“Mika,” Nina whispered, her eyes closed, the map of Mika’s will burned to the back of her eyelids. “If you ever find yourself in possession of an achilla, make sure you wear it and never take it off.” And then she, very carefully, healed a small cut on Mika’s finger that took nothing more than a stitch of thought.
When she opened her eyes, Mika was gazing at her finger with something akin to awe. “I didn’t even know it was there.” She looked at Nina. “Is it difficult for you?”
Nina shook her head. “It’s almost too easy. I wonder if it is so for all Ikara like me.”
“That’s the thing,” Mika said. The girl leaned closer. “Shayim has said there are no others like you. That your attay is singular in its ability and strength.”
It should have made Nina feel better, but all she felt was alone and unknown. Already, she was being dragged to Vira to become the emperor’s wife, set apart from her family and her ayllu and other girls her age. A commodity in every way, even in this.
Mika must have sensed her spiraling thoughts, because she squeezedNina’s hand between both of hers. “You are exactly where you should be. Your power—you—will change the world.”
“I don’t want to change the world.” Nina pulled her hand back and stood. The band shifted down her wrist. She was suddenly too aware of the clothing against her skin, the hairs on her head, the power thrumming in her blood. “That’s too much responsibility.”
“This power was given to you because the gods believed you worthy of it. It doesn’t—”
“The gods are selfish,” Nina hissed. “They gave no thought to how theseabilitiesmight have us hunted and killed and used against us.”
“Abilities?” Understanding dawned over Mika’s face and she smiled. “You’ve only heard the walla’s version of the Ikara. You don’t know the full story.” Mika patted the ground next to her and after a moment of stubborn hesitance, Nina sat. “It’s not his fault. We can only know what we’ve been told until we are ready to seek what wehaven’t. I will tell you the truth of it. The Ikara that Killa and Pachamama created was named Yuri.”
Mika shifted onto her bottom and crossed her long legs beneath her like a child settling in for a fireside story. “It is said that Yuri was violent, a bringer of destruction and devastation, and that was why the achilla and her counterpart, Dimas, were created. To quell her power and bring about peace.
“But Yuri was created to protect those that were powerless against the gods. Dimas was only a shell of a man, a vessel for the gods’ will. He had none of his own. Inti and Viracocha took Yuri’s righteous rage and twisted it to evil, and it was her that became the enemy. When Dimas found her and fell in love, because he saw that she was strong and good, the gods were threatened. Their power crumbled in the face of love, and so they whispered into his ear and convinced him that his love for her was a lie, that she hadtrickedhim. They were afraid of her power, and they knew that he was weak enough to fall under their thrall again.He had found free will when he chose love, and he lost it again when he chose betrayal. The gods’ will filled him once again, and he killed Yuri as she slept next to him.
“Stories have always reduced women to madness and devastation, fear and defeat,” Mika continued. “But we are so much more than that. We are renewal and reward. Hope and destiny. It is only women who are Ikara, who give and nurture life in all ways, and it is women who will always prevail.”
Mika reached forward and adjusted the golden band on Nina’s wrist. It was no longer cold against her skin.
“We are all connected. Remember that when you feel alone.”
That evening, the fire Nina had seen burning continuously in the center of camp was surrounded by people both young and old. Children danced to the beat of drums. Adults drank celebratory chicha from wooden cups made by a young Ikara with deft fingers and a melodic laugh. Shayim watched it all from a stool nearby, her eyes alight with the flames and what Nina suspected was pride.
The woman had left the emperor’s side. She had veered off the path set before her and carved out her own. More than that, she had created a world in which others were safe to do the same. Nina wondered how much Shayim had lost along the way, and if it had been worth it in the end.
Kasik thought the trees around them were a cage, but at least they had chosen it for themselves. It was all Nina wanted.
The emperor wanted a wife, but the kunay had made a mistake in accepting Nina in exchange for Sacha, who spoke kindly and supported generously and obeyed willingly. Not like Nina, who was filled with resentment and discontent, who was willing to find a way to keep her sister safeandfight the emperor’s plans for her.
Despite her words to Kasik, obligation was obligation, whether done in love or otherwise, and she had been a fool to believe it made a difference. Nina wanted to protect her family, but she also wanted to be free. The memory of Mika’s threads glowed in her mind. How easy it would have been to take them and crush them in one hand.
If she could learn to better wield her attay, then she could use it against the empire. She could take the path they had given her and bend it to her will, and it started with the emperor.
Nina now knew exactly what she had to do. She only wondered if she was capable of it.
A hand squeezed her shoulder, pulling her from her thoughts. She turned to find Mika, a smile in her eyes and a flower between two fingers. “Come dance,” she pleaded, tucking the stem behind Nina’s ear.
Nina took Mika’s hand, and she twirled underneath the stars of a cloudless night, the warmth of the fire igniting her resolve. Despite the heat, a shiver crawled up her spine, and she knew without looking that Kasik was watching her. She was always aware of him and the weight of his gaze.
When she looked, he didn’t look away. She raised her hands above her head and swayed back and forth, her eyes pinned to him in challenge. Everywhere his attention touched felt like invisible fingers trailing across her skin, an unfamiliar burn of want left behind.
Nina was filled with desire, with hunger, with the insatiable urge to draw her power forward. Perhaps her mamay had tried to convince her that strength laid in calm and control because she knew just how capable of destruction Nina was.
Perhaps it was time she stopped hiding. She was in possession of a different kind of power now. One that had the potential to change everything, if only she was brave enough to embrace it.
22
Firelight danced over Nina’s skin. Even from a distance, Kasik could see the weight of the world on her shoulders, the way she cradled it as she twirled and danced to the drums. He couldn’t keep his desire at bay. In that moment, he felt weaker than ever before, wanting for what he knew he could never have.
He was acutely aware of Nina’s humanity. The soft shape of her, the sweat glistening on her skin, the way her chest heaved with excitement and pushed taut against her tunic. The flower in her hair that grew wild in the forests surrounding them, a riot of pink and orange and freedom that encompassed all that Nina was.
