Chapter 6
Iwake up with the sun shining on my face, let in from a cutout in the stone walls surrounding me. The stones are cut so precisely that I can’t make out a single imperfection in the lines where they meet. It’s the antithesis of the haphazard stones that make up the army’s quarters.
I’m inside the Inka’s residence.
It’s late afternoon. I can vaguely guess that from the shadows and offerings on the walls.
Offerings to the sun always face east, and the shadows are now falling west. I want to get up and look outside to confirm it, but the moment I try to move, every nerve in my body screams at me to stop.
Still, this is nothing compared to the pain that peaked during battle, that feeling of my bones cracking beneath my skin.
The wood door creaks open, and a man in a healer’s tunic walks in. He has black skin that contrasts with the shining gold earrings enlarging and weighing down his ears. His lips are pulled down into a frown that he tries to hide when he catches my eyes.
I must look as much of a mess as I feel.
“Sinchinrei,” he greets me. I nod. I don’t want to test out my voice for fear of how I’ll sound.
“We will be doing three healing sessions so you can appear before the Inka. I suggest you, well,” he pauses and takes a deep breath.
“I suggest you take this time to enjoy the peace. I will not disturb you.”
There is that frown again.
I fall asleep right after he applies some numbing salves to my body. The pain relief allows my body to rest without discomfort.
“This isn’t enough. She shouldn’t even be moving,” the healer says. I imagine the frown on his face while I keep my eyes closed.
“It went as fated. Now the hero must rest,” an unknown voice says from right beside me.
“She’ll get over it,” my mother says. I stop my eyes from snapping open. “She needs to be in these clothes and out of here before sunset. I will leave that task to you, but then you are relieved from duty.”
“There has to be some way to make them reconsider. She is your daughter.”
I am only half awake, but I know that healer has no idea how little that means.
“She is much more than that now, and you would do well to remember your place in this too. She is to appear before them no later than sunset.”
No more words are exchanged, and I hear the door open and slam shut.
She is much more than that now.
“I beg of you, voice of the Guardians, to make them reconsider. She is not fit to leave without a Serpent mimic,” the healer says.
Voice of the Guardians. The healer must be speaking to a diviner.
“I’ve said all I must say. Nonetheless, the Guardians’ Hero is awake. She will choose the path, not us.”
The Guardian’s Hero is awake. Yes, I am.
I open my eyes.
I’m right, the person right beside me is covered by a diviner’s cloak. White strands thread evenly through her thick curly hair, going down both shoulders to below her breasts. Despite her words, her lips are pressed in a tight line. Her eyes are wide and watery. She’s holding back.
“I don’t understand,” I say, then cough up a storm. My throat is raw, and the water the healer brings me does little to help it.
“Sinchinrei, please,” the healer’s voice is gentle as he replaces the diviner at my bedside and grabs my shoulder to push me back down to the bed. “Do not exert yourself right now. You survived an assassination attempt on the Inka and Panaka. You could have died.”
Right now, I’m not feeling any pain and can replay the assassination attempt in my head. My mother was right, the internal dissidents were our highest threat.
The healer is also right. I need to rest as much as I can.
Serpent healing may heal all ailments, but it is a curse as much as a blessing.
It speeds up the healing process, but the pain one would feel naturally is condensed into a fraction of the full time.
He must be powerful to delay the pain from hitting me during the healing, but it will hit.
“I need to see the princess,” I say. Both the healer and diviner sigh.
I push past the healer’s hands and get up, ignoring the black dots that mar my vision.
I feel my body flash with heat and then rapidly sweat in an attempt to cool down.
An impossible wind picks up the loose strands of my hair framing my face.
The sweat on my face cools, and I hold back a shiver. The wind has a voice.
It’s time.
It’s time.
They speak with a force so strong it’s impossible to think it could come from the gentle breeze. It’s the voice that I’ve been mistaking for my own, only now I can’t. What is that in my head?
“Sinchinrei,” the healer says, and his voice sounds far away. “Sinchinrei, are you okay?”
I have never heard my full name be used as often as in these last few hours. At least I think it’s been a few hours.
I have to open my eyes again, though I don’t remember closing them. I’m on my knees, the phantom pain of falling reverberating through my knee caps. The diviner is gone. It’s only the healer in the room.
How much time has passed?
My knees burn, but even that starts to fade into the feeling of tensed muscles. The delay the healer blessed me with is at work.
It’s time.
“Guardians be damned, I get it,” I say and press the heel of my hand into my forehead. There’s nothing but the promise of pain inside my skull, waiting to get out.
