I shake my head, the bumps on my skin receding. What an odd specimen Dádhi Cathal Báeinach is—always watching me, yet abhorring when anyone else does.
As I carve through the liquid expanse toward my ladder, he wheels over the sprawling moat, wingspan as wide as my serpent body is long, gaze pummeling the bloom-spangled foliage formore intruders. Not even my guards are out at this late hour. Most Two-legs sleep when the stars come out and wake when the stars extinguish.
I find I much prefer to drift from dream to dream when the sun is at its apex. At first, I wondered if it was a shifter trait, but soon discovered it was ame and my Crow sentrytrait. We seem to be the only two souls voluntarily awake from sundown to sunup. Though it could be that his wakefulness isn’t deliberate. That he has no choice since the Two-legs who guard me cannot trail me when I’m in scales. Not to mention that my guards have homes and families they’re eager to return to when off-duty. From what I’ve gathered, Dádhi Cathal Báeinach has no female, and his home is across Samurashabbe, in a land some call Luce, others,Rahnach Bi’adh—the Sky Kingdom.
By the time I’ve clambered up the vine ladder, the cool, shimmering droplets on my skin have dried into a veil of salt, toughening the beads of duskier flesh on my chest. I’ve yet to understand their use, or why they vary in size, or why they harden when the air is brisk and soften like butter in the heat.
The first time I observed this phenomenon, I’d worried they would melt like wax and had fingered them so many times that Dádhi Cathal had growled at the guards in attendance, which had made a lovely sound spill from Asha’s lips. She’d later explained that it was called laughter and that it’s produced when someone feels joyous. Obviously, my winged guard, who now stands on two legs beside me, scarcely feels jubilant, for I’ve never heard him produce this bright melody.
Although clothing reappears on my body once I shift out of my Serpent form, I dislike the sensation of wet cloth, so I swim in the nude.
Severe gaze pinned to the palace sentries, Dádhi Cathal holds out the purple fabric I cast off before tonight’s swim. “Dréasich,” he grumbles.
I wish he’d speak in the tongue Fallon and Asha are teaching me, especially since he’s fluent in it. I’ve heard him carry on entire conversations with Behati and Asha in Shabbin.
As I relieve him of the dress, I behold his fingers. They aren’t tipped in iron when he’s in skin, but they’re just as alarming—long enough to circle my neck, thick enough to shell it whole. A shiver scurries up my spine. Has he ever used those fingers to harm another? Would he ever use them to harm me?
Something tickles my arm after I’ve fed it through the sheer sleeve—a land serpent as slender as my pinkie. My lips curve as I herd the animal onto my palm and caress its scaly throat before setting it on a wide, heart-shaped leaf. What did Fallon call these miniature serpents again?Che-something.Chehpah?Chepassee?
“Chepahsslee!” The word trips off my tongue in a hiss that makes the Crow swing around to face me. My cheeks blister like the pads of my fingers had the day I touched candlelight.
His eyebrows, barely distinguishable amongst the black stripes he wears, taper as he asks me—in Shabbin—whether I spoke.
I’m so stunned that he’s used my homeland’s tongue that I freeze. He reiterates his question. I keep myself from nodding, worried he’ll make me repeat myself. Until I work out how to eradicate my hissing, I intend to keep practicing words in the privacy of my chambers.
I scrutinize the star blooms that dapple the hedges of the palace gardens, my inhalations so brisk that my lungs cramp around the deep, dusky fragrance that lifts off the Crow’s neck.
“Daya?” The male makes the fragment of my name sound so brutal that my fingers tremble as I belt my robe with a braided strand of violet silk.
Pretending like I didn’t hear him call out my name, I sidestep him and follow the serpentine walkways toward my wing of the palace.
Dádhi Cathal fractures into smoke and reappears on my path. My breath catches when I almost bump into him, and I clap my chest.
“Chepahlee.” There’s no hiss when he pronounces the word.
I tilt my head.
He dips his chin before creating another sound: “Deark.” When I frown, he adds, “In Crow,chepahleeisdeark.”
Durrk. I slot the single syllable away to rehearse later.
He rolls his lips, pinkening the flesh framed by bushy black hair. The day the Mahananda turned my scales to skin, I’d touched his jaw. I do it again tonight, but with a new intent. That of understanding what it’s called.
“Dahadee.” His harsh intonation makes my nerves skip and my hand lower. “Dahadee. Fruhlag.”
That must be the name of the hair that grows on his face. I do not have a word for it in my mind’s tongue. Because the language inside my head is that of a serpent, and serpents do not have hair on their bodies? Then again, I have the word forhair…
I touch my own jaw—smooth. Will it stay this way, or willdahadeesprout there someday?
The Crow’s nostrils flare with a chuff and a single corner of his mouth tucks upward. Is that a lip spasm or is the forever-austere male smiling?
Dádhi Cathal shakes his head, which sends his tousled black locks sailing in all directions. “Mahala nahen dahadee.”
I startle that he’s read my mind.
He points to me. “Mahala.” Female. He points to himself. “Parush.” Male.
I smile because I learned the distinction when I stared a little too long at what hung between the legs of Fallon’s golden-haired friend, Phoebus, the day he joined us in the balmy stone chamber where I was divested of body hair. I’m sad the Faerie left Shabbe, but I also understand that he wanted to join his mate back home.
