Page 53 of The Second Death of Locke

twenty-two

O LA INSISTED GREY WASH her face before the meeting with the High Lord, 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.”