Chapter 33
The pieces fall into place little by little and all at once. The man moves, he breathes, heavy, heaving breaths. His eyes don’t open, but his mouth does as if trying to form words.
I stay on the ground. Suyai stays on my lap, unmoving. Mare remains unconscious next to us. I’m surrounded by stillness.
The princess talks. She addresses the Aya Runa simply. Bluntly. There. Leave.
The fastest one, the Feline mimic, carries the man and runs off. The others help each other off the dais slowly, limping, stumbling. Like victims. Like they were the ones facing the dea–
I stay on the ground. Suyai stays on my lap, unmoving.
The princess projects her voice and commands the guards.
They listen, but they’re scared. I can see it on their faces, their eyes darting from the princess’s face to the gaping wound on her chest, out on display for all to see.
Everything is clearer now. Her clothes are in tatters.
She’s covered in blood. The only wound on her is the self-made one on her hand.
I look at Suyai.
She was not the only person Yanami drained today.
I stay on the ground. Suyai stays on my lap, unmoving, as the puzzle completes itself.
Yanami barks another order, but this time she takes a step forward, and the guard flinches back. His hand goes for his weapon, a quality mace, at his side. I was wrong. They’re more than scared.
There’s chaos below us.
I saw it on the way up, but what did I care then?
My face was concealed as I climbed the plateau and wielded the Sun Staff effortlessly.
The crowds were thick. Families with small children were dehydrated and shivering as the sun began to set.
The cold here is nothing compared to that of the lake, at least, that’s what I thought then.
All those people huddled up for warmth, watching blood spill at Yanami’s hand, staring from below. A view like that only ever gives the impression of a monster or a god.
It’s obvious which Yanami falls under to her own people.
She looks heartbroken. Her face falls, her mouth opening in an attempt to calm the guard, but he only steps closer to the edge. He’s going to fall, I think, one second before he does.
I stay on the ground. Suyai stays on my lap, unmoving.
The princess jumps into action and grabs him by his military chumpi. She saves his life, but people beneath us scream in outrage. The guard isn’t paying attention to them, though. All he stares at is Yanami’s hand, staring and staring until he starts to shove it away.
Yanami blinks and steps away, bringing the guard back to safety in the process. She lets go of him, but the guard only calms down after she’s stepped far away from him.
She’s a pariah. Everyone saw what the stone, what she, can do.
The princess, no, Yanami. I shake my head to clear away the clouding anger. Yanami is trembling as the crowd around us is thrown into further chaos. The guards are inching toward the steps. I hear shouts and leers. People on all sides. Our people. The people Yanami is meant to lead.
There’s no escape from their eyes. Maybe for me with this cursed crown atop my head, but not for Yanami.
I have to get up, but my hands refuse to let go of Suyai.
Of Suyai’s corpse.
Corpse. Corpse. Corpse.
Suyai’s corpse because Suyai is dead.
I stay on the ground. Suyai is on my lap, unmoving because she’ll never move of her own will again.
What had Suyai and Yanami been talking about? Why didn’t I understand?
Yanami’s words echo in my ears. She’ll never forgive me. It fuels my anger, my need for violence, my rage at watching the Aya Runa go free.
That’s not important.
What had Suyai said? Suyai, dead Suyai, what had she said with her dying breaths?
You have to, princess. We’re running out of time.
“But I got here…” I muttered to Suyai, to Suyai’s corpse, to myself. “I was right here.”
You have to, princess.
I know this for sure. Yanami didn’t want to do this, but Suyai believed she had to. Suyai didn’t fight back. Suyai looked nothing like the man drained on Amantani, spasming and struggling against his death. Suyai breathed deeply and let go, depleted in my arms.
Suyai wanted this. Gods, Suyai comforted me because she was at peace while I continued with this endless war.
Yanami gasps, and my eyes snap up to her. A guard took out his weapon. It’s not pointed at her, but it might as well be.
