1. Zendaya

Chapter 1

Zendaya

I peer up through a cluster of fish that glow like stars and see him .

He is always there. I believe it's because he worries I might find a way to leap up into the Sahklare—the rivers that flow through the queendom—and escape into the ocean beyond the great walls of my home. He forgets I've neither the ability to make the waterline rise, nor to sprout wings, so I cannot escape the Vahti—or Vale, as I've heard the Crows call it.

How I long to wander, though. If only I had the words to ask the queen to show me the land over which she rules. Perhaps the Crow with three names could give me a tour on his back. The thought brings my swim to an abrupt halt. That male would never accept to be ridden. I suppose I could ask Fallon or her friend, Aoife, or possibly Aodhan, the only three Crows whose lips curve at the sight of me when every other shifter's lips flatten.

Especially the Crow pacing over the stars overhead. The corners of his mouth never rise. Not for me. Not for anyone. Not even for his daughter. He wears his anger like I wear the ocean's salt, in a thin, coarse layer that forever envelops my flesh and seasons the air.

If only I could read the reason for his menacing mood off his palms. Unlike Pink-eyes, though, Crows—save for Fallon—cannot communicate with their hands, only with their mouths. More often than not, the Crow above me uses that orifice to growl raucous words that sound like tumbling seashells and shivering hedges.

I lap around the Vahti once more, dashing through hordes of fish that used to scatter at my approach but now trail after me. If only the creatures on land could also surpass their fear of me and comprehend that I'm no predator.

I flick my tail, thrusting my body toward the vine ladder that my Shabbin guard, Asha, knotted to the trunk of a date palm so that I could bathe in the Amkhuti at will. I close my lids and picture my other form, the one which allows me to tread land and steal air from the sky.

My pulse hastens.

My scales tighten.

My tusk twinges.

My bones grind.

Seven heartbeats later, I shrink into a creature made of skin instead of scales, of limbs instead of fins. One heartbeat faster than yesterday. I am improving. Perhaps someday, I will be able to shift as fast as Fallon. I roll onto my back and float atop the starlit waters of the Amkhuti, my waist-long hair, that is fanned out like seaweed, tangling around my smooth arms. My toes poke out from the placid surf, the same hue as my locks, thanks to the coat of polish that one of the palace attendants applied before she plucked every hair off my body, leaving me with only the bundle atop my head and above my eyes. When she'd smoothed the warm wax over my skin, I'd frowned. When she'd removed it, I'd hissed and snarled.

If Fallon hadn't pressed her palms to my forehead to show me that it was a Shabbin custom, I would've stormed out of the humid stone room. But I hadn't. I'd borne the discomfort, so desperate was I to belong.

Fallon may claim I'm a shapeshifter like her and her people, but I am nothing like them. Not only am I not part of a flock, but the shape I take is also different. I've neither feathered arms to carry me skyward nor metal protuberance with which to pinch. I have a tail I can snap to glide through water, an ivory horn I can wield like those blades Two-legs carry, and a forked black tongue which can heal flesh wounds.

I'm a creature that inspires fear in almost all. In a corner of my mind, I believe that once I learn to string together all the sounds Two-legs produce…once I'm able to comprehend their meaning, I will be gazed at with kinder eyes. Then again, my Crow sentry can produce all those sounds, yet he still causes pulses to hasten. Even his king—Fallon's mate—is less feared. Perhaps because Lorcan Ríhbiadh's tone is more dulcet, and his demeanor, less forbidding.

A screech rents the night, making my skin pebble, not with scales, but with those same bumps Two-legs develop upon beholding me. I hinge at the waist, sinking back into the water, then pitch my head backward to glimpse what's got the Crow with three names so agitated. Though he's black like the heavens, I don't miss his trajectory toward the cliff opposite the palace, nor do I miss how a Two-legs scrambles away from the stone sill.

I shake my head, the bumps on my skin receding. What an odd specimen Dádhi Cathal Báeinach is—always watching me, yet abhorring when anyone else does.

As I carve through the liquid expanse toward my ladder, he wheels over the sprawling moat, wingspan as wide as my serpent body is long, gaze pummeling the bloom-spangled foliage for more intruders. Not even my guards are out at this late hour. Most Two-legs sleep when the stars come out and wake when the stars extinguish.

I find I much prefer to drift from dream to dream when the sun is at its apex. At first, I wondered if it was a shifter trait, but soon discovered it was a me and my Crow sentry trait. We seem to be the only two souls voluntarily awake from sundown to sunup. Though it could be that his wakefulness isn't deliberate. That he has no choice since the Two-legs who guard me cannot trail me when I'm in scales. Not to mention that my guards have homes and families they're eager to return to when off-duty. From what I've gathered, Dádhi Cathal Báeinach has no female, and his home is across Samurashabbe, in a land some call Luce, others, Rahnach Bi'adh —the Sky Kingdom.

By the time I've clambered up the vine ladder, the cool, shimmering droplets on my skin have dried into a veil of salt, toughening the beads of duskier flesh on my chest. I've yet to understand their use, or why they vary in size, or why they harden when the air is brisk and soften like butter in the heat.

The first time I observed this phenomenon, I'd worried they would melt like wax and had fingered them so many times that Dádhi Cathal had growled at the guards in attendance, which had made a lovely sound spill from Asha's lips. She'd later explained that it was called laughter and that it's produced when someone feels joyous. Obviously, my winged guard, who now stands on two legs beside me, scarcely feels jubilant, for I've never heard him produce this bright melody.

Although clothing reappears on my body once I shift out of my Serpent form, I dislike the sensation of wet cloth, so I swim in the nude.

