Page 18 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely (A Curse of Fallen Stars #1)
Lorel
With a pack settled on her shoulders, Sila strides down the hall of the Librarians’ dormitories and I trail behind her. The hall is all narrow dark stone with a vaulted arched ceiling and a dark plush red carpet running the length of it. Wall sconces, set low, light the way.
Sila has hardly spoken since Vika left. She had clearly been unsettled by the conversation.
It worries me to think that there is something in the world that Sila is afraid of.
It worries me, too, that Vika could so easily and carelessly walk these halls.
Because her presence had been a threat, outside of all the bluster.
As we walk, I hear a scream echoing down the hall. Whispers. Occasionally, a wailing noise like the dead have risen, and maybe one has. I can’t say what Librarians get up to in their rooms. I’m not sure I want to know.
I take two steps for every one of Sila’s and even with two days rest, the walk to the Library tires me. I don’t know how I’m going to make it through an endless labyrinth. I only hope Sila doesn’t intend to take it at the same hurried pace.
The hall lets out into a common area, and I keep my eyes fixed on the hem of Sila’s cloak, determined not to make eye contact with anyone else in the room. The last thing I want is to find myself surrounded by Librarians or whatever else lives in these halls.
The balcony edge of the common area looks out over the Greater Library. There are books here that I have helped make, somewhere among the towering shelves, but there is no opportunity to appreciate the view as I hurry to follow Sila.
She waits for me at the bottom of the stairs, imperious and even a little bored.
“Come along, scribe,” she says, sharp. She turns on her heel and keeps up her pace.
If the intent is to have me look like an unfortunate scribe conscripted to assist her, then it is surely working. Though she hardly needed to make such a show of it.
The stairs spiral down behind the curved walls of the Greater Library, crowded with researchers, their assistants, and Librarians and their students.
Sila pushes through, and they make way for her, stepping swiftly out of her path.
A researcher flinches when she comes up behind them.
I watch three different people turn pale and pointedly walk in the opposite direction.
As we descend, the crowds thin, until finally we are alone in the stairwell, and Sila slows her pace.
The darkness grows oppressive and thick.
I can feel the tingle of magic on my tongue and against my skin, and I know it is my first contact with the Heart of the Library.
It’s a shock, no different from missing a step in the dark, to come to the end of the stairs.
The ground smooths out into worn down stone, opening onto a large chamber.
The magic here is thicker, though not by much.
It is as if the large circular door at the other end of the room keeps it contained, barely.
Worse than all that is that it feels… familiar.
The curse in my chest shifts, as if settling into a patch of warmth. And it is warm. I press my hand against the curse mark and feel the heat against my skin.
“Sila, you have surely not wasted your time dragging a scribe here with you,” drawls a voice across the chamber. I startle at the other Librarians' sudden presence.
“Poor Mercias. Are you on guard duty today? How very dull for you,” Sila replies, striding out into the room to meet him.
Mercias stands idly, inspecting his nails and barring her way. “I’m afraid I can’t allow you to take a scribe into the Heart, Si— Librarian.”
Sila goes very still, giving him a dangerous look. “Do you think you have any authority over me, Mercias?”
“I cannot in good conscience allow you to take that scribe into the Heart. Not when she was so recently poisoned , and has been reported as absent.” Mercias stares Sila down and I wonder if that’s a skill he’s had to learn.
He ignores me as I wander past them both, staring at the ritual marks carved into the floor. I’m hardly a danger, since I can’t open the Heart’s door.
What are these marks?
They feel familiar too. There is something strangely comforting about them.
“It’s the key,” says Sila, absently. “Step out of my way, Mercias.”
“How are you—” Mercias starts.
I miss the rest of it because when I crouch to press my hand to the activation sigil, the ritual marks light up, pale blue like a binding spell.
I squint against it, a loud rumbling noise filling the chamber as the door to the Heart slides open.
There is nothing on the other side but thick, dark magic.
