Page 34 of The Second Death of Locke
She hadn’t believed in the gods, not really, even though she’d been named for one of them: Gremaryse, the goddess of the sea.
Sometimes, she wondered if that was the only reason she survived the sea that night after Locke burned, if it was her namesake pushing her further and further toward Scaela’s foreign shores.
She tucked her knees to her chest, thinking of the ruins on the edge of the Ghostwood, looking out at the sea.
Alma, her mother, was named after the other character in the origin story: Kitalma, the first well, the patron goddess of Locke.
That , Grey thought bitterly, hadn’t been enough to save her.
In Scaela, there used to be more monasteries and altars devoted to Locke’s gods, but half were destroyed by Eprain and Nestria, who held no respect for the Isle’s superstitious ways.
Grey herself had only been to one altar on the mainland, the one in Grislar, dedicated to Kitalma.
She’d gone there to think and stare out at the sea, but most of all, to ask the goddess if the burden of her blood could be taken from her.
If Grey, the last of her daughters, would be blessed with the mercy to forget.
They found the abandoned remains of an old shepherd’s cottage as the dark bled through the sunset.
They were dotted all over the hills in this part of the country, out of season, closed up for the year.
Kier inspected it thoroughly by magelight, repeating the process he’d gone through with the one they’d stayed in two nights before, though that one had been far nicer and less shack-like.
Grey stood in the doorway with her hands clasped in front of her, leaning into the power that flowed through the tether.
She’d used so little of it lately, Kier only drawing from her when he was making magelights or clearing brush or seeking heartbeats in the path ahead: it left her feeling restless and overfull, to keep her reservoir of power so high.
He moved carefully through the two little rooms and up to the loft.
The floor was half rotted, glassless windows looking out over the valleys that spread below.
It might’ve been nice, once, she thought.
Scraps of cloth hung from the bars over the windows, and she could just barely see the cheerful blue floral print.
There were the ashes of a hearth near one wall, the chimney open to the dark night. It might’ve been cozy. Quaint.
She leaned against the wall, watching as Kier examined a patch of writing on the arched doorway between rooms. There was just something about looking at him.
She’d never get tired of the familiarity of his shoulders, the shifting hazel of his eyes.
He had his hand against the wall now, that ring from his brother shining dull silver—how many ghosts they carried, the two of them—and she imagined, aching, what that hand would feel like on her skin.
“What are you thinking, Flynn?” Kier asked, voice soft. She realized he was pulling from her, the tether showing more than she wanted. It happened, sometimes, that her emotions came through without her pushing them.
“Just, somewhere like this would be nice, maybe. In the hills. Away from it all. When we’re retired, I mean.”
He looked over, the corner of his mouth tugging up. “We’ve been living on top of each other for years. You’re not sick of me yet?”
“Never,” Grey said before she could think better of it. “And I wouldn’t even make fun of you if you brought a whole league of cartographers to your bed.”
He snorted, glancing out the window. “I wouldn’t worry about me bringing anyone else to our bed,” he said. He caught her hand, pressing a kiss to the back of her fingers.
Grey rolled her eyes, pulling back before he could feel the way her heart thudded faster.
“Keep dreaming,” she muttered, because it was what he expected of her; because they always flirted, and nothing ever came of it; because he didn’t know how much she wished he could be sincere and let her down easy, for once.
His smile widened. “It’s clear,” he called to the others.
They filed through the open doorway. Sela and Brit laid out the bedrolls while Ola launched herself up the ladder to explore the tiny loft.
Eron took the water buckets to the stream behind the house, then left one for Pigeon and brought the rest back.
Grey turned away from the activity, from the domesticity of it, and leaned against the open window.
Only days left, and then she and her mage would be— what?
Just two good friends in a cottage somewhere?
A cozy bed for her and Kier and all his would-be lovers, with just enough space for her own broken heart?
She chewed on her nail. She’d thought of telling him a thousand times, a million, how she felt. But he was just… There were so many opportunities. He had to know , somehow, and the simple fact that he had not said anything sincere was confirmation enough for Grey that he did not feel the same.
She loved him in every way it was possible to love a person. And for the most part, she knew he loved her back, in his own way—but as she stared into the emptiness of the mountains, she wondered for the first time if that would be enough.