9. Isla
9
ISLA
T he following morning, at breakfast, I learn from an exuberant Izolda that Konstantin has canceled his hectic schedule and will be sailing with us to Voshna. I assume he got talked into coming early by his brother or Aodhan.
As I spoon fish roe onto a sadly unsalted pancake, my gaze goes to where the Ice King presides over a gigantic slab of quartz, conversing with Taytah Daya and Eponine of Nebba.
“Will you be coming earlier, too, Ksenia?” Elio asks as a servant slots herself between us to splash bittersweet rowan tea into our empty cups.
“I won’t be coming at all.” Izolda’s twin mustn’t be a morning person, for she hasn’t smiled once.
Then again, I don’t remember her smiling last night during dinner either.
As she butters a thin toast, which she then dips in the ruby-red tea, she adds, “I already have plans with some friends. I’d bring them along, but space was limited.”
When Izolda purses her lips, I grasp that these friends are either not part of high society, or unpopular with the Korols.
“I still can’t believe you got Kostya to agree on a weekend-long Jubilee.” Ksenia polishes off the rest of her toast, then butters a new one.
“Maybe he secretly likes to party?” Elio ventures.
Ksenia snorts. “My older brother abhors being the center of attention. Unlike my other siblings.”
I doubt I’d mistake the sisters had Izolda not gotten her cheekbone inked with our feather, but I’m still glad for the distinction. Makes it swifter to tell them apart.
As a few Nebbans funnel into the dining room, and good mornings are exchanged, Ksenia says, “I dated Lev a few years back.”
She takes a nibble of her bread. I wait for her to add more. She doesn’t.
Which message is she trying to convey? That she was there first? That she still has feelings for Lev?
“Two decades ago,” Izolda says with an eyeroll. “And then you broke up with him because you found his mother overbearing, and his father seedy.”
“It was just a remark. Nothing more. He’s a great person and a fantastic lover.”
Her bluntness causes Elio to choke and sputter. I don’t react, since I bet that’s what she’s after. I bet that’s why she brought up Lev’s bedroom prowess in the first place.
“…But like my sister explained, his mother comes first. Just thought you’d be interested in knowing this, considering how well you two hit it off last night.” She dips her toast, chilly blue eyes pinned to me.
I recline in my seat. “Then we have that in common, since my parents always come first for me too.”
Ksenia lets her bread soak for so long that when she lifts it, a piece plops right back into the crimson liquid. After holding my stare just as long as she held her toast submerged, she turns toward Naeva, “I heard you wanted to swim across the bay. Will you still be doing that?”
My cousin sighs. “No. I was warned there were orcas, and that they like to play with serpents.”
Ksenia snatches another piece of bread from the silver toast rack beside her. “Perhaps not shifter Serpents.”
“Perhaps we’d prefer not to find out,” Antoni snaps from a way’s down the enormous dining table that can easily fit eighty people but holds only a dozen at the moment.
“Yes,” Taytah chimes in. “There will be no swimming.”
She waits for her people to comply before turning back toward Konstantin, whose attention has also fallen on our section of the table. His lip and nose are fully healed, and the tips of his ears are no longer bruised, nevertheless, he’s yet to spear his diamond studs back through their points.
His left eye twitches, and though he doesn’t regard me with quite as much vitriol as last night, gone is the pleasant, smirking monarch I interacted with on the Lodge’s porch.
The door to the dining room once again swings wide, this time to welcome General Salom. He marches toward the head of the table where he hands Konstantin a missive. The king breaks the seal with his thumb, then unfolds the parchment and reads. He’s either a tremendously fast reader or there aren’t many words, because he’s out of his seat a second later, crumpling the letter in his fist.
“Everything all right?” Izolda asks, turning in her seat.
He stops his mad escape as he reaches the door, then, with a smile that’s entirely for show, he says, “Yes. It’s nothing.”
He gives Salom the sheet with a nod. After reading it, the Faerie incinerates the vellum with a burst of fire.
