Page 59 of The Second Death of Locke
He snorted, glancing out the window. “I wouldn’t worry about me bringing anyone else to our bed,” he said. He caught her hand, pressing a kiss to the back of her fingers.
Grey rolled her eyes, pulling back before he could feel the way her heart thudded faster. “Keep dreaming,” she muttered, because it was what he expected of her; because they always flirted, and nothing ever came of it; because he didn’t know how much she wished he could be sincere and let her down easy, for once.
His smile widened. “It’s clear,” he called to the others.
They filed through the open doorway. Sela and Brit laid out the bedrolls while Ola launched herself up the ladder to explore the tiny loft. Eron took the water buckets to the stream behind the house, then left one for Pigeon and brought the rest back. Grey turned away from the activity, from the domesticity of it, and leaned against the open window. Only days left, and then she and her mage would be— what? Just two good friends in a cottage somewhere? A cozy bed for her and Kier and all his would-be lovers, with just enough space for her own broken heart?
She chewed on her nail. She’d thought of telling him a thousand times, a million, how she felt. But he was just… There were so many opportunities. He had toknow, somehow, and the simple fact thathe had not said anything sincere was confirmation enough for Grey that he did not feel the same.
She loved him in every way it was possible to love a person. And for the most part, she knew he loved her back, in his own way—but as she stared into the emptiness of the mountains, she wondered for the first time if that would be enough.
Most rites of the Isle are unknown to those outside of the High Family and the close company they keep, but no processes are quite so obfuscated as the selection of the heir. It does not pass by age. If there is some divine right, a predetermined selection made by the old gods the Isle still holds dear, it remains unknown to the rest of Idistra.
“Even the seas burned”: A Brief History of the Rise and Fall of the Obsidian Isleby Bell Owndig, University of Isidar
fifteen
THEIR ROUTINE WAS SOwell oiled now that Grey barely needed to think. They ate whatever mystery Eron created, then Sela and Brit washed up with buckets of water from the stream while Ola set out bedrolls and Kier examined the map.
“We’ll need to stop when we see a village,” Eron said, unpacking the stores of food and making careful tallies. “We guessed the provisions well, Captain.”
“That’s good,” Kier said, rolling the map up. “Grey, a hand?”
“A hand from the Hand,” Eron muttered, then sighed. “I need a break.”
“Six months of leave,” Kier reminded him.
Grey lowered herself to the floor next to him. He sat in the corner, one knee tucked up with a stack of papers propped on his thigh, the other leg straight out in front of him. He had a pale blue magelight balanced on his lap, casting ghostly light over the paper, deepening the shadows of his face. He kept rubbing at his straightened knee, pain written in the line of his mouth—he’d ripped a tendon in a skirmish three years ago, and it acted up when it was cold, or when he overdid the walking. Grey laid her hand flat over his knee and pushed a swell of power to him, relishing his sigh of relief.
“Thanks,” he muttered. Brit and Sela came in from the cold, closing the crooked door behind them; Kier barely looked up at the noise. “Can you read this? I don’t know if I’m phrasing any of it right.”
Grey took the paper. Neither of them was uneducated, and part of their training involved a certain measure of diplomacy—and with every promotion, there’d been further training on how to speak to officials. But there was a difference between “this is how you write a missive to a master” and “this is how you propose a truce between two nations who have been fighting for nearly two decades.”
She leaned against his shoulder, closer to the magelight, and skimmed the lines, half distracted by Ola and Eron’s joking. Her belly was warm with power, overwarm really, and she pushed a great knot of it to Kier.
He made a low noise in his throat, his hand closing over her knee. “You’re making meverysensitive, Flynn,” he murmured.
“I think it’s a start,” she said carefully. “But I know so little about diplomacy, so perhaps Sela—”
Kier’s hand tightened on her knee, fingers digging in. He wasn’t looking at her—he wasn’t looking atanything. His eyes were focused straight ahead, mouth half forming something he didn’t say.
“Quiet a moment,” Grey said to the others, pushing another knot of power at Kier. “What is it?”
He was on his feet in an instant, drawing his sword, swearing in a lovely mush of anger. “Heartbeats,” he said, stalking into the back room. There were no windows there, but he launched himself up the ladder to the loft. Grey hurried up after him, the others starting to follow until Grey made a quick sign with her hand. Eron pulled Sela into the corner of the back room, away from the door and windows. Ola and Brit lurked by the door, swords drawn.
Kier hoisted himself up into the loft and threw open a flue he must’ve found earlier. Grey hesitated, watching him push up through the ceiling, then followed suit, dragging herself to sit on the roof with him.
“We are absolutely going to fall through the ceiling,” she muttered, her heart pounding in her chest. Kier looked… She couldn’t say it, couldn’t come up with the words. She pushed him more power andhe winced.
“What do you sense?” she asked, squinting out into the frigid night. The dark was cold and clear, the sky cloudless above, but it was a waxing moon—it was so unbelievably dark, and they were down the mountain enough that they didn’t have the lightening effect of the snow.
“I hope I’m wrong,” Kier muttered. He reached out blindly and she pressed her hand to his, squeezing tight. He took a shuddering breath, the tether between them running thick and taut with power. “There are heartbeats, Grey. Human ones. All around.”
She twisted around, looking behind them, up the ridge; then over. There, in a copse of trees behind Kier’s back, she only just made out the barely-there glow of a magelight.
“Kier,” she said, nodding in that direction. He craned around, sucking a breath through his teeth.
“How many do you feel?” she asked.
