Chapter 32
Iforce myself through the crowds and the soldiers, my warrior’s crown and veil shocking some into silence and others into raucous shouts. I recognize some soldiers despite their wounds. I know they won’t recognize me. I shine as bright as Inti dripped in gold.
Through the shimmering film before my eyes, I see the dead look in the soldiers’ eyes. I’ve worn it too. But not now.
Now, I’m ready to fight.
I notice the Feline mimic guarding the bottom of the raised platform immediately. I see her muscles and connect them to the fists that beat Suyai bloody.
The Feline mimic could have been a strong competitor in another life, one where I didn’t have the Sun Staff or the element of surprise.
In this life, no amount of last minute mimicry strengthening their skin can save them from the Sun Staff.
I cut through their throat as if their body was air.
Their head falls first, rolling down the steps in a sickening mess of broken bones and cut flesh.
Their body falls next, collapsing in on itself and falling at my feet.
They are dead before my anger has time to crescendo.
I barely exerted myself, but my breathing comes out harsh and desperate. My lungs burn, my chest tightens, my body hasn’t fought, but it begs for some sort of recovery.
There’s no time for recovery.
I start climbing the steps to the platform that holds my fate. I don’t look back. Not when commotion explodes below me. Not when I hear gasps and footsteps above me. Let them prepare. I’ll take them out with one hit.
But my biggest fear won’t be conquered by the Sun Staff.
Suyai is at the top, Mare unconscious on her lap. My anger flares, but Mare looks fine. I scan him up and down, but other than a few white hairs, he’s exactly how I saw him when he left. He almost looks at peace, like he’s asleep.
Suyai, on the other hand, I can’t look at Suyai.
She’s a mess of bruises and cuts, all haphazard and uneven.
Injuries not from weapons but from someone’s bare hands.
She looks at me with bruised eyes, not surprised, but analyzing.
The feel of her eyes on me is welcome and familiar.
It fixes something deeply broken, something that’s been off, twisted, since I left Lima without her.
Suyai has always been my guiding light. She’s the moral voice at the back of my mind, the hand that pulls me toward the right path. But I can’t blame the last few days on her absence. I can’t dwell on whether she’ll hate me. I have only one thing to do now.
I jog to stand in front of her, a good distance away in case the fight gets ugly. I intend to finish it fast, but as I take in the group around me, I hesitate.
The Aya Runa is here, six of them if I’m counting correctly. A man on a cot outside a makeshift tent, a woman kneeling by him. One woman is sitting down with three others, all on guard. They look wrecked, but that facade doesn’t change the undeniable power coming off them.
The only one more powerful is the princess, standing to the side, hunched in on herself as if ashamed.
It only takes me stepping forward for the assault to begin.
There’s a lean one, moving like slow-flowing mist, out of reach, but shooting mimicry my way that I don’t feel as attacks.
I don’t understand what they’re doing until the first one hits.
Ave mimicry, thoughts based. Inside my head, a memory plays out that isn’t mine, can’t be mine, but my body reacts as if it were.
A memory of a burning inferno setting fire to my skin.
It only lasts seconds, but it’s enough for the next one to catch me off guard.
They’re a fast one, an androgynous shape running circles around me.
This one dares to get close enough to land hits, hits hard enough to leave me reeling.
A Feline mimic, enhancing their agility, speed, and strength all at once.
The lean one hits me with another dizzying thought, a memory of drowning, of losing my sense of direction. I’m standing still, and yet I stumble.
Right into the fist of the Feline mimic.
The hit gets me right in my abdomen, forcing bile up my throat. I spit out the vile taste, but don’t have a second to recover before a third person enters the fight.
A sturdy looking woman, red hair and piercings all throughout her face. If one of them would just get close enough, I would–
Another thought – dirt shoveled into my mouth, insects on my tongue, and the stink of animals – before another hit. I block just enough to avoid a direct hit to my ear, but the punch rattles my brain.
