Page 76 of The Second Death of Locke

“I don’t know what I want.” She sat back in her chair, trying not to wince as her stitches tugged.

“I don’t know how to reward anyone. How to thank anyone.

How to make up for the lives lost, or the power I’ve taken.

” She rubbed her brow, wishing she could find the answers on the backs of her eyelids.

“Ah. Epras and Luthos grow restless.”

“They’ve asked for treaties. For peace. For alliances.”

“Then you are in a privileged position. You have the power to end all conflict in Idistra, if you so choose.”

Grey couldn’t fathom that kind of responsibility. But there was a question that came before that of peace. “Do you think I should give them their power back?”

Torrin hesitated. “You should not ask me that, Maryse. I am not your ally on paper yet; I have the interests of my own nation to keep in mind. And my own nation has been at war with both of them for a long, long time.”

“What would Cleoc say?”

He scoffed. “The same, probably; but I suspect she would put half of them to death, just to even the score.”

Grey didn’t want to put anyone to death. “Then I will ask you as my godfather,” she said, peeking at him sideways.

He sat in silence for a moment. The candles on her desk flickered dimly; she wished she’d lit the fire on the way in, but she hadn’t wanted to alert too many people to the fact she was awake and working.

“I think,” he said slowly, “that you have proven your point. That your power has been sufficiently flexed.”

She nodded. It was what she had thought too, lying awake in her bed, staring at the ceiling. “I don’t want to be feared,” she said. “Just… respected.”

Torrin sighed. “Bring us peace, Locke, and you might find yourself beloved.”

She managed a smile. “If you want me to do that,” she said, “I fear we must wake Cleoc.”

They had a treaty by dawn. Peace terms were delivered to Eprain and Luthar by evening, and to Nestria the following day; within a week, all six nations had reached an uneasy agreement.

Two weeks after the restoration of Locke, the wells of Eprain and Luthar woke to find their power restored and strengthened, as if nothing had changed at all.

The pyres burned for days on the coasts of Idistra as the dead were returned home.

Despite the growing chill of winter, when she couldn’t sleep, Grey spent a few hours of the night on the roof of the fortress, watching the smoke, letting the horror settle and wane.

Most times, she was not alone in her grief.

She was joined by Ola, who tried to understand the new shape of her body; by Brit or Eron, who were happy to talk or let her be silent as her moods changed; and sometimes by Kier, who was content to just stand by her side.

On Locke, a new life was beginning. It was agreed that anyone who’d defended the Isle would be welcomed with open arms, if they chose to stay: nearly two thousand soldiers and their families relocated there.

The High Lady of Locke held a reception in one of the old market halls near the port every morning, greeting her new countrymen as one of their clerks recorded the newcomers in the census.

In the weeks that followed, she fell into a new routine.

In the mornings, she woke with the dawn and sat with Ola in her room until she was well enough to fight; then, they met in one of the private courtyards at the back of the fortress.

They sparred, Ola straining with the effort as she learned to fight with her left hand instead of her right.

After Grey had bathed, she went to the harbor; then, in the early afternoon, she met with her ambassadors and continued to establish her council.

Some days she had tutors in to try to fill the gaps in the knowledge she otherwise would’ve had as High Lady.

She spent the rest of the day in appointments, or going between her office and the one next to hers, where her commander worked.

If her advisers were wary of the fact that Locke’s commander knew every bit of business that came across their lady’s desk, they had the sense not to protest it to her.

She was in her office, signing off on supply requests, when Cleoc and her attendants came to the door. Grey stood immediately, no longer wincing; her stitches had been pulled out a few days before, and Leonie had given her a clean bill of health.

“I think it’s time for me to take leave of you, Locke,” Cleoc said, inclining her head.

Grey stayed standing; after all this time, she did not know what to say. “I can’t even think how to thank you,” she said finally.

The edges of Cleoc’s severe mouth turned up in a smile. “You owe me nothing,” she said.

Grey moved around the desk to grasp the woman’s hand. She was surprised when Cleoc pulled her into a tight, fierce hug.

“I will never forget,” she said, “what you did for my girl.”

Grey closed her eyes, letting herself lean into the embrace. The business with Sela felt like a lifetime ago.

