Page 136 of The Second Death of Locke
“And will it hurt? If I go back?”
Alma smoothed her thumbs over Grey’s hands. “Of course it will,” she said. “Living always will.”
Grey swallowed hard, battling past the pain. “And dying?”
“That’s its own kind of pain,” Alma said. “And its own kind of peace.”
Grey looked at her mother, at the coolness of her eyes and the lines of her face. She, too, looked older than her years—and Grey wondered what it would be like to look in a mirror and seethisversion of Alma staring back at her. To grow older all on her own.
She brought Kier back, didn’t she? What a terrible thing it would be, to bring him back only to leave him to mourn her. To abandon him. To condemn him to stand before Kitalma at the full moon and declare the choice as if it had been his own. Or perhaps her sacrifice would save him entirely.
But perhaps it wouldn’t—and perhaps she was tired of making decisions without him.
And after all, she did have a very talented healer.
Grey leaned down. Kissed the back of Alma’s hand, leaving a smear of golden blood on her skin. “I wish I had grown to know you better.”
“I wish I had lived to see you grow,” Alma responded.
Grey lay back on the altar. Alma got up, going around to her head, combing her fingers through Grey’s hair. She moved Grey’s hands, folded them over her chest, like a body prepared for the tomb.
She leaned down and pressed her lips to Grey’s forehead once more. “Goodbye, Locke,” she said. “Wake up.”
I have a difficult time with the balance of it all: as Locke, it is my decision who gets power, and who does not. As Alma, I would like to bless those I like, but that is not always fair, is it? I don’t know if there is an answer. I don’t know if fairness should factor into it at all. But perhaps it should not all be based on my own thoughts and whims.
I hope, when I pass this title on, my child has a better idea of it. So far, I feel as if I am just making more of a mess.
Letter from Alma, High Lady of Locke, to Wren Locke Teinek, her sister, 18 yearsAD
thirty-four
“GREY.”
Her name again, this time on Kier’s lips. She felt the pain first, the blaring agony of it; then the wet heat of her blood. Something seemed to be shifting inside of her, something that shouldn’t have been moving in the first place.
She heard the clatter of his helm dropping to stone, then his sword. “Grey,” he said again, the warmth of his palms on her face. She forced herself to open her eyes, to look at him.
“Did we win?” she asked, her voice barely audible.
“You disappeared—you justvanished—the wells from Eprain, Luthar, some of our own…”
“Kiernan,” Grey said, struggling to get through this. He was already wrapping his arms around her, readying to carry her back to Leonie, to safety, to a world of pain she could only imagine. “Did it work?”
He pressed his lips together. “It worked,” he said. “Whatever you did, it worked. They’re retreating as we speak, and we’re rounding up prisoners on the beach.” He glanced down at her—she felt him moving below her, walking as fast as he could to get her back to the fortress without disrupting her wounds too much. She let her head lean, the leather of his pauldron soft, though a bit blood-soaked.
“It worked,” she sighed, letting her eyes slip shut.
“And if it worked at the cost of your life,” he said through his teeth, “I will not forgive you. I thought you said you weren’t going to sacrifice—”
“I’ll live,” Grey mumbled against his shoulder, “just to spite you. There’s nothing I love more than proving you wrong.”
He laughed, but there was an edge of panic to it. “Thenlive, Locke,” he pleaded. He said more, but no matter how much Grey desperately wanted to hear it, it wasn’t enough. She slipped, and this time, nothing caught her when she fell into the darkness.
She woke in her own bed.
She sat up and immediately regretted it, gasping at the starburst of pain that erupted from her middle. Hands were on her shoulders in an instant, pushing her down. “Stay down, Locke,” Leonie said above her.
As usual, Grey didn’t listen. She winced as she propped herself on her elbows. She wore a loose shirt, and underneath, she could see the bandages that wrapped her middle. Every part of her ached.
