The group had been mostly quiet since they had left the glen. No one was in the mood to talk after everything that had happened.
Shea hadn’t seen any sign of Dane or Peyton, despite her hopes. There was nothing to indicate they had come this way.
That was both good and bad. There weren’t any bodies to attribute to their deaths, but there also wasn’t anything to say they had survived their encounter with the grindle either.
“Quit fiddling with the rope,” Trenton ordered when it became obvious from Griffin’s furtive movements that he was trying to get loose. Trenton prodded him between the shoulders, the push hard but not enough to make him stumble. It was to remind him of his current circumstances. “You won’t get loose, so save me the trouble of having to knock you in the head.”
Griffin remained silent, even as his arms moved in that same furtive movement again.
“I said stop,” Trenton snapped.
Griffin looked back over his shoulder at him, that milky eye with the red dot seeming to see into Shea before he subsided, letting his arms fall in front of him.
“I should have tied his hands behind his back,” Trenton muttered.
Probably. It would have made it more difficult for Griffin to escape, but it would also have meant that one of them would have had had to steady him on some of the more treacherous pieces of the trail. Shea thought she preferred this method to that. Something told her it would be unwise to get too close to Griffin.
Shea paused, the rope tugging at her hand as she listened to a faint sound that echoed through the mist. What was that?
“Psst,” she hissed at Trenton and the rest.
There was something out there. Maybe.
“We’re stopping?” one of the students complained.
Shea ignored them, focusing on her surroundings. The noise didn’t come again, whatever it had been must have moved on.
She relaxed and signaled for them to continue.
“That’s the third time,” someone muttered.
“If you’re ever lucky enough to achieve the rank of pathfinder, you’ll find this job takes patience,” Shea said, her voice echoing back at her. “Haste only leads to death.”
The students settled down, the words acting as a gentle chastisement. Shea wasn’t lying. It was one of the first rules she’d learned in her own apprenticeship.
The students were new to this and unused to operating in dangerous conditions. Shea understood why they wanted to hurry to reach the safety of the Keep’s strong walls but acting impetuously now could lead them into even greater disaster.
“I see that part of you hasn’t changed,” Griffin said as he moved forward.
“Don’t talk to her,” Trenton ordered.
“That’s why everyone died, you know. Because you wouldn’t act when the situation required it,” he said, ignoring the Anateri.
The students buzzed at his words.
Shea continued moving without responding.
“If we had only gotten through the first demarcation quicker, maybe Lis and Ewan might not have been food for the eagles,” he said.
“Perhaps if they had listened in the first place when I warned them of the danger, they might still be here today,” Shea said, even knowing she shouldn’t. Griffin wanted conversation. He was after something, whether it was to distract them or plant little seeds of doubt. “But they listened to you instead, leaving before it was safe. We all listened to you, much to our sorrow.” The last part she muttered.
He chuckled, catching her last words. “Is that the lie you tell yourself these days? That I forced you to go?”
Shea pressed her lips together but couldn’t keep quiet. “Say what you like, but we both know that we wouldn’t have gone there if you hadn’t pushed and pushed.”
He scoffed. “No, you never would have gotten the courage to go. There’s a difference. Face it, lover, you wanted to explore the Badlands just as bad as I did, to achieve something your mother and the rest of the tradition minded council were too afraid of. To go somewhere that still contained unlimited potential for new discoveries. They all did. I was just the one who was honest about it.”
Shea kept her mouth shut on her response, knowing arguing further would just feed into his game.
