Page 9 of The Second Death of Locke

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K IER DIDN’T DIE ON the walk back to camp, which was a small miracle in itself.

Ola and Brit half-dragged him, mostly unconscious by this point, into the medical tent.

In a side area, Leonie, the lead healer at this camp, waited for Grey.

Leonie’s dark curly hair was piled on top of her head, stuck through with a pencil to hold it in place.

She wore a deep blue healer’s apron over her black dress, pockets stuffed with gauze and tools and herbs.

“You’ve looked better,” she sighed when Grey walked in.

Grey frowned at her. “And you look like you haven’t slept in days.”

“Only two,” Leonie said. She came close and helped Grey unbuckle her armor, laying it piece by piece on a cloth-covered table. “You’re filthy.”

“Thanks, love,” Grey said.

Leonie’s fingers lingered for a second too long on Grey’s waist, working at the leather buckle that clasped her breastplate on.

Grey took a shuddering breath, finding an odd comfort in the steadiness of Leonie’s hands, the coolness of her brown eyes as she scanned Grey over quickly. “None of this blood is yours?”

“The captain’s,” Grey said crisply, stepping away. She recounted Kier’s idiocy as she wiped down her sword.

“Should I begin without you?” Leonie asked, gathering instruments on a tray after Grey finished reporting the extent of Kier’s injuries in a measured, emotionless voice. “Or delay? Surely an hour won’t make a difference. You look—”

“No.” Grey took the three packets of prepared nutrient-dense sludge that Leonie held out, cursing the mages who formulated this shit years ago, cursing herself for needing it, then cursing herself again for not washing off first—the mud added flavor of the worst variety.

But she had to replenish her power in whatever way she could, as quickly as possible.

When the sludge was gone, swallowed in uncomfortable gasps, she fought her way out of her padded shirt, then pulled her soaked undershirt and vest off too for good measure.

Naked to the waist, she did her best to ignore the chill of the air as she washed the dirt and blood away from her skin.

Every muscle ached : from battle, from carrying Kier back, from her depleted stores of power.

She sluiced mud away until the water rolled clean down her chest and arms, then washed once more for good measure.

Finished, she pulled on the clean shirt Leonie offered.

The pair walked through the flap of fabric that led to the back of the infirmary.

An assistant had already stripped Kier, washed his wounds and rendered him unconscious with a cloth soaked in an anesthetic herb blend placed over his mouth and nose.

They sat by his head now, carefully monitoring his breathing.

She noted the dark streaks pooling under his eyes, the remaining crust of blood on his cheek, the crookedness of his nose under the damp white cloth—but she’d worry about setting that for him later.

“The captain has left his last words,” the assistant said quietly when Grey entered the room, and Grey very nearly threw her out in a fit of rage even though it wasn’t the assistant’s fault that Kier was such an absolute disaster.

But it was good to feel something . Strong feelings, anger and rage and desperation, made her power replenish faster. She felt the swell of it crawling from somewhere in her lower belly.

Good. She needed it.

“He can tell me himself,” she muttered, glaring at the folded piece of paper, “when he’s awake.”

There was no further argument to that. Leonie set the instruments out for Grey as she slipped into a set of sterile gloves and surveyed his injuries. She had six years of putting him back together under her belt. It was her duty to do it yet again.

She took him in, the slope of his pectoral muscles, the shadowy peaks and valleys of his ribs, the scar from yet another near miss over his heart.

She turned her attention to her own well-being.

Her power was moderately replenished—she cursed the sludgy porridge, but it was effective—but this could be a long one.

Her inspection of his wound revealed that the blade had gone in through his lower intestine, so she had to deal with any contamination to ensure the wound didn’t go septic.

She laid her palm flat on his chest and focused. The power came slowly at first, an exhausted trickle. But that was all she needed. She felt the strands of him in her fingers, the tether between them tightening.

She took a thin blade and opened him up.

She had fixed him up after battle more than once, but Kier was usually better behaved than this.

She’d only really been wrist-deep in him thrice before: once after a mage from Cleoc Strata with intriguing internal capabilities tried to turn his spleen inside out, another time when he’d been stabbed in the stomach by a soldier from Eprain, then the final chest wound from a Hand after he’d killed their mage.

