Chapter 30
Ienter Lake Titicaca. I grab the siren’s soft hands hard enough to break bones. I’m surrounded by them, beautiful women with tails that glisten in the morning light. They sing to me. They play in the sun. They swim circles around my still body, waiting.
I take one step. The siren pulls me deeper and deeper until I'm floating, no more land beneath my feet.
I hold tight to her hand as she slices through the water like a knife.
It hurts. The speed at which she goes hurts.
Her tail against my legs hurts. Everything, from my heart to my head to my clenched teeth, hurts.
But the siren sings to me of a life without pain.
She sings of forgiveness and warmth, and, for a second, she sings in Yanami’s voice.
My shoulder pulls at the joint, but the siren sings of life anew, a body recovered, and my life ahead.
The siren sings of days laid out in the sun, no more training, no more fighting.
She sings of friendship, soul mates, and lovers.
I see Isla del Sol in the distance. We’re right there, so close I could almost reach out and touch its sandy shores.
But the siren sings of forgiveness. I don’t want to see Isla del Sol. I don’t want to go deeper into the lake. I close my eyes, and I see Suyai, Mare, and Yanami. I see them get closer and closer, and I know if I can just keep my eyes shut, they’ll reach me.
And just like that, my wish comes true. Yanami is holding my hand. Yanami is with me again, and she’s not angry. She’s not betrayed. She’s tender and vulnerable and so in love as she looks at me. Yanami opens her mouth and sings, and I pull her closer to me, lost in her raspy voice.
We’re underwater, but I’m at peace.
The last bit of sunlight penetrates the surface and lights up Yanami’s face. Her brown skin shines like molten gold. I try to open my mouth to beg, beg for her to kiss me, or beg her for forgiveness, but water floods my mouth and goes down my throat.
I can’t breathe, but I’m at peace.
Yanami holds my face, a phantom touch just like our first kiss. The sunlight slowly fades to darkness, the last of the light rebounding off Yanami’s gold necklace.
The gold necklace Yanami gave away yesterday.
Underwater, I realize my body is thrashing. Underwater, I realize I’m choking. We’re underwater, and the siren isn’t singing anymore. The siren’s grip is a vice, and as I twist and turn, the vice tightens. As I fight for my life, claws dig into my skin.
We’re underwater, and I can’t breathe, and I’m going to die. But at least I can make sure this damned creature dies with me. As my vision blacks out, I reach for the siren’s neck and rip the necklace off.
She shrieks.
I’m too far down to see death on her face. It’s too dark. Yet, I feel her go limp around my wrist. Her soul jewel, the necklace in disguise, disintegrates in my hand. Immense power poisons the water. Sirens wear their souls on their chests, and their visions can only disguise it, not hide it.
Her soul jewel promises me safe passage, but I don’t believe it as I choke and choke and choke. When my arms are too tired to keep swimming, when my brain has no more oxygen left, I slam onto the shore of Isla del Sol.
I don’t want to believe in the power of the soul jewel, but something in me knows I will not face this problem again.
Now, I need to get the Sun Staff.
End of Trial One
Trial Two
The island is dense with forest growth. It’s dry, but I’m drenched. My clothes stick to me, and my hair drips with water. The skin around my wrists is shredded. As I tear off a piece of my blouse to dress the wound, a blunt object bursts my head open.
By the time the enemies flank me, I’m already half dead.
As I bleed out, all I can think is I need to get the Sun Staff.
Trial Two
I open my eyes, and the same thoughts resurface.
The island is dense with forest growth. It’s dry, but I’m drenched.
My clothes stick to me, and my hair drips with water.
The skin around my wrists is shredded. Except this time, before I tear off a piece of my blouse to dress the wound, I run to find shelter and forage for resources.
When an enemy attacks, I’m ready with weapons made of stone.
I take out five enemies, and the sky gets so bright my eyes burn in their sockets.
As I’m transported to the next trial, all I can think is I need to get the Sun Staff.
Trial Five
This time, the enemies are more smoke than solid, and yet I still feel their bones crack beneath my hands. I still feel their flesh torn by my nails. This shadow world is nothing like the island I came to know, but maybe that island wasn’t the one I set foot on in the first place.
Scenery after scenery blurs together.
