Page 133 of Her Radiant Curse

Hanriyu is taken aback. Then he nods. “I warn you, my children are quite a handful.”

“I’d be disappointed if they weren’t,” I reply. I grasp at the railing to keep from swaying with the wind. “All I want is to love someone the way I loved Channari. Unconditionally, fully, and with every fiber of my being.” Heat rises to my throat. “I have a feeling your children will fill her absence in my heart.”

Hanriyu touches my arm. “I remember your sister,” he says quietly. “She had the saddest eyes. Those eyes are in you now.”

For the longest moment, I could swear he knows that it is me. Me, Channari, trapped in my sister’s body. But it can’t be so. Such is the power of my pearl.

“Will you do something for me?” I say, rather abruptly.

“What is it?”

“I would ask that you never speak of my sister again.”

Hanriyu’s brows knit. “Did I say something to offend you?”

“No, far from it.”

I inhale. I’ve long pondered the words I’m about to speak, and the broken pearl inside me shimmers, giving away my nervousness.

“I have told you before, my sister’s death changed me. I no longer wish to be a queen, and I no longer wish for the burden of this.” I cup the light in my chest with my hand.

“I know,” says Hanriyu gently. “Any magic that passes into Kiata is suppressed by the gods. You will be free there.”

It will be a new start. A new everything, really: a new family, a new land, even new seasons. I am nervous most of all for the snow. I have never seen it before, and though Hanriyu tells me it is beautiful and lasts only a season, I shiver in anticipation of the cold.

“I ask that you never speak of my sister again,” I repeat. “Or of the time you’ve known me in Tambu. I wish to leave my past behind. All of it. Even my name.”

“Your name?”

“Yes. I don’t wish to be called Vanna any longer.”

There are questions in Hanriyu’s dark eyes, but I appreciate that he doesn’t ask them. “It will be against convention…but my people will accept it if I do. Still, you must have a title. What will we call you?”

I hadn’t thought this far ahead. Lady White Snake. Serpent Queen.

“Her Radiance,” I pluck out of nowhere.

“Her Radiance,” Hanriyu repeats.

I don’t explain myself. Let him think that I mean the brilliance within me. But no, I’m thinking of the light that makes the lanterns glow at night. The light that poured from Vanna’s heart and into my own when she was alive. That light I will never forget. I wish to carry it until my last day, until I see her again.

“It suits you,” he says when I am quiet. “So it shall be. Her Radiance.”

* * *

It is time.

Night has fallen, and Hanriyu is asleep in the cabin adjacent to mine.

One knee at a time, I lower myself beside my window. I run my fingers down the scar on my face, following it to the end.

My gaze wanders out over the water. Somewhere across the sea is Puntalo Village, Adah’s house, the little hut by the jungle where I grew up. Ukar and the snakes.

I didn’t say goodbye to Lintang or to Adah. I’ll never see them again, but I have no regrets. When I am done, they will hardly remember me.

“When will you cast the spell?” Oshli asked, before I left.

“When I am on the ship to depart Tambu.”

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