Into the Dark Lands

by Michelle Sagara

  “Lord?”

  Very slowly, Stefanos turned his head. “Yes?”

  “I don’t understand. Have I displeased you?”

  “Displeased me?” He shrugged elegantly. “That is not your concern. You have displeased the Lady, however.” He smiled. “And the Lady chooses to grant her mercy here. Do you question this?”

  “M-mercy?”

  “Ah, but that is not mine to grant. Lady?”

  “Not now,” she replied tersely. She pulled the child gently to her feet. “In fact, I think it best if you both continue your discussion elsewhere for a time.” Turning her back on them, she carried the girl to the large, regal bed.

  “What is your name, child? ” she asked softly.

  The girl was young, but not so young that she would answer that question when asked by a noble.

  The baron, however, was unwise enough to answer for her.

  “She’s a slave,” he said, half-incredulous.

  “Oh? ” Her voice was cool. “I wasn’t aware that I was asking the question of you.”

  His face darkened. He started to step forward and Stefanos caught him by the arm. Sara heard the baron’s gasp of pain. She couldn’t help it; she smiled almost viciously, an expression that vanished completely as she turned to speak with the child.

  “My name is Lady Sara, but most people just call me Sara, unless they happen to be nobility.” She grimaced with distaste at the word.

  “I’m a slave,” the girl said cautiously. Sara smiled, encouraged. These were the first words the girl had spoken. She applied a little more of her power, but not too much; she would still have her tour of the house to make, and there were many, she was sure, that would require at least as much attention.

  “I know,” she said. “But that isn’t your fault.” The fear vanished under the weight of her power. “Do you want to go home?”

  The child nodded.

  “Well, then,” Lady Sara said, taking the child’s hand. “If you think you can walk, I’ll take you. What is your mother called by the other slaves?”

  The child stood on her toes and whispered something. Sara nodded. She braced herself for the fear that would follow when she met the girl’s parents; fear mingled with hate of the station that Stefanos had granted her.

  Little fingers wrapped themselves suddenly around hers. It helped. She smiled down.

  Without another word to the two who watched, she left the room.

  Stefanos helped her into the carriage. He watched as she waved her silent good-byes to the windows of the large mansion; watched in surprise and acceptance as those windows, ringed by slaves, acknowledged her passing. Hope he knew, and hope he saw in the faces that watched.

  This was why Elliath had always been a danger to him. But that danger was secondary.

  He looked down at the Sarillorn’s weary face and wrapped her gently in the anonymity of his shadow. Do you not see, he thought, as his hands stroked her hair, the effect that you have had? He did not think so—else why would she be so weary, so tired?

  “He was the last, little one. From here we return home.”

  She sighed, nodded, and closed her eyes. Her breathing alone told him that she did not sleep.

  “All things are in preparation in Rennath; they will be waiting for us.”

  “Waiting?”

  “Yes.”

  She was silent a moment, as she always was when she was trying to understand something. “Stefanos?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why did we come here? Why did we tour Veriloth?”

  He smiled. “Must you always question all that I choose, Sarillorn? Can you not just accept that it was necessary?” But he knew the answer to his question; he asked it only out of habit.

  “Very well,” he said, when her silence grew too long. “I wished them to know you, Lady. I wished them to understand your position. I wished to force them to accept what will soon be a known fact: You are my consort. You are my chosen Empress. Under my command, you will rule by my side.”

  Again her silence answered him; her silence and her sudden stiffness.

  “You—you told them that?”

  “Not, perhaps, in so many words. Why?”

  “You—you told them that I was—that I’m—” She pulled away from him, not an easy maneuver in the confined space of the carriage.

  Once again she had managed to surprise him. He looked at her pale, shocked face, at her wide, unblinking eyes. They spoke of a tremulous horror that he could not understand. Had he not just granted her more power than any of her kind had ever known? Had he not indicated how important she had become to him? Had he not acknowledged to her that she was no slave, to come and go entirely at his whim?

  This rank, this title—it was a gift that the nobility would kill for. Why then did she not show the appreciation that was his right?

  He was angry and he fought to stifle it. Here, alone in the darkness with her, he could take no chances. Control came with difficulty.

  “Did you even think of asking me?”

  His teeth glimmered in the shadow; it was not a smile.

  “Asking you, Sarillorn?”

  “Asking me.”

  He felt her own anger, so much less dangerous, in every syllable. There was a snap as one of the gilt-edged windows broke away beneath his fingers.

  “I have, ” he said with difficulty, “bestowed upon you a rank that no half blood would dare to think of taking. I have honored you above even my own brethren. You dare to ask me if—” Another snap. He bit back the remainder of the words.

  She was trembling, but there was no hint of the beauty of fear about it.

  “What if I don’t want to rule this—this empire? What if I don’t want to be associated with the nobility and the man—the Servant—who created it?” Her own hands gripped the side window out of which she looked. Landscape, obscured by nightfall, passed by her narrowed eyes.

  He touched her shoulder. Very softly, he said, “Is it not too late to ask that?”

  Her sudden tears dissolved his anger completely.

