine and I am yours, and let us never again be whole.”

Folklore recovered from the Isle of Locke, date unknown, author unknown

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