Page 22 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely (A Curse of Fallen Stars #1)

Sila

My heart feels as if it is being crushed, only it is too fragile for it and it is shattering.

Turning into tiny shards of white hot fury.

I don’t know what to do with heartache, but I know what to do with anger.

The all-consuming feeling of rage that there are people up there in the Citadel who will continue to live and breathe.

People— vermin — that had held power over Lorel and used it to turn her into a creature of such self-loathing.

She hides it so well, but the labyrinth is bringing all of her emotions to the surface.

Peeling back the layers of skin and muscle to get to the heart of her.

I’m done with the Heart’s games. It can play with me, as it has always done, but I will not allow Lorel to suffer it any further. She had looked so wretched. So small and fractured, and I had held her as if she was mine.

She had clung to me as if I was hers. I fling a shadow from my hand, striking at a mirror and shattering it.

The Heart is playing with me, because the hall of reflection is not this long.

My memories of my life before my death are threadbare.

That life had been little more than a fleeting moment compared to the age that I have lived since.

Just a whisper through the world, rustling the pages, shifting the dust. The end of it, though, I remember that.

A jagged wound cut across the end of one life and the beginning of another.

My shadows hit another mirror, and it is a reflection of myself, all the pieces I am breaking into. Enough is enough.

Speak to me, you wretch , I call out in my mind. Feel the way the shadow and space shifts as the labyrinth’s ancient sentient being turns its attention towards me. I can feel its presence in every stone and paint stroke and piece of shattering glass.

Hello, my dearest Librarian.

I feel a tug on the tether where it catches under my heart.

That faint, tenuous line that is keeping me anchored here, preventing me from fading away.

The Heart, reminding me that I have already broken one lifeline, and I cannot break another.

Lorel’s footsteps echo in the dark behind me, her little boots clipping along the stone.

So, you will do the same as he, in the end , I tell the Heart. I feel its indifference in the shifting shadows.

Only one of you walks out of here, whispers the Heart. It is your choice.

Is that a promise? I ask.

Yes.

Then I have made my choice.

You will die again.

So be it .

It is silent for a long moment as I walk on.

The door to the chapel finally gets closer, golden light spilling from within.

Exactly the same as that day, back when the sun had still shone.

Back when fae blood gave him his power to keep the dark at bay.

Now the blood of the fae has faded through the generations and his power is waning.

I doubt Lorel has ever seen the sun or felt the warmth of its light.

And the light that spills out is warm . I hold my hand out to feel it against my skin, and the warmth of it is overwhelming and soothing all at once.

I have no wish to leave Lorel now. I would have made her mine, with time.

I think of her face pressed against my skin as I carried her, and the way her fingers dug into my arms as she cried those deep, heart-wrenching sobs.

She does not deserve the fate that lies at the centre of the labyrinth, and I will give my own blood to the Heart before I give it hers.

If it is between me or her, it will always be her.

She is just a scribe, Librarian. Nothing worthy of you , the Heart murmurs. Its ink dark presence lurks at the back of my mind.

Then why do you want her? If she is nothing?

I always want, Librarian.

No, there is something special about her , I reply.

I believe it, too. More than just my own feelings and desire for her.

Lorel had silenced something in herself so brutally, something that should have swallowed her whole.

Whatever magic she possesses has the ability to stop the will of the Library’s Heart.

I have lost many scribes or researchers to the Library.

It is a known hazard of the labyrinth, and something all Librarians grow accustomed to.

Those times had been nothing like this. The Heart had called to her, permitted her entry on her own merit. It had tested her emotions to find the ones that it could best manipulate. Lorel comes to a stop beside me, and a cold wave of dread neutralises any warmth from the sunlight.

Her chest is heaving, her eyes panicked as she gasps down air.

As silent as any corpse at rest. I must make it to the altar before her.

The chapel door beckons, as if in welcome.

I turn to step through and small, soft fingers clamp around my wrist, holding firm.

I look down at her hand, white-knuckled, and make a soothing noise as I gently pry her fingers away.

“Stay here,” I tell her. “Whatever you do, little mouse, do not follow me.” My heart, slow and heavy, thumps in my chest. It will not do so for much longer, but hers will keep going. I cannot look at her face, with her salt-marked glasses, and her puffy red eyes.

“I will return shortly,” I promise, because unlike the Heart, I am not bound by my promises. I push through the chapel door and step into the blinding sunlight.