“Welcome to the Chayagali, where only the wildest prowl.” Asha gestures to the eerie hoop of vegetation that races around the whole queendom.
According to my daily lessons with Behati, the Shadow Forest is the only part of the isle that never gets sunlight. As the vessel glides deeper into the darkness, lambent eyes peer at us from the obscurity and branches crack, trodden on by furred land beasts. Though they fight amongst themselves, they don’t attack Pink-eyes. They do, however, occasionally attack serpents.
Little bumps rise over my skin. Though magic cloaks me, does it cloak my true nature, or can the beasts sense me like I can sense them? Movement on the shore of the Sahklare snares my attention. A beast in fur the same shade as the abounding shrubs, and with eyes full-black like mine, shoulders its way to the cliff overlooking the river and sniffs the air with its flat nose.
“The tendu better not try and jump aboard,” Abrax mutters, reaching for his short sword.
I was so engrossed by the shifting landscape that I didn’t even realize he’d swapped places with Ceres.
“Have no fear, Abrax,” Asha singsongs. “Pink-eyes are near.”
Tendus are the rulers of the Chayagali, and serpents’ only predators in Shabbe. They’re fearsome creatures with a single mortal flaw—sunlight. The faintest ray will singe their hide and boil their blood, so they never venture out from the shadows they rule.
The creature’s eyes lock on mine, and it crouches with a low growl, its bladed shoulders digging into its fur. I spring my fingers off the railing. If only the Akwale could steer the boat away from the shore, but the river here is so narrow, and our ship so wide, that we’d bump into the opposite embankment.
“Periculo,” Agrippina suddenly says, proceeding to repeat the word over and over.“Periculo. Periculo.”
“What meanpericulo?” I croak.
“Danger. But it won’t attack. Not with the queen aboard,” Asha says while Agrippina repeats that single word.
Over and over and over. With each reiteration, my heart clamors louder.
She’s right. There is danger. I can sense the tendu’s malicious intent the same way it can surely sense my fear. It licks its wide mouth, flattening the fur around it. It isn’t my fear it scents; it’s the Serpent squirming beneath my skin.
The tendu leaps.
I stumble backward and bang into Asha.
The creature squeals. What I take to be a battle cry turns out to be a howl of pain, for only half of its body lands on the deck. Something severed it in half. I soon realize what that something is when iron talons dripping blood materialize out of thin air. The Crow accompanying us swoops low, squawking a warning tothe rest of the predators lurking in the shadows that the same fate awaits them if they try to board our ship.
“We should get you inside the hull.” Asha plucks my clammy hand and starts to tug me toward the front of the vessel where the Akwale are adding blood to the sigil that seals our ship to the flowing waterway when a bolt of smoke pounds into the deck.
“Corvo,” Agrippina gasps.
Ceres nods. “Si, mi cuori. Corvo.”
“Accipe me a Luce. Accipe me a Luce.”
Ceres shakes her head, then replies something with a nod in my direction, but it doesn’t seem to quiet Agrippina, who keeps repeating the same four words.
“What she say?” I murmur as Cathal growls something at Priya in Crow.
“That the Crow takes her to Luce. I think she believes Cathal is here for her.”
My lips flatten. Why would she think this? Because he’s Fallon’s father and she considers herself Fallon’s mother? The Crow isn’t here for her. He’s here for me. I know it even before I become the object of his scorching glower.
The male is furious. Because of yesterday? Because of the tendu? Because of something else that has nothing to do with me? Has his infection returned? I drop my stare to his thigh and try to concentrate on his scent when he snaps, “Help Zendaya climb onto my back. She’ll be flying the rest of the way.”
I blink as he shifts and crouches like the tendu.I’m going to fly?My heartbeats quicken and remain elevated as I peer over his shifting body toward my grandmother, waiting for her assent. It’s slow to come, but she nods. Because she senses more tendu attacks?
“You land back on board before we reach Tarecuori so I have time to refresh her sigil. Understood?”
The Crow nods as Asha and Abrax help me scale his massive form.
“Hold on to his neck,” Abrax instructs me, which makes me think he must’ve already ridden a Crow.
I do as I’m told.
