“Then ask your brothers to eat them.”
“No one’s eating anyone. Have you tried talking to them?”
I’ve been trying. My paper bird lifted a fearful wing. Wait—someone’s coming.
The snakes parted, making way for the largest serpent I had ever seen. Her scales blended into the palm leaves crinkling under her body, but as she slid out of the foliage, they transformed. Changing first to match the umber dirt, then fading to parchment white—the same shade as Raikama’s snake face.
Only the great snake’s eyes didn’t change. They were like slivered diamonds against a liquid yellow moon. Mesmerizing.
She rose, standing high as my waist. A forked tongue darted out, and she gave a long hiss.
Kiki shuddered.
“What’s she saying?” I asked.
She says her name is Ujal, and she asks if you are the daughter of Lady Green Snake.
“Lady Green Snake?”
The lady has been gone for many years, Kiki went on, but Ujal can smell remnants of her magic on you…daughter of Channari.
At the name, a note of grief hummed in my chest. “She knew my stepmother?”
“Her father did.”
Raikama’s past was a mystery I longed to unravel, but I bit my tongue, holding back the urge to ask the serpent more. Now wasn’t the time.
I knelt, leveling my gaze respectfully with Ujal’s. “My brother is injured. Do you know where we might seek aid?”
Her scales changed color once more as she slithered back in the direction she’d come.
By the time I rose and Takkan picked Hasho up, Ujal had disappeared into the dense undergrowth. I feared I had lost sight of her, but her snakes had waited. They showed us the way, moving as one and with impressive speed, like a billowing cloth rippling over the earth.
I kept my eyes on the ground. Thick roots bulged in our path, often hidden under a mantle of leaves and wildflowers. We passed a grove of black bamboo trees and too many waterfalls to count, but everything else was green. Ujal could have led me in circles and I would never have known.
The dawn burned into morning, and the sun turned harsh, stewing and thickening the air. My breathing had become a series of pants, and my clothes weighed on my skin, sticky with perspiration. Kiata’s hottest days were nothing compared to this.
I stole a glance at Takkan. Usually he would have been at my side, making idle comments about the jungle to help distract me from the heat. Not today. His steps were heavy enough for me to notice, and his skin carried a tinge of gray. His eyes were shadowed by dark half-moons, and his broad shoulders sloped down, as if bearing far more than an injured crane. But his spirits were undampened. When he caught me looking, he sent a cheerful wave. Instead of waving back, I slid my arm through his, walking beside him the rest of the way.
We’ve arrived, Kiki announced when Ujal stopped before a short wooden fence. She wrinkled her beak. This is the shrine.
It was a lone building at the end of a dirt road: a wide house made of teak that had seen better days. Moss coated the walls, whose orange paint was faded from years of rain, and the hanging prayer signs were cracked and chipped. I ventured past the wooden fence, following the line of stone statues up to the threshold.
“Hello?” I said in my best Tambun. “Hello?”
There was a girl with sun-browned skin sweeping leaves from the courtyard, and she dropped her broom when she saw the snakes behind me.
“Uncle!” she screamed, disappearing into the shrine.
Not long after, a middle-aged man with an orange scarf and straw sandals appeared. He was slight in frame, no taller than me. Deep creases of irritation lined his brow; perhaps he’d been in the middle of a prayer when interrupted. His hard gaze swept past the snakes to the crane in Takkan’s arms, then to the five others soaring over us protectively. None of this seemed to surprise him in the slightest.
I fumbled for the words in Tambun to request help, but I needn’t have bothered. The shaman spoke Kiatan.
“They say a storm brings snakes into the home,” he said. “What trouble do you carry with you, that the Serpent Queen herself should come to my doorstep?”
“We seek help,” I said, gesturing at Hasho. “This crane is injured.”
“The Serpent Queen brought you here for the life of a bird? Curious indeed.” The shaman gathered his fraying sleeves and folded his arms. He didn’t look curious at all. “Come inside.”
As he turned on his heel for the shrine, Ujal and her snakes retreated toward the jungle.
“Wait!” I called, chasing after the Serpent Queen. Her skin had changed again, this time to match the gray stones of the road. When she stopped, I bowed and said, breathlessly, “Will I see you again?”
She rasped in reply.
She says the jungles are rife with demons, conveyed Kiki. Do not venture into them with him. Kiki cocked her head at Takkan. Especially not at night.
That wasn’t what I’d asked, but the Serpent Queen had already slithered away, vanishing into the shrubs beside the road.
So it wasn’t Hasho that had made the snakes uneasy. It was Takkan.
“You,” the shaman said, pointing at Takkan as we reentered the shrine. “Wait outside.”
With great care, Takkan passed Hasho to me. My brother’s feathers brushed against my elbows as I wrapped him in my arms. He was so light and fragile, almost like a child.
The room was small, furnished with a low table and an incense pot for repelling mosquitoes. Silently, I laid Hasho on a straw mat for the shaman to examine.
“The demon that marked him,” the shaman began woodenly, as if he were speaking of a winter melon and not a living, breathing bird, “what was its name?”
“Bandur.”
The shaman frowned. “That is not one I recognize.”
“He is…newly made,” I replied. “In Kiata.”
The edges of his eyes constricted, and I could tell what he was thinking—that there were no demons in Kiata. That Kiata had repressed its magic for centuries, until even our gods were silent.
He let go of Hasho’s wing and wrapped his fingers around my brother’s long neck. “It is best to let such things be, unfortunate as they are. A demon’s mark is difficult to undo. He will be reborn into a better life.”
“No!” I exclaimed, realizing in horror what the shaman was going to do. I lunged to block him. “No…please. He’s my…my brother.”
If I had uttered such words to anyone in Kiata, they would probably have thought me mad. But the shaman didn’t even flinch.
Calmly, he let Hasho go. “You should have said so earlier. The crane’s enchantment is not the demon’s doing?”
“No,” I said uneasily. “It is mine.”
“I see.” He was considering. “My acolytes will contain the demon’s touch to just his wing. But I cannot guarantee that he will recover fully. You will find out only once he is a man again.”