“Take me,” she said miserably. “Sacha’s weak and won’t last the journey. It’s me you want. Leave her be, and I’ll go willingly.”
Nina kept her gaze hard on the kunay, hoping to sway him toward her conviction. The man’s eyes darted between hers, the cold smile that slithered onto his face another omen of things to come. Nina immediately got the sense that she had made some terrible miscalculation, but it was forgotten as the kunay scooped up his blade and sheathed it at his side. His touch lingered like a phantom cage around her chest.
“I think you might be right,” he agreed easily.Tooeasily. He turned to his men and gave a command she didn’t understand. Her vision had begun to blur around the edges, and her chest hurt with the force of her breath.
Sacha remained motionless on the ground, and Nina was most grateful for that. She knew her sister would have tried to do exactly what Nina was doing, but what Nina told the kunay was true; Sachawasweak, her body frail and ill, her mind fragmented on most days. She often spoke in her sleep, her words like riddles that Nina had stopped trying to solve many years ago.
With Nina gone, their mamay would have to soothe Sacha back to sleep. Lali would have to allow someone else to braid her hair. Sacha would have to venture alone into their small ayllu on market day. Whatever Nina had done to those boys, she hoped it was enough to scare them away forever.
Though Nina knew she was doing the right thing, all she could think as the emperor’s men grabbed each of her arms and pulled her to her feet wasWhat have I done?
With that sudden doubt came an uncontrollable inaction. When she wouldn’t walk, they shoved her forward. When she wouldn’t climb ontothe beast’s back, a walla gripped the collar of her dress and dragged her up in front of him, his arms around her like shackles. The achipumas ambled away. Her sister’s body grew smaller and smaller until it was nothing but a colorful lump in the middle of a sea of dirt and stalks.
On the edge of the fields, she saw a flash of blue, there one second and gone the next. Lali had always been a good rule follower. Eager to be included and please.
Nina had tried her best to follow the rules, and still, there she was. No one came to save her, to take this burden from her. She didn’t cry out, or struggle, or pray.
Despair trickled in, slowly replacing any hope she might have once harbored. For the first time, she understood her sister’s propensity toward acceptance and defeat, for there was nothing to be done about this choice she had made.
Their fields were at the edge of the ayllu and the path before them split into two directions; one led to the heart of her people’s land, where the market was and the altar where they made their offerings, where she knew her mamay and tayta were, and the other path led out of her ayllu and into the unknown.
A path she had never traveled before, that loomed barren and strange. Nina stared toward home. The last thread of her hope disappeared with the sun.
“Take these.” A hand appeared in front of her face. Nina glanced at it and then at the kunay, who sat on his beast beside hers, his palm bearing a small pile of dark leaves. “The journey is long, and we will not stop.”
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, eyeing the leaves nervously. They looked similar to Mamacoca, the plant provided by Pachamama that connected her people to the earth and their spirits, but they were bled through with veins of black. Like the kunay’s eyes.
He saw her hesitation and leaned forward. His achipuma shifted slightly closer. “We are still near enough to go back for that sister of yours. Perhaps both of them. Shall I—”
Nina snatched the leaves from his palm and shoved them into her mouth. They were sharp. The taste of blood mixed with a bitter tang. Her muscles protested, but still she chewed and chewed, until her mouth was numb and the tingling in her fingers eased and the world around her spun.
Suddenly, everything seemed less dire. Less daunting.
“Good.” The kunay nodded and leaned back. “You’re being taken to the acllahuasi, where preparations for your true purpose will be made. Remember our agreement.”
Already, Nina’s mind was fuzzy. The promise she had made felt like a distant memory. But it was the feeling of Sacha’s small hand in hers that grounded her. “I go, and Sacha stays safe,” she said, the words slurred, her tongue and eyelids heavy.
A hand pressed into her forehead until the back of her head was resting against the walla’s chest. “Sacha will be safe,” she heard the kunay say as her eyes drifted shut.
How easy it felt to give in. How freeing.
Perhaps this was her punishment for ever wishing for a different life. For ever wondering what it would be like to be unencumbered by the expectations of others.
Now, she had buried herself underneath expectations. Tethered herself to them.
Nina had saved Sacha and perhaps even Lali, but she had condemned herself in the process. Regret morphed into shame that bled into steely resolve. No matter what came her way, Nina vowed to face the consequences of her choices head-on.
2
Kasik swung the curved blade another time, despite the ache in his shoulder and the sweat pouring into his eyes. The exertion felt good, like it might possibly make up for the lack he felt in every other area of his life.Thishe was good at.Thishe could control. He could be the perfect walla, even if he couldn’t be the perfect son.
Instead of allowing his tayta’s low opinion of him to become an excuse to slack off, he used it as fuel to be better. He would swing this sword until his arms shook with exhaustion and his vision swam, and then he would do it all over again the next day. He would prove to himself that he was worthy of leading a contingent of men, that he was the best option for it, regardless of his propensity toward mercy for the man who gave him life.
The clang of metal against metal rang out as his blade met Samaq’s in a practiced dance. Samaq whirled to block another of Kasik’s strikes. They had been sparring for so long now that each move was anticipated, every arch was met, and every feint was avoided. Yet Kasik pushed on, determined to land a blow, ignoring the pain in his chest as each breath demanded more. He felt no propensity for mercy toward Samaq, not when his tayta’s derisive laughter echoed in the recesses of his mind.
Kasik swung down hard and fast and swiftly lost his balance as his blade met nothing but air. Samaq was bent over a short distance away, his shoulders heaving with breath.
“Enough,” he rasped out. “Are you trying to kill me?” But therewas a jovial tone beneath his words, a flash of a smile on Samaq’s handsome face.
