Page 45 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely (A Curse of Fallen Stars #1)

Sila

It has been a long, long time since I have feared death.

I had gone to my own willingly. My lover had been dead.

My friends and family were dying. It had been a simple choice.

I had been entirely helpless against the onslaught of fever and cough.

I was not a healer, and they would not allow me near my loved ones.

My magic had always been that of decay and rot, and there was enough of that without me adding to it.

I had not feared dying. If anything, it had been a relief.

I had knelt, and the Cupbearer had poured her poison into my open mouth. After that, it was like a dream. Golden sunlight in the chapel. Someone screaming. The Dawn King’s hand in my hair as he tipped my head back. Then darkness.

They had brought the body here, to the catacombs.

I do not remember where, anymore, though I visited once, when I was newly returned.

I had wept to see the decoration on the shroud, because it meant that someone who loved me had survived.

It had not been in vain. Regardless of what my queen had told me.

The sound of our footsteps echoes off the catacombs’ walls and Lorel is burning up again in my arms. And I fear death.

I fear it deep in the marrow of my bones.

In the depths of my shadows. In the wrenching ache of my heart that constricts my chest. I am only grateful that I have no need to breathe because I think I might be incapable of it.

Something like fear and grief claws at my throat, trying to tear its way free.

It is as if I am carrying Lorel, shrouded, to her final rest. I clutch her slight form tightly.

She is limp and soft cradled against me.

Her heartbeat, like a fluttering batwing compared to mine, is steady and sure in her chest. I grip her and my nails dig in, longer than they should be.

I pull them back sharply. There is the whisper of a voice at the edges of my mind.

The tether to the Library is pulled taut, stretched to its limit.

But that whisper…The Library is saying farewell. Soon, I will be on my own.

Corus leads us down further into the dark until the structure of the catacombs gives way.

Water leaches stronger here, seeping through the stone.

Stalactites forming on the ceiling, water pooling in shallow basins drip by drip.

My vision flares, bright and wider, as it does when my eyes go dark.

I blink and it returns to normal. I shake it off.

It must just be this place, getting to me.

My tether still holds. Faintly, but it holds.

“Here,” Corus whispers, before disappearing as he pushes through moss.

He might as well have melted into the stone.

I test the moss wall with my shoulder and it gives.

I push through. On the other side, a cave opens up, looming overhead.

Water runs away from the puddles at our feet and tiny baubles of light glow, creatures or subterranean flowers nestled amongst the crevices and dragging trails of old man’s beard moss.

The Cupbearer must have cultivated it for it to be so full of life.

“We can speak more freely here,” Corus says, voice barely raised above the trickle of the water.

“But not move?” I ask. He has yet to continue walking.

He frowns, the sigil lantern swinging at his side. He’s at ease here.

“I don’t know what you’re running from,” he begins.

He holds up a hand as I open my mouth to speak.

“And I don’t want to know. I can see you’re both in a state, but you should know that it isn’t much better out there.

They distrust magical folks, and they’ll have never seen the likes of you.

I can help you leave the Citadel, but I can’t promise you safety. ”

“I would not expect you to,” I say, shifting Lorel’s weight. “But there is no safety behind, either.”

Corus looks at the bundle of woman in my arms, his face grim.

“Are you sure it’s wise to remove her from the Citadel?” he asks, looking back at my face.

“How do you mean?” I keep my tone careful.

Corus keeps quiet for a long moment and then sighs. “It’s nothing.”

I do not move when he turns to walk on. “Corus. I require an explanation.”

“I’m sure I’m wrong,” he says.

“Wrong about what, exactly?”

Corus turns back with a noise of exasperation. “She’s a Dawnchild, isn’t she?”

I find now that I am the one who does not wish to answer.

“I recognise her. I lived in the Suntide Court, once.”

“Once?” It comes out as dangerous as I mean it. I shift, turning my body in case I need to turn back through the catacombs. “I find I require further explanation.”

Corus runs his hand down his face. “Don’t usually tell people any of this,” he mutters. “I did work in the Court — until I had to smuggle my wife and child out.”

“Ah.”

Silence stretches out between us, the sound of the water filling the space.

Corus gives me a hopeless look. “She was fae, and she gave my son strong magic. The Dawn King pays attention to things like that in his court. I suppose he turned his attention to Lady Meline after we left. I knew them. Her parents.” He nods at Lorel. “Her mother had strong magic, too.”

I stare at him. Dark lady have mercy on me. Lorel had thought her father was the man who raised her, another Dawnchild. But Corus is implying something far worse. I knew little of the Court. Nothing of this borrowing of wives. Apparently, neither did Lorel. I hold her tighter.

“And so you became a smuggler?”

Corus shrugs. “I did what I could, but it’s a harsh world out there. I lost my wife to it, eventually. Neither of us would have changed a thing.” He pauses, looking surprised. “Don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

“Because you were worried that I am stealing one of the Dawn King’s children,” I say.

“Yes, well?—”

“I am. She cannot stay there.”

Corus takes us in again, blood-soaked and weary. “You can never let them know what she is,” he says.

“Is there any reason anyone should know?”

“Not from my lips,” Corus says.

I nod firmly. “Good. Then lead on.”

“There’s a spot not far along that we can stop and rest safely,” he says, turning and starting on again. This time, I follow. “They’d need a blood tracker to find us there.”

I laugh, softly. “I don’t think the King will risk that again.”

Corus mutters a prayer to the stars. We fall into silence again as the light falls off, the cave’s cultivated plant life disappearing. The water trickles on into the darkness and the tether is pulled as tight and delicate as spider silk. It pinches as I walk.

And then it snaps. My steps stutter, but I forge on.

I hold Lorel tighter, breathe in her paper and ink scent.

Think of her fingers digging into my thighs.

Her sweet sighs and her less sweet mouth.

I do not know how long it will take, this unraveling of my being, but for now, for her, I will hold myself together.