In the distance was evidence of ruins—crumbled walls and the remains of stairs surrounded by a tower that was missing huge pieces was all that remained.
Around it all, there was a giant wall of mist, the glen the only thing not consumed by it. The sun shone down on the little clearing, making it seem even more surreal.
Shea pulled her wrist free as the students moved off to explore.
“What is this place?” Braden asked.
That was a good question. The short answer was that no one knew. It could only be gotten to by way of the mist surrounding the keep, but the paths to it always changed. It meant you could only get to it by being led by someone who had already been there, the location acting like a beacon in the pathfinder’s mind.
It was old, whatever it was. Of that, Shea was sure.
“You said you wanted to know how pathfinders got their abilities,” Shea said. She nodded to the fountain and the ruins. “This is part of it.”
Braden looked back at the scene, as he frowned in thought. He gave her a curious glance. “How?”
“If we understood that, there’d be a lot more of us,” Reece said, his face irritated.
Shea sent her cousin a quelling glance. He shrugged at her before wandering off.
She turned back to Braden and nodded for him to join her. Together, they made their way down the slight hill to the glen, Trenton trailing behind them.
“We think it has something to do with this place. Maybe the fountain or the ruins, but students who visit here before the final test seem to have a greater likelihood of passing,” Shea said.
“It is strange,” Braden said, observing the place with a frown. “Is it always surrounded by the mist?”
Shea nodded. “As far as we can tell. Its boundaries never waver, it’s always the same, neither shrinking nor retreating.”
Braden looked around with an assessing gaze, the tactician in him emerging. “If we could harness whatever enables it to do that, it would mean you wouldn’t have to fear the mist.”
“In theory,” Shea agreed.
He gave her a sharp look. “You don’t agree?”
She gestured to the wall of mist around them. “You might keep it from rolling over you, but you’d still be cut off from the rest of the world. The effect ends up being the same.”
Not to mention, her people had spent many decades studying this place and they were no closer to discovering its secrets.
She spotted Clark near the rest and headed in that direction. Reece had several of the students near him where he sat against the lip of the fountain, fielding questions from curious minds who had shaken off their unease to focus on the wondrous place they found themselves in.
“No, you can’t take your shoes off and walk around in the fountain,” Reece said as Shea walked up. She bit back a laugh at the words and the expression on her cousin’s face—one very similar to what their old mentor used to give when either of them showed a lack of sense. “What are they teaching you idiots nowadays?”
There was a shuffling of feet as the students looked away.
Reece let out an angry sigh. “Spread out. Observe. Then come back and tell me what you see.” Before anyone could take more than a step toward the bubbling water, Reece barked, “Leave the fountain be. There’s a whole glen out there. Explore it.”
Chastened, the students left, some showing obvious reluctance, their eyes returning to the fountain again and again.
Shea joined Reece, propping her hip on the stone next to him as she watched their charges. “What do you think?”
He grunted as he eyed them critically. “Too early to do more than guess.”
“But you have some opinion,” Shea said, knowing her cousin.
He looked over at her. “I always have an opinion.”
That was true.
“How’d you get stuck with the ducklings?” Shea asked, tilting her head toward where they were exploring. “You don’t normally do this sort of thing.”
