Page 72 of Legacy Elite

Freya stops.

I nearly walk into her.

She's staring off to the right, at what looks to me like a beech tree growing around a rock.

"What?"

She doesn't answer. She hands Renzo her side of the stretcher and walks over to it.

Of course we all follow, because apparently that's what we're doing now.

The stone is about waist height on a human, mostly buried under moss and lichen, with one side disappearing into the roots of a beech that's been growing around it for God knows how long.

Freya crouches.

"It's been cut."

I look at the stone.

"It's a rock."

"It's not." She runs her hand down one side without quite touching it. "Look."

I do.

Nothing happens.

"Jessica."

"I'm looking."

"At the edge."

There is an edge. Once she points it out, I can see it: a straight line under all that moss where there shouldn't be one, then another disappearing into the ground.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Freya takes a handkerchief out of her pocket, because of course she carries a handkerchief, and starts carefully working at the moss.

Declan comes up behind us. "We have a casualty on a stretcher."

"I know."

"Just checking."

Ines lifts her head. "I'm fine. Apparently I'm only mildly shocky at the moment."

"Thank you, Ines," Declan says.

"Happy to help."

Freya keeps going.

It takes a couple of minutes before enough of the face is clear to see the shape cut into it. There's a shallow circular panel about the size of two hands, with a raised border running around the outside.

The middle is gone.