Reece crouched and picked up a rock lying next to him on the ground. “Fine, get down here so I can show you what you’re looking for.”
Shea dismounted and handed her reins to Fallon before walking over to where Reece was drawing a symbol on the ground.
“You’re looking for this symbol.”
Shea recognized the swooping circle with the squiggly line bisecting it. “This is Lodi’s cavern.”
“Yup.” He gave her a cheeky grin.
“Why would you bring us to Lodi’s pass?” she asked in a scandalized voice. “You know this place is dangerous.” Not to mention unlocking it was a giant pain in the ass.
“What’s Lodi’s pass?” Fallon asked, coming to stand beside her so he could look over her shoulder.
Shea exhaled a gust of air. “It’s the least used of the caverns. No one takes it unless they’re desperate. There are things in there that don’t take kindly to strangers. It’s a real bitch to find, too.”
“And there’s your answer right there.” Reece stood and tossed the rock up, catching it as it came back down. “It’s nearly impossible to locate even if you’ve been through it before and the denizens don’t even allow pathfinders access all the time. Your Warlord and his army will have an impossible time trying to get back through it after this.”
“We’ll have a devil of a time getting through it this time too,” Shea snapped. “That’s if I can even find it.”
“Aww, does the great and wonderful Shea have a little self-doubt?” Reece sneered. “Too bad your Warlord refused to be reasonable, or I’d help you out.”
They both looked at Fallon. He stared back at them with a ruthless expression. Shea knew without asking that he didn’t plan on bending. He didn’t trust Reece as far as he could throw him, and Shea couldn’t say she blamed him. Reece wasn’t trustworthy under the best of circumstances. His role within the pathfinders almost demanded a bit of shiftiness, and since he’d first appeared, he’d seemed to be doing everything in his power to antagonize everyone around him.
“Can you do it?” Fallon asked, his gaze direct.
Shea pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “I don’t know. I’ve never come through here before. I doubt Reece even has, for all that he wants to make you think otherwise. All I have are the old stories to go by.”
Fallon nodded. “That’ll have to be enough.”
She sure hoped so.
*
Shea pulled herself up onto a rocky outcropping. She was dirty and sweaty, her shirt a different color in places. And she felt no closer to finding that damn symbol.
“See anything?” Trenton called up to her.
She leaned over the edge of her ledge. “Nothing yet.”
“Horse lords, girl. Stop leaning over things.” Trenton mumbled to himself, his voice carrying on the wind, “You’d think she had a death wish or something.”
After walking along the edges of the cliffs for a good hour, Shea had given up on finding the entrance below. Fallon’s men had continued to look while she decided to climb, hoping to spot something from above. As her guard and one of the few with experience climbing—something he’d gained while chasing Shea all over Airabel over the past few months—Trenton had been tasked with following Shea up the cliffs.
Shea leaned back and looked up. The clouds today were light and puffy, creating shapes that shifted and changed with every breath. It would have been the perfect cloud watching opportunity.
She sighed and looked back down. The Trateri were spread in a long line up and down the cliffs. She could just make out the faint sounds of voices below as they called back and forth to each other.
If they couldn’t find this entrance, Shea had a feeling Fallon would face a lot of opposition from the other clan leaders for dragging them on a wild goose chase.
They needed to find it.
She turned back to looking. This thing could be anywhere. Reece had gotten them in the general vicinity, but that didn’t help much. This entrance hadn’t been used in decades. It was entirely possible the symbol marking it would be covered up or weathered away. Shea doubted it had been maintained over the years once the guild decided it was more trouble than it was worth.
That brought her back to why Reece had brought them to this particular entrance. She believed him when he said it was to keep Fallon and his men from invading once the pathfinders had gotten what they wanted from him, but there was this hunch buried deep inside her gut that said there was more to the story.
She used the wall to stand, clinging to one handhold as she hung away from the edge.
“Will you please quit doing that? I know you’re half spider, but there’s no reason to test fate,” Trenton yelled from below.
