Page 41 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely (A Curse of Fallen Stars #1)

Lorel

Lune returns in short order with an assortment of clothes and a pair of boots to replace my flimsy silk slippers. Most blessedly of all, she has my glasses.

“Sila had them,” Lune says. I am redressed in short order, and swaying on my feet by the end of it. It’s only thanks to Lune’s earlier intervention that I haven’t already passed out. Though it’s a near thing.

At the last, Lune settles her cloak around my shoulders. I know it’s hers because it smells like her— an earthy, herbaceous scent with the underlying hint of alcohol used for distilling.

“Lune, you can’t—” I say, looking at her.

“So your tongue does work, then. And don’t tell me what to do, Lorel. I can give my friend my cloak,” she says, fastening it with a determined set to her face. “I can hope it will keep her safe when she goes beyond where I can see her.”

I blink at her slowly. I had thought myself alone in the Library.

I had sought to keep myself apart and be as unremarkable as I could be after leaving the Keep.

I had certainly not set out to make friends.

I had had none in the Keep. I did not think I had any right to expect to make any here.

Each time Lune had patched me up, or cared for me, or had come by with tea to check up on me, I had figured she was only doing what was expected of her.

I hadn’t thought she might actually care for me.

Elris might miss me because it was hard to lose half your team of scribes, and Sybri might miss the extra pair of hands that helped to lighten her workload, but Lune would miss me and my sad attempts at conversation and inability to be compliant.

“I’ll miss you too,” I mumble, embarrassed and feeling the tips of my ears warm further. I would miss her with her no-nonsense fussing and persistent optimism. I am wrapped suddenly in a tight, alarming hug, Lune’s cheek resting against mine.

“I still don’t know how I feel about your Librarian, but I’m glad you’re not going alone. It’ll be dangerous, but at least you’ll be beyond his reach,” Lune says quietly. Fiercely. “Now, let’s get you out of here.”

It’s late in the infirmary, the light is kept low. The sound of the night cough’s victims echo as Lune leads us out. I pause at the entrance to the infirmary, looking back at the bodies lying in their beds.

“Sila,” I whisper. She’s at my back, close and hovering because neither of us are sure I won’t pass out at some point.

“What is it?” she asks.

“How can he do that to his own people?” I ask. A note of pain that cracks through it. My blood pounds in my ears, the echoes of those coughs both real and memory. My parents, ailing. My father, one of the Dawn King’s own blood. Dead so that the Dawn King could have his willing human sacrifice.

“Power,” Sila says. “All the Dawn King cares about is power.”

I look down at my hands, feel the aches and the fever, and wonder what sort of person might ever be able to stop him.

I think of my sister, her golden light so like his, still at his side.

A treacherous cavern lake, waiting for a misstep.

I have left Orielle behind, but perhaps she is exactly where she means to be.

“Will Orielle be alright?” I ask.

Lune finds me in the darkness, squeezing my hand gently. “She has allies here, she’s not alone,” Lune says. “Come.”

“Alright,” I say. I slip my hand from hers and turn away, stumbling as I go. It’s not as graceful as I had hoped. Sila catches me, because she always catches me.

“Careful,” she says. Some part of me knows I’m not making this journey out on my own two feet.

“On the fifth floor, near the fissure. That’s where he’ll be waiting for you,” Lune whispers. “Go with haste and be careful.”

We turn away from the passage that would lead us back to the Library and Scriptorium, and my heart aches as we walk the other way.

Lune watches us from the infirmary archway, a benevolent ghost in the dark. The ache in my chest doesn’t let up for a moment.

Sila wreaths us in her shadows and it muffles the sound of our boots on the stone.

I’m slow, and I’m flagging, sorrow weighing heavy on my heart, fever burning bright, light spots appearing in my vision.

I stumble and Sila catches me, again. I think I must have fallen as the world tumbles over itself and I find myself thrown over her shoulder.

“Sila,” I hiss.

She keeps walking, picking up that brisk Librarian pace of hers.

“Hush now and indulge me. You will not make it on your own, and I wish to keep you close,” she says, keeping her voice low.

When she puts it like that, it’s hard to deny her anything.

I flop against her, and she pats my thigh.

It’s entirely the wrong time to think about what else I’d like her to do with my thighs, but I’m exhausted and I don’t know when I’ll next get the chance to sleep, let alone be able to go to bed with her again.

With all my defenses down, I am consumed by heartache.

This time it’s threaded through with frustration and anguish and I don’t have the space for all these emotions.

I want to be back in Sila’s room, in Sila’s bed, not here mourning the loss of it.

“Little mouse?” Sila says, still quiet. We’ve made our way down several floors, deeper and lower than I have ever had any reason to be before.

“Are we going to the catacombs?” I ask, matching her volume.

“Yes, and through the caves below them, if I am assuming correctly,” she replies. There’s silence for another floor. Then, “Will you tell me what the prophecy says?”

I right myself, elbows braced on her back, and tell her. Even as an echo, the words feel heavy and metallic on my tongue. The silence returns and I imagine I can hear the sounds of Sila thinking.

“Do you know,” Sila says. “That the Gloaming Queen’s Court is called the Evenfall.”

“The inverse of the dawn,” I mumble.

“Yes. In your oldest myth, the people of her court are called stars,” says Sila. “Now they are called wraiths, which is the more accurate term.”

Now it is the sound of my thoughts ticking over. My breath catches in my throat. “The Dawn King called you ‘fallen one’.”

“Yes. I suppose he has made that connection,” Sila says. “Though he let us go, which concerns me. He was weakened, dangerous, but if I had been less concerned with you. Well.”

We fall into thoughtful silence again, something nagging at the edge of my thoughts. Why had the queen wanted me dead, too? It clicks into place.

“I thought it was the Dawn King,” I say. “But the Heart said it was for the ‘traitor’.”

“It could be both, or either. That would explain the queen’s interest. And one star has already fallen,” Sila whispers.

She stops suddenly and I notice the sound of heavy boots on stone, the soft clink of metal on metal.

I twist to look and Sila lets me go so that I can slide to the ground.

She pushes me behind her, placing herself between the dark figure in the corridor, pacing menacingly towards us.

Sila steps free of the shadows. They’ll be of little use here, I think, as the figure steps into the low light of the nearest sigil lanterns and tips their chin up.

“Vika,” Sila says.

“Sila, Sila, Sila. What have you been up to?” says Vika, smiling.