“Sinchin–”
“Rei. It’s just Rei,” I interrupt the healer.
He smiles, but his eyes look just like the diviner’s. Tears. So many unshed tears, for what?
I heard what they said. I’m not stupid. Gods be damned, I’m the Guardians’ Hero. I must have completed the fated action the diviners were on the lookout for.
A hysterical laugh bubbles out of me. I have never felt so disoriented in time and space. I’m the hero. I laugh again. I must be dreaming.
The healer pulls me up and guides me to the bed, where a beautiful tunic is laid out. “We’ve already lost so much time,” he whispers to himself. “I’ll help you prepare, Sinch…Rei.”
I smile at him. I want to ask his name as I dress, but conversation seems impossible with the heaviness of the room. It’s only broken by my occasional laugh and his occasional sigh. At one point, I’m sure he whispers delirium, but my throat locks when I try to call him out on it.
It’s when he’s opening the door and motioning me out that the dam breaks.
“Where’s the princess? Where’s Suyai?” The moment the words are out of my mouth, my brain pangs with the intensity of my worry.
Still, even that is nulled by the healer’s blessed curse.
The silence makes sense now. He’s not just helping me.
He’s sedating me. That’s why my thoughts are slow, why my emotions are dulled, and the realization that I’m the Guardians’ hero hits me in erratic waves.
He doesn’t answer me. I follow him through the healer’s quarters.
Wherever we’re going is far from where we started. I can’t use that time to do anything but try to keep the princess and Suyai in my mind. The thoughts threaten to drift away the moment I think of something else.
The healer stops at a grand wooden door. It’s carved with swirling images of the Ave, Feline, and Serpent, but they bleed into each other so well that it looks like one creature. That is the Guardians’ sigil, and it guards the throne room with the intensity of the Guardians themselves.
“I need to say this before this starts,” the healer says. His voice is sharper than before. He won’t tolerate me not listening. “You are not physically ready to enter here.”
Somehow, I feel even colder. Distant. His words evoke the pain that is waiting patiently to manifest.
“My mimicry is slowly leaking out of your body, and if this takes more than half an hour, which I know it will, you will feel the pain of the rushed healing of your bones. The Inka does not tolerate signs of pain. I know this for a fact.”
“Is this advice or a threat?” I slur. He knows I’m part of the Inka’s army. He knows I’ve been treated with Serpent mimicry before.
“You stayed fighting long enough to sustain five broken ribs, two stab wounds, internal bleeding from your liver, and the most impressive set of bruises I’ve ever laid my eyes on, and trust me, as the Inka’s healer, I’ve seen more than enough bruising for my lifetime.”
He looks away from me at the end of his sentence, shifting his head to stare above my shoulder.
All those injuries seem like a list out of a training class, but I don’t care about them anyway.
I care about why the Inka’s healer is healing bruises when the Inka has an army to make sure no one lays a hand on them.
The thought leaves as soon as I open my mouth to ask.
He sighs. “This will let some pain leak in, but you’ll be clearer-minded.”
Then my body is not numb, it’s alight.
There’s a flash of fear in his eyes so hot I flinch back to avoid the burn. He speaks before I can gather my thoughts again.
“All of that, that pain, that means you can make it. Which means she might too.”
Then there’s just dread.
It’s beyond my conscious understanding, but something in me knows what those words mean.
Something tells me that he’s right. He must be right.
Because she needs to make it. My senses sharpen past what the freedom from the sedation allowed.
Wind rushes in my ears, and I swear I can hear people breathing inside the throne room.
It’s like the princess is behind me once again, and my singular job is to be the barrier between her and the world.
It’s like taking a mimicry hit to the ribs and getting back up before they’ve even finished cracking.
My body is ready for a fight that is not here.
By the time I come back to earth, the healer is staring above my shoulder again. I blink the blurriness out of my eyes and shake my head. I feel like I’m moving through a gelatinous pond. I’m not numb like before, but I’m not as alert as I was.
He sees me come back to myself and smiles, the saddest one I’ve seen him give me all day.
“Ah, you’re back,” he says. I don’t know how to respond. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say I don’t know where I was.
“What is going on?” I plead.
He shakes his head.
“I had to test the diviner’s theory, for my own peace of mind, I suppose. I care much more than I’m allowed to, understand?” He says, but it does nothing to help.
“I don’t understand anything you’re saying,” I respond.
“Sinchinrei, take care. The sun has almost set. You shouldn’t keep the Inka waiting.”
He opens the door before I can face the room.