Page 67 of The Second Death of Locke

Ola opened the door to Kier, Reggin, Dainridge and a few other assorted masters and captains and their Hands.

Grey watched as they filed in, seating themselves around the table: Kier to her right, Reggin and Dainridge close beside with Reggin’s Hand behind them.

In the absence of their sovereigns, Ikaaron and Yearna sat in the positions of Scaelas and Cleoc.

Brit and Ola fell into position behind Grey; she presumed Kier had left Eron in charge of organizing the forces still assembling in the harbor.

Every eye was on her, expectant. After a beat, she turned to those around her. “Commander Reggin, Commander Dainridge. Masters. Ambassadors. I welcome you to Locke, though I wish it was under better circumstances. This is Commander Seward, the head of my forces on the Isle.”

Beside her, Kier very nearly smiled. She couldn’t tell if it was because she’d referred to him by his title, or because he was the entire extent of her forces on Locke.

“If we could be informed of the situation in Idistra, we can begin from there,” she said.

“Lady Maryse,” one of the Scaelan masters at the end of the table started, speaking out of turn. “It appears that—”

“Locke.”

A silence spread over the room as every eye turned to Kier, Grey’s included.

“Sorry, Commander Seward?” the master said. He was old enough to be Kier’s father.

Kier raised an eyebrow. “Would you call your own High Lord by name?” The silence was not broken; Grey forced herself to sit straight and tall, unflinching. “She is Locke, Master.”

The master glanced at her, and to Grey’s surprise, he did not look angry—he looked ashamed . They did not hate her.

They feared her.

“My apologies, your majesty,” he said.

“Thank you, Master,” Grey said, pushing away any lingering discomfort. She nodded to her allied commanders. “Your reports, please.”

“Your majesty,” Ikaaron said, bowing his head.

He glanced sidelong at Yearna, then launched into his explanation.

“Epras and Luthos have declared that their prisoner, Captain Kier Seward, was rightfully captured by their forces, and wrongfully freed by Scaelas. Now that your new Commander Seward has been revealed and is clearly not Locke…”

Grey looked at her hands, and did not correct them.

“… they have insisted that a repayment is due. In return, they have declared that the High Lady should accept the same terms Commander Seward agreed to: marry a suitor of their choice and restore power. If these terms are accepted, they will agree to a treaty with the Isle, and will cease their wars with Scaelas and Cleoc in return.”

Grey raised an eyebrow, trying to keep her features as cool as possible. “They want to marry me?”

“Yes, my lady,” Ikaaron said. “With you married and bound to their suitor, they will see a re-emergence of power simply by being aligned with you, and when you bear an heir, it would be in your line. It has been custom, as long as Locke has existed, to marry strategically for such redirections of power.”

Grey winced. “And if I do not?”

He nodded to Commander Dainridge. Grey turned to face her.

“They have threatened to turn their combined forces on the Isle,” Dainridge said. “Either to decimate everyone who remains here and take you prisoner, or to circle us until we starve.”

“Right,” Grey said flatly.

“You’ve been given three days to make your choice, and if you are not presented for marriage in that time, they will attack.”

She rubbed her temple. She reached through the tether to Kier, but found it curiously blank—he was holding back his own emotions until she made a decision without his influence.

“Those are the terms proposed,” Ikaaron said.

He glanced at the others gathered, focusing for a second on Yearna, Cleoc’s ambassador, before he continued.

“I have been instructed that we will assist you in defense of the Isle, if you choose to fight; but you could marry instead, if it pleases you. I recognize I am only the Scaelan ambassador and not your own adviser, but if my lord were here, he would offer this counsel: though marriage may seem a bloodless option, he personally would not advise it.”

She was growing quite tired of decisions like this, the choices predetermined and ironclad.

“I will not . That sounds like the fastest way to get killed in my own bed.” She felt an instant, undeniable rush of relief through the tether.

“I would think so too, your majesty,” Ikaaron said. “With your permission, we will send a messenger with your response.”

“So we will fight,” Kier said, “to keep the Isle.”

Grey got up and set to pacing. From here, she could not see down the Isle to Maerin, but she could see the choppy sea, and the ships that had started circling.

“Commanders, what do you propose?” she asked.

