Page 132 of Her Radiant Curse

“All the power in the world cannot bring me what I desire most,” I reply dully.

And what is that?

“Peace.”

At my answer, Ukar’s green scales fade into a more muted shade. He lets out a sigh. Then do what you must. But when you cast your spell, leave me and my kin untouched. Not everyone should forget you. And I…I most of all want to remember.

It hurts to speak. “I thought you might come with me.”

I cannot, says Ukar. I am king now, and I am needed here. He flicks out his tongue. Besides, I would not be happy in a land full of cranes. There’s a hint of his old dry humor. Cranes eat snakes, you know.

My shoulders shake with mirth, even though I am not laughing. I kiss the top of his head. “I will miss you, you cantankerous creature. Wherever I may go, I will think of you every day. You are my only family left here.”

The snakes will be your family no matter where you go. From this life to the next, they will remember you. Ukar dips his head. Lady White Snake.

At the name, my chest swells with the pearl’s light. It bathes Ukar and me, but its warmth is bittersweet.

Her “radiant curse,” Vanna called it. I’m beginning to understand what she meant—that its light brings as much pain as it brings hope.

Now until my last breath, it will be mine.

EPILOGUE

One year later

Hanriyu and I stand side by side on his ship. Below, the servants are loading our possessions and the sailors are preparing the vessel for departure. In minutes, we will set sail.

My months on Tai’yanan are a story for another time. I did indeed host a new selection, one that lasted a year, a far cry from the single-day event that Vanna experienced. In this year, I became a new Channi. Instead of wielding spears and knives, I pored over maps and scrolls. I studied language and history, I learned to dance and embroider birds and butterflies with richly colored thread, I perfected my penmanship.

For the entire year, I did not smile. I thought I had forgotten how.

Until Hanriyu returned to Tambu.

There were no machinations on my part. I did not enchant him into seeking me out, or even into becoming my friend. But we did become friends; slowly, our trust in each other built over a long month. I was not even aware that I smiled for him, with him, when I finally did.

“Why did you smile for me?” Hanriyu asks now, seeing my mouth tilt to a bemused angle. He’s asked many times before, and I’ve never answered.

The wind sweeps my hair off my back as I turn to him. “It was a story you told me about your daughter. About how she found a caterpillar and thought it was a snake, so she put it under her brother’s pillow.” I cluck my tongue. “Two years old and already such a mischief-maker. It reminded me of my sister when she was young. That was why I smiled.” My shoulders go soft. “And now I smile because I still don’t know your daughter’s name.”

Hanriyu blinks with surprise. “I haven’t told you?”

“You’ve told me your sons’: Andahai, Benkai, Reiji, Yotan, Wandei, and Hasho.” Hanriyu looks impressed that I’ve remembered all six, and in order of age. “You haven’t told me your daughter’s.”

“Shiori,” he replies slowly. “It means ‘knot.’ My wife chose it. She’d wanted a girl for so long, but after six boys she’d nearly lost hope.” He wipes the perspiration from his neck. “When Shiori finally arrived, she chose the name to signify that Shiori would be the last.”

He chuckles, and I picture his wife in my mind. A woman whose laugh touched the corners of her eyes, who hugged each of her children in the morning and at night and counted the stars with her hair unpinned and her feet unslippered. Like her, I sense, her daughter is special.

“Are you sure you want to come with me?” Hanriyu asks suddenly. “A hundred sovereigns across Lor’yan have declared their undying love for you. You should choose one of them, not a man whose heart is with his dead wife.”

“You’ve asked me this enough times. My answer hasn’t changed.”

“Even so. You are young. You’ve a chance at love.”

I say nothing. All my life, I wished to be loved. I dreamed of a mother’s arm around my shoulders while I slept, of a lover’s stolen kisses and the warmth of a body pressed to mine. But not anymore.

I will not lie when it comes to Hanriyu. We will never love each other the way Oshli and Vanna did, and we will never have the connection that Hokzuh and I shared. But there are many different kinds of love.

“Your love is with your wife, and mine is with my sister. The fractures in our hearts will never heal. But I at least seek to make mine whole again. It is not a lover or a husband who can do that, but a family.” I pause, more certain of this than of anything. “Let us be family for one another.”

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