Chapter 18
We leave the main crowd in the aftermath of the announcement, but we’re stopped by the growing frenzy at the edge. I’m in a daze of disbelief.
They got an image of the princess. Everyone has an image of the princess.
Why won’t the Guardians whisper to me now?
“We need to get out of here,” the princess whispers. “Let’s go, champion. We need to get out of here now–”
“We can’t right now,” I say, though my voice feels so distant I’m not sure it’s me speaking.
My mind is racing with possibilities. The princess’s face is out, but now we have no choice but to act in three days.
Not get the Sun Staff, not even reach the lake that’s still a week away, just save the Inka.
“I thought can’t wasn’t in a fool’s vocabulary,” she says with bared teeth.
“The soldiers have set up a lockdown for the town’s protection. They’re not letting anyone through.” That’s the gist of the information I gleaned, not that it matters much now.
“Then, get us through, Guardians’ Hero. Get me out of here before they, before they take me back.”
The desperation in her voice is what brings me back to my body. I didn’t realize I was smiling. Because the Inka is in danger, and the Aya Runa just gave me a stage to save her.
The princess grabs me by the shoulders and snarls.
“Listen to me–”
“We have to get to Cusco for Intiraymi,” I say, and she snarls.
“We have to get out of here before someone takes me back to Lima.” Her voice rises, then falls as she realizes how loud she’s getting.
It’s not an issue in the building noise of the crowd, at least not yet.
Some people are trying to move out of the square, looking scared and flinching at any outburst of voices.
Some people are already fighting, emotions thick in their voice as they ask the soldiers to do something.
The soldiers themselves are busy caging in the chaski both to stop him from leaving and protect him from the people demanding answers.
Mare saves us. He holds onto both our hands with an iron grip, so that when the crowd moves like a current, he takes us with him instead of getting ripped away.
“R,” he says, and the nickname snaps me out of the glaring match I have with the princess. “People are saying lockdown is soon. I heard them.”
Of course, the kid is the only one of us to still have his head on straight. He’s not warring with the elemental force of the princess’s fear, whether internal or external, or my bursting inspiration.
“We won’t find anywhere to sleep without registering as refugees first. That’s too risky. We need to move on to disguises,” I whisper, but the princess interrupts.
“Get me out of this line,” the princess says.
“I didn’t get us in this line.” I’m not lying. Because of our dress, not complete enough to make us blend in, the crowds around us are parting to let us through to the makeshift refugee registration stand at the end of the market. We can’t stop and veer without making ourselves more noticeable.
But the princess looks near tears, and Mare is disappearing into himself, and the crowd is getting thinner.
The princess is right. I know I need to get us to Cusco.
It’s only a day's walk and on the way to the princess’s lakes, but that doesn’t mean staying in this exact situation now.
I hold on tight to both their hands and flip us around.
Mare, despite his age, doesn’t miss a step, and the princess turns with the grace of a feline.
It makes my forced motion seem more natural, though enough people stare at us to make my nerves flare.
“Okay, good. Okay. Get us out of here, champion,” the princess says.
“We’re not leaving Ollanta yet. We need to figure out the best route to Cusco and how to do that from here–”
“Why would I go to Cusco now?” she shouts, and this time, the crowd is thin enough for people to turn and stare.
By some miracle, I keep my voice down.
“Because she’s your mother,” I whisper, and I don’t understand the emotions roaring through me until I speak the words aloud.
Her mother, like mine, will be there. Our mothers, the most powerful people in the empire.
I wait for it to hit her the way it’s hit me. Her’s, the Inka. Mine, the Apukispay.
They’re part of both of our fates.
Instead, she knocks my breath away with four simple words. “Why does that matter?”
My eyes widen. Everything. It matters because it’s everything.
“Oh man, you obviously don’t know our Rei well enough if you think having a discussion like that about mothers will get you anywhere,” a voice cuts in from right behind me.
It’s distinctly not the princess or Mare. It’s a man, deep and drawling with a voice I’d forgotten about after the disastrous ending.
“Damn,” I say, as the princess yanks me to her side, and Mare follows.
