“Are you all right, Rajka?” Abrax asks, coming to stand beside me.
“Black sand,” I murmur.
“Yes. Not exactly inviting, is it?”
Not a single soul wanders on the beach, yet I can smell burning wood and baking bread, which leads me to think there must be dwellings inside the neighboring forest. “All beach in Luce black?”
“No. Only this one.” Abrax says something about the rock being volcanic, then proceeds to explain what it means, but I cannot concentrate on a word he says, because he’s just confirmed thatthisis where I will meethim.
What if I keep my distance from that beach? What happens then? Will the Mahananda change the location of our encounter?
Someone grazes my elbow—Asha. “Your grandmother is calling you.”
I blink at her, then float back to where Cathal stands, casting shadows on everyone but my grandmother. Her finger is already bleeding by the time I come within arm’s reach of her. In quick strokes, she darkens my hair and brightens my eyes, making me other.
I think of the bargain I decided to strike with Cathal, and consider striking it then and there. But the male is so proud, that if I ask him in front of an audience, odds are that he will scoff, and it’ll fan his desire to keep me from the human I’m not entirely certain Iwantto meet in the first place.
Great Mahananda, whatdoI even want?
I want to see Fallon. I want that. “Nuptials when?”
“Now. We’re just waiting for our escort. Ah, here is Justus Rossi now.” The queen turns toward a cloud of gleaming vessels crafted from wood as black as the sand on the fateful beach. “Generali!” she calls out in greeting.
“Sumaca. Welcome.” Lorcan’s Fae general bows deep, the sun burnishing the long orange and silver braid that rests against his Crow-black uniform.
The soldiers, too, wear black. They all gape at our ship filled with Pink-eyes. Though the Shabbins have ventured out of the queendom since the wards have come down, they apparently remain an arresting sight. I suppose it’ll take centuries to repair the damage that my mother reaped.
“May I lend you some air-Fae, Sumaca?” Rossi asks. “Though there’s no hurry, it’ll make your trip to Isolacuori swifter.”
After Priya nods, one of the ships sidles up to ours, which allows two men and one woman to hop aboard—all of them have gray irises like Sybille.
Fallon once explained that magic colors Faerie eyes like blood-magic colors Shabbin eyes. Gray irises master wind; red, fire; blue, water; and green, nature.
Rossi yells orders in Lucin to the soldiers, and then we’re off, clipping the waves at a speed that makes me cling to the mast for fear of being blown away. The wind is loud and cool, the air, rife with sun and salt and gyrating Crows. For a heartbeat, my lids close and my worries melt with the thrill and heat of the journey.
But then Cathal’s muttering makes them open anew. He’s glaring at the dense throng of vessels bobbing on the stretch of limpid water that separates a tiny atoll of white marble and gold from a rainbow city built around thin waterways. Isolacuori and Tarecuori. The latter is where my daughter grew up. Where she swam and befriended a serpent she named Minimus—me. Where she laughed and ran amok with Phoebus and Sybille. Where she worked inside a tavern calledBottom of the Jug, owned by Sybille’s family.
As I watch the splendor of Lorcan’s kingdom, sorrow curdles my heart for all the bygone years. “Fallon know?”
“Know what, Príona?”
I meet his gaze that is still enflamed by exhaustion and anger. “That I know sheours.”
A muscle jumps beside Cathal’s temple. “No. I thought you might want to tell her.”
I nod. “Thank you.”
The air-Fae must snuff out their magic for the sails shrivel and our ship slows.
“Cathal, I bargain for you.”
He turns toward me, his expression wavering between amusement and doubt. “I’m listening.”
“Shabbins have many mate.”
“No.”
I gasp. “I no say bargain.”
