Page 66 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely
“Go,” Orielle says, pleading. She isn’t looking at me when she speaks. Her eyes are locked instead on Sila’s face somewhere above me. “Take her and get her out of here. Please.”
“Yes,” the Dawn King says. “Go now, fallen one. Let us see what havoc you wreak.”
Sila snarls. She doesn’t wait to be told again.
“No, Orielle—” I think I try to reach for her, I don’t know anymore. I can’t feel my fingers.
“I love you. Always,” Orielle calls as Sila’s shadows come around me.
Her arms are firm and solid and real as they hold me. I jam my eyes and mouth shut as Sila drags me into the shadows and away from the Dawn King’s marble palace.
Chapter 40
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.
