Chapter 4
Suyai is already dressed while I’m struggling with the complicated tunic and accessories I’m forced to wear.
“Stop fussing. You’re dulling them with your fingerprints,” she says and slaps my hands away from my chest, where a huayruro necklace hangs. The huayruro seeds making up the accessory are red seeds, some sporting black marks. They symbolize protection, direct from the communities in the .
The necklace comes together at one point, right between my breasts, and then falls into two long strands. I look at them and see not only protection, but harmony, the balance that is integral to the smaller communities throughout the empire.
The communities like the ones I grew up in.
I may not have been raised in the rainforest, but I understand the ritual importance of these talismans more than many of the born and bred citizens of Lima.
They’ll never understand what it’s like to be outsiders, allowed in only for the value one brings.
Suyai scolds me as though she’s not in the uniform we’ve spent years wearing, and I’m in a costume. Her simple tunic and sandals are higher quality than someone outside the Inka’s army would get, but they are still purposefully humble.
Everything I’m putting on is not.
I’ve dreamed about these clothes, but they feel too big.
It’s hard for our uniforms not to fit when they’re one piece of cloth hemmed to length, draped over our shoulders, and then tightened by a waistband.
It fits by all technicalities, even with the addition of the plumage and gold chains adding weight to my waistband and the intricate cape flowing out from my shoulders.
Yet I feel devoured, like a skeleton of a thing, all brittle bones sucked clean. I don’t need to see it to know the same uniform and accessories would add to my mother’s figure as if they were wings.
“I can feel your frustration, so just stop already, will you?” Suyai says. “I’m trying to find a sliver of happiness in these disgustingly depressing times. At least we’re part of a fated event today.”
“Isn’t every moment a fated event?”
Suyai sighs and looks down. “Sometimes it feels like it, yes,” she says.
“Hey, if you don’t like whatever happens today, you’ll just use those magic powers of yours to warn the Guardians that I’m ready to fight them on it,” I joke.
She breaks into a loud and undignified laugh. She’s shaking her head hard enough for some tears to escape, but her smile makes up for it. It’s the oldest trick in my book, and I use it less and less, but Suyai will always laugh at my plain old audacity.
She slaps her hand against my mouth.
“Be quiet before the Guardians take you up on that offer, and I have to go on some foolish quest to bring you back to life,” Suyai says.
She’s looking around the barracks at our peers, all in various stages of undress.
A few people looked at us when she started laughing but turned away just as fast. Suyai and I are a common pair while getting dressed, and many of them have their own friends and worries to talk about.
I want to bring up how she herself doubted the princess, the Guardians’ soon-to-be chosen hero, just three days ago.
Before I can, she kneels before me and starts working on the leather straps meant to wrap around my sandals and up my calves.
I don’t need help getting ready, but Suyai needs me to need her help.
That’s as constant as the ebb and flow of the ocean.
“You know I wouldn’t let you go on any quest by yourself. I’d fight my own way back to life before that,” I say, rather than joke about her borderline treasonous words.
Suyai mutters something, but I can’t make it out from above her.
“How do they feel?” she asks, louder this time.
“Lends more stability for my shoes, I have to admit.”
“I know you like being a duende covered in dirt, but these are ceremonial sandals. Don’t steal them to run wild,” she responds.
“My job is to protect the Inka, not look like one of their golden statues,” I insist. Being covered in heavy gold accessories, from my ears to my toes, doesn’t help. These shoes, though, I can climb to the heavens with these shoes.
Suyai rolls her eyes and stands up. “I have to go. We have a long trek to the outer edges of the palace grounds.”
It’s a stark reminder of how different our days will go. She’ll be at ground level, interacting with the common people who manage to come early enough to get access to the ceremony. I’ll be high above, at the top of the central palace platform.
I wonder if I’ll be too high to spot her below me.
“See you when this is finally over,” I say with a gentle squeeze of her wrist. She slips out of my hold and leaves.
We have until sundown, the disappearance of the sun marking the end of a holy day.
