Her hands slid down the fabric of her skirt, the cloth rough under her palms, as though to wipe something from her skin. She did not know if it were some remnants of the magicians, or the ancient spirit, or the deep bone whisper that lingered within her, or some stirring of all three, or if it would remain once she had left the valley or fade over time, only that she could still feel claws scrabbling at her, the wet, smudged smears of something left within, ground into her, impossible to shake or wipe loose.
She thought of her journal, the leather cover worn, the pages nearly half filled in, the basis of her reports for the devil, part and parcel of her contract. She should write this down, too. But she didn’t move, even though it was in her pack, within reach. It felt unpleasant, all this, and she would rather not touch on it, not even in her thoughts: too raw to put into words, too close to write down yet.
And she wasn’t sure what to write about her anger at Gabriel.
“We’re set.” Gabriel stood over her, blocking the sky, casting a cool shadow over her skin. He offered her his hand, and she took it, letting him help her to her feet, his hold lingering while she tested her balance. Her head no longer swam, and her knees held, so she nodded once at him and he let go, stepping away.
“All right?”
A weight of things asked in those two words, but she could only answer one. “I can stand.”
“Can you ride?”
She nodded and went to Uvnee, who for once held still as Isobel fitted her boot into the stirrup, as though aware her rider was not entirely steady yet. When she had the reins in her hands again, her legs wrapped around the rounded sides of her horse, the weight of the saddle against her backside, Isobel felt something give a little, the brittle crackling softening back to flesh and muscle.
Gabriel had waited while she mounted Uvnee, not offering help, and then swung into his own saddle with only a hint of stiffness.
“We’re a pair, we two,” she said without thinking, not meaning to admit her own aches nor comment on his own. Thankfully, he merely grinned at her, teeth showing briefly before he tugged his hat lower over his forehead and told Steady to get a move on.
It would be all right once they left this place. She hoped.
The sky had clouded over since dawn, low-hanging white streamers now obscuring the mountains, turning the sun’s light into a warm, hazy glow. It felt peaceful, restful, save the silence made it ominous. The world was not meant to be so quiet, reminding her that every living thing save them had fled, that the ground below them was neither solid nor safe, that the furious, rage-and sorrow-mad presence still lingered, trapped not by any warding but something far greater, far crueler.
Part of her ached to go back, the sensation of a chore left undone. The other part longed to flee, to never look back.
At that thought, Isobel looked into the clouds, almost expecting to see the Reaper hawk soaring overhead, but the sky was empty. Behind them, the great deer was nowhere in sight. She resisted the urge to look down; no snake would be lurking under Uvnee’s hooves, no trail visible in the low grass. Once spirit-animals had their say, they did not linger.
Alone save for each other, they picked their way across the meadow, Gabriel leading them not south the way they’d come but east, where the hills rose up in jagged, reddish-dun slopes, the green patchwork against bare stone, sharp arrows of white-barked pine stretching into the sky. It looked inhospitable, as though to set a single hoof or boot would cause the slope to crumble, but when they came to the edge of the meadow, she saw a narrow trail leading up and out.
“How did you know it was here?”
Gabriel rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, gave her a half-shoulder shrug as his only answer. There were still things her mentor knew that she didn’t.
Isobel reined Uvnee in and stared at the head of the trail as though it would apologize. Instead, all she felt was the scrabble of hard claws prickling in her skin, the restless flutter of something attempting to plant itself within her. . . .
Gabriel paused as well, watching quietly as she slipped out of Uvnee’s saddle and drew the salt stick from her pack. There was barely a palm’s length remaining, cool and moist against her skin.
Isobel bit her lip, rubbing one thumb along the stick, feeling grains of salt scrape loose, sticking to her skin. Whatever lingered within her, she could contain. But she carried only a memory, a shade. The greater threat remained.
There was no warding she could add, no way to hide this meadow the way she had done for Widder Creek. It was too vast, too much power contained within. One unwary traveler, one foolhardy magician drawn by the scent of power, curious about the rumbling of the earth . . .
Isobel did not know what might happen but thought it would not be pleasant.
With that in mind, she slipped the knife from its sheath at her side and used it to cut across her palm, sliding the edge across the sigil marked there. The blood welled up without any pain, and she closed her palm around the stick of salt, letting it stain the white.