39. Cathal

Chapter 39

Cathal

Z endaya has been worryingly quiet since she sobbed out Enzo's name, followed by a hoarse entreaty for me to carry her back to Shabbe immediately.

She was so distraught that when I asked what was wrong, all she could do was tremble. Tremble and snap, " Can you carry me home or should I ask Erwin?"

Obviously, I obliged, preferring she stop riding other Crows. I'd already made my feelings abundantly clear to Erwin, whose muttered excuse of a bargain hadn't stopped my fist from sailing into his jaw while Zendaya healed Agrippina.

I'd asked him how he'd like it if someone had struck a bargain with his mate. He'd blinked. Before he could remind me that Daya wasn't my mate, I'd turned back toward the pink-haired woman I couldn't fucking get out of my mind. However many missions Lorcan sent me on, Zendaya was always there, shimmering on the edge of my thoughts, just out of reach.

Daya's hand suddenly squeezes the feathers at my neck so hard that my wings hold still. "There," I hear her say.

I glance at her, find her gaze riveted to a part of the Sahklare that is as dark at night as it is during the daytime.

"Carry me down."

I scoff. Does she seriously expect me to drop her off in the middle of the Chayagali?

"Cathal, Enzo's here! I can feel him."

Fucking Enzo.

Even though my rider rages at me to turn back, I flap my wings harder, arrowing toward the palace where Erwin and Fallon are just landing with their riders. The second I clear the trees, I dissolve into smoke to buffet Daya's fall, then morph right back into my Crow and sail off. Her shouts resonate through the Cauldron-shaped queendom, banging against my ribs as I drift up the Sahklare, peering into the algae-bright water for green scales. I fly over the narrow stretch of water twice. Zendaya must've been wrong about her shifter's location because the Green One's nowhere in that water. I wouldn't miss a Serpent of his stature.

I'm about to ask another Crow to check with Daya about where she felt him when branches bristle followed by deep snarls. I drift lower and glimpse a tendu crouched over coils of green, warning off another. Fucking tendus.

I tilt my body, part my beak, and bullet down. A moment later the famished feline's blood warms my beak. I toss away his body just as another tendu leaps and lands on me. Before I can shift to smoke, its claws sink past my feathers. Little does he know that he's fucked with the wrong Crow.

He paws at the limp Serpent with a triumphant roar, one that I cut short when I cinch his scrawny ribcage with my talons, squeezing until his ribs have all splintered. I toss him aside, then land and shift. Though I don't particularly care to linger in the Shadow Forest, especially in skin, I want to see if a pulse of life remains in Zendaya's mate before carrying him home.

My gaze clocks the chunks of flesh carved out of various parts of his body. One bitemark is so deep and wide that my iron-clad stomach churns. I stride toward his head that lolls against the sandy soil, lids clasped shut, tusk half-buried in the ochre dirt. I crouch and seize his tusk to right his face. I consider giving it a jostle to test his alertness when I recall the damage he incurred at the fangs of the tendu.

I end up patting his cheek and muttering the word for serpent in Shabbin. When after my fourth iteration of, " Naaga ," he doesn't stir, fear replaces my concern.

Yes, fear. For all my anger that the Mahananda matched her with another, I know what the loss of one's mate feels like, and I would never wish it on anyone. Especially not on the woman I still care for.

I palm his neck to locate a pulse. When something flutters against my skin, I expel a relieved breath, shift back into my other form, and carefully scoop him up. He dangles from my talons like a piece of seaweed. The comparison is horrid, and I instantly chide myself for it.

When I approach the vale, my eyes lock on Daya's searing ones. It strikes me that her hair is wet, as is her dress. I take it that she must've tried to swim toward us. I've never been more glad for the bargain we struck about waterrises. She might not be mine to protect anymore, but the idea of her swimming in tendu territory drops my body's temperature to one equaling the wintry air in Monteluce.

I deposit him at her bare feet, then shift and watch as she peruses his body. Unlike me, she doesn't hunt for a pulse. She must sense he still lives through their mind link.

As she kneels beside him, she looks up at me through narrowed eyes as though I'd been the one to attack and carve out her little mate. "Do not cast me off your back without my consent again, Cathal Báeinach." Her anger is a live thing that chews up the air around us.

Again … That means she intends to hitch more rides on my back. I cross my arms, keeping my expression bare of all sentiment, even though relief stirs behind my ribs. I'd feel even more so if I knew whether she could hear Agrippina.

I consider striding to where the blue-haired former Faerie stands conversing with Fallon, Ceres, Priya, and Behati, but I don't, for inquiring while a Serpent lay bleeding at my feet feels immoral and untimely.

"You should get Agrippina to heal him," I advise Daya, whose stores of magic have already been depleted once tonight.

"He's my Serpent. My responsibility."

I note that she didn't say mate. Petty. So petty. "I meant, because you're already spent."

"I'll do it in the water." She walks over to his head and leans over to bracket it tenderly between her palms. "Can one of you lower him inside?"

"I'll do it." Erwin shifts before I can.

As I accompany Daya to the moat's edge, she nods to my arm. "How bad are your wounds?"

"Just scratches. They'll heal."

"Show them to me after."

