Wayfarer's Keep

by T. A. White

  Reluctantly, Shea admitted to herself Reece was right. Venturing after the man would be unwise and put not only herself in danger, but Trenton and Braden, and probably Clark as well, since they would feel compelled to follow her.

  As hard as it was to admit, the boy who’d fled wasn’t worth the danger to her three companions. Not when he’d let panic and self-interest guide his actions. He probably thought the grindles would be so preoccupied with their group he could reach safety before they caught him.

  The grindles proved just how wrong he was. One split from the pack, its long strides gaining ground between it and the student.

  There was a harsh scream as the grindle leapt, bringing the man down and tearing at him with teeth and claws.

  “Focus on yourselves,” Braden snapped as the students acted like a flock of geese in the face of a predator and threatened to bolt. “He was foolish and paid the price. Stick together and we might survive. Break and run and it is certain you will die.”

  The words seemed to settle their charges as the other two grindles reached the outer edge of the stone circle. Their flat out run slowed and they skirted the edge, snorting at the stones as they did so.

  Shea noted their reaction with interest and a little hope, as the two grindles paced away from each other, walking in a circle around the fountain and its outlying stone cobblestones.

  “The water is acting as a repellent,” Shea said.

  In much the same way as it did with the white fuzz, it was preventing the two grindles from coming closer. The stones seemed to be a marker to determine how far the fountain’s influence went.

  Dane and Peyton closed in on them. Their whompers brought up to their shoulders and lined up. They fired, the whompers roaring through the air before slamming into the sides of both beasts. There were high-pitched sounds of pain before the grindles collapsed. One was dead, the other stumbled to its feet before limping away.

  The third grindle let out a scream of anger, leaving the bloody mess it had been playing with to lope toward Dane and Peyton. Realizing the danger heading toward them, Peyton grabbed Dane’s arm, dragging him behind her as she sprinted for the mist, the grindle pounding after them.

  It was the best thing they could have done, unarmed and separated as they were. The mist would shield them and even the odds a little bit. In it, the grindle would have to deal with dulled senses. The two would stand a chance. Shea would have done the same in their place.

  That left them with the three human enemies who were slowly making their way to where Shea and her little group waited.

  Shea would have felt a lot more confident of their chances if not for the beast call hanging on one of their belts.

  The three marched across the glen, their pace unhurried, and their faces shielded from view. They didn’t seem concerned about how their grindles had fared. That alone told Shea they had something up their sleeves.

  The three stopped several paces away, their position reminiscent of where the grindles had hesitated.

  “We can’t let them use the beast call again,” Shea said in a soft voice.

  “I agree,” Braden said, not taking his gaze off their opponents.

  “That’s not our only problem,” Reece said, nodding at what they held clasped in their hands.

  “Long barrel boomers,” Shea said in a disgusted voice.

  That was the reason they were so confident. The weapons were reason enough for the enemy to think they had the upper hand. Just one of those could kill several of them. That they had two meant they could take out the group without ever getting close enough for the Trateri to land a blow.

  Still, neither of the boomers scared her as much as that beast call hanging from the belt of the one in the center.

  “Give us Shea Halloran and the rest can go free,” a strong male voice said.

  The students shifted, their gazes turning to Shea, suspicion and hope in their eyes. Shea didn’t blame them for the thoughts running through their head. It was human nature to grasp at the faintest of straws to ensure survival. These weren’t hardened warriors. They hadn’t spent time with Shea or gotten to know her. Her life or death would matter little to them.

  There were a few people who surprised her. In addition to the Trateri who didn’t move, their faces hardening into icy stone at the proposal, Reece, Clark’s friend and a few other students looked equally unwilling to consider this way to save themselves.

  “I never thought you’d be one of the traitors, Eric,” Reece said with scorn in his voice.

  The man who’d spoken went still, his head turning slightly toward the man in charge.

  Shea gave Reece a frown. He glanced back at her, his face set and hard. He knew what he’d done. There would be no letting the students go now that they’d heard one of the men’s names. Not when their testimony could damn the rest.

  The man in charge made no move that Shea could see, but Eric must have seen something, because he reached up and pushed his hood back, revealing his face.

  Eric had been the one to call her traitor during the journey to the Keep. She’d known he disliked her, but she never would have guessed he loathed her to this extent, to betray his people and attack students.

  She still didn’t understand why, though. Before this, she hadn’t known him personally. Their interactions had been limited and she didn’t remember hearing about anyone he knew being on the trip to the Badlands with her.

  That meant his actions were motivated by something besides revenge. The why and what eluded her. She could understand revenge. It made sense to her. Other motivations not so much.

  “Who’re your friends?” Reece asked, looking at the other two.

  Eric glanced over. The one on the far left sighed before reaching up and pulling their hood back. A woman with curly black hair stared at them with a wintry visage.

  “Ellen,” Reece said, a shutter slamming down over his expression.

  This woman meant something to him. Just what, Shea didn’t know. She’d been gone too long to guess.

