The priest leans forward. “I can control blood. Stop a heart from beating. Swell a throat, thicken it with blood. Force a person to jump off a cliff, drown in a puddle of water.”
I stare at him in horror as I clutch my throat. He drops his finger and I drag in a mouthful of cold air. I cough and gasp, fight to control the rapid beating of my heart. I have to keep him talking, learn as much as I can. Expose a weakness. My mouth is dry, but I somehow manage to choke out, “I’ve never heard of this kind of magic.”
“A rare ability in the little village I came from,” he says absently. “Have you ever visited the Lowlands?”
I shake my head.
“Skip it,” he says. “A smattering of huts, no road or wealth of any kind. I wanted more for my people, my family, but they were content in their small corner of Inkasisa, content with being forgotten.”
My eyes narrow. That weary bitterness feels familiar. I’ve seen it on someone else too, a hazy picture in my mind. “I know your face.”
“Of course you do,” he says coolly. “I was there the day you lost it all.”
He’s right, but it’s more than that. This is the boy Luna tried to show me, the one who grew up lonely and isolated. Without companions or family. “You lost your parents when you were young.”
The scowl vanishes from his face.
“We have that in common,” I say softly. “But that’s where our similarities end. Maybe you thought the people would like you better if you brought money into the village. But it didn’t go that way—they feared your magic. Even though you didn’t ask for it.”
The priest folds his arms across his chest.
My throat thickens, unnaturally. A voice inside tells me to speak up, to share that I understand some of what he went through as a boy, wanting a friend, a home of his own, for his tiny village to make it onto a map. “That must have been terribly lonely for you.”
His hold on my blood thins. I inhale deeply, filling my belly with air.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“You think you know me because Luna shared my past?” His fingers dig into his arms, and the veins in his throat become more pronounced. “I don’t need saving, Condesa.”
I chance another look toward the tent entrance, trying to see if one of the priest’s men waits outside. But I don’t see anyone.
“I wouldn’t attempt it,” he says in a voice colder than the bitter breeze howling against the tent. “Or have you forgotten I have your friends locked in cages?”
He’s toying with me, provoking me, as if I could possibly fight back against his magic. Any attempt would be futile and we both know it. He wants to watch me fail. “You obviously want to say something to me, so say it.”
“I want you to answer a few questions about Paititi.”
“Why should I?”
He points a crooked index finger toward the cages outside the tent. “Consider the lives I hold in my hands.”
“You’re going to murder them anyway,” I say bleakly.
“But think about how I could do it. Tell me what I want to know, and they die peacefully; resist, and I will turn them into monsters for my army. It’s your choice.”
Two terrible choices. I stare at him—the thin lips, the pulled-back hair, the razor-sharp cheekbones, the hungry eyes. He’ll ruin their lives and in the most horrid and wretched way imaginable.
“What do you want to know?”
“Where do they keep the gold?”
I blink at him. “Gold?This is what you’re after?”
He is silent and not amused by my caustic tone.
I decide to be honest with him. “The roads aren’t made of the metal you seek. People wear an odd bracelet or necklace, but that’s it. Some buildings use gold on their roofs, but the legend of Paititi was grossly exaggerated.”
He lifts his hand, and I’m blown back, rolling out of the tent and landing in a messy heap. The wind is knocked out of me. I pound my chest, coughing, and scramble to my hands and knees. My fingers dig into the cold earth, desperate for purchase.
