*
Shea pulled herself up onto a rocky outcropping. She was dirty and sweaty, her shirt a different color in places. And she felt no closer to finding that damn symbol.
“See anything?” Trenton called up to her.
She leaned over the edge of her ledge. “Nothing yet.”
“Horse lords, girl. Stop leaning over things.” Trenton mumbled to himself, his voice carrying on the wind, “You’d think she had a death wish or something.”
After walking along the edges of the cliffs for a good hour, Shea had given up on finding the entrance below. Fallon’s men had continued to look while she decided to climb, hoping to spot something from above. As her guard and one of the few with experience climbing—something he’d gained while chasing Shea all over Airabel over the past few months—Trenton had been tasked with following Shea up the cliffs.
Shea leaned back and looked up. The clouds today were light and puffy, creating shapes that shifted and changed with every breath. It would have been the perfect cloud watching opportunity.
She sighed and looked back down. The Trateri were spread in a long line up and down the cliffs. She could just make out the faint sounds of voices below as they called back and forth to each other.
If they couldn’t find this entrance, Shea had a feeling Fallon would face a lot of opposition from the other clan leaders for dragging them on a wild goose chase.
They needed to find it.
She turned back to looking. This thing could be anywhere. Reece had gotten them in the general vicinity, but that didn’t help much. This entrance hadn’t been used in decades. It was entirely possible the symbol marking it would be covered up or weathered away. Shea doubted it had been maintained over the years once the guild decided it was more trouble than it was worth.
That brought her back to why Reece had brought them to this particular entrance. She believed him when he said it was to keep Fallon and his men from invading once the pathfinders had gotten what they wanted from him, but there was this hunch buried deep inside her gut that said there was more to the story.
She used the wall to stand, clinging to one handhold as she hung away from the edge.
“Will you please quit doing that? I know you’re half spider, but there’s no reason to test fate,” Trenton yelled from below.
Shea allowed a small smile to cross her face before she started searching again. There was nothing that stood out in the cliffs close to her. She turned and looked up. Could the original keepers of this entrance have placed the symbol higher up in the hopes that those not worthy would be unable to locate it?
Other entrances were concealed in small crevasses at the bottom of the cliffs or hidden under the long grasses that came right up to the edge in some places. This entrance had plenty of rocky outcroppings and crevasses to search but no vegetation that came close to the cliff.
What did she remember about Lodi’s Pass?
For starters, the cavern was the closest to the Badlands so its original keeper would probably have been doubly paranoid about keeping unwanted visitors from trespassing. They would have done a very good job of hiding the symbol.
If Shea had been the keeper, she would have hidden it somewhere high and not easily seen from the ground.
Trenton finally reached the small outcropping Shea had taken advantage of to rest on. His breath was coming in pants and his skin was soaked in sweat.
“Why is this so hard?” he asked, catching his breath. “I don’t remember the sky villages being this hard to get to.”
“We’re at a higher elevation. It makes breathing and physical activity more difficult. Also, the soul tree had easy hand grips that could be used to climb. This requires a different kind of strength. It can be taxing on the body.”
Trenton nodded. “Wait, where are you going?”
“Up. I think we need to get higher.”
Shea concentrated on her next hand grip, hauling herself up and placing her feet carefully. They really should be doing this with ropes and anchor points, but she was too impatient to wait, and they weren’t going that high.
“I’m going to remember this the next time I have you in the training ring,” Trenton shouted after her. When she didn’t answer, he used the wall to stand and started up. “I’m beginning to think Fallon and Caden have a grudge against me.”
Shea paused where she was, brushing at an oddly shaped rock in front of her. It wasn’t the symbol, but it was something. It was oval with a raised etching on it. Using one hand to anchor herself, she placed her feet carefully on the side of the rock before she set her other hand on it and brushed away some of the moss that had grown over the years. It turned just barely under her hand.
“I think I may have found something,” Shea told Trenton.
“Good. Then maybe we can get down off this cliff.”
Hm. The symbol was a series of lines that pointed up, but if she turned it as far as it would go, the lines pointed to her right. She looked where they pointed and saw another knob very similar to this one.
“Go back down to the outcropping we were just on. I want to check something out.”
“You know I’m supposed to go with you.”
“I have to climb sideways, and I don’t know where this leads. You sure you want to do that?”
Trenton looked where she motioned. A low curse reached her.
“Just do what you have to do and don’t worry about me,” he told her.
Shea rolled her eyes. Men and their stupid egos. If he fell off this cliff because he reached muscle failure, she wouldn’t bother to care.
“Suit yourself,” she said before making her way, hand over careful hand, to the knob she thought might point them in the right direction.
It wasn’t until several knobs later, after climbing and then descending several feet of the cliff that she found what she was looking for. The knob she’d turned pointed directly down. Shea moved so she could get a good look.
There below her, on a rock outcropping, the top of which could only be seen from the spot Shea currently clung to, was the circle with the wavy line inside of it. The outcropping in question was sandwiched between two other rocks that jutted out from the cliff sheltering the one with the symbol. She would have to descend between the two mammoth rocks to get to the column with the symbol.
“Found it,” she shouted back at Trenton where he was resting on a ledge several feet away.
“Finally.”
She began her descent. She was almost to the first rock when there was a shout from below.
“Eagles. The eagles are coming.”
Shea looked up, her heart in her throat.
Trenton leaned over the side of his ledge. “Get to the symbol and open the cavern.”
She clung to the side, her face upturned. He was a sitting duck where he was. The eagles could snatch him right off that ledge.