SHEA STOPPED in front of a canvas tent with a dark blue banner that had a stylized image of a bird with wings spread on it. The tent dwarfed the last quarters she’d visited the commander in. He was certainly coming up in the world.
A man ducked out of the tent and blinked rapidly at the sight of her before freezing. By the looks of the stack of rolled parchment under one arm, he was a mapmaker.
Shea waited. As one of the cartographers, he would recognize her. She’d been instrumental in having one of their own executed for treason. To be fair, the man had passed out hideously inaccurate maps and tried to lure Fallon to his death. Somehow, she wasn’t too torn up about his fate. For a scout, a map could mean the difference between life and death. Fuck with that and you get what you deserve.
The man gathered himself and offered a brusque nod and a low rumble of a greeting. Shea nodded back as he passed her.
Huh. That had been almost cordial. It made her want to chase the man down to ask him what was going on.
She had friends among the cartographers, but he wasn’t one of them. The rest tended to see her as a mild threat at best and an ogre intent on their destruction at worst. It had led to some tense discussions when she ran into a supporter of the former head cartographer.
She stepped inside to find the commander of the West Wind Division surrounded by a mound of paper as he stared down at his desk with a perplexed frown. Trenton followed her moments later.
“Eamon, you look like that paper is going to jump up and bite you on the nose,” Shea said with a grin.
It was a scene so at odds with the environment Shea normally associated him with. She was used to him as the scout master, the one fearlessly leading them into the great wilderness and possible death. The person who insisted they complete their mission even when sanity said they would be better served to give up and go home. Death by an avalanche of paper was not even in the realm of possibility for her old scout leader.
Eamon Walker lifted his head and aimed a grin her way. He was in his late thirties with brown eyes and a face chiseled with grooves. He liked to tell her that some of those grooves had her name on them. The sharp planes and valleys of his face made it easy for him to appear a stone-faced cynic. A fact he’d used to his benefit to intimidate idiotic commanders when he and Shea used to run missions together.
“Look who finally arrived. You were only supposed to be here several hours ago.” Despite the harsh words, the smile in his voice let her know he didn’t mean anything bad by it.
Shea gave him a careless shrug. “I got a little sidetracked.”
He aimed a look her way that said she wasn’t fooling anyone. “You mean you wanted to avoid her at all costs.”
Shea’s lips twitched at the corners.
“You know you can’t do that forever.”
Shea snorted. Who did he think he was talking to?
He grimaced and rephrased. “You know you shouldn’t do that forever. Running isn’t doing you any good, girl.”
Maybe not, but it delayed the inevitable and it made her feel like she had a tiny bit of control. Something she desperately needed without the release valve that scouting provided. Before, when her emotions threatened to boil over, she could disappear into the wilderness. By the time she came home, whatever had been bothering her would have disappeared, given up, or resolved itself with no effort or emotional distress on her part.
Her safety valve was gone, and for the first time in a long time she was forced to directly confront how truly ineffective she was at dealing with other people. She hated feeling that way, which was why she’d taken to dodging things she didn’t want to deal with.
“Well?” Eamon asked.
“Well, what?”
“What happened to cause your guard to glare at you in such a fashion and the warlord’s cousin to corner me and interrogate me regarding your whereabouts?”
“Daere was here?” Shea glanced around as if the woman might spring out at any moment.
Eamon inclined his head. “Don’t worry; she left a while ago.”
Shea breathed a sigh of relief.
“You know whatever she’s done, she’s only trying to help.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not the kind of help I need,” Shea said.
“Hmm.”
Shea narrowed her eyes at Eamon. That sounded like the opposite of agreement. She folded her arms and leaned back in the pillow chair, this one had a back, thankfully. She chose to ignore his comment for now.
Eamon worked in silence as she sifted through her thoughts. She glanced briefly at Trenton, wishing he’d step outside. She was a private person and having someone watch every interaction made her want to hold back even more than she did normally.
“I’m not Trateri. Trying to shape me in their image isn’t going to make everyone around me any more likely to accept me.” There, that sounded neutral enough.
“I seem to remember you taking our venom. Your very survival says you’re Trateri.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
There was quiet as Shea sorted through her thoughts, choosing and discarding words that didn’t quite convey what she wanted to say. It was difficult to explain to someone who had never questioned who they were or their place in the world.
“I’m not sure I can explain.”
“Try.”
Her smile came involuntarily. “There are degrees of acceptance. You were born Trateri. You grew up learning every social cue, breathing in the culture and molding yourself to fit. Even if I had twenty years to do the same, I wouldn’t fit here the way you do. For you, being Trateri is instinctual.”
His face was thoughtful as he considered her words. “I see your point.”
Shea released a breath. Eamon’s opinion meant a lot to her. He and the other scouts on their team had managed to become a quasi-family during their months together. Extreme danger had a way of deepening relationships at a quick pace.
“Have you considered that Fallon and Daere aren’t trying to mold you into a Trateri woman, but rather are trying to give you a set of tools that you’ll need to navigate our society?”
Shea sat back and studied him. “What makes you say that?”
Eamon peered at her with a pensive expression. He had the look of a man who was weighing his words and trying to decide how much truth he wanted to share. He set his papers aside and sat back.
Shea braced herself. The last time he had shared truths, he’d pointed out how her lack of people skills made her inefficient at scouting. It had been something she had always known but not necessarily wanted to face.
“What future do you see for your life?”
Hm, not the tack she thought he was going to take.
“What do you mean?”
“What’s your ultimate goal? Where do you see yourself years from now?”
She’d never really put much thought into the future, content with surviving the present.