Page 12 of To Dwell in Shadows
“Perhaps, but I was having too much fun at the ball.”
They gazed at each other tenderly for a moment before Thema’s tone softened. “It grieves me to leave you, but I will return soon.”
“Everything will be taken care of here,” Arkaya assured her.
Queen Thema nodded, then pulled Arkaya into a brief but firm embrace, which surprised Sam. It wasn’t a secret that the two were lovers. But the queen feared that openly displaying favoritism might undermine Arkaya’s authority as steward, so she kept the depth of their relationship discreet.
“Right. Let’s proceed, shall we?” Queen Thema said to Selene.
“Okay, no time like the present, I guess.” Selene braced her feet and held out her arms. “Everyone, grab on to me. Let’s do this.”
Sam stood behind Selene, wrapping an arm around her. He could feel the tension in her body as he pressed against her. Queen Thema’s usually confident smile wavered as she reached out, gripping Sam’s forearm with one hand and Selene’s shoulder with the other.
With a determined motion, Selene pulled the traveler’s stone from beneath her shirt. She touched her fingers to the glossy white surface, bowed her head, and closed her eyes.
It only took a few seconds before dizziness spun through Sam’s head. The air thickened, charged with an acrid smell that clung to his nostrils. Thema’s sharp intake of breath told him she felt the shift around them, too.
His stomach lurched as if the ground beneath him had fallen away, and his balance wavered, making it hard to tell up from down. Then came the sound—a harsh, grating buzz, like a swarm of angry bees vibrating against his skull.
Drilling into his head until they spread into his body.
His bones.
Sam’s vision tunneled to a pinpoint of light. He tried to focus on it, like a guiding star in a sea of night. But it began to collapse until it winked out completely.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
Sam’s breath turned to ragged gasps, his chest tightening with panic. He tried to squeeze Selene closer to him, comforted by the warmth of her body, but the sensation was fleeting.Was she still there? Or was it just hot air slipping from his grasp? The space around him no longer made sense.
It felt as though his body was being twisted into impossible angles. Falling, falling, falling into an abyss of nothing. Somewhere in the void, a raw scream tore through the silence. It was filled with terror, but Sam couldn’t tell where it came from.
Was it Selene? Thema?
His throat ached—perhaps it was his own voice he’d heard.
The pressure surrounding Sam’s head and body continued to build until he feared his skin might split and his bones shatter.
It was agony. Relentless. Absolute.
Then suddenly—silence.
Chapter 7
Sulfur.
Scent was the first of Sam’s senses to return. It was a familiar scent, one that filled him with nostalgia. The moment he detected the tang of sulfur in the air, he knew their journey had been successful.
Slowly, he cracked open his eyes. Above him stretched a ceiling of carefully laid stone, its rough texture illuminated by a soft glow. His body ached, a dull heaviness settling in his limbs, but none of that mattered.
He was home.
Someone coughed. He looked to his right and saw Selene sprawled on the floor, looking pale. She smiled weakly at him.
He sat up and took her hand. “Are you all right?”
She coughed a few more times and nodded. When she rose to her elbows, Sam followed her gaze, taking in the room around them.
Electric wall sconces glowed on the stone walls, and the marble floor gleamed as though it had been recently cleaned. The room was free of the small furniture Selene had described during at her visit, but the familiar crack running across the mantle of thecold fireplace confirmed it was his childhood bedroom. The door stood slightly ajar, but beyond it lay only darkness.
