When I give my lips another lick, one of her eyebrows arches. Why am I suddenly nervous? Not only is it my Mahananda-given right to meet the woman who made and doomed me, but it’s also the edict that comes to me straightfromthe Mahananda. “I’m ready to meet my mother.”
For a long moment, she simply stares into my face. And then she filches her letter, stands, and walks to the doors which part as though by magic. But it isn’t magic. Since the wood panels are carved, the guards stationed outside can see into the room when she allows them to.
I pinch my silk skirt to catch up with her. “Did you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“I’m ready.”
“Well I’m not, emMoti.”
“With all due respect, Taytah, it’s hardly your choice.”
“She’s my daughter. My prisoner. It isentirelymy choice.”
My lungs burn from how hard I’m breathing. “She’smymother.”
“No. Your mother was a serpent.”
My vertebrae snap into harsh alignment. “Before?—”
“Before?” Priya gives an ugly chuckle. “My daughter abandoned the girl you were before. She abandoned her withme.Iwas your mother before. Nother. Neverher.”
“I’m not asking for a one-on-one audience with?—”
“Zendaya, I said no!” Her answer is so shrill that it shivers the delicate petals of the honeysuckle vines climbing up the Kasha’s walls.
I’m about to retaliate that I’m entitled to meet the woman who murdered me when the disembodied voice rings between my temples anew: “Claim your bargain, Zendaya.”
My bargain?It takes my mind a moment to recall what bargain the Mahananda is referring to. Not that I have more than one. The second I do, though, my pulse propels so many heartbeats through my veins that I grow lightheaded and latch on to a twilit vine.
“Get this letter to Eponine of Nebba,” the queen commands one of the guards before refocusing on me. “Forgive me for raising my voice, emMoti, but talk of Meriam always agitates me. Perhaps someday, it won’t.”
I don’t say anything, too busy thinking many things. Chiefly, why is the Mahananda’s keeper going against its biddings? And secondly, how can Justus help me find Meriam?
“Priya wishes to keep the shifter races subservient to the Shabbins. Why do you think she sent Fallon into the Mahananda and not Lorcan?”
My heart patters before stilling as I recall the vision of Lorcan getting staked with obsidian. If only I’d possessed the words to tell him.
“Do not blame yourself. But find Meriam and make haste, for Behati has foreseen the future I desire, and she’s endeavoring to alter it.”
I suck in air. “Will you talk to me all the time now?”
“Earn my trust, Zendaya of Shabbe, and I will stay at your side always.”
So my grandmother doesn’t suspect my anger, I feign fatigue before padding out to the Amkhuti embankment, pursued by a little colony of moon moths and my ever-faithful Abrax. He’s quiet but concerned, and becomes even more so when I insist on being left alone. Since I cannot climb out of the moat, he indulges me, standing at a distance but keeping me in his line of sight.
When I’m certain not a single palace guard is within earshot, I whisper my bargain into the stars, my bicep tingling as the golden band fritters away. And then I settle against a tree, alternately surveying the Sahklare for an inbound ship and the sky for an incoming Crow, unsure what means of transport the Faerie will use.
The stars fade and a new dawn rises, and still the Lucin general doesn’t show. But someone else does. Did he come for me?
Chapter 42
Zendaya
“Enzo?”
My Serpent startles, his fingers slipping off the knot of the belt he wears to keep his trousers up. Clearly, he’s not here for me. He makes this all the more evident when he turns and pounds farther down the ridge.
