46. Zendaya

Chapter 46

Zendaya

T hough Meriam hasn't magicked my soles to the stone, I cannot seem to step away from the door Fallon bolted shut. "What do you want?"

She flinches. I imagine because I address her by her name instead of what she is to me. Well, what she was supposed to be but never was.

"I wanted to meet you before leaving."

Everyone says we resemble each other, but the woman standing before me is all serrated angles, sallow skin, and a chilling stare. She was kept in a cell , I remind myself. From the way the dress droops over her figure like a cheap sack and dirt crusts her skin and hair, I gather that not only was she undernourished but also severely neglected.

"Where are you going?" I ask as her luminous gaze strokes over me.

"Out of Shabbe."

"Back to Luce?"

She shudders. "No. Too many awful memories."

That leaves Glace and Nebba. And a vast ocean.

As she moves nearer, candlelight catches on her high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes. Even in her abysmal state, her beauty is undeniable.

"My Serpent. He wasn't answering me. What did you do to him?"

"Do you mean the green-haired boy in Amma's bed?"

"Yes."

"I stunned him. He'll be fine."

"What do you mean, you stunned him ?"

"I stung him with magic to relax him. He's sleeping."

"He's alive?"

"Yes, batee. Your friend is alive."

I want to tell her not to call me ‘daughter,' but more pressing words burn my tongue. "What about Taytah?"

Meriam stretches her head from side to side, drawing my attention to the indigo bruise that rings her neck. Was she collared? Is that what my grandmother did? A glance at her wrists reveals similar bruises. "Amma never gave me a chance. Never even trialed me. Even when Justus and Fallon both begged her to let the Mahananda decide my fate. Sweet Justus. I didn't think there was a kind Faerie left in the world until I met him."

Even though she's yet to answer my prior question, I can't help but enquire, "Where is he?"

"Somewhere safe. Waiting for me. Thank you for helping him set me free."

I ball my fingers, vibrating with resentment at having been used.

"Forgive me for duping you. For abandoning you." She moves toward me, her strides so graceful, it looks like she's gliding instead of walking. "For transforming you."

When she reaches out to touch my hair, I recoil and press my cheek against the pale wood that vibrates as though someone were pounding on it. I imagine it's the echo of my fevered pulse since Fallon locked me in here for safekeeping. If she had any inkling of my current situation, she would've rushed back to undo her spell.

"Tell me what you did to Taytah," I snap.

The tone of my voice hardens her stare. "I immobilized her and then I drained her."

"Is she…?" I lick my lips, trying to become one with the wood at my back. "Is she…?" I cannot get my lips to shape the word.

"She is."

"But I thought…I thought she was immortal."

"To a certain point. Once a Shabbin loses her blood, she loses her magic, and thus, her immortality."

"How?"

"I painted the death sigil that my beloved grandmother Mara taught me before she went to slumber inside the Mahananda." Her lips bend into a smile that is so forlorn, it confuses my heart into believing that she isn't a monster. Or at least, not entirely monstrous. But she is. She committed matricide. "Perhaps someday I'll teach you, batee."

"Stop calling me daughter."

Her emaciated throat dips. "The crown is yours."

"I don't want it."

"Perhaps, but it remains yours. The Mahananda desires that you wear it, Zendaya. You. Not Kanti. Not one of the Akwale. You ."

"How do you figure, Amma ? Can you converse with the source of all magic?"

"No. Only the queen has that power."

Anger billows like smoke within me. "Then you have no clue what the Mahananda desires."

"Behati had a vision of you wearing it. One she discussed with my mother."

"And you know this how exactly? Did they invite you to partake in this little conversation? Did they carry it out in front of you?"

"Justus painted a sigil on the throne room's wall that allowed me to eavesdrop. It eventually faded, but not before I collected plenty of interesting conversations—notably the vision of you wearing the Shabbin crown and the one about the Crows' curse."

"Since when can Fae bloodcast?"

