Page 43 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely
Little vessel. You will read the book again and remember it. And when the time comes, you will speak it. You may be afraid of it. I do not care. That is my demand. Will you submit to it?
I do not have to think on it. Whatever I was afraid of before, I have a new fear now that far outweighs it.
Yes.
The word sits burning and binding in my thoughts.
There is a wry feeling from the Heart.I should have thought to put such a command on the book in the first place. It turns its grumbling back to Sila.You will protect her, the vessel. I take your bargain, and bind you to it. You will break her silence and until the words are spoken by the vessel, you will protect it.
“I do not need a bargain or an oath to bind me to do so. I would do it willingly,” Sila says.
I would still have your oath.
“You have it, as you always have.”
Then it is done.
Without thinking, I hold the book up in front of me. My limbs do not feel like they are my own as I take a steadying breath. My fingers crack the cover, and the glass coffin shatters around me.
Chapter 25
Lorel
Shards of glasscatch against my exposed skin, opening a hundred tiny cuts, each bright red against the chapel’s gloom. I have barely a moment to fear before shadows swirl around me, catching the glass and scattering it to the far corners of the nave. As the shadows fall back, Sila coalesces at their centre, a wretched figure standing among heaped bodies and rivulets of pooling blood. There is nothing but the sound of her ragged breathing and the clink of glass as it clatters across the marble floor. I can barely focus on any of it with how the words of the book run through my mind. They dance across my tongue as if in waiting.
A curse— of a kind. A prophecy that will become true once spoken.
I now know why I had been so afraid that night. The Heart is tired of bowing to the Dawn King. It had chosen me as the vessel to bear its message out into the world, only it had chosen poorly. It had not known what I was capable of doing to myself out of fear. Even I hadn’t known. The words of the prophecyfade, settling into my chest. Pooling back into that ever-present creature that has lived there since I first opened the book.
The glass cuts are tiny things that sting and dry quickly. I stare at them as I sit up, weary down to the bone, and as I flip my hand, I see that the scar from Sila’s bargain is gone. Only the still-healing wound of my foolish slip with the knife remains.
Sila shifts in a flicker of shadow, comes to stand in front of me, tall and impassive. I don’t hesitate to collapse against her. Rest my ear against the soft swell of her breasts. There is the quietest, slowest sound of a gentle heart beat. This must be how it sounds when it races, for surely it is lucky to beat even once a year. No wonder her blood runs so slow, her temperature so cold.
Sila tips my head back and I do not begrudge her for checking that my throat is still intact. I do not think I would have handled watching such a thing happen to her quite so well. Her fingers brush gently from my jaw to my collar, and she makes a small, mournful sound. It is something ancient and sorrowful, a keening note of grief that rings out through the dim chamber.
“When—fuck—” Sila says, voice raw and catching in her throat. She brings her hand around to cup my cheek. “I thought I had lost you.”
I reach out and wind my fingers in the soft silk of her blouse, craving that point of connection. She’s so very close like this. I search her face. Those dark eyes, half lidded as she looks down at me. The soft contours of her cheekbones splattered with my dried blood, and her dark tears. How could I have ever thought her terrifying? Her eyes flick to my mouth as I swallow, my silent breath parting my lips as it rattles through me. A slumbering warmth in my body that has nothing to do with the curse that slumbers within me, and has everything to do with how she’s looking at me. Sila’s fingers move to cradle the back of my neck as she leans down?—
The Heart’s presence surges back to life within the imitation of the chapel. A wave of fear and panic and righteous anger washes over us. Sila’s face turns into a lovely picture of alarm and frustration at her patron’s sudden reappearance.
You must go. You must go now!
A gilded door appears at the back of the sanctuary, as if it has always been there. The Heart’s warning clamours around us, urging us to move, to go, to leave.
Sila gives me a look that I can barely begin to understand. It is the heartache of a missed chance, and a fear that chance might never come again, both wrapped up in the Heart’s urgency. I promise myself there will be another chance. I cannot think it will be otherwise.
Sila loops an arm about my waist, lifting me easily from the altar and setting me on my feet. This close, her sweet flower scent mixes with the copper scent of blood, and I grip her blouse tighter.
“Are you able to walk?” she asks, her arm still firm around me. I test my legs and nod. I don’t know how much further my legs will carry me. I don’t know how much further Sila’s legs can carry me if mine fail. I hope this door is a shortcut, given the urgency and the rude interruption.
The door leads to a stairwell that looks similar to the one leading from the entrance. Sila takes my hand, her grip vice tight, and leads me up into the dark. It’s a toothless kind of dark now, and no longer clouds our minds. Sila’s pace is almost as quick as it had been when we walked through the Greater Library and none dared stand in her way.
The Heart's fear makes my heart race and drives me on after Sila. We exit far more quickly, and the disorientation as I leave hits me as badly as it did when I entered. Only this time, it feels like I am being reassembled. Like the labyrinth has pulled meapart and made me into something new. Maybe it has. Maybe it already did.
I don’t even have the chance to take a breath of air before Sila’s shadows wrap around me and pull my body sharply up against the wall. They pin my arms and legs in place with a grip as implacable as she is. I struggle weakly as my sight adjusts to the light, showing me what exactly had caused Sila to hide me in her shadows.
Mercias stands almost where we had left him— but he is not alone. Three Lightkeepers stand before him. Another lies lifeless on the floor, and near the feet of one Lightkeeper, lies the unmistakable form of a Librarian, deathly still, her dark blonde hair spilling across the floor. My heart feels like it stops.Not another one. I struggle against my bindings, but they only hold me tighter.
