Page 31 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely (A Curse of Fallen Stars #1)

Lorel

In the end, Lune and Sila had agreed that I should go.

I had said nothing. I could not forget Sila had called the Library her only tether left.

She would go with me in a heartbeat, I knew that, but if it meant removing her from the very thing that kept her tethered in this world?

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bear the thought of a world that didn’t have Sila in it.

And really, in the end I am just a speck of a moment in her long existence. Something to be barely remembered, and found tucked in a box at the back of a drawer one day. Sila will be alright without me.

My hands are shaking so badly I fumble the spoon of dried herbs as I try to place them into the teapot.

I can’t be certain that I will be alright, though.

When Sila had kissed me, it was in the same way she looked at me.

Devouring and all-consuming, and the memory of it sets my blood alight and my body aching.

It makes me think of tangled limbs, and skin against skin, and I have never wanted something so badly.

Never been so desperate for someone as I am for her.

And if I let her have me, I don’t think I will ever be able to let her go again.

And that would be the end of her. I cannot condemn her like that.

I dust the herbs from the counter with a deep, silent breath and promptly drop it all across the floor as I hear a gentle thump from the bedroom. Sila.

I rush through the living space, catching my knee on one of Sila’s book stacks and sending it tumbling.

I wince and grip the door frame tight, staring at the empty bed in front of me.

The sheets crumpled and creased around where she had been.

It’s then I catch the salt and earth scent of hot water drifting from the washroom, the door left ajar.

I make to call out to her, to make sure she hasn’t slipped, and stop as the air passes my lips without a sound.

I cross the bedroom in a few quick strides and knock.

I barely get a third knock in before the door is pulled open, and Sila, steam-damp and wearing only one of her long blouses, stands before me. She smiles.

“Hello, little mouse. Are you here to join me?” All the weariness of the past days has bled away from her. There isn’t a single blemish or mark left. I keep my eyes on her face, determined not to let them stray to her long legs and the hint of thighs that could easily crush me.

I heard a noise. I thought— well— You look better. Well. You look well.

Dawn King flay me. I am stuttering with my hands.

Sila’s smile widens as she leans in the door frame, her tall figure looming over me.

“Just the taps, protesting as they do,” she says, tipping her head. She reaches out, tugging at my collar. “I still prefer you in my blouses.”

I can’t very well walk around in just a blouse.

“Why ever not?” she asks. I try to swat her hand away and she catches it, a frown scratching itself across her features. “Lorel. Your hands. Why didn’t you use the salve?”

I tug my hands back, still scratched and bruised, some nails torn down to the quick. I hadn’t because it hadn’t occurred to me to do so. Sila had needed it.

I’m fine.

“My Dark Lady save us if we ever learn what you think it looks like when you are not fine,” says Sila.

She rests her hand on my neck, sliding back my collar where bruises line my skin.

Magic or no, there isn’t enough fae blood in me to hasten my recovery.

The fingerprints of the Heart’s phantoms still linger, purple and angry.

Her eyes are as dark and fathomless as always.

Her face is as still and furious as the time she had found the curse mark.

Her fingers run over my skin so gently, and I am reminded of the labyrinth.

How easy it would be to lose one's mind.

“I’d like these better,” Sila murmurs, lowering her mouth to my skin.

“If I had put them there myself.” She presses her lips to the marks and they are cool against the flush of my skin.

And mercy, what would it be like to give in?

To go and bathe with her, the steam billowing and inviting, the sound of the water promising.

Sila’s eyes dark, just a breath away, and wanting nothing more than to possess all of me. What would it be like to be hers ?

Tearing myself away makes me want to weep, to scream, to cry out— but I must. I cannot be hers. I will lose myself. I will lose Sila. I will damn us both. And of all the things Librarians can do with scribes, this thing I want with her is not one of them.

“Lorel?” Sila frowns at me. Confused, I think, more than anything else.

Enjoy your bath.

I can’t look her in the eye as I sign it, and then, just like a mouse, I turn and scurry from the room.

The washroom door clicks shut not too long after. I hear it from where I am curled in one armchair, my arms wrapped tightly around my knees. My glasses press into the bridge of my nose, threatening to give under the pressure. I was lucky, really, that I still had them with me.

I groan silently. Sila is going to want to talk about it. There is no getting around that. Maybe I should leave now. Find Lune and just go. Run.

I take a deep breath, and the silence around me holds.

The overwhelming truth of it all is that I don’t want to run.

I don’t want to leave without her. But I am afraid.

Terrified that I might cause her death. Terrified that I might never see her again.

Terrified that she might never touch me.

Terrified that she might, and that I wouldn’t know what to do in return to please her.

It doesn't matter how far I have come, I am still as full of fear as I had been the night I had locked up my voice and thrown away the key.

A sudden sharp knock at the door crashes into my thoughts, and I have only a moment to wipe my eyes on my sleeve before Mercias strides through the door without any further invitation. He clicks the door shut behind him.

“Scribe Lorel,” he says, turning. There is the tiniest hint of a frown touching his features and a sharp look of alarm in his eyes. “Are you well?”

I think I have misunderstood him.

Sila is recovering. Recovered, even.

The frown deepens. “Has this caused you some distress? I asked if you are well, scribe.”

Oh, I hadn’t misunderstood at all.