Severe gaze pinned to the palace sentries, Dádhi Cathal holds out the purple fabric I cast off before tonight's swim. " Dréasich ," he grumbles.

I wish he'd speak in the tongue Fallon and Asha are teaching me, especially since he's fluent in it. I've heard him carry on entire conversations with Behati and Asha in Shabbin.

As I relieve him of the dress, I behold his fingers. They aren't tipped in iron when he's in skin, but they're just as alarming—long enough to circle my neck, thick enough to shell it whole. A shiver scurries up my spine. Has he ever used those fingers to harm another? Would he ever use them to harm me?

Something tickles my arm after I've fed it through the sheer sleeve—a land serpent as slender as my pinkie. My lips curve as I herd the animal onto my palm and caress its scaly throat before setting it on a wide, heart-shaped leaf. What did Fallon call these miniature serpents again? Che -something. Chehpah ? Chepassee ?

" Chepahsslee !" The word trips off my tongue in a hiss that makes the Crow swing around to face me. My cheeks blister like the pads of my fingers had the day I touched candlelight.

His eyebrows, barely distinguishable amongst the black stripes he wears, taper as he asks me—in Shabbin—whether I spoke.

I'm so stunned that he's used my homeland's tongue that I freeze. He reiterates his question. I keep myself from nodding, worried he'll make me repeat myself. Until I work out how to eradicate my hissing, I intend to keep practicing words in the privacy of my chambers.

I scrutinize the star blooms that dapple the hedges of the palace gardens, my inhalations so brisk that my lungs cramp around the deep, dusky fragrance that lifts off the Crow's neck.

"Daya?" The male makes the fragment of my name sound so brutal that my fingers tremble as I belt my robe with a braided strand of violet silk.

Pretending like I didn't hear him call out my name, I sidestep him and follow the serpentine walkways toward my wing of the palace.

Dádhi Cathal fractures into smoke and reappears on my path. My breath catches when I almost bump into him, and I clap my chest.

" Chepahlee ." There's no hiss when he pronounces the word.

I tilt my head.

He dips his chin before creating another sound: " Deark ." When I frown, he adds, "In Crow, chepahlee is deark ."

Durrk . I slot the single syllable away to rehearse later.

He rolls his lips, pinkening the flesh framed by bushy black hair. The day the Mahananda turned my scales to skin, I'd touched his jaw. I do it again tonight, but with a new intent. That of understanding what it's called.

" Dahadee ." His harsh intonation makes my nerves skip and my hand lower. " Dahadee. Fruhlag ."

That must be the name of the hair that grows on his face. I do not have a word for it in my mind's tongue. Because the language inside my head is that of a serpent, and serpents do not have hair on their bodies? Then again, I have the word for hair …

I touch my own jaw—smooth. Will it stay this way, or will dahadee sprout there someday?

The Crow's nostrils flare with a chuff and a single corner of his mouth tucks upward. Is that a lip spasm or is the forever-austere male smiling?

Dádhi Cathal shakes his head, which sends his tousled black locks sailing in all directions. " Mahala nahen dahadee ."

I startle that he's read my mind.

He points to me. " Mahala ." Female. He points to himself. " Parush ." Male.

I smile because I learned the distinction when I stared a little too long at what hung between the legs of Fallon's golden- haired friend, Phoebus, the day he joined us in the balmy stone chamber where I was divested of body hair. I'm sad the Faerie left Shabbe, but I also understand that he wanted to join his mate back home.

I rake my gaze down the Crow's chest, imagining that, like Phoebus, he must have an extra limb there as well. What did Fallon's friend call it again? The skin around my retracted tusk pleats as I try to recollect the term. When I can't, I tentatively poke the Crow there .

The male goes so still that I peek up at his face. His skin, usually as pale as the moon, has deepened to the hue of the corals that tile the Amkhuti's walls. I slide my fingers farther down the limb I don't possess, my confusion increasing when I feel it move.

"Príona," he rasps.

I frown some more. That cannot be the thing's appellation since ‘Príona' is the name he calls me. I tap on the hardening limb, then tilt my head.

The Crow with three names stares and stares, throat dipping, stunted limb throbbing. Smoke gathers around his skin, thickens, until he bursts and reappears farther down the path.

Too far to reach.

My throat constricts like the curved bones around my heart. I must've done something wrong. Why else would he have added so much distance between us?

I curl my fingers into my palms and slice my eyes in the direction of the Mahananda, ruing it for having tossed me into the realm of Two-legs with no knowledge of their ways and words. Yes, I'm learning both, but it is hard, and most of the time, I feel so out of my element. I may resemble them, but I'm not like them.

Would I feel more kinship with serpents? Would my mind attach to theirs like Crows in beast form? Perhaps I should find a way to climb into the Sahklare, which I hear are full of sea serpents.

My sodden hair suddenly lifts. I think the wind must've picked up but soon realize it isn't the weather that whips my pink locks; it's a churning of dark wings. Two Crows land around Dádhi Cathal Báeinach and immediately shift into skin—Aodhan and Reid. Both males are a comely gathering of burnished skin and chiseled curvatures, nothing like the stark angles and harsh bleakness of the Crow who guards me.

When Aodhan spots me, his mouth crooks. I start to smile but halt when an impenetrable wall of smoke pounds between us before reshaping into my Crow sentry's familiar physique.

Dádhi Cathal commands them to talk, and as they do, the newcomers' mien turns grave, causing chills to scurry along my spine. Although they speak in their tongue, I grasp a few words: Rahnach Bi'adh and Mórrgat .

Did something befall their king?

Did something befall his kingdom?