moment, he said, “He followed his apprentice into the Badlands and didn’t come out again.”
Shea’s hands clenched around her bowl of food. Her appetite was gone.
Eamon looked across the fire at Shea, his face sympathetic. He didn’t ask the question she knew was on everyone’s mind. For that she was grateful.
Fallon’s arm brushed hers. “You never talk about that place.”
Shea shifted but remained quiet.
“No, she doesn’t, does she?” Reece said with a humorless smile. “Even with those of us who deserve an answer.”
Shea hunkered down. She wanted to answer. She did, but somehow her words always got lost.
“I don’t even know why you went there. With him of all people. He wasn’t even one of us.”
Shea flinched, knowing exactly who he was talking about. “How can you say that? He grew up with us. He was just as much Winchell’s apprentice as we were.”
“He didn’t pass the test. He wasn’t a pathfinder, no matter what went on before.”
Shea scoffed. “One test doesn’t negate all the things he learned.”
“It does when it means he can’t navigate the mist,” Reece shot back. “I don’t know what you even saw in him. He was always weak, always using you to make himself look good, stealing credit that should have gone to one of us.”
“It doesn’t matter now, does it? He’s dead.” There was sadness in Shea’s voice at those words.
Reece’s mouth snapped shut, but he didn’t say the words that looked like they were begging to explode from him.
Fallon watched the two of them with a considering expression. “Who is he?”
Shea’s gaze shot to his, she looked stricken and slightly guilty.
Reece shook his head at her in disgust. “You haven’t told him?”
“You know I haven’t,” she snapped back. “That’s why you brought it up.”
She knew her cousin. This trip down memory lane had a purpose. He could pretend otherwise all he wanted, but this was exactly what he’d been hoping to discuss when he sat down. She only wished she had guessed sooner, so she could have found anywhere else to be.
Shea gave up glaring at her cousin and faced Fallon. She took a deep breath. Too late to hide this now. She only wished she’d had this talk with him sooner when there were less people about. “His name was Griffin. We three grew up together.”
“What she hasn’t said is he was also her first love. The man who led her into disaster and ruin and got her demoted to a rank and file pathfinder serving a village no one would touch,” Reece added.
Shea shot her cousin another dirty look, wanting to strangle him when he returned her glare with a smirk and a shrug.
Fallon’s face was thoughtful as he studied her. His silence pulled other revelations from her.
“He couldn’t pass the final test. He couldn’t navigate the mists. It devastated him. When you fail the tests, you’re sent away from the keep. It doesn’t matter if you grew up there or if your entire family lives there. They don’t allow those who fail the test to remain.”
There was a low whistle from Buck. “That’s pretty harsh.”
Reece shrugged. “It’s our way and has been for generations. There have been problems in the past. The rejected are given the choice of settling in one of the villages nearby or they can make their way further afield. Some choose to join the caravans and chance the wilds to travel from village to village. Griffin chose another path entirely.”
Shea took up the thread of the story. “He knew, like we all did, that the pathfinders had never led a successful expedition into the Badlands. He thought that if he could find one of the ancient cities and come back with something big that the guild might make an exception for him.”
“Translation, he convinced Shea to do all the hard work so he could reap all of the rewards.”
“I’m not the only one he convinced,” Shea said in a soft voice.
Reece shrugged one shoulder. “You’re right about that. You’re the one they trusted though. Thirty men and women went in; one came out. Winchell followed Shea because she was always his favorite and because he felt responsible for Griffin. It’s not often a child of the keep fails the test. He took it as a failure on his own part. I’m sure Griffin helped form that outlook.”
He had. It was something that Shea didn’t like thinking about. Speaking ill of the dead didn’t sit right with her. They were unable to defend themselves.
“I thought it was