12. Zendaya
Chapter 12
Zendaya
S un Warrior swims so fast that the ocean froths and whitens. By the time I've gotten over my surprise at being violently bundled and carted away, the queen and Cathal are mere dots bobbing on the surface.
I try to wriggle out of Sun Warrior's grasp, but his body is far more muscled than mine. I hiss. He doesn't let go. I try to growl my discontent, but none of the sounds scrolling through my head spool out. Whatever language I think in mustn't be Serpent speech since I cannot, for the life of me, craft intelligible sound in this form.
I resort to nipping at his scales with my teeth. Although stunted, they're sharp and more numerous in this form than when I am Two-legs. Sun Warrior freezes, his spherical eyes rolling over the blood puffing off his scales like grains of burnt sand. As he swipes his forked, black tongue against my bitemark, healing the puncture wounds instantly, he sends me a scathing look.
I narrow my gaze right back on him, demanding, without words, what came over him. The only answer I get in response is a low hiss. As brusquely as he wrapped himself around me, he releases me, pitching me far and deep.
I watch him swim away before heading toward the queen and Cathal. I'm tempted to lash the Crow's thigh with my tongue, but remember our talk about consent. I will wait for him to be ready. Besides, considering how my stomach lurches as I drift nearer, I suspect I'll need to be in my other form, the one where my senses aren't as heightened.
Right before I crest the surface, I hear Priya mutter, "My child's no longer your mate, Cathal."
The word mate stills both my thoughts and ascent. Cathal has a mate, or rather, had one, and she is Priya's child? Who is her child, and why is she no longer Cathal's mate? I linger just beneath their fluttering feet in the hopes I'll hear more on the subject, but the next thing out of the queen's mouth is a threat to banish the Crow from Shabbe if he ever intercedes with my lessons again.
I will my body to shift, and it does, right before I crest the surface. I can't even rejoice that I'm getting better at swapping forms, too agitated am I over the animosity that ripples around me.
When my head pops out, my caregivers both turn. Where Cathal doesn't even attempt to mask his anger, Priya curls her lips into a smile that is clearly just for show, for it hides all her teeth.
"Already done?" she asks.
I nod.
"How was it? Were you able to communicate?"
I shake my head.
"Maybe next time."
I doubt it since he speaks in resonances instead of syllables.
"Would you like me to remove him from the Amkhuti or would you like for him to stay so you can meet up later?"
Cathal mutters something in Crow that is as incomprehensible to me as Serpent bleating. The queen slices her gaze toward him, comprehending him just fine.
"Cathal, understand birds that no shift?" My question redirects the queen's stare.
"No. I do not. Lore can transfer images into their minds through thought, but we possess no common tongue, so why Priya imagines you'll share one with an animal baffles me."
"I was hoping Daya would find comfort in her fellow creature's company."
"Shifters are her fellow creatures," he growls. "Not animals."
"You may share the power to shift forms, but Daya isn't one of you."
"How Crow made?" I suddenly ask.
"They mate the same way humans do," Priya huffs. "In bare flesh."
I frown.
"She asked how they were made , Sumaca," Cathal grumbles, "not how they fucked."
The queen blinks, but then recovers and says, "Technically, it's one and the same, is it not? The original Crows were created by the Mahananda, but new Crows can only be made through coupling."
The slant of my brows deepens.
Cathal's chin dips but his lips stay above the waterline. "I take it you haven't discussed the birds and the bees yet."
Birds couple with bees? Shifter -sized birds?
The queen takes a deep breath. "Let's get out of the water. We'll talk in my chambers when we're dry." When she reaches the stone wall, instead of grabbing ahold of my ladder, she draws a sigil that slants the rock and makes it reshape itself. "Come before my staircase washes away, emMoti."
I glance at Cathal, wondering whether he will attend this talk I am to have with the queen. Before I can ask, he shifts into his Crow and takes to the sky, then hovers, shadowing my body until I'm back on dry land. Why does he act like my guard when he isn't?
I end up asking the queen after I've changed into dry clothing and joined her in her wing of the palace.
"Because he's stubborn and stuck in a past that no longer exists." Her answer does nothing to quell my confusion.
I take her wrists and raise her palms to my forehead. "Explain with picture."
The servants in attendance inhale sharply and gawk, evidently surprised I can talk.
