I shake away the tangent my mind has taken and concentrate on Fallon’s mouth, catching the tail-end of her reply…something about howknowing would appease Dádhi and Lore.
I glance at Lorcan, then at the sulking giant at my back. I’m about to hiss at him to let go, when Behati uses the word “kill” in Shabbin and brackets it with both Fallon and Alyona’s names. I forget all about Cathal’s unyielding grip then.
Fallon cocks an eyebrow, then asks Behati something about hair color.
The seer’s forehead grooves beneath the golden-white strands that drape across it. “Kahala.”Black.
Fallon smiles at Lorcan. Again, I feel like I’m grasping at water. Why does she seem glad to learn that she kills Alyona of Glace? Because it proves she’ll reemerge from the Mahananda if she goes inside to discuss the Crows’ curse? And who has black hair? Alyona?
Behati blinks the shroud of magic away, murmuring something about how, in fact, the girl’s featuresdodiffer from Fallon’s, while Cathal mutters something in Shabbin—I imagine for my sake—about their personalities evidently being one and the same.
Priya glances toward the Mahananda where the members of the Akwale are painting sigils on the drenched sunstone. Though the clouds are still menacing, and the sky as gray as iron, Lorcan’s storm has eased.
Fallon had said thatknowing would reassure Dádhi and Lore. Clearly, it has. Or, at least, it’s reassured Lorcan. Cathal remains tense, his pulse so loud that it rumbles from his rigid fingers into my captive arm.
When metal groans, my mind jumps to the conclusion that the ward has collapsed, but I’m wrong. The sound emanates from the box that the queen has flicked open. As she reaches inside, I hear her tell Lorcan that if his daughter—he has a daughter?—is destined to kill the Princess of Glace, then breaking his curse is all the more important for his race to survive King Vladimir’s wrath.
My lungs seize around a breath, and not because the pieces of their conversation are falling into place, but because the Shabbin Queen now holds the weapon I saw her plant inside Lorcan’s chest. Is that what she’s about to do? Is that why Fallon trapped her mate inside the Kasha? So he would calm and allow the Mahananda’s keeper to transform him into a statue? How does cursing the Crow King break his curse?
The buzzing from earlier returns, this time pressing against my eardrums instead of my temples. Though it creates a din, I somehow hear the queen explain that the Mahananda never takes, merely transforms: a Two-legs into a Crow, a Serpent into a Two-legs.
As Fallon backs up from the invisible ward, Lorcan murmurs words in a tone that chills me to the bone. I don’t know what he’s saying, but it sounds like a plea. Is he begging her to convince the queen not to stab him with the dagger? Is he asking her not to go barter with the Mahananda?
I might not understand his whisper, but I understand his disquiet, for the Crows haveonemate, unlike the Shabbins, who have multiple, sometimes at once. I learned this when I dropped by Priya’s bedchamber and found her lounging on her floor pillows with two males and one female, all of them disrobed.
After pressing a kiss to all three and wishing them a pleasant slumber, she’d turned to me and suggested a walk through the palace gardens. It was two nights after I’d shifted for the very first time. I remember sliding my gaze over the Sahklare, aglowwith phosphorescent algae, and wondering if my kind mated for life like Crows, before remembering that I was the first of my kind. That I didn’thavea kind. That I was the only Serpent shifter.
Unless there were others out there, waiting for me beyond the pink ramparts…
I startle out of my contemplations when I see the queen follow Fallon toward the Mahananda. And then I scream.
Chapter 5
Zendaya
Shock ripples through me as the Shabbin Queen buries the black stone dagger inside Fallon’s chest.
The brutality of the act cinches my lungs, and I think I’ll never be able to draw breath again, but I’m wrong, for a second horrified cry escapes me as Fallon turns to stone and sinks. I slap the ward, claw at it, desperate to find a breach so I can race over and dive into the Mahananda to retrieve her.
If only my blood carried Shabbin magic, but all it does is stain. The only part of me that possesses any power is my tongue. Useless, since it cannot carry me through wards. Or can it? I lick the transparent barrier. Though it captures the attention of Kanti, who grimaces as she stands, hand-in-bleeding-hand, with the rest of the Akwale, it fails to soften the wall.
I freeze as Cathal’s earlier question tumbles back into me. He’d asked what would happen to Fallonaftershe was stabbed, notif.After. I thought he’d mistaken the two words. But he hadn’t. He’dknownthe queen was going to stab Fallon.
I spin around, riffling through my mind for the words to askhowand whether it had been Fallon’s choice to take Lorcan’splace. However deep I dig, though, I cannot produce any intelligible sounds; they’ve all deserted me.
Dádhi Cathal and Lorcan stand so still that I suddenly worry they, too, have morphed to stone, but then Cathal’s throat bobs around a murmur that makes the Crow King’s golden stare flare with rage and heartbreak.
Cathal must sense me gaping, because he dips his chin and meets my distraught stare. I wish he could perceive my interrogations and give me the answers I so desperately crave, but his mouth remains unmoving. Only his pupils move, retracting to the width of a seed.
For the first time in my existence, I feel pity for the male whose daughter has vanished inside the Mahananda. His cheeks hollow as though he senses my pity and loathes it more than the wait. Stomach spasming, I spiral back toward the courtyard and peer past the tight circle of the Akwale for signs of Fallon. She hasn’t emerged.
Where worry rucks the queen’s face, the members of her Akwale—those whose faces I can see—seem unconcerned. Kanti is downright grinning, lips curled around teeth that shine white in the gray light. Can she see to the bottom? Is the Mahananda transforming Fallon from stone back into skin? Is Fallon still stone?
What if…what if?—
I shut my eyes and give my head a harsh shake. How dare I so much as contemplate this?
Warmth seeps into my cheeks as though the sun were blistering them, but there’s no sun. Only hot coils of shame. I roll my fingers and retreat into the farthest, darkest corner of the Kasha, so that the two males I’m trapped with cannot spot how, for a fragile moment, I wished to curse Fallon with scales.
