Chapter 10
Tonight, I don’t welcome Mare’s questions.
“Are you nervous?” Mare asks.
I hum in response. I’m doing a bad job at avoiding Suyai’s eyes. I’m accosted by her penetrating glare every few minutes. Her eyes are narrow slits, squinted as if she could focus enough to see right through me. We haven’t had a single moment to talk alone, but we will tonight.
I don’t know if the weight in my stomach is dread or relief.
“The whole world will know your name after the debut, R. The whole entire world.” I don’t correct Mare. To him, the empire is the whole world. “What are you going to say?”
“What am I going to say when exactly?” I mutter with my mouth full of fire roasted cuy. Blinking my eyes open after closing them to enjoy the first bite, I catch Suyai’s eyes. I’m not subtle when I look away.
“When you’re presented to everyone as the… you know,” his voice falls to a whisper. “As the Guardians’ Hero.”
“Mare, Rei still has time to think about it, so let’s not rush it. Now please, this is the only time I’ll condone you following her lead if it means you’ll follow her example of eating.”
Mare mumbles something under his breath. I don’t hear it, but from Suyai’s eye roll, I’m sure it has something to do with her ruining his fun. Again.
I’m not reacting the way I normally would. I’m not teasing them both. I’m not laughing. I can’t get myself to pretend around them. My guard is too low with the people I call family.
Suyai follows me to the door after I give Mare a forehead kiss goodnight.
I step outside, and she closes the door behind us.
The night air is cold. Huayratata, God of wind, doesn’t care about my destiny.
It’s the Guardians who love and protect the empire, and it is only they who chose me.
Not every god tending to our earth is as invested in this one empire as the Inka will have us believe.
But the Guardians are. They have to be.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking,” Suyai says.
“You don’t have to all the time, you know?” I answer.
“No. I don’t.”
It’s silent, save for the shuffling of armed guards settling into place a few feet away from us. I’m hyper-aware of their presence like always.
“You notice our guards yet?” I ask Suyai, but all she does is sigh in return and grab my wrist, pulling me toward my room.
Inside, she doesn’t wait for me to light the candles before she begins to talk. “Tell me right now if you’re going to be honest with me tonight or if I should save my breath.”
I falter as I reach for the alpaca fat stored in the clay vase next to the candles. I can’t have this conversation in the light.
“One more night, Suyai,” I whisper. In the dark, I lose the battle against my face.
It morphs into something ugly and weak. The skin around my eyes tightens as I force back tears.
All I can see when I blink is the bruise on the princess’s face.
All I can feel is the weight of the Panaka’s insults.
My lips thin and nose twitches. My teeth bite down on each other so tight I’m scared they’ll shatter under their own force.
“Tomorrow the nobles will know, and it’ll be official, and we can work on everything that comes afterward, but… ”
Suyai walks toward me and uses my shoulder to spin me toward her and away from the wall.
“Right now, you don’t know what to tell me because you don’t understand what you know.”
I nod, the motion freeing the few tears that hang on my lower lashes.
“I don’t understand anything right now, Susu. But I know that doesn’t matter because I have to do it. I have to show them that I can do it.”
“Who? Who are you so desperate to prove yourself to?”
I wipe the tear tracks on my cheek with a rough swipe of my hand.
The damn Inka and Panaka and princess.
The Guardians, testing me.
The empire, expecting a hero.
Mare, saying my name in reverence.
You, giving up everything for me.
And my mother, my mother, my mother.
“You know who,” I say. My voice is low, not like a whisper or a sob, but a growl.
“I want you to say it.” Even at her most hostile, Suyai is controlled and mature.
“Why?” Why. Why. Why.
“Say it, Sinchinrei.” Suyai doesn’t scream. She doesn’t erupt.
But I do.
“Everyone, Suyai. Okay?” I shout. “You want me to admit it. I will. I need to show every single person out there that I’m here. I’m here in the palace, and I’m strong enough to protect our empire if they’ll only let me. If she lets me, I’ll do it.”
I don’t know which she I’m referring to.
I collapse into Suyai’s waiting arms. She holds me tight as I rest my forehead on her shoulder then turn my head to press my face into her neck. With my eyes closed, I can focus on the warmth of her skin and the strength of her heartbeat. I whisper my next words into her skin.
“I’ll be good enough this time, and everyone will see it.”
