Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World #1)(87)

“What girl?” he spits. “You are choosing a five-fingered girl over me?”

I touch the brand, remembering that girl on the ridge above Fort Defiance who lost her nalí, and who has been lost ever since. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

His screams crash over me, like the last efforts of a dying hurricane, as he sinks into the ground. I watch as the earth parts around him and welcomes him below. To his ankles, then his knees. His chest, earth flowing around him like quicksand.

I turn away. I can’t watch anymore.

I wait until the only sound is the wind, blowing low across the mesa. I remind myself it’s better this way, but right now it doesn’t feel better. It only hurts.



The click of a gun safety being disengaged gets my attention. I turn.

Rissa is there, her AR-15 pointed at me. “You should go,” she says, voice as hollow as a drum.

“What?”

Her face is grim, fatigues bloody and torn, and her eyes are rimmed in red. She cuts her eyes sideways, toward her brother’s unconscious body, toward Kai. “You’re not welcome here anymore, Monsterslayer.”

I stare, incredulous. “But I stopped him. He was going to kill you all.”

“I don’t know what Neizghání was going to do. I only know what you did.”

“What I did? I—” And then it comes together. She thinks I shot Kai in cold blood. I can feel the rage, the disgust rising from her body.

Honágháahnii surfaces, filling my veins with quick fire. K’aahanáanii croons Rissa’s deathsong. But I don’t want to kill Grace’s daughter. She just doesn’t understand.

“Kai saved your life,” Rissa says, her voice hard with loathing. “I was there when they brought you back from the fighting arena. I saw what he did. What he sacrificed. And that was a fucked-up way to repay him.”

“But I didn’t—” I swallow down my indignation, my frustration, and remind myself that this is temporary. That I have to believe that Kai will wake up, and when he does, he’ll find me. And Rissa is going to owe me a hell of an apology.

“Go!” she shouts, hands trembling on the trigger. Sweat runs down her face. I know she must sense K’aahanáanii, even if she doesn’t know exactly what it is. “I’m letting you go, for everything you’ve done for us. But if I see you again, you die.”

“As if you could kill me.” The words are out of my mouth before I can think better of it.

Her nod is bleak. “You’re right. Maybe I can’t. But I guess we’ll find out.”

I spot Hastiin in the distance, watching. But he doesn’t offer to help. He thinks I did it too.

I swing Neizghání’s lightning sword over my shoulder and walk to the truck. Rissa doesn’t stop me. Just follows at shooting distance. My clan powers whisper of ways to kill her, but I force them down. Slide into the driver’s seat. Secure the sword in the gun rack.

Rissa stands outside. I can feel her eyes on me, watching as I close the door. Turn the key in the ignition. “Just don’t put him in the ground, okay?” I tell her. “You don’t understand everything you think you do. Just give him a chance.”

She doesn’t acknowledge that she heard me, but I know she did.

One last look back to where Neizghání stood. Nothing to mark the spot as special. The wind picks up and blows the dirt around.

I go.





Chapter 38


Four days have passed.

Sunset on the fifth day draws down in brilliant shades of red and orange and vermillion as I sit on a cliff edge overlooking my trailer. The air’s cool up here in the aspen grove, and I’m hidden well from anyone looking up in this direction. After I left Black Mesa, I wandered for a while. Up in the mountains, living off the little bit of food and water I’d carried in with me. Thirst finally drove me down to the Crystal Valley, but I’ve been up on this ledge for hours and I still haven’t gone down the hill and back to my trailer.

One look and I could tell someone had been there since I left it last. Earlier, I thought I caught the glint of sunshine off a pearl button, a gnarled brown hand pulling back the curtains. But if I’m wrong and it’s not Tah there in my trailer, I think my grief will drown me whole. And if I’m right, well, how do I tell him about Kai? So I stay put, up on the ridge. Out of sight.

My dogs are well. The littlest one, the sole survivor from her litter, sits curled against my legs now. The others are scattered. Out hunting or patrolling or doing what rez dogs do. But this one sticks close to me.

I adjust the lightning blade across my back. I miss my shotgun, but I can’t wear both at the same time, and I’m partial to a weapon that can call down fire from the sky. I have a feeling I might need supernatural help soon. My list of dead is long, but my list of enemies is longer. I have no doubt Neizghání will escape his prison on Black Mesa and come for me someday. This time I know that reunion must end in one of us dead. I expect the Law Dogs may discover the truth about Longarm’s end sooner than later, that death finally catching up with me. Or maybe it’ll be Rissa, good to her word.

The wind picks up again, battering the branches around me. Clouds rolling in too, heavy with rain and seeming to get heavier every hour. They’re a deep gray, almost black, and streaked through with bolts of silver, like a certain medicine man’s eyes. No doubt they promise a deluge once they break.