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Vanna snorts. “The high queen didn’t come. If she had, perhaps I would have picked her over Rongyo. Just think, what a better world ours would be if it were ruled by women. Not pigs like Meguh or Dakuok.”

“I would be glad for whatever choice you made, whether it was the prince, the shaman, or no one. So long as it is yours.”

“I would choose you above all, sister,” Vanna says, and I know she means it.

“Doubtless you would,” I reply, “but in this life, you’re meant to be with a penniless shaman.”

She chuckles. “Adah will have a fit.”

“Who cares?” I certainly don’t. “All the riches and power in the world cannot buy someone who loves you truly.” I pause meaningfully. “That’s the greatest treasure.”

“Have you found such a treasure?” Vanna asks, her eyes twinkling faintly. “You and the dragon are quite a—”

“We’re sparring partners.”

“Sparring partners,” Vanna repeats. Her eyes are sly. “That’s one way to put it.”

She’s about to tease me more, but she starts choking. I pat her back, my good humor overcome by the wretched smell of bile on her breath.

“Are you feeling unwell?” I ask worriedly.

“I’m just seasick. I was ill during the voyage to Tai’yanan too.” A whistling sound escapes from behind her teeth, and it takes me a moment to recognize it as her stomach grumbling. “Ironic, isn’t it? All my life I’ve wanted to see the world, but my body just wants to go home.”

“Go back to sleep,” I say. “That will help.”

“I can’t.” Vanna tilts her head sheepishly. “I haven’t figured out what to do with my horns.”

I chuckle out of relief. Even in times of despair, she finds something to laugh about. This is her strength.

“How about I tell you a story?” I say. “How about your favorite? About the moon goddess and her rabbits and cakes—”

“That’ll only make me hungry,” Vanna says darkly. “It won’t be good for me to be hungry.”

At first, I don’t grasp her meaning. Then, of course. Angma’s body sustains itself on human life. No wonder Vanna’s fur is dull and lackluster—I noticed right away when I saw her in the cabin. No wonder she’s walled herself away from everyone except Oshli.

She’s starving.

I purse my lips, remembering the spot of blood on Oshli’s scarf and his wan appearance. I know without asking that he fed her his blood to sustain her. But it won’t be enough. Not nearly enough. She needs her body back.

The dagger I gave him is on the floor, close to where he was sleeping. I pick it up and tuck it by my side.

Vanna lounges down onto her forelegs. “Sit, and stop looking at me like that, or I’m going to call you Mother.” She stifles a yawn. “You’d make a good mother, you know—if you were just a little bit less overbearing.”

Vanna always knows how to make me smile. It’s true, I love children. The young snakelets back home adore it when I visit, and the babies in the village don’t cry when I coo and make faces at them. They know that they are safe with me. I’d die before breaking such trust.

I sit.

“Now, tell me a story, like you promised,” says Vanna. “Tell me about the light of Gadda.”

“Why that one?”

Vanna smiles faintly. “It always helps me sleep.”

A soft snort escapes me, and I begin the tale. “Niur is our creator god, father of the world as we know it, but it is Gadda we love most, for he loved humankind despite our faults, and had mercy on us when his brother Niur tried to remake the world with a great monsoon.”

I stroke Vanna’s fur tenderly. “Gadda saved us. He asked the dragons to let humans ride on their backs as the world flooded with rain and sea, and Gadda sprinkled seeds into the sea, so the Tambu Isles were formed—a hundred islands of verdant, fertile land for us to thrive on.”

“Sundau was the first island created,” Vanna adds. “That’s why the serpents of Sundau have magic in their blood.”