Though I’ve never heard the expression, I twig its meaning. I give her a sad smile and hesitate to tell her that nothing willever beright as rainagain, but I cannot get my throat to move around more than a distressed swallow.
I stroke her cheek that is perched as high as her father’s, even though it’s curved like mine. Cathal and I might not share a mind link, but we share something even more precious. We shareher.
I give her one last hug before finally turning toward my grandmother and the life the Mahananda has in store for me.
Chapter 31
Zendaya
Suns and moons rise and fall, and although Fallon keeps her promise of visiting, her father doesn’t come once. She tells me that he’s busy in Nebba, ferreting out every last stock of serpent poison. It’s been five weeks. Either he truly is going door to door, or he’s using his hunt as an excuse to avoidmydoor.
Thankfully, I’ve got a new Serpent and an insatiably curious Asha to keep me distracted. Upon our return to Shabbe, my female guard stole into the healer’s library and borrowed a book about poisons. After reading it cover to cover, she suggested that Enzo and I start ingesting a minuscule amount of serpent toxin daily in order to build a natural resistance. I thought her idea was brilliant; my grandmother did not. She went so far as to threaten to dismiss Asha if my guard ever suggested harming her granddaughter again.
I reassured Asha that she would never be dismissed. And then, after explaining Asha’s theory, I asked Fallon to procure us some serpent poison. Reluctantly, she had.
I now possess a palm-sized vial filled with shimmering lavender flakes. It seems incredible that something so innocuous-looking—pretty, even—could create so muchdamage. Once a day, after breakfast, since I still prefer to slumber during the hottest hours, I ingest a single flake. Always under either Asha’s or my daughter’s watch.
The first time, it had prickled my airway before settling on my lungs like a damp cloth. Fallon had paled and bloodied her finger, ready to flay my throat open like Taytah had done, except in human form, it wasn’t my throat that ached, but my lungs.
I’d kept her trembling finger at bay, since I could still manage faint wheezes. By the time the sun dipped beneath the horizon, the pressure on my lungs had eased. My daughter saidnever again, but I did it again. And again. A week into my makeshift treatment, I even upped my dose to two flakes because one no longer affected my lungs. It seemed like the book Asha had read had been telling the truth: Iwasdeveloping a resistance to the toxin.
Asha suggested starting Enzo on the same regimen, but hurting the sweet creature felt wicked.Yes…he was sweet. Unfortunately. How I’d wished he were awful.
Anyway, I’d told her that if I managed to swim in freshwater, we’d begin dosing him as well, but until we tested the result, I’d spare him the unpleasant side-effects. I was now at five flakes per day. I still couldn’t shift inside my bathtub. When I suggested a trip to Isolacuori, my poor daughter turned as green as Enzo’s hair, so I let it go.
For now.
I’d eventually need to test my immunity, but I wouldn’t risk doing so without a Shabbin present, preferably my daughter, because she was of royal bloodline, so her magic was superior to Asha’s.
What I wouldn’t give to show the Fae back in Luce what I’ve become.Enzo’s voice carries my mind off my contemplations and onto his sprawled form. He rests beside meon my patio sofa, absorbing the nascent rays of sunshine.How high the bumbler has risen.
I take his hand in mine and give it a squeeze. His fingers are long and bony, like the rest of him, in spite of all the rich food Asha feeds him. “Never call yourself a bumbler in my presence again, for it makes me angry, and the world does not want an angry Serpent unleashed upon them.”
His black eyes roll up toward me, buffed with emotion. I don’t think a day goes by when the boy doesn’t get allin his feels, as Asha calls it. He has an incredibly big heart and strives to fit everyone he meets—be they legged or winged or finned—inside. Many times I’ve been tempted to urge him to seal it off, but who am I to give him advice about hearts when mine has been bleeding since the fateful day I made him?
“As soon as Taytah allows us to journey to Luce, we will show all those bullies.”
“What will we show them?” Asha asks, plopping herself down beside Enzo and shoving a bowl of fried cheese puffs doused in date syrup onto his lap. “Cook made extra for his favorite Serpent.” She waggles her eyebrows at me. “Sorry, Day.”
Day. To think that nickname was born from Enzo’s clumsy speech. Leaving out the last letter was easier on his human tongue, so I suggested he forgo it always. Over time, Asha adopted the new moniker.
Her teasing raises the corners of my lips, but the sight of not one but three Crows flying overhead have them plummeting. Enzo’s hand tumbles from mine as I jump to my feet and rush across my chambers.
When I burst out my front door, I come to an abrupt halt. The Crows are already in skin and funneling into the Kasha. Cathal isn’t amongst them. Smothering my disappointment, I cut across the courtyard, circumventing the still-resting Mahananda, and enter the Kasha.
When my grandmother sees me, she pats the divan next to hers. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit, Lorcan?”
“I’ve come to ask for your aid, Priya. Seven more of my people have now been infected with obsidian.”
As I sit cross-legged on the crimson velour, the queen says, “The Mahananda isn’t ready. I would’ve sent word if it had been.”
“They didn’t come for the Mahananda, Taytah; they came for me.”
Both Erwin and Lorcan blink, probably stunned by my diction that has become as fluid as the Serpent tongue Enzo and I have been teaching Asha and Fallon. Try as they might, our language is more hiss and clucks than syllables, which makes learning it a true feat. Even my grandmother’s trying, and although she mastersalllanguages, there are many sounds she’s incapable of reproducing.
Sure enough, Lorcan says, “How well you speak now, Zendaya.”
“All thanks to my tutors.”