All of these had left her utterly terrified, anxious with every move that she’d fuck up something inside of him permanently.

She’d had so much experience with internal surgeries, but when it was Kier she was working on, Kier under her hands… it was like all her training turned to sludge in her brain, overpowered by the realization that despite the fact he was beloved, he too was just meat.

This time, she was too tired for fear. She focused on that tiny thread of power, easing it out as she worked.

Leonie helped her, handing her instruments when she asked for them, holding together tissue, wiping away blood.

She didn’t offer to tether her own power to Kier, to give Grey a break—she’d worked with Grey long enough to know better.

To her credit, the assistant at Kier’s head didn’t ask questions or black out, even when the effect of Grey’s power and direction had his flesh pre-emptively knitting back together and they had to cut him open again.

Grey lost track of time, focusing only on the slippery feeling of his insides and breathing evenly. Finally, she surveyed her work, probing for anything out of place, and sighed with relief. “Let’s close him up,” she said, glancing at Leonie—but it wasn’t Leonie at all.

Hand Master Mare Concord stood on the other side of Kier’s body, waiting for instructions. Grey didn’t even know how long she’d been there. She had only seconds to recover before Mare was handing her a needle and suture.

Grey was too tired for this. She focused on maintaining that last little thread as she stitched the layers of Kier back together. Mare was a great help, at least: she was ready with the tools Grey needed before she even asked.

Of course she was. She had probably done very similar surgeries on her own mage.

Grey cleaned the stitched wound one final time and affixed gauze. Once that was done, she washed her hands three more times until every trace of Kier’s viscera was gone from her skin, if not her shirt.

“Good work, Hand,” Mare said. “Neat stitches.” At some point while Mare was watching, the assistant had left too—it was just the two of them, three if Kier counted.

“I’m very good at mending socks, too,” Grey said, sorting the equipment into the appropriate wash buckets.

She did an internal check for her well. It was waning again, but not empty.

Worse than it had been in years, but she could deal with that.

She focused very hard on finishing the conversation—the sooner she could curl up in her bedroll, the better.

She’d settle for the break room in the back of the infirmary at this point.

“It’s a dangerous game you two are playing. Your mage should know better than to use that much of you. If you need to file a complaint with a request for retraining, Hand Captain—”

“He doesn’t take any more than I’m willing to give,” Grey snapped. She was so, so tired of these conversations.

“You have… quite the capacity,” Mare said carefully. “We’re meant to report high-capacity wells, you know. In case a higher-ranking officer is in need.”

Grey stiffened. Mare was the type of weathered that wells usually didn’t live long enough to become. Grey forced herself to focus, to watch her face for any sign of—well, anything. “I’m already serving a captain, Hand Master.”

Mare shrugged, allowing this. “Unless there’s another reason for the capacity you’re able to offer Captain Seward.”

Grey did not let any emotion show on her face. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m just saying,” Mare said firmly, steely, “it’s notably unusual, and there are very few reasons for unusual power.”

That was enough, the last of it her brain could handle. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Hand Master, but I’ve used quite a lot of myself today and I cannot keep going.”

“Hand Captain Flynn…” Mare reached out, gripped Grey’s shoulder, but Grey shrugged her off. She always made her worst decisions when Kier was indisposed.

It was insubordination to leave this room, risk on top of risk, but she did it anyway.

Grey dragged herself out of there, freezing, and across the encampment, barely upright when she slipped into the safety of her own tent.

As soon as the flap closed behind her, her knees hit the floor and then she was slumped, the air running from her lungs.

She forced herself up, clawed her way onto her pallet. She was still sticky with Kier’s blood.

She’d be punished for that, she knew. For leaving without being dismissed. For not answering Mare’s questions. But to stay, to try to cobble together something coherent—that was an even greater danger.

She gave up and let herself slip into emptiness.

Fire. When she dreamed, she always dreamed of fire.

This time, the fire was in the shape of a boy in front of her. He sat cross-legged, and she was no longer a soldier, no longer a woman, no longer a well. She was a girl, a child. She might’ve been fire, too.

The fire-boy said, “Stay quiet.”