"The way out," he said. "Tell me."
The Yamamba's gaze shifted — not toward him, but toward the blade in his hand, and what lingered on it. The darkness had retreated, pulled back behind whatever door Nathan kept it locked behind, but the traces of it remained the way smoke remains after a flame is killed. Her expression changed as she looked at it, something moving through those ancient eyes that was not quite readable but was unmistakably deep.
"What kind of monster," she said slowly, "uses something so evil as that?"
Nathan said nothing.
There was an irony to it that he did not bother pointing out. A creature that had haunted a god-touched road for centuries, that had consumed every living thing that wandered into her mist, looking at him with the expression of something morally offended. It would almost have been funny in different circumstances.
