Page 75 of The Second Death of Locke

thirty-four

“G REY .”

Her name again, this time on Kier’s lips. She felt the pain first, the blaring agony of it; then the wet heat of her blood. Something seemed to be shifting inside of her, something that shouldn’t have been moving in the first place.

She heard the clatter of his helm dropping to stone, then his sword. “Grey,” he said again, the warmth of his palms on her face. She forced herself to open her eyes, to look at him.

“Did we win?” she asked, her voice barely audible.

“You disappeared—you just vanished —the wells from Eprain, Luthar, some of our own…”

“Kiernan,” Grey said, struggling to get through this. He was already wrapping his arms around her, readying to carry her back to Leonie, to safety, to a world of pain she could only imagine. “ Did it work?”

He pressed his lips together. “It worked,” he said.

“Whatever you did, it worked. They’re retreating as we speak, and we’re rounding up prisoners on the beach.

” He glanced down at her—she felt him moving below her, walking as fast as he could to get her back to the fortress without disrupting her wounds too much.

She let her head lean, the leather of his pauldron soft, though a bit blood-soaked.

“It worked,” she sighed, letting her eyes slip shut.

“And if it worked at the cost of your life,” he said through his teeth, “I will not forgive you. I thought you said you weren’t going to sacrifice—”

“I’ll live,” Grey mumbled against his shoulder, “just to spite you. There’s nothing I love more than proving you wrong.”

He laughed, but there was an edge of panic to it. “Then live , Locke,” he pleaded. He said more, but no matter how much Grey desperately wanted to hear it, it wasn’t enough. She slipped, and this time, nothing caught her when she fell into the darkness.

She woke in her own bed.

She sat up and immediately regretted it, gasping at the starburst of pain that erupted from her middle. Hands were on her shoulders in an instant, pushing her down. “Stay down, Locke,” Leonie said above her.

As usual, Grey didn’t listen. She winced as she propped herself on her elbows. She wore a loose shirt, and underneath, she could see the bandages that wrapped her middle. Every part of her ached.

Leonie was alone in the room with her, sorting medication on a table someone must’ve dragged in from Grey’s private sitting room. She ran her fingers over one of the pestles and asked, “Are you in pain?”

“Manageable,” Grey lied. “Water?”

Leonie was there in an instant with a glass, one hand behind Grey’s back to help her up, the other holding the glass so she could drink.

Grey sipped greedily, spilling half of it down her shirt and barely caring.

When she was finished, Leonie brought her another glass and set it on the nightstand, before sinking into the chair by Grey’s bedside.

“The commander is going to be furious he wasn’t here when you woke,” she said, brushing the hair away from Grey’s forehead.

Grey could see the end of her own braid draped over her chest; she was unsurprised to see bits of gore and mud in the brown strands.

“Where is he?” she asked hoarsely. Leonie leaned forward to adjust her pillows, helping her sit more comfortably.

“Dainridge sent for him. It couldn’t wait.”

Grey nodded, the press of too many questions on her tongue. She remembered herself floating, untethered from her body—she felt the sum of all those souls. “I took the power away,” she said slowly. “Didn’t I?”

Leonie hesitated.

“If you don’t answer, I’ll ask Kier, and I’m certain he will.”

“Then yes. You took the power away. From all of Eprain and Luthar, it looks like.”

Grey nodded, chewing her lip.

“And they still don’t have it back.”

She pressed a hand to her middle, where the stomach ache throbbed. “Right.”

“Can you…?”

She shot Leonie a look. “Yes,” she said, feeling the weight, and the phantom tethers leading to the owners of the power she now held. “But this is something that I only want to do once, and as such, I would like it to be an effective threat.”

Leonie nodded slowly. “That is…”

“Ruthless,” Grey said.

“But sensible.”

“Perhaps.” She glanced at Leonie, remembering the stress radiating off her in battle. “But… we won.”

“Yes,” Leonie said. She set down the tincture she was mixing—probably something awful she was going to force Grey to drink sooner rather than later. “The Isle was defended. And because of the total loss of power and magic with it, there have been appeals for peace. For treaties.”

Grey couldn’t begin to think of peace or treaties. She couldn’t think of anything past the next few seconds. She let her eyes slip shut for only a moment, but she couldn’t be sure it was actually a moment when she opened them again. “And the damage?”

“We lost two thousand of our ten thousand. Eprain and Luthar lost four and a half, but they sent more, and Cleoc’s navy did major damage in the bay.”

