Chapter 29 #2
The man won’t stop struggling. He won’t stop begging, not as his hair whitens, strand by strand, not as his voice dwindles, raw and gasping.
I see the princess’s hair, something I’ve gotten used to as white, regain its dark color.
But it doesn’t stop there. The man’s skin begins to thin and flake, like withering leaves or wool thrown in fire, slowly curling to ash.
His eyes bulge out, made all the more obvious by his failed attempts to blink.
His lips crack and start to bleed as they dry out. It’s only a small portion of the blood.
There’s so much blood.
And I’m not covered in it, but somehow I am. Somehow, I feel it on my skin, coating me. What am I doing? I’m standing still, doing nothing yet everything at the same time. I can’t see the princess’s eyes, but I want to. I want her to stop staring into the eyes of a dying man.
It’s obvious the moment it’s over. All the tension leaves his body. He’s only held up by the princess’s hand around his throat. She’s quiet as she lays him on the ground, so gentle it makes the blood around them look warm.
Mare whimpers behind me, and I don’t know what to do with the knowledge that he watched the same thing I did. That he stood by as it all happened, like another puppet whose strings I didn’t move. Why didn’t I turn him away? Why didn’t I fight him about coming?
He wanted to come, I remind myself.
I turn to look at him and expect tears, but all I see is him biting his lips and holding his head with one hand. He must be feeling the surge of samay in the princess, amplified by the stone in her chest. He didn’t make a single sound until the power hit him.
The power I’m still incapable of feeling.
The princess doesn’t waste any time. She steps away from me and the body. She sways on her feet, but flinches away from me when I reach out to make sure she doesn’t fall. She stumbles in the sand and makes it a few feet away before crumbling to the floor. Her breathing is ragged. She’s gasping.
“Princ–”
“Don’t fucking call me that,” she says between clenched teeth. I’ve never heard her curse as much as today. I've never seen her like this at all.
No, that's not true. I saw her like this in Lima, gearing up to teleport in a wave of emotionally driven mimicry.
She’s winding up her power. Little by little, her hair stands as if electrified.
She looks godly, unnaturally powerful. She doesn’t blink as she kneels and slams her healing hand into the ground, her fingers cracking again beneath the pressure.
But this force isn’t a simple punch. It’s an earthquake.
The ground trembles. The earth splits. The water in front of us rises and then falls as an island rises from its depths.
Isla del Sol is a few meters away from us in a mere minute.
Through the crashing waves of the disturbed lake, I see fins.
Sirens. They call to me in desperation, and I know, as certain as fate, that they will take me to the island.
All that’s left for me to do is go.
Yanami heals her hand and stands up. Her hair falls, only a few streaks of white scattered throughout.
Mare walks up to me and reaches for my hand. The moment I feel his touch, I yank my hand away.
“You remember the way back to the house, right?” I ask. He doesn’t respond. He just looks at me, brows beginning to furrow. “Head there now while I help the princess start her boat.”
“Why aren’t we leaving for the trials now? We don’t have time,” he says.
I look at him, really look at him, and my mouth drops in surprise. A new form of nausea bubbles in my stomach, something I want to cover up with disbelief. Because Mare thinks he’s going on the trials on Isla del Sol with me.
“You’re not going on the trials with me, kori,” I say, every word slow and deliberate.
The princess walks toward us, stumbling in exhaustion.
The blood on the ground is drying in the sun, and Mare is right, we don’t have time.
I need the princess to leave before I do something foolish like ask her to stay.
I need Mare to understand before I lose the little confidence I have in my words.
“But we need to save Susu,” he counters. He looks so confused.
“You can help later. After I get the staff, but you can’t go with me,” I say.
“Why not?”
“Because you can’t.”
“But why,” he pushes, and I’m losing it. I’m losing myself to the taste of iron in the air making me sick, and the heat of the sun feeling like a physical weight crushing my bones, and the sirens calling me to my destiny. I’m losing myself.
“Because you’re not the hero. I am,” I shout, the words flying out of my mouth before I can think any of them through.
“Sinchinrei,” the princess says, shocking me back into myself.
“But… But I need to see my sister. I need to save my sister.” The desperation in Mare’s voice burns me from afar, and I can only imagine how it must burn from within.
“I’m going to save Suyai, Mare. I just need to get the Sun Staff first.” I just need to be stronger.
I hear the explosion in Mare’s voice before it shows in his body.
“You’ve had to do everything first, everything before her.
And she’s alone out there, and we’re here and, and,” he’s stuttering.
His teeth are shaking, and his whole body follows.
Tears begin to flow, and it’s not that I’ve never seen Mare cry, but after all we’ve been through, I thought he was stronger than this.
I thought he would understand. I can’t show up to Lima without the Sun Staff. I just can’t.
I’m weak without it.