Mist's Edge (The Broken Lands #2) - T.A. White Page 0,129
he let you.”
Shea’s brows snapped together as she leveled Reece with a glare. “Answer his question. How do we access the cavern shortcut?”
Reece looked like he was going to continue needling Shea but a slight shift from the man at Shea’s side changed his mind. Fallon looked like he’d expended all the patience he was willing to give. Shea thought he might try to strangle her cousin if he didn’t get to talking, and fast.
“Fine. You’ve turned into such a spoilsport, you know that?”
Shea fixed him with a gaze that said she was not amused. She had always been the spoilsport among the two of them—the voice of reason in whatever insane plan that struck him.
Reece turned to walk towards the cliffs. Caden stiffened and let out a sharp whistle. The Anateri guards Fallon had posted reacted immediately. They kicked their horses into a gallop and circled Reece, weapons drawn as they herded him back towards Fallon.
“What the hell are you doing?” Reece asked, his face flushed as he glared at the guards as they used their horses to force Reece closer to where the three of them waited. It was move or be crushed, the horses snorting and bobbing their heads any time Reece looked like he planned to stand his ground.
“Shea, will you ask that musclebound idiot at your side to call off his lackeys? I don’t know how you expect me to find a way into the caverns, if his men keep acting like a bunch of newbies jumping at the least provocation.”
“You can tell us the location of the entrance. We will do the rest,” Fallon said. He eyed Reece like he was a bug he wanted to squash.
Shea could have told him earlier that pushing Fallon was the best way to not get what you want, but she figured she’d let him dig his own grave. He was her least favorite cousin, after all.
“As your lovely friend over there could tell you, if she planned on being the least bit helpful, these entrances can be a bit tricky. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you could walk right past it, best-case scenario. Worst-case, you trigger something that leaves a lot of people dead, including yourself.”
Caden scoffed. “You want us to believe your people have some sorcery to enable you, and you alone, to access this place. Next, you’ll want us to believe that the sky might fall unless you’re there to hold it up.”
Reece looked at Shea. “How did you allow yourself to be caught by these dunderfucks? And why have you stayed this long?”
The guard behind Reece kicked him in the back of the head. Reece fell to his knees. He glared over his shoulder at the guard.
Shea regarded the Anateri with a wry look before addressing Reece, “That’s how.”
Amusement crossed Caden’s face, tugging at his lips, and was gone before Shea could do more than blink at him.
“The Trateri can be very persuasive as you’ve just experienced,” Shea said before turning to Fallon. “He does have a point though. The caverns aren’t entirely natural and have been rigged with traps should they be breached by the enemy.”
“I’m beginning to believe your people are the real force behind the Highlands,” Fallon told her.
Reece snorted. “You’re just figuring that out? Guess she does have some loyalty after all.”
“Enough, Reece. Stop picking and prodding to see how he reacts,” Shea said, fed up with him. “Or I’ll let Fallon do to you what he’s been wanting to since you snuck into our home.”
“I don’t know how you can call that piece of cloth held upright by a few sticks a home.”
The faces of the two Anateri behind Reece darkened, neither man liking the insult. The horse of one stepped forward and shoved Reece in the back with its nose, the force almost toppling Reece back to the ground.
Shea regarded her cousin, unimpressed. “Stop saying shit you don’t mean to get a rise out of them. You and I both know we’ve called much worse accommodations home in the past.”
She knew he remembered the time they’d lived out of a cave for three months when they were teens and apprenticed to a master pathfinder. Their master thought it would be good for them to experience what it was like to be lost and alone in the Highlands, so he’d left them stranded hundreds of miles from the nearest village. They’d been lucky for that cave too, or they