Page 42 of The Second Death of Locke

seventeen

D ESPITE GREY’S UNSTEADINESS, EVEN Kier agreed, when morning came, that it would be foolish to stay another day.

So after she returned from her sunrise wash in the frigid stream, they dressed in what little clothing they had that wasn’t covered in her blood, sweat or vomit, ate a quick and grim breakfast of jerky and dried fruit, and prepared for the road.

Grey handed out the coats from her nest, wishing she could press the full extent of her gratitude into each and every one.

Kier stood over the table, tri-folding their letters one by one. “Hold on,” Sela said, grabbing the two she’d written: the first to Cleoc, her mother; the second to Scaelas. Sela drew quick lines next to the names on the two pieces of parchment.

Grey peered over her shoulder; Kier peered over Grey’s. “What are those?” he asked.

“Diplomatic symbols,” Grey said. “To ensure important letters reach the High Courts as quickly as possible. The second a rider sees them, they’re to put down all other duties and travel straight to the recipient.”

“How did you know that?” Sela asked.

Behind her, Eron muttered, “Told you so.” Kier shot him a withering look before taking the envelopes from Sela and tucking them in his coat.

“Let’s get going,” he said. “Five days to Grislar at our pace, and I’ve requested a party to meet us at the encampment. Those letters will beat us there.”

They set off, sore and the worse for wear.

Eron and Brit took the lead, Sela and Ola behind.

Kier insisted that Grey should ride Pigeon, which she accepted with minimal complaint.

Kier was content to stay back beside her, and Grey suspected it had something to do with her unsteady progress and the way he kept looking at her.

By mid-morning, they could see the edges of a city at the base of the mountains. Kier took Pigeon and his letters and rode while the rest of them ate dried fruit and complained about the drizzle. He returned nearly an hour later and confirmed that the letters had been sent with haste.

The landscape shifted again as they walked through the afternoon, the mountains behind them growing further and further away.

This was the land Grey was most accustomed to, rolling hills and stands of skinny trees, intersecting dirt paths with grass growing down the middle.

They walked and walked and walked, stopping for water or food more often than usual at Kier’s insistence.

This, Grey decided, was so she would not tire too easily on the road, or to force her back onto Pigeon if she was taking a turn walking.

At nightfall, they camped at the edge of a copse of trees, huddled together in the gloom as a storm rolled in.

It was miserable and wet and cold, but Grey had the odd feeling that soon, they’d never be this way again.

She tried her best to treasure it all, from Eron’s shitty food to Sela’s face as Grey taught her a new lesson while Brit tethered and created a pale green magelight with her power.

She stored up Ola’s laugh and Kier’s bearded smile (she was surprised he still had the beard, but maybe it helped with the cold) and the swell of her own heart when she looked at them and knew that even if it remained unspoken, they understood the truth of her.

The next few days passed the same, but quieter.

As the third day wore on, they could smell the salt in the air, growing closer and closer; the next morning, they could see the dark expanse of the sea on the horizon.

They had to work to avoid the cities and villages now, but with more travelers on the road, it was easier to blend in.

At night, they told stories and asked Grey cloaked questions about the Isle she’d once known, letting the open secret linger in the space between them until even Sela understood.

“I heard the children’s godfather went searching for the son. That he got a letter from the boy,” Eron said one evening, idly sharpening a stick with one of his knives. “Everyone was so certain that one of them lived.”

“He did,” Grey said, lying on her back, her head pillowed on Kier’s thigh. “No one thought it was a forgery.” It was the closest she’d ever come to a confession.

Eron made a low noise in his throat, nodding like that was a sensible thing to do.

On another night, Ola said, “They say it’s tradition to marry off as many of them as possible to those in other nations. That it renewed the wells in those places.”

“The last Locke’s husband was Scaelan,” Kier said. “That’s why their godfather was, too. That’s why we had more wells than other nations, when the Isle vanished.”

Grey only nodded. It was nice, sometimes, to let Kier answer the questions she couldn’t stomach, and she found her thoughts turning to her father, Isaak.

