Lady of Mercy (The Sundered, Book 3) by Michelle Sagara West

But if I had to guess, I’d say that the priests have been warned. We have almost no time.”
    “But wouldn’t they have been here by now?”
    It was the right question, but the wrong time to say it; her brow rippled, and her face became set. She started to walk forward; he struggled to keep up with her speed. But he cringed as her feet passed almost clumsily over the orvas blossoms, crushing the occasional petal and whole flower. She didn’t seem to notice.
    Orvas blossoms became less rare, and where the trees at the road’s edge had been dark and uniform in height, bark, and color, the trees in the forest’s heart were different. They were no less lofty, no less aged—but they were silver-barked, with golden leaves and white, full flowers; and although their leaves were just as wide and greedy with the sun’s light, the forest floor beneath them was bright with greens and blues and little shocks of color.
    “The Lady’s trees,” Sara whispered, looking up. Her body shivered once and then her muscles relaxed.

    Darin grunted; she suddenly weighed a lot more. “The Lady?”
    “Of Elliath,” she answered—and then looked at his upturned face; her own tightened again for a moment, but this time it passed. “Not of Mercy, Darin. She was the first of the Servants of the Bright Heart.”
    “I know her,” he said, although it had been five years or more since he’d last heard the name. “She built the walls of Dagothrin with the power of God. She promised that they’d never be taken from without.”
    “Dagothrin?”
    “The city. I lived there.”
    “Then it fell.”
    They lapsed into silence as the flowers grew whiter and the trees more majestic. And that silence held pain, but as they walked, Darin felt the warmth and peace of the Lady’s forest; the soothing silence that hinted at sleeping life, and the fragrance of the blossoms that crowned the Lady’s trees. As those trees continued to grow in age and number, he felt as if he were stepping backward in time, into a different season, where the height of summer had not yet given way to the golds and the reds of autumn.
    He thought it would be pleasant to walk, just walk, in these woods forever. He thought that they might be proof against the darkness and the Enemy’s many priests, no matter what Sara might say. He thought many, many things.
    But they vanished when he saw the Tree.
    It rose on a trunk the width of many men and towered into the sky. No mortal spires, he was certain, could ever rise so gracefully or powerfully upward. Even the lowest of the tree’s many branches, thicker than his chest, stood twice or three times his height above the ground—and flowers of gold and white, perfect, and untroubled by even breeze, bloomed everywhere. The bark of the tree was gold with flecks of brown; it was almost smooth to the touch.
    Everywhere that he looked, he could see the faint trace of pale, green light. It reminded him of the Gifting.
    “This is it,” Sara said softly. “The Lady’s Woodhall.” She pulled herself away from Darin’s support and managed not to stumble.
    “But it’s—it’s only a tree.”

    “It’s a door, a gate.” She took a step forward. Her fingers she spread out against the smooth bark; she mouthed words too quick and fleeting for Darin to catch. “But here I must go on alone.”
    “Alone?”
    She nodded almost sadly. “The Hall won’t grant you entrance, Darin. You’re not of my blood—and more important, not of the blood of the Lady.” She began to lift her arms to either side and let them drop. Turning, she gave Darin a fierce, quick hug.
    “You’ll be safe enough here—I’ve never heard of any harm coming to the lines in the Lady’s wood.” She released him and turned to face the tree again. “If I could, I’d take you with me. I—” Shaking her head, she walked forward and wrapped her arms around the tree’s large trunk.
    At least, that’s what she appeared to do. But even as Darin watched, he