The corners of my vision soften. I blink the underwater world back into focus.
I don’t know if this serpent will try to attack me. The only thing I know is that I need air. And I need it now.
Without wasting another second, I shoot off the ocean floor, kicking my legs and pushing down the water with open palms. The water stirs around me, flickering yellow. I pump my arms faster, kick my legs harder. The serpent matches my speed before overtaking me. And then it begins to wrap its body around mine like a ribbon. Tighter and tighter.
Until I can no longer scissor my legs. My fingertips graze the surface. I’m there. Almost there.Don’t do this,I tell the serpent.Let me breathe. Let me live.
But the serpent isn’t like Lorcan. He cannot understand me.
His body becomes a noose as his equine face levels on mine, his eyes, black from lid to lid, holding me in their stare. I’m twelve again, in the Tarecuorin canal, but instead of a juvenile serpent with pink scales, I’m in the presence of a full-fledged adult.
The serpent drags his nostrils over the top of my head, while I dig my fingers into his body, trying to glide up and out.
Fallon.My name skates toward me, liquid like the current, pliant like Lore’s smoke, soft like his feathers.
Here!I shout back through the link before pushing harder at the body wrapped around mine.
My lungs are on fire, an inferno that’s chewing me up from the inside. My squirming only makes the serpent’s body stiffen.
I change tactics because the beast will end up breaking me, even if he doesn’t mean to. I raise my palms to his face and stroke down either side of it.
The creature opens his mouth, his teeth shining like needles. I stroke down his long face again, never staring away from his eyes. I shape the word,pleasewith my lips. His body rattles, and I’m not sure if it’s from pleasure or if it’s a warning he’s going to snap my bones like the ocean snapped the galleon.
FALLON!
The roar of my name makes me jolt.The creature yanks his face from my lax grip and hisses. At first, I think he’s hissing at me, but he’s scanning the depths, as though seeking out the source of my agitation.
I palm his hard cheek, attempting to calm him, and for a second, I think I succeed because his body stops crushing mine, but then something cuts into the water beside us, and the beast drags me down to the smashed galleon so fast my ears begin to throb.
I frame the beast’s large head between my palms and force him to stare at me, and then I nod to the surface. The serpent jerks to a stop. I nod to the surface again. A small crab sails between our faces as he blinks. In understanding? Please let him have understood me.
My name resonates again, but it sounds faint. Like it’s coming from the other side of Luce. From the other side of the world.
The serpent’s tongue darts between his lipless mouth and glides up one side of my face, then up the other. He rattles once, and then . . . and then he finally releases me. I try to tip my head toward the surface, try to kick, but I’ve no strength left. I stare at the yellow beast, who’s remained at my side, and reach out for him, hoping he’ll carry me up, but before my fingers can close around his scaled body, something cold and hard cinches my wrist and biceps, something that gleams pewter in the sandy sunlight.
Panic seizes me anew until a familiar timbre bites into my skull.You never. Ever. Disrespect a direct order from me again.
The serpent watches me float up, his black eyes gleaming in the gold of his scales.
Never.
When cool air smacks my cheeks and forehead, I gasp in a breath that burns.Although I appreciate you coming back for me, you aren’t my master, Lore.I don’t say this to anger him, only to remind him.I’m not one of your Crows. I don’t belong to you.
O ach thati,Behach Éan.Inky smoke coalesces around me, knitting into a gossamer face before unraveling and hardening into black feathers and eyes that hold an unfair amount of power.Thu leámsa.
“What in Luce does that mean?”
Lore’s beak doesn’t curve, and yet I can feel his dark smile.That you, Little Bird, belong to the sky.The crow emerges fully from the rocking surf, dark and huge, larger than I’ve ever seen it, a monster of down and iron.And that the sky . . . it belongs to me.
Seventy-Seven
Awavelet socks my face in time with Lorcan’s arrogance. I gag on both salt and his words. No oneownsthe sky, the same way no oneownsthe sea, the same way no oneownsme.
His great wings, which span the length of my body, flap as though to disprove my claim. As he rises from the surf, he swirls around my body, and I swear I feel the brush of fingers along my neck, the stroke of a thumb along my jaw.
I grit my teeth. I’m not sure what game he’s playing. I’ve already promised to free all of his crows. What more does he want from me? Subservience? Allegiance? He may be a king, but he’s not mine, and he’ll never be mine.Let’s get this over with before I change my mind about making you whole.
He clicks his talons into place around my arms, and I wind my fingers around his legs harder than necessary. I doubt it hurts him, what with his legs being made of solid metal.
