by T. A. White
“Fiona,” Shea said, glad to see the other woman on her feet and looking well.
Fiona had been injured not long after Trenton. For a while, they hadn’t been sure she’d make it. She looked much better than the last time Shea had seen her.
Fiona was a short woman, her compact form containing a forceful personality. She was a warrior, commander of her own squad and well respected among the Trateri.
“I’m glad you made it safely through,” Fiona said, her fierce amber eyes warm. She turned back toward where Reece was chastising the pathfinder, giving Shea a glimpse of the three faded scars that ran along the line of her jaw. “Your cousin is pretty interesting, though.”
Shea choked when she noticed the considering look in the other woman’s eyes, one that said she was imagining what Reece looked like naked.
“He has his moments,” Shea finally forced out.
“Indeed,” Fiona said with a lascivious grin before sauntering off.
Fallon joined her, his expression distracted. Shea didn’t mind. She used the time to massage the shoulder she’d fallen on during the skirmish with the bashe. It ached. In fact, her whole body was sore, various places throbbing in a way that told her tomorrow would be worse.
“You look awful,” Fallon said in an abrupt voice.
Shea snorted as a laugh escaped her. “Gee, thanks. I’ll remember to clean up next time I slay a monster.”
Fallon’s eyes were warm, the color of molasses as his lips tilted up. “My love, if you wanted my attention, you only had to ask. There was no need to go out and kill the biggest thing you could find.”
She gave him an arch look. “That’s a mighty big ego you have there, thinking I did all this for your regard.”
His lips twitched.
Before they could say more, a familiar face appeared.
“Dane! You have no idea how good it is to see you again,” Shea exclaimed.
The other man gave her the cocky, slanted smile she remembered. Sky blue eyes in a handsome face stared back at her, relief and happiness reflected in their depths. Dane had always been a looker. The women of Birdon Leaf had made eyes at him every time he walked by. But, it had always been the type of beauty fitting for a youth. The months since they’d last seen each other had carved lines in his face, maturing him. The Dane of before was like a fine piece of art, pretty but insubstantial. The man before her now was as beautiful as a mountain range. Wild, dangerous, and as stable as the ground beneath them.
“Shea, I thought I was imagining things when I realized it was you in the mist.” He clasped her forearm against his and brought her in for a short hug, slapping her on the back.
Fallon and the Anateri around them went ramrod straight, focusing their predatory attention on him. There was a slight growl from her warlord before she stepped back.
Dane either didn’t notice or pretended not to. He turned and gestured at the woman watching them with a bored expression from across the courtyard. “Peyton, get over here.”
He turned back to Shea and shook his head. “She’s even grumpier than you were when you first came to the village.”
His eyes went to Witt as the other man joined them. “I can’t believe you’re still alive. I was sure you were dead as soon as that idiot Paul panicked while escaping.” Dane’s face turned sincere. “I never did get to thank you for that, by the way. I know things would have gone much differently if you hadn’t sacrificed yourself.”
Witt shrugged, dismissing the sentiment. “I’m glad you managed to escape the fate of Birdon Leaf.”
Dane’s face had sobered. “Yes, that is a sad thing.”
“Did any of the others make it out?” Shea asked.
Grief touched Dane’s face. “Very few.”
Despite everything they’d done to her, Shea had hoped for better. Not everyone in the village had been self-involved idiots. There had been good people there, too. For Dane, the grief would be worse. He’d grown up in that village. His parents, their parents, and their parents before them had been born and died there, were buried next to its walls. Losing everyone he’d once known had to be devastating on a scale Shea could barely imagine.
Her time with them had been brief and fraught with conflict.
“But, that is a story for when we have copious amounts of ale in our hand,” Dane said with a smile that didn’t quite hide the grief in his eyes. “Right now, I wanted to introduce you to Peyton.”
The other woman’s gaze was cool as she took in Shea and the rest of the Trateri. Even wearing clothing that was a little too big, her hair pulled back in a braid and a stubborn look on her face, the woman managed a beauty that was only outshined by the forceful personality stamped on every line of her face. Her features were delicate, like spun glass, belying the strength it would have taken to get to where she was.
Shea could see she complemented Dane—not just in looks, but personality as well. Reserved where he was gregarious, cautious where he was bold.
Shea gave her a happy smile and stuck out her hand. The other woman looked surprised and suspicious, as if not used to such a response.
Peyton glanced at Dane as she shook Shea’s hand, grunting a greeting as she did so.
“She’s the reason for the upgrade,” Dane said with an easy smile, gesturing to the weapon he wore slung across his back.
“Powerful thing, that,” Witt said.
Dane nodded. “We’ve been patrolling the mist a few times a week, clearing out anything that tries to make a home there.”
Shea frowned. In the past, the mist had never been thick enough to support any of its normal denizens. “How long has that been going on for?”
“A few weeks,” Peyton said. “They won’t say anything, but the council is worried.”
Fallon and Shea shared a look. More signs that all was not as it seemed here.
“Figures the outcasts would stick together,” Eric sneered. Two other men stood next to him, watching Shea and the rest with hostile looks.
