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

Chapter 1

The palace courtyard was bathed in the glow of enchanted orb fire, and up in the eaves, Cassandra Macia nocked an arrow.

Below, the courtiers whirled and laughed and danced as she pulled the bowstring taut and took aim at the man’s back. She hesitated, daring him to look up at her. It would be far less fun if he didn’t see her at all.

He turned suddenly, his eyes finding her easily, as if he’d known she were there.

He winked.

Damn.

Arphaxad’s mouth tipped beneath his silver, fox-shaped mask in that annoying way he had when he knew he’d won, as if daring her to let the arrow loose.

Her fingers twitched. She could still release the arrow, still stick to the plan—not that it had even been part of the plan to begin with. She lowered her bow, then slid the arrow back in its quiver, careful not to touch the poisoned tip. Briar root on a blunt tip wouldn’t kill, but its effects weren’t exactly pleasant either. And a blunt arrow from her bow would hurt. A lot.

She smirked at the thought as she slung her bow across her shoulders, then looked back to where he had stood among the masked dancers. It was the height of the summer solstice, and blues and greens and pinks flashed in quick succession as the dance concluded, ripples of laughter and applause for the band rising into the warm night air.

Arphaxad was gone.

Cassandra’s mouth tipped down as she slunk along the eaves of the palace. What was wrong with her tonight? She was supposed to be one of the queen’s best—“as silent as the night and as swift as an arrow,” the people of Rendra said. But he was repeatedly the one man she could never get the best of. And it made her mad.

She slipped silently to the ground at the edge of the palace, stashing her bow and the quiver of poisoned arrows beneath a carefully-trimmed hedge. A stately foxtrot blazed to life in the courtyard behind her, accompanied by tinkling laughter. The night was clear, and she could make out the constellation of Asaragus the Archer gleaming to the north—the sign of Rendra’s queen.

Her chest tightened. She couldn’t fail tonight. She wouldn’t fail. Whatever Arphaxad thought he knew of her, of Rendra’s queen, she would prove him wrong.

And now that he knew she was here, there was only one way out—and it involved doing something incredibly, stupidly reckless.

She pulled her mask shaped like a sleek black cat firmly over her face, smoothing her dark hair in its knot at the back of her head. It was not as fashionably done as Medira’s other courtiers, but everything about her, from her hair to her gown of nondescript dark blue, had been fashioned to be forgettable.

Cassandra was well-trained in the art of being forgettable. It was an essential part of being the queen’s shadow. And with her olive skin and thick brown hair, it was easy to blend in among the populations of both Rendra and Medira, populations that shared a language and an ancestral history. But not much more than that—at least not lately.

She threw her shoulders back and strode confidently past the guards dressed in the green and red of Medira—their plumed helmets giving them the look of ceremonial peacocks—along the black stone path lighted by the yellow glow of enchanted orb fire, and into the licentiously decorated courtyard. The guards hardly spared her a glance.

Elegantly dressed men and women filled the space that was usually reserved for receiving carriages or for displays of military prowess. The Mediran king had already retired for the night, leaving his court to carouse without him.

Cassandra kept her back to the wall as she circled the courtyard, her eyes moving. Arphaxad knew she was here now, alone in the enemy’s court. She was being bold, brazen even, stepping into the courtyard like this, but right now, she didn’t care.

Something pressed against the small of her back, something sharp and metallic, and then a voice, deep and familiar, sounded in her ear. “May I have this dance, my lady?”

A thrill went through her, and Cassandra’s lips curved in a smile. “You know I can never say no to you.”

The knife pressed more firmly against her back, and she hissed, but then the pressure disappeared, and she turned to look up into the twinkling brown eyes of Arphaxad Ilin Serra, the nephew of the king of Medira. A nephew who was so far down the line of succession that it was extremely unlikely he would ever ascend the throne—which put him in the perfect position to head the king’s intelligence division.

He wasn’t as tall as she had expected the first time they had met almost five years ago, not long after her twentieth birthday, when she had taken over for the former shadow. But he was taller than her, though not much older, and he had used that height to his advantage in the past—something she had quickly learned never to let him do again.

