Page 22 of As Many Souls as Stars
Richter laughed, and she brushed her lips over Cybil’s hairline; the touch felt molten, searing, as if it would leave a burn scar behind it. ‘Break the bough,’ she said again.
‘I cannot.’
‘Perchance not, but the shadows will. You could hear the whispers of the darkness if you allowed yourself. Give yourself to them, and they shall serve you in exchange.’
Whispers in the darkness.
The moment Richter said it, Cybil knew they were there: a noise she had always heard but learnt to ignore, as one can fall asleep to the sound of the rain, although it grows no quieter. The low hum of something hateful and hungry. She had always assumed it was her own hunger, her own loneliness and frustration that she’d heard—as a sort of pull that rose and fell within her, ever since she had learnt of her curse—but no. It was suddenly so clear. The darkness did not just follow her: itspoketo her, also.
‘What does it want from me?’ Cybil asked, half a gasp, trembling in Richter’s arms.
‘The same as I do. Your soul.’ Richter reached to tuck a lock of hair behind Cybil’s ear. ‘At some point, my dear, your family made a deal with the darkness, just as my creators did. A mutually beneficial arrangement: the ability to hear the shadows, to make further bargains whenever they wished.’
‘What sort of bargains?’
‘Power,’ Richter said.
‘And they received the curse in exchange,’ Cybil said, with dawning realisation.
Richter hummed. ‘Mayhap. Darkness usually desires light more than anything else. All magic is a balance, as much offered as gained. You have light, my dear, an extraordinary amount of it; more than I have ever seen. It would be a shame to waste it all on other shadows, but for something as trifling as a tree, they will require only a tiny piece of yourself—little more than a spark.’
‘Is that whatyoudesire from me? A spark?’
She smiled. ‘I am no petty shadow, my dear. I will have all of you, and nothing less.’
Cybil closed her eyes. The shadows hissed to her, in a language she knew but did not know: the language of hunger, of desperation. And, for a moment, she was tempted. She wanted to surrender to them, to allow them to find purchase in the fissures of her soul, to consume her and make every furious imagining of hers a reality.
But she did not. She could not. Instead, she opened her eyes, and her gaze met Richter’s. She said, quietly, ‘Let me go.’
Richter did not move.
‘You say I have light,’ Cybil said. ‘My soul is mine alone to give. My terms, my choice—and I choose to keep it as it is. I will not change my mind through fear alone.’
For a moment, Cybil was certain Richter would drop her—or dash her brains out against the tree trunk—but then, mute and frowning, Richter pulled her back up to standing and tugged her away from the tree. ‘You are stubborn,’ she said, not without admiration. She reached out her hand, in a movement as coy as a blown kiss: the bough groaned as if in pain, then snapped cleanly at its base, falling heavily to the orchard floor. ‘That is natural, with such fire within you. But you need not deny your own power. It is a shame to do so.’
Cybil said, ‘The world is such an ugly place, Mistress Richter. I am not prepared to make it uglier.’
Richter clicked her tongue. ‘Ugliness is ahumanconcern, Cybil. You needn’t debase yourself. With my aid, your beauty would only become clearer.’ She reached forward to press her hand against Cybil’s sternum, giving her a look that seemed almost fond. ‘You have never trulyseenyourself before, I suppose. I shall show you.’
Cybil looked down at Richter’s hand, and a light began to bloom between them. For a moment, Cybil flinched, fearing that she was somehow catching on fire. Then she realised that the light was coming from within her own chest. Soon, it was bright enough that it began to hurt her eyes, and when she looked away, it left dark spots in her vision, as if she had been staring directly at the sun.
‘Is that… part of me?’ she asked Richter.
‘It is your soul, Cybil. Every person has one, butyours—I have never seen anything like it.’
Cybil stared at Richter, trying to see the same thing in her, but there was nothing. Only a strange, shifting darkness behind the woman’s eyes and within her chest, which seemed to grow darker and darker and bigger and bigger the longer she looked at it.
‘You do not have one,’ Cybil said. ‘At least—not one like mine.’
‘That is because I am not a person.’
‘Whatareyou, then?’
She shrugged. ‘Whatever it was my makers made me.’
‘You said you were summoned. A demon? An angel?’
‘Either, neither. I was a shadow, once—perchance I still am.’