No. I’m glad of it.

“You look it,” he says, dry. “Where is Librarian Sila?”

In the bath. I can take a message for you.

Mercias snorts and it’s such an undignified sound I can barely reconcile it with the man. I can barely reconcile his sudden kindness with his usual preference for being an arrogant prick. The silence stretches out.

“Perhaps Sila has tea, somewhere under all this mess?” he suggests.

I stare at him. He stares back.

“Right, well. I’ll see if I can find it myself.” He disappears into the little kitchenette, and after a moment I follow him like a curious ghost. He’s giving the teapot a quizzical look, one eyebrow arched at its state of disarray. “Interrupted, were you?”

Sila—

“Mm, Librarian Sila indeed,” he says, throwing extra herbs carelessly into the pot. He fills it with water, scenting the room with a bright, grassy scent.

“I’d ask why you haven’t returned to the scriptorium,” Mercias says, staring at the wall. “But I rather wonder that the healer didn’t drag you back to the infirmary.” I tug at my collar nervously and he looks at me with narrowed eyes. “Still not speaking then? Curious.”

I can’t even say it’s the working hours, because I have no idea what the hour is.

I can’t go back yet.

“No? I suppose this has to do with the Lightkeepers?” He tips his head as if coming to a decision. “And I suppose there really is no safer place. Librarian Sila, it appears, would defend you with her life.”

She did the same for you.

His mouth twists in a wry grimace. “Yes, she did.” Mercias pours the tea into two cups and every little nerve I have is on edge, wondering why he needs two cups, and then he holds one out to me. “Librarian Sila and I have known each other for decades. I can only hope I would do the same for her.”

Is this for me?

“Sila doesn’t drink now, does she?” he says. “Take it before I drop it, I’m not a fire mage.”

I rescue the cup from its potential fate, holding it carefully between my palms. There’s something soothing about it. Comforting. Who the hell is this man and what has he done with Mercias?

“There must be a table somewhere?” he drawls.

I back out into the living area where the little table sits, the threat of it disappearing again ever present. Mercias settles into a chair and I hover.

“Scribe Lorel, sit down.” His tone is such that I sit without even thinking about it. That particular Librarian intonation requires immediate compliance.

I fuss with my cup and take small careful sips as Mercias surveys me, taking in each little scrape and bruise just as Sila had. Only the look in his eyes is rather different from hers. He sighs, pinching his nose between his fingers as if it pains him to even be here.

“Elris is rather disgruntled that you haven’t returned to work, you know. He’s already lost one scribe, so naturally he’s rather distressed at the idea of losing another.”

I stare at Mercias. I hadn’t considered that I might be missed. Or even that anyone would care that I was gone. But, I reason, Elris has always been kind to me. Sybri too. Still, how does Mercias know?

Are you familiar with Illuminator Elris?

Mercias smirks. “You could say that. You know, I could have you returned to the scriptorium if you wanted.”

I—

“I won’t,” he says, with a huff of a laugh. “She seems attached to you and I wouldn’t dare Librarian Sila’s wrath. So I’ll have to put up with Elris’ displeasure instead. Fortunately, he’s easy enough to deal with.”

I stare at him. He surely can’t mean what I think he means.

Are you saying ? —

“Yes,” he says.

But that’s forbi ? —

“Yes.”

My hands hang in the air. Mercias is bedding Elris. He has as good as admitted it.

Does the Head Librarian know?

“Naturally,” Mercias says, inclining his head. “And naturally, I take the punishment for it. Not that it changes anything.”

I stare at him again. Elris’ warning makes so much more sense now, for all the good it did.

“Of course, if you tell Elris I said that, I’ll deny it,” he says mildly, sipping his tea.

I take a sip of my own to stop myself from staring.

I’m sure I won’t get the chance.

Mercias hums thoughtfully. “Yes. The Lightkeepers. I have informed the Head Librarian of the incident. Librarian Idemay will be interred in the catacombs in due course. The bodies of the Lightkeepers have been returned to the Keep. What’s left of them, anyway.

” His face is impassive but a cold fury burns in his eyes.

His jaw clenches. “The Head Librarian knows why they came here and has increased surveillance. If they are willing to send a blood mage after you, then they must want you rather badly.”

I don’t know why.

It’s so much easier to lie with my hands than my tongue. Not that I think he believes me for a second. He watches me for another long moment.

“Very well. That’s all I came to say. Please pass it along to Librarian Sila.” He sets his cup down.

I’m sorry.

Mercias narrows his eyes at me. “About Elris?”

I nod.

“Don’t be,” he says. “I’ll take care to distract him well enough.”

And with that, he takes his leave. I stare into the depths of my cup, turning Mercias’ words over in my head.

I’d been so focused on Sila’s mention of her tether, been so concerned with her brush with death, that I’d forgotten her other declarations.

Her demand to take my place, her insistence that she had already put me above all others, her oath to protect me, and I know, with bone-aching certainty that there is no world in which Sila allows me to go without her.

Just as Mercias takes his punishments for loving Elris, Sila would bear even death for me. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

Tentative fingers thread through my hair, as soft and gentle as ever. I tip my head back to look at her, freshly bathed. Fully dressed again. Her smile is soft and a little regretful.

“I think it is time that you and I had a talk, don’t you?”