So many lives lost, all because of her. She could not focus on that—if she did, she would lose it, and she could not afford to do that right now. “And… Scaelas? Our allies? My friends?”

“I hear Cleoc and her attendants had a lovely afternoon,” Leonie said wryly. “Eron is fine—he’s with Kier. Scaelas is injured, but he will live. He has threatened to stay with you until he is healed, though, and teach you how to act like a noble.”

Grey winced. He must’ve heard that she’d joined the battle—but he was still not her father. “A fine threat indeed,” she said.

“Brit is fine. Ola is…” Leonie hesitated, and Grey saw the flicker of uncertainty—her stomach seized at the thought.

In an awful moment, she remembered that grasp of pain, when she was out of herself, but then…

“She’ll live, if I have anything to say about it,” Leonie said finally, seeing Grey’s look. “She will lose the arm.”

“Ah.” But she was alive. She was alive, and she would live. As soon as she was able to stand, Grey would find her, even if she had to fight Kier and Leonie both to do it. “And our commanders?”

“Dainridge sustained minor injuries. Commander Reggin perished protecting the harbor.”

Grey closed her eyes. “And his Hand?”

“Living, last I knew.”

“And Seward is fine,” Kier said, coming in, nodding to Leonie with some coldness—he still had not quite forgotten that she knew of his death, Grey realized. “Though he is annoyed, as he gave direct orders to be sent for immediately if Locke woke in his absence.”

Leonie rolled her eyes. “Oh, shut up, Kier. I was going to send for you as soon as I answered Locke’s questions.”

He sighed, but his shoulders relaxed. He perched on the side of Grey’s bed, resting a hand on her knee over the covers. “I see that you have viscera in your hair again.”

Grey managed a smile. “You’re the one who wanted a lifetime of washing blood from my person.”

Leonie got up, gathering her things. “You two have the weirdest relationship.”

Neither denied it.

When her bag was packed, she said, “Seward, I expect you to keep her in bed—not like that, you deviant. Cleoc and Scaelas will want to see her, but Scaelas is also forbidden from moving, so Cleoc will have to manage going between their sickbeds one at a time. And I swear to you, Grey, I do not care if you are my High Lady—I will not hesitate to maim you if you pull out your stitches.”

Grey raised an eyebrow. She was more used to Kier being on the receiving end of Leonie’s threats. “Right you are,” she said.

As soon as Leonie left, Grey sighed. She pressed a hand to her stomach, assessing. “How bad was it?”

Kier winced. “Bad.”

“Run through?”

“Edge of death, Flynn.” He kept his voice light, but he still gripped her knee with a fear that she understood. She was usually the one feeling that fear for his life.

“Mm.” She swung her legs over the bed, gasping at the rush of pain. Kier was there in an instant, his hands fluttering, searching for somewhere to push her back down that would not hurt. “What are you doing?”

“The Isle won’t run itself,” Grey said, wincing in pain.

He settled for her shoulder, grasping it and pushing her carefully down to the pillows. She sucked in a breath at the pain, and he pulled back immediately, as if burned. “I’ll call Leonie back,” he threatened.

“Kier…”

“I’ll get you Cleoc and Ikaaron,” Kier said, stepping back, “so you can at least feel useful. But so help me, gods, I will put Eron in charge of feeding you until you are better if you try to leave this room.”

Grey narrowed her eyes. “You wouldn’t.”

“Don’t try me, Locke,” he said on his way out.

The combined efforts of Kier and Leonie only managed to keep her in bed for two days before Grey rose in the middle of the night, slipped away as Kier slept and crept downstairs and into her office.

Scaelas’s guards saw her as she passed, but they only sighed and shook their heads—their own High Lord had performed a similar maneuver in the hour before, and he hadn’t even had to sneak past a commander in his bed.

She’d only been behind her desk for half an hour before a soft knock sounded on her door. She looked up as the High Lord slipped inside, limping heavily, favoring his right side.

“You too?” she asked, brow raised.

He nodded, taking the chair across the desk. “That medic of yours is…” he trailed off, searching for a word that fit before he settled on “persistent.”

“She’s your medic,” Grey said, turning her attention back to one of Cleoc’s treaty amendments. “Leonie is Scaelan.”

Torrin sighed. “Ah, I don’t think so. Not anymore.”

Grey’s eyes flicked to his. “I can’t steal all your best soldiers.”

“You should have people here you trust, Maryse,” he said softly.

She set the amendments aside, chewing on her lip. “We should get Cleoc,” she said darkly. “Since they won’t let us meet otherwise.”

Scaelas quirked a brow. “I can send for her, if you want.”