“It seems that word of the princess’s dip has spread,” Kanti murmurs.
My jaw feels like granite. “They better not be thinking of jumping in.”
“The fine for swimming in the Amkhuti would drain their savings.” Kanti’s pink eyes scan the distant shoreline. “Besides, who truly wants to dive in with a wild creature?”
I snap my attention back to the tall Shabbin female. “Wild creature?”
“Yes, Cathal.” Kanti narrows her eyes on me. “Wild. For all we know, the serpent version of Zendaya will be a ruthless carnivore.”
“Like us Crows?” My brusque tone must reach Zendaya, for her gaze slides over me, then over Kanti who doesn’t even bother looking her way, much less smiling at her.
Ever since the wards crumbled and the Cauldron brought Daya back, Kanti, who’s of Priya’s bloodline, is no longer next in line for the throne.
“In her human form, she doesn’t eat meat, so I doubt she’ll have a taste for it in scales.” Fallon’s tone sparks with antipathy.
“You’re probably right,” Kanti concedes. “I wonder if she’ll be larger than she was the day Cathal plunged her into the Mahananda.”
I shudder at the reminder of how we got here.
“Do you think she’ll be able to communicate with fish?” Kanti asks.
“I can’t communicate with pigeons,” Fallon snipes, “so I doubt my mother will speak Minnow.”
Kanti snorts as though Fallon had cracked a joke. “Oh, you know what I mean, chacha.”
Fallon scowls, loathing when Kanti calls her ‘cousin,’ for it reminds my daughter that the same blood flows through their veins.
“Technically,” Kanti continues, evidently not done giving her opinion, “your mother was born a serpent and you were born human, so maybe I’m not entirely off the mark.”
Could Kanti be onto something? Even though Zendaya’s shown herself an avid listener, she’s yet to utter an intelligible word. Or even a sound, for that matter.
Where most believe she’ll never be capable of talking, Fallon and I are convinced it’s a matter of time before she proves the world wrong. Then again, I still believe that I’ll wake up to the sound of Zendaya’s voice in my mind.
My nostrils flare, cycling a ragged exhale against Fallon’s dark-auburn locks. I’ve become delusional. The bond I shared with Zendaya is gone, and forever at that, according to Priya, who conferred with the Cauldron on my behalf.
Gone, like my brother Cian.
Like his mate Bronwen.
Like the Regio dynasty.
Like the wards around the queendom.
I’m tempted to kneel beside the source of all magic and barter a piece of my soul for another chance at being Zendaya’s mate, but I’d be wasting my breath for the Cauldron only listens to its guardian.
The belt on Daya’s twilight-blue robe falls like a pitched snake at her feet. Although it makes no sound, I feel as though it smacks the earth like an anchor chain. She parts her robe, letting it drift down her shoulders, her back, her ass, her legs. Lorcan glances away, but everyone else, men and women alike, stare. I want to gouge out their eyes with my iron talons. I want to choke her perfect hourglass figure in my smoke.
I do neither, for her body isn’t mine to shield or possess.
Her body isn’t mine, period.
I grit my teeth. Even though the woman inching toward the water is different than the one I fell in love with two decadespast, when she’s near, my heart beats fiercely and my skin burns. How I long to shape her waist like I did the day she teetered out of the Cauldron. How I long to feel the probing scrape of her fingertips against my beard.
“Breathe, Dádhi,” Fallon instructs as she trails her mother’s progress.
I haul in a breath, hold it until my lungs ache, and gasp it out only when Zendaya jumps. I move away from Fallon to shift and take to the skies. My heart misses a beat. Two. Three. Four.
Another Crow circles the liquid trench—Fallon. Her violet eyes are trained on the moat, on the serpent undulating through its limpid waters, pink scales refracting the rising sun. I soar as fast as Daya swims, dread coalescing beneath my feathers that she will dart sideways, toward one of the rising falls.
