But the sweat drips down her face. The blood, a mix of hers and the sacrifices, drips down her palms from where her nails are still shredding the flesh. The Samay Stone process may refill her life energy, but the effort it takes to do so is taking a physical toll on her body that samay can’t replenish.
She stopped her soundless crying hours ago, yet the tear tracks still shine.
Qajay is about to call for Tutay to send another person up, but I raise my hand to stop them. We’re at the top of the central platform in the plaza. The raised platform towers over the empire’s citizens. They’re used to watching ceremonies from below, but now they all try to look away. They’re cattle taking their last breath.
There are ten corpses at our side, and there’s been no change to Cashan’s condition. He doesn’t look better. His skin doesn’t look any less sallow and thin. His chest doesn’t beat with moreforce. It’s like the samay she pours into him goes straight to an ever-hungry and empty abyss.
It’s not working, and it’s not because the cursed princess isn’t keeping up her side of the deal, no matter how much I wish it were.
We know how to handle noncompliance. We know how to force people to do things. We don’t know how to deal with this.
“She can’t,” I croak. I’m worn out, and my voice reflects that. I haven’t used mimicry since going into Suyai’s subconscious, but my body isn’t recovering during this rest. I’m in physical limbo, my body deteriorated to near death but is now in stasis, not healing but not dying either.
The relief I felt hours ago is a stranger to me now. I was naive. I thought cooperation, this deal, was all we needed.
Life taught me better than that.
“She can’t do it,” I say, just as my arm gives out from where I leaned on a chair. I fall to my knees with a thud.
Izhi runs to me, but it’s no use. There’s nothing they can help me with. Cashan is dying. Suyai is dying. The princess tried to heal both, but healing is her weakest ability.
Pushing samay into Cashan, though, that’s not healing. She said it herself. She was adept at it and used it on her own mother at times. So why isn’t it working?
Two people dying, three if Paria’s condition gets any worse, four if my own body gives up. Ten people already dead. But there’s no longer a point to it. There’s no point to anything.
How many times have we been surrounded by blood? Every time we’ve been surrounded by treasure as well. There’s no treasure here, just a worthless princess and two siblings who have expended their value. And the blood. The screaming. The people being led to their deaths.
“What are you playing at?” I hear Pucaru shout.
My head snaps up. Pucaru is running at Suyai, grabbing her by the hair and yanking her upward.
“Did you make her fall? Are you hurting her?” Pucaru continues, shouting even though she’s right next to Suyai’s ear.
I look around. The only one on the floor is me, but Pucaru couldn’t be talking about me. Suyai isn’t near me at all, and I fell from my own weakness, not external forces.
Except, as Pucaru swings Suyai’s head around, I see what she saw. Suyai’s hair is overrun by white streaks. She’s been using mimicry.
“Stop,” I rasp out, but Pucaru doesn’t hear me. I tug on Izhu’s sleeve and mouth the word again. Izhu has to repeat it multiple times for Pucaru to stop her tirade, and once she does, Suyai hangs her head low and groans in pain.
“Did she hurt you, Qui?” Pucaru asks, and I shake my head no. She narrows her eyes between Suyai and me, refusing to step away from the injured girl.
I agree with Pucaru’s stance. Suyai may not have hurt me, but she was doing something, something subtle enough none of us felt it stand out against the princess’s mimicry. She can talk more than I can. She has no excuse to sneak around.
Pucaru doesn’t have a chance to talk before Suyai speaks up for herself.
“You’re doing it wrong, Yanami,” she says, her voice quiet from lack of use. “You’re not maximizing the samay.”
I look at the princess and see genuine shock on her face. Good. That might have just saved Suyai’s life. If any of us thought for a second she was playing games with us, she would be dead.
The clock is ticking for Cashan. The clock is ticking for us all, waiting for the Guardians’ Hero to show up with the Sun Staff.
“How could you possibly know that?” The princess asks. She doesn’t deny the statement, though, in her state, I don’t think she could fight against anything.
It’s the right question to ask. Suyai is an Ave mimic, mimicry based on the Hanan Pacha, the domain of the heavens. Ave mimics can specialize in things like unspoken communication, reading minds, projecting images and sounds. Yet, I can’t think of a specialty that would help Suyai come to this conclusion.
“I can read your mimicry, intercept it in the air, and gain information from it. I would have told you sooner, but I didn’t realize it until now. There’s so much energy everywhere, so much cursed power, but it doesn’t reach the necessary amount to pull him back. It never gets to the critical point, so it’s gone, and you have to do it all over again. It’s messing with my head,” Suyai tapers off into a coughing fit. She brings her hands to her head, careful not to disturb the boy still unconscious on her lap, and pounds them into her forehead. She hasn’t done a single thing today, but she looks the most affected out of all of us.
“I can’t stand it. Again and again. But not anymore. I figured it out. The draining process–”
