Would it be strong enough to lift her giant body into the rivers that flow upward, toward the ocean? I’m guessing it’s a possibility, considering Priya has stationed sorceresses at every junction. Sorceresses who dribble blood into the water. I vaguely remember the Shabbin Queen mentioning nets during supper last night. Is that what they’re doing? Casting a spell to keep the female serpent caged in the moat?
I flick my attention to the white-haired monarch, who kneels at the water’s edge and wriggles her fingers. Daya swims up to her, her giant white tusk carving through the surf. I spy her forked black tongue emerging from her maw and wrapping around her grandmother’s fingers.
The wordsshift backstick to my iron beak, tacky like the humid air.
Priya tries to seize her granddaughter’s equine-shaped head. Her movements must be too abrupt for Daya’s liking because the latter lunges back, then sinks so deep, her color dims.
I jolt as Fallon shifts in mid-air, her fingers swiping against the sides of her neck a second before joining in front of her.Even though I sense she must’ve painted gills on either side of her neck, I drop lower, ready to dive in after her if the creature that my former mate has turned into decides to…to hurt our…mydaughter.
Calm down.Lorcan’s voice blisters my temples.
I send him a scathing look.
Fallon’s reminding Daya of her human form. Daya’s calm. She listens.
The circles I fly tighten until I’m all but spinning on myself like a top, dizzy with panic.Come on, Princess. Come on.
Like a tree riven by lightning, Daya’s pink tail splits and retracts into legs, and then the water around her body shimmers and foams. When its radiance dulls, two women tread water.
My daughter.
And my…my nothing.
Chapter 1
Zendaya
Ipeer up through a cluster of fish that glow like stars and seehim.
He is always there. I believe it’s because he worries I might find a way to leap up into the Sahklare—the rivers that flow through the queendom—and escape into the ocean beyond the great walls of my home. He forgets I’ve neither the ability to make the waterline rise, nor to sprout wings, so I cannot escape the Vahti—or Vale, as I’ve heard the Crows call it.
How I long to wander, though. If only I had the words to ask the queen to show me the land over which she rules. Perhaps the Crow with three names could give me a tour on his back. The thought brings my swim to an abrupt halt. That male would never accept to be ridden. I suppose I could ask Fallon or her friend, Aoife, or possibly Aodhan, the only three Crows whose lips curve at the sight of me when every other shifter’s lips flatten.
Especially the Crow pacing over the stars overhead. The corners of his mouth never rise. Not for me. Not for anyone. Not even for his daughter. He wears his anger like I wear the ocean’ssalt, in a thin, coarse layer that forever envelops my flesh and seasons the air.
If only I could read the reason for his menacing mood off his palms. Unlike Pink-eyes, though, Crows—save for Fallon—cannot communicate with their hands, only with their mouths. More often than not, the Crow above me uses that orifice to growl raucous words that sound like tumbling seashells and shivering hedges.
I lap around the Vahti once more, dashing through hordes of fish that used to scatter at my approach but now trail after me. If only the creatures on land could also surpass their fear of me and comprehend that I’m no predator.
I flick my tail, thrusting my body toward the vine ladder that my Shabbin guard, Asha, knotted to the trunk of a date palm so that I could bathe in the Amkhuti at will. I close my lids and picture my other form, the one which allows me to tread land and steal air from the sky.
My pulse hastens.
My scales tighten.
My tusk twinges.
My bones grind.
Seven heartbeats later, I shrink into a creature made of skin instead of scales, of limbs instead of fins. One heartbeat faster than yesterday. I am improving. Perhaps someday, I will be able to shift as fast as Fallon. I roll onto my back and float atop the starlit waters of the Amkhuti, my waist-long hair, that is fanned out like seaweed, tangling around my smooth arms. My toes poke out from the placid surf, the same hue as my locks, thanks to the coat of polish that one of the palace attendants applied before she plucked every hair off my body, leaving me with only the bundle atop my head and above my eyes. When she’d smoothed the warm wax over my skin, I’d frowned. When she’d removed it, I’d hissed and snarled.
If Fallon hadn’t pressed her palms to my forehead to show me that it was a Shabbin custom, I would’ve stormed out of the humid stone room. But I hadn’t. I’d borne the discomfort, so desperate was I to belong.
Fallon may claim I’m a shapeshifter like her and her people, but I am nothing like them. Not only am I not part of a flock, but the shape I take is also different. I’ve neither feathered arms to carry me skyward nor metal protuberance with which to pinch. I have a tail I can snap to glide through water, an ivory horn I can wield like those blades Two-legs carry, and a forked black tongue which can heal flesh wounds.
I’m a creature that inspires fear in almost all. In a corner of my mind, I believe that once I learn to string together all the sounds Two-legs produce…once I’m able to comprehend their meaning, I will be gazed at with kinder eyes. Then again, my Crow sentry can produce all those sounds, yet he still causes pulses to hasten. Even his king—Fallon’s mate—is less feared. Perhaps because Lorcan Ríhbiadh’s tone is more dulcet, and his demeanor, less forbidding.
A screech rents the night, making my skin pebble, not with scales, but with those same bumps Two-legs develop upon beholding me. I hinge at the waist, sinking back into the water, then pitch my head backward to glimpse what’s got the Crow with three names so agitated. Though he’s black like the heavens, I don’t miss his trajectory toward the cliff opposite the palace, nor do I miss how a Two-legs scrambles away from the stone sill.
