Page 20 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely
“You little b—” His sentence ends with a wet gurgle. His hand loosens and I stumble to the floor. His body lands at my feet as I push myself out of his way. Blood wells from his mouth, his neck cut open. Fingernail marks gouge down the side of his face. A dark shadowy figure stands over his corpse.
“Hello, little mouse,” Sila says, low and dangerous. I try to remember to breathe as I look up at her, standing between the two dead Lightkeepers. I hadn’t even heard her dispatch the first. I hadn’t even heard her arrive.
She’s not wearing her robes. Instead, she stands there in skin-tight trousers and her old-fashioned billowing-sleeved blouse. Her fingers are extended with long, bloody, talon-like nails. Her eyes are black from edge to edge, and a dark ichor runs down her cheeks.
Her mouth moves in a smile that doesn’t reach her fathomless eyes. Bright red blood is splattered across her face. In her hand is the long, cruel blade from my memory, dripping with thin red blood. Something sensible, like fear, seizes my lungs. Traps the air in my chest. I freeze in place. She’s far more dangerous than any Lightkeeper. I could never hope to outrun her.
Sila pushes the Lightkeeper away with her boot and all I can think is that I’ve seen people move dead rats with more care. She kneels, and the blade disappears in a wisp of dark shadow. Her talons retract as she reaches out to take my face.
“Did they hurt you?”
I flinch at the unexpected gentleness in her voice. My scalp feels tender. If anything, her face turns darker. She tips my head forward, running her fingers through my hair with alarming tenderness.
“Perhaps I was too merciful,” she murmurs. Blood sticks to my face as she takes her hand away.
She’s too soft. Too gentle. So dark. So lovely.
My hands shake as I try to form the signs I need.
I’ve seen your blade before.
“Ah, you did see me that night,” she says. She purses her lips, looking regretful. “Just know that I could not do it, little mouse.”
You were going to kill me.
“Yes.”
Just like they were.
“Yes.”
Then why did you stop them?
Sila looks me in the eye, steady. The shadows deepen around her, her eyes darkening again. Her features stretch unnaturally, and she is even taller. A looming shadow.
My heart races. My lungs release. The curse in my chest stirs, as if trying to make itself comfortable. I should try to run. She had tried to kill me.
I don’t know what it is I’ve done that so many people want me dead.
Sila holds out her hand to me, in a gesture that reminds me of valiant knights in old faetales.
“Because I could not do it,” she says. “But you clearly cannot be trusted with your own safety. Come with me.”
It’s not a question.
Or what?
“Or I will take you anyway,” she whispers.
I don’t know where she wants me to go, but I want answers, and Lune is right. Every time I stumble, Sila is there. Rescuing me. She needn’t have made her threat, because I want to go and I can’t face this all on my own.
I take her hand, resting my pale fingers against her long, bloody ones. She smiles. It is a thing of nightmares and rips the air from my lungs.
“Hold your breath,” she says.
The shadows whisper as she pulls me against her. I take a deep breath, and jam my eyes shut, and let the darkness take me.
Chapter 12
