Page 109 of Her Radiant Curse

Since we’ve arrived on Sundau, his scales have become near black, his demon red eye bright against the smoke. The way he clutches at his moonstone makes Ukar nervous.

“I wouldn’t go any farther if I were you,” I tell Rongyo, before he steps off the gangway and onto the beach. “You should turn around and go home.”

The prince obviously wants to come with us. He’s young and craves an opportunity to prove himself. But he’s a future king, not a demon fighter.

“Your crew is tired,” I continue, “and your mother is waiting. You promised her.”

The stubborn prince shakes his head.

Vanna stalks soundlessly to my side. “Rongyo,” she speaks, so gently that she almost sounds like her old self.

There’s a long pause, and I expect her to use her power on him, but she does not. Instead, she touches her forehead to the back of his hand. Her breath catches in her throat as she says, simply, “Thank you. I am glad to have known you.”

She turns quickly, before Rongyo can reply, and nudges me forward with her head.

She doesn’t look back, and neither do I.

* * *

For the first time, it is Vanna who leads the way into the jungle, not I. She sets an urgent pace, and all of us but Hokzuh have to run to keep up. Not once does she hesitate, not once does she look from side to side to make sure she is on the right path.

I, on the other hand, can’t stop looking. The jungle is like an old friend who’s become a stranger. Its soil is cold under my feet, and the air, which usually clings to my skin in a sticky haze, prickles like tiny ice chips. Oddest of all, not one snake comes out to greet Ukar and me.

“This isn’t the way to the rock,” I say between breaths when Vanna veers into a grove of bamboo. Nestled in the shadows, its stalks have become a graveyard of spines.

“It’s the way she wants us to take,” Vanna replies.

I swallow. “Angma?”

“Yes.”

“You can hear her?”

“I can feel her.” As she says this, the faint light pulsing in her chest gains intensity.

“Angma’s heart and yours are part of one whole,” remarks Hokzuh. “It makes sense that you are drawn to each other.”

Vanna prowls forward without reply, but I can read what she is thinking: that if one of them must die, it won’t be her.

At midday, hours after we’ve begun, she leads us across the rice paddies and the low hills. I would rather avoid Puntalo Village, but it’s the fastest way to the crooked tree.

On the outskirts of the village, she suddenly turns to me. “Stay close,” she says, her tone almost a plea.

“I won’t let Angma hurt you.”

Vanna wrinkles her nose. “That isn’t it.” She looks ahead to the clay roofs peeking out of the trees and the beginnings of Puntalo’s dirt road. “Angma’s the least of my worries right now.”

I fail to understand. “Then what?”

“Stay close so I can smell your blood,” says Vanna. “It helps me lose my appetite.”

Oh. A hiccup rises to my heart. She’s hungry.

I tighten my hold on her neck, stretching my arm until I can cup my hand over her light and she can smell the poison in my blood.

Vanna takes a long inhale, then a shudder rolls down her spine. I can feel her pulse slowing, steadying. “Thank you,” she says.

I climb onto her back and put on a wry smile. “Never thought I’d get to ride a tiger. Usually they’re too busy trying to throw me off.”

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