“Two of them,” Shea said.
“Impossible. You would never have survived one, let alone two,” Eric sneered.
Shea clenched her teeth, biting down on what she wanted to say. The courtyard already threatened to spill into violence. She wouldn’t do anything to hasten it.
“We killed one. My friend over there got the other,” she said, nodding to Dane. He grinned at those assembled and gave a mocking wave. The woman next to him just shook her head and cast her eyes up to the sky in a long-suffering expression.
A younger pathfinder raised his hand, his voice frank. “We were the last ones to enter the mist, and we didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.”
Shea’s father looked thoughtful. “That doesn’t mean it’s not there. You might have just jumped time. We’ll send someone out to look at it.”
“I want my men with them,” Fallon said.
Shea’s father gave a sharp nod and turned to find those of his people who would be accompanying Fallon’s warriors.
Gawain and Braden approached.
“Why are you concerned about whatever this bashe is?” Gawain asked in a challenging voice.
Fallon gestured at Shea. Understanding what he wanted, she dug the scale out of her pocket and handed it to Braden.
His face was curious as he peered down at it. He tried to bend it, before taking a blade and trying to stab it. The scale resisted all attempts to break it, even when Gawain plucked it out of Braden’s hands and tried to stomp it beneath his heel.
“The bashe was able to resist all cuts from a sword and any arrow shot at it,” Fallon explained.
Braden looked up at him. “Then how did you kill it?”
Fallon’s sigh was long-suffering. Wilhelm and Trenton shared a small smile as they held in their laugh. “We let it try to eat one of us and used a spear to stab through the roof of its mouth.”
Gawain guffawed as he looked between their group. “Let me guess which one of you came up with that.”
Shea crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a cool smile. “It was a team effort.”
“Sure, it was,” Gawain said. He shrugged and looked back at Fallon. “I’ll make sure my men go out to grab some of these scales. Something like that would be very useful if we could figure out how to create armor from them.”
He didn’t wait for a reply, turning and walking back to his people.
Caden stopped next to them. “He was entirely too reasonable, considering it was your order.”
Fallon grunted. “I agree.”
“I’ll send someone to keep an eye on him. Make sure he’s not up to anything,” Braden promised.
Shea lost interest in their conversation, drifting away to see what else she could find out. She stopped a few feet away from where Reece was quizzing Lilah.
“Tell me again what happened,” he ordered her.
“I’ve already told you. Everything was going fine and then something grabbed the rope. It knocked me off my feet. By the time I got up, they were gone. The rope was cut.”
“And you came back without searching for them,” Reece said, his voice carefully emotionless.
Lilah rounded on him, her face fierce at the accusation. “I didn’t have a choice. We were in the mist. I thought it best to push through and find help.”
Shea just shook her head. It wasn’t that Lilah was wrong; it was that she hadn’t attempted even a halfhearted search.
A familiar woman joined her. “I thought since they received the same training as you, they’d be a bit braver.”
“Fiona,” Shea said, glad to see the other woman on her feet and looking well.
