I inhale through my nose, then clear my throat and spit out a glob that foams against the damp, pink sand. There are no beaches in the Vahti, which means…which means I must’ve swam out of Shabbe.
I crane my neck. Before me looms a shimmering sunstone wall. It reaches so high it melts into the cloudless blue. Are those the ramparts? Did Cathal carry me out of?—
Why is there another wall behind us?
I push into sitting, my gaze skipping over the curved beach, surrounded by curved walls.
“Priya drained the Amkhuti because she didn’t trust me to fly you out of it.” Shadows squirm across the jagged edges of Cathal’s face, not all of them created by the white sheet snapping over us.
I trail the sheet to four wooden posts planted inside the sand, then squint because…where are all the fish? Where is Sun Warrior?
Cathal must read my anguish because he says something about the Akwale herding the animals into the Sahklare.
The queen drained the moat. What an extreme measure to reach me.
“You’ve been asleep for days, Daya,” Cathal says, releasing my hair but remaining in a low crouch.
I turn toward him, taking in his purple-rimmed eyes. “Days?”
He nods, sliding his tongue over his lips that are pale with salt and peeling skin. I reach up and touch them. Cathal stiffens but doesn’t move. Though his lips aren’t ample like mine, they feel gritty and taut.
“Need water.” My voice is no more than a thin croak.
“I’ve got some right here.” He reaches around him for a jug and offers it to me.
Though I need some, too, I push the jug toward him. “You.”
His lashes flutter.
“Drink,” I command.
He does, but his sip is reluctant, as though I were forcing him to ingest something rank. Which reminds me… I drop my attention to his leather-clad thigh. The trousers are either new or have been hemmed seeing that there’s no more tear in them.
“How infection?”
He presses the jug into my hands, but keeps his palm on the bottom of it. “Small sips,” he instructs, right before murmuring, “Gone.” And then, because I sit there in shock, he lifts the jug and proceeds to feed me the sweet water.
My throat burns, and I cough.
“Sips, Príona.”
My next mouthful is tiny.
He splashes water into his palms, then rubs it across my brow, but my skin is caked in so much sand that his attempt at cleaning it is surely pointless. Still, I appreciate his little act of kindness.
“Zendaya!” the queen’s voice makes me twist. She traipses down stairs of her blood’s making, Behati on her arm. Once she reaches the bottom and Behati is stable on her cane, the queen lets go of the seer and streaks toward me.
My Crow’s jaw flexes. “I told them heartbreak was keeping you from shifting back.” At my frown, he adds, “Fallon’s departure. I didn’t want to tell them that you broke our new curse because…because, Mórrígan forgive me, but I’m not entirely certain whether I trust they didn’t inflict it upon us in the first place.”
I stare at him.
“I won’t keep you from telling them, but possibly…wait? I’d like us to discuss this with Lore and Fallon. Would you mind waiting?”
I shake my head.
He mouths a silentthank youas he straightens, the top of his head brushing against the canopy.
The lilac silk gloving the queen’s body coils around her legs like windblown petals. “I want you to promise me to never again stay in scales for so long. I thought…I thought you’d ventured up one of the waterrises to follow Fallon until Cathal explained you were moping down here.”