A figure made of smoke cracks my skull open, and it’s pain, pain, pain.
As I die again, all I can think is I need to get the Sun Staff.
Trial Two
I’m prepared to fight with my bare hands.
Trial Three
I make armor out of giant tree leaves. I cover my torso with them, remembering the blood rushing out of my sides. When the creatures throw me around, I protect my head with my arms, wrapped in a fetal position like a newborn.
As I barely survive, I think I need to get the Sun Staff.
Trial Six
This time it’s a drop. I know I’m dead before I hit the ground.
I don’t have time to think about a single thing.
Trial Eleven
I’m parched. It’s been hours or days or weeks of sweating under this unbearable sun. There’s no shade. There’s no fight here.
I fall to my knees. My dry skin cracks atop the rocks, and I feed the ground my blood.
Why am I doing this? What is the Sun Staff to me? A way to save the empire, or something to shine light on me so I am finally seen. All there is here is light.
I miss the shadows. I miss Suyai’s look of exasperation. I miss Mare’s loud laugh. I miss Yanami’s flushed face.
I get up.
I need to get the Sun Staff.
Except.
Except I don’t. I need to get out of here.
I pass out from heat exhaustion.
I need to get to Suyai, Mare, and Yanami.
Trial Two
I race through the enemies. I kill every single one before they can get to me. It’s done in minutes.
I close my eyes before I’m blinded and welcome the next trial.
Trial Thirteen
There’s a spring of water bubbling from the mountainside, but I do not recognize these mountains. I do not recognize the unnatural cerulean tint of the lake.
The siren that greets me is beautiful, and that angers me. But she displays her soul jewel and doesn’t fight me when I rip it off her neck. As the soul jewel disintegrates, I know I will not have to do the prior trials again. Just like the first soul jewel, it promises safe passage.
I bathe in the sacred water, and my wounds heal.
Trial Eighteen
I see my mother. I see my aunts. I see my tiny childhood home in the mountains.
Then I’m attacked, my mother’s blows a familiar comfort, but my aunt’s scratches, my aunt’s desperate howls, break something I didn’t know I had.
I stop fighting back, and I don’t think about anything else but that.
Trial Thirteen
When I die next, in Trial 14, Trial 18, Trial 20, Trial 28, I come back here. The siren is gone, but the power of her soul jewel hangs in the air. I bathe in the sacred water. I drown myself in it. I cannot die here even if I tried.
Again and again and again, I return.
As I begin to understand the trials and its cruel rules, the cyclic nature of this timeless place I’m in, I say one thing like a prayer. I need to get to Suyai, Mare, and Yanami.
Trial Thirty
It’s when that thought
I need to get to Suyai, Mare, and Yanami
Becomes more than just an afterthought, more than a want or a need, more than the Sun Staff and glory itself. It’s when it becomes my purpose that I get the Sun Staff.
End of Trials
The island is dense with forest growth. There are no more enemies, no more pain.
The island is just an island, and I am once again a mortal girl.
I have no wounds on me other than my injured shoulder, as if the violence I remember so clearly was just a dream.
It’s a cruel twist of fate, the games that were played inside my mind, but I have nothing in me left to fight.
I walk deeper into the trees and out to a clearing. On the other side, a sunray lights up a carved rock in front of a cave. When I kneel before it, I see that the carving is nothing more than the primitive image of a sun.
There, I pray.
The voice that whispers in my ears is not the Guardians’ nor is it my own thoughts. It is not human nor is it animalistic. The voice is warm and all-encompassing, and I have no choice but to listen.
A warning for the hero: no one will ever pass these trials again.
I nod once, fast and definitive.
Just like that, sunlight turns solid, and rock turns to gold.
Before me stands a golden staff. At its top, the primitive sun is carved onto a gold disk.
The razor-sharp edges of the disk glint in the sunlight.
I bring a finger up to it, and it slices through the skin on the pad of my finger like it’s water. Two drops of blood stain the gold.
This disk will cut through anything.
Next to it, a crown with a golden veil. I place it on my head, and the world is filtered by the shimmering gold. I lean on the staff to stand, unsteady on my feet after kneeling to pray. My knees ache, an ache that makes me question how long I stayed in front of the shrine.
Without hesitation, I walk into the cave with the Sun Staff steady in my hand.