Page 40 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely (A Curse of Fallen Stars #1)

Lorel

The darkness recedes, and I gasp for air. I am kneeling on the floor. Sila— or some semblance of her— holds me close. My lungs are burning, my skin is burning. It feels like my head is on fire.

“Sila—” my voice scratches over my scoured throat.

“Lorel, I am so sorry,” Sila says. She’s pulled me against her body, as cold and soothing as it ever is, as she’s returned to a more familiar shape.

She’s covered in blood and the Dawn King only knows what else, but I press my face into her shoulder anyway.

Cling to her, because everything is all too much and now there are tears burning at the back of my throat and trying to spill from my eyes. We have left Orielle behind.

Sila’s arms feel the right size again, as they hold me.

Her hands are soothing as she strokes my hair.

Everything hurts. Aches. My sister had not betrayed me at all.

She hadn’t even known. And I had left her with the fae king who had tried to kill me.

It hurts. Everything hurts, but never Sila. Never her.

I dig my fingers into her bloody blouse. “I knew you would come,” I whisper.

Sila lowers her face to my ear, pressing her cheek to my temple. “I will always come. Never doubt that, little mouse,” she says. “Even if it is only to go into death with you.”

I bury my face in her, try to dig my fingers into her flesh.

I want to crawl under her skin and curl up around her heart.

Without her, I would be dead, just another body lying across the Dawn King’s marble floor.

Without her, I would still be nothing more than a ghost trying to convince myself that I was content.

Trying to convince myself that it was enough.

I don’t know where we go from here, but I know we do it together. And if she starts to fade, or the Library’s tether fails, then I will find a way to keep her, even if I have to bind her to my own self.

Sila rubs her fingers soothingly along my jaw. She tips my head back to look at me.

“You are bleeding,” she says, touching my lips softly with her fingertips. Outside the safety of her darkness, the world tips a little.

“Oh,” I say. “I’d forgotten.”

I look down at my chest with its ribbons and silk and try to tear at it, but my arms are weak and I cannot make any headway. My broken finger throbs.

“It’s gone,” I mumble. “The prophecy. I spoke it.”

I want to check my skin, but no matter how much I tug, the pins that hold my gown in place resist me.

Sila lays her hands on mine, stilling them.

I look up then and realise we are in the infirmary, in one of the private rooms. The door is open and light spills in.

There is the gentle sound of coughing and shifting bodies.

Sila turns my hand over, her fingers gentle over my bandaged little finger. Sila’s eyes are very dark. Dangerous.

“Who dared touch you?” she says, battling to keep her tone even.

“It doesn’t matter,” I sigh.

“Of course it matters,” she says, and there is that echo in her voice again.

“They’re already dead. What more can you do to them?”

“Make sure no one ever finds their body,” she replies.

I reach up to cup her cheek. “I don’t think there is any chance of that,” I reply. “There wasn’t much left of her.” I stretch to press a kiss to her bloody mouth.

“Good,” Sila says against my lips.

“I think I’m going to pass out,” I murmur. The room spins and darkens.

“Lorel—”

She catches me as I tip backwards and my body jerks to a stop before it can hit the ground. The flow of light from the open door behind us is blocked.

“Librarian Sila?” Lune says with alarm. “Oh thank the King, you have her.”

Everything seems a little fuzzy, a little faint. I’m glad Lune is here. I can’t remember why, though.

“Cupbearer, her nose is bleeding,” Sila says quickly. “And she has a fever.”

There are footsteps and then there is the faint, familiar tingle of Lune’s magic at my temples. I try to blink the dark spots from my eyes, to tell them I’m fine. It’s enough to make one laugh because Dawn King strike me, I am not fine at all.

“Cupbearer,” Sila growls.

“Hold her still, please,” snaps Lune. “Ah, there it— fuck —” Lune cuts off with a range of colourful expletives. “Why couldn’t I see this before?”

“She was cursed,” Sila says. “It was not visible.”

“But you saw it, didn’t you?”

“Of course, but I am a curse too, am I not?” Sila replies.

“Sure as hell seems like it,” mutters Lune. “For what it’s worth, I blame you.”

Sila sighs in response.

“And the curse is broken?” Lune asks through clenched teeth.

“Yes, and she can speak again.”

“Good, maybe she can explain herself, then,” says Lune.

I don’t quite know what Lune is doing, or what she is seeing, but I suppose if there has been something feeding off me— off any residue of magic or life— that it might cause some damage. Somewhere. I can hardly bring myself to care. All I want to do is sleep.

“Not yet, little mouse,” Sila says. “We are not safe yet.”

I can feel Lune’s magic inside my chest, and the chilled way it settles into my skull, under the skin. It feels as if parts of me are being pulled back together and patched up.

I groan. All my limbs are so heavy. It hurts. Everything hurts.

“Don’t fight me, Lorel, please,” Lune says through gritted teeth.

My breath comes quickly through my nose as my body’s instincts to push her out kick in. Pain sears up from my chest through to my nose. I gasp. I hold my breath, trying with everything I have not to fight her. A cry bursts from my lips and Sila’s fingers dig into the soft skin of my arms.

There is a tickle in the back of my nose. Lune breaks her connection to me with a shout and I sneeze without warning. Sila holds me up while I cough up a thick, dark liquid.

