Silluka stayed with Ichu while he slept. He was still as limp as when he had fallen next to her, but his eyes were clearer now, and he felt cleaner to some strange sense in the back of her head. Maybe it was left over from Tree Sap Flows.

Before Elder Quilqi had left her with her brother, Silluka asked if they needed to repeat the chayu, as that was what healers usually did.

“Repeat it? Whatever for? Did you put everything you had into it the first time?”

Silluka replied that she had.

“Then it doesn’t need to be repeated.”

The elder had brought a salve rescued from Elder Sinchi’s stores—as she had perished with the healing center. Silluka smeared the vile stuff over Ichu’s chest. If he didn’t wake from the smell, he was well and truly out of it.

Elder Quilqi left soon after, with words that they would “talk soon,” and Silluka was left with her thoughts, and Ichu.

That was how Cosquella found her, the big woman bending down to sit next to her. Silluka looked up at the motion. It was almost dark now, and it had been a long day.

“I thought you wouldn’t want to see me,” Silluka said.

“Me? Why wouldn’t I want to see you?” Cosquella’s unmoving hair was a shield around her head, and there were tears in her eyes. Silluka hadn’t even had time to search her out.

“Because I failed your father, and your cousin. If I had been stronger, I might have—”

“You might have what?” Cosquella interrupted. “Gotten yourself killed, yes? You were the only one who went after that thing, you were, and the desert Allwiya driving it. The rest of the villagers held back. I was trapped up front, I was, fighting that giant Allwiya, trying to keep it from squashing me in its tentacles. I saw the whole sled go down, but you went in there. You tried to help my family when no one else did. You didn’t fail, no.”

Emotions flitted through Silluka’s mind, but she couldn’t identify them. She hadn’t gone after just Cosquella’s family. That had been a side realization. Except she had gone after the Allwiya construct when no one else had. Cosquella was right about that. She just assumed everyone else was caught up in the fight, but of course everyone would have seen the sled taken down by the giant insect vehicle. What had no one else but Ichu come down to fight? If more had come quicker, maybe they could have rescued the sled. She stared into Cosquella’s deep, dark, eyes, wondering what she saw in her. They were both broken, in different ways.

“I couldn’t help them,” she protested weakly. As if to prove she wasn’t actually worthy of Cosquella’s praise.

“It would have taken the whole village to help them, yes?” the big girl responded. She took Silluka’s hand in both of hers, her large thumbs rubbing the back of her hand. “Elder Sinchi said it was the grace of Aunt Healing that either of them were still alive. She didn’t even survive, and she was an elder, she was! They would never have made it across the rest of the desert, hunted by Allwiya. It was a mercy I didn’t give them, couldn’t, to keep them from the pain they were in. Father hadn’t woken up in days. He wasn’t going to, ever.” She looked down at Silluka’s hand, then back up. “But you tried, you did.”

Silluka’s mind raced, trying to think of anything to take the focus away from her. She was used to hiding in the shadows of the village, not fighting giant insects and healing infections from gods. What was she becoming? Elder Quilqi said she’d gone farther than anyone else in the village, but that was preposterous. She was an undesirable with one arm. What could she do?

She looked to the front of the sleds. Cosquella still held her hand, but she didn’t pull away. The other woman’s tough hands were surprisingly gentle. Silluka had seen the slumped form of the giant Allwiya when she came up from the pit, but hadn’t paid much attention to it. The wheel, the disc, and the sled were all broken too, dashed to pieces, presumably by the stone warriors.

“And you?” she finally asked. “How did you survive?”

Cosquella grinned, and her smile was like a night full of stars. “You know me. Big, dumb, and stubborn, I am. I didn’t let that giant Allwiya squish me. Chopped through its tentacle with my hatchets, then jumped up to its head and went for the eye!” She lifted a hand to mime a strike with a hatchet.

Silluka wrinkled her nose. “Eww. It was bad enough with the little ones. Is that why you smell?”

Now the big woman laughed. “Sure is, yeah! I had to go all the way in to get to its brain.” She swiped the air again. “Hacked through it until it was mush, then had a good roll in the sand afterward, I did, to get all the goo off.”

“Oh, that’s horrible.” Silluka brought her stump to her mouth, as if to cover it, since her hand was occupied and she wasn’t about to move it.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Cosquella’s eyes followed her motion. “Well, you know, one good thing about my hair and skin is that it’s easy to get grime off. Can’t get anything stuck in my hair if I try!”

But her eyes went to Silluka’s dark hair. She didn’t do a whole lot with it, except to tie it back and out of the way. She didn’t pay much attention to it.

“May I?” Cosquella lifted one hand to Silluka’s hair.

“Yes,” Silluka breathed, then closed her eyes as Cosquella’s large, warm hand brushed her cheek and slid down her hair. Her skin was hard and uneven, but not rough, as if it were coated with rocks that had been polished to a hard shine.

“May I touch…yours?”

Cosquella gave a quick nod, and Silluka took her hand back for a moment, already missing the heat of Cosquella’s hand.

Her hair was softer than Silluka thought. It almost felt silky, without individual hairs, as if the whole thing had grown in one piece.

