Chapter 3
Ihold back a grunt as my back hits the floor. Again. Three times in six rounds, with the rest consisting of nonstop sparring that timed out. Technically ties if we were competing, but no one is keeping score.
That doesn’t change the fact that I haven’t won once.
I struggle to catch my breath, wasting a valuable second as Kumya, Ave Mimic, drops her forearm above my throat.
She wants me to tap out. I wheeze and push at her arm.
She’s stronger than me, heavier, and impossible to dislodge.
She’s another one of my mother’s permanent unit members who showed me nothing but a friendly smile when I arrived.
I try to think of how to get out of the hold, but my thoughts dissipate with the little air left in my lungs.
Black dots take over my vision, covering Kumya’s unimpressed face as she says something I can’t hear over the ringing in my ears.
She frowns above me, and I feel the weight of her disappointment, everyone’s disappointment, heavier than the weight of her arm.
One voice cuts through.
“Enough,” my mother commands.
For a brief moment, I think she said it to save me from passing out, to stop the bruising on my throat, to protect her only daughter. Then, I stand up and see her concentrated over her kipu, the administrative document she’s using to keep track of her analysis.
It’s a large central cord with several smaller hanging ropes with knots on them representing various statistics.
She’s looking over them, reading knots I can’t decipher.
I’ve only ever used kipus for maps, though I saw my Kama deciphering the administrative ones often.
My mother wasn’t keeping score of winners and losers, and she definitely didn’t end this round because of my condition.
She was simply done analyzing the performance between the groups. Next round, she would do the same.
I shouldn’t feel anything negative. This is what a great general, the greatest general, should be doing.
“That’s enough for warm-ups. Let’s move on to strategy.”
“What?” I croak out, my windpipe stinging from the effort. My cheeks start to burn as everyone turns to stare at me.
It’s odd. I never felt self-conscious being the youngest soldier in a unit.
I wore it as a badge of honor. Now, my age is nothing to be proud of.
The youngest person here, other than me, is 28.
That’s eight years my senior. Yet, here I am, the only one stupid enough to speak out against the Apukispay’s order.
But that isn’t going to make me back down.
“Do you have a question, Sinchinrei?” my mother asks, faint amusement warring with annoyance over her features.
“I can still spar. If we can just do one more round, I can show it.”
“There’s no asking for another round in war, Sinchinrei,” she cuts me off with brutal efficiency. “We don’t get second chances. You either win the first time or you’re better off dead.”
Her words aren’t just for me. Her unit looks at her with somber admiration. Starstruck, really. She looked at all of us as she spoke. Each one of us. Not just me. Never just me.
The atmosphere shifts as she rolls her eyes and smirks. “So clean yourselves up, and let’s move on to plans.”
Everyone bursts into motion, just like that, but I’m rooted in place. You’re better off dead. Is that what she thinks of me? Is this what fighting with the most elite unit is? I’ll be tougher than that when I’m the Apukispay.
I see the two other supplemental soldiers follow directions.
I look at the sun. It’s been two hours. We have one more hour to talk strategy before we’re dismissed. All this time, my mother hasn’t even stretched. She didn’t join us on the climb, instead watching from above. She didn’t spar with anyone, instead hunched over her kipu.
My mother is standing exhausted with white streaks in her hair, but I see nothing she could be expending her life energy, that precious samay, for.
As a Feline mimic, she can enhance any part of her body, whether that’s to accelerate healing or toughen her skin.
Some Feline mimics can even change their appearance, though that’s usually a specialty.
I, along with the rest of the empire, have no idea what my mother’s specialty is.
I know Suyai’s specialty, of course. I even know Lasta’s, the shy girl able to bind together people’s severed limbs with Serpent mimicry. But I know nothing about my mother’s.
I don’t even know my own, or what it could have been if I ever manifested the Feline mimicry I tested for.
The disconnect between me and my own blood, it paralyzes me right there on the training grounds.
But my mother won’t wait for me to get it together.
She starts showing the unit a kipu and explaining the knots, standing too far for me to make out the details.
I whisper a curse and force my legs to move. Kumya is the only one who glances back and shifts slightly to make space for me.
“Oxwitik is having problems with the other Mayan independent city-states up north,” my mother says, discussing the region half to herself.
She still takes input from her unit when needed.
She deems them low power, medium threat.
I’ve never been to the , but I imagine my mother has with how she talks about it.
Her voice holds a subdued reverence and respect, something she never shows when talking about our homeland in the mountains.
“Sierra is clear,” my mother’s voice snaps me back to the discussion at hand. Sierra, the Andes Mountains where we both grew up. She passes that part of the map like it’s nothing. “Southeast near Puno is the last known location of the Aya Runa. Classifying them as high power, low threat.”
This sparks debate. I see why immediately. As much as this unit is made up of the most powerful soldiers in the empire, they all grew up with the same boogeyman stories as I did.
The Aya Runa is the most powerful band of thieves documented.