  “Sarillorn, Sara, why?” He touched her chin, turning her face toward him. “Am I cruel to you? Do I hurt you?”

  “It isn’t me that I worry about.” Her voice was bitter and very distant. “It’s never me that I have to worry about.” Her head sagged forward without resistance. “Why do you want to do this to me?”

  “Because I desire it. If I am to honor you, all of my subjects will.”

  “Honor me?” She laughed then, almost hysterically, and she would not speak again.

  “Oh, Marcus, I’m so glad to be back!”

  The doctor smiled. He looked both weary and happy as he nodded to the beds in the infirmary. Three were occupied.

  “I’m not sure what you said, Sarillorn, but we’ve been open for business these last three months—and no one’s said a word against it. ”

  Her smile wavered. “It isn’t what I said,” she told him sadly, “but who I said it to.”

  “I thought it might be.” He put an arm around her shoulder and steered her firmly to one of two chairs. “Was it hard?”

  She nodded. “I—I think I’ve just been sheltered in Rennath. I—everywhere we went there was just so much ugliness. And I knew while I stayed I could change things, but does it help them when I’ve gone? What does a day here or there really mean when they have to look forward to years of slavery?”

  He didn’t press her for details.

  “But the worst—the worst of it is here. Stefanos wants me to be Empress. ” She laughed. Marcus did not.

  “Empress?” he said softly.

  “Empress.” The word was flat. “Of the empire he’s built. And I can’t do it, Marcus. I can’t.” She stood suddenly and walked over to the window; it was glass. She pressed her cheek against it. I’ve given up everything I can. I don’t know if there’ll be anything of me left if I do as he wants.”

  “What would he ask you to change?”

  “What else
would he have to? I wasn’t raised and trained by Elliath to rule at the side of a Servant!”

  “Not even one you love?”

  “L-love?”

  His eyes met hers.

  “I can’t love him.” But she smiled, quietly and sadly, all anger suddenly quenched. “What about him is there to love?”

  “If you have no answer for that, Sarillorn, there is not a mortal alive that does.”

  “And is love meant to be such a selfish thing, then? That I care about what he grants to me, when I know it is only to me that he grants it?”

  Marcus was very thoughtful. He was old; he had the experience that she lacked.

  “Love, Sarillorn, is not easily defined. But only the love of the Bright Heart Himself is not motivated by mortal things. It is, in some ways, selfish. And in some, selfless.

  “Were your lover human, I would counsel you as you counsel yourself: to seek another. Often, what one will do to others, they will one day do to you. But that isn’t, I think, the case here.” He stepped closer to her. “Sometimes I think you are more afraid of the kindness he offers than of the death he could give.”

  She nodded, the same smile pulling her lips down. “I am.”

  “Then this is the hope that must guide you: that the Servant can give these things. Perhaps for now, they are only given to you—but maybe, in time . . .”

  “Do you really believe that? ”

  “It isn’t important if I do, Sarillorn. Do you?”

  “I try to.” She looked down at her hands. They were shaking. “But it’s hard. I keep thinking—I know what he does. I know it and, if I accept it, I must be a party to it somehow. I can almost see the blood on these hands.”

  He closed his eyes. “I know,” he said gently. “But if that’s the case, then ask yourself what you really want. ”

  “I have. I still don’t know. Six months ago, I might have said ‘to go home.’ Three months ago, even. Now ... I just don’t know.”

  “Sarillorn, do you love him?”

  “Do I?” She looked at the walls as if she could drag answers from them.

  Dinner was a ritual. Food was laid out on a short, low table, each tray appealing in its presentation. Two silver plates decorated either end of the dark wood; cutlery, in the empire’s odd style, lay on the left side. On the right, two goblets, each worth more than a small farm’s yearly harvest.

  A ritual. She greeted him at the door, taking care to see that the large skirt of silk and the crinoline beneath it weren’t crushed against the wall.

  He asked, “Would it trouble you if I remained?”

  She shook her head, out of habit, really. Was that all that ritual held? He took her arm as he led her to the table, even though they both knew she was capable of finding it on her own.

  She stopped once, to adjust the lamplight, and then continued on to take the chair that he pulled out.

  Ritual; she had taught him this, and he had accepted it. But as she looked across the full table to meet his dark eyes, she knew that more than habit lay beneath it.

  It was the first thing I taught you.

  He filled her goblet with a vintage he had chosen; a good one, although initially this had not always been the case. Not that it had made, or did make, much difference to his lady; she herself had known precious little about wine. She watched as the liquid, cool and clear, spilled gently into one goblet.

  Soon they would drink it; soon they would eat. She would talk of her day, he of very little.

  Then, afterward, they would retire, perhaps into the sitting room. He would speak more there, and she less. He would touch her, taking her face very gently into his winter hands. He would kiss her, less gently, and she would know a moment of fear; the same fear that was always present for the beginning of each night.

  He would dim the lights, but not completely, and let the shadows touch them both.

  Rituals.

  Do I love you?

  This was not a question she could ask him. He was First of the Dark Heart; what little he knew of love was cold and cruel.

