“Isobel, damn it!”
Gabriel’s shout was exasperated, and the drumming of hooves told her he’d kicked Steady into a gallop to catch up. But Uvnee was faster and Isobel was lighter, and they stayed in the lead until she suddenly pulled the mare up, hauling on the reins like the greenest rider afraid of falling off.
The mare kicked her hooves and bucked lightly in protest but seemed no more inclined to go forward than Isobel.
Her breath harsh and rattling in her chest, Isobel looked the way Gabriel had taught her, her gaze sweeping from left to right, never resting too long on any one thing, taking in the details without trying to understand them, finding everything that didn’t belong, anything that might be a potential threat.
The pale trunks of firestarter mixed with spindly pine along the far edge, hemming two sides of the meadow with green shadows. The third side, to their left, ended in pale, jagged-faced rock rising well over her head, sheer enough that not even the most ambitious goat or demon would try it.
But none of these were threats, none of those things held her attention past noting, because of what waited directly in front of her.
Tucked into the hollow was a wide, flat expanse of grass growing blue-green, a dream-perfect place to turn the horses loose and let them romp and graze for days, an entire herd of horses, lacking only a stream to make it perfect. But something other than horses had gotten there first.
Closer to the rock wall, the grass had been charred in two thick lines, maybe twenty paces each, black and sooty, not quite in the center of the meadow, and where the lines crossed, two figures paced around each other, snarling and snapping, their arms moving, shoulders shifting, legs stalking, until they seemed less human form than dust-dancer, swirling towers of dun-colored wind.
Magicians. Isobel recognized it with a gut blow, their power rising and swirling within them like too-strong perfume, making her gag. And within that swirl she tasted a now familiar scent lingering in the heart, the hot burnt smell of sorrow, and madness.
She had found two of the surviving magicians from the valley.
Her skin prickled, nausea rising into her throat, but they did not look up, did not look away from each other, didn’t notice she had come thundering over the ridge. They were trapped, she realized, watching them circle each other like wolves over an elk carcass, caught somehow within a makeshift crossroads, the power within both bait and trap.
But how? Isobel rested her palms on the mare’s neck, reins forgotten, and breathed steadily, trying to calm both the animal and herself. Magicians were drawn to crossroads like bears to berries, but only for the power within them, and a crossroads gained that power slowly, over time. Something so new-drawn would have nothing within it to pull; even Isobel, at this distance, could tell that the only power there was what the magicians had brought themselves.
But that power . . .
Isobel stiffened even as she urged the reluctant mare closer, and her mouth went dry. Magicians . . . they were not mortal any longer, but they were born so, born human. Even when they gave themselves over to the winds, they were still human. But what swirled within these two figures was not.
A sliver of understanding fell into her hands, fitted into the space that had been empty. They had escaped with their lives, these two?—but they had taken the ancient one’s medicine with them. And more?—the pounding of her pulse echoed the thundering of hooves within them, their coats the shadow of ancient wings; the sacred blood of the Territory poured over their hands and splattered their faces. She could see it on them, fresh as the moment of slaughter.
Her palm burned and her eyes itched, and Isobel realized she had urged the mare even closer, until Uvnee balked, planting hooves and tossing her head, white-rimmed eyes and trembling sides telling Isobel in no uncertain terms that she would move no farther.
Isobel slipped from the saddle and took another few steps forward, drawn by her rage, only to feel herself yanked backward, a hard hand on her shoulder. The hours of training Gabriel had forced her through kicked in, and she broke free of the hold, throwing herself backward?—away from the crossroads—and reaching for the blade in her boot.
“Hold,” a voice commanded, and only then did Isobel realize that she was not the only one outside the crossroads trap. A figure glared at her, a wide-brimmed hat pulled low, a long leather coat over shirt and trousers much like Gabriel’s, down to the worn leather riding boots, but the shape . . .