Her pink stare widens. “Where did you hear that name?”
“Kanti,” I say, even though I didn’t hear it from her. At least, not at first.
“That girl…”
“Meriam family?” I point to the queen.
“No.” Her response is so abrupt that it makes me wonder if I misheard Lorcan last night. “Let’s not talk of her anymore. It spoils my mood. What other questions do you have for me?”
“How serpent make babies, Taytah?”
She blinks at me, then murmurs, “Taytah.” She presses her palm against her chest. “I don’t think you understand what it means to me to hear you call me that.”
“Why? It’s name of mother of mother, no?”
Her long lashes sweep low. “It is.”
I point to me. “Mahananda is mother of me.” I point to her. “You mother of it.”
A beat of hesitation echoes before she says, “Yes.” She folds her legs beneath her on the cushion. “So serpent babies… The male’s reproductive organ emerges from a hollow at the base of his abdomen and penetrates the hollow at the base of the female’s abdomen.”
“Hollow?”
“A hole.”
I look down at myself even though I’m not in scales. “Do I havehollow?”
“I must admit, I didn’t look, Daya. I imagine you do, though.”
I make a note to inspect myself during my next shift.
“However, I imagine you will couple in your human form like Crows?”
“Human?”
She nods to my body.
Ah…so this is what this two-legged form is called—human.
“I could be wrong since you’re the same size as real serpents, whereas Crows are so much larger than the birds the Mahananda shaped them after. It’s possible youcouldreproduce with a serpent.”
I suddenly picture Sun Warrior trying to rub his body against mine. I don’t like the image. I want to pluck it from my mind and pitch it beyond Shabbe’s fortified walls.
“Since we’re on the subject, you failed to answer my question earlier. What do you want me to do with Sun Warrior? Should I let him stay in the Amkhuti or send him back into the Sahklare?”
I roll the seafoam silk of my dress between my fingers. “He no like me.”
The queen props her elbow on the low cushion at her back. “That’s not true, emMoti. He didn’t appreciate Cathal’s intrusion, but that’s because serpents are sensitive beings whocan feel when someone dislikes them, and that Crow likes neither humans nor animals. The only people he tolerates are his fellow Crows.”
Does that mean he dislikes me? “Taytah, who is child?”
One of her servants slips a cup of date wine inside her hand. “Anyone below the age of puberty.”
Again, she’s lost me. Though I want to know about this puberty, I decide to rephrase my question so as not to veer off course. I point to her stomach. “Youchild.”
She coughs out her swallow of wine, which dribbles down her chin. Though the attendant who handed her the cup produces a piece of cloth from his pocket, Priya uses the back of her hand to wipe her face. “Mychild?”
I nod.
