Page 93 of Her Radiant Curse

Your mother was dying. Had your father brought me the right sister, I might have saved your mother—but only for a few years at most. She was weak, like all humans. Even you were weak, but look at you now. Look what I’ve made you.

You want your face back so you can see your mother in the mirror, she says, lifting the very words from my most secret heart. You want your father to love you. But what then? Will you be happy?

“I’ll be happy when you are dead,” I say between clenched teeth.

What we want is not so different. Angma sounds closer. Her voice is soft, almost a caress. I can be a mother…to you.

The words are so vile that I cannot believe I’ve heard them correctly.

I’ll not leave you, the way your mother did, Angma is saying. The way your sister will. We will be family. The family you always wanted.

The snakes are her family! Ukar says, springing onto Angma’s neck. He sinks his fangs into her hide with a hiss.

I twist out of Angma’s grip, stabbing upward at her throat. My spear finds her shoulder instead, and I hold the shaft with both hands and slash up, ripping through muscle and bone.

Her cry is a terrifying sound, accentuated by a crack of thunder. She retreats, shifting into the shadows. Black smoking blood gushes from the wound I’ve made, but she reaches into the darkness and peels a slip of shadow to patch her wound.

And that simply, she is whole once more.

At my shock, she twists her lips into a feral smile. “Your blood is potent, but it’s not enough to end me.” Her paws clutch the pulsing fur over her heart, which hides a writhing darkness I’ve never noticed before. It is like a patch of night against the whiteness of her chest. Her half of Hokzuh’s pearl.

“I gave you a chance, but now I must deliver on my promise. Consider it a mercy you won’t be there to see your sister die—”

An arrow shoots out of the smoke, piercing Angma in the cheek. She lets out a howl and whirls to face her attacker.

It seems I’ve underestimated Oshli’s skill with a bow. His fingers are practiced as they nock a new arrow. But before he can release it, Angma pounces. She’s about to snap his neck with a powerful swing of her arms, when Vanna’s light flares.

“Stop!” my sister cries, throwing herself in front of Oshli. “If you want me, take me.”

“No, Vanna!” I holler, but either she can’t hear me or she chooses not to listen. The intricate braids of her hair have come undone, and her gown is blighted with dark spots of my blood. The glow in her heart blazes brighter than ever before.

“Take me,” Vanna speaks. “Let the others live.”

“As you wish.” The corners of Angma’s lips twitch into a smile. She turns, slowly, to confront my sister. “Golden One.”

As if by magic, the doors burst open, and people pour out of the temple. Rongyo tries to go to Vanna, but the guards drag him out, assisted by his mother.

Within a minute, the temple is empty but for me, Ukar, Oshli, and my sister. At a supple flick of Angma’s wrist, the remaining suiyaks pounce.

At least, they try to. But they cannot advance on Vanna; her light is too bright. They recoil, as if burned by its touch.

I take advantage of the suiyaks’ confusion and tackle two at once, finding the tender spot between their milky eyes and driving my spear into their skulls. Experience lends me skill, and I kill three more easily, while Oshli stabs my dagger into a fourth.

But more suiyaks cluster outside the temple as we’re wasting precious seconds fending them off.

For the first time, I witness the true and awesome power of Vanna’s pearl. Light blazes from her heart, countering the shadows that rise out of Angma’s. Where the two converge, a tremendous force is born. It cannot last. The walls throb, the ground quakes.

A shock wave ripples across the temple. And my instincts tell me to get out.

I seize Ukar and Vanna. “Run!” I shout to Oshli. The temple is collapsing.

I’m choking on dust as I run. Pillars topple; the roof is caving in. We’re not going to make it out in time, but I shove Vanna as hard as I can toward the doors.

I’m bracing myself for the temple’s collapse when out of nowhere, black wings swoop in from the cracks in the roof. Hokzuh. I hear him grunt when a pillar topples against his back, but he throws it off as if it were a pesky tree branch and not solid stone. Then he plucks me, Vanna, and Oshli out of the temple a breath before the walls come tumbling down.

I barely notice that we’re flying. I’m too busy spitting out debris and coughing. But it’s really him. Hokzuh!

You were about to become a pancake. And not the tasty kind. He spares me a wry glance. Guess the Serpent King was right. You do need me.

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