Just the first two were a winning strategy to take me down, so who is this third person? What torture could she inflict on me?
I know how to take a hit. Their long-distance strategies all involve mimicry, so it’s only a matter of waiting them out before I attack. Their samay should run out soon. All I need to do is take it.
I prepare myself for the barrage to come as I make myself vulnerable, but nothing happens. The first two figures stand guard at the third’s side. The woman licks her lips, and I get into a proper defensive stance.
She’s going to charge at me. No. She’s going to fake me out while the other two up their strategy. I shake my head. No. Without knowing her domain, I have no way to predict what she could do. I have no way to prepare other than steady my wide-set feet and brace for impact.
It doesn’t matter. I could have never predicted what she did.
Out of the woman’s lips came a sonic blast, something I’ve only heard of being used once. As the screech assaults my ears, as blood trickles down the side of my face, as all I feel is pain pain pain, I think about the army’s documentation of the attack.
Ave mimicry or Feline mimicry UNCONFIRMED.
Specialist rogue UNCONFIRMED.
Targeted or wide UNCONFIRMED.
I scream. I curse. I fall to my knees with my hands over my ears as if I could protect myself from the manipulated air. The crown digs into my forehead as I sway.
Targeted or wide? The army itself wasn’t sure if the attack could be focused on one person or, once used, affect everyone in the proximity.
My vision blacks in and out. I mouth Suyai’s name. Yanami’s. I can’t hear my own voice. Mixed with the shimmering veil, the dots that litter my vision look like a mosaic. I focus on Suyai, still sitting up where I saw her last, but mouthing something.
Shouting my name.
I crawl to Suyai’s side.
“I’m here,” I shout or whisper or simply mouth. I don’t know. I can’t hear anything above the ringing in my ears. My head still spins, my vision not fully recovered. But Suyai called for me, and I am done putting her last. Every time she calls, I’ll come. I know that now.
I sit behind her. Suyai collapses back into my chest. She’s dead weight, but no, I can’t think that. She’s very well alive and breathing. Suyai is going to be okay. Someone just needs to heal her. Anyone.
“Anyone. Please,” I beg, still not sure if I’m making a sound. My lips hurt as they stretch around the vowels. An attack burst my lip open. The cowards used mimicry effectively to keep me at a distance, but if Suyai hadn’t called…
I’ll kill them for what they did to her. I’ll kill the disgusting cowards attacking me from afar.
I just need to get my head to stop spinning.
Yanami kneels beside me. She struggles to reposition Mare. His dead weight should be nothing to her, but she’s so worn out that even moving him from Suyai’s lap to the ground makes her arms shake.
My hearing slowly returns, adding to my suspicion. Why haven’t we all been hit with a sonic wave yet? Why have the attacks stopped?
I look up from cataloguing Suyai’s wounds, swollen shut eye, cut lip, broken cheekbone, and see the Aya Runa standing still, watching us. Even the fastest one just stares.
“There’s no healer here,” the one who never attacked says. I flinch at the rawness of her voice. It makes my throat itch for water.
“Then send for one,” I hiss. Why isn’t anyone doing anything? No one moves. No one orders the guards. These cowards may have hurt Suyai, but I see the care and pain in their eyes. They look at her like something precious.
I grit my teeth. I need to get Suyai away from all of this.
My hearing stabilizes, and I pick up Yanami’s soft voice. Not just Yanami’s. Suyai’s as well.
Suyai’s talking and I’m not listening, like always. Except I promise I’ll change this time once she’s better.
“You have to, princess,” Suyai whispers. Her soft voice isn’t because of my hearing. No. It’s because Suyai isn’t intending for me to hear at all. “She’s getting hurt out there, and we’re out of time. We can’t get Mare out of this.”
Yanami shakes her head in fervent disagreement, and I almost snap at her.
Whatever Suyai wants, she’ll get. We can’t stress her out in this condition.
I’m building up the words in my throat when I feel liquid on my skin.
