CIRCE

viii

"Commander, we found a way out," Granger says.

Jaedah and Marlowe had reunited with him and Rowan back in the conjunction between the passageways. Jaedah nods him on to lead the way out as she falls back to the end of the group. She ushers Marlowe ahead of her, and though the look she gives Jaedah appears anodyne, there is something beneath it that betrays her ire. Jaedah holds that look and stares her down, waiting for Marlowe to speak up. However, Marlowe merely sets her gaze straight ahead and falls into step behind Rowan.

They trail through one of the narrow passageways, intentionally carved for a discreet yet swift escape. The daylight is cool and crisp at the end of it, a frigid white that drifts in from afar. They head for it, and it spits them out on a mountainside, on a thin footpath barely held together. They have to cling to the mountain wall lest they careen off the side to the bottomless valley below, the ground so far away that all Jaedah sees is the pillowy fog that canopies above it.

The wind nips at her nose as it whips past, tugging her hair with it, brown wisps lashing in the breeze. Jaedah has to shout to be heard;

"Rowan! The beacon!"

"Already ahead of you commander," Rowan shouts back.

Jaedah glances to where the emergency beacon sits on Rowan's wrist, a pale light pulsing from it. On and active. It's only a matter of time now before someone from the Outpost comes to retrieve them.

"Granger, what's ahead?" Jaedah asks.

Carefully, his steps feather light and slow like an inchworm, Granger tiptoes his way around the mountain bend. Stone crackles beneath his feet as pebbles peel off and tumble down the mountainside.

"More path and - " Granger pauses as he leans forward. His eyes narrow, but the whipping wind carries snow flurries that obscure the horizon. "I think solid ground? I can't be sure, Commander."

"Well, considering it's either that or death, I'd say head that way," Jaedah says.

"Yes, ma'am," Granger replies.

Their pace is sloth-like in nature as they proceed on mindfully chosen steps and cling to the mountainside as though it's the only thing holding them apart from certain doom. Jaedah finds herself to be too alert to be at any sense of ease. The stone is frigid where its jagged cut scrapes against her back. Every creak of rock pierces her ears. There is no feeling in her fingers or nose, only a numb weight hanging off her hands and face.

Eventually, she sees Granger leap ahead. Snow kicks up at his feet as he lands on solid ground. The last bit of the path is taken quickly in the relief that settles up on the group, a little gap in the path like the final toll before they reach flattened ground.

Well, it's not completely flat. The land in Orende is all mountain. However, it seems they have found themselves a hollow among the mountains. The ground dips into a bed of snow, and though there is stone that curls up around it in a ridge, Jaedah thinks that its enough for one of their pilots to land on. Or, at least that's what she hopes.

"Commander," Rowan calls.

She slides up next to Jaedah and wraps her arm around hers, clinging to her side. Rowan is shivering in the wind, her freckled nose just as red as her hair. Granger is quick to join them as well as he sticks himself shoulder-to-shoulder with the communications officer. Though Marlowe's reluctance for physical closeness is worn plainly on her face, she yields to the bitter weather too and curls near.

"Next time, Commander, please leave me out of field work," Rowan murmurs. "I miss my warm little office."

Marlowe's brow raises sharply, though she says nothing as she side-eyes Rowan.