“Sorry about that. We’ve been having a bit of a problem with these things lately. I had to wait until the second showed itself,” the man said. He stood on a rock staircase that meandered to the cliff above, his gait relaxed and at ease, despite the four men ready and willing to kill him. “Looked like you had it handled for the most part. Gave me an easy shot there at the end.”
“Dane?” Shea asked, surprise in her voice.
The man paused then reached up and removed his goggles. The move made him seem even more unfamiliar, forcing his hair to stick straight up in tuffs. He peered closer at them, his face equally surprised.
“Shea! You’re alive.” He sounded excited and happy.
“Not just her,” Witt said, relaxing his stance but not yet putting his sword away.
“Witt, my friend!” Dane started to bound down the stairs but was brought up short by the rope around his waist. He turned and snapped, “Do you mind? I’m trying to greet people I thought were dead!”
“Keep your pants on,” an irate female voice growled back. “This isn’t the place for such things. You can do your happy dance when we get out.”
Shea arched an eyebrow at the second voice and bit back a grin as Dane turned back to them and let out a heavy sigh.
“Guess the reunion will have to wait. Grumpy britches back there will have a cow if we don’t get a move on.” Dane turned to walk up the stairs. “Follow us. They tell me the path has moved a bit since the last time you’ve been through, Shea.”
With that, the mist swallowed him again, though his voice echoed back to them as he argued with his companion.
“Who is that?” Fallon asked in a quiet voice, staring after Dane with narrowed eyes.
“Someone from my old village,” Shea told him.
Fallon gave her a sharp look. “One of the ones that sold you into captivity.”
She shook her head. “He was sold with me. He’s a friend. A good one. He helped save your life if you recall.” She gave him a meaningful look to remind him of the first time they’d met.
He and Wilhelm had been caught by some crazy Lowlanders who were about to execute them and two people from Shea’s village. She’d arrived just in time to save them all with the help of Dane and Witt.
“Ah, the one with the boomer.” Fallon’s look was assessing as he eyed Dane’s back. It was that encounter that had shown him how powerful the rare weapon was, and he’d hoped to find a way for his army to use it. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough of them to really make that much of a difference.
Fallon frowned down at her. “He’s too friendly with you. I don’t like it.”
Shea rolled her eyes. “Easy, Warlord. I only have eyes for you. Dane, Witt, and I went through a lot together. There was a time I trusted him with my life. I know you know what that’s like.”
He had the same bond with his Anateri—something forged in danger and bloodshed, one where you had to trust a virtual stranger to have your back against all odds and sanity. It did something to you. You could go for years without seeing that person, then when you finally were around them again, it was just like old times. Such a relationship was something to be cherished and a bond not easily broken.
They gathered their things and halfheartedly called for their horses. It was no surprise when they didn’t trot out of the mist to greet them, but Shea had hoped.
She followed Dane and his companion up the stairs onto an unfamiliar path. He was right, it had moved. Something it hadn’t done in all the years she’d been traveling it. The obscure trail meandered up a hill and along a narrow, stone bridge with no handrails and a steep drop on either side.
Shea’s foot struck a rock, sending it skittering over the side. She still hadn’t heard it land by the time they safely reached the other side.
Tall stone pillars marked where the path began again, the mist draped lovingly around them in a ghostly embrace. Sun penetrated in small shafts that refracted oddly before reaching the ground.
It was easy to see how those unused to it compared the mist to the afterlife. Walking through its eerie stillness was like walking through a dead world. There was a hushed silence as if even sound was afraid to tread here.
It wasn’t long after they passed the pillars that the mist dissipated, peeling back to let the sun’s weak rays bathe them.
They stood on top of a small hill, a dirt path winding down its slight incline to a stone bridge that ran across a deep chasm. Beyond it, the high stone walls of Wayfarer’s Keep greeted her.
Shea hesitated, her eyes pinned to the sharp lines of the Keep. Built into the side of a cliff, it looked like the original makers had carved it from the very stone it sat on. In the past, she’d heard those new to the Keep compare it to one of the castles of old, wondrous and impossible, with magic embedded into its very foundation. To Shea it had always been home—the sight as familiar and welcome as her own face. If she could take the Keep without the people, she would. It was one of the few places she felt comfortable remaining in for an extended period of time.
A defensive stone wall surrounded it, springing from the very edge of the cliff. It made it hard to see the Keep itself except for the top, where sharp towers arched high above, connected by a series of battlements.
The foundation descended deep into the very stone upon which it sat, creating a seamless transition that made it difficult to tell where the cliff ended, and the Keep began.
Its entire design had been formed around the concept of defense. The only way to the Keep was the stone bridge that crossed the chasm which circled the Keep’s front—one deep enough that it would kill any soul unlucky enough to fall into its dark embrace. The cliff protected its back while the Reaches above shielded it from anything that might attack from the sky.
