Into the Dark Lands by Michelle Sagara West Page B

this, but knew also that to speak of it fully would doom the hope?”
    He was scholar, master scholar of Elliath. The questions that he longed to ask still swirled around his mind chaotically. He contained them, for he knew what his answer to her question must be.
    â€œLady, I would want to take that hope if that was all I would be given. At any price.” He took a deep breath and released it
shakily, thinking of Kerlinda. Thinking of the manner of the death she had gone to, untrained. “But I would not have the strength. I am mortal, with all that condition entails.”
    She looked up, and he saw the blackness of despair shroud her features with loss and guilt.
    â€œI do not believe I will ever be truly immortal again.”
    Without knowing why, he reached for her, his arms the stronger of the two for the first time in any memory. He held her, and she allowed herself to mourn as a mother does for the death of a child.
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    This time, Erin was allowed to be present at the ceremony of departure in the somber circle of the vaulted Great Hall. Adults stood on all sides, wearing their grays and their circles and their sorrow equally. Belfas stood beside her and cried all the tears that he knew she would not.
    Instead of sneaking into the hall as she had for the other ceremony, she had walked to the front of the gathering. No gray for her, no silver, just the plain brown robes of a student in training. She had never felt so out of place. People made way for her, their expressions a mingling of bitter grief and sympathy.
    Kerlinda was given the warrior’s departure; her coffin was surrounded by warrior-priests, arms held at ready.
    Telvar had asked Erin if she would like to stand. She had refused. If she had not had the strength to stand by her mother when her mother was alive, she had no right to stand by her corpse in any position of honor.
    The Lady of Elliath presided over this departure, as she had done over all. But the words that were spoken by her and the Grandfather flitted by Erin’s ears without ever touching them. Everything was a dim, gray blur.
    She approached the coffin once and looked at what remained of her mother in cold, stiff silence.
    I will never forget you.
    She did not touch the body.
    After the ceremony many people, some that she recognized vaguely and some that she knew well, came up to her to offer her their sympathy. They couldn’t know that each word they spoke cut her sharply.
    Only the Lady of Elliath seemed to understand, and for this one thing, Erin was grateful.

    â€œErin.” Katalaan wiped her hands on her apron although they’d been dry since the fourth time she’d done it.
    Erin continued to wash the plate, each movement of the rag slow and methodical. Her eyes, wide and glassy, stared into the cooling water.
    The baker wondered what she saw there. For three years they had lived together. Not one day in all that time had prepared Kat for this silence, the wall of it cold and hard. Korfel would have been proud of the stoic Lernari spirit that Erin showed. Katalaan hated it.
    â€œErin?”
    â€œYes, Kat?”
    â€œIf we’ve finished here, I think I could use your help setting up in the circle for tomorrow.” She began to remove her apron.
    â€œI—I have a lot of studying to do.”
    She always had. If it weren’t for Belfas, her studying would have been a mausoleum.
    Why hasn’t she cried? The older woman shook her head. It isn’t natural. Then again, by all accounts neither was her mother’s death. What had happened to kill the special hesitancy that was Erin’s childhood?
    She shook her head again. Better not to know. What mattered now was bringing that back, if it was possible.
    â€œStudy can wait. I’m not as young as I used to be and I could use the help.”
    They both knew it wasn’t strictly true, but Erin nodded listlessly. She removed her own apron—brown and green at Kat’s