“They insulted you.” The Trateri took honor very seriously. As the telroi of Fallon, an insult to her was an insult to him—something no Trateri with them would countenance.
That was all very well and good, but they were heading into the stronghold of the pathfinders, Wayfarer’s Keep, where they’d be surrounded on every side by potential enemies. Taking action now could destroy the mission before it even got under way.
“I can defend myself,” she told him.
“I’m aware of that,” he responded. “That doesn’t mean I can’t help.”
She pulled him away. As much as she appreciated the sentiment, she didn’t need anyone to fight her battles.
She said over her shoulder, “You’ve gotten awfully brave since I’ve been gone, Eric. Or have you forgotten Lasden?”
A few of them blanched, the name serving as a reminder of just who they were dealing with and the lengths she could go to when pressed. Lasden had become a pathfinder just before Shea passed her test. He’d been a particularly obnoxious man. Lazy. Rude. Convinced he was owed more than he deserved. He thought Shea would be an easy mark, a way to climb the ranks by taking credit for her work and sabotaging her missions when he could.
He didn’t hold that opinion long, not after she tricked him into walking into an orth stinger nest which resulted in him stripping down naked and trying to hump a log after he’d been pumped full of the hallucinogenic toxins they kept in their tails. People thought better of messing with her after that.
Shea gave the pathfinders a sharp smile, noting the unhappiness on Eric’s face. He didn’t like the fact that she’d recognized his voice or that she’d called him out by name, putting a target on him for the Trateri around her.
She couldn’t bring herself to care. She was tired of their petty games. She’d forgotten how damn annoying her fellow pathfinders could be.
“Quite right, daughter,” said a tall man, one who’d gone unnoticed until now.
Stepping away from the shadow of the boulder Trenton had leaned against earlier, he gave the group a small smile, one that suggested he was harmless and invited the rest to share in his amusement. That smile was a lie. It was there in the hard eyes and the way he tilted his head as if he was already considering what recompense he should extract from his men. “They should know by now you have your ways of addressing wrongs dealt you.”
The pathfinders stiffened. They watched the man as if he was the most dangerous thing in the clearing.
Her father’s smile deepened. “And if you don’t, I sure will.”
This time the pathfinder who’d made the comment flinched. “No insult was intended, Patrick,” Eric said, sufficiently cowed.
“Come on, Trenton. Fallon will be wondering where we are.” Shea strode off before Trenton could respond or before her father could say anything further.
She noted that Braden had fallen behind and briefly thought about waiting for him but decided against it. She had too much pent-up energy from the encounter and her father’s interference to stand still. He could catch up. Or not. His choice.
Trenton trailed after her, a silent shadow for once. Normally, he teased and prodded, taking pleasure in poking at Shea, but today he was quiet. Shea was too caught up in her thoughts to appreciate that like she should.
The pathfinder’s words had stung, perhaps because they carried more than a small thread of truth to them. The sad fact was, that by the strictest definition of the word, she was a traitor. Perhaps that hadn’t been her intention in the beginning, but her decision to remain with the Trateri, to share secrets the pathfinders kept carefully concealed, were all done despite knowing it would be considered a betrayal by her former people. She didn’t regret it and would do the same if it meant saving the people she’d come to care about—the people of her heart.
She put these thoughts in a box and locked it. What was done, was done. She could handle the barely veiled hostility as long as it didn’t spill into action against Fallon and his warriors. But make no mistake, the moment they came after her friends, she’d teach them exactly what Lasden had learned all those years ago.
She was in the middle of camp in only a few steps. It was too dangerous up here to venture far from the others. It meant there was little privacy when Braden and Trenton kicked her ass every day, but it did mean help was always in reach if they should need it.
She noted certain details about the camp with a quick glance—the way the pathfinders and Fallon’s people milled around, the divisions between them clearly marked. Neither group made any effort to cross the invisible lines that divided them.
Shea’s lips tightened. If this was a preview of what was to come, she was starting to think they should turn right around. An alliance between the Trateri and the pathfinders would never work if they couldn’t even share a simple campsite.
There wasn’t a lot of room for the division, but somehow, they’d managed it in the small clearing where they’d set up for the night. It was a simple space, not much more than a few packs on the ground, with their horses grazing only feet away. Since they were moving fast and the area was dangerous, they hadn’t bothered with tents. There weren’t even campfires, since no one wanted to draw the notice of any deadly beasts in the area. It meant dinner was going to be cold, probably dried meat and bread, just like it had been every night for the past week.
The Highlands weren’t like the Lowlands. Even in the best of times, it wasn’t entirely safe to travel, and given the current upheaval, the risk had elevated. This was something many were quick to lay at Shea’s feet.
Beast encounters had been on the rise since her sojourn in the Lowlands. They’d attacked several villages in the Lowlands and the Highlands, leaving nothing alive in many instances.
Shea wasn’t actually responsible for the attacks that were happening or the way the beast population had risen almost three times its normal amount in the last year. Not entirely at least. Unfortunately, she could see how it might seem that way to the pathfinders, since all eyes had turned to the Badlands and what waited there as the culprit. Since Shea was the only person to come out of that place alive, it was believed she’d done something there that might have woken old enemies and sparked the current climate.
Hence, the reason her father had convinced Fallon an alliance between the two groups was possible—one that would conveniently end with Fallon and Shea in the stronghold of the pathfinders. Shea would still be half-convinced all this was a ruse, if not for the fact that they’d been attacked on a nearly daily basis. Whatever had stirred up the beasts in the Lowlands had done the same here as well, only it was worse in the Highlands since the beast population up here was considerably greater.
As she glanced around the camp, a familiar pair of whiskey colored eyes were trained on her, their owner giving her a small smile that made her heart flutter in that familiar way. Just like that, some of the tension she’d been carrying fell away and a piece of her that had been tight relaxed.
She still wasn’t used to that feeling he gave her with just a small look—one that left her feeling oddly like she’d been punched in her chest. It was like his smile told her she wasn’t alone. Whatever trouble they found, they’d face it together. For someone who had spent the majority of her life going it alone, it was nice to know that someone was in her corner no matter what might come.
