Chapter 8
“Ileft Mare in the other room. We’re a few chambers down from you, actually. It’s nice they considered that when they dragged him out of his lessons without a single explanation.”
She pointedly looks away from my face. I can’t blame her.
I’m so exhausted that even Suyai’s distinct brand of disappointment and the pain scorching my muscles can’t get me to muster up the energy to keep my damn mouth shut.
“Which lesson? Hopefully, court etiquette. He hates that one.”
“I don’t think he had time to celebrate in between kicking and screaming, thinking he was being kicked out of the palace.”
Oh.
“Oh,” I say, a wave of nausea rising in me that has nothing to do with pain. “That’s not what I meant to happen.”
Suyai isn’t looking at me when I see her deflate.
“Don’t even say that to me, Rei. I don’t blame you for that. You’re selfish, but not that kind of selfish.”
“I’m impulsive. Irresponsible. Single minde–”
“Single-minded, yes. But never malicious. So I’m going to ask you once because I saw Mare’s face when he ran out of the guard’s arms into mine, and my patience is running dangerously thin. What happened?”
In the low candlelight haze of the room, Suyai looks soft around the edges, like damp clay smoothed out by a bare hand until it fades into the background.
There are only two wall cutouts in this room, both directly in front of the door and behind the bed, parallel to the wall.
There aren’t enough to light up the room, even with the early evening sun still lighting the sky.
I count six candles lit inside evenly spaced crevices in the walls.
My vision blurs the longer I go without blinking, so my eyelids have to flutter like butterfly wings to keep Suyai in sight.
In a few split seconds of clarity, when my eyes and the lighting stop their brawl, I notice the small wrinkle between her brows.
Her mouth is set in a tight line, and she refuses to make eye contact with me.
No matter how much effort I’m putting into keeping my eyes open for her, she does not look at me from the far-left end of the bed.
I know Suyai like the mountains I still call home after all these years away.
She is more worried than angry.
“I’ll tell you when you look at me,” I say, still slurring but hopefully somewhat comprehensible. The more I try to enunciate, the more my teeth and jaw ache from the hours of grinding and biting down. “No blood or bruises. I swear on Inti rising another day.”
She lets out a sound between a laugh and a sob.
She catches my eye, and a different kind of pain flares inside me.
Suyai and Mare are upset. Because of my actions, because I asked them to be brought to me.
From our eye contact, I see the red lines tainting the whites of her eyes, and the image of Mare’s eyes in the same state invades my mind.
Seeing their eyes should put me at ease, like seeing my hometown just beyond the mountain peak after a day of hiking used to, but now I have to look away.
“It’s harder to see you in pain from wounds I can’t heal.
I was outside the palace when the fighting started, but I heard from the others.
I know what happened to you, and I know what healing they must have done to have you walking now,” Suyai finally whispers, so low I almost miss it.
“But I’ll look at you anyway, and you’ll tell me why Mare and I are inside the Inka’s quarters. ”
“They had to have told you something,” I say, a part of me comes to life at the thought of a guard announcing that I, Sinchinrei, am the Guardians’ Hero.
I can only imagine grandeur. My mind makes up a look of pride on my mother’s face that I know doesn’t exist. Not yet, but soon. It is immediately killed by the thought of Mare sobbing in a guard’s bruising grip.
Suyai’s silence says it all. They weren’t told a single thing.
“You’re in the Inka’s Army for Gods’ sake. We’ve given them our whole lives, and they couldn’t even explain what’s going on?”
Suyai knows how quickly I go from subdued to bursting at the seams, and she breaches the gap between us to meet me on the right side of the bed.
Her hand starts to rub my head before I can explode.
Her fingers thread through my hair like a needle combining two fabrics destined to be one.
The pressure is more than comfortable. It is an act of knowledge.
She’s been there for every year of my life that created the person I am now.
She accepts it, but in the back of my mind, I know the clock is ticking.
Still, my body relaxes before I know what’s happening.
“They told me I’m being added to the princess’s guard unit at your recommendation. I didn’t know Mare would be dragged into it until they threw him into my new quarters.”
Neither did I.
“I’m the new princess’s champion,” I say, instead of stating the obvious.
“Sinchinrei,” she says, half upset and half in love. It’s a mixture that’s tainted her voice more and more these days. “You know that doesn’t answer my question.”
