“She is.”
“But I thought…I thought she was immortal.”
“To a certain point. Once a Shabbin loses her blood, she loses her magic, and thus, her immortality.”
“How?”
“I painted the death sigil that my beloved grandmother Mara taught me before she went to slumber inside the Mahananda.” Her lips bend into a smile that is so forlorn, it confuses my heart into believing that she isn’t a monster. Or at least, not entirely monstrous. But she is. She committed matricide. “Perhaps someday I’ll teach you, batee.”
“Stop calling me daughter.”
Her emaciated throat dips. “The crown is yours.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Perhaps, but it remains yours. The Mahananda desires that you wear it, Zendaya. You. Not Kanti. Not one of the Akwale.You.”
“How do you figure,Amma? Can you converse with the source of all magic?”
“No. Only the queen has that power.”
Anger billows like smoke within me. “Then you have no clue what the Mahananda desires.”
“Behati had a vision of you wearing it. One she discussed with my mother.”
“And you know thishowexactly? Did they invite you to partake in this little conversation? Did they carry it out in front of you?”
“Justus painted a sigil on the throne room’s wall that allowed me to eavesdrop. It eventually faded, but not before I collected plenty of interesting conversations—notably the vision of you wearing the Shabbin crown and the one about the Crows’ curse.”
“Since when can Fae bloodcast?”
“Our husbands, once blood-bound, can use what runs through our veins to draw spells. Why do you think Amma never married? Why do you think the practice of blood-binding has been outlawed in Shabbe?”
Why wasn’t I aware of this? But more importantly… “You killed me once before, Meriam. You’re probably suggesting I dive into the Mahananda soIslumber for all of eternity.”
Her full lips pinch. “I never killed you.”
“I was reborn a Serpent!”
“Because I ferried your soul into another’s womb the same way you ferried Fallon’s into Agrippina’s. I wouldneverhave killed you. And not because of the spell you cast in the Holy Temple that twined our fates together.”
My pulse whooshes like a fierce current. “What spell?”
Meriam cants her head, sending her long clumped locks tumbling over a shoulder that is so sharp the bone looks about to stab through her skin. “No one told you?”
“No.”
“Not even Fallon?”
“What.Spell?”
“Right before you emptied your womb, you painted a sigil that linked my life to yours and to Fallon’s. You were so frightened that my intent was the annihilation of my bloodline. Since we were surrounded by Faeries, I couldn’t explain to you that my intent had been to end my life so that my spellswould end in turn. I wanted the wards eradicated. I wanted the Shabbins to be free and the shifters to rise anew. But because of your spell, I couldn’t put an end to the Regio reign, for if I’d killed myself, it would’ve killed you and Fallon.”
“Are you truly expecting me to believe that you planned on sacrificing yourself to free the Shabbins when you just murdered your own mother?”
“Priya was a selfish liar, ravaged by greed, who failed the Mahananda…who failedyou. Who kept you subservient and mortal, because she feared you casting her off her precious throne.”
She doesn’t have a throne, I’m tempted to snipe back, but that’s neither here nor there. My eyebrows gather so close they kiss my retracted tusk. “You mean to say that she’s known all along how to make me immortal?”
