“A coconut pearl? Like, a pearl from a clam, but inside a coconut?”
Nix nodded. “They’re supposed to be incredibly rare, and it could take us lifetimes to find one. But if we do, it could be the cure we’re looking for.”
Lucas sighed. “But the chances of that are so low, maybe impossible, and by then…” He trailed off. He didn’t want to saytoo late, but everyone, especially me, knew what he meant.
“But tomorrow will be the full moon,” Amador said.
“And Jade Mountain will be here by then.”
“Then we have no time to lose,” said Lucas.
“It’s useless,” I said. “It would be too much. I can’t ask that of you.”
Lucas looked at me, a hard line in his brow, and he fisted his hands at his sides. “I’m not giving up on you.”
Lucas went for the door, and I heard him call out to the guards standing just outside.
“By order of the crown, every available coconut is hereby a top priority. Merchants, farmers, and guards from all over Biringan are to bring whatever coconuts they can find here to the palace at once. Halt all other orders. This is for our queen’s life.”
“Yes, sir!” they said before rushing off.
Before hurrying after them, Lucas glanced back at me one last time and said, “I will move an entire mountain for you if I have to.”
26
During thenight,Nix and Amador kept watch over me while Lucas and a team of a hundred of his best men collected all the coconuts in the region.
Elias oversaw the process, keeping the line moving to waste no time in finding a one-in-a-million coconut. I heard his voice carrying through the palace while I remained chained to my bed.
When daylight broke over the horizon, throwing the sky into a hazy pink, I closed my eyes and let sunlight wash over me. This might be the last sunrise I would ever see. I hadn’t turned last night, but I had felt it in my body like a lead weight. My eyes ached, my muscles were sore, the bones on my wrists and ankles were bruised, and my skin was rubbed raw. My fangs had grown sharper—my nails, too—even though I had stayed awake all night. I was looking more like a monster with each passing hour.
The manananggal was growing stronger the closer we got to the full moon. A deep, dark pit in my heart was yawning wider, making everything oily and rotten, threatening to eat me from the inside out.
The whole morning, I sat at my window and watched a longline of people from the city push wheelbarrows or lead donkeys pulling carts teeming with coconuts through the front gates.
By now, word had spread about me, and yet my people had come.
Anything to save their queen.
War was knocking on our door, and yet my people were still trying to help me.
Nix and Amador took turns keeping an eye on me, making sure I didn’t lose my mind and escape, but if these were my last hours as a human, I was determined not to let them go to waste. I had to believe there was a cure out there, that I could stop this and save my kingdom from a needless war.
Whenever I walked to my window, cheers from people calling my name rose from below. At first, I thought they were jeers, but the more I listened, the more I realized that people were rooting for me to survive.
“They love you,” Nix said, coming to my side. She looked tired, too, from worrying about what was coming just as much as I was.
“Why, though?” I asked. “I’ve hurt people.”
“They want to help you, like you’ve helped them. You’ve changed the city, made their futures brighter. No hunger, no one is unhoused, no more human slaves…”
Amador added, “Even I have to commend you. You’re one of Biringan’s best.”
Coming from her, that meant a lot. I wondered if I’d done enough, though. I’d had such a short time on the throne. “I hope they can forgive me,” I said. “I want to be better.”
“They know that,” said Nix. “And they’ll do anything for their queen.”
As the sun stretched across the sky, the line to the palace never grew any shorter.
