6. Zendaya

Chapter 6

Zendaya

I consider resting but cannot lie still, so after Abrax drops me off, I sneak out of my private gardens and dive into the Amkhuti without any palace sentry being the wiser. The instant my body meets water, I morph, and then I swim hard and fast. When my muscles ache and my energy wanes, I just float, barely flicking my tail. The clouds start to thin, the air grows lighter, the world brighter.

Do clement skies mean Lorcan has calmed? Has he forgiven Fallon? He must have if they are all leaving tonight. Unless she's not going? What am I thinking? Of course she will leave. Mates cannot live without one another. I must drift off while mulling this over, because suddenly, my body bangs against rock.

I startle awake. Though there's no pain, my surprise is so great that I wink out of my Serpent form and into my Two-legs' one. I whisper Dádhi Cathal's favorite word: " Focá ." I'm not entirely certain what it means, but since he uses it when something goes wrong, it seems appropriate. Not only is the sun a burst of faded gold, but I also coasted all the way across the channel that separates the palace from the rest of Shabbe. How didn't I notice the current snatching my body? Though a tad distressed, curiosity tempers my alarm.

I paddle toward one of the liquid curtains that link the Amkhuti to every river flowing through Shabbe and stick my palm in the wall of glistening droplets. The pressure is strong, but is it strong enough to carry my body up the steep cliff wall? Naturally, I test this out. No sooner have I penetrated the liquid screen that I begin to rise. My marveling is cut short by a shrill squawk.

I lurch sideways, flopping back into the Amkhuti. My body sinks, but my heart…it feels like it's scaling up my throat. Iron slices into the water, followed by an enormous feathered body. I squeak and kick my feet to get out of the creature's way, but apparently, I am his way, since the giant bird swims after me, using his wings like I use my limbs.

I twist around, recognizing Dádhi Cathal by the force of his glower. I don't think he's ever stared at me with such absolute fury. Because I left my quarters without warning anyone or because I just discovered how to venture out of my gilded cage?

My lungs squeeze and a trickle of bubbles sneaks out of my mouth. Though I can breathe underwater in this form, too, I swim back to the surface. I mustn't go fast enough to the Crow's liking, however, for he swoops beneath me, forcing my legs apart until I straddle his back.

I just have time to clutch the feathers at his neck before he carves out of the water and into the sky, toward the Vahti, which sits like a frosted cake on a golden platter. The air is sweet but so cold at this altitude that I shiver, the dusky caps on my chest tightening into points that could surely whittle sunstone.

In mere heartbeats, we're landing in my private garden. Dádhi Cathal crouches and I slide off. As I wring my hair, he shifts back into skin and growls at me in Crow. Actually, not in Crow; in Shabbin. He's asking if I've lost my mind.

I frown, because minds are inside heads, and since mine is attached to my shoulders, his question makes no sense.

But then he says something that makes a lot of sense. "I will kill Abrax and Asha."

I snap my rope of hair behind my shoulders, then stalk up to the Crow and hiss, "If harm them, I kill you."

That knocks his lips shut. It also knocks his eyebrows low. So low that the black arcs of hair tangle with the swoop of his thick lashes.

I poke him in the chest with a finger—it feels like poking a wall—and warn him that I'm serious, then toss my hands in the air and bellow, "Look me. I safe!"

My exclamation gives me pause. In which language are we arguing? It's the first time the syllables pop so naturally off my tongue that I cannot tell.

I stretch my lips over more words, speaking slower this time—not for the Crow's sake, but for my mind's. "Glad you leave tonight." Shabbin. Definitely Shabbin.

It's as though anger has made all the words I've learned layer themselves over their Serpent equivalents.

I'm still reeling from this phenomenon when Cathal's mouth slits into a crooked smile that demolishes my wonder.

I fold my arms. "Why you smile?"

"Because, Príona "—he takes a step into my body, the leather cuirass he wears over his long-sleeved black top punching into my little beads—"I'm not going anywhere." The corner of his mouth that hadn't yet lifted flips upward.

"But Abrax say all Crows?—"

"Except me."

"But you second to King."

"You hid your hand well, Daya."

Though both my hands are buried beneath my elbows, I don't understand what their position has to do with our conversation.