She remembered turning around, just as Severin led her away, to see a sword strike him in the arm, to see great gushes of blood flowing from his wounds.

It wasn’t how she wanted to remember him, but it was the last image she had.

They continued their fireside questions, and she allowed it. Often, Kier would reach out during these times and squeeze her hand, or send reassurance through the tether: he knew, better than anyone, how closely she guarded her secrets, and how vulnerable she felt revealing herself.

And worst of all, she felt something changing within her, shifting. She stopped trying to push the others away.

She knew now, exactly, how Brit had three variations of their laughter, based on the appropriateness of any joke; and that they’d been paired with Ola for only two years, after their previous well had died in their arms; and that they were the oldest of four, and took more difficult assignments in order to keep their siblings out of the war.

She knew that Ola was probably the best swordsman among them—in bored sparring sessions around the fire, Ola had laid her out on her ass more than once; and that her acid tongue hid the fact that she was incredibly easy to love, and fiercely protective of the people she cared about, which was a group that now included Grey herself.

She discovered that Eron used to play the fiddle; that his father was Arkunish and had never returned from a visit to the continent when Eron was thirteen; that he’d started transitioning three years before and now loved and understood himself in a way he had only dreamed of before.

She even knew that Sela had no siblings but a slew of cousins who all threatened to kill her to take the title of Cleoc—jokingly, she insisted, at the quickfire glare that Ola aimed in a general northerly direction.

For all she learned, she knew they were watching her just as closely, learning her just as much.

It was almost enough to make her uncomfortable—but then Eron handed Kier a warm compress for his knee without being asked one night as they sat around the fire, and Grey decided that it wasn’t worth fighting her affection for these people when they were somehow tied to her.

An hour from nightfall on the fourth day, Kier made them stop at a stream because he was “not bringing a filthy group of thieves into camp.” So they splashed in the water, Sela grim-faced at their lack of modesty; then they all turned around and dried and brushed their hair while she bathed alone.

Grey glanced over at Kier and saw him shaving in his reflection on the water and sighed at the end of an era.

That night, after their watch, they lay nose to nose in their bedrolls while everyone else was asleep. After dinner, Sela had spotted a light in the valley below and Kier grimly informed her that it was camp: Grislar was in sight.

“Do you remember when we were here last?” Grey asked. She reached her hand into the minuscule space between them. Kier laid his hand on top of hers.

“Of course,” he said. “Our first assignment together.”

“I was so scared.”

“I know. I could feel it, even then.” He leaned forward and kissed her on the nose, then very gently on the lips. “There’s nothing to be afraid of this time.”

“Mm. You sure of that?”

“No,” he said, considering. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Grey sighed. “They could know, immediately, that I’m Locke.”

“How?”

She didn’t know how to explain it. There was no way to know if reports of the company they’d slaughtered had reached Grislar, but if they had, that kind of power was out of the question for a normal well.

“Because I’m your Hand,” she said, which was somewhat convincing. “I don’t know. I look like my mother, kind of. If someone sees me, and associates me with that power… I don’t know how to hide it, Kier. If I even can.”

“It will be fine,” he said. “We’ll protect you.”

She traced the line of his jaw with her fingertips. “You can’t protect me from everything.”

“Yes, well. I imagine I still have a few tricks up my sleeve when it comes to your safety. Even if it calls for… unsavory finagling.” He slipped his hand to rest on her waist. Since his declaration the other night, she’d developed a new personal obsession with all the ways he touched her during the day, the casual affection that remained unchanged from before, now heavy with meaning.

She thought again of his challenge—his promise —and shivered with anticipation.

It was almost convincing enough to be a result of the cold.

“You inspire confidence with every word, Captain Seward.”

He smiled, his teeth bright in the darkness. “Just doing my duty to the nation, your majesty.” His hand slipped further— cheeky bastard , she thought—and she shimmied him off with a quiet laugh. It was so easy, with him, to pretend.