14. Zendaya

Chapter 14

Zendaya

I seize the hem of my dress and ball it to wipe down Cathal's leg. The wound has sealed, and the only hints of black on his thigh are the dark hairs peppering it. "How feel, Cathal?"

When he remains quiet, I crane my head to look up at him. His eyes are incandescent in the candlelit darkness, shinier than the wax stalks burning down to stumps, and glitterier than the ceiling with its myriad of mirrors.

"Cathal, how you?—"

The hand not warming his cock cups my jaw. "How do you feel?" He thumbs my chin, probably to clear it of any lingering unsightly smudge.

"I not one sick; you?—"

He releases himself and hikes up his pants, the leather whispering over his healed skin, then drops into a crouch in front of me, his fingers still cocooning my face. "Does your head feel light? Do your lips tingle?"

My lips buzz. My head, too. And my stomach churns.

"No," I lie. When the skin around my tusk begins to tingle, I realize that my body is about to betray me. "I need swim." The room spins. My forehead now burns. The Serpent within is overpowering my Human. "Cathal?—"

Arms scoop me up and carry me to my garden, then lay me gently down on the gritty soil. And then I'm floating. The brisk air makes my long hair flog my overheated cheeks. Is it the obsidian that's clouding the careful control I have over my body, or is it Crow blood?

The instant liquid gloves my fiery skin, the pressure in my veins releases and my tusk shoots out. The transformation is so fierce and fast that my vision goes black and I sink, hitting the sandy bottom of the Amkhuti with a heavy thump.

The chill of the deep coats my scales and caresses my fins. It strokes the sensitive flesh around my tusk and sweeps down the length of my nose. Murmured words land against my buzzing ears like whispered promises spoken in the middle of a deafening storm.

I try to make sense of them, but they echo and skip without penetrating, echo and skip, echo and…

"EmMoti?" A callused hand smooths across my cheek. "Wake up." It must be the queen, since she's the only person who calls me that. Her voice thins before growing thick and raucous with a growl that includes Cathal's name.

She must speak in Crow, because I cannot grasp what she says to him or about him. Is he even still there?

There …

Where am I?

Her palms sweep faster down my cheeks, her desire for me to awaken, urgent. "Wake up, emMoti. Wake up."

I try, but my lids are heavy.

Too heavy.

I inhale. Gag. My throat closes around a swallow of liquid salt. I shove up onto my forearms so fast that my fingers sink into wet sand. I cough, desperate to ease the burn.

A hand grips my hair and spins it into a rope. "Deep breath, Príona."

I inhale through my nose, then clear my throat and spit out a glob that foams against the damp, pink sand. There are no beaches in the Vahti, which means…which means I must've swam out of Shabbe.

I crane my neck. Before me looms a shimmering sunstone wall. It reaches so high it melts into the cloudless blue. Are those the ramparts? Did Cathal carry me out of?—

Why is there another wall behind us?

I push into sitting, my gaze skipping over the curved beach, surrounded by curved walls.

"Priya drained the Amkhuti because she didn't trust me to fly you out of it." Shadows squirm across the jagged edges of Cathal's face, not all of them created by the white sheet snapping over us.

I trail the sheet to four wooden posts planted inside the sand, then squint because…where are all the fish? Where is Sun Warrior?

Cathal must read my anguish because he says something about the Akwale herding the animals into the Sahklare.

The queen drained the moat. What an extreme measure to reach me.

"You've been asleep for days, Daya," Cathal says, releasing my hair but remaining in a low crouch.

I turn toward him, taking in his purple-rimmed eyes. "Days?"

He nods, sliding his tongue over his lips that are pale with salt and peeling skin. I reach up and touch them. Cathal stiffens but doesn't move. Though his lips aren't ample like mine, they feel gritty and taut.

"Need water." My voice is no more than a thin croak.

"I've got some right here." He reaches around him for a jug and offers it to me.

Though I need some, too, I push the jug toward him. "You."

His lashes flutter.

"Drink," I command.

He does, but his sip is reluctant, as though I were forcing him to ingest something rank. Which reminds me… I drop my attention to his leather-clad thigh. The trousers are either new or have been hemmed seeing that there's no more tear in them.

"How infection?"

He presses the jug into my hands, but keeps his palm on the bottom of it. "Small sips," he instructs, right before murmuring, "Gone." And then, because I sit there in shock, he lifts the jug and proceeds to feed me the sweet water.

My throat burns, and I cough.

"Sips, Príona."

My next mouthful is tiny.

He splashes water into his palms, then rubs it across my brow, but my skin is caked in so much sand that his attempt at cleaning it is surely pointless. Still, I appreciate his little act of kindness.

"Zendaya!" the queen's voice makes me twist. She traipses down stairs of her blood's making, Behati on her arm. Once she reaches the bottom and Behati is stable on her cane, the queen lets go of the seer and streaks toward me.

My Crow's jaw flexes. "I told them heartbreak was keeping you from shifting back." At my frown, he adds, "Fallon's departure. I didn't want to tell them that you broke our new curse because…because, Mórrígan forgive me, but I'm not entirely certain whether I trust they didn't inflict it upon us in the first place."

I stare at him.

"I won't keep you from telling them, but possibly…wait? I'd like us to discuss this with Lore and Fallon. Would you mind waiting?"

I shake my head.

He mouths a silent thank you as he straightens, the top of his head brushing against the canopy.

The lilac silk gloving the queen's body coils around her legs like windblown petals. "I want you to promise me to never again stay in scales for so long. I thought…I thought you'd ventured up one of the waterrises to follow Fallon until Cathal explained you were moping down here."

