But Nina had taken their lives and cut their threats off at the knees. She had made her choice, and though she was searching for the regret she should have felt, she was having a hard time finding it.
It washerchoice to leave Shayim. It washerchoice to follow Kasik, and it washerchoice to earn her freedom by killing the emperor. Nina was taking control of her life now.
The taste of freedom sat on the back of her tongue, and her body craved more of it. No longer would she feel fear or remorse. Only resolve.
It kept her warm as the cool air rushed over her during their travels, and after several hours of riding toward Vira, they finally found a place to rest. Kasik left the achipumas under a tree, and then he worked to light a small fire.
“There are clothes in Illari’s pack,” he said, turning to face her. “We should change and burn these garments so no one asks where we’ve come from.”
It was the first thing he had said to her since they left the camp, and his voice was different from before. More reserved, as if he had placed her behind a wall. She watched as he tore off his shirt and threw it into the fire, the muscles on his back undulating with the movement. The wounds that had threatened his life were completely gone. There wasn’t a hint of what had transpired, including evidence of her healing. But she remembered the way those muscles had felt underneath her hands. The strength. The potential. The control that he exerted every time he had used his body to protect her.
The golden coil at his chest shone brightly. Nina knew she could use it to end his life and was tempted to reach for it, to grasp it between her hands and mold it to fit her will, to smother and—
The light blinked out of existence with the thought.
“Nina?” Kasik, watching her warily, took a step closer and then abruptly stopped, as if he hadn’t meant to move. As if he was unsure of her. As if he thought she would kill him where he stood for saying the wrong thing. And she couldn’t blame him, not really, not when she hadn’t given those men the chance to change their minds.
Would they have begged if she had dangled their lives over their heads? The thought made her doubt everything.
“I’ll change,” she said before rushing to hide behind Illari.
It wasn’t that shewantedto kill everyone, but there was a part of her that tried to convince her that their deaths—Emperor Maicu, the kunay, even Kasik—might suit her needs and make things easier. That only then could she truly be free.
This is not who you are, Sacha had said, the imminent deaths of two boys in the palms of her hands. But she was beginning to think that her sister’s expectations were lofty, and meeting them might be more difficult than she cared to attempt.
Another person to disappoint. The responsibility pressed on Nina’s shoulders as she changed her clothes and tossed her old ones into the fire. The color of her new tunic was hard to parse in the shifting dark, but she assumed it was as red as the one Kasik had worn to collect her, before it was torn and bloodied and dirtied beyond recognition.
So much they had endured together, all of it reduced to this tense, uncomfortable agreement. Neither of them said anything about it as they lay on opposite sides of the fire.
But Nina couldn’t sleep, the call of Kasik’s threads too loud in the quiet of the night.
Just over a week later, they found the road, and she could see the tension that had existed in every shift of Kasik’s shoulders lift the momenttheir achipumas’ paws met the crushed rock. The road looked like a wound that had been carved into the lush greenery only to heal into a discolored scar. It was unnatural. An offense to the Tuta Kulla. It was no wonder the achiyanga refused to come near it.
Kasik brought Capac beside Illari, their legs almost brushing with every step they traveled.
“How much longer until we reach Vira?” she asked.
“If we push hard, we could reach the city gates before tomorrow’s sunset.”
Nina glanced at the clear sky, the road ahead and then behind, the thick mass of trees on either side of them. Everything looked exactly the same. “How can you tell?”
“There are markers in the trees.” Kasik’s voice was cold and impersonal, a loyal kamayuq once again, only answering her questions to teach a lesson. “There, and there,” he said, pointing to a pair of trees on either side of the road. Nina saw a mark, but she wouldn’t have thought anything of it had he not pointed it out, nor could she discern the meaning. She assumed that was purposeful.
They lapsed into silence again, the weight of things unsaid enough to crush.
“Tell me about Emperor Maicu,” she asked, desperate to prove that nothing had changed, even if it meant inviting an argument.
Kasik hardly glanced sideways at her, but she saw the question linger in his mind. She wondered what kind of answer he was crafting. One to scare her, like he had back in the camp, or one to encourage her, like he had after they left the acllahuasi.
All she knew of the man were the rumors whispered in her ayllu. They were so far removed from Vira that, by the time news reached them, it was either watered-down or outlandish. According to Lihan, agirl whose tayta was a fisherman, Empress Chaska had six toes on each foot she kept hidden in custom-made slippers.
“He’s charming,” Kasik started, his eyes distant as they moved back and forth over the tree line, “and devout. He truly believes that the gods work through him.”
“And what do you believe?”
Nina saw Kasik’s jaw twitch and braced for a verbal sparring. “I believe that it isn’t my job to question the emperor or the gods, and you shouldn’t, either.” Kasik glanced at her with a small smile carved onto his otherwise stern face. “Not out loud, anyway. Maicu is honorable, but he can be cruel.”
“And he uses the gods as an excuse to enact that cruelty.” It reminded Nina of something her tayta used to say:A righteous man is a dangerous man.Men who thought themselves close to divinity, who allowed their delusions to guide their hands toward greed and lust, who believed themselves above the law of the land.
