I don’t either.Alarm judders my daughter’s voice.
Priya raises her incendiary gaze to mine, her hair so wet, it lies matted to the oval frame of her face. “I willneverallow Lorcan inside the Mahananda. Not as long as I am queen.Never.”
I vow, in that moment, to put Zendaya on the throne.
Priya trembles from the force of her anger. “You’ve damned your people, Cathal, and you did all of this for a woman who isn’t even your mate.”
She is my mate!Our minds might not be bonded anymore, but our hearts and souls are. I felt it when we kissed. I feel it every time Zendaya’s hand brushes across my skin.
Behati lied. I’m certain of it. The same way I’m certain the pink serpent carving through the ocean belongs with me.
Fallon must read my temptation to gore Priya because she flies right into my face.OperationKeep Shabbin Queen Talon-Freestarts now.
I glower at my daughter.
Seriously.She flaps her wing in my face.Find Mother.
I afford Priya and her little ship one more scathing look before giving the ocean my full attention. My certainty that I will sense my mate begins to wane when after an hour, no Crow or Shabbin has caught even a glimpse of pink. And then dread sets in.
What if she rests at the bottom of the ocean because her gills wouldn’t lift?
What if another serpent attacked her?
When the first star pricks the horizon, my dread turns to terror. If only Priya could drain the entire ocean like she drained the Amkhuti. I wonder if she’s considering it. I wonder if she could. I’m tempted to swallow my pride and land on her ship to ask when a guttural shout rends the air.
I turn sharply, then swoop low. I expect to come across Zendaya but find only two fishermen brawling over Cauldron only knows what.
A fresh layer of fretfulness coalesces behind my breastbone as I beat my wings and rise, hunting the darkening ocean for my mate’s pink body.
Chapter 29
Zendaya
Ithink for certain that the boy’s dead the moment his body splashes the water.
I think the long piece of wood tipped in sharp metal that protrudes from his chest must’ve ended his mortal existence, but then his fingers spasm around the stalk and bubbles leak from his flaring nostrils. There’s still life in him!
He tugs on the rusted spear. Though the thing moves, it’s so long that he remains skewered upon it. His green eyes find mine in the dark, wide with desperation. I bite the wood and pull until I’ve disconnected it from his abdomen. He gasps, but the sound is consumed by the churning of water above as the fishing vessel clips away at great speed.
My blood boils with the desire to avenge the boy who threw himself in front of a spear destined for me. Though the glimpse I got of the murderer was distorted by water, I heard him speak and glimpsed yellow hair bound in a short tail.
I’ll hunt the monster and make him pay, but first…first, I lap at his victim’s gaping wound, hoping that my tongue will have the power to seal his flesh. The human’s hand falls against my cheek and strokes, before drifting away. When his body gives ahard jerk, I glance at his face. His skin is as white as the moon gilding his listless body.
It’s only then that I recall that humans can’t breathe underwater.An idiot, Zendaya. That is what you are. How could you forget such an important fact about humans?
I coil around him and lug his limp form to the surface. His chest doesn’t move. Neither do his lips. Both remain motionless, unlike my heart, which slams against every one of my bones, dumping adrenaline into my veins.
I tow the boy toward land, hoping that a Crow will spot my bright scales, snatch us both out, and carry us to the nearest town so a Lucin healer can succeed where I failed. Or Fallon! Perhaps my daughter knows a sigil that can drain his lungs and restart his heart?
I think of my grandmother as I swim. If anyone can resuscitate the male, it’ll be her. But what if she turns saving his life into a bargain to trap me inside Shabbe without Cathal? Without Fallon? I can’t risk calling upon her, so instead, I search the sky for my mate. For my daughter. For any Crow. When I catch the gleam of talons, I shift, loop my arm around the lifeless human, and yell.
A wavelet slaps me in the face before closing over my head and pressing me under. I kick my legs hard, reawakening the ache in my thigh. Something crashes over my head. I think it must be another wave, but it’s a Crow. Its talons snag my dress and then it’s lifting me. The fisherman’s body is slipping, slipping.
“Wait!” I cry out. “The boy!”
My ride must call for reinforcement, because a second Crow swoops right underneath us and hovers until I’ve released the body of my protector onto its back. And then, skimming the surface of the ocean like a skipping stone, it takes off toward thebeach and gently deposits the body there before morphing into skin—Fallon.
“Take me to Fallon,” I yell, rolling my face toward the Crow’s, recognizing him. “Please, Cathal.”