The queen's palms don't settle. They hover. "That story will be for another day. What I will show you today is how babes are made."
"Babes?"
"New Crows. And new humans."
When her fingers land, I get flashes of a male and a female rubbing the front of their bodies together, followed by the image of the female's body rounding and reshaping itself like the cliff earlier. The last image that illuminates my lids is a miniature Two-legs screeching in the crook of the female's arms.
As the queen lowers her hands, she says, "Coupling is like growing flowers, Daya. The male plants his seed inside the female's soil, and nine moons later, a small version of them sprouts from the female's body."
"What job have bees?"
A vertical groove forms above her nose. "Bees? They pollenate and make honey."
"Honey is babe?"
The groove deepens. "I'm sorry but I'm not sure I follow."
"Cathal speak birds and bees."
The queen stares at me stunned, but then she breaks out into great peals of laughter. "Birds and bees is an expression, emMoti."
" Expression ?"
"An expression is an idiomatic…" She stops talking. "Simply put, it's a phrase used by way of another."
Forget confused…I'm lost.
"For example, in Shabbe, we'll say the serpent is in your river when we want to convey that it's someone else's turn, or as thick as serpents , which means to be very close and share many secrets."
I doubt I will ever be able to use that one.
" Straddle the ward is another. It means to avoid taking sides. Though truth be told, that expression irks many because Shabbe was imprisoned for five hundred years. Best not to use it, actually."
"Imprisoned?"
"One of our people betrayed us."
"Meriam?"
Her pink stare widens. "Where did you hear that name?"
"Kanti," I say, even though I didn't hear it from her. At least, not at first.
"That girl…"
"Meriam family?" I point to the queen.
"No." Her response is so abrupt that it makes me wonder if I misheard Lorcan last night. "Let's not talk of her anymore. It spoils my mood. What other questions do you have for me?"
"How serpent make babies, Taytah?"
She blinks at me, then murmurs, " Taytah. " She presses her palm against her chest. "I don't think you understand what it means to me to hear you call me that."
"Why? It's name of mother of mother, no?"
Her long lashes sweep low. "It is."
I point to me. "Mahananda is mother of me." I point to her. "You mother of it."
A beat of hesitation echoes before she says, "Yes." She folds her legs beneath her on the cushion. "So serpent babies… The male's reproductive organ emerges from a hollow at the base of his abdomen and penetrates the hollow at the base of the female's abdomen."
"Hollow?"
"A hole."
I look down at myself even though I'm not in scales. "Do I have hollow ?"
"I must admit, I didn't look, Daya. I imagine you do, though."
I make a note to inspect myself during my next shift.
"However, I imagine you will couple in your human form like Crows?"
"Human?"
She nods to my body.
Ah…so this is what this two-legged form is called— human .
"I could be wrong since you're the same size as real serpents, whereas Crows are so much larger than the birds the Mahananda shaped them after. It's possible you could reproduce with a serpent."
I suddenly picture Sun Warrior trying to rub his body against mine. I don't like the image. I want to pluck it from my mind and pitch it beyond Shabbe's fortified walls.
"Since we're on the subject, you failed to answer my question earlier. What do you want me to do with Sun Warrior? Should I let him stay in the Amkhuti or send him back into the Sahklare?"
I roll the seafoam silk of my dress between my fingers. "He no like me."
The queen props her elbow on the low cushion at her back. "That's not true, emMoti. He didn't appreciate Cathal's intrusion, but that's because serpents are sensitive beings who can feel when someone dislikes them, and that Crow likes neither humans nor animals. The only people he tolerates are his fellow Crows."
Does that mean he dislikes me? "Taytah, who is child?"
One of her servants slips a cup of date wine inside her hand. "Anyone below the age of puberty."
Again, she's lost me. Though I want to know about this puberty, I decide to rephrase my question so as not to veer off course. I point to her stomach. " You child."
She coughs out her swallow of wine, which dribbles down her chin. Though the attendant who handed her the cup produces a piece of cloth from his pocket, Priya uses the back of her hand to wipe her face. " My child?"
I nod.
She stares at the shivering fronds swaying against her tall, arched windows. "My child is dead."
"But—" I tilt my head. "But Shabbin live always, no?"
"No. We're not immortal. We're merely harder to kill than others."
How incredibly heartbreaking. No wonder Cathal's mood is pitiful. "Your child was Crow?"