He held out a sun-darkened hand. She hesitated before taking it, then turned her face up and smiled brilliantly beneath her mask. His expression was unreadable beneath his own mask, but his dark eyes flashed back at her. Suddenly, the music started up—a lilting, lively waltz—and they swept into the fray.

Cassandra never felt more alive than when their game was on.

“How fitting,” Arphaxad drawled as they joined the cascade of whirling couples. “A shadow on the day the shadows are shortest.”

“A small shadow can slip in anywhere,” she returned, “like a black cat in the night.”

“Ha,” Arphaxad said. His hand pressed into the small of her back, but the knife from before had disappeared. “You know, shadows are more than just bedtime stories used to frighten rebellious children.”

Cassandra did know. There were rumors of old magics powerful enough to tear from their world into a realm of shadow and let the things that lived there through. Rumors that weren’t as unfounded as most people wanted to believe.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked without breaking his gaze.

“You’re encroaching on my territory,” he said. “I know everything that goes on here.”

Cassandra snorted. “Of course you do.”

“I’m surprised you even tried something so juvenile as that trick with the bow.” He leaned toward her, and his heady, earthy scent wafted over her. “What’s your real play, Cass?”

Cass. The name he called her to get under her skin.

“My real play?” She laughed. “You know I only came here to see you, Phax.”

His mouth twisted at the name she used to get under his skin.

“Of course.” He raised their arms suddenly, spinning her out as the music swelled. When he pulled her back in, they were closer than before, and she could feel the warmth of him through her gown. “This visit has nothing to do with the presence of the Inetian ambassador, does it? I’m sure your queen is gnashing her teeth at the thought of a Mediran and Inetian alliance.”

Gnashing her teeth. That was an understatement. The Rendran queen had been livid when she’d heard of the ambassador’s presence at the palace. It was yet another betrayal from the Mediran king. Medira and Rendra had had a tenuous relationship since the Mediran king had broken part of their trade alliance eighteen years earlier, not long after the queen had taken over for her father. He had violated Rendra’s trust repeatedly in the following years, but this was something else entirely.

Cassandra gave Arphaxad her sweetest smile. “The Inetian ambassador, you say? I hear there’s an Inetian princess of marriageable age, though I can’t imagine a teenager would much like being married to a man well into his fifties, even if he is a king.”

“Indeed.” Arphaxad’s fingers tightened at her back. “You clearly know everything already. What other information could you possibly want from me?”

She gave him a tight smile. “It seems we are at an impasse, then.”

“Are we ever truly at an impasse, Cass?” he drawled.

She simply smiled.

The waltz sped up then, and Cassandra’s heartbeat quickened as they whirled in ever tightening circles, and she did her best not to let her feet get tangled. Arphaxad was an adept dancer, but so was she. It was all part of the job, to move and dance and fight like she wasn’t there at all. She would not let him outdo her.

She followed where he led, one hand against his shoulder, the other placed in his, the space between them so small yet also a chasm neither would dare cross. She kept her eyes on him, on the curve of his jaw, the dark stubble that lined it, on the glint in his eyes, at once dangerous and electrifying.

She was squarely in enemy territory, in a place where he could call for the guards at any moment. But that wasn’t how this game was played. Not with him. She would be sorely disappointed if it were.

The music rose again in a final, wild crescendo and then dropped away as suddenly as it had started. Applause echoed into the night air, but neither Cassandra nor Arphaxad moved. Something flashed in his gaze that Cassandra couldn’t quite read. A moment passed and then another, a strange expectation hovering between them. Then finally, Arphaxad was stepping away, and Cassandra found herself feeling drained and strangely disappointed.

“This way, my lady,” Arphaxad said, his voice holding a formality it hadn’t a moment before.

She followed him to the edge of the courtyard where a large green-and-red banner fluttered in the night breeze. They made their way through a narrow stone archway and down into a sunken garden. The pink versithia were in full bloom, and their sweet scent almost overpowered the space.