Rumors of their mimicry domains and specialties run wild, some going as far as to say their Serpent mimic is immortal and their Feline mimic is a full feline shape-shifter.
But at the end of the day, they’re still just thieves.
They kill when someone gets in the way of their prize, and they never express interest in the politics of the empire.
Their last known location being near Puno says it all.
That area near Lake Titicaca claimed independence from the empire halfway through the rule of the False King.
It’s one of the obstacles the princess will have to face once she’s declared the Guardians’ Hero.
The Sun Staff is said to be hidden in Isla del Sol, a sunken island in the middle of the lake, but the people who live nearby want nothing to do with the Inka’s reign.
“Kashani,” Kumya says, and I almost respond before my mother beats me to it.
“Our secondary Feline mimics will be guarding the palace treasure spread throughout undisclosed locations. We have a higher threat from that entire region than the Aya Runa alone,” my mother, in full Apukispay mode, answers.
Right. Apukispay Kashani. Even my own last name does not belong to me alone.
I haven’t called my mother anything other than Apukispay out loud in years. Yet here I stand surrounded by people who get the luxury of using her name, our name.
Kumya opens her mouth as if to speak again, but then closes it and nods.
I need to focus, but my mother’s presence overwhelms me in a way I could never have prepared for.
I don’t know this woman in front of me. I don’t know what she allows her unit members to call her, what she prefers her friends to call her, or if she has friends at all.
All I know is the little I see in front of me. My mother is a woman who inspires subservience.
“Moving to the islands of Lake Titicaca. High power, medium threat. We are expecting spies, but not an attack. Nevertheless…”
I can focus on this. I’m good at strategy.
I know it. High power. The little I know of the lake region centers around their folklore and Inkan history.
It’s the place where the first Inka was created by our Sun God, Inti.
The divinity, the pure, unfiltered samay, in the area is sacred, but I never thought to see it as a threat.
I can’t focus when I feel so hopelessly naive, next to the stranger who says my last name to my mother with a familiarity I’ve never felt.
“From the south, we have Upsallata. It’s been a few months since they were integrated into the empire, but the new administration is still getting settled. No threats yet, but they were the result of the first expansion campaign from Inka Yanaru. Low power, high threat.”
“But they accepted the integration with no fighting,” I say, yet again the center of attention, but this time with my head held high. I know about this. As much as Suyai likes to make fun of my one-track mind, I keep tabs on any conflicts we hear of inside the palace walls.
Out loud, I detail the history of Upsallata’s integration, the fights that broke out, the detention strategy, and the neutralization of threats.
The soldier to my right, Urpi, Ave Mimic, whistles a few seconds after my brief. Kumya, to my left, chuckles and shakes her head. I refuse to let my cheeks flood with color the same way I refuse to look at the ground to avoid everyone’s stares.
I hold out for one second. Two seconds. My mother tilts her head to the side, and we lock eyes. Three seconds. She smiles.
At me.
“That was almost impressive,” she says, one sentence like a hand around my throat.
Almost. Almost impressive, but never enough.
“You’re correct about the history. However, you’re wrong in your conclusion.
We cannot base our actions on outdated information.
The calamity announcement changes everything.
It’s easy to see that they would be the only ones in the unique position to avoid the calamity through political maneuvers alone.
If I can plan that, then anyone can. They’ll remain a high threat. ”
She moves on to the next point, internal dissidents, without a second for more input. It’s a clear dismissal. It’s a clear humiliation. Then anyone can. Anyone except me. My throat closes up, that invisible vice still crushing my windpipe, as more details float around me.
Dissidents inside the capital. Largest documented group predicted to be only five members.
Rumors of Inka Yanaru being another False King.
Whispers against the divine right to rule.
Even the mention of a covered-up assassination attempt against the Panaka, leaving three guards dead and only stopped by the legendary princess, isn’t enough to snap me out of the spiral I slowly fall into.
The Apukispay gives everyone one more minute to give any opinions or objections to the threat list. The two supplemental guards stay quiet. Three others, Urpi, Nucosan, and Tamyaki, Serpent mimic, speak up. All they have are questions, which my mother fields effortlessly.
Today isn’t even the worst of it. Tomorrow, my mother will go over all of my weaknesses in front of everyone.
She’ll tell me exactly where I fall into the team I don’t deserve to be in.
No matter how far I’ve made it on my own, no matter how fast I climbed the ranks, I am only here because of my damn mother.
I’m humiliated because I have no chance to show my true strength here since I haven’t reached it yet.
But I will. I’ll train today, and I’ll train tomorrow before the meeting, and I’ll train after that.
I’ll be strong enough soon because I have to be.
I have no other choice. Not with my mom ending the meeting and her loyal disciples giving me smiles, easy and carefree, as if I don’t know what must be going through their heads.
They’re laughing among each other, loosening up for the night, seeing nothing more than the Apukispay’s abandoned daughter.