A Shimmer Between: A Fated Mates, 12 Dancing Princesses Fantasy Romance Retelling (The Lost Kingdom, Book 1) by Evelyn Sage

Author:Evelyn Sage [Sage, Evelyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2023-04-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Under the force of pain, the world shredded apart. I strained against the agony, trying to regain control of my senses. There was a stone bridge and a brook, though I couldn’t hear it babbling. I panted through my teeth and glimpsed a canopy of ancient trees swaying above me. My throat finally gave out, my ability to scream gone, and my sisters’ voices bickering back and forth swelled, competing with the relentless pounding in my head. Another surge of agony tore through me, and I twisted in on myself, shuttering myself behind the veil of pain again.

Here, I could breathe, but the air didn’t cool my lungs. Oxygen was molten. It burned down my throat until it was raw. Until I was raw with need. Only Callum could ease this pain. My muscles screamed his name as the binding spell wracked them. My bones turned brittle, their aching like a deep lament, a grief I had never known.

I thought I might’ve been moaning his name, but my mind had disconnected from my body at some point. Callum, I needed Callum. His arms, and lips too. No, his strength, that cool fire burning within him, fueling those shadows, the heat that poured from him so that without him the whole world became a tundra. Not even the sun could feel the same after his heat had blessed my body. Only Callum could return warmth to my cheeks.

I struggled against the need and the thoughts it put there. Callum wasn’t the center of my universe. That kind of love was corruptive, toxic. A sun could warm the cheek, and it could also burn. It was the binding spell twisting things I felt and intensifying them at once, mutating them into monsters that would devour me.

Wait, there! My name. I had a name, didn’t I? Liana. That was it. Liana.

“Liana.”

Someone was saying my name. Calling to me. I had a place, I was somewhere. I opened my eyes, returning to my body. Rose floated over me, red curls framing her pretty face. I laid on dirt. Wooden structures surrounded us. A pyre blazed nearby. My hands were bound behind my back. When did that happen?

“Liana, you have to fight,” Rose said. “Just breathe, okay? Like this.”

She demonstrated, in for three counts and out for four. In, two, three, out, two, three, four. I followed, swallowing down sobs as they bubbled up. After the fourth breath, I pushed myself up. A wave of pain came again, but I leaned into it rather than twisting away, letting it wash through me as I breathed in, two, three, out, two, three, four.

The centaurs moved around us. We were outside, in what seemed to be some kind of square in their village. The wooden structures were huts, and the centaurs were storming through them, weapons in hand. Beyond the fence penning the camp in, was some sort of magical spell. Walls of green light surrounded the camp, moving like liquid in the air.

Eima sat cross

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