“Are you taking me to see your king?” Cassandra asked, keeping her voice carefully light.

Arphaxad’s mouth quirked. “Your queen would like that, wouldn’t she?”

He stepped up to a small door at the edge of the garden. He reached under his black tunic and drew out a ring of keys. He used one to unlock the door and pulled it open. A rough staircase disappeared upward into darkness.

“After you,” he said, gesturing toward the open door.

Cassandra gave Arphaxad a quick smile as she stepped up beside him. She was so close she could make out the beads of sweat sliding down his neck from the heat. “How about we go my way instead,” she said, pressing a knife into his side.

Arphaxad blinked. “You—” he stuttered, reaching for the knife that was no longer on his person.

“I what?” She grinned. “I thought you were trained to expect the unexpected.”

“This is still my territory, Cass,” Arphaxad said, his voice low, dangerous.

“But I am the queen’s shadow,” she said, leaning up so her mouth was next to his ear. She thought she felt him shiver.

“You can be insufferable, you know,” he said. There was no hint of frustration in his tone, only amusement.

“I don’t think I’m alone in that,” she returned with a smirk.

Arphaxad moved in front of her as she guided him through the garden, his knife still at his back, his face unreadable beneath his mask in the darkness. She could hear his breathing in the stillness of the night, imagine him running through scenarios to get himself out of this. The rest of the court was either attending the ball, reveling in the midsummer night, or asleep.

They reached the edge of the palace quickly—too quickly. The Mediran capital stretched out below them, whitewashed villas descending toward smaller, wooden structures the farther from the palace one went. The faint orange glow of hundreds of bonfires dotted the edge of Lake Enterra as the people of Medira celebrated the longest day of the year. White-capped mountains glimmered in the distance, marking the border with Rendra at the center of the peninsula.

Cassandra was struck by the familiarity of it all. She could picture the bonfires taking place now across Rendra too. She could imagine people singing the folksongs of her childhood and holding contests to see who could jump the farthest across the flames. She could envision her queen laughing with her closest advisors as they drank sweet wine from Trenta, the night air bringing with it the promise of a good harvest.

Something twisted in Cassandra’s chest. The two lands weren’t so different after all.

“So, what now?” Arphaxad asked.

Cassandra’s grip tightened on Arphaxad’s knife. The two kingdoms were different enough.

“It’s time for you to sleep,” she said. A heady exhilaration laced with unease thundered through her body. This had all been too easy.

“Sleep?” Arphaxad said, but his words were already slurred. The briar root was already working. He would be out shortly and would wake hours later with a nasty headache. And if all went according to plan, she would be far from the Mediran palace.

“Well, gooood,” he said, stumbling suddenly. “Briar root, right? How . . . did . . . you . . . ?”

“The ring on my hand,” she said. “It’s laced with briar root.” She blinked. Why had she said that? She never revealed that kind of information, not to him of all people. She never gave away her secrets.

He laughed suddenly, too loudly. “Well, you’ve got briar root too. It’s . . . in . . . the knife handle.”

Cassandra blinked again, her vision suddenly swimming. Briar root. In the knife. He had known she would go for the knife. Frustration surged in her gut, tinged with a grudging admiration. Why could she never get the best of him?

She was so sleepy. It had been ages since she’d last slept, she was sure of it. She could take a little nap now, right? Just briefly. Arphaxad would sleep too. Then she could bring him to the rendezvous point and take the Mediran king’s greatest asset back to Rendra. That had been part of the plan, surely? Had she been supposed to see him at all? Or had there been something else she was supposed to get for the queen? She couldn’t remember anymore.

She slumped to the ground, her head suddenly pounding. It took her a moment to realize that Arphaxad was on the ground beside her too.

Damn.

“I think . . . we can call this . . . a draw,” she heard him say. His voice sounded distant, so far away.

“Is there ever . . . a draw . . . in what we do?” she managed around her thickening tongue.

“No,” he said. “But somehow . . . you’re the only one . . . I can’t get the best of.”

She might have laughed at that if she weren”t so tired.

Her world swam and then went black.