“Shea!” Fallon called.
She ignored him. The building to her right held her entire attention. Movement in one of the windows high above had her hands tightening on the reins. They were being watched. Definitely a trap. The question was who had set the trap? And why?
She steered her horse to give the building a wide berth as she made a circle around it and the abandoned jacket. She had no intention of getting close, but they needed more information before they made any decision. The only way to do that was to do a little reconnaissance—something Fallon would have ordered had she not been here.
Men. They could be so smart sometimes but also dumb.
Shea was careful to keep her distance from the jacket and any nearby buildings when she was on the opposite side of it; Fallon watched her with a darkly intense look as she stopped and observed. It was quiet on this side of the square.
Fallon and a few of his men had stayed on the other side. No doubt he’d stopped anyone from following her for fear they would set off any traps that she might have bypassed. Again, smart man.
She glanced back up into the building. There was no movement that she could see from this side. She looked back at the jacket. It was nailed to a stone post. There was no wind down here, so it was utterly still, just hanging there.
The ominous air of the abandoned city lay all around her. The weight of fear and tension seemed to press in on her, ratcheting up her adrenaline. She took a deep breath, not letting the need for action lead her to a rash impulse.
A cool breeze stirred her hair, lifting it from her neck as it swirled around her, bringing with it the faintest sounds of voices, indistinct and indecipherable. She frowned. There should be no way for air to flow in this place. Any air that might have made it through the cracks in the rock above would never have reached this far down.
The voices carried by the wind grew more distinct. A murmuring, fueled by a thousand individual voices, rose. It was difficult but Shea though she heard one phrase being repeated over and over.
Enemy of my enemy, you are betrayed.
Betrayed?
Her eyes shot to the building. Some of the men had not come back last night. Perhaps the ones responsible for the collapse of the buildings before?
Her eyes went to the base of two buildings, but she didn’t see anything amiss. Still, that feeling was there in the pit of her stomach. The one that said something bad was coming.
Fallon looked like he felt it too as he stepped closer to the alley that would lead him to the square and the jacket.
“No, stay back,” Shea shouted. Her horse responded to the urgency of her voice by prancing in place. It was the only thing that saved her. An arrow flew by, piercing the air where she had just been. Shea ducked in her seat, hanging off the side of her horse as she tried to shield her vital points.
Almost at the exact same moment, an explosion rent the air and the buildings they would have been riding through, had Shea not gotten distracted by the jacket, began to fall, collapsing in a great wave of dust and rubble.
The commotion proved too much for her mount. It reared, dumping her to the ground before taking off in the opposite direction of the collapse. Shea stayed low to the ground, not knowing if the bowmen in the building planned another shot at her or had already disappeared.
“Shea!” Fallon roared.
Shea coughed and lifted her head. The cloud of debris from the explosion and collapse had not yet dissipated. She couldn’t see him through the alley, nor he her.
She could hear him though. She could also hear Caden ordering his Anateri to keep him back.
“Stay there. We don’t know if they’ve set up secondary traps,” Shea shouted, or tried to shout, since the air made it hard to speak without coughing.
She sat up cautiously, hoping the poor visibility would keep her from being shot.
“There are archers in the buildings. Find cover,” she ordered.
There was a low murmur as Caden ordered his men into the buildings to search for their ambushers.
The world had turned a dusky gray. Shea climbed to her feet and limped forward. The jacket and post rose out of the gray, the only familiar landmark.
She grabbed the jacket and pulled it from the post, figuring that since she was here already she might as well get what she came for.
“Clear,” one of the Anateri yelled. It sounded like his voice was coming from high up in the building she suspected the archer had been in when she’d been shot at.
“Here as well,” another called.
Shea was glad because the dust was clearing from the air. She could see Fallon now, Caden at his side.
