Page 2 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely (A Curse of Fallen Stars #1)

Lorel

There’s no getting out of this. There is only one way in and out of the scriptorium— past the overseeing Librarian’s office.

The door is wide open in silent invitation.

Deceptively warm light spills out into the stone lined corridor, as if the mythical sun might be shining through.

It is a farce. The exit sits on the lowest level of the scriptorium and is dug deep into the mountain stone.

Even if the sun still shone, it would not reach here.

I take a deep, silent breath to settle my nerves before I step up into the doorway.

I might as well be stepping up to the sacrificial altar.

I half-expect the sacred cup bearer to be standing by with her poisoned chalice, the Dawn King standing by with his sacrificial blade.

I wonder if the Librarian is the chalice or the blade.

I recall her fingers pressing into my skin. It catches at the edges of my thoughts, my skin prickling against it.

“Scribe,” commands the Librarian, from where she leans against the front of her desk. “You may enter.”

I resist the urge to sign back that I’d rather not and instead I step into the room. The door clicks shut as it closes behind me and fuck , the last thing I want is a private audience. The Librarian gestures me forward and my feet obey. She towers over me easily and I would so dearly love to flee.

I’ve never seen her before, in all my years training in the Library.

I would have remembered if I had, because she is eerily, terrifyingly beautiful.

It’s the kind of beauty that devours, scouring you out until nothing but bones remain.

Long dark hair, long dark robes. Dark, fathomless eyes you could fall into.

Red lips curved into a predatory smile. My heart hammers in my chest and I fight to stop the shaking in my limbs as I sign to her.

You wanted to speak to me.

The Librarian tips her head, the neatest frown touching at her brows. “It is the end of the workday, scribe. You may speak with your tongue,” she says.

Dawn King strike me. Why did Orielle have to do this to me? I wish I could remember the lie I had come up with this morning for just this situation, but any sensible thought has entirely deserted me.

The Librarian closes the distance between us and I have to tip my head up to see her. I’m surrounded by her perfume again. It sends all my senses awry. Surely she can hear the way my heart is pounding from here. Like a mouse cornered by a gleeful cat.

I would prefer not to.

She hums, thoughtful. “Just as obstinate as your sister.” Her hand comes up, pushing my glasses back into place. “These past few weeks have been quite unusual for you, haven’t they?”

I open my mouth to reply, before remembering I can’t and snapping it shut. It is far too obvious for someone as keen-eyed as her.

The Library has taken good care of me.

Another hum from her. Her long, elegant fingers brush my skin as she tucks my hair behind my ear. It’s impossible to prevent the way I shiver at her touch. As if I had walked over my own grave.

“You are curious,” she murmurs. I freeze in place as her fingers trail to rest against my pulse, where it hammers against the press of her fingers. Her smile widens. My breath is a shuddering, silent thing.

No more curious than dust. Her eyes flick down to watch my hands and catch on my mouth as they flick back to my face.

“You do yourself a discredit,” she says, her tone low and dangerous.

Her fingers run along the edge of my jaw, stopping to grip my chin and tip my head back further as she pulls me against her body.

My breathing is uneven. Resoundingly silent in the quiet office space.

The Librarian gives me a curious look, and then her thumb is against my lip, pressing into my mouth.

Her free hand slides over the back of my neck, holding my head firm.

I gasp silently as she pushes my mouth wider.

“Hmm, you still have your tongue,” she mutters, as if I am some kind of unusual curiosity.

“You cannot make a sound at all, can you? And I would wager not one of them cared to notice.” Her thumb rests against my lips, her cool fingers gently caressing my jaw.

Her eyes are dark and fathomless as night shadows, trying to pierce into the very heart of me.

Trying to see the curse that rests inside of my chest. It is a dead weight of suffocating dread if I think of it for too long.

And now I am thinking of it, it starts to stir. I realise I have been standing here, willingly, for too long.

I pull away from her, and she lets me go easily, cool fingers slipping from my skin as it blooms with warmth. I fear I might be blushing. I press myself against the cool of the stone behind me and will my heart to calm down. I might as well ask the sun to shine.

It is merely an unfortunate side effect . My hands tremble a little as I sign, and I hate that.

“Of the incident, yes,” she says, looking at me thoughtfully again. “I would rather like to know more about that.” It is not a suggestion, the way she says it. That’s too bad.

I can’t remember anything . And it is the truth. The last thing I remember I had been sitting at my desk. There had been an elegant book in my hands. I can’t recall how it had gotten there but it was so beautiful, even in my memory. I had picked it up and tipped the cover open.

The next thing I had known was waking in the infirmary surrounded by physicians and Librarians, my entire body aching.

I had several broken ribs, cuts and marks down my sides from my own fingernails, and the last signs of a breaking fever.

I also could not speak. I could not cry out.

I could not gasp, or scream. Just complete, enduring silence. That had hurt the most.