“It feels smooth,” she said.

“So does yours.”

Their heads were close, sharing breath, and Silluka swallowed, her eyes pouring over Cosquella’s face. That skin was hard too, but not nearly as much as on her arms. It softened around her eyes, nose, and mouth, almost like she had little scales there. Her lips especially were just as pliant and moist as anyone from the Huaca. More so, even. Silluka had never been this close to someone else. She’d had a few dalliances with others before her parents died, but never in this way.

Cosquella leaned even closer, stopping just before they would touch. It was an invitation, leaving room to pull away. Silluka thought about what she had learned since leaving the coast, about Ichu lying beside her, about Cosquella’s father and cousin. She had been the only one to go after them and fight the Allwiya on her own. She’d come a long way from a girl scared to perform a chayu. She’d survived where Hufi had died, saved the undesirables. She had performed Flying Quirra on her own. Even with Elder Quilqi and Lugopo’s guidance, that had been her power, her strength. Why was a finger-width of distance between their lips as hard to cross as that?

It wasn’t.

She leaned in.

Cosquella tasted of salt, and wind, but her lips were as smooth and as warm as water, heated for a bath.

They parted after a moment and sat, foreheads touching. Cosquella found her hand again and held it, large hands like a small bonfire around hers, warding off the cooling air as night began to descend. Hesitantly, Silluka placed her stump on top, allowing it to have the same comfort.

Together, they watched over Ichu.

* * *

The next day, Ichu was still asleep. Silluka had bundled up with Cosquella for warmth in the cold desert night, and barely needed the thin blanket she wrapped around them. Cosquella was hot like a bed of coals when she wrapped her arms around Silluka. It felt like home.

But there was always more to do.

Akamu found them shortly after they scrounged a breakfast of dried fruit and nuts from the stores on the third sled. Thankfully not all their supplies had been sucked down with the second sled, but they would barely need to ration to reach Chimor. They had lost many villagers to the Allwiya.

“The stone warriors are leaving today,” Akamu said without preamble. “The” stone warriors, Silluka noticed, not “his” stone warriors. Always humble, Akamu. His bronze skin looked pale in the morning light. The fight had taken a lot out of all of them.

“And what of our wounded and dead?” Cosquella bristled, and Silluka wrapped her stump around the other girl’s arm. There was a lot of rage in her too, thankfully not directed at Silluka, though she certainly deserved it. “We’ve lost provisions, we have, an entire sled, and there could be more desert Allwiya waiting over the next dune.”

Not long ago, Cosquella had been an outsider. Now she was a part of their community. Of Silluka’s community.

“We have stayed longer than many of the stone warriors wished already.” Akamu’s eyes flicked to where Ichu lay, not far away. Silluka could guess what his vote had been. “Your village is but a tiny community, and though it deserves our protection, there are many more who might suffer if we don’t continue our patrols for the Eztli Mecatl. More are coming, and they will track you down if we do not stop them. They will track him down now he has drunk of their power.” His hand opened toward Ichu.

“Then we aren’t safe whatever we do, we aren’t,” Consquella argued. “Can’t you guide us a little longer?”

Akamu shook his head. “You are nearly to the stable desert and this,” he gestured to the wreckage of the Allwiya devices, “was a much larger attack than we could have anticipated. It was good we were here, but the stone warrior scouts think this has broken the Allwiya’s numbers for now. They will be quiet while you pass, save for maybe token resistance. You will arrive in Chimor soon.”

“And we can’t do anything to convince you? Not even one of your number might stay with us?” Silluka raised an eyebrow, and she thought he caught what she was hinting at. He glanced at Ichu again, longer this time.

“I’m sorry. Kiqema agrees with me, but the others insist we return to our duties. If we don’t…well, those who give us direction will be displeased.”

“You don’t serve Tiyu Tiksimuyu directly?” The question popped out of Silluka’s mouth before she could stop it. This was the first hint of someone mortal above the stone warriors. And the storm warriors, she supposed.

Akamu laughed, though it was a spare sound. “Uncle Earth is farther above me than the…one…who directs me is above you. We dedicate our service to him, but I have never met a god, nor spoken to one.” He seemed to be about to say something, then changed his mind. “You will learn much more about the world in Chimor. It has truly been a pleasure to meet your people. Now, I must make one more goodbye.”

He left Silluka and Cosquella exchanging wide eyes and went to Ichu. Cosquella pulled her stump to go after, but Silluka held her back. This wasn’t the time to eavesdrop.

“Let him go,” she said. It was obvious they weren’t getting anything else out of the stone warrior, and that their time with them was over. They would have to help prepare the remaining sleds on their own, and brave any future attacks by the Allwiya.

Silluka watched Akamu from a distance, holding tight to Cosquella. He knelt above Ichu’s head, hands clasping his jaw upside down. His mouth was moving, though Silluka couldn’t hear anything. Akamu’s amber armor wasn’t glowing today, though she’d seen the whole group moving through long chayus this morning, restoring their spent power.

Finally, Akamu leant forward and kissed Ichu’s forehead, then his lips.

He stood, jumped off the side of the sled, and joined his stone warriors.