“Shove it, dirt pounder,” Dane said, not looking back. His voice had deepened, turning menacing. “Or do you need to relearn the lesson I gave you when I arrived?”
Eric scoffed but didn’t say anything else, backing away and taking his lackeys with him.
“Ignore him, Peyton. He’s just an idiot who is finally realizing he’s not as important as he thinks he is,” Dane said with a gentle touch to her shoulder.
Peyton didn’t respond, her expression shuttered and blank. The sight made Shea’s stomach clench. She was familiar with that sort of look, having worn it more than a time or two herself.
Peyton didn’t fit in. For whatever reason, those of Eric’s ilk thought they could get away with making her feel unwelcome, pile insult on top of insult until she tried to avoid all human interaction.
That shouldn’t have been the case. Not here, not where a pathfinder should feel most welcome.
Dane turned to the rest of them, his expression forcefully friendly. “You look tired. I’ll show you to your rooms so you can get some rest.” He turned to face Fallon who gave him an intent stare, one that Dane ignored. “Your generals and clan elders have all been given rooms. You too, old friend,” he told Witt. “The rest of your men will be put in one of the lower levels and your horses stabled. They’re a bit of a stickler about when dinner is served around here. I don’t suggest being late.”
Shea nodded and looked back at Fallon as Witt and Dane bent their heads together and walked off.
CHAPTER SIX
Dane led them past the second curtain wall and through the bailey into the main part of the Keep. They ascended several stone steps to a large, arched wooden door.
“Whoever built this place took their security very seriously,” Caden said, a faint note of approval in his voice. His sharp eyes took in some of the many defenses that riddled the Keep, a remnant of a time when it faced serious and constant threat of invasion.
On either si
de of the door were small loopholes, slits in the stone that allowed archers to harry an advancing enemy. Above them were stone protrusions, little more than boxes with holes cut in the bottom. In a previous age, boiling tar could be poured onto invaders massing below. These same features were on the gatehouse at the entrance of the Keep as well. To Shea’s knowledge, the defense had never been used in her people’s time residing here.
The wooden door was several inches thick, heavy and hard to move. It had metal strips running throughout to protect the door in the event someone took a battering ram to it.
The entryway of the Keep was austere and majestic with little in the way of comfort. Stone dominated the space without even a brightly covered rug or tapestry to soften the place up. It fit the Highland’s image—strong, severe, and just a little bit cold.
Dane kept up a running patter of conversation as he led them deeper into the Keep, bypassing the towers and the great hall in favor of leading them up several flights of stairs. Despite narrow windows and an abundance of stone, the Keep managed to escape being dark or gloomy. That was something most Highlanders couldn’t boast of in their own castles, those villages lucky enough to have them.
A door opened as they passed, giving them a glimpse of the lower battlements and several pathfinders, dressed in their distinctive drab greens and browns as they patrolled.
Shea noted that fact with interest. In all her childhood, she didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone set to guard the battlements. The gatehouse, yes. Maybe once in a while people were assigned as lookouts in a tower as punishment, but never the lower battlements.
It appeared they were taking the threat of beasts seriously—or else, the pathfinders knew something they just weren’t telling them.
“This is yours,” Dane said, stopping in front of a wooden door with a curlicue of metal worked into the panels.
Fallon’s face was impassive as Dane opened the door then stepped aside. Fallon barely glanced into the room before he asked, “And where are the rest of my people staying?”
“Several of your clan leaders will be on this hall. The rest will be on the floor below you. The bulk of your men will be staying in one of the minor great halls,” Dane said.
Fallon was quiet for several moments. “That does not work for us. There was plenty of space between the curtain walls. We can set up camp there.”
Dane shook his head. “I would suggest against that course. They won’t tell you this, but something’s going on. They’re way jumpier than normal.”
“What do you mean?” Shea asked, curious.
Dane frowned and looked away, appearing torn. Shea could sympathize. The pathfinders had given him a home, a place to go after everything had been ripped from him, but Shea and Witt were part of what he’d lost. It put him in a difficult position.
“The rest of the survivors and I stayed outside when we first got here,” Dane told her.
“Why? There seems to be plenty of room inside the Keep,” Fallon said, his eyes sharp.
Dane’s expression was slightly bitter. “Let’s just say our hosts weren’t exactly keen to have us here. I got the feeling that they would have preferred we’d gone the way of the rest of the village.”
Shea winced and shared a look with Witt. Dane was probably not too far off. Worse, it didn’t surprise her. What was more surprising was that the pathfinders had let them inside the curtain wall at all.
“Has that changed?” Fallon asked.
Dane shook his head. “They’ve moved us inside, but still regard us with that same suspicion. We’re kept separated from the rest of the Keep’s occupants and told not to explore. If we had anywhere to go and any way to get there, most of us would have been gone by now.”
“You think it’s dangerous to stay out of doors,” Fallon said, following Dane’s logic.
Dane nodded, his face grim. “Only reason I can think of for why they moved us.”
Fallon and Shea shared a look. He wasn’t happy about this revelation. Neither was she, if she was telling the truth. For this amount of heightened paranoia when the Keep’s walls hadn’t been breached by anything in centuries, it meant something was going on—something beyond what they’d been told. That something was the reason for all the changes, and the reason her warlord and his army had been summoned.