I push my sandy ropes of hair over my shoulder, working hard on keeping my gaze from straying to the Crow, who's backed up to allow the Shabbin Queen through.

"I understand your heart hurts that Fallon's left, but she said she'd return soon, emMoti."

Cathal crosses his arms. "I believe a trip to Luce would settle her, Sumaca."

Without taking her eyes off mine, she says, "No."

A startled breath leaps out of me, eliciting a renewed bout of coughing. She didn't even pause to consider the suggestion.

"She isn't ready," Priya says.

"I'll keep her safe, if that's what concerns you." Cathal's posture is as rigid as the post next to which he stands.

"She's not yours to keep safe," the queen growls, her pink gaze roving over his thigh. "For Mahananda's sake, Cathal, she's not yours anymore!"

Anymore? Did I once belong to the Crow? And if so, in what way, since he insisted, a great many times, that I wasn't his daughter? Most importantly, though, why does no one believe I can keep myself safe? How wicked is the world beyond the Amkhuti?

I push myself to stand, done being kept down by all of them. " I keep me safe."

Cathal tilts his chin a little higher, as though proud how my impudent remark widens the women's stares.

"Fallon nuptials." I slip a finger under the ocean-hardened silk around my neck and dust off the sand digging into my skin. "I go."

"Fallon's nuptials? How did you hear of them? Let me guess…" Considering she looks straight at Cathal, Priya must have no trouble guessing. "Abi djhara, the vows Fallon will speak in front of the Lucins are only for show."

I'm not certain what she means by that, but I remain steadfast. "I go, Taytah. Cathal take me." I'm about to add that it's part of our bargain, but decide not to divulge this in case it cancels the bargain.

The queen draws her gaze down his thigh. "Not in his state."

"Thanks to Fallon's blood, my state has improved. I thank you for your concern, though." I frown because the queen didn't sound concerned.

Lips pinched so hard their corners tremble, she extends her hand to help me up. "If anyone takes Daya to the lands where serpents are still slaughtered, it will be me."

Though I still hold her hand, I teeter from how fast I spin my head toward Cathal.

"Did your Crow companion fail to mention how serpents are treated outside of Shabbe, Zendaya?" Behati sounds almost smug about her question.

Before I can ask Cathal if this is true, the queen brackets my head and pours images of gored scales, quartered flesh, and ripped tusks stacked in wooden chests. Water—tears bleed from my eyes and down my cheeks, carving into the salt and sand, eroding my desire to step out of this fortress of sunstone and blood magic.

I clasp Priya's wrists and tug. And then I step back and back, away from her and everyone, wincing when my foot sinks onto a jagged coral. "Why Lorcan no stop slaughter?" I squint as black rivulets of my blood flow through the coral's yellow folds.

"He has," Cathal grits out. "Anyone who so much as harms a serpent with a weapon or magic is immediately punished. Anyone who kills them meets immediate death at our talons."

"What happens if the Lucins go after Zendaya, Cathal?" the queen asks him.

"I'd kill them."

"Of course you would." Behati pops the bottom of her cane out of the sand and props it against a coral. "Crows so love beheading Faeries."

He narrows his gaze on the Shabbin advisor, which leads me to think that beheading must be something truly evil. "So what's your plan, Sumaca? Imprisoning Daya like you've imprisoned your daughter?"

My heart lurches, because… what ? Priya imprisoned her daughter…Cathal's mate? Why? And when? I thought her daughter was dead? Did she die in prison?

The queen's shoulders sharpen as she twirls to face Cathal and growls something at him in Crow. The only word I make out is a name: Meriam.

The name that causes everyone to either hush or scowl. "Meriam is daughter, Taytah?"

Silence stretches and stretches in the chasm of Priya's making, reverberating against every beached coral and ruffled stone shelf.

The queen hisses at Cathal in Crow. So much blood has risen into her cheeks that even her irises appear crimson.

"I think it's time, Priya." Behati keeps her voice soft, as though she senses that speaking any louder will make her monarch rage. "Especially if we are taking her out of Shabbe."

"I've changed my mind about the trip. She stays here." The queen takes off toward the steps still jutting from the sandstone wall.

Cathal's arms fold a little more snugly over the black top that clings to his broad chest like sand clings to mine. "I'm afraid that's not going to be possible for I struck a bargain with Daya the other day."

She swings around. "You did what ?"

"She figured out how the waterrises operated, so I bargained for her to never approach one in exchange for which I'd fly her out of Luce for Fallon's nuptials."

The queen's full lips are a pale slash on her tanned face.

Cathal fixes her with his penetrating stare. "You know as well as anyone that one cannot renege on a bargain."

Though I follow their discussion, a part of me remains stuck to the question Priya failed to answer. I repeat it, because I want an answer. I need one.

"Yes." It's Cathal who replies. Not Priya. Priya's too busy glowering at him.

Meriam is Cathal's mate.

Meriam, who isn't dead.

No wonder the Crow stayed in Shabbe if his mate is here. And no wonder he loathes the queen if she imprisoned her. The only thing I do still wonder is why he spends so much time with m?—

Oh.

The answer drips over me like the coolest water—it pebbles my skin and chills my spine. Not even the sunlight baking the land manages to reach me. I clutch my elbows and glare hard at the male who pretends to care, even though all he truly cares about is securing a stay in the queendom to remain near his imprisoned mate.

"You trick me again, Crow." I shake my head. And then I turn and stalk past a confounded Priya, leaving black footprints in my wake, ones Cathal Báeinach better not follow.

But he does, for when I storm into my bedchamber, there the male is.