Page 118

It’s a sign we’re winning when Angma starts to change back into a tiger, whiskers springing from her cheeks, fur rising from her pores. I drag my gaze to my sister, who’s turning human at the same time.

But I don’t dare rejoice.

I know that Angma has had years to master her pearl, and she can sustain its power longer. She will outlast Vanna. Unless I do something.

My body is still shaking with shock. It’s madness to throw myself back in Angma’s way, but I don’t care. I bite into my palm, tearing through my calluses. Pain chokes me. I swallow and bite deeper. Again and again—until blood floods my mouth and all I can taste is iron.

With my teeth, I gnash into Angma’s fur. My poison is not enough to kill a monster like her, but I feel her muscles jerk and her heart leap. That’s all I need. The shadows spiral back, just long enough so I can lurch out of their path and retrieve my spear.

I pick it up, right as Angma springs for me. Sharp curved claws shoot out of her fingers, and before I can attack, she snaps my weapon in half.

The last time I fought a tiger and she broke my weapon, I dropped it out of surprise. Not this time. Even as the splinters of wood explode in my face, I hold fast to the pieces of my broken spear. First chance I get, I jab one end into Angma’s belly. Her fur hisses from contact with my blood, but I don’t pierce her flesh. I ram the other half of the spear into her back. Deeper and deeper into her heart until I feel the hardness of the pearl lodged inside.

Then I twist.

A scream careens out of Angma’s lungs. The sound is like thunder; my entire body goes numb, and my ears are deafened.

I twist and twist, my eyes watering as her tattered hide hemorrhages smoke. Nothing in the world can stop me. Layer after layer, I unfold shadow and blood until, finally, the broken pearl tumbles out of her chest. I scoop it up with my bare hand.

Shaped like a half moon, it looks no more extraordinary than a stone from a riverbed. But I can feel the terrible power it holds, humming as it rests on my palm, fitting there as neatly as a small rice bowl.

I stumble to my feet, senses still reeling, but I’m trembling with joy. Angma lies under the clove tree, in a puddle of bleeding darkness. The glow of her eyes is fading, and her white hair is lank against the dirt. She’s dying.

“It’s over,” I whisper to her.

Across the mist, the golden beams fanning out of my sister’s heart recede into a gentle glow. With a smile, she leans tiredly against Oshli. She’s human again, and I thank Gadda under my breath. Everything will be all right.

“Not so,” Angma rasps, jolting me from my peace. “You think I am your sister’s greatest enemy, but you are wrong.” A brittle laugh. “Look, Channi.”

She’s wheezing, bleeding out on her back, and yet she uses her last strength to point at the sky. I look up, but it’s hazy still, and I can’t see much. Gradually, a divine brush sweeps away the fire, and the smoke pressing against the jungle dissipates. Angma’s curse on the island lifts.

“You see now?” she whispers.

There, up against the high moon, is Hokzuh. He’s alone, pitted against an army of suiyaks. There have to be over a hundred of them, so many that their masses of white hair resemble a thick cloud. I don’t know what’s happening, but all the joy I felt earlier is gone, replaced by a creeping dread.

“This is my last wish to the pearl,” Angma whispers with a growl. “Let my pain be yours.”

Then, with one final spurt of strength, she leaps—and throws me to the ground.

I’m caught off guard. I fall forward, landing on the bulging roots of the crooked clove tree. As Angma holds me down with her massive weight, I turn onto my back. The suiyaks are there, winging behind her, too many to count. I hold the black half of the pearl close, ready to fight to keep it. But no attack comes—from Angma or from the suiyaks.

Instead, the suiyaks crowd around the Demon Witch. Then, as the remaining light from the fire dissipates behind the trees, one of them drops something white and shimmering into Angma’s mouth.

My dread calcifies into horror. Too late, I know what Angma wished for.

I’ll never forget her smile, all teeth, as she widens her maw, revealing Hokzuh’s moonstone trapped inside.

“No,” I choke, screaming. “No!”

Angma folds over me, as if diving for an embrace. She crushes me with her tiger weight, but her muscles go soft, and her fur turns limp. She begins to shrink as though her insides are leaking out. As I squirm out of her arms, Vanna calls for me.

“Channi, Channi, I’m coming!”

My sister is trying to rescue me, and that means charging through a wall of suiyaks.

“Vanna, get away!” I yell. “Get out of here!”

“Would she fight for you the way you fight for her?” Hokzuh asked me once.