Izolda continues to watch her brother with concern. “Will you still be boarding the first ship with us?”
Her brother’s silence drags on for so long that the corners of her mouth begin to plummet.
“I think the better question is: will he be coming at all?” Ksenia asks, sliding her elbows onto the table and creating a little hammock for her chin with her fingers.
I heard, through the grapevine, that she wasn’t thrilled when the Cauldron matchmade her sister with a Crow. Could jealousy have fostered her bitterness, or is Aodhan’s heritage the cause?
“Am I right?” she asks, when Konstantin’s silence endures.
Her insistence snaps him back to the here and now. “I’ll be there on time. Don’t depart without me, Iz.”
Ksenia purses her lips, evidently miffed that she wasn’t right. Her frustration doesn’t go unnoticed by the captain of Konstantin’s army, who narrows his eyes on the unmated twin.
“You should probably have rethought the timing of the Jubilee, what with all the unrest,” Ksenia says after her brother and his general have taken off. “Did you hear about what happened to your favorite High Priest? The one who agreed to marry you and?—”
“Ksenia, please,” Izolda murmurs.
“His temple was bombed.”
“What?”
“Train derailments. Terrorist acts. Widespread starvation. Our kingdom is quite a mess.”
“That’s enough!” Izolda snaps.
“Eponine and I can assure you, Ksenia,” Taytah says, “that every monarchy has its troubles.”
Eponine nods. “But troubles shouldn’t put an end to the celebration of life, however cruel it might seem to you that some rejoice while others weep.”
“There’s rejoicing”—Ksenia taps her fingers—“and then there’s this ridiculous revel.”
Smoke billows behind Izolda’s chair before weaving into the shape of a man.
Aodhan rests his hands on his mate’s shoulders. “Your brother would like a word with you, Ksen.”
“Ilya’s awake?”
“Not that brother.”
Ksenia leers at her sister as she stands, breathing out, “I wonder why.”
Clearly, she doesn’t. Clearly, she thinks Izolda told Aodhan through their mind link to come and collect her. Although, I could be wrong.
“Is Lach still sleeping?” Naeva asks Elio once Ksenia has departed.
“He got back to the room two hours ago, reeking of perfume. Apparently, he and Ilya had a late night.” As though recalling Izolda’s desire for everyone to be in Voshna at four sharp, Elio reassures her that he tasked one of the staff to wake Lachlano so that he doesn’t miss the second Voshna-bound galleon.
Izolda muscles a smile onto her lips that doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Thank you,” she says softly. And then she stands. “Rendezvous on the esplanade in an hour, all right?”
I hate how thick her voice has become.
“We’ll be there!” Elio says with great enthusiasm.
Though she takes Aodhan’s hand, I don’t miss how her fingers tremble before she manages to spear them through his.
“Did your parents already have breakfast?” Elio asks me.
“Yes,” Taytah answers, her ebony stare coming to rest on me. “They had to head home.”
I’m not certain what ploy my mother used to get my father to leave, but I’m impressed she succeeded. Then again, it’s my mother, one of the most resourceful women I know.
“Did Dádhi leave as well?” Naeva asks.
“No.” Taytah still doesn’t look away from me. “He’ll be staying until the final event.”
Does she mean the gala or the murder of Alyona Korol?
When we climb onto the galleon an hour later, I’m almost surprised to find Konstantin by the railing with Aodhan, discussing something that appears serious.
The temptation to make myself invisible grips me with such ferocity that I lift my finger to my earring. But my grandfather arrives then, dropping one heavy arm around my shoulders and the other around Naeva’s.
Where I startle, Naeva grins and nips his jaw with a quick kiss.
“Guess what, Behach Batee ?” He’s never pronounced the two words he plucked from two different tongues to create a name especially for me— Little Daughter —quite so forcibly.
“What, Jaytair ?” I ask, using the name I composed for him out of Crow and Shabbin.