Yanami’s tears. She’s shaking so violently, whipping her head around like a madman, that her tears hit my face.
“She’ll never forgive me!” the princess screams, and I’m lost. I’m so lost. I wish they would just tell me what the problem is so I can fix it for them. I’d do anything for them. They have to know that. I hold Suyai tighter. I’m bruising her. But I’m scared the moment I relax, she’ll slip away.
“At least she’ll be alive to hate you,” Suyai says, softly, from chapped lips crusted with blood. I look between Suyai and Yanami. Suyai, smiling softly at her own morbid words. Yanami was a restrained earthquake.
Then, Yanami stops shaking. She lets out a long breath and reaches for Suyai’s hand. This creature comfort, I understand. This need to hold, to possess.
I understand it until I feel the distinct sensation of mimicry in the air, a feeling I’ve only just come to know, yet could never forget.
All those explanations from Suyai, the cursed power feels like suffocating, like your lungs filled with black tar, they’re nothing like how I feel mimicry. Electrifying and energizing.
The feeling of Condor’s stone feather shattering and filling the air with life.
Yanami must be healing her.
She must be.
Even though I know Yanami cannot heal well. Even though I know from Yanami’s white hair, she doesn’t have enough samay to perform mimicry. Even though Suyai looks like she’s getting worse. I have to believe Yanami is healing her. If she’s not, then that means–
“Get away from her!” I scream, pushing Yanami away by the shoulder, but the girl has turned to stone. She won’t move. I throw a punch, the angle awkward and inefficient, but the best I can do with Suyai’s weight on top of me. I don’t want to disturb her, but I have to stop–
“Yanami, please. Yanami, you have to stop,” I yell and yell. I use my feet to kick. I use my nails to dig into flesh. But Yanami won’t move, and I can’t hurt Suyai. Except Suyai is slowly turning pale, her hair turning white, her skin thinning, her weight dwindling–
“Please, Gods, Guardians, please,” I beg and beg.
My words don’t matter because we’re all crying, screaming, the world is a cacophony of pain. All of us except Suyai. Suyai is relaxing into me, nuzzling her face into my chest, a small, sad smile still on her lips. She’s comforting me.
She’s comforting me like I’m the one who’s–
“Please,” I say one last time, but I know nothing will change. Yanami’s tears soak Suyai’s clothes, and I don’t understand a single thing.
I’m crying until I’m not. Because I feel when Suyai’s heart stops beating. Her aching puffs of breath stop. She’s no longer moving, not screaming at me or crying for Mare. She’s limp in my arms.
She’s gone.
Yanami screams to the heavens. She howls, a sound filled with so much pain, and I don’t understand.
She did this herself.
Yanami did this. Yanami killed the last of Mare’s family. Yanami killed my best friend. Yanami drained her for what? For power? For greed? For pride?
My anger builds with every question, but it never crescendos because I know how to spot a lie, even when it’s coming from myself. I know Yanami wouldn’t do that.
But the questions remain.
Yanami beats a fist into her chest and then stands, her hair a black halo around her beautiful face. I realize, watching this creature stalk to the Aya Runa, that I’ve never seen her like this. She’s something new, short, pure, untainted hair framing her furious expression.
She steps up to the man on the cot.
She’s going to kill him. Except not a single Aya Runa member tries to stop her. She’d never work with them. She’d never hurt Suyai under their plans.
But I can’t deny what I see.
As my best friend lies motionless in my arms, the man in the cot begins to move. Yanami has her hand on the man’s bare chest. The samay pouring out of her, Suyai’s samay, and into him is indisputable. She can’t heal him when he has no wounds.
No, what he needs is pure life energy, and here Yanami is feeding it to him.
I think of what little of their conversation I caught. She’ll never forgive me. If I had the ability to speak, if I had the ability to do anything other than hold onto Suyai’s body and search for warmth, I would say you’re right. I’ll never forgive you.