I could detect no sign of Nighteyes. I was trying not to think about him, nor look for him, a strenuous mental denial that was fully as demanding as keeping Verity’s consciousness with me. So quickly had I become accustomed to reaching out for my wolf and finding him awaiting my touch that I felt isolated, and as unbalanced as if my favorite knife were missing from my belt. The only image that could completely displace him from my mind was Molly’s, and that, too, was one I did not wish to dwell on. Verity had not rebuked me for my actions of the night before, but I knew he regarded them as less than honorable. I had an uneasy feeling that if I allowed myself time to truly consider all that had happened, I would agree with him. Cowardly, I kept my mind reined away from that, too.
I realized I was putting most of my mental effort to not thinking. I gave my head a shake and opened myself up to the day. The road I was following was not well traveled. It wound through the rolling hills behind Buckkeep, and far more sheep and goats trod it than men. Several decades ago a lightning fire had cleared it of trees. The first growth of trees on it was mostly birch and cottonwood, now standing bare but for snow burden. This hilly country was ill-suited to farming, and served mostly as summer pasturage for grazing animals, but from time to time I would catch a whiff of wood smoke and see a trodden path leading from the road to a woodcutter’s cottage, or a trapper’s hut. It was an area of small, isolated homesteads occupied by folk of humbler persuasions.