They had assumed it was shock and that it would wear off in due time. It had not. And the Librarian was right. No one had really noticed. I had tried so hard to make sure they hadn’t.

“You make yourself more and more interesting, scribe,” says the Librarian.

I promise I’m not trying to.

She smiles. It is as horrific as a Librarian’s smile promises to be. It’s how she would smile as she extracted the cost of a missing book, in blood or flesh or bone.

“How delightful,” she says. The look she gives me then makes me feel like I am mere moments from being devoured. I catch an edge of amusement in her gaze and I think she might be laughing at me.

“Well, I should not keep you any further from your evening meal. Go. You are dismissed.” I’m not prepared for the sudden end to this confusing interaction.

The Librarian turns away and the door behind me swings open again.

I should go. If I am late, I run the risk of going hungry for the night.

I’m still hesitating, waiting for the trap when the Librarian looks back at me.

“Scribe,” she says, holding my gaze. My breath is caught somewhere in my chest and passing out seems like a sudden and real threat. “Have you lost the use of your limbs too, or do you have something else to say?”

I don’t bother to sign a farewell this time either. I turn tail and run, putting as much space between us as I can. Trying to outrace the fact that I am not as upset by her as I should be.

I had thought waking from that fever, with no memories and the weight of something horrific and cursed upon me had been bad enough.

It was nothing on waking from a fitful sleep clouded by dark shadows and nightmarish figures.

The weight of that was a dread that settled over me like a shroud, as if I were preparing for a funeral- only the funeral was mine.

I lie for far too long in my little chamber, staring at the patterns of the natural stone in the ceiling.

Like most everything in the Citadel, it has been carved into the stone and the walls show the natural striation of the rock.

There are no windows, nor the illusion of them, in the scribes dorms, though I have memories of the grand illusory windows in the Keep.

The large rug that greets my toes when I finally drag myself out of bed is more dust than anything else.

The room is furnished with my bed, a wardrobe, a washstand, and a desk that I rarely use these days.

When I want to keep sitting at a desk I stay late in the scriptorium. At least there I can use my paints.

I don’t know why I waste my time and supplies painting so much, as if I am some sort of artist. It’s like playing pretend.

Pretending to have the audacity to think I could ever be an illuminator.

It is entirely foolish, and a waste of time.

A ridiculous fancy for a scribe who is no better than she ought to be.

I hurl myself from the bed, pushing my thoughts aside.

They are far too grim for first thing in the morning.

I cross to the washstand in three steps, which is the farthest distance across the room.

It isn’t much, but it is at least a space of my own.

A little sanctuary from the terrors of curses and Librarians.

If only they wouldn’t follow me into my dreams.

I wash up with the cold water from the washstand and throw my wardrobe open with more force than is necessary.

It is filled with an unimaginative collection of black woollen shifts, grey wool surcoats, and grey woollen hose that I wear year round to protect against the cold underground air.

I have two pairs of brown boots to swap between, though I only wear one pair, lest I wear through both and end up without shoes entirely.

This small space is everything I need. Everything that I am content with. I don’t want anything more than this. I pull out a set of clothes for the day and strip off my sleeping shift.

The curse mark is a dark black ink blot across my chest. It’s stark against my skin in the ancient mirror on the washstand.

Bigger now than it was when I woke a week ago.

It had only been a small blot, then. It’s the size of my palm now.

Not a single soul had remarked upon it, and when I’d asked the healer, Lune, to look, she’d only looked at me confused and assured me there was nothing there.

I look down at it now, press my fingers against it.

Where the skin should be warm, it is cool to the touch.

It is very much still there. After a lifetime of feeling cursed, it’s strange to know I truly am this time.

I turn my back on the mirror and pull my clothes on, covering up the reminder of the day everything had gone horribly wrong.

I smooth out any creases and check myself in the mirror before I go.

With its dark, degraded edges, I do not look out of place at all.

Short bobbed hair, dark and neat. Stern dark brows, always too serious.

Large round glasses perched on an unremarkable nose.

Perfectly acceptable figure with no real points of interest that had suited me just fine so far in life.

Entirely uninteresting. Exactly as I wanted to be.

I take up my lapel pin from where I had discarded it the evening before. It indicates my place and affiliation and grants me the protection of the Library and its Librarians. Reminds anyone else of my station, if they bother to look. Very rarely did anyone bother to look.

I pin it in place and flick my pocket watch open to check the time. I’ve missed the morning meal. I hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone after yesterday anyway, but the morning will be harder for it. I hate missing a meal.

For now, I’ll need to be swift so I can enter with the other scribes.

I doubt the Librarian will be watching the scriptorium again, but the last thing I need is to catch her attention again.

I hope she’s already forgotten me. That something else, something more interesting will catch her attention.

I just need some luck. Unfortunately, I fear I may never have had any in the first place.