Shea shrugged noncommittally. She didn’t want to get into another discussion about the Highlands and what it had to offer. One of the reasons it had never been conquered was because most people were convinced there wasn’t anything up there worth conquering. It was hard to go to all that trouble, if there wasn’t going to be a reward worth having at the end of it.
“You do that well,” Darius said, pointing his goblet at her.
“What?”
“Deflect. Pretend to be less than you are.”
She gave him a questioning look, not quite understanding his point.
“When it comes to anything but your abilities with scouting, you downplay what you can do.”
“I don’t do that.” That was ridiculous.
“Oh?” He took another sip of his drink as he studied her. “The beast board. Why haven’t you taken more of an active role? More than scouting, that idea has the greatest potential to effect real change by educating and training our soldiers in the dangers they face every time they step out of camp.”
“That’s Clark’s thing. Him and Charles. They came up with that and they’re doing a great job.”
“They’ve asked for your help several times now.”
“They don’t need it. They’re doing fine as is.”
“That’s your problem. Fine isn’t good enough. You have a unique set of skills that we could take advantage of. I know you know that. Your work trying to prepare Eamon’s men for the mist proves that. You’re good at it too. Surprisingly so.”
Shea didn’t have a response to that, electing to take another sip of her wine.
“You’re a leader who doesn’t want the responsibility of leading,” Darius said after a long pause.
Shea nearly choked on her wine. There were many things that could be laid at her feet. That wasn’t one of them.
“How much of this wine have you had?” she asked Darius.
“Enough to know that I’m right. You’ll see.”
Shea peered at him from the corner of her eye. He didn’t look drunk, but perhaps he hid it better than most.
“Fallon’s changed since he met you,” Darius said after a long silence. “You probably don’t see it, but the rest of us do.”
Shea set her goblet down and leaned back, fixing Darius with a long stare. They were finally getting to the reason he was here.
“What makes you say that?”
“There were plans to invade the Highlands immediately after we conquered the Lowlands.” Darius’s words were a boulder thrown into a still pond.
Shea went still, her heartbeat reverberating in her ears.
“He put that aside.” Darius pointed his goblet at her. “For you. He wouldn’t have done that before.”
“How do you know? I thought you had decided that it was unconquerable because of Bearan’s Fault.”
Bearan’s Fault was a string of cliffs hundreds of miles long. The Highlands sat on the shelf above the Fault and below them was the Lowlands. It was if some giant had ripped the two lands apart and then tried to tape them back together, the resulting pieces not quite lining up again.
Though they weren’t unsurpassable, it would be next to impossible to get an entire army with supplies and horses up them without completely giving up any element of surprise. Such an endeavor would take weeks if not years.
“Not if we went through the Badlands.” He gave her a sly smile. “But you knew that, didn’t you?”
She knew much more than that, including a way through the cliffs that would allow Fallon to take his men and horses in half the time and half the danger.
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that you’ve changed him. He’s different now.”
“Let’s say you’re right, and he is. Why are you telling me this?”
He shrugged and poured himself another glass. “Maybe I’m hoping you’ll take pity and not take that exit you made. That you’ll have patience with him. Change takes time. He might seem unreasonable and autocratic, but he has softened with you. More than any other person in this world.”
“And do I just give him a pass in the meantime? Let him walk all over me. Keep me prisoner in the place we call home? How long do I give him to change?” Anger coursed through Shea’s voice. He wasn’t putting this all on her shoulders. She didn’t know a lot about relationships, but she knew they were a partnership, each person responsible for the well-being of the whole. She couldn’t do it on her own nor did she want to.
“No, of course not. Hold him responsible. Let him feel your anger. Just don’t run away. Don’t shut him out.” This last was said with a meaningful look.
Shea flushed and looked away, knowing she was at fault for that last one. Had already fallen back on it the night before.
He made a slight huff of acknowledgement seeing his words had scored a point. “We’re warriors and not often given to soft words, but he cares for you. Probably more than any other person in this world. All I’m asking is that you give him a chance to find his way back before you do anything drastic.”
There was a small sound at the entrance of the tent. Shea looked up to find Fallon standing there, his eyes shadowed and his face expressionless.
Darius aimed a smile at Fallon and raised his cup. “We’re drinking. Join us.”
Fallon’s eyes went to Shea and then back to Darius. He advanced, grabbing a goblet from the long table and then settling on a pillow across from Shea. Darius poured him some wine and sat back.
Shea sipped hers while avoiding looking at Fallon. She held herself stiff and straight.
“How many of our men do you think will have stories of this oasis tomorrow?” Darius asked. “Some of those women were eyeing us like they were preparing for a feast. I’ve never seen the like in Lowlanders. If I didn’t know better, I would say there is Trateri blood in their past.”
“The Airabel are few, and the isolation of their home and events in the past have led to the danger of inbreeding. They are most likely hoping your men can give them new bloodlines,” Shea said.
Darius aimed an affronted look her way. “You mean they plan to use us as broodmares.”
“In this instance, I think it would be more like stallions.”
“Well, don’t that just beat all. This land gets stranger and stranger all the time.” He leaned forward. “Do they actually think we’d leave our children behind?”
Shea gave him a quizzical look.
Fallon answered her unspoken question. “The Trateri love children. Our lives are hard and dangerous. Every life is a precious gift. If my men were to sire children, they would take them with them when we left.”
Shea shrugged. “Only if they knew about them ahead of time. They’re betting that by the time the women show, your army will have moved on. It’s unlikely that you’ll be in this area again anytime soon, and by the time they circle back the women will have given birth and claimed their own people sired the children.”
Both men stared at her with twin looks of distaste.
“I will let the men know to be careful with the women. We’ll leave a detachment behind to keep an eye out for any births,” Darius told Fallon.