Page 89 of The Second Death of Locke
He was right.
“The girl, this time,” the commander said, and the guards stepped steadily toward her. Grey braced for pain, but Kier moved—not far, not with his restraints, but he angled himself so he was just in front of her.
“Wait,” he said, his voice not quite his own—there was blood in it, and fear, and she reached uselessly for his tether. “Wait.”
The guards paused. She felt Ola looking at Kier, agony on her face, and then he straightened, wincing at the pain. Grey tried to lunge forward, to reach for him, to touch him in any way possible, but it was useless.
“It’s not Maryse you’re looking for,” he said.
Grey’s brain screeched to a halt. Mare’s face was absolutely unreadable.
The commander was almost lazy in his response, crossing his arms over his chest, moving closer to Kier as if to demonstrate that he didnot fear him. “Oh?”
The legacy of Locke is blood and betrayal.
Grey sucked in a breath, tasting blood and poison. She didn’t know—she didn’t know how she knew, but she could hear the words Kier was forming before he said them; she could feel the swell of apology through the weak, slippery tether as she tried to force through the effects of the breakbloom to no avail.Don’t do this, she wanted to scream at him, but all that came through the gag was a muddled moan.Do not do this to me.
“It’s me,” Kier said, calm and measured. “I’m Severin, Heir to the Well, Lord of Locke, First Mage of the Isle. I’m the only survivor of the Isle’s downfall.”
Your mother is not well. She sits in the garden for hours, under the tree where he lies. Imarta and I have tried everything, but she is inconsolable. The dirt is still a black spot on the lawn, as if nothing will ever grow there again.
Please, Kier. If you’ve ever listened to me at all, listen now: come home. I cannot bury both of you.
Letter from Laurella Seward to Lieutenant Kiernan Seward, 9 yearsPD
twenty-one
GREY FOUGHT.
She managed to knee the guard closest to her in the groin, then use his chin to push the gag low and out of her mouth. She couldn’t do any more before one of the other guards caught her in the shoulder with the hilt of their sword and another kicked her to her knees, then there were hands in her hair, jerking her head up, and a blade on her throat.
She froze, breathing hard, gazing up at the commander with hatred. He moved slowly, then kneeled before her. She spat at him, but he threw up a shield—he was a mage, and someone else in this room was a well, and Grey now understood why the breakbloom was only on their gags.
“You were found with him, weren’t you? Do you think of yourself as his knight? His protector?” The commander reached forward, tugging her hair. “Or is it something else?”
“The girl is a fool. Obsessed with the captain and always has been,” Mare said, her voice flat and emotionless. “Besotted.”
The commander laughed, like this pleased him. He moved the gag back into Grey’s mouth, then gripped her chin in his hand. “And are you just as besotted, Seward?”
A pause. “She is nothing to me,” he said finally.
“And yet she was in your bed.”
“Do you care about everyone you take to bed?” Kier asked, that awful, devious insouciance creeping back into his tone.
Blood and betrayal. She knew he was doing it to save her, theabsolute bastard, but it stung all the same.
“And yet she would die for you, it seems,” the commander said, standing and brushing his hands on his trousers, as if touching Grey had made him filthy. She felt the blade slip away from her throat, but the hand did not leave her hair, and there was another firm one on her shoulder, keeping her down.
“She’s a fool. She’s been nothing but trouble from the start,” Kier said, and there—there was just the briefest lapse into tenderness.
“Then enough worrying about the girl.” The commander looked at her over his shoulder, his gaze dripping with disdain. “Knight, if you step out of line one more time, I will kill you. And that is a promise.”
“Please,” Kier said very quietly, only for her. “Don’t.”
She wanted to—gods, how she wanted to—but she was no use to anyone if she was dead. She sagged in the arms of her captors.
The commander turned his attention back to Kier. “Severin, then. How can I be certain you’re not just another imposter? That you are truly the heir?”
