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Qian’s men pounced on Lucas, slamming him to the floor.

Lucas struggled, but they pressed his head to the cold marble and bound and gagged him. He fought to break free, but it was no use, not with five men on top of him. Their knees dug into his back, and he let out a wheeze.

He watched me, eyes wide, fearful, as Qian stepped over him.

Prince Qian towered over me. His eyes were cold and sharp, just like the silver blade in his fist.

“You’ve shown the whole city what you really are,” Qian said. “Look at you. You really thought you could trick everyone into thinking that you weren’t a monster?”

The pain in my stomach was so unbearable I could hardly move, even as Qian lifted his foot and kicked me down the stairs leading to my throne.

I yelped when I hit the bottom and struggled to rise, but I was so weak. Everything inside me screamed for this to be over. I wanted Qian to end it so I wouldn’t have to go through this anymore.

“The aswang queen of Biringan,” Qian said, pointing at me with his silver knife. “You thought you could hide, but in the end, monsters always reveal themselves.”

“You can stop this,” I said. I could hardly get the words out. “Stop the invasion. I’m the one you want.”

“You will no longer be a curse on this land.”

Gani’s words came back to me: There are curses to inflict on one’s enemies, but it is a mirrored arrow. What shoots forward must also shoot back.

Qian closed in, his face illuminated sharply by Amador’s lightning while she fought the rest of his men. His focus was only on me. The silver knife in his hand gleamed.

I looked at Lucas, at Nix fighting against her captors, at Amador as her storm raged all around her. Time itself had seemed to slow down to a crawl.

A mirrored arrow.

The vision I’d had in the healing spring. You can’t kill me. I’m you.

The black tar in my soul that refused to wash away.

I created things.

My power was transformation.

I looked at my hand, the hand I’d used to try to curse Amador that day in the garden. The same hand that had turned into claws. A reflection of my own suffering. A mirrored arrow.

My mind raced. And then it was as if I’d been struck by one of Amador’s lightning bolts. No one had cursed me.

I had cursed myself.

All this was my fault. All my self-doubt and insecurities had backfired, rotting my heart from the inside.

I was jealous, and self-hating, and bitter.

I was an alchemist. I could change matter, transform one thing into another.

I was making myself turn into a manananggal.

The reason why I couldn’t use my power this whole time was because I had been using it already. I had thought I was so unlovable that I had made myself unlovable. I was the only one standing in my way.

I remembered the symbols scrawled in Yara’s diary, at the symbol on her mausoleum. It was the symbol of her power. Change, change, change. She had been just like me.

I crawled away from Qian, pulling myself across the floor, toward the coconuts. I knew what I needed to do.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Qian asked. “You can’t escape me.”

I reached out, and as I did, something familiar in my chest lurched. Warmth bloomed and rushed through my body when I touched one of the coconuts.

My power. It had come back. It surged through me, filling me to the brim, making my body shake. The cold rot inside me started to thaw. My claws shrank.

Qian stopped in his tracks, watching me with round and fearful eyes.

“What?” he asked, stunned.

I held the coconut to my chest, and the heat inside me exploded. I was bursting with sunlight—my power pulsed, then obliterated the dark void in my chest. I looked up at Qian, and he stared with shock. With a twist of my human hands, I cracked open the coconut shell, and thousands of pearls poured out onto the floor.

Along with the pearls that I had created, light flowed out of my body, blinding everyone, even me. My power swirled around the room like a tornado of pure energy, and it burned all my fear and doubt away.

I closed my eyes and sighed. It was like I’d been drowning this whole time, and only now could I breathe so deeply. A weight had been lifted from my chest, and I rose to my feet. My fangs shrank, and the pain faded.

Thousands of coconut pearls continued to pour out of the shell. My power to change matter was on full display. I was allowed to forgive myself. If no one could give me that grace, at least I could give it to myself.

Qian’s surprise passed, and he snarled. He lifted his silver knife at me once again, but I knew how to control my power this time. I raised my hand, and the blade melted like liquid.

Like a pent-up dam breaking, my power was flowing out of me so fast, so strong, I wasn’t sure I could control it. But, no—that was the old me. I could control it. I was queen of Biringan.

I raised my arms and thrust my light to the ceiling. A deafening boom sounded, and the palace roof blasted apart. Energy burst into the storm, burning through all the rain and clouds. And the silence that followed was like a gasp.

Amador’s storm melted away, revealing a clear, starry night lit by the pale full moon.

My power, an essential part of me, receded, and the light faded.

Qian stared at me and then dropped to one knee.

At first, I thought he was bowing to me. Then I heard someone coming, and I turned around.

Dressed in a jade-green silk hanfu was an old man. Jade Mountain’s soldiers parted for him as he walked toward me, his cane clacking on the cold marble. The old man took everything in with pale eyes almost as white as his long beard.

“Father,” Qian said.