They argued over maps and troop formations for hours. If Eprain and Luthar were permitted onto her shores, they would not stop until Grey was dead, so they had to do everything in their power to hold the Isle, to ensure that didn’t happen.

“Is there something we can do?” Reggin’s Hand said when Grey’s head had already been aching for the better part of an hour. “A show of strength? A manipulation of power?”

Grey shook her head. “I don’t know what I could do.”

“Don’t you control it?”

She looked at him, the boy whose youth she hadn’t been able to see past when she first met him.

Now, she wondered at it. She glanced at the list she had in front of her, of the names of those sitting before her: the commander’s Hand was listed as A.

Reggin . She would eat her own hat if he wasn’t related to the commander, and something about that made her uneasy.

“We could send Locke back to Scaela,” one of the captains near the end of the table said. “Or Cleoc, if they will have her. Just until the Isle is secure.”

Grey glanced at Kier. He looked like he was actually considering it.

“No,” she said. “I will not leave again.” If she did, it would require her to leave Kier—and who knew if she’d be back before the next full moon, to tell Kitalma of her choice? She could not risk it.

They argued until the sun was high in the sky, at which point Grey ordered them to take a break. When she left the war room, she was surprised to find the Isle caught in a swell of activity. She told Ola and Brit to rest and eat, then set off for the highest tower.

No one had established a base there yet. She leaned against the crenelations, wind whipping her hair, threatening to tear it from its braid. At sea, the ships circled, but no one moved to attack.

There were soldiers camped in both Osar and Maerin, with tents pitched in the hilly fields and taking up the villages between.

She could see the progress at the harbor, the workers small as ants, as little boats brought supplies ashore, which were then carted to the cities and the fortress.

She watched the progress of those tiny people, of those great ships.

Boots sounded on the stairs; she did not turn. “Why won’t you consider going back to Scaela?”

She snorted. “Not a chance.”

Kier came behind her, framing her hands with his, resting his chin on top of her head. “It would be safer,” he said, but it was already a losing battle, and he knew it.

“Safety is overrated.”

He sighed. “Spoken by someone who has never really known it.”

She turned in his arms, tracing the line of his healed collarbone. Safety was one thing—but freedom was another.

She realized that with the flurry of activity on the Isle below, the tenuous nature of her position, and the fact that other nations were already petitioning for her hand, she might not find more time alone with Kier.

Perhaps she had already missed her chance to tell him what she’d done. Perhaps she would never need to tell him at all—but that depended on the choice she still had not made.

“Kier,” she said, her fingers fussing with the curve of the crest on her surcoat. “Would anything change, do you think, if I didn’t have power?”

He laughed. “Did Reggin’s Hand get to your head?” He swept a hand over her hair. “It’s nothing to worry about. You won’t lose your power—it’s an impossibility.”

“But if, say, it happened.”

He rolled his eyes. “It won’t. It can’t .”

“But if I chose to give it up—”

Now he looked at her, narrow-eyed. “What are you thinking of?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Grey said, blush heating her cheeks. “It’s just speculation.”

He leaned close, kissing her forehead. “Like I said. It’s nothing to worry about—nothing will happen to your power. I won’t let it.”

She could not meet his gaze.

“Scaelas and Cleoc should be arriving soon,” he said after a moment. “Shall we go receive them?”

“It’s probably best,” she said, pushing away all thoughts of what she was still considering.

She absorbed the changes in her Isle, the life , as they crossed the paths between the two towns.

She was thinking of this when they passed a large stone house in Maerin with carts lined up outside the door.

Leaning against one was a familiar figure, making marks in a notebook, her curly black hair secured on top of her head with a spare pencil.

Grey stopped short and felt her heart clench in her chest. “Leonie?”

The medic looked up from her notebook. She was confused for the shortest span of a second before her eyes locked on Grey, then she’d set the notes aside and was walking as quickly as she could into the road. Grey didn’t care for decorum; she ran .

Leonie caught her in her arms. She smelled of herbs and soap and lavender, and Grey buried her face in her neck.

“I didn’t think I would ever see you again,” she admitted.

“Funny,” Leonie said, “because I was explicitly named on your list.”

Grey laughed, pulling back to look her in the face. Leonie had a newly healing scar on the edge of her jaw, straight, from a blade. “I didn’t know you’d have time to get here, after Mecketer.”