He shudders. “Zendaya, do you swear to me that this is what the Cauldron said?”
“I know you’ve been duped before, Lorcan Ríhbiadh, so I won’t take offence in your question, but understand that I willneverintentionally hurt my daughter or your people.Never.”
For a long moment, the four of us stand there in the quiet stillness of the Chayagali. Though tendus surely prowl nearby, though my daughter is about to lose her ability to shift, a sense of righteousness drapes over the four of us. I know I’m not the only one to feel it because Lorcan asks Cathal to carry me back, and then he takes off with Fallon for her final flight.
“Dalich,” Cathal murmurs, a second before transforming and crouching.
As I climb onto his back, I wonder what he’s sorry for—not believing me when I told him it was his idea to be stripped of the memory or avoiding me? I decide to leave it be for now. Once my daughter and her mate reemerge from the Mahananda, safe and sound and immune to obsidian, I’ll request that Cathal and I have a long and private conversation.
When we reach the Vahti, Fallon and Lore are already stepping onto the source of all magic. My pulse hitches when they sink, and my fingers tighten around the feathers at Cathal’s neck. He cycles over the courtyard. When he doesn’t angle lower, I realize he has no intention of landing. I suppose we’re just as well off pacing the stars.
I don’t blink. Not once. I stare and stare at the opaque silver surface.
Can they see us like I saw them?
Are they in pain?
Why’s it taking so long?
It had been much quicker the day Fallon went in on her own, hadn’t it?
A ripple disturbs the Mahananda’s surface.
And then a head of black hair. Lorcan’s.
I wait with bated breath until a second head pierces the surface, and even then, my lungs refuse to contract.
Fallon twirls, surely looking for us.
Lorcan must tell her we’re still flying, because she cranes her neck up to find us. I didn’t think I still had air in my lungs to breathe out, but I must, for a gasp whooshes out of me when our eyes collide.
Pink.
Her eyes are Shabbin-pink.
Chapter 60
Zendaya
As soon as Cathal lands, we find an obsidian blade. It penetrates Lorcan’s skin without even leaving a blemish. Cathal tries it on himself next, choosing to slice across his pinkie this time. He heals instantly. The relief that paints Lorcan’s features is only shadowed by the altered hue of his mate’s eyes.
“Is pink not your new favorite color, mo khrá?” she teases him.
Like Cathal and me, Lorcan hunts her face for any sign that her cheer is false.
She purses her lips. “All right…can we stop with the pity party you’re all throwing me? I’ve no regrets.None.” She says the wordnonein every language, save for Crow, which she no longer understands, but which she’s decided to relearn immediately. “I’m extremely serious. If you don’t all stop, I will go find Phoebus and a bottle of date wine and—and make new friends.”
She starts a countdown. Afraid she truly will up and vanish, I smile and ask her for help canvassing the palace for concealed sigils. We find six—one in the queen’s chambers, one in mine, one in the Kasha, one in my Serpents’ common room, one inBehati’s ruined quarters, and one in Fallon and Lore’s wing. I assume there are more.
“How does Kanti still have blood to cast with?” Fallon asks.
As we bleed the walls to cleanse them, I imagine it’s Kanti’s chest that’s bleeding. A terrible but not unwarranted thought.
“Why did you allow her back into Shabbe again, Amma?”
I startle that Fallon uses the Shabbin term for Mother instead of the Crow one before remembering that she must no longer know the Crow one. In truth, I don’t much mind. As long as she considers me her mother, she can call me by any name.
“So?” she prompts me as we do one more sweep of my Serpents’ quarters.
