Page 3 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely
Lorel
There’sno getting out of this. There is only one way in and out of the scriptorium— past the overseeing Librarian’s office. The door is wide open in silent invitation. Deceptively warm light spills out into the stone lined corridor, as if the mythical sun might be shining through. It is a farce. The exit sits on the lowest level of the scriptorium and is dug deep into the mountain stone. Even if the sun still shone, it would not reach here. I take a deep, silent breath to settle my nerves before I step up into the doorway. I might as well be stepping up to the sacrificial altar. I half-expect the sacred cup bearer to be standing by with her poisoned chalice, the Dawn King standing by with his sacrificial blade.
I wonder if the Librarian is the chalice or the blade.
I recall her fingers pressing into my skin. It catches at the edges of my thoughts, my skin prickling against it.
“Scribe,” commands the Librarian, from where she leans against the front of her desk. “You may enter.”
I resist the urge to sign back that I’d rather not and instead I step into the room. The door clicks shut as it closes behindme andfuck, the last thing I want is a private audience. The Librarian gestures me forward and my feet obey. She towers over me easily and I would so dearly love to flee.
I’ve never seen her before, in all my years training in the Library. I would have remembered if I had, because she is eerily, terrifyingly beautiful. It’s the kind of beauty that devours, scouring you out until nothing but bones remain. Long dark hair, long dark robes. Dark, fathomless eyes you could fall into. Red lips curved into a predatory smile. My heart hammers in my chest and I fight to stop the shaking in my limbs as I sign to her.
You wanted to speak to me.
The Librarian tips her head, the neatest frown touching at her brows. “It is the end of the workday, scribe. You may speak with your tongue,” she says.
Dawn King strike me. Why did Orielle have to do this to me? I wish I could remember the lie I had come up with this morning for just this situation, but any sensible thought has entirely deserted me.
The Librarian closes the distance between us and I have to tip my head up to see her. I’m surrounded by her perfume again. It sends all my senses awry. Surely she can hear the way my heart is pounding from here. Like a mouse cornered by a gleeful cat.
I would prefer not to.
She hums, thoughtful. “Just as obstinate as your sister.” Her hand comes up, pushing my glasses back into place. “These past few weeks have been quite unusual for you, haven’t they?”
I open my mouth to reply, before remembering I can’t and snapping it shut. It is far too obvious for someone as keen-eyed as her.
The Library has taken good care of me.
Another hum from her. Her long, elegant fingers brush my skin as she tucks my hair behind my ear. It’s impossible toprevent the way I shiver at her touch. As if I had walked over my own grave.
“You are curious,” she murmurs. I freeze in place as her fingers trail to rest against my pulse, where it hammers against the press of her fingers. Her smile widens. My breath is a shuddering, silent thing.
No more curious than dust.Her eyes flick down to watch my hands and catch on my mouth as they flick back to my face.
“You do yourself a discredit,” she says, her tone low and dangerous. Her fingers run along the edge of my jaw, stopping to grip my chin and tip my head back further as she pulls me against her body. My breathing is uneven. Resoundingly silent in the quiet office space. The Librarian gives me a curious look, and then her thumb is against my lip, pressing into my mouth. Her free hand slides over the back of my neck, holding my head firm. I gasp silently as she pushes my mouth wider.
“Hmm, you still have your tongue,” she mutters, as if I am some kind of unusual curiosity. “You cannot make a sound at all, can you? And I would wager not one of them cared to notice.” Her thumb rests against my lips, her cool fingers gently caressing my jaw. Her eyes are dark and fathomless as night shadows, trying to pierce into the very heart of me. Trying to see the curse that rests inside of my chest. It is a dead weight of suffocating dread if I think of it for too long.
And now I am thinking of it, it starts to stir. I realise I have been standing here, willingly, for too long.
I pull away from her, and she lets me go easily, cool fingers slipping from my skin as it blooms with warmth. I fear I might be blushing. I press myself against the cool of the stone behind me and will my heart to calm down. I might as well ask the sun to shine.
It is merely an unfortunate side effect. My hands tremble a little as I sign, and I hate that.
“Of the incident, yes,” she says, looking at me thoughtfully again. “I would rather like to know more about that.” It is not a suggestion, the way she says it. That’s too bad.
I can’t remember anything. And it is the truth. The last thing I remember I had been sitting at my desk. There had been an elegant book in my hands. I can’t recall how it had gotten there but it was so beautiful, even in my memory. I had picked it up and tipped the cover open.
The next thing I had known was waking in the infirmary surrounded by physicians and Librarians, my entire body aching. I had several broken ribs, cuts and marks down my sides from my own fingernails, and the last signs of a breaking fever. I also could not speak. I could not cry out. I could not gasp, or scream. Just complete, enduring silence. That had hurt the most.
They had assumed it was shock and that it would wear off in due time. It had not. And the Librarian was right. No one had really noticed. I had tried so hard to make sure they hadn’t.
“You make yourself more and more interesting, scribe,” says the Librarian.
I promise I’m not trying to.
She smiles. It is as horrific as a Librarian’s smile promises to be. It’s how she would smile as she extracted the cost of a missing book, in blood or flesh or bone.
