Interlude IV
AYA RUNA
The princess is a monster.
The princess growls like a feral predator rather than prey. She’s surrounded and limited by the young boy passed out on the floor that she’s trying to hide from view. She should look like a caged animal, with her white hair and scarred face, but nothing in her demeanor would have you think that.
She chose to come here without the Guardians’ Hero at her side.
She went willingly with the guards who accosted her at the coast. Even we, at the top of the highest platform in the palace, deliberately visible for the Hero to find, felt the aftershocks of her mimicry as she teleported past the palace walls.
She’s not stupid. She had to know we would sense her.
So, she went with our guards, only struggling when they tried to take the young boy from her arms. He was already unconscious by the time she made it to the platform.
His face stayed hidden in the crook of her neck until she tenderly placed him on the floor, curled into a fetal position that made him look smaller than he already was.
She physically placed herself between him and us, as if we would have any need for a young boy.
Unless he had the Samay Stone.
Pucaru orders another three soldiers to detain her, but our numbers are quickly dwindling.
Tutay is standing guard halfway up the stairs, and we won’t call her up when she needs to stay focused on potential threats like the Guardians’ Hero.
We can’t afford for anything to go wrong while Cashan is up here with us in his debilitated state, unconscious body hidden away in a makeshift tent.
Princess Yanami takes down the three guards effortlessly, knocking them out but not killing them.
The guards refused to use mimicry even under threat of death.
Their misguided devotion stifles their full power.
Yet something in the princess’s grace makes me think that even the guards at their true power wouldn’t be enough.
She really is so highly skilled as to take them out in a few moves.
From my vantage point in the back, I analyze the situation with the rest of my family.
Princess Yanami wears the same mask as her mother and siblings, but there’s something frenetic in her energy.
She’s holding back with the guards, but here and there she slips and uses more force to end things faster.
In between the fights, she looks around, taking in every face as if trying to find someone specific.
I think of Suyai, slowly dying from her wounds due to a lack of healing. None of us got the sense that Suyai and the princess were close, but maybe we missed something.
I crane my neck but only catch a fast glimpse of the unconscious boy before the princess’s body falls into place to block him.
Suyai and this boy. We’re missing something about them.
A guard comes in from the north stairs, and the princess momentarily turns her body to look at them. She only does it for a second, too fast for me to move my body, but not fast enough for Qajay to dart to the side and get a good look at the young boy.
Qajay jumps out of the way once the princess gets back into place, but their pale face is enough to confirm my suspicions.
“That child is Suyai’s,” Qajay announces to the group, not bothering to keep their voice low. They figured out the same thing I did. The princess wouldn’t come here with this liability if she weren’t here for Suyai too.
There’s a moment of pause, like the bated breath before a sob.
The princess may be weakened from the mimicry it took to teleport here, but she has a few pitch-black strands left in her hair. She’s not powerless. We have numbers on our side, but she has the stone.
So, which way is it going to go?
“Where is Suyai?” Princess Yanami asks.
Her voice surprises me. It holds all the authority of the dead Inka but none of the snobbery. The princess sounds exhausted, not defeated but not arrogant either. I stand up from my chair, and the others close their mouths.
“She’s too injured to leave her room,” I say.
The princess has to have seen the projection after the fight. She has to know what state Suyai is in.
Her next words come out so sure that I almost believe her. “Send one of your men to get her. I assure you, she has the will to come out.”
“We can tell her you’re here with her family, but there’s a chance she won’t believe us,” Qajay reasons. They’re right. Suyai fought Tutay valiantly, but by the end, any budding camaraderie we had between us was gone. She won’t trust a single word out of any of us.
The princess raises an eyebrow at us, then sighs as if we’re inconveniencing her. As if she hadn’t been fighting for her life moments ago. Maybe to her, she hadn’t been.
“She already knows the boy is here. We handled that part for you,” she bites out. Her face shifts between petulant teenager and world-weary adult.
“I don’t repeat myself,” she says. It’s a statement that should be abrasive, but from her, it sounds like a prayer.
This is our chance. It’s the only leverage we have.
“We’ll bring Suyai if you comply with our demands,” I say. My mind both races and feels peacefully detached. We’re at the end now. It’s just a matter of pulling it off.
The princess narrows her eyes at us, but answers quickly. She isn’t surprised by anything. “What are your demands?”
“We need the Samay Stone,” I answer bluntly. Her facial expression doesn’t even twitch.
“If I could give it to you, I would, but I promise you I can’t. You have no way of knowing this, but my promises mean something.”
Except I do know. I know it from the fatigue she comes in with. I know it from her depleted voice, same as mine, filled with power yet strung out from days, weeks, months, of battle.
The others call bullshit, but I cut off their voices by lifting my hand. I believe her.