When Cleoc pulled away, she pressed something into Grey’s hand. Grey looked down to find the small obsidian moon from their first meeting in Scaela resting in the middle of her palm. “I thought it was lost,” she said.

“Be safe, Locke,” Cleoc said, leaning in to kiss her quickly on the forehead. “I will be waiting for your letters.”

As the first month of peace drew to a close, there were plans for a great feast on the Isle to celebrate its successful resurrection.

Grey found it a welcome distraction; she was trying very hard not to watch every change of the moon as the days leading up to her next meeting with Kitalma slipped by.

Ola told her excitedly of the preparations happening in Osar, led by an overambitious ex-captain from Cleoc’s army; the same evening, Brit and Eron separately complained to Grey about how Ola was annoyingly and unexpectedly in love with an overambitious ex-captain from Cleoc’s army.

Later, in bed, Kier asked if she’d heard of the preparations.

It was a rare night in which they’d both gone to their rooms before the early hours of the morning (only for Kier to slip into hers very shortly after); with her responsibilities as Locke and his efforts to stabilize their new home, they barely had time alone.

“They were mentioned to me,” she said.

“And your thoughts?”

She kissed his chest, then bit gently at his ribs. He had only recently stopped treating her as if she was made of glass, and now he kept his dark eyes on her as she slipped lower. “If there’s a party, not a single person on this Isle will need us. We could make our own plans.”

“They’ll notice if you’re not there,” he murmured, eyes slipping shut as she kissed his hip. “It’s your resurrection.”

“I don’t care,” Grey said, before demonstrating exactly what they could be doing instead.

Grey sat in the chair in her office and watched the sea below her window. Her desk was piled with correspondence. At least two messages bore Imarta’s careful handwriting—she was due to arrive from Scaela when the Isle was safer, for the feast that Kier insisted Grey couldn’t skip.

The door to her office opened. She turned, expecting one of her new cooks with questions about dinner, or Eron with a note about supplies needed for the armory, or Leonie asking for more medical provisions.

But it was Kier, dressed simply, smelling of rain.

He’d just come in from the cold—he was negotiating the delicate process of rebuilding the shield and setting up a static warning system that couldn’t be disrupted by breakbloom.

He found it easiest to do this alone, in the ruins of the abbey to Kitalma on the edge of the Ghostwood.

Grey did not examine the complicated feelings she had every day when he went there.

One more day, and then she would need to go to the wood herself and declare her choice to the goddess. One more day before Kier was no longer a free man.

He, too, had his nose buried in correspondence, and more stacked on the table he’d dragged next to her desk the week before.

Though his own office was next door, he’d spent so long hunched over her shoulder or sitting on her floor as they discussed what to do, she’d just given him a space in here permanently.

It was better this way, when they could be in the same room.

“Ma wrote,” he murmured, perching on the arm of her chair. She kissed the bend of his elbow, more out of habit than anything else, though the desperate appeal of regular physical affection was not lost on her. “There was a well born, in Scaela.”

“We can’t verify it,” Grey said, leaning forward to read over his arm. “It’s difficult to detect aptitude in a baby.”

“Difficult,” Kier agreed, “but not impossible.”

“And it’s only rumor until we hear it from Scaelas.”

“Who should probably return to his own nation,” Kier said darkly. He folded his letter and tossed it onto Grey’s desk. “What are you reading?”

She sighed, waving the paper in his direction. “Requests from our new Nestrian ambassador, ahead of their arrival. It’s tedious business. Hurts my head.”

“They don’t think enough of the state of your head,” Kier agreed, bending low and somewhat awkwardly to kiss the top of the aforementioned oft-neglected subject.

“Sela wrote too. She wants to hold a unity ball in Cleoc,” Grey said.

“Ah.” The sound came from low in Kier’s throat. She felt the immediate stiffness in every line of his body. “In Cleoc?”

“Yes. But the letter came from Sela and not her mother, so.” She sat back in her chair, twisting the signet ring on her finger.

“A large party, full of nobility who were our enemies only weeks ago… it sounds like an invitation for an assassination attempt. I’ve written back that we are, possibly, not quite stable enough for that yet. ”

“Diplomatic to the last,” Kier said, his breath ruffling her hair.