Seeing him race into danger had given her new insight into how he must feel when she did the same. She was just grateful that he’d come out the other side unharmed. There were some among the Trateri who had not been so lucky.
She sniffed and stepped back, her eyes holding his for a long moment. Understanding was there. Understanding and a somber realization that the day could have very easily ended differently—that it very nearly had.
Shea had been lucky with that stunt with the eagle. By rights she should be dead or at least gravely injured. If it hadn’t veered toward that copse of branches when it had, she and Mist would have hit the ground with nothing to break their momentum and probably have broken every bone in their bodies.
“He’s this way,” Fallon said.
He took her hand and led her through the camp. A thin coating of sadness covered the people Shea saw. The Trateri moved with a grim purpose as they prepared for a second possible attack from the eagles.
They’d fortified several of the tents and had set upraised sentry posts at regular intervals in the camp. Several of Fallon’s soldiers manned them, their eyes turned to the skies and long-range weapons held in their hands. She even thought she saw a boomer or two among them.
Fallon noticed where she was looking. “I authorized the use of the boomers should the golden eagles attack again.”
“I thought you’d decided not to put those into circulation because of your limited access to the bullets.”
Fallon’s men had confiscated several of the weapons from villages throughout the Lowlands, but never in the numbers he needed to implement their use in his army. That, coupled with the fact that the maintenance, and the bullets used to fire the weapon were in short supply, had meant that they were an oddity the Trateri found interesting but ultimately useless.
“These circumstances have required a special response. Witt has been training several men in the use of the boomers—none quite measure up to your friend Dane yet, but he’s confident that they can acquit themselves well.” Fallon stepped around a clump of Trateri who were holding an impromptu briefing. “Caden is working directly with their commanders to make sure the weapons are handled with the appropriate respect and aren’t used for personal vendettas.”
Shea wouldn’t want to be one of them should a weapon go missing or be used inappropriately. Caden was a scary ball crusher when he wanted.
They stopped in front of a tent guarded by one of Fallon’s Anateri, one that was familiar from last night. Shea’s anger rushed back to the forefront. She didn’t wait for Fallon’s permission before she stalked toward the Anateri. He spared a glance for Fallon, asking without words for his permission, before he pulled back the tent flap so Shea could step inside.
“Was this you?” Shea didn’t wait for an answer before she was in Reece’s space, her hands clasped on his shirt. “Did you do this?”
Reece’s hands came up to grab hers as he tried to pull away. There was a cot in the room and he was unbound. They were nicer accommodations than Shea would have guessed, considering how angry Fallon had been with his presence when he first showed up.
“Shea, what are you going on about? Let go of me.”
She shook him again before Fallon was there, pulling her away. “Did you do this, Reece? If you did, so help me I will make you pay.”
Reece adjusted his shirt, pulling it straight with a dirty look aimed at Shea. “I’d call my present situation punishment enough, but I have no idea what you’re talking about, Shea.”
“The golden eagles, Reece. Did you call them?”
Fallon went still beside her. She didn’t spare him a glance. He wasn’t going to be happy when he learned how much she had with-held of the pathfinders’ capabilities.
Reece’s face went cold, his eyes icing over and his mouth turning down. His gaze went from Shea to Fallon’s. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She scoffed. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“No, I don’t,” he said through gritted teeth as he gave her a warning look.
She ignored his warning. If he’d done this, he’d gone too far. “Bullshit. There were children, Reece. One of those beasts tried to take a child.”
“Shea, stop.”
Not this time.
“You and I both know you have the ability to do something like this. Do you have a beast call? Does the guild know about this?”
“What is a beast call?” Fallon asked from behind her.
Reece shook his head as Shea lifted her chin. She didn’t care who knew. If her people had done this, if they had set the beasts on the Trateri and the Airabel villagers, her loyalty to them would be at an end.
“Don’t.”
Shea looked at Fallon. “A beast call is rare. There are only two that I know of and it’s exactly like it sounds. It can call beasts. The ones I know of both date back to the cataclysm.”
“Can it control them?”
Reece threw up his hands and sat back down, shaking his head.
Shea ignored him. “No, at least not that we’ve found. As far as we’ve seen, it simply summons whatever beasts are in the area. If there was a way to control them with it, that knowledge has been lost to us since the cataclysm.”
“Share all our secrets while you’re at it, why don’t you?” Reece said.
Shea glared at her cousin, words coated her tongue but didn’t spill out. She had many things to say but couldn’t get them through the anger that had taken hold of her.
“They would have eventually forgiven you for abandoning your post, you know,” he informed her. “But not now. You’ve gone too far, Shea.”
“I already knew.” Fallon’s words fell between them like a blast of cold water.
Shea paused and looked at him. He’d known? How?
Reece scoffed. “So, you’ve already told him. I shouldn’t be so surprised.”
“I didn’t tell him anything,” Shea said, not taking her eyes off Fallon, who appeared calm and composed.
“No, she didn’t. Your secrets aren’t as well-guarded as you assume, pathfinder,” Fallon said with a quirk of his lips.
Reece’s face was arrested as he studied Fallon. “Impossible. Only pathfinders know about the call, and only a few of them at that.”
Fallon lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Secrets have a way of coming out. For instance, if a single child survives after his town is inundated with beasts shortly after a fall out with the pathfinders, certain conclusions are drawn.”
Witt. Had to be. He was the only other person from the Highlands that Shea knew of. He and Fallon had some type of weird relationship that she still didn’t understand. The other man was sharp and observant. It didn’t surprise her in the least that he’d put that together. It made her wonder what other conclusions he’d managed to draw about the pathfinders’ guild and the secrets it held.
Reece’s expression smoothed out as he studied Fallon and Shea. His gaze shifted to Shea. “This doesn’t change things. You will find it very difficult to come back after this.”
She stepped closer to him and leaned down. “You assume I want to come back. My home is here. My people are the Trateri. There is no going back. I wouldn’t even if I could.”