Page 4 of The Second Death of Locke
“Someone more direct, then? A bastard?”
“Everyone with the Isle’s blood was killed,” Grey said sharply.
Each nation had individual alliances with Locke, but Scaela was bound to the Isle by blood and vows. Scaelas, the High Lord who bore the nation’s title, was the first to go to war in an effort to uncover the fate of Locke’s lost son—first with Epras for going after any cousin with the Isle’s blood within reach, and then with Nestrias for killing the High Lady of Locke’s sister after the destruction of the Isle—and then it was only a matter of time before Cleoc Strata and Luthar followed.
Kier was quiet for a long moment. “I don’t like to think about that part.”
It was impossible to forget, when it was the very reason they were at war. But: “I know,” Grey said.
“So they think they found the heir, then,” Kier said, twisting his ring. “That’s the only explanation.”
“I suppose it is.”
He shrugged. “Not my job to worry about it. Not yours, either.We’ll retrieve whatever it is they want and go from there. It’s a fool’s errand, but if Attis thinks we’re able to do something big, then it at least reflects well on your power. Maybe they’ll move us somewhere kinder.”
She raised her hand to his temple, skimming over the silver shooting through his thick, dark hair. He was due for a haircut—they’d been on the defensive nonstop for weeks as Luthar pressed for possession of the supply road that went from the bridge across the river and wound down on their side all the way to the port. Kier was in charge of sixty others (though he always said, “You’re just as much in charge as I am,” and she always laughed at that), so it made sense that a haircut was the last of his priorities. If she was a better Hand, a more militant Hand, she’d handle it now. She had the kit in her bag. But for all her dedication to their duty, she so loved the feeling of his too-long hair curling against her fingertips.
“Attis gave us the assignment because we’re capable,” she said.
He sighed. “She gave us the assignment because you’re the best well we’ve got, and she’s finally figured that out, though it pisses her off to admit that you’re stronger than Concord.”
Grey shrugged. There was no true response to that. “Rest easy, Captain,” she said. Then, because there were duties shedidhave to carry out for his health, she nudged his hand toward his bread scraps. “And eat.”
Kier grimaced, but he obeyed.
They’d been at war for nearly two decades now, the unrest ruling their memories for most of the time either of them had been alive. Before, back when Locke was there as neutral territory, the six nation states that made up Idistra were as peaceful as the continent. Grey couldn’t remember what that felt like.
Grey’s parents and brother were casualties of the war. Following the tradition of Scaela, the orphan girl who washed up on the shore on that gloomy day, found half starved and feral in the woods, was given to a widow of the war. It was hoped that it would ease suffering—and it solved the issue of what to do with orphaned children, giving them a home despite the distinct lack of caretakers. It was certainlyless helpful that Grey’s new guardian was newly eighteen, only just married and widowed just as quickly, and barely able to look after herself, let alone a grief-stricken child.
So it was a stroke of luck that the kind couple next door to Imarta had two boys just a bit older than Grey and the capacity to love two more unmoored stragglers. Grey barely remembered her first days in Imarta’s house besides a few snippets: Kier’s ma stirring a great pot on the stove as his mom tied the laces of Grey’s boots, checking them for a sturdy fit; how the older boy misheard her name the first time she said it and then exclusively called her Grape; sleeping tucked against Imarta, barely able to get through the night without screaming terrors; rifling through a pile of hand-me-down shirts as the younger of the boys peered at her from across the table.
She was glad she remembered meeting him. She was glad she had half a memory of life without Kier, if only because it reinforced the understanding that she felt unmoored without him. They’d known each other so long, grown into each other like roots of neighboring trees rather than neighboring children until Kier was so intrinsically tied with her understanding of magic that she sometimes had trouble separating the two.
Maybe that was fate. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Now, Kier was as close as she would ever come to true magic herself.
It was late evening when they were finally alone again, after a strategy discussion with their officers for the ambush and a round of sparring.
Sore and tired, Grey lay on her back on the scratchy rug that protected their tent floor from the mud. She’d shucked her cloak and most of her layers, leaving her in fitted sparring trousers and a compression vest. She stared straight up, watching the movement of the tent fabric in the wind.
Kier finished sharpening his blade and sat down next to her. When his hands found her calves, massaging out the knots, the sound she made was borderline indecent. His low chuckle answered. She clapped a hand over her mouth before anything else could escape and she’d have to shamefully and dishonorably remove herself from the situation, her position, and perhaps all of Scaela.
“Turn over,” Kier murmured.
Grey pressed her lips together, but did as she was told. She slipped her straps over her shoulders and Kier helped her pull her vest down to her hips, exposing her back. Grey shivered, folding her arms to pillow her head. Kier moved over her, his hands shifting to her back. The problem with being trained to protect him and his person at all times, at all costs, was that it was actually quite hard on her body. At least, unlike most mages, Kier did his best to show her he appreciated it.
“I keep trying to work it out,” he said, his knuckles digging into the knots in her lower back. “You’recertainthere’s nothing that can just make a well, right?”
“You know as much as I do,” Grey said.
“Lies, blasphemy, slander.”
She sighed. “No. There’s nothing that canmakea well.” She chewed her lip, distracted by the gentleness of his touch as his fingers traced up her spine, digging in again when he reached the too-tight muscles of her shoulders.
He thought for a moment. “Then maybe it’s something from another system.” Though Idistran magic relied on both a well and a mage, other systems of magic in other places didn’t. “Maybe a rock?”
“Arock?” Grey asked, turning her head to look at him over her shoulder.
He smirked at her, andoh. She could often pretend that she and Kier were nothing more than the most devoted of friends, but sometimes the ache in her chest was difficult to ignore.