“We need to use it, but we don’t need to keep it. We need to heal someone important to us,” I say. It’s the truth, but the others tense around me, unhappy at how much I gave away.
The princess stays silent for a moment. A crack in her armor appears as she bites her lower lip raw. The dead Inka told us we needed her cooperation to use the stone, but we still don’t know what that means. Does the princess need something else to use it as well?
“I can try, but I can’t promise success,” Princess Yanami answers after the pause.
I open my mouth to speak, but shut it the moment I hear a softer voice at my side.
Paria, coming out from the lightweight tent she was hiding in with Cashan, is beside me, swaying on her feet and still dazed from her lack of samay.
“If he dies, so does everyone here. I promise you that, princess,” Paria says.
As if puppets, we all look at the young boy at the princess’s feet. Paria spoke the truth, but it was a cruel one. Pucaru helps Paria back to the tent, but I keep my eyes on the princess. It isn’t just her armor cracking. Everything about her is falling apart. Where is her hero? The empire’s hero?
Where is this person that Suyai was so sure would save the day?
Princess Yanami takes a deep breath before nodding and raising her head. I hadn’t noticed the slump in her posture until she rose again. With her head held high, she promises she will do everything she can.
I nod to the others, and Pucaru sends a guard to get Suyai. I pretend not to hear Pucaru’s strict orders to be gentle with her.
Princess Yanami sits on the floor willingly, or better said, falls onto it. She adjusts her old-fashioned skirt around her and lays the young boy’s head on her lap, stroking his face as if they don’t have an audience.
He was the missing piece, the factor we couldn’t account for.
Suyai, Yanami, Sinchinrei. The players in the game.
But there was another name thrown into the mix. Mare. I never expected him to be a child.
I’m heavy with the knowledge that if it weren’t for him, it’s obvious the princess wouldn’t be here now, but I don’t let it burden me. Cashan has one or two days left. Our plan failed, but somehow we might still be able to save him. The princess will cooperate.
That’s what I have to focus on.
When Suyai makes it to the dais, limping and supported by the guard at her side, I notice the difference in her immediately. The last time I saw her, she was immobile. She barely opened her mouth to drink water and eat. She didn’t want to die, but she didn’t see anything worth using her energy for.
Now, she’s overflowing with it. Her face is overcome with emotions so strong I can see past the inflammation and bruising.
Princess Yanami stands up with the boy in her arms, and Suyai walks faster, forcing the guard to keep up.
“Carefu–”
Izhi’s threat is cut off by the sight of the princess helping Suyai sit, slowly and tenderly, before laying Mare on her lap.
Suyai’s tears mix with the pus and dried blood on her face, but she doesn’t try to wipe the grime away. She uses one hand to tidy the young boy’s hair and the other to check for injuries. We all notice when she gets to his leg and sees an open wound, old but not healing properly.
For the first time, we hear Suyai sob.
“How,” she cries into his chest, her voice raw. “How did you send that message?”
A message.
The princess’s words start to make sense.
She said we handled it. That means the little boy helped.
Suyai is an Ave mimic. It would make sense that the trait was passed down to him as well.
He must have used all his energy to send her a message with mimicry.
It’s an impressive feat for someone his age, especially when I can’t find a lot of white streaks in his hair.
The greatest sign of his effort is his current state, unconscious, almost as if asleep.
He and Suyai could have joined us. They had the potential to be strong enough.
But that is for another life.
The princess whispers something in Suyai’s ear, and I don’t miss the way we all tense when she gets close to Suyai. Princess Yanami looks like a statue. She’s the true prodigy of her mother, not like the Inka’s other children who lost control.
I shouldn’t be surprised. She faced her mother her whole life and managed to stay whole.
“Tell me what exactly you need me to do, and I’ll tell you how the stone works,” she says.
Qajay explains it best, so we all stay quiet. The attack on our home territory. The new weapons. Cashan using Ave mimicry to manipulate the entire sky into a shelter for us.
He should have died. He was willing to, for us. But we weren’t willing to let him.
The princess takes in the story, narrowing her eyes at the end, not in suspicion but in deep thought. Then she bites her raw bottom lip again. She walks to the edge of the dais, and we let her, all still reeling from the memories.
She stands at the edge for a while, looking at the crowds of people contained by the guards under our control. We’re on the highest platform in all of Lima, originally chosen to be accessible to the Hero as soon as she arrived. All the people below us look like nothing but tiny insects.
When Princess Yanami walks back to us, she’s holding back tears. Her voice is wet, not raw like Suyai’s, but heavy with the weight of the ocean.
She tells us how the stone works, and I realize why.
The sun is high in the sky as we order the soldiers to get people in line to come up to the dais. All of them below us keep praying to their gods, but don’t they know? The greatest power here is a princess’s stone heart. By tomorrow, many of these people will be dead.
How many? As many as it takes.