With a dizzying jolt, Isobel dropped back into the cage of her own flesh. One shuddering breath, then another, and she settled within herself again, the keening memory fading to something more bearable. But she could see it now: sinew and hide stitched with power, dry channels of bone without blood or sweat to soften it, a raging spirit caught within it.
Trapped.
Isobel stood, her knees still uncertain under her weight. Her toes were cold within her boots, her fingers numb, as though it were winter and not nearly mid-summer, and she was hollow as though she’d not eaten for weeks, a dry scraping hunger that made her thoughts muddled and her limbs weak.
It had tried to consume her and nearly succeeded. Nearly. But she had its measure now: immense pain and rage, bound by sorrow. It could not rise into the winds; it could not dive into the earth. Trapped, not within the circle the magicians had carved, but in the narrow band of the living, trapped between stone and air. What had the magicians attempted, what had they thought to capture, and how had it gone so horribly wrong?
The horses shifted and shied as though they too felt it, the mule kicking fitfully. Isobel suspected that, like the dogs, only their loyalty kept them here when all other animals had fled.
How had the magicians caged such a thing, and why?
“Because they were fools,” she said, her words sounding hollow and flat within the circles. “And because they were mad.” Magicians dared where most would cower, because there was only one goal they reached for: to become more powerful simply for the sake of power. Farron had admitted it without shame. He would have consumed her, too, if she had faltered.
The spirit had been ancient and powerful. . . . Having been touched by the winds, she could near imagine how a magician might salivate over such a thing.
But Farron had also told them that magicians did not gather together, that when two met, they would destroy each other. Had he lied? Possibly: she had liked Farron but she would not trust him. Or perhaps something had made his words into a lie. Whatever had been intended, only one question mattered: should she continue? If she cleansed the bindings and released it—if she could release it—would that fix what they had done or worsen it?
This was no mortal thing to be read and understood, to be influenced, however skillfully. It was more, and greater, and Isobel felt the scratch of fear as she realized that the moment she pushed through the protection of her circle-and-loops, the moment she touched that presence again, despite her protections, it could easily destroy her.
That fear scratched deeper, cracking her confidence. Something had tried to keep her from this, had known she wasn’t enough to face it. Had shown her what was bound here, what would destroy her.
“You weren’t trying to stop me,” she murmured to it, as though talking to one of the cats that crowded the alley behind the saloon, half-wild but crowding for kitchen scraps. “I think you were trying to protect me, weren’t you? But I’m here now. Let me help.”
Kneeling again, placing her hand down against the grass, Isobel breathed in deeply once and then exhaled, sinking as deeply into the ground as it would allow her.
Something waited, just beyond the void, shimmering and alive. Isobel did not reach for it but waited. If she had eyes, she would avert her gaze; had she hands, she would fold them at her sides; had she form, she would stand tall, not proud but strong.
“I am Isobel née Lacoyo Távora, Isobel of Flood, the Left Hand. My blood is on the devil’s Contract, his sigil on my palm.”
Forever in waiting, encased in the void, fear scrabbling at her, the memory of those claws tearing at her, the sensation of nothingness, of being forever trapped until she lost all sense of self and name . . .
“I am Isobel née Lacoyo Távora, Daughter of Flood, Devil’s Hand, the cold eye and the quick knife, and this is my responsibility.”
Something moved within the shimmer, heavy and slow. If the earth could sigh, it would sound thus.
Come. Not a command this time, not an invitation, simply direction. It led her along the surface fissures, dipping deep into the earth, stroking along the roots that grew there, and she sensed the bindings that held the presence to the valley, deep bone and soil wrapped around it, smothering its flames, air pressing down over it, flattening its wings, and how they shivered desperately for release, revenge.
And each time it shivered, the earth did as well. She could feel it, her fingers curled around its tendrils, a quiver in the flesh of her leg, a tremor in the bone of her elbow, impotent rage finding the only outlet it could reach. The sky pressed on her, the bones reached for her, and she allowed it, felt herself flatten and fade.