He snorted. “You’re not a pathfinder anymore. You’re Trateri remember? And we do what we need to survive.”
“I’ll always be a pathfinder. It’s not a piece a clothing you can put on and take off at your convenience. It is the bedrock upon which I am built. Just like now I am Trateri. Both form who I am, for better or worse. Split loyalty or not.” Shea needed to find a way to reconcile the two pieces of herself. It was the only way to survive with her sense of self intact. The only way she could live with herself.
“That still doesn’t change the fact that our resources are limited and our time is short. You can’t afford any delays,” Trenton said, his face a grimace.
“Then I suppose you’d better dig up some of that Trateri stubbornness and get your ass moving.”
Trenton aimed a glare her way. “I was trying to be conscientious of you.”
“Well don’t,” Shea snapped. “I can take care of myself.”
“You know Fallon is going to be livid if you don’t make it out of here,” he groused.
“Well then, I suggest you get your ass in motion, so we can avoid that turn of events.”
She grabbed him by the arm and helped him stand. He grimaced as he gained his feet, his weight leaning hard against her.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
*
“Do you hear that?” Shea asked.
It was faint, the bell-like sound falling and rising as if wind were playing a symphony.
“What is that?”
“I don’t know.” She listened and walked a few steps further, keeping one hand on the smooth rock of the passageway and the other in front of her. Trenton held onto the back of her pant loop as she tested the ground before her with every step.
She’d managed to make a torch out of scraps before they began their trip but had chosen to conserve its light until they really needed it. It had left them wandering blind and necessitated a slow and steady progress.
The sound now felt like it filled the chamber, vibrating in her bones as it rose and fell. There were tones that rippled and tangled together. It sounded very similar to the wind chimes the Airabel hung outside their wooden hunts, only here, the sound was purer.
“There’s a breeze,” Shea said as wind tickled the hair on her neck. “Could be a natural phenomenon.”
Wind rushing over a natural hole in the rock could create a similar sound. However, given the number of tones, she would say there were several holes of varying sizes for the wind to play. It gave her hope. Where there was wind, there was usually a way out.
“Come on, let’s keep going,” Shea told Trenton.
As they traveled, the music-like sound became louder and louder, echoing off the rock until the air vibrated with it. Shea could feel it in her chest as her entire body tuned itself to the sound.
She bumped into something and took a step back. The chimes came to a discordant halt. She reached out to feel for whatever had brushed against her, but her hand met air. With no sight, she couldn’t tell if what she felt was a danger to them or not.
Fumbling with the torch that she’d created and then stuck in her belt, Shea brought it around front before fishing the flint and steel out of her pocket where she’d placed them so she could find it easily.
“I’m going to light the torch,” she told Trenton.
“I thought you wanted to wait so you could preserve it in case we need it later.”
She had. “There’s something in front of me that I can’t make sense of. I’ll light the torch, figure out what’s blocking our path and then douse it again.”
Shea sensed the shrug he gave her and took his lack of argument as agreement.
With a few strikes of the flint, she got the torch going and held it up. The way in front of her was unobstructed.
Her eyebrows drew together in a deep frown. How was that possible? She had run into something. She was sure of it.
She stepped forward and her foot brushed against something. Shea brought her foot back and crouched down next to the object.
On the ground in front of her was a branch of some old tree, much like the one she held in her hand. Wrapped around the end was a wad of white fabric. She thought she even detected cobwebs, which made lighting torches simple because they acted as kindling would for a campfire.
She picked up the torch and held it close to her face. The smell wasn’t familiar, but Shea would bet everything she had that it was some sort of slow burning accelerant.
“Is that a torch?” Trenton asked from behind her.
Shea made noncommittal sound.
“How did a torch happen to land right in front of you?”
That was a very good question. One she suspected she knew the answer to.
“So, the stories were true,” she said in a soft voice.
“What stories?”
Shea stood and dusted off her pants. “The ones that say we’re probably not alone in these caverns.”
Trenton’s hand went to the knife sheathed at his side as he looked around the passageway with a sudden suspicion. She shook her head. Whoever had left this was long gone.
Shea looked at the torch for a moment before tucking it into the belt of her pants. She lifted her other torch high above her and looked around. The passage they were in was narrow with no offshoots that another person could hide in.
How did their gift giver get so close without making a sound? As the chimes picked up again, Shea conceded that it was likely that the person’s approach had been masked. But how had they known where to set down their gift so that Shea would find it? It was far more likely that she would have walked right past it.
Shea gave up on solving the mystery. It was far more important to get back to the group than to go hunting for the denizens of these caverns.
She knew whoever had left this was likely long gone by now, but still she didn’t feel right without giving thanks. Shea was pretty sure that they would have been in a lot of trouble without the gift.
She bent her head and said a silent prayer of gratitude, before lifting it and humming a melody that rose and fell with the chimes. It sounded rather nice, if she did say so herself.
“What do you mean we’re not alone?” Trenton asked.
“Let’s get going,” Shea said, not wanting to lose any more time. That sense of urgency was still riding her hard. “I’ll explain as we move.”
Trenton hobbled after her as Shea prepared to tell him a story—one she barely remembered since it had been so long since she’d heard it herself.