Why must my daughter have inherited my stubborn streak and taken it to the next level?
Why is she allowing Priya to inflict bodily harm on her just because the Cauldron showed Behati that was the way to go?
“It returned Mádhi.” Fallon’s wispy reminder snakes through the invisible divide between two rolls of thunder.
I stare past Fallon’s head at the Cauldron. Yes, it returned her mother, but it didn’t return her intact. It stole her memories. Stole our bond.
Before I blemish Zendaya’s skin with twin bruises, I relax my grip but don’t release her. I physically and emotionally cannot.
To placate me, Fallon adds, “That was Meriam’s doing, Dádhi, not the Cauldron’s.”
“We do not know that, ínon!” I growl.
Daya twists around and cranes her neck. Our eyes collide. I expect belligerence but find apprehension, and it kinks my heart. Does she fear me, or is the mention of Meriam’s name to blame for her perplexing pallor?
“Sumaca.” The slap of sandals directs my attention off Zendaya and onto the gold box one of Priya’s guards is proffering. “Your weapon.” As Priya draws a sigil on the miniature trunk, the female says, “The Akwale is assembled and waiting.”
Does she expect Lorcan to have mobilized a winged army? She must know Behati and Fallon’s ward is mind link proof.
“Trust the Cauldron, Dádhi,” Fallon repeatsagain, fostering a smile that doesn’t extend to her eyes.
“It isn’t the fucking Cauldron I have trust issues with,” I growl in Shabbin against the top of Daya’s head. “It’s your great-grandmother and her seer.”
Daya goes stock-still and then she glowers up at me. What was I expecting? Both she and Fallon hold Priya on a pedestal. Even Lorcan thinks the woman’s inherently good. The only thing the queen is good at is controlling all those around her.
When the obsidian dagger is extracted from the box, Zendaya sucks in a breath. For long seconds, she gawps at the weapon, then at Fallon, and finally, at Lorcan. The slant of her dark eyebrows is so vertiginous that it cuts furrows around her retracted tusk. It’s the same expression that apprehended her face earlier.
“What did Priya show you when you walked in?” I murmur between barely separated teeth.
I wait a beat. Two.
Daya’s lips remain sealed.
I repeat my question, using a more urgent tone. “What the fuck did she show you?”
She flinches.
I gentle my tone. “What happens after she stabs Fallon with obsidian?”
Her frown digs deeper.
My frustration escalates because I realize she mustn’t understand what I’m asking. I try not to hold it against her. It’s not her fault.
When her lips finally part, I think I was too rash in my judgment, but then she murmurs in that odd raucous hiss of hers, “Lorcan.”
Chapter 4
Zendaya
The Crow’s grip on my arms is starting to anger me. More so than having staggered into the Kasha after Fallon showed me her intent of heading into the Mahananda to break her people’s curse. To think I could’ve been out there with her instead of in here with two seething males, all of us helpless to stop her.
I reach for Cathal’s fingers and peel them off one of my arms. I’m almost surprised when they loosen and fall away.
As I reach for his other hand, Fallon gasps. My hand freezes against his as she utters a string of excited words. She speaks so rapidly that the only ones I decipher are names:Mahananda,Bronwen,Alyona, andGlace.
The Shabbin Queen’s expression turns guarded as her blood penetrates the lid of the golden box and makes it click. She doesn’t hinge it open as she asks Fallon why she’s interested in Princess Alyona’s fate.
Of course… Alyona is one of the princesses of Glace. Behati told me about her when she showed me a drawing full of lines and letters enclosed in rectangles called a family tree. Apparently, every family has one. I long to see Fallon’s,since she calls Priya, “ImTaytah,” which means “mother of my grandmother.” I was hoping to understand who this grandmother was, since neither Ceres Rossi nor Cathal’s deceased mother are related to Priya.
