The Wind's Call (The Broken Lands #4) - T.A. White Page 0,4

gray's halter.

"And a Trateri is only as good as his word," the second man said, his face serious.

Eva took a deep breath and nodded before ducking into her small burrow for the backpack. It wasn't much, but it was all she had left of her former life.

She hoped this new one was better than the last.

CHAPTER ONE

Eva's jaw cracked as a loud yawn escaped. She reached up to smooth back her blond hair, her hand snagging on a twig and a few stray leaves. With a grimace, she pulled out the offending objects before dropping them to the ground. That's what she got for spending the night outside among the horses.

Not that she minded. Spending time with her charges was one of her favorite things in the world. It was never a hardship.

Eva's pace was slow and meandering as she made her way toward camp where she hoped to find her first meal of the day. The night had been long and sleep inconsistent, which was why her thoughts were a touch sluggish, and she was slow to react when an insistent voice intruded.

"Where can we find the herd master?" The words were loud and vaguely irritated as if the speaker had repeated the question several times already.

Eva took in a group of three with some surprise. The sun was barely up and there weren’t supposed to be any teams riding out today. She should have had the pasture to herself for a while longer.

The person standing slightly in front of the other two glared at her with an expression she'd seen many times before. Just not here, on her own territory, her herd grazing in the meadow behind her. He looked at her like she was an idiot, impatience filling his expression.

It left her feeling annoyed before he’d even spoken.

The speaker was tall, young, maybe a few years younger than Eva. Like most Trateri, he lacked a beard. He was more fair-skinned than many of the Trateri she knew, who tended toward darker colored skin. His eyes were green and his hair a dirty blond.

The two behind him looked like typical Trateri, almond colored skin and darker hair. One was a woman, her gaze curious and bright as she looked at the herd behind Eva with what looked like anticipation. The other man had a friendlier face than the one who'd spoken, his features soft where the other man’s were sharp.

"He'll be around the cook's fire. You can find him there." Eva was careful to keep her voice polite.

She always tried to be polite—until she wasn't. She'd been working on that to mixed results.

The first man triggered dark memories, of a time when she was treated with disdain, of people who always seemed impatient with her when she spoke, but that wasn’t entirely his fault. She knew very well she tended to be judgmental and standoffish with strangers—a consequence of a past she'd rather forget—but that didn't mean she had to react from that place. As her mother used to say, “you get out of this world what you put into it.”

Of course, her mother probably hadn't intended for Eva to take it the way she had, but that was another story.

"Throwaway," the girl said in a low voice to the man in front. His eyes hardened and his expression shifted until it was subtly hostile.

Eva didn't react to the statement. At least not outwardly.

It wasn't entirely true. She wasn't so much a throwaway as a tagalong. She'd left her village voluntarily to join the Trateri. She hadn't been part of the tithe the Trateri demanded of those they conquered, but that was neither here nor there. These three were reacting to her differences, and that wouldn't do.

She might not have been born Trateri, but she'd decided to die as one.

They would learn that soon. If they pushed too far, she'd make sure they were saddled with the most ornery and obstinate nags she could find.

Her lips curled slightly. Echo might do. The last person who'd ridden that nag had prostrated themselves in apology before Eva on their return. The smart riders knew you didn't piss off a herd mistress when you were asking for a mount. Even if that herd mistress didn't technically have her own herd yet.

Her barely-there smile fell at the reminder.

"Let's go." Their unspoken leader dismissed her without a backwards glance.

Probably for the best. Eva had already gotten into enough arguments with warriors. The head herd master wouldn't be pleased to find her in the