Page 34 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely (A Curse of Fallen Stars #1)
Lorel
Sometime during the night there is a knock at the door, and the shift of the bed as the cold press of Sila’s body leaves me. From the other room, I hear the murmur of voices, and when Sila returns it’s not to bed, but to her closet.
“Sila?” I mumble. She stills.
“Hearing you speak is going to take some getting used to, little mouse,” she says. There is a soft smile in her voice, and a thread of iron, too. At odds with each other. Fingers appear from the dark, pushing their way through my hair. A brush of lips against mine.
“Are you going somewhere?”
“There has been an incident in the scriptorium. I won’t be long, I promise,” Sila says. She kisses away any further protestations.
“Alright.” It’s made up of more syllables than it requires as sleep closes over me again. She has rather exhausted me and I have not a single concern in my entirely content state.
The door closes with a click and as I drift off again, the curse stirs, and shifts, and starts to wake.
Something feels off when I wake. My chest feels tight, and there is a painful, burning ache in my throat. The room seems airless. Suddenly too small, too close. I might be choking on something. There is something on my tongue. Words.
I drag my consciousness to the surface, clawing my way through the darkness. The sheets fall away as I sit up and try to calm my racing heart and get control of my breathing.
Words burning on my tongue. The prophecy. A curse for the Dawn King.
Sila had upheld her part of the Heart’s bargain, now it is time to uphold mine.
I open my mouth to speak, and there is the loud, telltale sound of an axe meeting wood.
The dry, ancient wood of the door splinters under the blow, and I know that someone has broken down Sila’s door.
If they are in the living area, it won’t be long before they find me here.
The curse shrinks back, like an uncertain cat.
The words slip away from my thoughts, away from my tongue.
I don’t have time to move before the axe strikes the wood again and the bedchamber door gives way to a pair of Lightkeepers, lanterns held high.
There must be even more in the hallway behind them, the telltale flicker of battle magic flashing in a chaotic back light.
I am alone. Sila is gone. I have a vague recollection of her lips and her fingers. A promise.
A trap.
I try to kick back the sheets, and they tangle around my legs. Sila might be in danger. I need to get to her?—
“There!” shouts one of the Lightkeepers.
My blood turns cold, as if someone has walked over my grave. Sila is not the one in danger tonight. I am.
They charge through the space, Sila’s journals tumbling to the floor. I free my legs before the first of them reaches me. He grabs for me, seizing my bruised arm. I cry out as he twists it, dragging me closer to him. I kick out, and I scream, and I refuse to go quietly.
“Help me grab her,” the first assailant calls to the other. “Hold her— Fuck !”
My heel connects with his face in a crunch of bone.
He holds on in spite of it and the second Lightkeeper joins him.
He tries to grab me, which is awkward for him because I am entirely naked, exactly as Sila had left me.
I scratch at him with my free hand, rough-edged nails digging into the flesh of his arm.
I try to twist away to the other side of the bed and the second Lightkeeper grabs my flailing legs.
I catch him under the chin for his troubles.
He holds me down as I thrash, unwilling to give me up.
I’m dragged back and the first Lightkeeper with the broken nose grabs for my arms. I catch his cheek with my nails, a hair's breadth away from his eyes. He cries out, but it doesn’t take him long to try again, and my limbs are already weary.
I do not have Sila’s ability to recover so well.
His hands close around my arms and twist them behind my back painfully.
“Fuck,” he says, breathless, as he presses his knee into my back.
“Be easier if we could just kill her,” says the one holding my legs. He says it like I have been the one to ruin his evening.
“We could call it an accident,” the other replies, leaning in.
“Fuck you,” I spit back.
He sneers at me.
“Where the fuck is Beryl?” hisses the other.
“Here,” comes a woman’s voice, short of breath. Lantern light blooms across the room. I recognise her face. Mousy brown hair and pale grey eyes set in a hard, mean face. A water mage, and another of my sister's peers.
“You’ll need to pacify her,” says the first one, the one with a broken nose. He sounds a bit nasal. Good.
“I can see that,” she says, dry. “Get out of the way.”
Broken Nose lets my arms free and I twist, snarling and reaching for whoever is closest. Beryl moves swiftly and within seconds my limbs turn as light as air. All the fight goes out of my body. My mind struggles as sedation magic coats my thoughts, leaving them soft and syrupy.
“Lively, isn’t she?” Beryl says.
I push through the sedation. “Fuck. You.” It’s a little slurred, my tongue growing heavy.
My body goes entirely limp, my thoughts drifting like an angry, futile storm over an indifferent mountain.
I catch Beryl’s expression, an unsubtle sneer as she looks me over.
Casts her eyes over the bed and discarded clothes.
I manage nothing more than a small growl. Entirely ineffective.
“Wrap her up so she’s decent and let’s get her out of here. I’ve had enough of Librarians for one day.”
The two Lightkeepers jump to her command, pinning my arms to my sides and wrapping me in Sila’s silken bedsheets. They still smell of her, of us. I am tossed over a shoulder like nothing more than a sack of grain.
The hallway is littered with the injured and dead as we pass.
There is the occasional muffled noise or abrupt movement.
I try to keep my eyes open. I feel the curse shift, and my thoughts clear somewhat.
My eyelids don’t feel quite so heavy. Even the curse is sedated by the mage, a pale image of itself.
My thoughts are still slow, drifting, but one burns through, bright as a flame. I need to stay alive long enough for Sila to find me.
Because I have no doubt that when Sila returns to find her bed empty and bloody, she will come for me.