Shoot.Had the blood absorbed? I stick my head underwater. When I feel air sweep through the skin she’s laved, the tension in my lungs and heart slacken.
My serpent dips her nose into the water and flicks her tongue along the pads of my punctured fingers. No wound gets past her.
As her magical saliva closes the tiny wounds, my mind floods with the sight of multi-hued beasts swimming around what resembles a Tarecuorin avenue hemmed in with coral shelves that glimmer as though darned with gems. My vision tunnels in on a white marble statue. Though I’ve seen Dante’s mother only once up close—the day Dante graduated from Scola Cuori—I recognize her marble likeness immediately.
The vision fades, and I’m back in the careening surf that glimmers only with my mother’s scales and my father’s beak and claws.
That’s where I fell. Show Daya.
Remembering what Lore told me about how Shabbins can communicate telepathically with serpents, I take her large face between my palms and stare so deep into her black eyes that my vision goes a little blurry. I replay Lore’s memory, making sure to stress the marble statue.
After I blink back into the here and now, Minim—Daya doesn’t magically nod, but she pivots, and then she waits. And waits.
Grab ahold of her, Behach Éan.
I paddle closer and seize her huge tusk. When she senses I’m securely connected to her, she whips her tail and pitches us into the deep. As we dart through schools of iridescent fish that scatter like the embers of fireworks, my nausea and nerves jump ship and in their place blossoms wonder.
Though the light thins the deeper we swim, the sea life somehow brightens, and not only with other serpents, but with corals that mimic our islands, rainbow-hued like the houses of Tarecuori and Tarelexo.
Gods, if I’d known what wonders lay beneath the blue, I would’ve spent my last ten summers exploring the ocean. I’m not sure how long we swim, but my fingers numb from my snug grip. I remove one hand and stretch it out, then clasp her tusk and repeat the stretch with my other hand.
Daya slows.
Once my ten fingers overlap, I shape the word, “Go.”
She seems loathe to whip her tail. It strikes me that every time I’ve used that command in the past, it was to make her leave me.
I stare into her eyes and ferry a picture of myself strapped to her tusk like a piece of seaweed, gliding toward the trench. She chuffs like a horse, streaming tiny bubbles through her slitted nostrils, and then she whirls and flaps her fins. Although as thin and delicate as sea fans, they move us forward.
How much farther, Lore?
We’re almost there.
I crane my neck, expecting to see gondola hulls crosshatch the surface, but either it’s too early, or the storm is keeping the Fae home, because no boats, from what I can see and hear, are tearing across Filiaserpens.
I refocus on the sea floor.Will you be able to gauge the depth of your crow?
Once we reach the trench, yes.The gloominess in Lorcan’s tone coats my skin in goosebumps and dims my awe.How’s your air supply?
Perfect.
As silence settles around us again, I cannot help but wonder how I’ll know when my magic stops working—will my skin simply zipper up, or will the filtration thin before vanishing?
I’m of Meriam’s line,I reassure myself,and Meriam is an almighty sorceress.I decide that today’s not the day I find out how long I can breathe underwater.
Mind made, I relax. Well, I relax as much as one about to explore the furthest reaches of our world can.
To keep my mind off my creeping nerves, I decide to broach a subject that was on my mind the better half of yesterday.Tell me what you and Antoni discussed.
Lore’s answer is slow to come, as though he’s weighing the pros and cons of sharing it with me.His part in the future governing of Luce. The sea captain wants power.
My eyebrows twist.He flat-out confessed this?
Fallon, we’re mates. I can see into your mind. Antoni knew that it was a question of days until I sought him out to have a little discussion of my own on the subject of his allegiance. He knew that coming to me was the only way he’d get to live out his days without forever looking over his shoulder.With a sigh, he adds,I may loathe the male for coveting you, Little Bird, but as far as mortal men go, he’s quick-witted and cunning.
What did he come to you with?
A bargain.
