Page 35 of Her Radiant Curse

“I still don’t know what the fruit was,” I say, chuckling. “But we were addicted for years.”

“I’ll miss the moon orchids you bring me on my birthday,” says Vanna softly. She’s finished braiding my hair. “Will you come with me, Channi?” she asks then. “Wherever I go, will you be there too?”

“You know that’s out of the question. Adah won’t—”

“Never mind Adah. Even if he says no, I’ll send for you.” She bites down on her lip. “Will you come if I do?”

I haven’t thought much about our lives past Vanna’s seventeenth birthday, but that isn’t the only reason I hesitate. As much as my sister yearns to leave Tambu, I’m the opposite. I yearn to stay, to retreat into the wilds and never come out.

But it is the hardest thing, saying no to Vanna. She is the root of all my suffering in that way, but she is also the bringer of my greatest joys. When she is happy, I am too.

I wrap my arms around her and we press our cheeks together, the way we used to do when we were little. Her cheek was always too warm, mine always too cold. Together, I’d say, we were just right.

“Whenever you need me,” I promise, “I will be there.”

Vanna hugs me. There’s relief in her eyes, as though she was afraid that I’d say no.

To this day, I wish I’d asked her why.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I’m too tired to protest when Dakuok and his priests steer me into the Temple of Dawn. Thick clouds of incense assault my nostrils, and my senses dull as I’m led past chamber after chamber.

An old priestess brings me a shallow bowl of water. I suck it down greedily. The dryness in my throat vanishes, and the drink slakes my misgivings about coming into the temple. When I’m finished, the priestess beckons, and against my common sense, I trail her deeper inside the temple.

The last time I was here, I was a child. I would come early in the morning, before other worshippers arrived to pray, and pick a spot in the darkest corner. There, I prayed to Gadda. His statue is enormous, surrounded by daily offerings of fruit and wine.

I wanted to look like the other girls in Puntalo, but I thought a normal face would be too much to ask for. I wish for a nose, I begged instead. Let it be wide or narrow, straight or hooked, small or big. I won’t be picky. But let it be a nose.

I pause before the prayer room, almost certain I’ll find Oshli among the priests praying to Gadda to bless Vanna and Rongyo’s union. But Dakuok’s son isn’t here.

Next I pass the courtyard of ancestor worship, where Adah used to pray to Mama before he forgot about her. Bronze bells hang above me, and lizards scamper along the temple’s wooden beams. By the time we reach the end of the hallway, all I can think about is a stool to rest my aching feet.

Every muscle hurts, and there are bruises as big as oranges on my ribs. I always thought of myself as a warrior, but compared to the dragon, I am barely fit to stand on my own two feet. Why did he let me win?

I shiver, remembering Meguh’s face when I won the duel, all pinched and tight, like he’d skewer the dragon alive if he had a spear big enough.

The dragon will be punished, that much I know.

Guilt prickles my conscience, and I don’t like it. I’m not used to feeling indebted to a stranger, much less a dragon.

At last the priestess leads me across the temple’s courtyard to a squat house behind the pond. A bath has been drawn inside. “I’ll return with fresh clothes,” says the old woman.

“I prefer my own.”

The priestess doesn’t argue. “And I’ll bring ointment.”

Dakuok’s generosity makes me frown. Prince Rongyo’s won, I remind myself. Maybe Dakuok regrets betting on Meguh and is trying to curry favor by being kind to me.

I undress quickly, draping my tunic over my knife before the priestess comes back. A silk handkerchief falls out of my pocket—the one from the Kiatan emperor. I hold it in my palm, and it unfolds like a lily in bloom. I’ve never owned anything so soft, so graceful.

The spot of my blood is dried, no longer poisonous. But I wash it off anyway.

I wonder if I’ll see Hanriyu at the port. Whether he’ll tell his seven children about his strange trip to Tambu, and how he’ll have to continue his search to find them a new mother. I might not know him or his family, but I know what it’s like to lose a mother.

For his children’s sake, I hope he finds them someone, someone with a gentle heart to love them as he does, and I hope she will be better than Lintang was to me.

I tuck the handkerchief back into my pocket.

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