“You can’t make me do anything I don’t want to, Yanami. So, come on, strip.” I wonder how old Sinchinrei would have acted, so I throw in a wink there for good measure. The tension drains out of her body as she begins to blush.
She strips to her undergarments efficiently and goes up to the eye with little fuss. That scares me, the way she turns herself off to force herself to do something she doesn’t want to. It’s a mirror I don’t want to look into. I don’t want her to be goneduring this. I want her here, present. But how can I ask her for that when I’m so far away?
I’m at her side when the water bruises our bodies and forces us into the lake. My arms are around her, refusing to let go even as her body goes lifeless.
I pull her impossibly closer.
“Just hold onto me. It’s okay. You can just hold onto me.”
As we’re pushed into the calm center of the lake, Yanami begins to talk.
She talks about the feeling of hands on her shoulder, forcing her beneath sacred waters until she passed out. She talks about waking up in pain, something foreign in her body that she couldn’t scratch out. How she spit up water mixed with bile until she felt empty, yet the feeling of intrusion remained. She talks about how they told her the water of Lake Titicaca would cleanse her, but all it did was make it possible to place the stone without killing her.
“They said the waters saved me, but all it did was keep a dead thing breathing.”
She talks about her childhood, alone and separate from anyone who could catch a glimpse of her scar. She talks about what power did to her, and then she asks me, out of breath from fear or wonder, I don’t know, she asks me to touch her scar.
We have to untangle ourselves for me to do that, and I miss her body heat immediately. The cold sacred water of Pomakanchi fills the space between us and feels like ice. She doesn’t give me an option. With one hand tight around my arm to help stay afloat, she grabs my right hand and lays it right over where I should feel her heartbeat, but don’t.
The moment I touch it, it burns.
It burns and it hurts and I’m scared it’ll meld our skin together if I don’t let go, but Yanami won’t let me let go.
Save her. Save our child.
“If I broke your skin right now, I’d start draining your samay.” She’s whispering, so why does her voice thunder in my head?
Save her because we couldn’t.I know the Guardians’ voice now, the cacophony of every world in one, and I don’t feel fear. I could never.
And just like that, Yanami lets go of me. She shoves me away and uses the momentum to push herself deeper into the water.
Then, she’s gone. Her head disappears beneath the waves we caused.
Interlude III
AYA RUNA
We get back to Lima as soon as we can, dumping the bodies of the two grown women along the way and tying up the rest of the family for the journey. They gave us everything we needed. Now, it’s up to the girl to finish it.
“I gave you everything I had,” Suyai says. Her legs and arms are tied, leaving her a crumpled mess on the floor, but it doesn’t make her look any less strong.
I see Pucaru and Izhi’s hesitance. I understand it.
I can admit I grew to like the girl, even if the others can’t. She is as disparaging toward the throne as we are, and she handles pain in a way that shows she’s dealt with it from a young age. The other soldiers broke easily. They could handle physical pain but not the mental kind. Suyai, however, is a master of both.
You love him,she said in the throne room where we all worked.You, she meant all six of us, the Aya Runa, the heartless band of thieves. Pucaru rolled her eyes.Why do you say that, little soldier?Pucaru was amused by Suyai from the moment sheheard about her first interaction with Tutay. I don’t think she was very amused after Suyai answered.
Because you wouldn’t do any of this otherwise.
None of us responded. I wouldn’t have even if my throat allowed it. The girl we treated so cruelly declared some semblance ofgoodnesson our behalf. It made no sense.
Except now I had the memories Izhi shot into our minds on Intiraymi. The Apukispay heard her daughter’s voice and every thought of her, both new and old, featured Suyai at her side.
I consider the girl on the ground before us. Her round face hasn’t lost the baby fat she carried since she was a child. She looks cherubic, less like a soldier and more like a healer, yet every thought the Apukispay had surrounding her was filled with resentment.
The others had seen the same thing I had. I know they’re trying to figure out the puzzle alongside me.
Tutay motions to Suyai with one hand. “She’s lying, and we know it,” Tutay says and rolls her eyes at them. She makes eye contact with me and shakes her head with a smile, a casualcan you believe them?motion that she loves to throw my way in secret. I find myself smiling for the first time since Cusco. Everyone is starting to settle into their normal selves again. After everything we saw, it feels like nothing less than a miracle.