Getting the Princess to follow Muna is easier than expected. Getting her to stop pouting about it is proving to be more difficult, not that anything involving Muna has ever been easy. I scoff to myself. Not like anything involving the princess has been easy either.
That doesn’t mean I don’t trust him as an ally.
Though trust is a strange word. Would I trust Muna to follow me into battle?
Would I trust the princess? The princess is still an unknown, but for our short time together, Muna isn’t.
I can’t trust him the way I can always trust Suyai, and I suppose that’s always been the problem.
It’s why we didn’t work out four years ago, when we were just sixteen years old.
But being unable to last past a few secret hookups doesn’t mean we’re unable to look out for each other.
That’s what I know he’s doing as he escorts us away from the registration table and past the main plaza. Ollanta isn’t my home, but I know he’s taking us to the residential sector I mapped out earlier.
The princess is keeping tight-lipped, to my surprise, but maybe it shouldn’t be. Her fear has proven to keep her on the more cautious side, with the exception of her outbursts.
It’s Mare that’s the problem.
“What are you doing here?” he all but hisses at Muna.
Oh boy. He really is his sister’s brother.
“Settle down, kori. Just trying to help,” Muna says.
“We don’t need your help,” Mare spits out.
But we do. We very much do right now.
Muna makes eye contact with me and, when I catch sight of his smirk, my mind is back to sparring on palace grounds, his throat extended and under my mace. Then the princess yanks me back to reality, and Mare’s huff grounds me there.
The standoff between the three doesn’t last for long, because in a few seconds, we stop at a glazed glass door in the middle of a stone wall.
The road we’re on has high foot traffic, so I still don’t find it in me to speak.
It’s Muna. For all that Mare’s upset, he knows the safety of a fellow soldier.
And the princess, well, she hasn’t exploded just yet.
“Follow my lead, yeah?” Muna says and bumps his shoulder against mine.
This energy I can match. The playful fun he always brings is what I need to cool down from the last hour.
The hike, the injuries, and the rumors about Lima.
The announcement. With Muna here, I feel a modicum of power back, knowing he’s helping us, but I can take him down in seconds.
The woman who answers the door takes one look at us, and her whole body goes tense. She’s pudgy with purple hair. Most notably, she’s not in classic Andean clothing but instead dons pants and a tunic.
“Munakuy, my love, who do you have here?” she drawls, sounding lighthearted in a way that raises my defenses. I can see the suspicion in her eyes. She wants to look naive, yet she’s anything but.
“These are some old friends from Lima, aunt Tula. I didn’t know they made it out, but thankfully, I saw them in the plaza. I’d rather they not stay in the refugee housing when we have some space here. You know how cramped those places are right now.”
Tula presses her lips tightly together, but then relaxes into a relieved smile. She either actually believes him or she desperately wants to believe him. The outcome is the same. She gives all three of us warm hugs and welcomes us in as if she wasn’t looking at us like enemies mere seconds ago.
The place is gorgeous. It’s a giant garden with a winding path lined by cacti taller than me.
Succulents of all colors and shapes, purple flowers and pink leaves, fill every space.
We walk down the paved entrance and are greeted by a thriving lawn before a modest house.
The lawn is open and curated, with perfectly symmetrical garden beds on each side.
It’s peaceful, a true mountain oasis. Butterflies flutter about, birds sing, and it’s like the world outside is a myth and this is the only reality.
“See what you’ve been missing out on?” Muna says, and for once in this surprise encounter, we don’t have an audience.
Mare has let go of his vendetta and run to pet some cats, and the princess, well, I could stare at her complex expression all day.
It’s a mixture of awe and suspicion. It’s cautious, yet brazen, like she wants to relax, but something is telling her to prepare to fight. It’s my favorite look on her so far.
Though I know I should take this time to talk to Muna, I don’t particularly feel the need to address his passive-aggressive comment. I’ve exceeded my limit of shutting up, though.
“It’s beautiful, but–”
“Not your place,” he finishes for me, and that gets a smile out of me. It was a response that used to end with him in a petty mood, but now he says it with an uptick of his lips.
Because I know this house, at least from stories. He invited me every year, starting before we got together for the first time, but I never accepted. He described it as peaceful, a place of rest, and every time I’d answer the same way. Not my place.