Kasik dropped the tip of his blade to the earth and relaxed his grip. The early-morning mist curled around his legs, cooling his heated skin. He forced himself to inhale deeply and exhaled the tension in his shoulders.
“I’m sorry, Samaq,” he said sincerely. It was only another way in which he failed. A terrible son and a terrible friend.
Samaq was the kind of person Kasik could only wish to be. Carefree and full of optimism. So sure of himself that nothing could shake his faith. Even now, when Kasik had gone too hard and any other partner would have retaliated in earnest, Samaq simply huffed out a breathless laugh and walked over to him.
“Ah well, you’ll have to try a lot harder than that.” He threw an arm over his shoulders and pulled him toward their canteens, the subtlety of it not lost on Kasik. He was always able to do that, pull Kasik from one ledge or another in a way so seamless that Kasik hardly knew what was happening. Sometimes he wondered if it should be Samaq leading their contingent and wearing the title of kamayuq.
Kasik brushed the thought aside. It only led to dark paths that Master Wara had warned him against, and now more than ever, he needed to be of sound mind. Tomorrow they would be leaving for Tullumay, the ayllu in Icosa that the empress had called home, the first to be absorbed into Tawantinsuyu and where they would begin the Harvest. It was meant to be his first year leading as a kamayuq.
After Tullumay, they would make their way to Amaru and to the ayllus of Limac and Taqsay, where the acllahuasi was located, to ensure that each paid the chani. They would return just in time for Inti Raymi, a yearly festival to celebrate the winter solstice and all the emperor hadachieved. But there was tension in the air that Kasik couldn’t quite place. It made him anxious, which annoyed him to no end.
“Are you ready for tomorrow?” he asked Samaq.
Samaq took a swig of water from his canteen and shrugged at him. “Areyou? You seem tense.”
“It’s nothing,” Kasik reassured. “Just anticipation. It’s our first Harvest.”
“It is,” Samaq agreed, but he wouldn’t meet Kasik’s eyes as he closed the lid of his canteen and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “There’s something I’d like to speak to you ab—”
“Kamayuq Kasik.” The sound of his title made Kasik straighten. The smile slipped off his face before he turned to meet the walla, a young boy who barely filled out his uniform with a fist to his chest, an achilla wrapped in thin leather and tied to his wrist.
The walla were faithful servants offered to the emperor through the Harvest. Boys who were trained into men who fought to unify their lands under the banner of Tawantinsuyu. The ayllus of Amaru and Icosa were fully absorbed, and it was only the southernmost ayllus in Uwaco that rejected the union.
How long that would last, Kasik wasn’t sure, but he did know that the walla in front of him would see his blade stained red soon enough. The achilla around his wrist could not protect him from that.
The urge to reach for his own stone was almost too much to ignore. It hung from his neck as a reminder of what he had lost. He had taken to rubbing the surface of it with a thumb whenever he was deep in thought, and it had become a tell that gave too much away. A bad habit he was actively working to break.
“The emperor has requested your presence immediately.”
The tension Kasik had already been feeling increased, but he letnone of it show as he thanked the walla for his message and sent him with one of his own. “Please tell Emperor Maicu that I will be there shortly.”
The boy hesitated—he had been expecting to escort Kasik there himself—before nodding and scurrying back the way he had come.
Mind racing, Kasik turned back to Samaq. “You were going to say something?”
Samaq clapped him on the shoulder and shook his head. “We’ll speak later,” he said, his eyes tilted with a small smile. Kasik watched him walk away, strangely tempted to call him back.
But his emperor hadrequestedhis presence, and Kasik, being the dutiful walla that he was, began the trek through the training grounds and the labyrinth of the kancha to answer his summons.
The mist that clung to the ground had already begun to lighten with the rising sun, revealing a large area full of green and seasoned walla alike, gathered to practice, to solve rank squabbles, to let loose and perform. Surrounding them were the walls that secured the kancha and all the living spaces behind it. Smaller houses for visiting nobles. The kallankas where the walla slept. Stables for their horses, and then the kancha, a sprawling, unassuming structure from the outside.
Inside those walls was something entirely different—stone speckled with flecks of gold buffed to a velvety-smooth finish and arranged in such a way that anyone unfamiliar with the layout would become hopelessly lost. Something only the lucky few who had been invited in were privy to.
Kasik was one of those lucky few because of who the kunay was to him—his tayta, the man who had a hand in creating him, and the one whose position Kasik was expected to inherit when he died. But not a moment before. Perhaps never, if Kunay Atik could help it.
It wasn’t a role that Kasik was anxious to accept. He preferred beingwith his men, on the battlefield, among their people. He preferred to be reminded of what it was they fought so hard to protect—the expansion of Tawantinsuyu that offered opportunity, protection, and resources to every corner of the empire. This journey to the capital of Icosa would serve that purpose well.
He could almost taste the freedom of the emperor’s road, his men at his side and nothing but the emperor’s orders on his mind. The sooner they left, the better. Perhaps Maicu wanted nothing more than to bid him a safe journey before they left. Kasik doubted it, but still, he hoped.
Entering the kancha was always an interesting experience. Kasik had to wait until his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, which was exactly what the emperor’s ancestors had envisioned when they designed it. If anyone tried to invade, they’d be blind upon entering, and as their eyes adjusted, his men would be there to remove the intruders’ heads from their bodies. Anyone who happened to make it past would get lost in the stone labyrinth.
Having grown up within these walls, Kasik could navigate the way to the emperor’s quarters with his eyes closed. The receiving room was the only space with something identifiable on the walls. A large, garish tapestry that depicted the fall of mortals in the time of gods. He had seen so it so many times he barely glanced at it as he walked by.
The rest of the halls were made up of blank walls with nothing to differentiate one hallway from another. Any of the doors he passed could reveal the emperor’s quarters, or the kitchens, or the bathing chambers. Staff inside the walls were light; only those the emperor trusted most, and only after swearing fealty on their knees with the promise of death should they be found treasonous.
The door to the emperor’s wing of the kancha was nondescript, a simple wooden slab with a golden latch similar to every other door. Without knocking, Kasik pushed it open and stepped through, lowering intoa quick bow with a hand still on the latch. “Emperor,” he said simply.
The man behind the desk was just barely taller than Kasik, though not as broad, and his hair hung freely around his shoulders, a dark contrast against the ivory tunic he wore. There were gold rings on his fingers and forearms and upper arms that matched the strange gold hue of his eyes. His smile was wide as he leveled a look at Kasik.
