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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.