“I turned down the factory visit to spend my entire day with the two of you.”
Surprise, surprise. “I wasn’t aware you enjoyed shopping as fervently as Phoeppa.”
Naeva grins, aware, like I am, that her father isn’t joining us for the shopping.
“I cannot wait to see you model one of the cashmere onesies he’s unveiling today,” I add with a twinkle in my eye that grows brighter when his cheekbones color.
“Where’s Amma?” Naeva scans the deck that’s relatively uncrowded.
I’m guessing most guests had a late night and will board the next ferry.
“She’s touring the factory with Eponine. She’ll meet us later in the old town.”
“Isles, Naev!” Elio waves excitedly. “Come see!”
Sybille and Mattia’s son may have a few months on me, nevertheless he acts years’ younger, partly because he marvels at everything and partly because of his devastating timidity.
“No swimming!” Jaytair yells as Naeva and I cross the deck toward Elio.
Naeva gives her father a thumb’s up, then hooks my arm. When we’re halfway across the deck, she asks, “Do you think we’ll be like our parents someday?”
I glance over my shoulder at my grandfather, who morphs into his Crow and takes to the skies, possibly to chat with my father, possibly to snatch us midair should we disregard his command.
“You mean, overprotective and meddlesome?”
“Yes.”
“I want to say no, but odds are we will be just like them. At least they’re not arranging marriages for us.”
“We’re shifters, Isles. Shifters don’t have arranged marriages. They have mates.”
I slow to tell Naeva about Behati’s ploy. Her lividness on my behalf stops her in her tracks, stopping me in turn.
“It’s really time she goes to slumber in the Mahananda,” she fumes.
“Why do I have the impression that one day, I’ll wake up to the news that you’ve elbowed her into it?”
A corner of her mouth tucks up. “Because I just might.”
“Well, you missed it,” Elio says, tone overly dramatic.
“What did we miss?” I ask when we finally reach his side.
“The whale. It was right there.” He juts his thumb toward the liquid sapphire licking the hull.
“Good thing Ksenia isn’t here,” Katya murmurs, her arm wrapped snugly around Enzo’s middle.
“Why do you say that?” Naeva asks.
“She may just have pushed one of us in for funsies.”
Enzo’s eyes grow extra-large.
“Relax, baby. None of them speak Serpent.”
“We don’t know that, Katya,” Antoni says from where he reclines against one of the masts, plucking pine needles from a fir branch he must’ve snapped off one of the trees lining the dock.
“He’s ri-right,” Enzo says.
Katya’s expression dims, and her arm falls away from her mate’s waist. “Of course he is. He’s always right, isn’t he?”
Enzo runs a jumpy palm over the green hair he keeps neatly trimmed on the sides and longer on top—like Antoni. “That’s n-n-not fair, Kat.”
“Not fair? Why can’t you ever put me first?”
“Be-Because you always p-put me first?” Enzo glares Alexei’s way.
“Alexei’s my twin brother. Antoni is…” She blows a frustrated breath out the corner of her mouth, which lifts her verdant hair. “You should’ve fucked him instead of me. Maybe your bodies would’ve raveled.”
With that, she pivots on her heel and goes to join her brother and Izolda, who stand amidst a cluster of Faeries and Serpent shifters.
Though I feel for Katya, I also feel for Enzo, whose bond with Antoni she cannot seem to accept. Just because the two males didn’t share the same womb, it doesn’t mean their link isn’t as strong as the one she has with Alexei. I’d know, since that is the sort of bond that tethers me to Naeva.
After one more pass at his hair followed by one more huffed breath, Enzo takes off after his mate.
“She strives on conflict,” Antoni says, still plucking at his branch.
“Just because she strives on it,” Naeva snaps, “it doesn’t mean you should encourage it.”
“ Encourage it ?” Antoni’s fingers freeze on a needle. “How am I encouraging it?”
“You still share a house with the two of them.”
