The Queen's Shadow: An Enemies-to-Lovers Fantasy Romance (The Chanters Novellas 1) by Rachel Song

Author:Rachel Song [Song, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Songbird Publishing
Published: 2024-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

She wasn’t dead.

A shrill, incessant ringing stung her ears, and dust coated her eyes and her mouth and every crevice of her body. But she wasn’t dead.

It had taken an age for the ground to stop moving, for the thunderous sound of the mountain crumbling above them to cease, for the dust to settle and for the world to right. She’d kept her face pressed into Arphaxad’s shoulder, breathing in the scent of him, waiting for the end, waiting for the moment they would be buried beneath the earth. No one would ever know what had happened to them. Her sister—she bit back the sob that threatened to burst from her chest.

But the end had never come, just a cascade of dust that had coated her hair and her arms and her clothes, every place that Arphaxad wasn’t covering with his own body. She’d pulled her face back from his shoulder. A wall of earth and stone rose hardly half a foot from them, stretching overhead like a dome.

“Phax,” she rasped. Her throat was dry, and it came out sounding like little more than a croak.

He stirred and lifted his head from her shoulder. His dark hair had turned a dusty gray just as she knew hers had, and she could see a thin red line where a stray stone had bitten into his cheek. “Cassandra?” The way he said her name, with such a tinge of hopeful joy, sent a shock wave through her body.

“I’m here,” she said.

“Are you all right?” he breathed, running a hand along her hair, as if to make sure for himself.

She coughed again and then nodded, shivering beneath his touch. He was still so close, his body pressed against hers, his fingers threading lightly through her hair.

He coughed this time, his entire body shuddering with the pain. She suddenly remembered his shoulder, the arrow, the blood. She swore and pushed him off her. The wound was still bleeding—she could tell by the blood darkening the bandage the Inetians had hastily applied.

“You—why did you do that?” she asked, staring at him in the strange, ambient light. He’d shielded her when the world was crumbling around them. He’d been ready to trade his life for hers.

“I couldn’t stand it if you’d died,” he said softly.

His words hit her like the ton of earth that hovered above their heads. For a moment, she stared at him. He couldn’t just say that to her. Not here, not like this. Not when they were both covered in dirt and sweat and blood, and a rift of horrors pulsed at their backs. “Your life is not worth more than mine!” she snapped. Then she blinked. Light. They could see.

Her head jerked toward the rift. It was only a few feet from them, a terrible black thing, but its edges gave off a strange, otherworldly glow. Arphaxad followed her gaze.

“It worked,” he said incredulously, staring at the darkness of the rift. “I thought it might.”

She remembered with startling clarity the

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