In the dark, Suyai combs her fingers through my hair with one hand while the other squeezes my waist. She takes a deep breath and tightens her grip.
I feel every one of her fingers digging into my waist like she’s trying to claw through and tear me apart.
I feel every one of her fingers caressing my head like she’s scared one errant show of force will crack me open.
“You’re more than enough, Rei,” I feel the words vibrate in her throat. “I see it. I see you.”
That’s what I need to prove to them, that I’m the person you see. The one you love.
I stay silent. Suyai sighs after a few seconds of no response. She guides me to the bed with a soft come on, pushing me away so I can walk next to her but never letting go. We fumble into bed like that, her hand on my waist.
“Stay?” I ask. In the dark, I only see her outline. We’re both on our sides, facing each other, but no amount of proximity can fight the darkness.
She hums in response, and that assurance is all I need to drift to sleep.
The ceremonial debut between the princess and me will be a ritual that’s more art than combat before starting our tour of the provinces.
For the next few weeks, we’ll stop by strategic towns to show off the strength of the empire on our way to Lake Titicaca.
Soldiers are preparing our rations now, llamas are being saddled with goods, and Chaskis have begun to run the road ahead of time to inform the upcoming towns of our arrival.
We should reach Lake Titicaca, the famed origin point of the first Inka, in 30 days.
Then, the princess and I alone will be expected to get to Isla del Sol, raising the mythical island with a burst of samay.
A burst the princess will have to deliver because I can’t.
It will be up to me to pass the trial on the island and retrieve the Sun Staff.
Then it will be up to the princess to kill me.
I shake my head. I can’t think like that.
What I need to think about is this moment. The ceremonial battle. My debut as the Guardians’ Hero to the most important people of the empire. That’s why the princess’s tutor is standing in front of me. I’m meant to be practicing the battle with the princess right now.
But the princess isn’t here yet.
Suyai is positioned at the east wall of the training grounds. It’s only a guard at her side. Her words feel truer than ever – collateral.
Since she joined me on the way to the trading grounds, we haven’t been able to do more than trade glances. I was picked up from my room by a servant girl, while she was being tailed by the armed guard who stands next to her now. The armed guard. The threat might as well have been explicitly stated.
So far, it has been enough to keep me in line. Not because of the threat, but because of Suyai’s cutting glare whenever I open my mouth. The Inka played it smart having her here, though she probably doesn’t know why.
I want to ask where the princess is. It was easier to keep her out of my mind at night, with Suyai curled around me and the knowledge that she was asleep somewhere in the palace as well. But now, the sun shines, and the world is awake, and I don’t know what could be happening to her.
My right hand itches with the need to curl around a weapon and attack. I need the Sun Staff, and I need us to get on with it – with fate, with my legacy. I can’t do anything until all these pompous rituals are over, but something in me hums with impending action.
Maybe it’s not a symptom of being the Guardians’ Hero. I have to admit that I’ve never been one to sit tight.
“You will submit on your knees with your head down, whether the princess is at your back or front. Understood,” the tutor states more than asks. My mind tunes in only at the mention of the missing girl.
“Where is the princess?” I ask. I hear Suyai sigh from the wall. She should be proud of me. I’ve held out for the entire useless hour of basic combat instructions as if I’m not a soldier. This tutor is nowhere near the level of my mother’s unit, and I fought alongside them.
The tutor must be used to spoiled rich kids who have never swung a halberd in their lives.
I’ve been bested in battle, and I’ve bested others. I’ve had to bare my neck by force, and I’ve knocked others' knees and forced them to the ground. Yes, I know how to spar.
The tutor sighs. “She will arrive when done with her more pressing duties–“
“More pressing than our fate?” I interrupt.
“Then we’ll do a round of hand-to-hand to get a sense of your energy–“
“Which you’re not letting me warm up for–“
“By then, we shall have established a connection and be done before sundown–“
“Just listen to me for one second, come on!” I all but yell.
The unnamed tutor doesn’t care.
My hand itches, and I’m one second away from doing something I might regret when the gate opens.
“I know you know how much I hate screaming, Taja,” the princess says, ever bored and ever commanding.
“My Princess,” the tutor says, “The hero is–“
“The hero is your responsibility right now,” the princess interrupts. “I can see that she’s obviously capable of shutting up, so it is your failure I walked in on.”
Obviously capable of shutting up. She’s not wrong. My tongue is dry in my mouth.