Page 18 of The Second Death of Locke
Grey wrestled with the memory like it was a physical attacker, pushing it away before it could take root. She set her jaw, clenched her teeth. She’d need to ask Leonie for a sleeping draft tonight. She couldn’t keep dreaming like this.
“What do you know of the Isle of Locke?”
A pause. Grey’s back went ramrod straight, and she had no doubt her fingers were clenched on Kier’s shoulder tight enough to bruise. When Kier spoke next, his tone was even, cautious. “I was a child when the Isle was destroyed, Master. But my Hand and I are from a village on the eastern coast—we know enough of it.”
“You remember its destruction, then.”
Grey bit the inside of her cheek. Kier said, “The air tasted like smoke for days, when it vanished.”
“I imagine it did,” Attis said, sweeping right past the trauma of the event. “Captain Seward, every nation has been searching for years for the lost heir to Locke, to no avail. Could you imagine the sheer power in Scaela if our own High Lord found Severin of Locke, if he restored it?”
Greycouldimagine the sheer power. She worried that she was breaking Kier’s skin under his jacket. As if he could hear the thudding of her heart, he reached back with one hand, covertly hidden by the desk, and wrapped it around her thigh.
Perhaps it was the combination of Locke prickling in her ears, Kier’s near-death, and the warmth of his hand on her, but it only took that much for Grey to forget herself.
“No one could have survived that,” she said before she could think better of it.
A silence. Mare and Attis both regarded her like she was something left to rot on the battlefield for a good long while. “You mustn’t, Hand,” Attis said, raising one dark eyebrow. “I would expect more… discretion from one of your rank.”
Grey bit her tongue before she could lash out. Again. She stepped back half a pace, shaking off Kier’s hand.
“One does not get to our position,” Kier said, always diplomatic, even in the face of her sharp tongue, “by ignoring obvious truths, no matter how inconvenient.”
Master Attis did not look impressed. “Then you must know the truth of your mission. Captain Seward, Hand Captain Flynn, I’m trusting you with a lot. I know that you two may have committed an egregious error, and I will not investigate whether you are bound, because Ineedthe kind of power you have for this mission. But if you refuse this quest, then I cannot guarantee that your precarious position willnotbe investigated.”
They were caught, and there was nothing they could do about it. Kier rubbed his face, long-suffering as always. “I understand. And who is the asset?”
“The girl,” Attis said, “is Maryse of Locke, daughter of the last High Lady of the Isle.”
A sharp indrawn breath—Grey didn’t know if it was her or Kier, or both of them, because they knew the truth and neither of them could say it. Under her hand, Kier was very, very still. His own hand snaked back again, gripping her thigh with a new ferocity.
“But Maryse of Locke is dead,” he said. “If anyone survived the death of the Isle, it is Severin. The boy. Itmustbe the heir. He wrote to Scaelas after—”
“Maybe the letter was forged. After all, Severin Locke was never found,” Attis said.
Kier did not look at Grey, but he stiffened beneath her hand. “Hedidn’twantto be found. When excerpts were released, that much was clear. It can only be speculation.”
Attis waved a hand in dismissal. “It’sallspeculation,” she said. “Yes, the High Lord did receive a letter, supposedly from the elder child—but what if it was the girl who survived? What if the letter was a fake? What if, all this time, we have been looking for the wrong one?”
“And what are we meant to do?” Kier asked, and Grey was so very grateful in that moment that he was the one responsible for responding.
“I expect you and your Hand to deliver Lady Maryse to the High Lord Scaelas, who will be waiting for you on the eastern coast. There he will reunite with his goddaughter and work with her to restore the Isle. You are to protect the girl on your journey and be at Scaelas’s disposal when you get there,” Attis said. “Unless that is too difficult a journey in your current state.”
The High Lord. They were to deliver the girl to the coast, the coast that haunted Grey always as her childhood home—and something more. The High Lord, Scaelas, probably now graying with age and changed by loss, but when she’d seen him last, he was—
No. She refused to think of it, as if Mare and Attis could see right through her, could read her expression even as she fought to keep it placid.
If Kier let go of her now, she would come unmoored. “It’s not too much,” he said, like an absolute fool.
He insisted on coming back to their tent instead of the infirmary, and Grey was not in a position to protest. When they returned, there was a tray on her bed with a note from Leonie warning her what would happen if she didn’t take the time to eat. She sat, half catatonic, and unwrapped the bread, eating with mechanical precision. It took her almost a full minute to realize Kier had pulled his bag from the trunk at the foot of his cot and was unceremoniously shoving clothes into it.
“Hey, hey,” she said, abandoning the bread for a moment, grabbing his hand. “Attis didn’t say we were leavingnow.”
He looked at her, confused. Nothing remained of the cut on hischeek, not even a scar, and she was proud of her work—though his nose was still a bit crooked.
“Grey,” he said, perplexed as ever. “We’re not going.”
She glanced at his bag, half-full, then back at him, wondering if she had finally, utterly lost it. It was bound to happen sometime—no surprise it had happened now.
