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I will fight for my sister.
As soon as the words slide off my tongue, my stomach lurches. It’s the only warning I get before the tent collapses, and I roll off onto a mound of hard, bristly coconuts.
I shoot up to my feet, but instead of checking for bruises, I scrabble for my wooden mask. It’s fallen behind a hawker’s stand.
Hurriedly I press it to my face, then spin toward the temple. But it’s too late.
Villagers corner me against a wall. “Demon!” they screech, jabbing at my face with their fingers. “Demon!”
I could easily evade them, strike down the two on my left with a swing of my makeshift spear, and kick my way through the three in front of me. But I’m frozen. I’ve fought all manner of beasts and demons without so much as a trace of fear in my heart. Why am I afraid now? What is it about being despised by my own kind that makes me forget my instincts and behave like prey?
“Demon!” the villagers continue yelling. “Monster!”
The dragon is forgotten. My sister too. More villagers gather near, and the gasps multiply across the marketplace.
I stiffen against the wall and use my spear to push forward through the throng.
“Don’t hurt her!” a child shouts. It’s a little girl of five or six—too young and innocent to think me a monster. My chest goes tight. I could hug her as she cries for me. Then her mother pulls her away, and I begin to drown.
Faces. So many faces. I can’t tell them apart but for the whites of eyes, the paired flares of nostrils, the crooked teeth. Fingers grab my ankles and my wrists, nails raking across my skin. I hurl them off and start to run, but the crowd’s become a mob. Faces mass around me, and bamboo fans beat at my back.
“Why isn’t this thing in a cage?”
“A snake demon! Chain it up!”
“Kill her! Burn her!”
Everywhere I turn, more faces. They’ve become a wall, the noses and eyes and ears and mouths. A wall I can’t break apart with my fists.
Red tassels swing. Dakuok’s priests. They’re batting the mob with their ceremonial sticks, trying to push the villagers back. I’ve lost my spear and reach for the knife in my pocket, but I don’t take it out.
Tigers I know how to fight. Crocodiles and bears too. Even the scarce demons that dare show themselves outside the dark. But children and old women and men—my own kind? In front of Vanna?
If I fight back, things will get worse. If I wield my knife, there is a good chance blood will be spilled. My blood too. Its poison is a secret I’ve kept with the greatest care. If the villagers learn what it can do, it will be the end of me.
So I let them spit and shout at me. Fruits smash against my head; pebbles nick my arms. I hurry toward Vanna. Words will not hurt me, but stones and knives will. My skin is not as thick as it looks.
My mask falls off again and is trampled under the storm of a hundred feet. I make the mistake of looking back for it, and while I’m distracted, someone loops a rope around my waist.
So much for not using my knife. I slice at the rope, but others swing over my head faster than I can cut.
“Stop!” I shout as they begin dragging me. “Stop it!”
Above my own cries, I hear Vanna’s.
“Let her go!” my sister screams. The light in her heart blazes. She cannot control it. “They’re hurting her!”
Prince Rongyo’s guards break into the crowd, trying to fish me away from the danger, but the mob is too great. They can’t get to me.
Vanna’s voice fades beneath the roar of angry shouting. My ears are ringing, my body’s abuzz from the tumult. Then, somewhere at the bottom of the din, I hear a familiar rustling.
Channi, Channi…
Meguh’s vipers. I cannot see them, for they are trapped in their clay pot, hissing and rattling—feeling my distress.
Free us, they urge. Free us, and we will help you.
How? My fingers scrape the ground for something—anything. I can’t, I think. That’ll only make it worse. I must fight alone.
