Page 15 of Her Radiant Curse

Adah used to pray to her when he thought I wasn’t looking. The moments I spied him kneeling at her altar were the only times I ever felt respect for my father. But they grew fewer and further between, until he stopped altogether a few years ago.

I still pray, every day. I crouch by the shrine, lighting a fresh bundle of incense and placing it in the tin cup next to a figurine of Mama. I carved it when I was younger, when I could still remember the lines of her face, her eyes, her smiling lips. It used to be bigger than both my hands…but now that I’m grown, I can hold the entire statue in one.

What’s the matter, my moon-faced girl? I would imagine Mama saying. What do you wish for?

When I was younger, I wished to escape my curse. So many times, I took a knife to my face, biting down on a cloth and holding in my screams while I tried to nick off my scales, as if they were mere thorns on a flower. But overnight, the cuts would heal, and I’d see the monster in the mirror again. Trapped.

Now that I am grown, I have a different wish. A secret wish I’ve buried so deep I dare not say it aloud.

I wish that one day someone will love me. Someone will look me in the eyes without fear or pity. Someone will take away the loneliness etched in my heart so that I will know what it’s like to be loved. So I can laugh without tasting the bitterness on my tongue once the sound fades.

I bend my head so Mama won’t see the tears pooling in my eyes.

“Help me watch over Vanna today, Mama,” I whisper, rubbing my thumb over the statue’s face. I press my forehead to the ground. “Help keep her safe from Angma, from Meguh, from anyone who would wish her harm.”

I wave the incense at Mama’s altar, realizing I didn’t ask her to protect me too. But there’s no need.

I’m already a monster. What fear need I have of the Demon Witch?

CHAPTER FOUR

An elephant trumpets outside, making the kitchen’s gables tremble. It’s not a sound one hears often on this side of the island, so I peek out the window—and my heart hums with dread.

King Meguh is here.

He rode an elephant the last time he came. A hairy little male barely taller than Adah, with ears that fanned out like wings, and a crown of reddish hair above its eyes. Vanna had doted on its long eyelashes and fed it mangosteens from her hand; the fruit’s pink flesh stained the little elephant’s tongue.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her I’d found the calf abandoned the next day, just outside the jungle, with Meguh’s purple banner draped over its back. I’d tried to help it, but Meguh’s bodyguards had hacked off its ivory tusks and left it there to die. There was nothing I could do. So I sang to it, the gentlest song I could, and I sliced my palm and fed it my blood for a swift, merciful death. I’ll never forget how mournful its young eyes looked, full of all the sorrow in the world—before they closed forever.

I have never been more ashamed to be human.

Lintang calls for Vanna, and I immediately slide the kitchen door shut, more afraid of King Meguh than of Adah’s threats to beat me if I am seen. There is something cruel about Meguh’s eyes—poets bend the truth and say they are soft as brushstrokes, but to me they are knives. Merciless and sharp. I’ve heard about the menagerie he keeps in his palace—hundreds of creatures caged solely for his pleasure—and the arena he’s built to watch grown men kill one another. I see how his servants quail every time he looks at them, and how blue and yellow bruises peek out of their purple sleeves.

Everyone says Vanna ought to pick him. Meguh is the wealthiest king in the Tambu Isles: his island is belted by volcanoes rich with gold, and he has been generous, sending gifts every year.

But I worry. Life with him could be worse than death at the hands of the Demon Witch.

Outside, Vanna is singing, no doubt at Meguh’s request. Her sweet voice entices birds and butterflies to her side, the purest proof of the divinity within her. Lintang is busy too, guiding the king’s servants as they carry gifts to the main house. That leaves Meguh alone with Adah.

They were strolling in the garden, but now they’ve stopped to sit on a bench near the kitchen, not far from where Vanna is still singing. I crack the curtains open a little and lean forward to eavesdrop. Meguh’s voice is brassy and deep; it booms through the wooden walls.

“Khuan, you insult me,” he is saying. “Have you reason to doubt my intentions?”

“You are not the only king who’s tried to win my daughter, Your Majesty. I only wish to make it fair. I would not want Vanna to be the cause of a war between—”

“It’s that shaman of yours, isn’t it?” Meguh interrupts. “Let me guess—he foresaw such a war between the sovereigns and devised the contest to keep things fair. How convenient that such a contest also showers his temple with gold.”

That is exactly what happened, but Adah avoids answering. Years of dealing with Vanna’s suitors has polished his speech. Instead, he says, “I could arrange it, if you were to make my daughter your wife—”

“I already have a queen,” Meguh cuts him off curtly.

My ears perk up. It’s said that Queen Ishirya is much adored by the fierce and brutal king, that she is the goddess of love, Su Dano, incarnate. I heard Lintang tell Vanna once that Ishirya is the real power behind Meguh’s throne. I don’t believe this story. Seeing the way Meguh struts about our island, I can hardly imagine him bowing down to anyone.

He must not win.

“Do not forget your place, Khuan,” Meguh continues. “Your daughter’s beauty may be divine, but her blood is common, no matter how your shaman says she is touched by the gods.”

“My daughter is descended from the gods,” Adah says. His tone wavers between thin and civil. “She glows with the light of Gadda and—”

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