The sun still hasn’t risen by the time I meet up with my mother’s unit. I’m early, and yet I’m still the last one here. My blush is hidden by both my dark skin and the gentle dark of dusk.
No one speaks as the Apukispay explains that the mimicry blockers aren’t up yet.
It’s part of the procedure we drilled yesterday.
They’ll keep the blockers down until we’re in formation around the Inka and Panaka, so we don’t limit their power until necessary.
The Inka and her husband don’t use mimicry anymore.
They’re too pious for that, too holy. However, their children do so under the guise of serving the empire.
Serving us how, no one knows, but rumor has it they don’t like to be restricted.
“Get moving,” my mother says and doesn’t wait for a response before turning around and leading the way.
The unit falls into line one by one wordlessly. Like we drilled, I’m one person behind my mother, only here to cover the unit’s blind spots.
For the ceremony, Serpent mimics will shroud the entire palace grounds with mimicry blockers, neutralizing all power.
However, there will be a six-meter radius unaffected by the block where the princess can show off her skills.
She’ll be able to use mimicry, while the rest of us, including her siblings, won’t.
The Apukispay’s unit will be at the border of the blocked radius. If there is an attack, we’re to go inside the six-meter radius and use all means to keep the Inka and Panaka safe.
My heart beats faster than I can count, but whether it’s from anxiety or excitement, I don’t know. If there is an attack. I shouldn’t want that, but my skin vibrates with barely concealed energy anyway.
My feelings blend into the chaos around us as we climb the steps to the top platform. Kama are barking out commands from all directions. No one new has entered the palace grounds yet, but there’s an anxiety in the air as if we’re already under attack, an anxiety my mother’s unit does not share.
Once we’re at the top, the highest I’ve ever been, all I want to do is look down and find Suyai’s unit.
But she’s past the palace gate, greeting guests at the door, not allowed to follow them into the place we now call home.
I still stare, and all I get back is the gold border of the outer walls blinding me with their reflection of the rising sun.
I need to focus on the waves of people flooding in. Nobility, artisans, foreigners, the poor who hold favor in the court, and the rich who are desperate to gain some. I know there’s an organized system in place, but I can’t decipher it from here.
I can’t see anything but that damned shining gold.
Almost time.
Yes, and I shouldn’t, but I can’t help but look to the side as the Inka and her husband enter, rather than the crowd in front of me.
Music comes to life.
The Inka and her husband are standing in their formal places in seconds, and now, now, now, it’s time for their children.
There is the eldest brother, Manakispi, his hair a deep black that matches his birth father and not the Inka’s current lover.
His face is partially covered by a glimmering silver veil.
It’s not fully transparent, but it’s enough for me to make out his grim expression.
The second youngest child, Tupak, again sporting black hair, the last of the old consort’s children with the Inka, has the same veil on his face.
He’s actually smiling, teeth bared in something like a snarl.
Then there is the second-youngest sister, Salka.
Her hair is the same chocolate brown as the current Panaka, but she’s pale.
Her skin is a sickly white. It bears no sign of absorbing the power of the sun.
Instead, it almost blends in with the cold silver shimmer of her veil.
With the fabric covering her face and her sickly pale arms, she’s a walking spirit.
The youngest child, a young girl no older than nine years, is named Samisisa.
Her hair is as black as a star-filled night, deep, dark, but shining with silver that connects with her veil, giving the impression of molten silver dripping down her face.
White streaks sully all of their heads. They’ve used mimicry recently, but for what I can’t imagine.
The princess, that is to say, the princess, does not step out with them. She’s the middle child, first child born to the Inka’s new husband, with the two younger sisters following.
The beat of the drums speeds up despite the siblings stopping at either side of their parents. They’re still, but the music says there’s more action to come. The gates should be closed by now. The last person has long been corralled. All those fated to witness the princess become our hero are here.
The music reaches a crescendo, and I can’t keep my eyes away.
The princess steps out into the public view for the first time, and I am no longer in my right mind.
She’s beautiful.