The people below us cheer. They saw everything. They continue to see everything. I was so caught up in my own story that I forgot about the scene at hand. Fate is a story we tell each other.
What story would come out of this?
Suddenly, I think of Suyai and Yanami begging me to step away at different times. Both of them begging me to leave with them, separated by days, but the sentiment is the same. You don’t have to do this. They both said it. All they both ever asked of me was to leave all this madness behind.
But I wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t right, either, because I didn’t know how it would all end. But I wasn’t wrong.
There was never an escape.
I lift Suyai off me and place her gently on the ground. She doesn’t move. She’ll never move again.
Mare sleeps. Beside her, his small chest rises and falls in an unbothered rhythm.
When he wakes up, he’ll find out his sister is dead.
That should be his only worry. He should have all the space he needs to process it, to accept it.
I want him to have as many hours as he needs to cry and give the world his anger.
I don’t want him in the middle of a war, unable to move on, but forced to take action.
I don’t want Mare to end up like me.
Yanami notices me the moment I take a step forward. The guards follow her gaze and look at me with pure relief. I’m the Guardians’ Hero. I came too late to make the messy mistakes and face the punishments for them. I can reap the rewards. I can take all the glory for myself.
Let Yanami be the monster, Suyai the martyr, and me, Sinchinrei, the hero. Let me rip the crown off my head and declare victory.
But Suyai would still be dead. The empire would collapse. Mare would not have a moment to think amidst it all.
I take one step closer to Yanami, and she backs away so abruptly that she trips and lands on her back. She’s not physically injured, but her body is fatigued. She brings her bloody hand into a closed fist above the stone.
She’s repeating something under her breath. A mixture of sorry and please.
The guards don’t try to stop me.
Without an Inka the people trust, the empire will devolve into anarchy. We saw it happen with the False King way before my time. Even under Inka Yanaru, the peace was tenuous, one wrong political decision away from full-blown rebellion.
Maybe that’s what the empire needs, but it’s not what Mare needs.
He needs stability, peace, easy times to grow up in. Easy times to live to old age the way Suyai never would.
I step in front of Yanami. We’re about the same height and size, but with her on the floor and me with the Sun Staff, the difference between us seems insurmountable.
She tried to run away from all this, the palace and its power, and I brought her back each time. She’s been a slave to the whims of those who want that damned stone, including me, the Aya Runa, and her own mother. Now, it’s turning the empire against her. She doesn’t look noble like this.
Then word will get out, and soon others, those who don’t see Yanami as a monster, will see her as a tool. There’s no hiding it. There’s no way to erase it from everyone’s memories. No way to stop the stories.
But there is a way to change them.
With the empire’s eyes on us, I know she’ll never escape the fate the stone has for her. Unless it’s gone.
I think about Condor’s feather, shattered, releasing samay into the air. I’m resolute.
I reach out. She closes her eyes, recoiling as if hit. She’s muttering under her breath, but the violent trembling overtaking her body makes it impossible for her to speak. I hear please and sorry and other things I can’t bear to repeat even inside my own head.
How will this look? Yanami, hero of the people, bringing back the empire to glory. Sinchinrei, fallen hero, remembered only to be mourned.
Because someone needs to take care of Mare, to give him a good and simple life. Not the Guardians’ Hero, not the selfish villain.
What do I say, with the Sun Staff in one hand, aimed above Yanami’s heart?
Trust me.
But I remember Yanami’s shouts, her confession, the only time the Guardians spoke to me was to tell me to trust you. I don’t want to repeat their words.
“I’m sorry.” The words come out true and freshly born. “You’ll make a great Inka.”
My words stay suspended between us.
My heart falls as her eyes close tight. But as she does so, she also opens her fist and lets her hand fall from her chest. Does she know what I’m going to do? Did the girl who first told me the folklore figure it out before anyone else?
Or is she simply ready to die?
I lift the Sun Staff and plunge it into her stone heart.