Page 18 of The Second Death of Locke

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T HEY SET OUT AN hour later, moving quietly out of the far side of camp, heading north.

It was the only instruction Attis had given them, besides Stay alive and deliver the girl : north first, to put distance between them and the encampment; then east, toward the mountains and the sea.

Anything else, she told them stiffly, was up to Kier.

Later, as he’d adjusted the straps of her bag, he’d met Grey’s eye. Deferring to her judgment, as usual.

“Follow Attis’s directions for now,” she said quietly. Kier nodded.

Now, they trudged on, off the main roads, on a small path that farmers from this area once used to bring their wares to the port, when the port belonged to Scaela. It was overgrown, but at least they were not up to their knees in mud.

Grey barely knew herself out of her black-trimmed Hand’s cloak or the armor of the Scaelan army.

She would not admit it to anyone, but she missed the familiar weight of the leather, the scuffed armor broken in by ages of sweat and battle.

Now, she wore a loose-fitting rough-spun shirt and a leather vest buckled over her stomach—the closest thing she could find to armor without actually reaching for her breastplate and helm.

The trousers were black, just nearly too thin for the season, but at least she had her well-worn boots, and they were dry for once.

She kept her knives on her belt and her sword across her back, like the merchants wore them.

It wasn’t unusual for travelers in these parts to be armed: with the military’s attention diverted elsewhere, there was no one to keep the paths or the main roads clear of bandits.

She and Kier walked in front, followed by Ola and Brit on either side of the girl, then Eron at the back.

The prisoner was out of her dirty travel clothes and wearing a new thick gray dress and too-big coat.

Glancing at her, Grey was reminded of the uncanny feeling of seeing her on the battlefield, wearing Kier’s armor; how much she then looked like a child.

Attis had handed something over to Kier upon their departure with a quiet word, which Kier explained to the others as he opened his hands to reveal cuffs.

“They’ll hurt,” he told them and the girl as he strapped them to her wrists with unshaking hands.

He didn’t seem to care that she had stabbed him only days before.

“A constant flow of magic needs to run through them—Grey and I will take the first shift, then Ola and Brit. But if she strays too far, they’ll do some damage. ”

Ola had winced. Grey had not.

After the cuffs were secure, Grey had looked the girl straight in the face and said, “I’ll need your name.”

“Maryse,” she said, her voice high and clear. Grey had not quite been able to figure out her accent. It had taken Grey herself months, when she first settled in Scaela, to eradicate any traces of the burr of her own, but the prisoner’s accent bore no trace of the Isle.

“Something else,” Grey said, flippant.

Only then did the other girl look at her, ice-chip eyes sad and empty. “I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

Grey gritted her teeth. “It matters to us,” Ola said.

She glanced at Kier, and seeing no sign of protest, she took a step forward.

She pulled the girl’s coat tighter around her shoulders (did no one remember that she’d just stabbed Kier?

Was Grey the only one who carried that?) and wrapped a scarf about her neck. “What would you like to be called?”

“Sela,” the girl said finally.

So Sela she was, and now they walked.

“So,” Brit said, not too long after they left Mecketer, loud enough that they all could hear. Grey startled, already lost in her own thoughts. “What are our roles, Captain?”

Kier glanced up at Brit, then at Grey, then back at Brit. He seemed just as lost as Grey felt. “What?”

“Our roles. Responsibilities. What are we in charge of?”

“The prisoner,” Grey said flatly, ignoring the frightened look Sela aimed in her direction. “We’re in charge of the prisoner, and making sure she doesn’t die. And that we don’t either.”

The group flattened a little, forming more of a line than a pod.

“It’s not a true quest if we don’t have our own roles.

” Brit smirked at Grey, their bright blue eyes sparkling.

Next to them, Ola rolled her own eyes. Grey had noted Ola’s power early on when the pairing had joined Kier’s company, and in turn, Brit’s humor.

She was never really certain what to do with people who were funny rather than just bitter, self-deprecating, or sarcastic—they always left her feeling a little on the back foot, like she wasn’t sure if they could genuinely be trusted.

She wasn’t sure if Brit could be trusted.

“It’s not a quest,” Grey said. “It’s a mission.”

But Kier glanced down the line, then at Grey, then at the girl, and Grey realized he was actually going along with this. “Well,” he said, considering. “Flynn is our healer, for obvious reasons. That, at least, was assigned. And I’m in charge. What other roles are there?”