  “If I go with you, you’ll leave the rest of them alone?” Shea said, edging forward. She knew it was a pointless question. Not now that the students knew who they were and what they looked like. Anyone left alive could point the finger at them.

  “Shea,” Braden said, his voice a growl of warning.

  She ignored him in favor of sliding forward another inch.

  Eric and Ellen shared a glance, smirking at her. “Of course. You come here and we’ll let the rest go.”

  Shea kept any derision she felt off her face, pretending to believe their words. They needed to think her weak and beaten.

  Trenton moved next to her, the motion sharp and aborted as she swung her head toward him, giving him a look of warning.

  He subsided, unhappy. This must be pricking at every instinct he had, letting the person he was supposed to be protecting take the risks.

  She moved forward another few steps, her eyes on the one in the middle. The man in charge. She wanted to see his face. Needed it.

  “Lift your hood,” Shea said.

  Ellen’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not the one giving orders, traitor.”

  Eric looked her over with a derisive smile. “He’s a little shy. You’ll find out who he is soon enough.”

  Shea stopped. By now, there were only a few feet separating her from them. She still stood on the stone circle, but grass and wild flowers brushed the tips of her boots. She knew without looking that both Trenton and Braden stood poised and ready to spring forward in a split second.

  That should be close enough.

  “Why do you want me?” she asked. She needed to make them believe she was defeated, believe it so utterly they would drop their guard.

  “To make you pay for your crimes,” Ellen said, her voice filled with righteousness.

  Shea tilted her head, her gaze assessing as she studied the other woman. She recognized her. Granted, it had been a fe
w years and Ellen had been much younger the last time she’d seen her, a girl on the cusp of womanhood, her face filled with agony and rage as she cursed Shea over her sick bed.

  “Your brother died in the Badlands,” Shea said, coming to a realization.

  “And now you’ll pay for your pride,” Ellen spat.

  “Hmm. I don’t know about that,” Shea said, struggling to remember who the woman’s brother had been. A big blank was all that greeted her. She remembered every person on that mission, but for the life of her she couldn’t put this woman with any of them. “Your brother was a lazy sot who made a mistake that ended his life.”

  The words acted like a physical blow, the woman’s eyes widening as her mouth dropped open in a wordless scream. Ellen flew at Shea, crossing those last few precious feet Shea needed.

  In her rage, she forgot the power of the weapon in her hands, using it like one might a club as she swung it at Shea’s head. Anger gave Ellen strength and speed.

  Shea’s training made her just a bit faster. Fast enough that she ducked the first swing, palming a dagger as she grabbed Ellen’s arm and pulled the woman in front of her, using her as a shield.

  Eric’s boomer fired. Ellen’s chest blossomed with red as she made a surprised grunt, blood welling in her mouth.

  The Trateri behind her let out a bloodcurdling cry, a sound that struck fear into the hearts of their enemies on the battle ground.

  Eric shifted his aim toward her friends. Shea let the woman’s weight fall, snatching her boomer out of her hands and aiming it at Eric in a smooth movement. She fired.

  He jerked back, red appearing on his shoulder. He straightened, his face a mask of rage. She drew the sword from the sheath at her side, the boomer in her other hand as she raced for Eric, her body struggling for every scrap of speed she could summon as he moved past the pain, leveling his boomer at her.

  She planted one foot, using it to spring sideways as he fired. The projectile brushed past her and then she was on him in the next instant, her arm moving in a technique Trenton had had her perform endlessly, her sword cutting through his side. There was a slight resistance as her sword bit through flesh and then it was free in a spray of blood.

  She didn’t have to look to know he was dead, or would be shortly.

  The moment of violence was short-lived, over in the time it took to take a few breaths.

  Shea stood panting, unable to believe it had been so easy to take two lives. Trenton and Braden reached her in the next second, their attention already turning to the third man.

  “Don’t even think it,” Reece said as the man lifted the beast call to his lips. “You’ll be dead before any beast reaches you.”

  Trenton’s face was a dark mask that promised death regardless of the man’s next actions.

  Shea steadied herself then stalked closer to the third man. She needed to take control of the situation. The man in charge could have valuable information that might help them. The first being how he had come by that call.

  “Let’s see what’s under the hood, shall we?” Shea grabbed the hood and yanked, revealing a face she had never thought to see again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  She retreated in horror. “Griffin.”

  This was impossible. He was dead. She’d found his body, along with two others in a bantum nest in the Badlands. She still had nightmares about that scene. There was no way he’d survived. This had to be a sick hallucination her mind had dreamed up, because the fact that he was standing here breathing shouldn’t be happening.

  Griffin met her gaze with a sardonic expression. Gone was the handsome face and smile that had charmed her for so long, blinding her to the selfish person at his heart. Now, he had scars running from temple to jaw on his left side—a mass of twisted, pale, lumps surrounding an eye that was milky white with a red dot in the middle.

  That wasn’t all. The veins under his skin were visible, a dark red and black creating a faint tracery pattern that ate away at the unnatural white of his skin, mostly around his temples and neck.

