Mist's Edge (The Broken Lands #2) - T.A. White Page 0,33

to the table.

Their reactions weren’t unexpected. It was something that might have happened when they worked together, someone casting aspersions on her abilities, and Buck or Eamon coming to her defense. What was unexpected was the sour look on Trenton and Wilhelm’s faces, their expressions darkening at the implication behind the general’s words.

It was a surprise, given Shea had been half convinced the two merely tolerated her for Fallon’s sake.

Their anger helped spark her own. She was tired of the superior attitude and veiled disrespect Braden had treated her to since she’d appeared. She didn’t know what problem he had with her. Quite frankly she didn’t care. She was done with it.

She pinned him with her gaze and did something she rarely contemplated with people who annoyed her. She explained why things were the way they were. “The last part of our training is very ceremonial. Much like your cleansing ceremony to be adopted into the Trateri, if I had to guess. I can give you parts, but that won’t help you, since the critical component, the thing that makes us able to walk through it without getting lost, is my people’s most closely guarded secret. They only reveal it to those responsible for the last part of our training. I couldn’t give it up even if I wanted to.”

Braden held her eyes with his own. Whatever thoughts he had were hidden behind an impenetrable mask. He reminded her faintly of Fallon before she’d learned how to read him.

“That is unfortunate,” Braden said. “Without the Telroi’s abilities, it will be difficult to protect our forces from this new danger.”

He’d backed down. Shea had half thought he would continue to push. She took another sip of her ale and listened as the conversation moved away.

“We’re looking at a fifty percent attrition rate if we continue to lose our men to this. If reports are to be believed, this mist can appear and disappear in seconds with no rhyme or reason,” Darius said, looking around the room.

“And we can’t keep our men in camp for long. Our supply chains would collapse,” Henry of the Horse clan said. He was the oldest person in the room, his hair white but his eyes clear and sharp. Shea had heard rumors that he had founded the Stray Wind Troop, a group widely known throughout the Trateri as being spies.

“We could go into the Highlands. Find these so-called pathfinders and force them to show us how to tame the mist,” Braden suggested.

Shea tensed. She’d dropped her guard too soon. She should have foreseen this. Of course, they would want to go into the Highlands, which at the moment had the largest population of people with a skill now in high demand. The general was like a dog with a bone.

“The thought had occurred to me,” Fallon said.

Shea spun toward him, words of protest springing to her lips. His expression was shadowed and unclear, not giving her any hint of what path to take. She took a deep breath and let it loose. She couldn’t say what she was thinking. Not here with so many people listening in.

Politics didn’t come easy to her, but one thing that she did understand was the need to present a united front to their enemies. As far as she was concerned, anyone not Fallon had the potential to be an enemy. She would keep her knee-jerk objection to herself until she could confront him later.

Her decision turned out to be the right one when Fallon continued. “But it would be impossible. First, getting up the Bearan Fault cliffs would be a nightmare and would necessitate splitting our force in a manner that would leave us an easy target for our enemies. Second, we would be going into a territory that has even more problems with the mist than this one.”

“Your Telroi can guide us,” Braden said.

“She is only one person. She might be able to take a handful but not my entire army. We would need every person to breach the pathfinder’s stronghold if stories are to be believed.”

Not to mention his Telroi absolutely refused to do such a thing. She wouldn’t take them to the heart of her people, not where weapons of unimaginable power waited. Fallon knew that. He’d given her the maps himself, so she could destroy any evidence of the routes her people took into the Highlands. She was the only one in the Lowlands with that knowledge, and she’d take it to her grave before she