Her eyes are stuck on where my right hand meets her left bicep. Another wave smashes into our sides. They’re strong but not strong enough to break my stance. Yet.
“Princess,” I say again, but she’s still only blinking at my hands. She’s trembling. She’s frozen and trembling, and I can’t do anything but scream. “Yanami,” I yell.
She snaps to attention and looks me in the eyes. She’s a drowned animal.
“I can’t swim,” she whispers, so low I have to guess the words from the movement of her lips. “I can’t swim, champion. I’ll drown.”
I’m shaking my head before she’s done speaking.Careful, the wind whispers. I’m never careful, but I need to be careful with her, this princess turned wild animal.
“You’ll be okay,” I yell while pulling her alongside me, closer and closer to the building. Closer to where Suyai and Mare must be. “I promise you, princess. I promise you’ll be okay. I’ll make sure of it.”
The princess doesn’t loosen up, but she begins to walk, each step stronger with each promise I make. Together we fight against the waves beating our feet. Our gasps are in sync after awave crashes at us from above and steals our breath. Somewhere between the assault, our holds on each other turn into bruising, reciprocal marks. We make it into the chaos of the Awarmatu as twin wretched things.
What remains of the roof stops the deluge enough for me to take stock of the carnage around me.
If it weren’t for the large number of soldiers in attendance fighting with expertise, I would be looking at a massacre. As it is, the amount of blood and flayed flesh invading my sight turns my stomach. When I realize some of the blood is not human, the sight gets worse.
There are rotted animals. Seagulls, pelicans, and fish of all types writhe on the floor, some attacking with the fervor of rabies, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. They’re bloodied, some crawling without legs, fish flayed open but still jumping as they choke. How can they still be moving? How can they all still be moving with knives in their sides and skulls smashed in? They shake in tandem like an army. They attack like one too.
I need to find Suyai and Mare. I need to make sure the princess doesn’t leave my side.
I look at her, and she’s a different beast.
There is no trace of fear on her face. There’s no trace of anything but cold analysis. Even her body has stopped shaking and is warming beneath my touch, whether through mimicry or sheer force of mental will, I don’t know.
Who is she this time?
“Stay close to me,” I shout, though it sounds like a whisper with the chaos around us. There’s no rhyme or reason to the attacks, other than the underlying pulse that the animals, dead or alive, follow with their movement. There are groups of people huddled into corners, getting more and more drenched by the minute but safe from the immediate violence. We need to keep low and discreet like them until I find Suyai and Mare, no matterhow much I itch to jump in and clear a way out. Now isn’t the time for impulse decisions.
The princess must notice the same things I do because she nods her head without argument.
I crouch low, swallowing more salt water as I do. The fish gasping for air on the floor are the least of our concerns, so I kick them away as we make it further into the main room. It’s more than disgusting. I feel slime on my leg and see clotted blood on my skin that even the waves crashing onto me don’t wash away. It’s not natural. It’s sick.
“Serpent mimicry,” the princess says, directed at no one. We’re both squinting to avoid getting salt water in our eyes, but there’s something more running through her mind than basic defense.
This can’t be mimicry. This is perverse.
Then I hear a scream I’d recognize anywhere, despite it stemming from fear now rather than excitement. Mare. My eyes zero in on his body, lying immobile on the floor, a bird ripping into his right calf. There’s too much blood. He’s too small.
With his wound, he can’t move.
Then I see Suyai. Her right arm is twisted, blood and her torn clothing hiding the shard of bone I know must be poking out. She ran in right when the explosion went off. Gods, she must have been crushed by the decimated building itself. Still, she limps toward Mare, one hand forcing her bad arm into place.
I tighten my grip on the princess and move faster toward them, my other hand already reaching back to rip my only weapon free from its straps. It’s a ceremonial champi, a mace made of pure silver.
I let go of the princess to use both hands to swing my champi down and crush the animal’s body.
Mare’s scream pierces my ears, and I dive down to cradle his head and cover his mouth.
“Shh,” I whisper. “Shh, Mare,kori, it’s me.” The term of endearment,golden one, calms him down. I rock him back and forth on my arms and look anywhere but the gaping hole in his leg. Suyai is still so far. The chaos between us is a chasm. I have to keep Mare safe for her.
The princess crouches beside me and kicks back a bird with half its body caved in. It fights back more than I thought possible, getting up again and again until it staggers back into the ocean.
Mare is sobbing my name into my tunic. I need him to get up and go with me to Suyai.
“There’s nowhere to go,” the princess says, but I’m too busy looking for Suyai again to respond. “Do you hear me, champion? Listen, there’s nowhere to go.”
“There’s a second floor,” I say, lifting Mare and carrying him. She should know this. “We get up there, and you two can hide until…”
