Chapter 2
Suyai turns to face her, but I’m frozen. While Suyai grips me even tighter, my hands let her go and drop to my sides.
“Go home, Suyai. You’re too tired to keep fighting,” my mother says, and I feel her cold hand wrap around my upper arm, right above Suyai’s burning one.
My mother’s skin is ice, just like mine always is.
We run cold. “And report your specialty to your Kama once your strength is back up. We’ll be needing that. ”
Suyai pales, caught red-handed using a power she wanted to keep hidden from the army in order not to rise in rank.
I should feel guilty, but a part of me celebrates.
This might give Suyai an advantage as well.
The army keeps writing off my mimicry as delayed, but it’s only a matter of time before they try to use it as a reason to limit me.
At least Suyai won’t have to fight that battle.
Of course, my mother doesn’t think I need rest. I’m her daughter after all. I’m not supposed to be tired and trembling and dependent on Suyai to stay upright.
Suyai doesn’t move an inch.
“Sinchinrei, I need to speak to you,” my mother says, but it doesn’t do a thing to get Suyai to leave. “Without Suyai.”
Suyai ignores her and turns to face me.
“I won’t repeat myself,” my mother says, but I know that’s not what gets Suyai to nod and leave. It’s the pleading in my eyes.
My mother lets go of my arm and turns. I don’t understand how Suyai’s warmth drains from my skin so fast, but my mother’s cold leaves me frozen. When was the last time I felt a mother’s touch? It's the image of her walking away that breaks my paralysis.
When my mother left, I was six, and I knew right there and then that she would never come back. She sent an invitation to test for the Inka’s army when I turned 12, and I wrote her asking for an invitation for Suyai as well. That was that.
The army exam is set up to prove a person’s worth, and at the end, it’s a simple yes or no. Yes, I’m worthy to follow my mother after all these years. No, she was right to leave me behind.
No mimicry required. No flashy tricks. Just strength, willpower, and commitment.
Still, no matter the result, my mother would never return to our house on the mountainside. She would never see her mother or sisters again unless they managed a way to get to her, past miles of rough terrain and behind palace walls.
But I passed the exam. I’m going to catch up to her.
My mother leads me to a supply shack I’m well acquainted with.
Weapons line the walls. Maces with different heads on them, some all sharp edges and others smooth, are haphazardly propped.
Bows and arrows, those I hardly work with anymore, hang on the back wall next to the door leading out to the range.
There are slings and stones and axes, some on racks and some on the floor.
There are vibrant white strands in my mother’s braids, but I can’t fathom what she used her Feline mimicry for.
The will to mimic the power of our Guardians is as foreign to me as she is.
My mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother are all Feline mimics.
Yet no matter how hard I try, no matter how divine my hair or pitch-black my eyes, I can’t even sense mimicry in the air.
Genetics play a strong role, but so does need, desperation, anything that leads to a prayer strong enough for the Guardians to grant a miracle.
I don’t need a miracle from anyone to succeed.
My mother eyes me up and down, her black, almond-shaped eyes a perfect reflection of mine.
Her posture is impeccable as always. Her tunic, tan and fringed at the bottom with a vibrant red upside-down triangle on her chest, is the most casual dress someone of her stature ever wears, yet she wears it like royalty.
Her large, solid gold earrings hang off her ears as if weightless.
She has three feathers attached to the gold band around her head, adding a few inches to her short height. After only seeing her in glimpses and from a distance for over a decade, I never noticed that I’ve grown taller than her until now.
It doesn’t feel that way.
Will I look like that when I’m her age, once I’ve reached Kama status and proven I’m worthy to wear the clothes she dons naturally? We have the same hair after all. Though mine is not as long as hers, it is still thick, coarse, and black. We have the same olive-toned skin color.
No one can deny that I am my mother’s daughter. That is, no one except my mother herself.
“You’re filthy,” my mother says.
This time, I’m ready to speak at the very least.
“I just finished training,” I reply, sounding steadier than I feel.
“But you haven’t had training yet. Your unit doesn’t start for another hour.”
As always, she knocks the breath out of me.
I didn’t know she was aware of which unit I’m in, let alone our schedule.
