I can’t focus when I feel so hopelessly naive, next to the stranger who saysmylast name tomymother with a familiarity I’ve never felt.
“From the south, we have Upsallata. It’s been a few months since they were integrated into the empire, but the new administration is still getting settled. No threats yet, but they were the result of the first expansion campaign from Inka Yanaru. Low power, high threat.”
“But they accepted the integration with no fighting,” I say, yet again the center of attention, but this time with my head held high. I know about this. As much as Suyai likes to make fun of my one-track mind, I keep tabs on any conflicts we hear of inside the palace walls.
Out loud, I detail the history of Upsallata’s integration, the fights that broke out, the detention strategy, and the neutralization of threats.
The soldier to my right, Urpi, Ave Mimic, whistles a few seconds after my brief. Kumya, to my left, chuckles and shakes her head. I refuse to let my cheeks flood with color the same way I refuse to look at the ground to avoid everyone’s stares.
I hold out for one second. Two seconds. My mother tilts her head to the side, and we lock eyes. Three seconds. She smiles.
At me.
“That was almost impressive,” she says, one sentence like a hand around my throat.Almost. Almost impressive, but never enough. “You’re correct about the history. However, you’re wrong in your conclusion. We cannot base our actions on outdated information. The calamity announcement changes everything. It’s easy to see that they would be the only ones in the unique position to avoid the calamity through political maneuvers alone. If I can plan that, then anyone can. They’ll remain a high threat.”
She moves on to the next point,internal dissidents, without a second for more input. It’s a clear dismissal. It’s a clear humiliation.Then anyone can. Anyone except me. My throat closes up, that invisible vice still crushing my windpipe, as more details float around me.
Dissidents inside the capital. Largest documented group predicted to be only five members. Rumors of Inka Yanaru being another False King. Whispers against the divine right to rule. Even the mention of a covered-up assassination attempt againstthe Panaka, leaving three guards dead and only stopped by the legendary princess, isn’t enough to snap me out of the spiral I slowly fall into.
The Apukispay gives everyone one more minute to give any opinions or objections to the threat list. The two supplemental guards stay quiet. Three others, Urpi, Nucosan, and Tamyaki, Serpent mimic, speak up. All they have are questions, which my mother fields effortlessly.
Today isn’t even the worst of it. Tomorrow, my mother will go over all of my weaknesses in front of everyone. She’ll tell me exactly where I fall into the team I don’t deserve to be in. No matter how far I’ve made it on my own, no matter how fast I climbed the ranks, I am only here because of my damn mother.
I’m humiliated because I have no chance to show my true strength here since I haven’t reached it yet.
But I will. I’ll train today, and I’ll train tomorrow before the meeting, and I’ll train after that. I’ll be strong enough soon because I have to be. I have no other choice. Not with my mom ending the meeting and her loyal disciples giving me smiles, easy and carefree, as if I don’t know what must be going through their heads.
They’re laughing among each other, loosening up for the night, seeing nothing more than the Apukispay’s abandoned daughter.
Chapter 4
Suyai is already dressed while I’m struggling with the complicated tunic and accessories I’m forced to wear.
“Stop fussing. You’re dulling them with your fingerprints,” she says and slaps my hands away from my chest, where a huayruro necklace hangs. The huayruro seeds making up the accessory are red seeds, some sporting black marks. They symbolize protection, direct from the communities in the Amazon.
The necklace comes together at one point, right between my breasts, and then falls into two long strands. I look at them and see not only protection, but harmony, the balance that is integral to the smaller communities throughout the empire.
The communities like the ones I grew up in. I may not have been raised in the rainforest, but I understand the ritual importance of these talismans more than many of the born and bred citizens of Lima. They’ll never understand what it’s like to be outsiders, allowed in only for the value one brings.
Suyai scolds me as though she’s not in the uniform we’ve spent years wearing, and I’m in a costume. Her simple tunic and sandals are higher quality than someone outside the Inka’s army would get, but they are still purposefully humble.
Everything I’m putting on is not.
I’ve dreamed about these clothes, but they feel too big. It’s hard for our uniforms not to fit when they’re one piece of cloth hemmed to length, draped over our shoulders, and then tightened by a waistband. It fits by all technicalities, even with the addition of the plumage and gold chains adding weight to my waistband and the intricate cape flowing out from my shoulders.
Yet I feel devoured, like a skeleton of a thing, all brittle bones sucked clean. I don’t need to see it to know the same uniform and accessories would add to my mother’s figure as if they were wings.
“I can feel your frustration, so just stop already, will you?” Suyai says. “I’m trying to find a sliver of happiness in these disgustingly depressing times. At least we’re part of a fated event today.”
“Isn’t every moment a fated event?”
Suyai sighs and looks down. “Sometimes it feels like it, yes,” she says.
“Hey, if you don’t like whatever happens today, you’ll just use those magic powers of yours to warn the Guardians that I’m ready to fight them on it,” I joke.
She breaks into a loud and undignified laugh. She’s shaking her head hard enough for some tears to escape, but her smile makes up for it. It’s the oldest trick in my book, and I use it less and less, but Suyai will always laugh at my plain old audacity.
She slaps her hand against my mouth.