“There,” Lune says, triumphant. Her hand rubs my back. “I think I’ve got it. Whatever it was. I can’t do much about the fever, though. I’ve tried to ease it.”

Sila’s fingers comb through my hair, firm and grounding. “Thank you, Cupbearer,” she says.

“Of course. She’s my friend, too,” says Lune. “I’m hardly going to let her die on me if I can help it. What happened?”

“The Dawn King,” says Sila darkly. “He let us go, but I do not know how long his mercy will hold.”

“Fuck,” Lune says. There is a hand combing through my hair. Lune’s, soft. “We need to get her out of here.”

“Sila.” My voice is hoarse as I try to lift my head. It’s clearing. It doesn’t feel quite so heavy. Sila pulls me to her and I melt against her. Perhaps I can just stay here forever.

“Have you had word from your contact?” Sila asks Lune.

“Yes,” comes another voice and I think I must be going mad. “He’ll be ready and waiting for you at the fourth hour.”

Mercias is in the doorway, watching us carefully.

Lune moves away. “Thank you, Mercias,” she says.

My eyes are clearing and I shift my head so that I can see them both properly, my cheek pressed to Sila’s chest.

Lune is giving me a perplexed look. “That’s not much time. We need to find you something sensible to wear,” Lune says.

“Can I not get something from my room?” I mumble.

“I do not think you are in any condition for me to shadow walk you, little mouse, and I will not leave you alone again. Not for a minute,” says Sila.

“I’ll find something,” Lune says, slipping from the room.

That’s good, I like that. It means I don’t have to go anywhere. The longer I can stay pressed to Sila, and not have to stand, the better.

Mercias steps inside once she’s gone. “What happened in the Keep?” he says, keeping his voice low.

“The Dawn King had her,” Sila says. “Because she is a Dawnchild.”

“Fuck,” Mercias says. “Will the Library have any cause for concern then?”

Sila shifts as she shakes her head. “I do not think so. I acted alone, and I think he will be keen to tidy things up now. He knows we will not stay.”

Mercias breathes a sigh that is equal parts relief and anxiety. “I’ve never known the Library without you,” he says. “In some respects, I think you are the Library. You are the Librarian.”

“Do not go getting soft on me now Mercias,” Sila says in her haughtiest Librarian voice. She’s pleased with his sentiment, though. I can hear it.

Mercias must too, because he huffs a short laugh. “I’ll go help the healer,” he says. “And you can get that ridiculous thing off the scribe.” He looks at me, then. “Good luck to you both.” That is all he says before he turns lazily on his heel and leaves.

I tip my head to look at the gown. “Is it so ridiculous?” I ask, tugging again at a ribbon.

Sila gets her arms under me and lifts me as she stands. I cling to her shoulders, her face mere inches from mine.

“It is a lovely glimpse of another Lorel, who deserved so much better,” Sila says. “But it is not the Lorel that belongs to me, and that is the one I like best.”

She sets me on my feet carefully. I brace myself on her arms and my legs hold— for now. When she is happy that I won’t topple over on her, Sila starts on the pins, collecting them as she peels away the layers of the gown.

“The Lorel that tastes of paper and ink and honey,” she says, untying the first layers of petticoats. “The Lorel that gives under my hands, and my thighs, and my tongue.”

“Sila—”

She turns me away from her and I expect her to untie the stays next. Instead, I feel her finger slip between my shift and the cord as she runs a sharp talon through it, cutting the stays away from my body.

“The Lorel that fights with her nails, that can bargain with the Heart, that can quell even the Dawn King’s magic.” Sila presses her lips to my shoulder, bared as she pushes aside the shift. “My Lorel,” she sighs.

I twist, reaching for her. Drag her face down to me so that I can kiss her. It leaves me dizzy, but I need to. I have to. “Yours. Always yours,” I whisper.

She tastes of blood, and earth, and salt when I kiss her, her cool mouth pressed to mine. Over mine. It is a claiming kind of kiss and I cling to her.

She’s so blissfully cool against me. My skin is still feverish, and I have been standing too long. Sila grips me tightly about my waist. I rest my forehead against hers, my fingers wound into the cloth of her blouse.

“I’m afraid of leaving,” I whisper, like it’s some kind of secret. “Orielle?—”

“Made her own choice, little mouse. As I have made mine,” Sila says.

“Why are you all so willing to throw yourselves away for me?” There is the barest hint of hysteria in it, as my grip tightens painfully. I can’t hold it for long with the way exhaustion is trying to take over me. Exhaustion, frustration, fear— all of it is too much for me to bear at this moment.

“You know why,” Sila says, gently taking my hands. “Because you are loved, Lorel, and I hope one day you will understand that you are worthy of it.”

I open my mouth to protest, though I’ve no idea what words I intended.

They flee my mind entirely as Sila presses a finger to my lips.

Her hand drops to pull down my shift, her fingers skating over my skin.

It is, I remember, what I had been trying to check in my earlier delirium.

I look down where her fingers rest, the soot black mark of the curse is gone but where the dark ember-like centre had been there is a twisted circle of scar tissue marking my flesh.

Sila hisses as her fingers pass over it, and then, quite unexpectedly, she laughs.

The chamber is suddenly full of the strange, bright sound.

“You still bear the Heart’s mark,” Sila says. “A memory of it.”

I look up at her. “What does that mean?”

“That I will never leave you, Lorel, and that I will always, always come for you,” she says. “Remember that.”