I hate that I’m bursting with a new feeling, one of pride. I shouldn’t be when she’s so worn out in front of me. I hate that something so incredible looks so negative to her right now. I want to assure her that it’ll be okay. It’s a bad day, but it will only lead to better ones.
If only I knew how to explain it so she would understand.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you two,” I say. It’s the truth, but it’s not the truth she’s looking for.
“That’s the end of the story. The consequences. Start at the beginning, Rei.”
So I do. I start from the moment we parted ways this morning to the waves of pain at the Inka’s feet.
I include the princess’s touch of help, but not the warmth of her skin.
I include my mother holding me still, but not her warning.
I include the princess’s role, but not that the Inka does not know I do not have the mimicry necessary to raise Isla del Sol from the waters of Lake Titicaca.
I tell Suyai all about my plans for the quest, but not the obstacles I know line the way.
Still, I lay it all out, and at the end, I know I shouldn’t be smiling, but I am.
Because I’m the Guardians’ Hero.
Suyai’s hand leaves my scalp in favor of forming a fist at her side.
“You really are something special, aren’t you, Rei?” She doesn’t mean it as a positive thing. “They tortured you. They made it clear they don’t want you, and now we’re all stuck at the center of what is fated to be the most dangerous event in our lifetimes–”
“Susu, it doesn’t matter what they think because we’ll prove them wrong. They can’t take the title away from me, and they can’t rip you away from my side. We can do this, and we can prove–”
“I’m not here to prove a single Gods’ forsaken thing to anyone, Sinchinrei.” Suyai’s voice is cold like the winter waves that drown our ships and slice our cliffs. “You know what I’m here for? Why they allow me to be at your side and Mare’s at mine? Collateral, Rei. We’re damn collateral.”
“Suyai.” I am more broken from her words than the hours of screaming.
“You’ve been waiting to do something that’ll finally make her regret not wanting you from the beginning.
Now the perfect opportunity has been gifted to you by our very own Guardians.
” Suyai’s words are quiet now. She scoffs.
“Congratulations, Rei. You’ve taken a sacred title from the most powerful person in our generation and brought the Inka’s wrath upon you in the process.
At least if someone had to, it’s a person deluded enough to think it’s worth it. ”
It will be. It will be Suyai, I think. I’ll save you and Mare and this whole damned empire, and you’ll see it then. She will too.
“Suyai,” I whisper. My eyes can’t stay open for much longer. I can’t fight her now. I can’t say anything to change her mind. “Suyai, stay with me for a bit?”
“Of course, I will,” Suyai whispers. “Of course, I will, Rei. Always.”
I feel tears well in my eyes, but I don’t understand.
I feel chosen for once in my life. I feel so far from the girl left in a deteriorating house on the mountainside.
But I feel Suyai’s words too. They descend into my mind like the father of all Gods, Viracocha’s tears descend from his eyes as rain.
Tomorrow, I am the princess’s champion, soon to be revealed as the Guardians’ Hero, the seeker of the Sun Staff.
Yet, as I fall asleep, I am once again Sinchinrei, six years old, hearing my aunts explain that my mother is not coming back. I do what I did back then. I crave Suyai’s comfort.
The next morning, I allow myself to indulge.
I enjoy every bite of the luxurious breakfast I share with Suyai and Mare.
I close my eyes and take in every time Mare laughs and teases Suyai.
I relish the excitement in my stomach that I refused to feel as dread.
The pain from last night feels like a bad dream rather than reality.
Mare doesn’t officially know I’m the hero yet, no one does, but the smart kid figured it out on his own.
Suyai sent him off to change for their meeting with his new private tutor before he could get the explicit answer out of me.
He stuck his tongue out at her the moment her back turned, but Suyai was no fool and told him to close his mouth without looking back.
These are the moments I’ve always lived for. I have an infinite amount of memories of Suyai reaching out to clasp her hand over Mare’s creative mouth, and yet I always ache for more.
Even now, I feel the selfish desire to live inside the details of our breakfast. I feel the need to hide Suyai and Mare away from everyone else, to stay in our private world where I don’t feel the crushing pressure to make something of myself.
Except I could never live with myself if I did, not yet. I have things to prove first.
Especially when an armed guard, their mace in full view, followed after Mare and Suyai at the end of our meal. Collateral, I remember.