Chapter 15
The laughter is high-pitched, borderline hysterical, but still so young. It grows into a cacophonous storm around us, enough that I need to read Mare’s lips to understand what he’s saying.
I saw them.
Them. There are multiple.
I drag Mare behind me, but what’s the use?
The sound comes from all around. I reach for the princess, but my hand doesn’t land on her arm.
She moves away with impossibly fast reflexes, falling into a defensive stance.
Her feline eyes take in the landscape, but no amount of training will help her see what Mare sees.
If I’m right, that is.
“Princess, back down and get behind Mare,” I shout. The laughter comes in waves, and my voice breaks through right when it dwindles.
“I don’t need your protection,” she responds, and I notice the way the tension in her body shifts. She’s going into offensive mode, like a coiled serpent ready to strike. Except this isn’t something we can fight.
“This isn’t for you,” I say, timing my words so she hears. “We need to cover him.”
That triggers something in her, and, for once, she does what I say. She runs to Mare’s exposed side, covering his back as he burrows into my arms.
“I saw them,” he repeats. “I looked them straight in the eyes. I’m sorry, Rei.”
“Did they touch you?” I shout, but the laughter drowns me out. “Mare, did they touch you?” I scream until my throat feels raw. Fear pulses through me like a blaring signal, going off every second, louder than my beating heart. This can’t be happening, not to Mare. Please, not to Mare.
It’s only when he shakes his head no that I can think clearly enough to plan. We have hope, as small as it is.
“On three, Mare, jump on my back, and princess, run to the valley. We need to get closer to town,” I say. My right hand finds the princess’s. While she jumps at the initial touch, she stays still enough to let me squeeze her hand in reassurance.
“I’m not injured. I can fight,” the princess says.
How do I begin to explain this to her, that the Andes are a mystical place?
That here, in the mountains I grew up in, people are no strangers to magical creatures.
Some you can fight, some you can outwit, but some you can only hope to outrun.
The laughter gets impossibly closer. I can’t see them, but their presence is clear.
What can I possibly say to get the princess to understand?
“I know you can,” I shout. “But not this time. This time I need you to trust me.”
Silence follows like a stalking puma. I hold my breath, closing my eyes on instinct as if I should fear catching a glimpse of them too. Then, tentative and shaking, the princess’s hand slips into mine and squeezes.
My eyes widen. I turn to her, but she’s looking down at the valley, taking in the terrain and figuring out a path ahead. Her hand slips out of mine like a passing thought.
I don’t have time to think about how untrue that comparison is, about how the leftover cold of her grip chilled me to my core, or how the imprint of her palm against mine overwhelmed all my senses. I shake my head and begin to count down.
“One. Two. Three,” I scream.
Mare jumps, and the princess bolts, never once looking back.
Good girl, I think as I dash between trees and dry brush.
I needed her to run down first so I could follow in her footsteps.
It’s like she read my mind. I see her take the fastest yet simplest way down, accounting for the extra weight of Mare on my back.
She’s a sight to behold with her white hair like a flash of lightning and her brown skin like a cutting shadow.
The laughter stops once we’re halfway down the mountain, but she continues as I would.
It’s not until we’re at the base of the valley that she stops and falls to the floor.
I’m right behind her, crashing onto my knees and leveraging my body to not crush Mare beneath my weight.
I’m exhausted, but I wasn’t the one to use all my samay only a day prior.
As Mare untangles himself from my arms, I focus on listening. The princess’s heavy breathing. Mare’s suppressed crying. My own panting.
No laughter.
I get two minutes of reprieve, of complete relief, before the princess is dragging herself to my side.
She brushes her sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes.
She’s pallid. Her lips are gray, and her eyes are unfocused.
Normally, she’d be strong enough to run this five times over, but the altitude and mimicry are a deadly combination.
“What,” she huffs. “Was.” A wheeze. “That?”
I’m breathing too hard to answer. Not that I have a clear response.
There’s only one person who can confirm what we ran from, and he’s rubbing his eyes dry from tears.
I draw Mare into my side and squeeze him into a hug.
The princess’s intensity dies down, but only a little.
There’s still fire behind her eyes, a fire I recognize intimately.
She wants the fight she didn’t get.
“Mare, what did you see?” I manage to ask, breathless but equally as curious about his response. If it’s not what I guessed, then I just destroyed our energy for nothing.
“Rei, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to–”
“It’s okay, kori, just tell me what you saw,” I say, trying my best to sound supportive. How would Suyai handle this? “You’re not in trouble.”
“They were small and running around. I thought they were younger than me and lost. I didn’t realize until one tried to throw itself at me and I saw its teeth,” he says.
So, I was right.
“Duendes,” I say, and Mare bursts into tears again.
“Duendes,” the princess tries out the word. “Duendes like the mountain gnomes. Mischievous creatures that don’t exist.”
“That don’t exist in Lima, you mean. They very much exist here, princess, and they're not just mischievous,” I say with a shake of my head. Classic city behavior to take the old legends for granted.
“Well, I’ve never seen one,” she counters. “And I don’t know why gnomes would have us running for our lives like that. They’re no taller than our knees. I could kick them away if I wanted to.” Her arrogance ignites the little energy I have left.
“Yes, because it would be so easy when only children can see them. Not to mention the fact that if they get their hands on you, they’re bonded to your body for life.
I mean, why else don’t all children just kick them down?
Maybe because the moment you do, they can eat your heart from the inside out–”
“Those are stories told to scare children into not leaving their houses at night, champion. Not real threats that require the strongest fighters in the empire to retreat,” the princess throws out her words like an insult, but all I can hear is the praise.