It calls to me, tugging at my being. The curse is alert in my chest, all keen and eager senses.
Sila and Mercias stare at me when I look back at them.
I didn’t mean to.
“You shouldn’t be able to,” says Mercias with all the tone of a man who had only allowed me to walk past because he hadn’t yet learned to identify me as a problem, and now regrets it. And I honestly hadn’t thought I would be this kind of problem.
Sila looks more pleased than anything else. “So it is the Library,” she says.
“What do you mean, Librarian?” says Mercias darkly.
“It’s calling to Lorel,” Sila says. I turn back to the dark, watching the way it curls and eddies as if reaching out for me.
“She is a scribe ,” he says, sounding curious in spite of himself. “The Library cannot speak to her.”
“Do as you will Mercias. I will be taking her into the Heart. You’re welcome to wait till we return. I’ll try to make it this side of the century for you.”
He doesn’t put up much resistance as she breezes past him. She catches me up with her body and pushes me over the threshold into the Heart of the Library.
For a moment, it is disconcerting to walk.
As if perhaps my hands have been replaced with feet, and my feet with elbows.
And for some reason, my eyes are on the side of my head, instead of where they sensibly should be.
The walls of the hallway seem to be walls, and the floor is a floor, but something about them feels wrong.
Perhaps because they seem to be on an angle.
Sila’s body presses against mine, and the feel of it, cold and solid, grounds me.
Tips the world back to rights. Brings my thoughts back to where they should be.
“Easy now, little mouse,” Sila murmurs. I give myself a moment to blink myself into existence in the new world forming around me.
I have to check that all my fingers and toes are in the right places.
The curse sits like a weight, warm, in my chest. Content.
“Now stay close. The Library may have let you in, but that doesn’t mean it will let you out again. ”
I stare at her in alarm as she steps around me to lead the way.
The ground beneath our feet forms into an endless staircase that goes on forever into the darkness.
That magical essence is stronger here. Ever present against my skin, and constantly shifting like a living thing.
As I follow Sila, watching the sway of her cloak, the labyrinth seems to build out ahead of us.
It stretches out, infinite and impossible.
Perhaps I needed to rethink my definition of impossible.
There is a pattern to it, or so I think. It shifts before my eyes and it doesn’t just rearrange itself, it rearranges my thoughts, too. I know it has changed, but my mind tries to convince me otherwise. It would be easy to go mad here. To lose yourself.
“That went better than I thought it would,” Sila says, keeping her voice low. “Here, I can see you easily enough, but you’ll need the light. It will only get darker the further in we go, and I suspect the Library will not give up its secrets easily.”
Sila pauses and holds out the lantern she had hooked to the pack. It’s unlit. She does not light it. I feel sick at the thought of even trying. I concentrate, marking the sigil on the glass. It summons a soft low light, like it always does. It’s a feeble attempt.
When I look up, Sila is frowning at the lantern, her face cast in long shadows from the meagre light. Irritation itches at my skin.
If you wanted better, you should have done it yourself.
I snatch the lantern from her and stalk on down the stairs. It takes a moment for her footsteps to follow. She easily falls into step beside me. I can’t even walk furiously away from her and her cursed long legs. I forge onward.
“Lorel. Lorel ,” comes Sila’s voice, a hiss in the darkness.
I stop dead in my tracks. Take a deep, silent breath, and turn back to her.
Of course, I have no idea where we are going.
My face flushes with warmth. Sila stands in an open archway, a few steps back, and it is only now I see rows of them along the walls of the steps.
I hadn’t even noticed the walls appearing.
Sila turns towards the darkness, greeting it as an old friend, and I scurry to catch her up.
I have no desire to lose her in this place.
I blink as that emotion surges, too. A fear that I might be parted from her, rising unbidden and overwhelming before it recedes again.
Returning to a level of concern that feels more appropriate for the situation. I plunge after her into the dark.