"Barely one full moon cycle, and you're fluent in Shabbin. Is that how long it will take you to master Crow?"

I still don't grasp the connection between my hands and my understanding, but I choose to focus on a more pressing matter. "Why you no leave?"

"Because I do not trust Asha and Abrax. Or you, for that matter."

My arms tighten. "You no trust to what ?"

"I don't trust them to keep you safe, and I don't trust you not to find a way into the ocean."

"I belong to ocean," I remind him.

"No, you belong to—" He stops talking so suddenly that I peer around the tall shrubs aglow with star blooms and phosphorescent moths, assuming that we have company.

We don't.

I cant my head. "Where I belong, Dádhi Cathal?"

He blinks. Then blinks again. And then he grimaces. "Dádhi?"

"Isn't that name?"

His lids squeeze so hard that his lambent gaze becomes a striation on his kohl-striped face, like those iridescent veins in sunstone. "It's not a name anyone but Fallon should be using."

"Why?"

"Because it means Father in Crow."

Oh.

I suddenly see how that is inappropriate, but it does beg the question: "What she call me sound same."

Like those marauding barracudas that taunt the smaller fish, his lips part and then shut, part again before shutting again.

"What mean Mádhi in Crow?"

The spike in his throat jostles. I noticed only males have it. I heard they were called after a fruit that doesn't grow in Shabbe. I've yet to understand why males store fruit in their necks and not females.

"So?"

"It means"—he rolls his neck, making it crack—" favorite older female ."

I can feel my brow crinkle. "I old?"

"You're, um…" He hooks a finger in his shirt collar and tugs. "Older than my daughter."

"How old me?"

"Your serpent was born a few moons before Fallon."

"So I almost same age as daughter…"

"You're—you're—I suppose that yes, you are." Is it me, or is his jaw crimson?

"Why you red?"

"I'm not red," he grumbles, snatching his hand away from his shirt and smacking his leather pants. He winces as his fingers connect with his thigh, springing that ripe, stomach-churning scent into the air between us.

"No heal?"

His eyebrows slant, so I gesture to his leg.

"Want me try?"

His chin lowers. "Try what?"

"Heal you." I tap my lips. "With magic tongue."

Although it seems impossible, his flush intensifies. "I—" He clears his throat. "No. I'm a Crow. My body will repair itself."

"But I repair fast." I begin to kneel when he fractures into smoke and reappears beside the farthest hedge.

"Get dressed." His tone is as cold as his stare. "You're late for the farewell supper."

I cock an eyebrow as I straighten. "You odd male, Dádhi Cathal."

He grumbles something about how I shouldn't call him Dádhi because he's not my father.

I glance at him over my shoulder as I head to my bedchamber. "But you say I same age as Fallon, so possible."

"No. It's not possible." His skin now resembles a berry. "You're not my daughter," he all but snarls.

His reaction strikes me as disproportionate. "I sorry I no understand word."

He cuts his gaze to my shimmering hedge. "Supper will start in thirty minutes." Even though his tone is flat, the throbbing vein at the base of his neck betrays his jagged mood.

With a sigh, I climb up my balcony's stone stairs, my hair still dripping seawater into the runnel of my spine, and I think about what he confessed before he got angry: that he isn't leaving. Surely another Crow can relieve him of his loathed guarding duties. Perhaps the one named Aodhan who doesn't hate me on sight.

As my bath fills, I practice the question I will ask the queen tonight, then practice it some more as I massage nut oil into my skin and hair. I speak it aloud one final time as I slip into the backless pink sheath that feels like water against my skin.

I drag my fingers through the steam filming my mirror and articulate the title she's asked me to call her: "Taytah." Mother of my mother . I suppose it's appropriate since she's the Mahananda's keeper and I'm its daughter, though it admittedly feels a little odd to have a special word for her when she insists everyone else—save for Fallon—call her Priya or Sumaca.

I start over: "Taytah, I no desire Cathal; I desire other Crow—Aodhan." I've noticed that if I add volume to my pitch, it abates my hissing, but powering my words means making them ring louder.

Am I ready for Shabbe to hear my odd voice? No . But am I ready to be rid of the male who doesn't trust me? Yes .