After. "Tendu claws aren't made of obsidian, Sífair."

"I'd almost forgotten how dogged you could be," she huffs.

My lips set into a smirk. One that makes her head shake as she plunges headfirst into the deep trench ringing the valley of the Cauldron. I stand on the steep cliff, gaze riveted to the inky water.

After dropping Enzo off inside the moat, Erwin parks himself beside me. "Poor kid. The tendu really got him good."

"He should've known better than to venture in that part of Sahklare," I murmur. "Especially since, unlike the other serpents in Priya's queendom, he can shift and use a fucking boat."

Justus sidles close to us, his furred cape rustling against the black velvet inserts of his jacket. It's far less gaudy than the gold and burgundy uniform he used to don, but still too foppish for my taste. Then again, unlike Faeries, I don't have much taste in fashion, nor any inclination to develop one.

"A Serpent," he murmurs. "My menagerie is growing."

I side-eye him while Erwin guffaws.

My fellow general shrugs, a smile tickling the edge of his lips and the corners of his timeworn eyes. "A snake. A bird. Next thing I know, my wife will ask the Cauldron to turn her into a grasshopper."

"Which wife?" I needle him.

With a sigh, he says, "Ah, Cathal… Forever aiming below the belt."

"I can't imagine having two mates," Erwin muses out loud. "One's already a constant adventure."

His euphemism draws snorts from both Justus and me.

Bubbles pop at the surface of the moat. Is Daya already done? Are they swimming up? I squint. Hold my breath. When no Serpent surfaces, I push the air back out of my lungs and attempt to distract myself by asking Justus, "How's your daughter dealing with her transformation?"

He flinches. "She has twenty-two years of history to catch up on and new magic to tame."

"I still can't believe Daya can make others." Erwin rolls his neck, making it crack. "Can you imagine if Lore could turn humans?"

Justus's blue irises glow like the algae-filled rivers. "All of Luce would be feathered and winged. Already so many have taken to facial tattooing."

"Where's your feather?" I ask. "Still ambivalent about your allegiance?"

"No, but tattoos are permanent, and though they look fine on young skin, they're not as comely on rumpled faces."

"You speak as though you were eight-centuries old instead of middle-aged."

"Just add stripes," Erwin suggests. "It'll conceal the wrinkles."

A slender hand winds around my bicep, startling me, even though I know the shape and weight of my daughter's fingers by heart. "Are you three truly discussing face care or are my ears deceiving me?"

"Your ears are deceiving you, ínon."

She smiles and pats my arm.

"Where's Lore?" I ask.

"Dealing with protests in the west. Apparently, my cousin has been bugging everyone's homes with listening sigils. Phoebus's sister found out and told everyone . Not only do the Tarespagians and Selvatins feel like it's a breach of their privacy, but also a breach of the peace accords."

"At least it's bringing them together," Justus says, which earns him three deep glowers. "What? It is."

"We'd prefer commerce and education bring them together," I mutter. "Not antagonism towards the new regime."

"Antoni's green." Justus tosses that out as though we'd elected him as governor out of choice. "And his ears are round."

Fallon bristles. "People are no longer measured by the shape of their ears, Nonno."

"True, but until the dust has fully settled over the change of regime, I would've instated a full-blooded Faerie as well."

I flex my jaw, remembering our lengthy debate and all the reasons Lorcan refused. He might trust Justus, but the general's ambitious. "Perhaps the day you wear our feather, Lorcan will indulge you."

Justus thins his lips.

"Antoni's not ruling over the entire region alone, Nonno," Fallon says, trying to ease the tension. "Naoise's there."

"Naoise's a shifter." Justus barely separates his teeth as he mutters this.

"How did Flavia Surro find out?" Erwin asks.

"Kanti invited her for tea at Antoni's, which is where all the sigils converge. In one of the rooms. Kanti apparently forgot to reapply her soundproofing sigil." My daughter says this with a weighted sigh.

"Does Lorcan want me to sail out there?" Justus murmurs.

"Let me ask," Fallon says. A moment later, she says, "Yes, but he understands if you prefer to stay with your daughter until she acclimates to her new self."

Justus glances over his shoulder. "Ceres is with her. Besides, it's Agrippina we're talking about. Your mother—" He stops. I feel his gaze scrape my face, then the surface of the moat. " Surrogate mother holds on to grudges almost as hard as your mate, so I'm not going to be in her favor for a while, still."

"Hard to believe anyone can be as begrudging as my mate," she says with a smile.

"I can fly you over, Justus," Erwin offers. "Once you're ready."

"I'm ready." As Erwin morphs, I hear Justus murmur, "Zendaya amMeriam, tiudevo ." He walks toward Erwin, exchanging a look with Ceres. At her nod, he climbs atop Erwin.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier, Fallon," I murmur as she pillows her head against my arm.

"Please. You were at your wit's end." She squeezes my arm. "Anyway, do you want to hear a fun fact I learned tonight?"

"Always. I love your fun facts ."

"Agrippina can hear Mádhi…and Mádhi can hear her."

My heart pulses out so many beats that it alters the cycle of my breaths and cramps my lungs.

Enzo isn't her mate , I think, before remembering, You aren't either.