The queen purses her lips. "No."
So Cathal Báeinach once loved a being who wasn't a Crow… I suddenly wonder if that's the reason he stays in Shabbe. Because this land reminds him of her. Though that's even more tragic.
I may still not understand why he's so determined to guard me, but at least, now I understand why he's forever discontent. My hands have left my skirt to settle on my neck, on the strip of fabric that buttons around it and holds the rest of my dress up thanks to thin chains made of pearls and cyan gems.
I knead the skin that my aching heart makes flutter. "That so sad, Taytah."
She shrugs. "Such is life."
Behati bustles in then and settles on another cushion on the queen's floor. We discuss my swim— again —then Sun Warrior's presence in the Amkhuti— again .
I wrinkle my nose when Behati says it would be good for me to keep him close so he can teach me the way of serpents. "I no want Sun Warrior as mate," I say, sitting up.
Behati's pink eyes go as wide as the supper plates that servants are setting on the table.
"Yes. Zendaya speaks," Priya muses.
Behati pales, becoming almost as insipid as the queen's locks. "Since when?"
"I only heard her today, but perhaps my granddaughter's spoken before?"
"I no want baby with Sun Warrior." It seems more important to drive this point in than to explain when and to whom I first spoke.
The queen's lips curve gently. "You do not have to couple with any being you do not desire. One's partner needs to be one's choice."
I'm greatly reassured.
"May I speak with you in private, Priya?" Behati asks.
"Once I'm done speaking with Zendaya."
Though I'm grateful Priya chooses me over her advisor, I get to my feet. I've taken up enough of her time. Besides, she's given me much to think about.
After bending my forehead to receive her kiss, I depart for my rooms, Asha's sandals slapping the stone right beside me.
"I cannot believe I had to learn you could speak at the same time as the queen's entourage." With a pout, Asha adds, "I thought I was special."
"You special. Plus, you know before Abrax."
"That is true. Oh, how I'll rub it in his face." Her grin is so wide, it glows brighter than the moon moth that's landed on her shoulder.
"Rub what in face?" At her frown, I deduce it must be an expression. "What mean?"
"Ah. It means to tell him— repeatedly —that I knew it before he did."
"He no like that."
"Nope. He will certainly not like that."
Her delight lures a smile to my lips. "You a little wicked."
" Very wicked, but wicked nice . Unless someone tries to hurt you. Then you can bet your royal ass I will be wicked mean."
Bet my royal ass? My ass is royal? But more importantly…or rather, as importantly, people gamble their backsides? At what? Those card and pawn games so many play?
I graze the back of her hand. "Thank you, Asha, for being friend to me."
Her lower lip overtakes her upper lip and then she's blinking a little hurriedly.
"Why shileh ?"
"I'm getting tearful because I'm touched."
Tearful. Huh. So Serpents do have a word for wet eyes since my mind translated the word.
I roll the word around my tongue. Tearful . Fearful means full of fear . Meaningful means full of meaning . Does tearful mean full of tears ? Could shil 's translation be tears?
"Daya," she says as I pass the door one of the guards has propped open for me, "if you feel like going for a swim, can you please come get me or Abrax? We'd prefer to avoid another lecture from Cathal."
"He no harm you, right?"
"Sticks and stones, Rajka."
"He hit you!" Gone is my good humor.
She blinks, then shakes her head, sending her thick black braid swinging like a chain. "No. It's an expression. Sticks and stone may break my bones, but words will never hurt me ."
The breath I blow out the corner of my mouth sounds like a small growl. I really hate expressions. Why must people replace adequate words with inadequate ones?
She must think I'm not reassured, because she adds, "Big Bird didn't hurt me. Promise."
"All right."
"But I appreciate that you'd care. Now off to bed. Your undereye circles have undereye circles."
I trace my lash line as I finally enter my bedchamber, which flickers with candlelight, then raise my gaze to the silver squares tiling the ceiling to check my appearance. All I see is starlight, the intended effect of the domed mirrors—or so explained Asha. It had been Queen Mara's idea. After gluing them to the ceiling over her bed, she'd had them added everywhere in the Vahti.
Since I'm looking up, and the mirrors reflect only flames, I fail to spot that there's a person in my path and bump right into them.
Cathal's arm snaps up and out, snaring my waist to keep me from stumbling backwards. "Had a pleasant conversation, Príona?"