“Can I hold your hand?” I ask. The princess doesn’t even break stride. She nods yes but keeps her hand at her side. I sigh. This is for both our benefit, yet she’s making it seem like it’s my own want. And so what if it is? What if I have missed the warmth and softness of her skin? Touching her is both an exploration and a homecoming.
Once my hand finds hers, I link our fingers together. We walk like that, hand in hand, through the docks. We dodge dock workers with sacks of fish and potatoes. We keep our heads down, Mare huddled in front of us so we make a tight unit, my other hand holding the back of his poncho. The dock is a flurry of activity, yet it still feels weighed down by the emotions of everyone walking by. Us included.
I can’t think about the emotions swirling inside of me, not now. There’s no space for explosions or screaming matches here, even less for it inside my brain. I can barely let myself think three steps ahead. Get on a boat. Arrive at Amantani. A miracle, and then the Sun Staff is in my hands. A miracle, and I’m back to Lima, back to Suyai. A miracle, and Yanami leaves.
I shake my head. That’s why I can’t think. That’s why I need to stay angry. I crush Yanami’s hand in mine so hard her bones dig into my palm. There I go again, trying to hurt others and hurting myself too.
It’s strange to hear Aymara spoken around us rather than Quechua. I know enough to get by, though I won’t need to use my knowledge. By the looks of it, most dock workers know Quechua as well. There’s bartering going on in both languages.
I’m ready to take the lead when we reach a boat without a line in front of it.
“Excuse me,” the princess speaks before I can, Aymara words flowing without the slightest accent. Mare gasps in delight at the surprise, while I feel myself heat up. The princess is known for being well educated, but Aymara isn’t as respected as it shouldbe in the empire. Her knowledge only makes sense because of her mother’s secret heritage.
And now my mother’s dead.
Whatever wonder I felt at the words dies.
“Can you take us to Amantani?” the princess says, more or less. I catch more of the words than not, but I’m still guessing at the overall meaning.
The man shrugs and gestures to the rest of the dock and then his boat. He says something along the lines of waiting for people, presumably to make the trip worth it, rather than taking just us. I look at his boat. It’s small. It’ll maybe handle two more people along with us, but I know in this situation, he probably wants to fit more regardless of safety or comfort.
The boat’s wooden seats are sagging from rot. One of the benches is broken at the end, causing splinters of wood to stick out. The color of the hull is the distinct shade of greenish brown that proves it hasn’t been washed in a while. The single motor has a handle sticking out of it for navigation, since the boat itself has no captain’s wheel. Without anything to trade, this is probably the best quality we’ll get. It also means waiting for other people to take the risk of going on this death trap.
No wonder there is no line to take a trip with this man.
He grumbles something at the princess, and I can’t make out a single word with his low voice. The rough mustache he has muffles his words further.
“It’s… your time… gold,” the princess says something along those lines.
She tries to let go of my hand, but I instinctively hold on harder. She pulls with more force this time, and I get myself together and let go, as unwilling as I am. I don’t know what she’s doing, but I’m in no position to stop her.
The princess uses both hands to grab at something at the back of her neck, and I see the flash of gold before I realize what it is. She’s taking off her last ceremonial necklace.
“No,” I say and grab her by the forearm. It’s too late. The man caught a glimpse of the shining metal too, and he’s saying something in rapid-fire Aymara. The princess lets go of the necklace, still clasped securely, and responds to him before turning around to look at me with fire in her eyes.
“This is the only boat we can afford to take privately,” she says.
“You don’t have to do this. It’s the last proof of ancestry you have left,” I say, but we both know that’s meaningless. No one would be able to deny she’s Inka Yanaru’s daughter.
But it is the last connection she has to her mother right now. She hasn’t taken off that necklace the entire time we traveled, no matter how heavy and cumbersome it became. I saw the rubbed-red skin under it the night we spent together. It left marks indented on her neck when it was pushed aside. I noticed the lengths she went to hide it from sight when we entered tambos. She’s holding onto it now with one closed fist atop her clothes.
“It’s the last shackle, you mean,” she says with no room left for argument. My mouth falls open. She uses my momentary lapse to rip her arm out of my hold and go back to unclasping the necklace.
The man’s eyes are wide as she shows it to him, letting it shine in the sunlight for dramatic effect. I turn my head. I can’t look at it now, since the last time I saw it was on her golden skin, lit up by the water reflecting from the lakes.
Not when the time before that was when I was close enough to kiss the welts it left on her skin.
I focus on Mare instead. His eyes are just as wide as the man’s were, but there’s no greed in his. There’s only wonder andcuriosity. Of course, he has only ever seen it at the lakes, and that day we both had a different image burned into our eyes.
I expect to see a childish smile on his face, but his wide eyes start to squint and his mouth downturns.
“Will that be enough to get us there, Rei?” he asks me, and I’m too shocked to answer. He stopped looking at the necklace as beautiful and started to see it as a tool.
He’s not wrong, but it stabs at something in my heart.
“Yes,” the princess answers for me.
Just like that, we’re getting into the boat and pulling out of the dock.
