Page 172 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

“In with the Scaelan ambassador,” the guard answered.

Locke waved a hand. One of the guards opened the door, revealing the commander at the head of a long, scarred table. Another man sat to his right, his beard and hair gray, his expression stern, dressed in black like the commander. Unlike the commander, he was not armored nor armed, as far as Nore could see.

“Your Highness,” he said, rising, then inclining his head. The commander mirrored the move with a gruff, “My Lady.”

“Ikaaron,” Locke said. “Do you mind if I borrow the commander for a moment?”

“We were just finishing,” he said, aiming what Nore thought was a weighted glance at the Viper. He looked at Nore, too, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

Locke waited with her hands folded as the ambassador stood, bowed again, and took his leave; with another nod of dismissal, the rest of the guards filed out behind him. Nore, uncertain if she was still wanted, moved closer to the door as it closed.

A weighted moment passed. “We’re sound shielded,” the commander said, sitting back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Thank you for unmaking my decision,” Locke said. “You’re right. I would have been… annoyed if I had killed Nore out of anger.”

The Viper raised an eyebrow. His expression softened, a smile catching as Locke moved carefully around the room, then sank to her knees next to his chair. When he reached for her face, she did not pull back.

“You’re cold,” he said, his fingers tracing over her cheek.

“I was out.”

“Guard-less, I suspect. Alone.”

“Kier, you allow me one single reprieve, so of course I will take—”

But then he leaned down or brought her up, his lips meeting hers, and Nore covertly looked away. The wall behind her was covered with ornate tapestries of Lochan folk tales—Terlo would probably find this very, very interesting—and she fixated on one in particular that depicted a strange-looking horse.

“I wasn’t alone,” the High Lady murmured a moment later. Nore was studying the details on the tapestry with a bit too much intensity. “Nore was with me.”

“For some reason, that doesn’t fill me with confidence.”

“I’ve agreed to her plan, which I suspect you have quite a lot to do with.”

A pause. A sharp indrawn breath. Nore looked away from the tapestry, back to the commander and the High Lady. He was studying her face. “You’ll do it?”

“I’ll try,” she corrected. Locke reached for his hand, drawing it to his lips. “I am so tired of hiding,” she said, and Nore heard the tremble in her voice, the confession. “And I’m exceptionally tired of ruling alone, which is bullshit; and I would really, really like to be done with this multiyear headache, or at least give half of it to you, considering you bear just as much fault as I for bringing back this godforsaken rock.”

The commander laughed, low and breathy. “I promise to do all the things you detest,” he said.

“You shouldn’t promise that,” Locke said, reaching up once more to kiss him. Nore wondered, with some humor, how they had managed to conceal this relationship for so long, or if they were always like this when alone simply because of that concealment. “There are a great many things I detest, and I will not hold back on pushing them on you.”

Nore cleared her throat delicately. Though this was… enlightening, there was still quite a lot of work to do—and she feared that Lindan knew she and Cas were here, and what the implications of that could be, and it would probably not take them too long to act.

“If you’ll do it,” she said, “we should probably start preparing.”

Nore orchestrated the meeting, and to her surprise, everyone simply… followed directions. After her afternoon session at court, taking grievances from her people, Locke feigned a headache and retired to her room (though, knowing what Nore did, she did not believe Locke was lying about the headache). The Viper and Ola pretended they needed to have a discussion in Kier’s private parlor, which was better shielded than his office.

Nore, Caspian, and Terlo were already inside when the commander and Hand commander arrived, arguing over something the Eprainish ambassador to Locke had presented earlier that day. Kier sighed when he stepped inside, and Nore felt that shimmering of a sound shield fall over them before he crossed the parlor and dropped into a chair, letting his head fall back and his eyes slip shut.

Nore still had mixed feelings on the Viper. Perhaps it was tempered with a heavy dose of fear—but she’d not looked at him yet and seen some part of her own feelings there. But this exhaustion? That was something she recognized.

It was perhaps unfair for her to have mixed feelings on the Viper, who had freed her from prison and requested Locke stay her hand; and no hard feelings toward Locke herself, who would have killed her in both instances. But perhaps, Nore thought, she simply did not know how to deal with genuine devotion—and that was something she was not ready to confront on her own.

It only took a few minutes for the wall next to the fireplace to waver, then shift. Nore didn’t jump as it moved aside, then Locke stepped through, flanked by Brit and Eron, her guards for the afternoon.

“This is cozy,” Locke said, sweeping into the room. Terlo jumped to their feet, then dropped to a knee in deference; Cas rose fluidly to do the same. Nore remembered herself and offered a curtsey. But Locke waved all of them off, saying shortly, “I tire of formality. Kier, did you get me a snack?”

Without opening his eyes, the Viper said, “There’s a honey cake on the side.”