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

saw her melt into the wood itself—as if the tree were slowly opening up to swallow her. He started forward, half in alarm, and was halted by Bethany’s voice.
    No, Darin. This is not for you. Do not risk yourself to the spells of the Lady-there would be no contest.
    But she —
    I know. Yet she does what she must. If she must be alone, there is no safer place in the lands for her to be so. Have faith, Initiate.
    Darin stopped moving, but only barely. He wanted to tell Bethany that it was not for her safety that he feared. The priests were about in the forest, searching or waiting, or maybe both. He would rather have dared the Lady’s spell than wait outside, alone. He didn’t tell Bethany; he knew that it would not change the fact that he would not be allowed to enter the Hall. Instead, he pulled the staff from its place at his back and took a seat on the forest floor, facing the tree.
    And as he watched it, he felt what Sara must have felt the first time she had seen the doors to the Woodhall. He let his vision be absorbed by the great Tree until he could see nothing else. And he felt the peace of the Lady touch him with its precarious fingers.
     
    Erin was certain her teeth had come through her lower lip. She was also certain that she must be splayed out against the
marbled floor of the Lady’s Hall; her stomach was still spinning from the awkward transition. She was very surprised when she opened her eyes and found herself standing—or wobbling—on two feet.
    The last time wasn’t this bad. She stretched out one arm and felt a wall beneath her open palm. Of course not, idiot. The last time the Lady waited. Grimly she forced herself to stand apart from the wall. She hadn’t the time for the luxury of confusion.
    Looking ahead, she saw the long, arched hallway before her—a standing monument to the will of the Lady and the power of Lernan’s Gifting. The ceiling was about twenty feet above the ground, and it easily dwarfed her, although she was certain that had she been forced to crouch under a ceiling of dubious height, she would still feel no less dwarfed. Things magical were here; things of the blood that she could never hope to duplicate and that would never be made again. A familiar tingle traced itself along her spine, causing her to shudder. Line Elliath calling its own.
    Turning, she looked hard at the one thing that had remained the same: the trunk of the Lady’s Tree. It did not seem out of place surrounded by cold stone and marble. In the odd, pale glow of the hall, it, too, seemed a monument to the Lady—and one no less hard than the walls around it.
    Latham was not here to guide her, not here to await her return. He would not come again, but his ghost stood watch in her memory. Darin waited instead.
    The walk down the hall was eerie. Her steps rang in the silence, as they had done twice before. But now she was alone, no Lady to follow, and no direction laid out for her.
    Not that she needed one. There were no branching paths from this long hall and no doors to tempt her away from the final destination that lay at its end: the Lady’s garden. The hall seemed to go on forever, but she realized it for illusion—or perhaps fear. If she had ever hoped to come home to Elliath, this was not the manner that she had envisaged. Although they were long dead, she felt the eyes of her line upon her and felt their anger, their sense of betrayal, at all that she had done against them. Not for this had she been made Sarillorn of the line; not for this had she become the vessel for the ancient power of the first matriarch. It would have been better for all concerned if the power had traveled through the line as crown, or staff, or ring, the way it
did with any other line. That way, had the power been misused, it could have been passed on, either by will or force, to one less likely to fail it.
    Now, with the destruction of the Lady of Elliath, there was no way that the power of the forebears of the line could be