4. Zendaya

Chapter 4

Zendaya

T he Crow's grip on my arms is starting to anger me. More so than having staggered into the Kasha after Fallon showed me her intent of heading into the Mahananda to break her people's curse. To think I could've been out there with her instead of in here with two seething males, all of us helpless to stop her.

I reach for Cathal's fingers and peel them off one of my arms. I'm almost surprised when they loosen and fall away.

As I reach for his other hand, Fallon gasps. My hand freezes against his as she utters a string of excited words. She speaks so rapidly that the only ones I decipher are names: Mahananda , Bronwen , Alyona , and Glace .

The Shabbin Queen's expression turns guarded as her blood penetrates the lid of the golden box and makes it click. She doesn't hinge it open as she asks Fallon why she's interested in Princess Alyona's fate.

Of course … Alyona is one of the princesses of Glace. Behati told me about her when she showed me a drawing full of lines and letters enclosed in rectangles called a family tree. Apparently, every family has one. I long to see Fallon's, since she calls Priya, "ImTaytah," which means "mother of my grandmother." I was hoping to understand who this grandmother was, since neither Ceres Rossi nor Cathal's deceased mother are related to Priya.

I shake away the tangent my mind has taken and concentrate on Fallon's mouth, catching the tail-end of her reply…something about how knowing would appease Dádhi and Lore .

I glance at Lorcan, then at the sulking giant at my back. I'm about to hiss at him to let go, when Behati uses the word " kill " in Shabbin and brackets it with both Fallon and Alyona's names. I forget all about Cathal's unyielding grip then.

Fallon cocks an eyebrow, then asks Behati something about hair color.

The seer's forehead grooves beneath the golden-white strands that drape across it. " Kahala ." Black .

Fallon smiles at Lorcan. Again, I feel like I'm grasping at water. Why does she seem glad to learn that she kills Alyona of Glace? Because it proves she'll reemerge from the Mahananda if she goes inside to discuss the Crows' curse? And who has black hair? Alyona?

Behati blinks the shroud of magic away, murmuring something about how, in fact, the girl's features do differ from Fallon's, while Cathal mutters something in Shabbin—I imagine for my sake—about their personalities evidently being one and the same.

Priya glances toward the Mahananda where the members of the Akwale are painting sigils on the drenched sunstone. Though the clouds are still menacing, and the sky as gray as iron, Lorcan's storm has eased.

Fallon had said that knowing would reassure Dádhi and Lore . Clearly, it has. Or, at least, it's reassured Lorcan. Cathal remains tense, his pulse so loud that it rumbles from his rigid fingers into my captive arm.

When metal groans, my mind jumps to the conclusion that the ward has collapsed, but I'm wrong. The sound emanates from the box that the queen has flicked open. As she reaches inside, I hear her tell Lorcan that if his daughter— he has a daughter? —is destined to kill the Princess of Glace, then breaking his curse is all the more important for his race to survive King Vladimir's wrath.

My lungs seize around a breath, and not because the pieces of their conversation are falling into place, but because the Shabbin Queen now holds the weapon I saw her plant inside Lorcan's chest. Is that what she's about to do? Is that why Fallon trapped her mate inside the Kasha? So he would calm and allow the Mahananda's keeper to transform him into a statue? How does cursing the Crow King break his curse?

The buzzing from earlier returns, this time pressing against my eardrums instead of my temples. Though it creates a din, I somehow hear the queen explain that the Mahananda never takes, merely transforms: a Two-legs into a Crow, a Serpent into a Two-legs.

As Fallon backs up from the invisible ward, Lorcan murmurs words in a tone that chills me to the bone. I don't know what he's saying, but it sounds like a plea. Is he begging her to convince the queen not to stab him with the dagger? Is he asking her not to go barter with the Mahananda?

I might not understand his whisper, but I understand his disquiet, for the Crows have one mate, unlike the Shabbins, who have multiple, sometimes at once. I learned this when I dropped by Priya's bedchamber and found her lounging on her floor pillows with two males and one female, all of them disrobed.

After pressing a kiss to all three and wishing them a pleasant slumber, she'd turned to me and suggested a walk through the palace gardens. It was two nights after I'd shifted for the very first time. I remember sliding my gaze over the Sahklare, aglow with phosphorescent algae, and wondering if my kind mated for life like Crows, before remembering that I was the first of my kind. That I didn't have a kind. That I was the only Serpent shifter.

Unless there were others out there, waiting for me beyond the pink ramparts…

I startle out of my contemplations when I see the queen follow Fallon toward the Mahananda. And then I scream.