Into the Dark Lands by Michelle Sagara West Page A

solid.
    â€œLatham.”
    He took the last step and saw her back.
    â€œWhat news?”

    He opened his mouth, and for the first time in years, the words failed him completely.
    She turned then. And her expression destroyed the last vestige of control that he’d maintained.
    For her face was old, tired, and terribly vulnerable. It seemed, for an instant, that the Light of God had never graced it; that the Blood of the Bright Heart had never flowed through it. And her eyes, which were always living emeralds, were now only cold, large stones. She stared almost helplessly at him, her arms spun tightly around her like translucent web.
    She knows , he thought. Somehow, she knows. And for the first time in his life, as he looked at her, he saw her as Servant of the Light—ageless and immortal. It was odd to think of her so only now that she displayed a weakness that might barely have been hinted at.
    He felt a cold anguish well up in him.
    She knows. He let those words sink in, but this time, instead of turning away from them as he had for fifteen years, he pushed them forward that one logical step—he was, after all, line scholar.
    She knew.
    Five years she had spent in spell trance. Five years, following futures that only she could follow; pushing aside a veil that only the Servants dared touch.
    How many other deaths did you see, Lady? How many other lives might we have saved?
    How could you sacrifice your own daughter?
    And watching him, the Lady of Elliath saw that he knew. She drew herself up, calling upon the remnants of her power to provide her with some ragged comfort and some hint of the glory that the Lernari had always associated with her.
    It would not come.
    Lernan, God, I have given you everything. Do not desert me now.
    And a hint of His light, a finger of His power, reached out to embrace her.
    She faced Latham squarely.
    â€œLatham. What brings you?”
    He heard her words, but could not answer her. Instead he turned, showing her the circle that emblazoned the gray of his back.
    The Lady of Elliath watched him walk away.
    Is this all? she thought bitterly. She was too tired to panic.
Have I revealed what I dare not reveal? Have I spoken wordlessly of what I dared not speak? Is all my pain to serve no point?
    She called him again, but he did not halt.
    She set her power aside wearily and began to follow. So be it, then. Did I show no grief or pain in the future?
    â€œLatham!” The voice that came from her throat startled her. It was a human voice, mortal.
    Where the Light could not touch him, this simple thing could. He stopped and, after a shaky second, turned to face her.
    She spoke no words as she approached him. She made no plea, not even to ask for his trust or his silence.
    And because she did not, he knew he would give her both. For she was the Lady of Elliath, the strongest of all Servants of the Light. Darkness did not—could not—mar her.
    He had only part of her blood—the barest hint of Light. He was mortal and caught by mortal traps. If for Lernan’s sake she had done nothing, there had to be a reason for it. If she had forced herself to be silent all this time, it was for the good of the Bright Heart.
    It had to be.
    â€œLady,” he said softly.
    She shook her head in denial—of what he could never be certain.
    There was so much that he wanted to ask her.
    She shook her head again, forestalling him.
    â€œLatham, what if you knew that there was only one hope to end this eternal war? What would you give up for that hope?”
    â€œAnything,” he said automatically. But the word hung tautly between them, and he stiffened as if feeling its significance truly for the first time.
    â€œAnd what if you knew that that hope was no certainty, that you were grasping at a slim chance that you could not control? What would you give up then?”
    This time he did not answer. Instead he stared across at her bowed head.
    â€œAnd what if you knew all