Page 18 of Her Radiant Curse

The tassels on his sleeve sway as he lowers his arm.

“Do you really think no one would notice you?” he says harshly. “King Meguh nearly saw you just now. That face of yours could have cost your sister everything. Everything!”

Emotions cling to my throat. I can’t breathe. “Why is it always about my face?”

“It’s who the fates have made you. A monster.”

My tongue itches to tell him he’s the monster, not me. But I don’t argue. I fear that if I do, I will cry. And I promised myself long ago I would never weep in front of my father.

It’s because of Vanna that he tolerates me. I know that every time I disappear into the jungle he wishes that I would never come back. But I do, only to feel the pain again and again of a wound that will not close. To feel the hope that Adah will one day open his eyes and remember I am his daughter too.

Adah and I face off, locked in our second standstill of the day, when Vanna calls out from the shrine in the courtyard. “Look, look!” she squeals.

My sister’s voice knifes through the tension between us, and Adah goes to her. She’s twirling into the courtyard with moon orchids in her hair—her favorite flower, matching the embroidered ones on her skirt.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” she exclaims, touching her braids.

“Now you are a woman,” Lintang says, picking a stray leaf off Vanna’s shoulder before ushering her to the gate. “Careful down the steps. The mud from the rains last week still hasn’t dried. Don’t step on the carpet with your wet feet.”

Vanna glances back, noting the distance between Adah and me before I retreat to a shadowed corner. A crease furrows her smooth brow, and to Lintang’s dismay, my sister hurries toward me. She touches my shoulders. “Channi, why are you hiding like this? Come. Come.”

She tries to nudge me to the front, but Adah won’t allow it. “Get back inside, Channi.”

Vanna blocks me. “Why should she go back inside? I want her to come.”

“Hurry, Vanna. You’ll be late.” He lifts a confused Vanna onto the stallion. It nickers and kicks, spying me in my corner. Horses do not like snakes, and that includes me.

“Channi is coming,” says Vanna. She whirls on Adah. “Or I will—”

“You will what?” Adah is irritated at Vanna, but his eyes are on me. “You won’t go?”

My stepmother casts me a harrowed glance, as if it’s my fault that she’ll have to make peace and lie to Vanna. “Enough, Vanna,” she soothes my sister. “Of course Channi is coming. Adah will take you to the village first. I’ll walk behind you, and Channi will follow once she’s finished washing the courtyard stones.”

I hate myself for not speaking up, but Adah and Lintang are happiest when they forget I exist, and Vanna is happiest when everyone else is happy. So I force a smile and watch them leave. Vanna waves from her horse and blows me a kiss, but I pretend not to see. It hurts less that way.

My eyes drift to the little houses down the pebbled path. Many of our neighbors hurry out of their homes to join Vanna’s entourage.

“Good luck with the contest, Vanna!” they shout.

“Khuan, your daughter grows prettier every day!”

“Find her a rich one, Khuan!”

The voices grow faint, and once Adah, Lintang, and Vanna disappear down the slope of the dirt road, I take off my mask and let my face breathe.

“Pathetic, Channi,” I mumble at myself. “Pathetic.”

I kick the wall, hating Adah, the binding selection, and Vanna for going along with it. Hating myself for being a coward.

Puntalo Village isn’t far. I could go. I used to sneak out when I was younger, while Adah and Lintang worked at the cassava farms. I would ask anyone, everyone, what they knew of Angma and if they’d heard of Hokzuh.

The last time I went, Adah caught me. As punishment, he dragged me to the river and threw me in. I couldn’t swim, and he waited—almost too long—before fishing me out.

“If I catch you going to the village again,” he warned me as I coughed up river water, “next time I won’t save you.”

For the rest of the day, he locked me in the rice barn, and he forbade Vanna from visiting. My sweet little sister came anyway, with hardboiled eggs she’d snuck into her pockets from dinner. While I gobbled them down, she hugged me. “You shouldn’t disobey Adah,” she said. “It only angers him.”

How serious she sounded, as if she were the older one, not me.

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