28. Cathal

Chapter 28

Cathal

Z endaya's beautiful face tilts toward the sky. Toward me.

The anger, which had rushed over me when Fallon's voice resonated through our people's mind link, crackles through my bones, making my wings feel crafted from pure iron.

I will not lose her again.

The Shabbin Queen stares up as well, her white hair snapping behind her like those flags which are brandished when one surrenders. Except, in Priya's case, she's just declared war. As her sorceresses bloody the deck with sigils, I dive toward Daya. My claws knock against something solid…something that repels me. Priya's warded the ship!

I screech with a fury that must skip over the ocean because Lorcan's voice lights up my mind.

Cathal?

I dive again. Again, I hit a translucent wall. I roar.

I will speak with Priya. I will get her to see reason. Come home.

Not without Daya, I growl.

He must understand it's nonnegotiable because he doesn't reiterate his command to turn back.

Fallon, can you penetrate your grandmother's wards? I ask without tearing my gaze off the ship and the pink-haired woman whose hands lay flat against the bench beneath her. Is she trying to stand or keep her body steady?

Can't get past them, Dádhi, Fallon says.

Then we sink the ship! Since everyone aboard is Shabbin, they'll manage to swim. Lore, we need a storm.

Daya wriggles on the bench. Though I cannot hear her, I see her mouth round around shouts. She is trying to get up! She is trying to get to me!

What I wouldn't do for you, brother, Lore murmurs as a thunderous peal resonates through the darkening sky.

Those sigils they painted are for speed! Fallon exclaims.

Sure enough, the boat is surging toward the ramparts at impossible velocity, one that even I, however fast I beat my wings, cannot match. Waves, Lore! We need waves, I yell.

I'm hoping that if salt water connects with Zendaya's skin, she'll be able to shift and rid herself of whatever spell her grandmother cast to keep her from diving overboard.

Even though our king's still in Nebba with Justus, he manages to stir the ocean into a frenzy. Foam webs the ashen-sapphire swells, sending Priya's small ship rocking, and everyone—save for Zendaya—skidding across the deck.

On a scale of one to ten, how high are the chances that the Cauldron will seal itself off from our people? Fallon asks.

This fight is between your great-grandmother and me. It has nothing to do with the Cauldron.

In other words, we may have a chance it'll allow Lore to dip a toe in once it recovers?

I cannot think of this now, though as Lorcan's general, I should. I pledged to put our people first, but I cannot think of our people. Not when my mate is being stolen from me.

As I soar faster, the sky flares with lighting that catches on her forehead. Though she's still in flesh, her tusk is lengthening, and her skin, coloring. A wave claps the hull of the boat and closes over the deck. When it recedes, my mate is fully shifted and slithering away from the blasted bench.

Abrax throws himself on her. Asha, as well, but however hard they clasp her, her slick body glides out of their arms and plunges past the railing into the ocean. Her grandmother shrieks. Asha jumps in after Daya.

Lore, Daya broke free, I tell him as my fellow Crows catch up to me. Stop the storm so I can track her.

A handful of minutes later, my friend clears the sky and settles the ocean. Priya's boat has stopped barreling toward Shabbe and is turning at such a sharp angle that its mast brushes the flat surf.

A moment later, Asha's head pops out. "I don't see her, Sumaca!"

I don't either. Alarm judders my daughter's voice.

Priya raises her incendiary gaze to mine, her hair so wet, it lies matted to the oval frame of her face. "I will never allow Lorcan inside the Mahananda. Not as long as I am queen. Never ."

I vow, in that moment, to put Zendaya on the throne.

Priya trembles from the force of her anger. "You've damned your people, Cathal, and you did all of this for a woman who isn't even your mate."

She is my mate! Our minds might not be bonded anymore, but our hearts and souls are. I felt it when we kissed. I feel it every time Zendaya's hand brushes across my skin.

Behati lied. I'm certain of it. The same way I'm certain the pink serpent carving through the ocean belongs with me.

Fallon must read my temptation to gore Priya because she flies right into my face. Operation Keep Shabbin Queen Talon-Free starts now.

I glower at my daughter.

Seriously. She flaps her wing in my face. Find Mother.

I afford Priya and her little ship one more scathing look before giving the ocean my full attention. My certainty that I will sense my mate begins to wane when after an hour, no Crow or Shabbin has caught even a glimpse of pink. And then dread sets in.

What if she rests at the bottom of the ocean because her gills wouldn't lift?

What if another serpent attacked her?

When the first star pricks the horizon, my dread turns to terror. If only Priya could drain the entire ocean like she drained the Amkhuti. I wonder if she's considering it. I wonder if she could. I'm tempted to swallow my pride and land on her ship to ask when a guttural shout rends the air.

I turn sharply, then swoop low. I expect to come across Zendaya but find only two fishermen brawling over Cauldron only knows what.

A fresh layer of fretfulness coalesces behind my breastbone as I beat my wings and rise, hunting the darkening ocean for my mate's pink body.