“I also spend a lot of time with Mattia and Sybille in Luce. Am I spoiling their relationship? How about we ask Elio? El, am I a horrible houseguest?”
Elio shifts his weight from boot to boot, as though itching to sprint away. Though his gaze flicks toward the bow, where his mother and Phoeppa are chatting with Milana and her sister, he doesn’t leave.
“I’m not interested in your perceived affability, Antoni. I’m interested in understanding why you don’t just move out on your own,” Naeva says.
“We can’t all afford our own homes, Rajka.”
“Oh, stop playing the card of destitute sailor.” Naeva tears her arm out of mine and tosses it in frustration. “You have a manor in Tarecuori.”
“That was burned to the ground.”
“The walls still stand.”
“You’ve visited?” Intrigue flickers across his face.
“No,” she lies.
How do I know she lies? Because I’ve visited it with her. Also, her face is rosy.
“I’ve just heard of it,” she continues. “The same way I heard that you have plenty of coin to buy that boathouse you’re always going on about.”
Antoni’s eyes narrow. “I wasn’t aware you were so well-acquainted with the state of my finances.”
“You’re a member of the Akwale, Antoni. I know how much every member cashes in for their work. It’s part of my job to know.”
“Your job, or your birthright?”
Naeva shakes her head with such vigor that the two long plaits I made in her hair flog my arm. “You’re a real jerk. No wonder you’re attached at the hip with your two buddies. You’re probably too fucking scared to go off on your own, since no one else in Shabbe and Luce can tolerate you.”
She must touch on a nerve, because the darkness of his eyes seeps over his lash line and envelops his entire face.
“You think you have me all figured out, don’t you?” He flings the branch into the ocean just as the enormous blue sails of the ship deploy to pull the ship out of its berth. “You don’t know me.”
Naeva huffs out a snort. “The thing is, Antoni, I don’t care to know you. You don’t make anyone want to care.”
I curl my fingers over Naeva’s now-fisted fingers, proud of her for speaking her mind. As much as I tease her about the latent sexual tension, it doesn’t take away from the fact that Antoni behaves, more often than not, like a world-class jerk.
A shadow streaks between the two Serpents before materializing into the shape of a very large man. “Something the matter, ínon ?”
“No,” Naeva says. “Actually, Dádhi, I’ve decided I’d prefer to fly than sail. Would you mind giving me a lift to Voshna?”
Jaytair glowers at Antoni, who has the good sense to lower his gaze, pivot, and walk away. When he reaches the other end of the giant galleon, my grandfather turns to face us. “What exactly did that one have to say?”
“Nothing of import.” Naeva tracks the blue-haired Serpent. “I was actually the one doing most of the saying .”
Jaytair studies his daughter a moment longer.
“It’s true,” I reassure him, mainly to keep him from streaking toward Antoni and lopping off his head like I’ve heard him threaten to do over the years.
Despite the fact that it’s anatomically impossible—we shifters cannot be beheaded or delimbed—we can still be hurt. We can still bleed.
Zia Syb calls out to her son then. Although reluctant to leave our side, Elio heads toward her.
“Both of you, get on my back,” my grandfather says before morphing and crouching, wings tucked. Even though the ship is wide, there are too many masts to accommodate an outstretched limb.
It’s funny how he sometimes forgets I’ve my own wings to deploy. I give Naeva a leg up. “I prefer staying on firm ground today.”
Jaytair cranks his head toward me, communicating that my refusal displeases him.
I tap his fluffy shoulder. “I won’t dive into the ocean.” When he makes a sound between a squawk and a grunt, I add, “I promise. Now get up there and screech if you spot wildlife. I’d really like to see at least one new creature today.”
He slants me a look as he springs off the deck. I watch them ascend before tightening my gaze on the blue swells below.
I’m so lost in my nature-watching that I fail to sense the Faerie situated beside me until he utters a, “There,” and nods to his ocean.