Page 60 of The Second Death of Locke
His eyes flicked shut, and she felt the fizzle of magic. “Thirty, at least,” he said, defeated. “Maybe more. We’re so close to the border— I wanted to avoid the higher elevation.Fuck, Grey.”
“Hey, hey,” she said, squeezing his hand. “We’ve gotten through worse.”
“They’re surrounding us,” Kier said, his magic mapping a scene that she couldn’t see. “I don’t think we can fight them. Not with Brit still injured, not with only five of us and Sela.”
“Don’t panic,” she said, but she was also panicking, so it was unhelpful.
Kier was gazing off into the distance, away from the mountain ridge—she did not like the look on his face. “You could get them out, you know,” he said quietly.
“Kier, I’m not leaving you.”
“You could at least let me try to protect you,” he said, frustrated.
She shook her head. She was not going to be the survivor again, not when it was Kier she risked losing. “Hold the martyrdom for a second. What if… Do you think we could take them? You and me?”
His gaze snapped to hers, brow raised. “Thirty? Forty? An entire company? Not a chance.”
“We could try.”
He shook his head. “There are wells too. Even if we take out the mages and typics, we wouldn’t have the strength to fight the Hands after.”
She chewed on her lip, assessing the well within her. She had not told him, out of fear, what it really meant to be Locke. What it really meant to be the first and last point of power, to hold the fate of all wells in her hands.
She had not told him, in her sixteen years of loving him, what she had done. What she could do. There was the chance, when he knew, that he would not love her back.
He saw that she was thinking something and grabbed her hand. The power flowed stronger between them. “We can’t take them alone,” he said.
Behind Kier’s back, she saw movement as the first line of soldiers crept down the ridge toward the little house—they hadn’t been spotted on the roof, she suspected.
“Not alone,” she said quietly. The reality of the situation was dawning on her, watching that line of soldiers move slowly but steadily toward them. She saw Kier’s gaze shift and suspected he was watching the same thing over her shoulder.
“Captain?” Eron called from below. “There’s movement ahead.”
“Do you trust me?” Grey asked.
He looked at her, serious as she had ever seen him. She had no idea what he could possibly be thinking when he said, “Unquestionably.”
Once she did this, once sheshowedthis, she could never take it back.
She reached out, very carefully, and touched his cheekbone. “You and me,” she said, so quietly, as if her heart had already broken.
“You and me,” he agreed. “Final count is forty-three.”
She nodded, feeling that odd power run through her, placid as ever. When she followed him down the stairs, she felt herself a girl again, following Severin into the basement. Kier’s boots hit the dirt and the image flickered; the fire burned to nothing.
“Listen close and listen quickly,” Kier said. “We don’t have much time.”
The others stood awkwardly, weapons ready, confusion clear.
“We’re completely surrounded,” he announced with the grim sort of cheer that came before a near-death experience—or death, she thought. “Grey and I are going to do what we can. Brit, Ola, the second you hear anything, I want you running out the front and down the ridge, toward the sea. Eron and Sela, you ride Pigeon and seek shelter. The others will catch up. Get as far as you can. If we make it, we will find you. Do you understand?”
“But Captain—” Brit started.
“That’s an order,” Kier said. He looked at Grey, his eyes heavy with longing, and she understood. He hesitated, scanning the others. “I don’t think I can say what an honor it has been to lead you,” he said, and she couldn’t look at him, because if Kier was being soft like this, so openly—well, it really was the end, wasn’t it?
The others put on their coats. Grey sheathed her sword at her hip, like a soldier—she needed her hands. “Can you tell them apart?” she murmured to Kier as they crossed the front room.
“Yes,” he said. “Do you trustme?”