"Our husbands, once blood-bound, can use what runs through our veins to draw spells. Why do you think Amma never married? Why do you think the practice of blood-binding has been outlawed in Shabbe?"

Why wasn't I aware of this? But more importantly… "You killed me once before, Meriam. You're probably suggesting I dive into the Mahananda so I slumber for all of eternity."

Her full lips pinch. "I never killed you."

"I was reborn a Serpent!"

"Because I ferried your soul into another's womb the same way you ferried Fallon's into Agrippina's. I would never have killed you. And not because of the spell you cast in the Holy Temple that twined our fates together."

My pulse whooshes like a fierce current. "What spell?"

Meriam cants her head, sending her long clumped locks tumbling over a shoulder that is so sharp the bone looks about to stab through her skin. "No one told you?"

"No."

"Not even Fallon?"

" What . Spell ?"

"Right before you emptied your womb, you painted a sigil that linked my life to yours and to Fallon's. You were so frightened that my intent was the annihilation of my bloodline. Since we were surrounded by Faeries, I couldn't explain to you that my intent had been to end my life so that my spells would end in turn. I wanted the wards eradicated. I wanted the Shabbins to be free and the shifters to rise anew. But because of your spell, I couldn't put an end to the Regio reign, for if I'd killed myself, it would've killed you and Fallon."

"Are you truly expecting me to believe that you planned on sacrificing yourself to free the Shabbins when you just murdered your own mother?"

"Priya was a selfish liar, ravaged by greed, who failed the Mahananda…who failed you . Who kept you subservient and mortal, because she feared you casting her off her precious throne."

She doesn't have a throne , I'm tempted to snipe back, but that's neither here nor there. My eyebrows gather so close they kiss my retracted tusk. "You mean to say that she's known all along how to make me immortal?"

"Daya, abi…" Meriam sighs. " She made you mortal."

My jaw slackens around a breathy, "What?"

"She bound your magic."

That flicks me out of my daze. It also flicks my mandible shut. But only for an instant. "You're mistaken, Meriam. I've access to my magic."

She frowns. "I heard otherwise."

"Well, you heard wrong. I can change into scales and heal wounds with my tongue. I can even make new Serpents."

Her forehead smooths. "Ah."

"What's ah supposed to mean?"

She walks over to my sink, then riffles through my toiletries until she's unearthed a gold comb with a handle that tapers to a point. "Prick your finger."

"Why?"

"Because you seem to be under the delusion that the Mahananda returned you without your blood-magic."

My heart holds still. My lungs too. "I'm a shifter, not a sorceress."

"One nature does not preclude the other. Look at Fallon." When I've yet to seize the comb, she grasps my motionless fingers and raises them. "You're my daughter, Daya. Shabbin magic runs in your veins."

"You're wrong. I cannot bloodcast."

"You can."

"I've tried. I cannot!" I tear my hand out of hers, but not before she manages to split open the pad of my index finger on the gold comb.

"Copy my sigil on the door." She draws twin, interlocked peaks on my mirror with her blood. A heartbeat later, the reflective glass transforms into an oil painting of Shabbe. "It'll transform into whatever you picture inside your mind."

Gritting my teeth and muttering how this is a waste of our time, I turn toward the door, imagine it transforming into glass, then slash my index finger up and down, up and down, a perfect emulation of her design.

The wood becomes translucent.

I gape at it, then at Cathal who stands on the other side of the door with his arms raised along the glass and his forehead pressed to it.

His head rears back, and he blinks. I, too, blink, but then I whirl to look at Meriam. She's gone.

Her voice suddenly rings out in the thick air of my bathing chamber, and I realize she must've made herself invisible. "When a Shabbin witch dies, so do her spells, batee."

Chills scamper along my spine. Along my bones. Inside of them.

I twist back toward Cathal and paint an arrow pointing downward on the pane of wood I made glass. The transparent partition shrinks and shrinks until nothing but air separates us.