“My Anateri will take the rooms near here,” Fallon said, his words a decree. Dane opened his mouth and then closed it, evidently deciding not to argue. To his people, Fallon said, “Find where you’re staying and then report back.”
Shea stepped into the room as he was handing out orders. She’d never stayed on this side of the Keep. Her room had always been in one of the towers on the other end, where few people would bother her, and she had an impressive view of a mountain glen.
The room was big at least, a wide-open space that seemed empty and unfinished despite the furniture. Someone had attempted to make it a little nicer with a few rugs thrown on the cold stone floor, but after months with the Trateri whose weavings were among the best she’d ever seen, the rugs looked worn and drab. Everything seemed colorless and boring, from the stark gray stone to the heavy wooden furniture.
She hadn’t thought it possible, but she yearned for the airy tents of Fallon’s people with their strange ability to turn a grassy meadow into an oasis of home in just a few short hours.
Shea crossed her arms, holding her elbows as she gazed around with a pensive expression. Her people had lived in this place for several generations and it still felt cold and unwelcoming.
Fallon came up behind her and cupped her shoulders, placing a gentle kiss on the back of her head. Her eyes slid close, and she leaned back against him, enjoying the warmth of him at her back and the solid feel of his frame behind hers.
“What are you thinking?” he asked in a quiet rumble.
“This isn’t home anymore.” There was an ache in her voice and a sense of loss.
His grip tightened and then loosened, his arms coming around to wrap her in a hug as he set his chin on top of her head. “Is that a bad thing or a good thing?”
“I don’t know.” She turned in his arms so that they were pressed front to front. That familiar wicked heat sparked in his gaze, and she felt an answering flush. She ignored it, knowing they didn’t have time to indulge.
“You don’t like the fact that we’ve been separated,” she stated.
His big hands flexed against her back, his whiskey colored eyes watching her intently. “No, it leaves us vulnerable to attack.”
True, but if the pathfinders really wanted to kill them, it wouldn’t matter where the clan members were located. This was their stronghold. They knew all its tricks and hidden passageways. They had weapons at their fingertips that put the boomer to shame. Separate or together, it would make no difference.
“That’s why you instructed Caden to put three to a room,” Shea said slowly.
He grunted, one hand slipping under her shirt to touch skin, his thumb stroking along the bumps of her spine in absent thought.
“If it were possible, I’d have some of the clan leaders stay with the men,” Fallon said with a scowl. He didn’t need to explain why there was little chance of that happening.
The men who made up Fallon’s council had once been the leaders of their clans until Fallon united them under his banner. While they weren’t the ultimate authority they once were, they were still powerful and responsible for the wellbeing of the people they considered theirs.
Unfortunately, the leaders were a fractious bunch, as prone to arguing as working together. If Fallon instructed one or even a few to stay with the majority of the men, they might refuse just on principle, no matter how sound Fallon’s argument.
Shea snorted. “I’d like to be a fly on the wall when you tell them.”
“You wouldn’t do it for me?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.
She scoffed. “No, Warlord. That’s your job. You wanted the responsibility; now,
you’ve got it. Besides, I doubt they’d listen to me.”
His lips tilted up in a half smile, his eyes lightening. “I don’t know. Caden and Braden tell me you handled their grab for power after my disappearance beautifully.”
Her hands flexed against his chest, reminded of a time when he’d almost died. Had he been a second slower or hesitated for even a moment, he would have been lost to her. It was the first real glimpse she’d had into how he must feel every time she risked her life. It had given her something to think about.
“That was more blind luck than anything, and if you hadn’t turned up as promptly as you did, I’m sure I would have lost that battle very quickly,” she said in a light voice, trying to gloss over the negative feelings the reminder engendered.
The soft look on his face said she didn’t fool him, but he was willing to humor her.
“I think you’re too critical of yourself.” In a swift change of subject, he released her and gave her a teasing smile. “Your pathfinders don’t seem so very scary so far.”
“You think so?” she asked, grabbing the small bag she’d dropped at the foot of the bed and setting it on a small table in the corner of the room. There wasn’t much in it, just a few changes of clothes and various small weapons such as daggers.
She pulled out a clean pair of pants and shirt and set them aside. Next, she pulled out the book of beasts she carried with her everywhere. She made a mental note to jot down a few of her observations about the bashe before she forgot them. If her father was right and mythologicals were really back, it meant they would need every scrap of information they could get their hands on.
Last, she drew out a palm-sized compass. It wasn’t much to look at, small and beaten, dents and nicks in the metal. It was old, very old, and a memento given to her by her father when she’d passed the final test and joined the ranks of the pathfinders. She’d carried it with her on missions ever since. Even after her fall from grace.
As she placed it on the table, the sight of it made her heart hurt. Her fingers lingered on it for a moment before she straightened.
That reminded her of something she needed to do before they could truly relax in this room. Giving Fallon a darkly significant look, she continued their conversation. “Give it time. They like to lull you into a sense of complacency before they strike. Make it through dinner and then tell me whether you think they’re scary.”