“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 aboutmotherswill 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.
Gettingthe 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.
