26. Zendaya

Chapter 26

Zendaya

A lthough Lorcan said they'd join us soon after we left, breakfast comes and goes and they still haven't floated down from Monteluce.

Fallon suggests a walk through the estate gardens. We all stand and trail after Vladimir and Priya, shadowed by guards from all nations. The Glacins wear pale blue; the Lucins, black; the Shabbins, red and white.

"Where Lore and Cathal?" I whisper to Fallon.

She pats my hand. "They should be here shortly, Mádhi." Suddenly she perks up. "Look! It's Syb and Pheebs." Her two friends are bobbing down one of the crystal-clear canals of Isolacuori in a boat that is as slender as it is shiny. She starts to wave at them excitedly but then stops and peers around. "Goddess, I'm terrible at this whole stately queen-thing," she mumbles in Shabbin, which earns her a soft snort from the Prince of Glace, who masters my mother tongue better than I do.

"Give it time, Your Highness," he says. "Soon you'll be just as arrogant and jaded as the rest of us."

Fallon laughs and kisses my cheek, promising she'll be right back. Then she starts toward the golden bridge that my grandmother and Vladimir are crossing, but stops and whirls. I can tell she's concerned about leaving me alone with Konstantin, even though alone is a stretch considering Asha and Abrax are but a stride away.

"No worry, Fallon." I smile up at my Glacin companion. "Konstantin pleasant male."

A stunned chortle escapes the Faerie, lending his silver eyes the same glimmer as the cut stones running up the shell of his ears. "Why thank you, Rajka. I try." With a wink, he adds, "Sometimes."

I arch a brow. "Sometimes?"

He leans over to murmur conspiratorially, "I prefer to let most people believe I'm…how do you say it in Shabbin again?" He purses his lips that are as angular as his jawline.

"Churlish?" I suggest.

"Yes. Keeps them from coming too near. You'll find that being a royal is more of a burden than an advantage."

The male may be young but he seems wise beyond his years. To think Kanti is around the same age yet acts like Konstantin's decades younger twin sisters. I don't think the three of them—yes…Kanti was there when we arrived—have stopped gossiping or giggling since our two families sat down in the flower-covered stone veranda, around a table overflowing with Lucin delicacies.

Not even when an uncomfortable silence settled between father and son following the discussion of the railway system that links all sides of Glace. Though Fallon had translated the conversation, she'd left out the query that Konstantin uttered, which had led to the cold front.

I'm tempted to ask him about it, but considering how it had spiked his mood, I decide to reserve my question for Fallon. "Excited for nuptials, Konstantin?"

His eyebrows, that are as black as his hair is white, quirk. "They were quite exciting. Though admittedly, the serpents— and I mean the animals, not you—seemed the most excited of the bunch, didn't they?"

I frown. Why would the serpents be excited about his marriage to Kanti? "Kanti tell serpents?"

This time, Konstantin is the one to frown. "What?"

It strikes me that we mustn't be speaking of the same nuptials. "I talk of you and Kanti." I point to him to make sure he understands.

A choking sound reverberates up his throat. "I'm sorry." He wheezes, pounding a fist against his chest to ease his sudden bout of coughing. "Me and Kanti?"

"Apparently King of Glace want Shabbin mate for son. You not hear?"

"No." Konstantin's silver eyes taper on his father's white plait that swings like a clock's pendulum across the back of his sky-blue jacket.

I don't understand how he hasn't peeled the fabric off his shoulders, what with the stifling Lucin heat. "Good for peace."

One of Konstantin's eyes twitches. "Treaties of non-invasion are good for peace. Nuptials are overrated."

"You no want mate?"

That does away with his residual cough. "I'd prefer not to get tied down." Under his breath, he adds, "Especially to someone of my father's choosing."

"Do you have lover?"

He turns his stare toward me. "I'm not lonely, if that's what you're wondering."

"No. I wonder if you already have lover you want marry."

"No." With a sigh, he adds, "The longer I can avoid it, the better. What about you, Rajka? Any… mates ?"

A hand winds around my waist and tugs me against a body that feels wrought from metal. "Yes. Me ."

I glance up at my possessive Crow just as Phoebus, Sybille, and Fallon trundle over to us.

Phoebus has his palm pressed to his chest and says something that makes Sybille and Fallon snort. "Zendaya of Shabbe, you look…" His eyes skim my body.

He says something in Lucin that has Fallon rolling her eyes. "Yes, it's one of my dresses. As for reforming Crow fashion, have at it, Pheebs." Mirth brims in her eyes. "Can't wait to see the new uniforms you'll cook up for the Siorkahd."

Phoebus grins, and I can tell he's already designing new suits for my mate's people.

Sybille asks for a translation, since she isn't as fluent in Shabbin as Phoebus. After hearing all of it, she laughs, head tossed back, palms splayed on her belly. I stare at her babe-filled abdomen, my chest clenching. My daughter must pick up on my envy, because the shimmer has snuffed out of her violet irises. She's staring between me, Sybille's stomach, and her father, who still holds me tight.

Too tight.

The dress also feels suddenly too tight. I glance at the nearest canal, desperate to jump into it. I press away from Cathal, then start walking, reaching around my back to tear off the wide band of leather.

"Daya?" Cathal calls out to me.

"I hot. I need swim." I don't turn around as I say it.

"Here?"

"Let her, Dádhi. There are never any serpents in these waters."

I finally get the belt off and drop it onto the trimmed grass that is as soft as velvet underfoot. I start to gather my skirts to get my dress off when Cathal's smoke congeals in front of me.

With gentle hands, he clasps my wrists. "Please don't take the dress off."

I frown until I catch him glowering at the people around us. I release the stiff gray satin and traipse right to the water's edge. It is as clear as air, with not a single fish or coral blighting the bone-white basin. I dive in feetfirst. My dress balloons around me. I try to sink but there's too much fabric, so I shift, my scales soaring from within and wrapping around me.

My gills must flare from how deeply I exhale, but then an odd prickle seizes them. I attempt to siphon in a breath, but no cool air cycles through my Serpent lungs. I flick my tail to steal a breath farther down the canal, but if anything, the prickling worsens.

What's inside this water?

My tusk breaks the surface and then my head. I try to sneak oxygen from the sky but something must be wrong with my gills, because they don't flutter.

What's happening to me?

I sink back under and try to breathe, but the burn spreads like melting wax. I visualize my other shape, but for some reason—possibly, my rising panic—I cannot melt into flesh. In some distant recess of my brain, I hear my grandmother's warning about the Lucins' hatred of serpents, and I realize that someone must've poisoned my food or this water to tamper with my magic.

I should never have come to Luce. I should've listened to her and to Cathal and stayed in Shabbe.

I crest the surface of the Isolacuorin canal once more, searching for Cathal in the sea of Two-legs. Through my dotty vision, I see him. He's crouched by the water's edge, half-smoke, half-male. His lips move, but my roaring pulse chews up his words. I shoot nearer but misgauge the distance and bang against the stone embankment. Cathal must grab me by the tusk because my head is suddenly out of the water and on his lap.

He speaks again, but again I don't hear him. The dots in front of my eyes become smudges. The smudges, a veil. I shake my head and blink, but no amount of headshaking or blinking manages to disperse the obscurity closing in on me.

I don't want to die. Not again. I want to live.

I want this so fiercely that I muscle more of my clunky body out of the water and onto the land, praying to the Mahananda that exposure to air will bring about my shift, but I dangle haplessly, half in, half out.

My head must slip from Cathal's palms, because he's suddenly gone. Or am I the one who's gone?