As Suyai talks about her day, how she avoided her Kama and any talk about her specialty, about her normal training and upcoming schedule, my mind drifts. She won’t mind.
My Kama explained that I’m no longer in charge of the duties my unit is assigned, which, from the few conversations I was able to catch, is standing guard in front of the space reserved for common citizens of the empire. Now, I will be standing next to the Inka and her family, the Panaka. The two other temporary additions and I will be littered within the Apukispay’s permanent unit.
I’m expected to go to every meeting detailing our responsibilities and strategies for assuring the Inka’s safety in the next two days alongside my regular training. I have to be aware of any threats, mimicry or not, to the ceremony showcasing the princess’s power.
Which means I’ll have a front row seat to see that power unleashed.
“I won’t be anywhere close to the action. We’re basically glorified greeters. They keep telling us we’re the first line of defense, but we won’t be searching or screening any of the guests. They’ll have Ave mimics for that,” Suyai continues.
I nod to let Suyai know a part of me is still listening to her.
“And the ceremony could last the whole day too,” she huffs and shakes her head. “We have no idea when the princess will fulfill the prophecy, if it happens that day at all.”
I’m halfway through drilling the stats of every soldier in my mother’s unit, mimicry domain, height, weight, and age, when Suyai’s words startle me back to reality.
“What do you mean if it happens? Of course it will,” I say, rising from Suyai’s shoulder and sitting up straight. Impatience is one of my worst traits, or so I’ve been told… many times and by almost everyone who’s met me. I can’t curb the annoyance at Suyai’s implication that the process might be delayed.
“I mean, we know the Guardians’ Hero has always been someone from the Inka’s family, the Panaka, in the past, but they’re so sure it’ll be her, they’re giving her this entire day tofulfill the Guardians’ desired action. Maybe it’s one of her other four siblings who needs to do it, and we’re wasting time on an assumption. The diviners won’t reveal what the Guardians are looking for, not even to the Inka, so she could be out there showing off her feats of strength for hours with no results,” Suyai goes off.
“That can’t happen,” I interrupt. Who knows if my mother would let me join her again if the hero isn’t revealed during the ceremony? I don’t want proof of how replaceable I am. “The hero has to appear that day. Yeah, the diviners might be keeping everything a secret, but they know for certain what action the Guardians are looking for their hero to fulfill, and all of them will be at the ceremony watching the princess. They wouldn’t waste their time if they knew the hero wouldn’t be there.”
Suyai shakes her head with closed eyes, like she’s trying to rid herself of her thoughts. “Sorry, I’m on edge, I guess. It just sucks that I’ll be stuck outside with nothing to do until some veiledlegendaryprincess that no one has even seen triggers some so-called fated event that will decide our futures.”
She always makes sense, but now I don’t understand her jump in logic. I don’t like what she’s implying.
“We’ve trained every day for threats like this, and I don’t care which prince or princess is the hero because I know it’ll still be us fighting. It’ll be us the stories are about. Whoever is the Guardians’ Hero might be known as the savior of the empire, but they won’t be our personal savior.”
Suyai laughs and turns to face me. Her hazel eyes shine as if they’re lit by the sun, despite the only light source being a few candles and the moonlight streaming through our offering windows. “Of course not, that’s your job.”
“Of course it is,” I say without thinking, unable to verbalize what her faith in me, even if it's teasing, truly means.
“You’re impossible,” Suyai says.
Lasta comes into the room and waves at us with a strained smile. It’s par for the course for the tension infecting every inch of the palace grounds. “Sorry for interrupting,” she says, her voice raw. She’s been crying.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say as Suyai says, “I was just heading out,” at the same time.
I catch her eyes, and we smile at each other.
Maybe Suyai is right, and I am impossible. That doesn’t matter to me, though. I keep my gaze steady on her back as she walks away.
Chapter 3
Ihold back a grunt as my back hits the floor. Again. Three times in six rounds, with the rest consisting of nonstop sparring that timed out. Technically ties if we were competing, but no one is keeping score.
That doesn’t change the fact that I haven’t won once.
I struggle to catch my breath, wasting a valuable second as Kumya, Ave Mimic, drops her forearm above my throat. She wants me to tap out. I wheeze and push at her arm. She’s stronger than me, heavier, and impossible to dislodge. She’s another one of my mother’s permanent unit members who showed me nothing but a friendly smile when I arrived.
I try to think of how to get out of the hold, but my thoughts dissipate with the little air left in my lungs. Black dots take over my vision, covering Kumya’s unimpressed face as she says something I can’t hear over the ringing in my ears. She frowns above me, and I feel the weight of her disappointment, everyone’s disappointment, heavier than the weight of her arm.
One voice cuts through.
“Enough,” my mother commands.
For a brief moment, I think she said it to save me from passing out, to stop the bruising on my throat, to protect heronly daughter. Then, I stand up and see her concentrated over her kipu, the administrative document she’s using to keep track of her analysis.
It’s a large central cord with several smaller hanging ropes with knots on them representing various statistics. She’s looking over them, reading knots I can’t decipher. I’ve only ever used kipus for maps, though I saw my Kama deciphering the administrative ones often. My mother wasn’t keeping score of winners and losers, and she definitely didn’t end this round because of my condition. She was simply done analyzing the performance between the groups. Next round, she would do the same.
