“They’ve talked to me,” I interrupt, and her eyes go wide. “They’ve all spoken to me, in the lake, in Lima, but you’re telling me you, the Inka’s legendary princess, haven't heard a word from them your whole life until it was about me? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I–”
“And you didn’t think to mention that when you told me your plan? You didn’t think to tell me how little you had to offer?” I say words I don’t believe. I hiss and I spit and I taste metal in my mouth from where my teeth gnash against my own flesh.
“Sinchinrei–”
“I believed in you,” I stop talking when I realize I’m out of breath. Have I been shouting? I can’t get myself to care. “The Guardians, they told me…”
They told me to help you. I breathe deeply. I need to think before I act. I need to calm down. I spit blood onto the ground and wipe my hand across my mouth. It’s disgusting and primal and unbefitting of the princess’s presence.
“What am I supposed to do when the old Inka is dead, and now the new one has no samay?” I try, steadying my voice. We can talk this through. We can figure it out.
“What are you talking about?” the princess whispers, low and confused and so unlike her. “I willnotbe the new Inka.”
Her denial is a stone dagger to my shoulder. It’s both a betrayal from someone I loved and a lesson in pain. It triggers a panic I haven’t felt since I was a child, a panic I thought I banished when I learned to defend myself. Suddenly, with the force of stone digging into skin, I miss my mother. I miss the hope that we would one day talk, that she would give me advice on how to be a good Apukispay, that she would help me deal with royalty. My mother climbed the ranks not just with strength but with cunning too. She may have taught me how to fight and train, but she never stuck around long enough for her smarts to stick.
And now she never will.
It’s the taste of salt on my lips that lets me know I’m crying hot, angry tears that burn my raw lips.
“Oh, Sinchinrei…” the princess starts, reaching out toward my face but stopping before she touches skin.
I miss Suyai. I miss Lima, and I miss my mother. I left them behind, for what? An empire with a runaway Inka and a fate without glory?
No. No, I can’t let it all be for nothing.
“There’s one more place.” I try to speak but have to stop to rub my face free of tears. “The Guardians won’t come here to speak to you. Fine. But they don’t have the final say. We’ll still head to Lake Titicaca. We’re only a two day hike away. Let them try to ignore you when we’re banging on the door of the Sun God. Let them try to stop you from raising the island.”
“Champion, there’s nothing that says going to Lake Titicaca and praying to Inti will work when the lakes here didn’t. It’s the Guardians who have the final say. We mimic the Guardians’ powers. We–”
“But the Guardians are below the reign of Inti, as we all are. Inti created the Inka to rule an empire for him and the Guardians to protect it. Well, the Guardians need to restore your samay if they want…” A sob breaks through my tirade, and I have to take a deep breath to steady myself. There’s no reason to cry, not when I’m going to save the empire and Suyai. I will save the empire and Suyai.
The princess eyes me with a pitiful look that I’m quick to hate. I don’t need her concern.
“Maybe I don’t get my samay back, and maybe I don’t raise the island, but Champion,Rei, maybe we don’t have to do any of it–”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence. You don’t want to be Inka? Fine, but I didn’t do all of this to not fulfill the fate I deserve. You promised you’d help, so we try the lake, or you do the method you know is guaranteed to work.” The command leaves my mouth in blazing fury. The command. The command the princess has heard time and time again.
The softness in her solidifies into stone. In that moment, as she stands taller and shuts down, I notice her scar. It’s bleeding. I see surface scratches where the skin tore. She must have used her own nails to rip it open. She must have done that underwater at the last lake, because it wasn’t like that before.
I want to reach out and touch it, kiss the wound, and pray for it to heal, knowing it never will, not entirely.
But it’s too late for that now. I’m not foolish enough to think it isn’t.
“I told you I’d try, so I will go to the lake and try. Then I never want to see you again. Tell me you understand.”
I don’t nod. I don’t say a word. I remember the feel of her lips on mine. I remember the hesitance in her touch, the timid way she explored my skin, like she didn’t believe softness existed in the world. I remember it all. I’m lost in it like I got lost in her.
Yanami doesn’t care enough to wait. She turns around and walks toward her clothes.
I head in the opposite direction to look for Mare at our base at Pomakanchi.
Mare is lookingup at the sky when I get to him. I see the twinkle of the stars reflected in his black eyes. He’s searching for his sister’s face.
I sit behind him and hug him to my chest. He’s stiff, causing his bony joints to dig into my tired muscles. I can’t blame him for the tension he holds, no matter how much I wish he could just relax. I wish I could relax too.
He speaks before I can.
