Page 14 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely
The cold voice speaks in my mind again.
I am not done with you yet.
I do not wake easily. I drag myself from the depths of sleep, clawing my way back to the world of living. The room I wake in is not my own. The bed beneath me is less comfortable than my own and smells faintly of pine. The walls are carved from a different stone, painted with delicate forest motifs and healing herbs. The light is blessedly dim, so I am not blinded when I open my eyes. I still struggle to make sense of what I’m seeing.
I can see her clearly, leaning over me. The Librarian. Sila. She isn’t looking at my face, she’s staring at my exposed chest where my shift has been pulled down. Her fingers rest against my skin, cool against the fever still burning within me. They rest softly against the dark bruise-like mark. It’s almost the span of a hand now. It has grown.
Her eyes flick to my face, and light catches the edges of a long, cruel blade. The top hovers above my chest. My breath catches, my heart kicking up again.
I blink, and there is no blade. Only Sila, with her fingers pressing gently into my skin. Her dark hair is a curtain flowingover one shoulder, her eyes are a little bright in the low light. My addled mind must have imagined it.
“Oh little mouse, what have you done?” she whispers. My skin still feels too hot, too sticky. I don’t understand her question. I don’t understand how she can see the curse mark when no one else has been able to.
Sila spreads her hand across my chest. She takes a deep breath, and then she’s tugging my shift back into place. How have I come to be lying in the infirmary again?
Blissful ignorance doesn’t last long. Trefor’s face, wide-eyed and staring in death, comes back to me. Blood. Paint. Poison. Someone had poisoned us. Oh mercy, Elris and Sybri. I try to push myself up and find myself being pushed back down.
“Your friends are safe,” Sila says. She looks quickly regretful as she corrects herself. “Illuminator Elris and Scribe Sybri are recovering. Scribe Trefor was not so lucky. There is nothing you can do for them now. You need to rest. I can feel the heat from your skin. Your fever still rages.”
I feel too hot.
“I know, little mouse. You are not well. Rest, I will watch over you,” Sila says softly.
Why?
I fumble the sign, but she seems to understand.
“Because I must,” Sila says, helping me to sit. Her arms come around me, pulling my body up to sitting. Her skin is so cool. It eases the way my flesh burns.
She helps me to drink some water and when the glass is empty, I roll towards her body without thinking. My cheek rests against her shoulder and I sigh without a sound. It feels so good. I must be truly out of my mind, but I can’t bring myself to pull away. I’m falling back under again, the lovely shadows beckoning me to rest. Sila’s fingers comb through my hair.
“Lorel?” she murmurs. My eyelids are so heavy that I could not possibly open them. Sila lowers me gently down against the pillows. I sigh again, loud in the darkness, as the cold press of her body leaves me.
I drift on the edge of that darkness, waiting for it to take me under as it wraps around me. Presses cool against my skin. Pulls me closer as I go under, and do not need to think any longer.
At some point, the fever dreams break, crashing against the shore of my consciousness one last time before fading away. I fall into a proper sleep then, dreamless and restful. When I wake next, it is a gentler thing. I am not in my own room, the stone above different from the stone my room is carved from, the sheets smelling faintly of pine. I have a vague sense that I have woken here already, but it is hazy and edged in shadow. I think someone had held me.
I push myself up from the bed, any noise from the exercise stolen away by my silencing curse. Fuck, I hate that.
There is a familiar weariness in my limbs. I’d been a sickly child and the feeling in my body is no different from the many times I had woken from a fever in the past. The door to my room opens and my breath catches silently in my throat. My heart skips.
It is only Lune. She smiles at me, tired and raw around the edges, with dark shadows under her eyes that would rival a Librarian’s. I don’t know who I expected it to be.
“You’re awake,” she says. “Thank the King. This whole week has been a mess.” Lune drags a nearby stool to my bedside. I shuffle back against the headboard, unable to hold myself up for much longer. Lune leans in and pushes my hair back. Her fingers are warm against my skin. “Your temperature is better. Elris and Sybri have been awake for a few days now, but youwere the only one to take with a fever.” She cups my face with her hand, and I feel a slight tingle across my skin as Lune uses her magic.
Her eyes refocus on my face, and she smiles. “All clear.” The tension in her shoulders doesn’t entirely leave her, but she relaxes a little. “At least I won’t lose any more of you. I don’t think the Librarians would be very pleased with me if I did.”
Trefor. My throat burns at the memory. I close my eyes and rest my head against the headboard. Lune squeezes my shoulder. I’m too tired to cry. I wasn’t friends with Trefor, really, but we were all together day after day and he’d been a talented mark maker. What a foolish accident.
“I’ve only seen one Librarian this past week, and he was incensed. I fear for your paint master,” Lune says. She pours me a glass of water. I frown at her as she passes it to me. It’s cool against my skin, like the hands of the Librarian had been against my chest. As they held me.
Sila. The Librarian had been here when I had woken earlier.
“There’s pen and paper if you have questions,” Lune says. SheknowsI have questions.
Has Librarian Sila been here?
“Not since she brought you in,” says Lune. “She seems to always be there when trouble strikes you, doesn’t she?”
