Page 53 of The Second Death of Locke
“Cleoc was pregnant with me when Locke disappeared,” Sela said, like it was a normal thing to know. “I was born just a couple months after. That’s probably why I don’t… have much to draw on. I’m barely a well at all.”
Grey did not want to think about this anymore. Because Sela was right: Lockewaspower;Greywas power. If she took her secret to her grave, kept fighting other wars and perished in them, she would take all of Idistra’s power with her.
If she did not reclaim Locke before her death, the nation’s magic would die. For good.
This was what she lay awake thinking of late at night; the one thing she could not fully discuss with Kier. He would push for her safety at any cost. Even if it meant the death of magic.
And the truth? She was afraid. She knew the death of each remaining member of her family—she remembered when word came of her beloved aunt Wren, who had been slaughtered in Nestria. She understood, then, how her godfather, Scaelas, immediately went to war with Nestria in retaliation—if Grey had been a sovereign and not a girl of eight, she too would’ve set the very seas on fire to avenge Wren’s death.
She knew of her cousins and aunts and uncles, those who had not been heirs to the Isle’s power and had instead been sent to marry intoother nations to strengthen alliances. All of that fell away when Locke perished. None of them were safe, and Grey least of all.
She was a coward, at the end of it, willing to let the entire system die instead of putting herself at risk of facing the same fate.
She did her best to tune the others out. She finished her ministrations and tapped on Brit’s arm, signaling for them to move. They nodded, pulling their shirt down and shrugging back into their coat.
There was no further discussion on the topic. Kier marked his page and set his book aside, face-down, then looked out over nothing. Grey left the fire and went to sit by his side.
She leaned her head against his shoulder. After a moment, he wrapped an arm around her back and tugged her close. “How are you holding up?” he asked.
“Just dandy.”
“Less than two weeks, Flynn. Then the rest of our lives awaits.”
She sighed.
Lower, he said, just for her, “Power in bravery.” It was the motto of her family, her house, her isle. It was as if he knew what she’d just been thinking. Sometimes she wondered if he could take one look at her face and see every thought her brain held.
“I don’t feel very brave,” she admitted. “Or powerful.”
“Nor do I.”
She leaned further into him, looping her arm over his knee. The cliff face sheltered them from the swirling snow that had started, but it was cold against them—the wind was so loud here that she couldn’t hear the others; it was just as effective as being in a bubble.
“The wind,” she said, “reminds me of home.”
There was a beat of uncertain silence. “Does it?”
“Not that one.”
“Ah.” His arm tightened around her. “You dreamed of them last night.”
“Is that a statement or a question?”
“Statement. Your breathing changes when you do.” He laced his free hand together with the one she had on his knee, and the power flowed through them, a full unbroken circuit. “Has this been bringing up memories?”
“Here and there,” Grey admitted. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Do you remember when we were her age?” she asked.
He was quiet for a moment. “I do,” he said finally, his hand tightening over hers.
It had been the last close call they suffered in Leota—and it hadterrifiedher. Lot left during the summer before her fifteenth birthday, going to train, leaving them behind in a lopsided arrangement made worse by the fact she could no longer hide from her affection for Kier.
That winter, in a brutally cold storm that whipped the sea into frothy peaks below the cliffs, they had been sitting in Leota’s village square with a new letter from Lot and hot tea clasped in their hands. They were there when Mika, the town’s bailiff, strolled through with a group of his friends. Grey had always wondered how he managed to hold his post with his proclivity for drink—she preferred to just avoid him and his crew.
She’d been leaning on Kier, her cheek on his shoulder as they read, when she heard the laughter from the group of armored soldiers loitering nearby.