  Cold and cruel . . . She put her fork down, swallowing slowly, aware of him, as she was always aware.

  “Sarillorn? ”

  She shook her head, picked up the fork again, and watched it shake, the light gleaming off the silver.

  What do I want?

  Not to be Empress. Not to rule.

  No?

  She had already done much in his name, and with his permission: the clinic, the dismissal of the Church from the palace proper. What more might she hope for, if she had the courage to remain?

  But she knew she must be honest with herself. She didn’t know if courage alone kept her in this place.

  Do I love you?

  No answer came, and she took refuge in the dinner proper.

  “Sarillorn.”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Are you well?”

  She looked down at what remained of her dinner: most of what had been put upon her plate.

  “I’m fine. ”

  “You have hardly eaten anything. Are you sure?”

  She shook her head.

  He rose, leaving rituals behind. Very quietly he came to stand beside her chair, one hand resting upon her shoulder.

  “Is the thought of being consort to the Lord of Empire so terrible? ”

  She thought, for a moment, that she heard the smallest of catches in his voice. “I—I already am, aren’t I?”

  He smiled. “Yes. And I wish the rest of my subjects to know it.”

  She didn’t ask him why. She said nothing for a long while. And then for no real reason, as she often did, she made her decision. She caught his hand, took a deep breath, and laid her cheek gently against it.

  “I love you, Stefanos.”

  Her words were a sigh.

  She didn’t see his eyes widen, couldn’t see the way the touch of her light leaped up like a sudden flare to dazzle his peculiar vision. Nothing he had seen yet had prepared him for this.

  Love? He watched the steadiness of her inner light, wondering where the twisting current and eddies of it had gone.

  Love? He touched her face very gently, amazed that he could do so. And he understood for the first time all that she offered, and all that he wanted. He understood what he had seen the first time they had met; knew that it had not been for him that the light had shone.

  He knew that it shone for him now.

  In wonder he met her green, green eyes.

  Could such a one as this truly co-rule all that he had built? In all history, no one, human or half blood, had dared to offer a Servant of the Dark Heart this gift. All that he had been certain of before left him with nothing save the desire to hold this light aloft for any to see, could they choose it.

  “Sara.”

  She nodded quietly.

  “I wish them to know that I have chosen you. I wish them to know that you have chosen me. ” He drew her gently to her feet. “But if—if you choose against it, Lady, I shall abide by your decision.” He could offer her nothing less.

  She wrapped her arms around him, hiding her face in his chest. He heard her muffled voice as clearly as he felt it.

  “They will know I’ve chosen. I’m afraid that they’ll think I—I love this world you’ve made.” She took a deep breath and drew back so he could once again see the starkness of her expression. “But no love should exist with shame. If I love you, I will do it without being ashamed of it.” Her eyes were shining, a sad, bare brilliance.

  “How, then, Sarillorn, do your people express this love?”

  Her eyes widened. “My people?”

  “The lines.” He rarely asked anything about her former life. “The Malanthi have little that could capture it; the Servants of the Dark Heart, none.”

  She bit her lip, and he wondered if in asking the question he had brought a pain he did not seek to inflict.

  “There are—there are the rites of bonding, rituals, simple ones. I mean, when two people
choose each other. There are other ways that we love; we love our parents, we love our brothers or our sisters, we love the Lady. ” She took a deep breath, steadying herself. “But if there are two who wish to make their bond known, they call the rites, in front of people they care about. I—it’s not easy to explain. ”

  She looked at the dinner, now cold, laid out before her.

  “But I could teach you.”

  “Teach me, then. I would learn it. ”

  The train of the dress shimmered around her feet, hinting at beads of crystal and pearl. They had been sewn very carefully into large, glinting circles, edged with silver trim.

  Emilee, one of the servants who had tended to Lady Sara throughout her long stay, adjusted the dress for perhaps the fiftieth time.

  Sara looked at the long, oval mirror. Her reflection stared back, robed in pale green, with a long, white sash and a white border around both trailing sleeves. These were the colors of the lines in celebration. Her hair was a mess, but Emilee insisted it be a beautiful one—all pulled high and strung through with the same pearls, the same crystal, that lay at her feet.

  Embroidered in silver thread at her right breast, the circle of the initiate caught the fading sunlight.

  “Where’s Marcus?” she murmured.

  “The sun hasn’t set yet. He’ll be here when it does,” Emilee replied—as she had done for perhaps the last half hour. She straightened the smooth dress once more. “I’ve not seen a dress like this in tens of years, Lady. ” Her voice was quiet with awe. With memory.

  “I’ve never seen one like it.” She smiled. “But simpler ones, yes. I didn’t realize what I was asking for.”

  “No,” the woman murmured. “But Helda, now Helda was happy to do it. ”

  Lady Sara smiled, remembering the look on the elderly seamstress’s face.

  Aye, I can do it, Lady, and with pleasure. It’s a welcome change from the robes I’m used to making. And aye, I know the style of dress. I used to make ’em earlier. I used to be the best.

  The best—Sara could well believe it; it explained why Helda was spared the brunt of slavery in her old age.