Strongest fighters in the empire. Maybe we are getting somewhere after all.
“Why on this Guardians’ blessed earth are you smiling?” she says, sounding so similar to Suyai it shocks me out of my thoughts.
“They’re not stories, princess, and they’re more than real threats.
They’re a reminder of where we are. Duendes shouldn’t be this close to the valley.
It’s too populated for them. Something is wrong here, and we need shelter and food immediately,” I bark out orders like I’m back at Lima and top of my rank, something that doesn’t go over well with my dearest princess.
“We need to get shelter and food, no matter if those creatures exist or not. I don’t need you wasting our time stating the obvious.”
“What’s wasting our time is you arguing–”
“Or rather it’s your arrogance that’s–”
“I’m not the one arrogant enough to belie–”
Our voices fight in the air between us, jab after jab, so different from the gentle touches before our sprint. It’s electrifying the way I always imagined mimicry to feel, like suffocating on charged air during a lightning storm.
It’s Mare who stops us. “Rei, I’m hungry,” is all he says, but it’s enough to stop us both short. Food and shelter, right. We both agreed on that, so what are we fighting about? Why don’t I want to back down?
Because I have the princess’s full attention when she’s upset. Because I’m a fool.
“I’ve only ever made the trip to Ollantaytambo through the chaski roads,” the princess tentatively starts up again, pointing in the direction of the town, where a single long road can be seen entering it.
“Always carried in by our guards. I don’t know as much as I should about this area.
The Panaka only visited the ancestral lands to pay homage to the Gods. ”
I hear her message for what it is. A peace offering. She’s admitting a weakness. I look at Mare holding his stomach and pull myself together. I can work with a peace offering.
“I grew up around here. We passed through on the way to the main markets a different way each time, depending on the season.” Telling the princess a part of my life feels like stealing a piece of divinity. Her attention is worth more than gold.
“But we can’t go down to the markets looking like this, and we need to find shelter and food for tonight…” she drags out the last word, lost in thought and heavy breathing.
“…Yes?” I prod when she never continues her thought.
She snaps back to attention, getting up and brushing dirt off her tunic.
“The Ollantaytambo kollkas, the storehouses full of the food we desperately need, are close enough to see. Even if it’s guarded, if we come in through the east side, up the peasants’ trail, they’ll wait to ask questions before attacking.
Still, at this time, it’s unlikely they’ll have anyone stationed there.
Especially after what happened in Lima…” the princess continues to outline a plan, going over contingencies and possibilities to herself.
She’s in her element, but all I can focus on is one detail.
What happened in Lima. She says it so casually that it almost feels like a training exercise. If there wasn’t so much on the line, if it wasn’t for Suyai, I would be impressed at her strategic detachment. As it is now, I can only feel the familiar frustration when I’m around her.
She’s using a stick to draw out a map in the dirt, including the distance from trail to trail.
It’ll be about a two-hour hike from where we are to the top, but that’s if we were at our best with no injuries.
As it is, it’ll probably take four hours, and then some, to get to the cave the princess says is at the end of the kollka.
I miss the princess who was shy about her lack of knowledge of the area.
“It should be only half an hour to the cave, given our condition. It’s our best bet for protection tonight with the temperature dropping,” she continues.
“It’s getting really cold,” Mare adds, leaning over the princess’s map and considering it like a strategic adviser.
I sigh.
It’s true. Yesterday was our one lucky day, and even then, we almost drowned in mud.
We’re at the tail end of the rainy season, and while it’s safer for us not to fight torrential downpours, it also means the heat is coming to an end.
The dry season in the Andes Mountains is brutal.
The sun burned all day, but the temperature is dropping by the minute.
“It’ll only be worse higher up. That’s why all the food is up there, isn’t it? I don’t want to end up frozen like the jerky,” I say, just to say something in the midst of the princess’s brilliance. She’s magic even without mimicry. She’s a god come down to earth.
The princess rolls her eyes.
“If we get to the cave before nightfall, that won’t be a problem. Trust me, I’ve survived enough nights out there alone…” The princess snaps her mouth shut.
While my blood burns, I’m also begrudgingly impressed.
The locked-away princess of the empire, fending for herself in the Andes Mountains.
It sounds like folklore, like the many magical creatures we’re likely to encounter after nightfall.
The princess in the mountains, she would be the most terrifying thing out there.
She recoups her practiced disinterest and speaks. “I’ll spend the night there alone if you’d rather stay here and let the boy starve,” she says.
It’s a pointed jab, and I hate that it hits me right where it hurts.
“You’re not doing it alone,” I snap. “I’m not going to let you be alone.”
“I know. You need to keep me in your sights so you can drag me to the lake intact. That’s the least of what you’ll do for glory,” she retorts.
“We’re on the same team,” I say. It’s the truth whether she believes it or not. It’s not naivete or foolishness. No. It’s just me. It’s just me wanting to tell her she’s wrong, but knowing I can’t.
“Rei is our hero, Yanami. And you’re our princess. So we need to go together,” Mare says after a prolonged silence. “Yes, together. Right, Rei?”
“Right,” I say, but it doesn’t feel like me saying it.
It’s a battle I want to fight, one I have the buzzing energy to take on, but my strategic mind holds me back.
The princess isn’t going to give an inch.
Stubborn recognizes stubborn. “We’ll go.
Mare, tell me if your leg starts hurting at any point, okay? I can’t carry you on my back again.”
“Okay, Rei!” he shouts and gives me a toothy grin, tears long forgotten after a planning session with the princess.