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“I know you’ve been unhappy,” she is saying. “Things will get better after today. You’ll see. The selection is a boon for both of us. Adah thinks I’ll marry a king—perhaps even an emperor.” She greets a butterfly that’s landed on her shoulder. “We’ll start a new life together. In a palace.”
In the past, whenever we’ve talked about her binding selection, it always ends in an argument. But today I’m silent. I want to understand how she justifies it to herself.
“Imagine it,” Vanna goes on. “We’ll be fancy ladies taking strolls in the garden in our silk gowns, and musicians will have to sing whenever we return to our villas. We’ll gossip about who’s romancing whom, we’ll host poetry contests and decorate cakes with fresh lilies and orchids—”
Honestly, I’d rather gouge out my scales one by one than spend my life cloistered in some castle, idly gossiping and decorating cakes with flowers. Yet seeing Vanna so hopeful makes me want such things, if only to please her. Such is my sister’s power. Such is my love for her.
But I am, as she said earlier, a grouch.
“I am imagining it,” I say, “and you forget one important factor, sister. My face.”
Vanna comes close, and she tucks my stripe of white hair behind my ear. “I never forget about your face, Channi,” she says tenderly. “I’ve learned to see past it. Just as I know everyone else will.”
There’s a firm press to her words, like she’s determined to make this so. Normally, I wouldn’t doubt her. Her radiance is powerful. When she learns to master its power, she might hold an entire army in her thrall.
But she’ll not be able to change a single mind about me. I know this because I am as monstrous as she is beautiful. Our power is equal in that way.
The butterfly on her shoulder grows jittery, alarmed by my nearness. Vanna tries to console it with a few soft words. I should take a step back, but I don’t. The butterfly flutters out the window, and my sister and I are alone once more.
“Help me with the batter,” I say, before our silence grows an edge. “You add the coconut milk. I’ll take care of the sugar.”
While Vanna obeys, I reach for the small sack of sugar in the corner of the shelf. Sugar’s expensive, but thanks to my sister, we have more than anyone else in Sundau. When we were poor, I used to collect sap from palm flowers to make Mama’s cakes. It’d take me hours for only a few drops, but I never minded. The chore was my favorite; I loved the excuse to be outside—and I wanted Vanna to have something to remember Mama by.
Then one day, a lost merchant docked his boat not far from our hut. He’d misread his map and ended up in Sundau instead of the main islands. When he saw Vanna, glowing like the sun while she ate cakes beside the reedy quay, he dropped to his knees and bowed as if she were a goddess incarnate.
That same day, he delivered a barrel of sugar to our door, asking only that Vanna speak a few words of blessing for his business. Then he left, and Adah clasped Vanna’s shoulders proudly. “So it begins,” he told her.
I thought Adah was being delusional. But it turned out I was the fool, not he. Soon more merchants came, docking at Sundau and bringing reams of rose-dyed silk, tins of tea from the far ends of the Spice Road, porcelain cups and plates, and stacks of gold coins, which Lintang secretly buried in the courtyard so the neighbors wouldn’t steal them (and Adah couldn’t gamble them away at tiles).
Thanks to Vanna, everything changed. Adah no longer needed to work on the cassava farm, and I didn’t have to collect sap anymore. We moved into a house with a courtyard, and no one missed our old lives, our old hovel by the jungle. Except me.
The batter is nearly ready, and I breathe in its sweet aroma, thankful that at least my cakes haven’t changed.
It’s tradition for Vanna and me to add the secret ingredient last, together. At the same time, we each toss a pinch of white sesame into the batter. Vanna doesn’t waste a second trying to get a taste, and this time I don’t stop her.
“Mmm.” She licks the batter off her finger. “I don’t know how you do it.”
“Good?”
“Divine. Now hurry and steam them so I can eat a dozen before the ceremony.”
I chuckle. I’m not indifferent to praise, and a part of me puffs up with pride as I start dividing the batter. “You should have a contest where all your suitors make cakes. I wonder who would win.”
Vanna flushes. She tries to hide it by turning to the window, which only makes her feelings more obvious.
“Is there someone you want to win?”
There’s a falter in her countenance, but she covers it up quickly. “The richest one, of course,” she responds automatically, “with the biggest palace.”
It’s an answer Adah’s trained into her, and I’m curious if she’ll follow through. Secretly, I suspect she has a lover. The other day, I found a note in her pocket, folded into thirds.
You are the light that makes my lantern shine, it read.
It’s a beautiful turn of phrase, like a line from a poem. It makes me respect whoever wrote it for her. I only hope Adah doesn’t find out.
“There’s Prince Rongyo,” I say. “He’s supposed to be your age.”
“Adah didn’t invite princes, only kings.”