A pause.

Brit elbowed Ola in the ribs. “I can… navigate?” Ola offered, uncertain.

“That would mean handing over the maps,” Kier said.

“If I’m navigating, you don’t have to worry about guiding us in the wrong direction.”

“Kier is already good at directions,” Grey said, hoping to put an end to this ridiculous discussion. They didn’t need jobs —they just needed to survive. “And everyone else can just be very good at listening.”

“I’ll care for the weapons,” Brit said. They opened their coat, revealing belts of blades that shone in the sunlight and dark metal axes and thin bars of raw metal. Grey stopped in the middle of the road, shocked despite herself.

“Where did you even get all of that?” Kier asked. “Attis didn’t…”

Brit shrugged. “I made them. I’m a materialist. A metalworker.” Which Grey knew, of course—she knew the affinities of everyone in their company. But she hadn’t realized what Brit was capable of.

She and Kier exchanged a long look. I told you Ola was powerful , Grey tried to convey. They could not have done all of that without a strong well, and I knew she was good, and I told you so .

This mission is fucked , Kier’s expression said, his lips pressed tightly together. Finally, he sighed, raising his eyes skyward. “Okay. Ola, you navigate. Brit, you’re in charge of weaponry. Fastria?”

Eron looked up. He was quieter than the others, and always had been—when he was promoted to be one of Kier’s officers, Grey had questioned it at first. But whenever he did open his mouth, it was like he always said the right thing, at exactly the right time.

She’d wondered sometimes what he would be like if she was actually in his confidence.

Perhaps, on this mission, she would find out.

No . She caught herself—they were not here to become friends, or confidantes. She sent a pulse of annoyance down the tether to Kier, hoping he’d wrap up this foolishness soon.

“I’ll cook, I guess,” Eron said.

Kier raised an eyebrow. “Are you good at cooking?”

“Guess we’ll find out,” Eron said. “I’ve always wanted to try.”

Kiernan , Grey thought at her mage with all possible force.

“And what about me?” Sela asked. Badly timed—Grey turned a glare on her. To her right, Kier sighed.

“Your job is to listen,” Kier said. A beat. “And not piss Flynn off.”

“Not piss Flynn off any further,” Brit amended. It was the only sensible thing they’d said since the retinue left Mecketer.

“Don’t lose focus,” Grey said. She nodded to Kier, and they re-formed their pod around the girl, falling back into silence.

The signs of failure should’ve been obvious, because it was Eron who questioned the mission first, to her surprise—Eron, who was usually much more considered.

He caught up to the pair of them when they were safely in the woods. Eron cleared his throat, looking between the two of them. “Captains? A word?”

Grey and Kier exchanged a glance. Kier nodded. “Yes, Fastria?”

“It’s confidential,” Eron said, rubbing the palm of one hand with the thumb of the other. A nervous tic if Grey had ever seen one.

Kier pulled a trickle of power from her, then drew a sound shield around the three of them. “We’re protected,” he said, his voice going fuzzy for the barest moment.

“Right.” Eron took a deep breath. “The prisoner. She’s meant to be the heir to Locke. But isn’t Maryse… dead?”

Grey winced. “She’s meant to be,” she said. She did not like her own name in so many mouths after so long, distorted by the Scaelan accent.

“Severin lived,” Eron said, pressing forward. “He even wrote to Scaelas. Fled to the continent. No one has ever suspected Maryse of surviving, given the proof. So why are we on a mission to the death to protect her?”

“It is believed, due to recent discoveries,” Kier said shortly, “that the letter from Severin was a forgery.”

He sounded like that, Grey thought grimly, because they knew it was.

“We are to protect the girl and deliver her safely. If Scaelas believes she is the heir to Locke, then we are not to question it,” he went on.

A pause. A beat. Eron ran a hand through his close-cropped hair—another fidget. Perhaps he, like Grey, wore his anxiety in his inability to stay still. “Yes, Captain. Very well.”

“Thank you for your honesty, Eron,” Kier said, the dismissal clear as anything. When Eron fell back, Kier aimed a long, telling look in Grey’s direction.

The truth was, there was a letter. The first time Scaelas’s forces came to Leota, searching all the children for any trace of survivors, Grey was so ill with the pox she was nearly unrecognizable.

Imarta had carried her to meet the soldiers, showing her face for only the barest of moments before they demanded she take the contagious girl away.

It was a lucky thing she had been far too sick to tether.