Before I can get carried away, though, I come to my senses.
She is the Apukispay, the highest leadership position that’s not the Inka herself.
She’s said to be sharper than any halberd’s blade and just as bright as its metal.
Of course, it’s child’s play for her to know these details of the army, especially when it’s about someone climbing the ranks the way I am.
“I train outside of our normal schedule,” I say.
“And what training do you think you can program yourself that your Kama isn’t already covering?” The challenge in her voice is clear.
“I supplement our physical training with my own strength and stamina challenges,” I say slowly, every word tested for her reaction before the next.
She hums. I can’t read anything from her eyes other than the playful fire that is her signature. Do my eyes hold the same light?
“You were so young when I began to spar with you,” she says, not voicing the obvious question. Do you remember? But I answer it anyway.
“As soon as I could walk, you made sure I knew the most stable stances,” I say. My mother was better than any Kama before she ever set foot in this palace.
“Try to knock me down, like when you were younger. I’ll give you three minutes.”
All my carefully nurtured caution is thrown out the window. I’m not ready, but I want, from a place that growls from starvation, to prove that I am.
From her first block, I know I won’t ever knock her feet from under her.
She isn’t sticking to defense. She’s fighting to win.
She lunges at me, and it’s only the strength I’ve built up over the years that stops me from falling on my back.
I contort my body out of her hold, even though it hurts my spine.
Flexibility is my weakness, and this is a reminder that any weakness is dangerous.
I block the right hook she feigns for my stomach. Her fist hits the exact place on my arm that Suyai hit less than an hour prior, and I know I’ll be sporting a bruise tomorrow. Still, I block it. I read where her fist is going despite her trick, and I stop her from leaving me concussed.
I’m not a child anymore.
Feeling proud is another weakness of mine.
My mother takes advantage of my moment of delight to punch my right side, and I’m only quick enough to partially block it with my elbow.
The hit is so strong it knocks me off balance, but I’m not falling now.
I’m not going to prematurely end the only time my mother allows me.
I don’t land a single hit on her. I believe it’s only been a minute, but my body feels like it’s gone through a year-long war.
The last few hours are catching up with me.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d believe I’m receiving help from the Guardians themselves.
But it’s just the coca. It’s just the image of Suyai paralyzed on the ground and her trudge back to the barracks.
It’s knowing that no matter what Suyai says, Suyai has to believe in me or she wouldn’t be here.
I have to believe in myself, or I won’t deserve to be here.
I block another fist aimed at my right ear, but nothing I do softens it. The thud rings inside my head. She hits my side, and I slide to the left from the momentum. It’s all I can do to stay standing, and, by the Guardians, she’s fast. Keeping up with her is like a sprint that never ends.
I don’t know if I’ll fall by her hand or from my exhaustion.
But not yet, I hear. My thoughts seem to scream in a voice not my own.
I try to strike her, but she catches my fist with one hand, twists it, and releases. A muscle spasms in my arm, but I set up for another punch. I’ll feign a hit to her side while I actually go for a sweep of my leg. That’ll at least make her stumble. That’ll break her stance–
“That’s enough,” she says.
But before a single thought crosses my mind, I mouth, no, and go through with my plan.
I’m knocked onto my back before I can blink.
My chest is alight with pain, acute like the slash of a knife.
Before me, my mother drops a mace to the floor.
It takes me some time, but I get it. She slammed the pole end of the mace into my chest to knock me down.
She cheated, and she doesn’t even care enough to acknowledge it.
“Unfair,” I gasp, unable to speak clearly when my lungs still burn.
“You’ll stand with my unit during the Guardians’ Ceremony. You’ll join us for training and strategy meetings for the next two days. I’ll have your Kama explain to you what that means.”
Those are probably the only words that could cut through the pain seeping into my bones after the day I’ve had.
I open my mouth to curse that she’s gotta be kidding me, that she’s wrong for this.
I’m supposed to be the one to rise to her, not take her hand and let her pull me up to the top.
It’s not how this is supposed to go. None of it.
I want to fight her when I know I can win, to stand beside her when I know I’ve proven I deserve the space.
Still, no sound comes out. My mouth flops open and closed like a fish gasping outside the sea.