The Cold Eye (The Devil's West #2)(34)

Feeling strands of her hair cling to her neck and chin like fingers, she began braiding them out of the way, although without the leather tie she’d been using, the end of the braid began to come apart almost immediately, adding to her frustration. The feathers she usually tied into the braid were tucked under her bedroll where she’d placed them the night before. Surely, Gabriel would not object to her returning for those?

Before she could convince herself that it wouldn’t be eavesdropping on their conversation to do so if she couldn’t understand the language, Gabriel’s voice rose, calling her name.

The old man was still there, his hands clasped around one of their tin mugs. Gabriel was refilling the second one, handing it to her. She took it, settling herself on the ground next to him, her skirt folded under her legs.

“His tribe is the one whose camp we saw,” Gabriel told her. “The others left when the ground trembled; he stayed. More from stubbornness than bravery, I think. He saw us arrive last night, watched until a sign came to him that we were to be trusted.”

“A sign?” She thought immediately of the great deer, but if Gabriel had been told, he was not sharing. She bit her tongue and nodded at her mentor to continue.

“Near as I might determine”—Gabriel looked at her rather than the old man, who ignored them both—“we were right; something has scared the game away. But it started before the ground began to quake.”

He glanced at the old man then and made a hand gesture, a sharp move of his right hand and elbow. The old man nodded once, although it didn’t seem to Isobel that he was agreeing. She tried to study him without being rude, to read him the way she’d been trained, but it was like trying to watch a sunbeam; no matter how intently she watched, she could never see it move.

“Jumping-Up Duck said that the land sorrowed, yes? He says that the land is frightened.”

Isobel’s gaze flicked away from the old man, down to the ground at her knee. The grass was sparse but green, dotted with tiny blue flowers she didn’t recognize, six-petaled, with a white center. She touched the fingers of her left hand against the ground and felt only silence in response. She pushed deeper, pressing her palm down to the ground and waiting for warmth to tingle through her, spreading her awareness into the earth, along the bones of stone underneath the soil, the connection to the Territory that the sigil—her Bargain—gave her. Power hummed quietly, a spider’s web stretching forever, delicate and thick, and she felt the now-familiar dizziness as her own awareness melted into something far greater. Isobel stretched a bit further, reassured, before a sharp snap hit the center of her hand, the pain racing up to her elbow and making her entire arm twitch away, her body folding in on itself, cutting the connection like a cauterization.

No

All self-certainty Isobel’d had since that first flush of power in her palm shriveled like a leaf in the fire, and her fingers dug into the ground, shoving dirt under her nails, as though to deny what had happened. A pain twisted in her chest, like a sob, a scream, trapped under her ribs. Was she doing something wrong? Had she forsaken her Bargain, somehow broken it unaware? Had the boss . . .

No. She couldn’t bear to think of it, and so she would not. The whisper. She clung to that: something had driven her to that tiny village, something had called to her again that night. Something wanted her here, wanted her to help.

Gabriel was still speaking. She forced herself to put aside pointless worry, to make sense of the words.

“He says he can take us to where it started.”



Isobel was too quiet. Gabriel tried not to watch her as they packed up the camp, saddled the horses, tried not to let his concern show, not for her sake but because he was not certain of their new companion, not yet, and concern could be taken for weakness.

Once they were ready, the old man whistled, and a pony nearly as old as he, black-and-white and tough as old roots, came to his side. He rode it without saddle or bridle, legs wrapped around its sides and a hand on the simple halter, and for the first time since he was a boy, Gabriel felt awkward in the saddle.

They rode all day without speaking, their guide ahead, Isobel and Uvnee to Gabriel’s left, the mule behind, up steep, backtracking trails and through narrow valleys that, just as the old man had said, were devoid of life. Overhead the occasional bird circled, but it never swooped, and the grass underfoot never rustled with the passing of small game. Once, up against the sheer rock face, Gabriel was certain he saw movement that might have been goats, but they were too far away to be certain; they might simply have been rocks, shaped and colored to confuse the eye.

No wonder the ghost cat had attacked them. No game underfoot, and too ill to flee from the hills, they must have seemed like a gift, delivered into its lair.

“Forgive us, little cousin,” he said under his breath. “But I had a greater wish to live.”

And if they couldn’t find game for themselves at some point, well, there were still supplies in their packs, although with three of them, it wouldn’t last for long. He’d survived on grubs and roots once. He’d rather eat the mule.

The trail took a turn up again, and he leaned forward slightly, trying to take some of the press off his ribs. Sleeping rough and riding up mountains might not have been the best way to heal, but once Isobel went chasing after whatever this was, he’d had no choice but to follow.

Isobel turned to look at him, obviously wondering what he found amusing. Her hat—brand-new not so long ago?—was now sun-bleached and worn at the brim, and there was a dip over one side that made her look oddly rakish. But the stubborn line of her jaw and the set of her mouth were familiar. It wasn’t puzzlement or annoyance?—she was upset.