  He didn’t look like her overly charming first love. That person’s face had still contained the softness of a boy used to getting his way in most everything. It was sad, but Shea thought that she preferred this version of Griffin. At least now he couldn’t easily hide behind a mask of pretty lies.

  Her gaze moved over his face, searching for the bits of Griffin she still recognized. The expression in his eyes was where she found the most similarities. That same greed she remembered, but this time tempered with patience, a trait he’d never had in abundance.

  “Hello, lover,” Griffin said when no one spoke, his attention solely on her. For him, it was as if the others didn’t exist.

  A cold feeling stole through Shea. She steeled herself against that dread and forced herself to meet Griffin’s gaze with a blank expression. She couldn’t let him know the twin feelings of guilt and relief his death had caused her, or how those same feelings struggled inside her now.

  He was a user, plain and simple. If she gave him any wiggle room, he would waste no time capitalizing on her weakness.

  Trenton glanced at her as if checking her reaction to his words. She gave the slightest shake of her head. She couldn’t get into this now.

  He settled back, letting her take the lead as Braden considered Griffin with a tilted head.

  Reece was the first to recover his equilibrium. “I thought you said he was dead.”

  “He was. He is,” Shea said, correcting herself, her gaze locked on the man wearing her former lover’s face.

  Her hands clenched as she realized this was the person she’d seen watching from the shadows when the golden eagles had attacked their camp at Airabel. She’d assumed she was seeing things then, imagining ghosts that weren’t there. Turned out he hadn’t been quite the figment she’d thought.

  Griffin gave a moue of dismay. “Such harsh words.” His expression shifted, the emotion melting away leaving him looking cruel and cold. “But then, I’d expect as much from the woman who abandoned me to the Badlands’ tender mercies.”

  The words were enough to knock Shea out of her horrified stupor.

  A mistake. How unexpected of Griffin. Especially since that wasn’t what happened. Not by a long shot.

  Her expression calmed and she gave Griffin a faint smile that barely touched her face. “Is that the lie you’re telling yourself these days?”

  Because it was a lie. But then, Griffin had always been quite good at lying, especially to himself.

  She didn’t know how he’d survived that nest, or whose body she had found, but she had no doubt he’d been responsible for everything.

  “Tell me, Griffin. Did our friends walk into that nest willingly or did you betray them like you did the rest of us?” she asked, her eyes narrowed.

  He stared at her, his thoughts carefully hidden. She could see him considering his options, the best way to manipulate her or her companions. She knew that look. She’d seen it many times before. Strange, that she’d never put it together with his actions.

  Perhaps she’d grown from that foolish girl willing to be led around by her heart.

  “I see you’ve gotten more waspish since I’ve been away,” Griffin said.

  Shea’s scowl could have scalded water.

  “Come lover, give me the welcome you’ve longed for.” He gave her a dark smile. It was that smug expression that caused the thin tendrils of control in Shea to snap.

  Her cheeks creased in a smile, her eyes light and sparkling, some of the former Shea in her expression. She stepped closer as his smile widened, assuming a sure victory.

  The fist she held at her side landed where his kidney should be. She turned her whole body into the blow, aiming for maximum pain.

  Trenton choked on a laugh behind her as Griffin bent over, almost collapsing as he groaned in pain.

  “You’re right. I’ve been wanting to do that for years,” Shea said with a s
weet smile before stepping back.

  He’d seriously underestimated her if he thought she’d welcome him with open arms and loving words. Any feelings she had for him had died a long, slow death. Their demise had begun even before they crossed into the Badlands. Everything that followed was a product of misguided guilt and the need to help an old friend.

  The only thing that had consoled her afterward was that he had died with all the rest. That he was standing here now, in front of her, much the same and arrogant in his assumptions, was an affront.

  Braden stepped forward as Griffin straightened with a grunt, some of the anger and pettiness that Shea knew him capable of in his expression.

  Braden looked down at the beast call in his hands, holding it up for Griffin to see. “I take it we have you to thank for the attacks over the past few months?”

  Griffin stared at him, his face blank and unreadable. He looked at Braden like he was a bug, insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

  Braden chuckled, the sound warm with a hint of cruelty in it. “Silence. We’ll see how long that lasts.”

  Clark came to stand at Shea’s shoulder, a cold, flinty expression on his face that seemed to sit ill with the friend she knew. He looked at Griffin like he wanted to take him apart with his bare hands and then put him back together again so he could do it again.

  The Trateri had lost many to the attacks, and in a way, it was a catalyst for the events that followed, including Charles’ betrayal and subsequent death.

  “Ah, the youthful hero,” Griffin said with a sly smile. “Your friend was unsuccessful then. A pity. He had such promise.”

  Shea grabbed Clark and forced him back when he would have sprung at Griffin.

  “Why have you been guiding the beasts to attack us?” Shea asked, once Clark gave her a nod, telling her he had himself under control again.

  Griffin turned to look at her. “To get your attention.”

  Shea went still, her eyebrows lowering in confusion. “Why?”

  Griffin cocked his head. “Come now, lover. Is it so hard to believe I would want a reunion with the woman I love?”