My thoughts evaporate when five streaks of darkness strike the platform and knit into the shape of Lorcan Ríhbiadh. Like Cathal, he wears leather and iron. Like all the other monarchs, he wears a crown, though his is so thin and simple, it gets lost in his wind-tossed black locks. He extends his hand toward the sky. A Crow sweeps low before becoming smoke and finally flesh.
Fallon’s appearance causes another wave of goosebumps to dash across my skin. It also causes the water to churn and foam around the platform. I think an air-Fae must be blowing on the bobbing platform, which agitates my heart, but soon realize the commotion isn’t Faerie-made.
Dozens of serpents rise and slap the water around Fallon, all of them seeking her attention, which she gives them in spades. While she crouches to stroke their tusks and the skin around them, Lorcan speaks words in Lucin to his people. I don’t even attempt to glean what he’s saying, my skin tightening and tightening.
“Taytah,” I whisper.
“What is it, emMoti?”
“I need?—”
“What do you need?”
My fingers jerk out of hers. “I need—I need shift.”
“Right now? You cannot repress…”
I shake my head, my vision crackling at the edges, my bones aching. If I don’t dive into the water, I will shift right here on the deck and everyone will see what Priya took such care to hide.
Her warning about Faeries slaughtering serpents brightens my mind. What if one of them tries to kill me? What if the Nebban queen grows vines and trusses me up in them? Could she squeeze the air from my lungs? Could she kill me?
My ears buzz. My jaw clenches. A blaze pricks my forehead.
“Asha, dive with her,” Priya murmurs.
Asha removes her weapon’s belt and tosses it at Abrax.
“And do not let her wander.”
“I won’t leave her side, Sumaca,” Asha promises, already painting the stripes along her neck that will help her breathe underwater.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur, my lips tingling as hard as the rest of me.
Asha grins. “I was getting too hot, anyway.”
She jumps in before me, which garners quite a lot of attention.
“What if…?” I side-eye the serpents around the wedding platform, but the more I stare at them, the more my desire to shift becomes pressing.
The queen brackets my cheeks. “Every serpent in the ocean is your friend, emMoti. You are safe.”
I blink away the heat creeping under my lashes.
“You—are—safe,” she repeats, and then she kisses my forehead that tingles so hard, I push away from her before I spear her mouth and jump in after Asha.
The instant my skin connects with the ocean’s salt, my scales pop free. For a moment, I’m overwhelmed by bliss, as though my human flesh had been compressing all of my organs, but then I catch sight of the whirlwind of serpents ringing the wooden platform upon which my daughter stands. I snap into movementand muscle past them. Although they hiss and bleat, I shove them aside, using both my tusk and body, which are significantly larger than theirs.
And then I spring my face out of the water. It is only once my gaze meets Fallon’s that I calm. She blinks at me, then glances over her shoulder at the Shabbin ship as though to ascertain that I’m missing from it. At Priya’s nod, her face spins back toward me. Cathal’s, too. Where Fallon smiles, he scowls and pops his fingers into fists.
Fallon presses her lips to the slit that is my ear in this form and murmurs, “Mádhi, I will always love you most.”
I gobble down her words, hissing when a blue serpent attempts to steal Fallon’s attention.
She kisses my nose before standing. I stare as Justus hands Lorcan a golden crown that isn’t the same as his. Though simple, it’s composed of sticks of gold that stick up like my tusk. The king speaks a few words before slipping the crown into Fallon’s braided hair. And then he molds her waist with his palms and slants his mouth over hers.
The music slows, coming to a standstill before picking up in both volume and speed when Fallon and Lorcan break apart under a thunder of smacking palms that has me twisting around and around.
It’s all so loud, so pungent, so much. My crazed gaze snares Cathal’s a second before I topple back, and my place is usurped by another serpent craving Fallon’s attention.
