Page 115 of Her Radiant Curse

The flat rocks are smaller than I remember, and they’re blanketed by moss. I’ve come here countless times, searching for Angma. But today is the first time I know with certainty she is here.

I stand on the largest rock—the one where Adah left me to die. Ukar slithers into the ferns while I turn slowly, scanning for Angma. I know she is watching.

“I’m here,” I whisper.

No sooner do I speak than the wind presses an icy kiss on the back of my neck.

“Hello, Channari.”

All day I’ve braced myself for this moment, for the sight of Angma wearing Vanna’s face, Angma speaking with Vanna’s voice. But to actually see it and hear it?

Nothing could have prepared me.

She looks exactly like my sister. Hair black as obsidian, skin as luminous as the sun, and lips like the pinkest lily buds. The smaller details are there: the mole on her left shoulder that I used to pinch when we were children, the twin eyebrows, always in expressive sync with one another, the willowy line of her back as she walks.

Adah would be fooled. Lintang too.

But not me. I know it is darkness smoldering in her heart, not light. And I know that if I meet her eyes, they will glow like burning sand, red in the center.

With a cry, I aim my spearhead, and ram it straight at her ribs with the force of every muscle in my body. But Angma simply glides to the side, and my spear pierces only mist.

I pivot to face her. She’s tittering, and the sound rankles me. Vanna never titters.

Calm, Channi, warns Ukar. Don’t lose your focus.

I’ve never been more focused. Again, I charge. Again, Angma ducks my attack.

Back and forth we go, but damn Angma, she floats like a feather in a storm. She’s had a full day to recover since her last encounter with Vanna, and it’s clear that during the time her power has grown tenfold. Not only has she retained her tiger strength, but her every movement is a murderous dance, a cruel defilement of Vanna’s natural grace.

She drives me back against the clove tree, grabbing my braid and turning me by the shoulder until I face the other side of the valley, where my sister and friends are fighting. And losing.

Wave after wave of demons pour in—from the sky, the sea, rising from the ground. Already, the circle of protection around Vanna is splintering. Many of the snakes are dead, which weakens the chain. Oshli is out of arrows, and Hokzuh cannot fight all the demons of Tambu alone.

“It will be over by midnight,” Angma prophesies, her voice humming against my ear. “Not long from now your sister’s heart will be mine.”

Ukar’s been waiting for the perfect chance to strike, and he has found it. He emerges from a nearby tree, flinging his body through the air and landing on Angma’s shoulder. His white fangs glint against the glow of her eyes as his jaws clamp down on her neck.

With a whirl, I slice my braid free and swing my spear into Angma’s chest, sending her reeling. Before I can deliver another strike, the darkness in her heart unlocks. Long shadows froth out of her body like eyeless worms, born of the blackest night.

“Ukar!” I scream as the shadows overwhelm him.

He disappears into the mist, and I’m swiftly surrounded myself. The shadow worms slither up my spear handle. They clamber up my legs to immobilize me. They are wraiths of darkness, not flesh, and they do not flinch at the poison leaking from the open cuts on my skin.

I throw my weight at Angma, but her strength is great. Mimicking my own attack, she claps the end of my spear in her hands before I can thrust it forward.

A sharp sizzle kisses the air. It is the sound of Angma’s flesh meeting the blood on my blade. Her fingers are blistering, turning red and raw. But I’m the one who winces.

“Careful, Channari,” she chides, “you wouldn’t want to destroy your sister’s body.” She claps the blade harder, and I smell Vanna’s skin burning. “Then that’d make you the monster, not me. Wouldn’t it?”

I forget how fast she is. The crown of her head comes crashing into my face. I manage to evade the brunt of her blow, but as I duck, she wrangles the spear from my grip. With a swing of her hips, she knocks me down to my knees.

She looms over me, holding my spear upright.

I expect her to end me here and now, the way I have dreamed countless nights of ending her. But to my utter astonishment, she kneels beside me.

She lifts her hand to my cheek. I must be delirious, for her touch is tender. Gently, she caresses the streak of white hair that she marked me with, all those years ago.

“You came to this place often, Channi,” she says. “Filled with all that hate, that stubborn will. In a way, I raised you more than your own mother did. I made you the fighter that you are.”

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