3. Cathal

Chapter 3

Cathal

M y fist connects with the ward that Behati must've conjured into existence to keep me locked inside the Kasha. From the way my daughter gnaws on her bottom lip, I sense she must've aided the seer.

I get confirmation of this when she murmurs, "Sorry, Dádhi."

I roar at her to remove her magic. When she doesn't, I smash Behati's cane into the invisible wall, reducing the knobby wood to splinters that I cast aside before pummeling the air with my fists. When no fissure forms, I disintegrate into smoke and rush at the barrier.

A smirk tugs at Zendaya's lips. I bare my teeth. Not at her. At Behati. But since Daya stands so near the seer, her delight stumbles off her pretty mouth and a good dose of fear soaks into her.

Remembering that Lorcan and Priya are locked in with me, I whirl. Though I see Lore break into five shadowy plumes, I don't spot the Witch Queen. I soon understand why when a body shimmers into existence beside Zendaya.

After recalling her invisibility sigil, Priya lowers her palm from her forehead. "The Mahananda is always right and always just, Cathal. No need to act like an uncivilized beast."

Are her words supposed to calm me? To reassure us that planting an obsidian dagger into my daughter's chest and feeding her to the Cauldron holds zero risk? What if the Cauldron doesn't release Fallon? Or what if it does, but altered?

"I'm the curse-breaker, Dádhi." Fallon's teeth-bitten lip glows as red as the tip of her seashell necklace.

She already broke one curse—Meriam's. Who's to say, besides two old crones with pink eyes and a magical basin, that my daughter is also our people's curse-breaker?

Daya untangles her arm from the seer's and reaches for Fallon's wrists. I hold still as she rests Fallon's palms on her forehead.

What does she want our daughter to show her? The reason why she painted a ward? When Daya rears back, eyes so big they devour more of her face, my eyebrows pitch low. Didn't her grandmother show her Behati's vision when she entered the room?

The Serpent Princess joggles Fallon's wrists in an attempt to draw her backward, toward where I stand, trapped and quaking with fury, praying that Lorcan's found a way out. My prayers are reduced to dust when the air churns beside me and five dark streaks bang into one.

I understand from his reddened stare and the purpling sky that the ward encapsulates every wall, window, and ceiling.

"What of the mind link?" I ask him.

Blocked.

Fuck.

Zendaya heaves Fallon back once more, this time, managing to make her stumble. Lorcan snaps his hands up to catch his mate, but all he catches is a palmful of air. I, on the other hand, catch an arm—Daya's. Before she can snatch it away, I yank her inside the Kasha and gather her against my chest.

"Fallon," I roar. "Get inside! NOW!"

My daughter doesn't indulge me. No, she abuses the word "sorry" and her bottom lip some more. She is not sorry. If she were, she would rethink this self-sacrificial insanity.

Daya writhes. In case her plan is to return out there, I tighten my grip on her biceps. She begins to shake like the sky over Shabbe. I imagine with irritation until I spot her fingers lifting to her scar and rubbing her neck manically. Perhaps she is frustrated, but mixed into her resentment is a weighty dose of panic. One that makes her pulse go so wild that it tramps past her silken sleeves and absorbs into my palms.

As Lorcan's storm erupts into a deluge of raindrops, Fallon flattens one palm against the wall between them and murmurs, "Trust the Cauldron." And then she repeats it in Shabbin, probably to quell Zendaya's fear.

Trust the Cauldron to what? Keep her alive? Return her in one piece? Return her—period?

Why must my daughter have inherited my stubborn streak and taken it to the next level?

Why is she allowing Priya to inflict bodily harm on her just because the Cauldron showed Behati that was the way to go?

"It returned Mádhi." Fallon's wispy reminder snakes through the invisible divide between two rolls of thunder.

I stare past Fallon's head at the Cauldron. Yes, it returned her mother, but it didn't return her intact. It stole her memories. Stole our bond.

Before I blemish Zendaya's skin with twin bruises, I relax my grip but don't release her. I physically and emotionally cannot.

To placate me, Fallon adds, "That was Meriam's doing, Dádhi, not the Cauldron's."

"We do not know that, ínon!" I growl.

Daya twists around and cranes her neck. Our eyes collide. I expect belligerence but find apprehension, and it kinks my heart. Does she fear me, or is the mention of Meriam's name to blame for her perplexing pallor?

"Sumaca." The slap of sandals directs my attention off Zendaya and onto the gold box one of Priya's guards is proffering. "Your weapon." As Priya draws a sigil on the miniature trunk, the female says, "The Akwale is assembled and waiting."

Does she expect Lorcan to have mobilized a winged army? She must know Behati and Fallon's ward is mind link proof.

"Trust the Cauldron, Dádhi," Fallon repeats again , fostering a smile that doesn't extend to her eyes.

"It isn't the fucking Cauldron I have trust issues with," I growl in Shabbin against the top of Daya's head. "It's your great-grandmother and her seer."

Daya goes stock-still and then she glowers up at me. What was I expecting? Both she and Fallon hold Priya on a pedestal. Even Lorcan thinks the woman's inherently good. The only thing the queen is good at is controlling all those around her.

When the obsidian dagger is extracted from the box, Zendaya sucks in a breath. For long seconds, she gawps at the weapon, then at Fallon, and finally, at Lorcan. The slant of her dark eyebrows is so vertiginous that it cuts furrows around her retracted tusk. It's the same expression that apprehended her face earlier.

"What did Priya show you when you walked in?" I murmur between barely separated teeth.

I wait a beat. Two.

Daya's lips remain sealed.

I repeat my question, using a more urgent tone. "What the fuck did she show you?"

She flinches.

I gentle my tone. "What happens after she stabs Fallon with obsidian?"

Her frown digs deeper.

My frustration escalates because I realize she mustn't understand what I'm asking. I try not to hold it against her. It's not her fault.

When her lips finally part, I think I was too rash in my judgment, but then she murmurs in that odd raucous hiss of hers, "Lorcan."