Page 51 of Her Radiant Curse

Sometimes, when I’m feeling brave and stare in the mirror, when I’m able to look past the band of yellow around my pupils, I imagine I see Mama’s eyes in my own—the way I used to, before I was cursed. I imagine I’ve inherited her honest nose and mouth, and I’ve become that beautiful moon-faced girl she used to call me.

What I would give to see Mama again. To look like her again.

Angma knows I’m cornered. Her voice goes tender. “It only takes one word, Channi. One word, and you’ll have the face you were meant to have. Your mama’s eyes.”

It stuns me how much I want that. I would give anything for that.

Anything but Vanna.

“You will never have my sister,” I whisper. “Never.”

Angma’s face shimmers, veins turning gold. “There is darkness in you, Channari. Beautiful, beautiful darkness. Did you think, after I left my mark on you, that I wouldn’t see behind your secrets? I heard you every time you came to the rock where I cursed you. Every time you begged for me to take your sister away—”

“I would never.”

“—and give you the face you should have had.”

“Enough!” I shout. “You lie. If I’ve gone to the rock, it’s to summon you back—to kill you!”

Angma is smiling as if she’s already won. In a way, she has. I’m shaken, my thoughts rattling.

She backs into the sunlight fanning through the window, and her hair turns black once more. Her fangs are gone, and her eyes are a clear, warm brown.

She ties my mask behind my head and tightens the string. “You’ll need a name. What is it they call you in the jungle? Ah yes: Lady Green Snake.”

I flinch that she should know. The nestlings gave me the name years ago, thinking I was a big snake. It’s stuck ever since, and even grown on me. But on Angma’s lips it sounds like a mockery.

“Lady Green Snake,” she muses. “It doesn’t quite have that ring that we need, but I’ve another idea.” She touches the streak of white in my hair. “I’ve heard that the Serpent King never named an heir. How tragic. I’ve always thought it should be you, Channi. We shall announce you as the Serpent Queen.”

I balk. “I’m not the—”

“The queen?” Angma leans close, cutting me off with a whisper. “Neither am I.”

That silences me, and she claps for her bodyguards. “Take her out.”

The women lurch to life. They’re the same two that flanked Angma yesterday, the ones with cloudy, ashen eyes and lips so pursed they might as well be sewn shut. Their hands are as cold as snakeskin, despite the heat rising in the air, and they jerk me to my feet, dragging me out the cell door by my arms.

“I’ll see you outside,” says Angma with a wave.

I don’t struggle anymore. I figure if I’m expected to fight in the arena, Angma will either have to unlock my chains or give me a weapon. I am too valuable to go into combat empty-handed. Once I am armed, I will slay the Demon Witch.

Even if it costs me my life.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Drums pound the instant I step out into Bonemaker’s Arena. It’s very dramatic, as is the retinue of guards escorting me. I can’t tell if that’s symbolic of how dangerous I am or if it’s all for show.

The whole capital must be here. Thousands spectate from wooden benches under wide palms, ringed by an iron fence to protect them from the fighters. Tambu has a long tradition of champions dueling for honor, but never for sport. This place is an atrocity.

I’m dragged forward. More than once, something cracks under my sandals. Fragments of sun-bleached bones and skulls protrude from the earth, buried under scattered weeds. Beyond the arena’s fence is a high wall of sea cliffs, jutting out like stone teeth. There’s nowhere to run.

Meguh and Ishirya are finishing their public prayers, and though I can’t fathom what god would listen to the Demon Witch without striking her down, her somber countenance fools the crowds easily. To them, she is the most pious of queens.

The drums roll and the crowd cheers as she ascends a winding staircase to the gilded pavilion she shares with Meguh. “Our brave queen!” they shout in adulation.

This is an island of idiots, I decide.

Then again, are they so different from the fools who worship my sister?

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