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Kunay Atik’s whispered words poured into the places Nina’s power had filled, pressing against her heart and her soul and her sanity, threatening to tear her apart from the inside just as she had those men.
Should you forget your purpose, I will bring Sacha to remind you.
Her sister’s name on his lips had sounded like a curse. Like an omen she could not shake as the guards dragged Nina down long, empty hallways that reminded her all too much of the acllahuasi halls she had been imprisoned behind only weeks ago. She tried desperately to get her feet under her, but the men were relentless, their stiff fingers digging into the fleshy parts of her upper arms.
“Wait,” she pleaded. Her voice came out strangled, barely loud enough to her own ears. The guards continued to drag her, and she had the fleeting thought that she should pay attention to where she was going, count the turns or steps, anything to guide her through this labyrinth when the time came to enact her plan.
But her mind was fragmented.Shewas fragmented, the absence of her power like a missing limb, her thoughts like pieces of dried clay shattered across the floor. Kunay Atik was the man from Kasik’s creation story, the man with the power to yield hers unusable. Who was immune to the touch of her attay. That was why his threads were nowhere to be found. Why the inside of him was like a lifeless void.
When Atik touched her the first time, she hadn’t been familiar enough with the parts of her that had gone missing to know they were gone. Now that she had experienced that power, had coaxed it to life andused it, she could see that it had shrunk away, so small and shriveled that it was entirely out of reach.
She was useless once again. Powerless against the men who carried her between them, their grips unyielding, their ears deaf to her pleading. Finally, she was able to get a foot underneath her, and she braced herself against the floor. The walla on her left grunted as she yanked out of his grip, fully intending to demand to walk herself, but the other walla pulled her to his side so suddenly that she tripped. He caught her by the elbow before she fell.
Nina steadied herself, and then the walla yanked his hand away as if burned. His fingers came away with a smear of red. Both walla stared at the hand, and then glanced at Nina. She turned her arm and there, on her elbow, was a thin line of blood.
Something had scratched her, and only when she noticed the small wound had it begun to sting, but it was the least of her concerns. The walla glanced at each other with wide eyes and then pushed her through an open doorway as if they couldn’t get away from her fast enough.
The room was sparsely furnished, the light of a small fire pouring over her and onto the rug she stood on. When she turned to argue, the large double doors were slamming shut. The sound reverberated against her skull, like a bucket of cold water over her head. Against her better judgment she ran to the doors and threw herself against them, pounding with both fists, demanding to be let out.
If anyone heard, they did not come. They did not tell her to stop. She threw herself until her fists were bruised and her throat was raw and the power inside her shrank smaller and further away under the loss of control. And when it became too difficult to continue, she fell to the floor in a heap of aching muscles and a battered heart. She allowed the tears welling in her eyes to streak down her cheeks and gather into the hollow of her neck.
There was nothing she could do against the despair that filled her,that gutted her soul and cleaved her heart in two. The hurt begged to be felt, the loneliness demanded to be held, and so she curled herself into a ball right in front of the doors, as if she could hold herself together by sheer strength of will, and closed her eyes.
Kasik had told her she wouldn’t be a prisoner, that she would have the emperor’s ear and some form of power. Part of her had trusted him, had taken his words and used them as a pillar of hope.
And then he had called her a monster. Believed when his tayta said she had manipulated him, which was absurd. If Nina was capable of that kind of influence, she wouldn’t have landedthere, of all places. She would have convinced Kasik to leave her at the camp, consequences be damned. There, she could have strengthened her power, protected her family, and kept Kasik’s blood off her hands.
There, she could have fought against her ill-fated feelings for Kasik. She couldn’t pinpoint when they had started. Perhaps when he was sacrificing himself to save her from the achiyanga. Or when she was healing him from the inside out. Or perhaps it was before that, when she had seen him like an avenging angel in the halls of the acllahuasi and he had so thoroughly punished the man who had touched her.
It hardly mattered when it had blinded her to who he was. The kunay’s son. The emperor’s unshakable tool. Not her friend, or an ally, or anything else. It was her fault for allowing herself to see the things in him that she wanted to see. Kasik’s sense of loyalty did not make him a good person, nor did his concern for her. It only made him more of her enemy.
With a renewed sense of resolve and shaky arms, she pushed herself up to sit against the door and stretched her legs out before her. There was no view of the sky to tell her how long it had been, but she was tired in her bones. Her hands were throbbing and her eyes burning from tears that she angrily wiped away. She inhaled deeply, and then she blew it all out—the anger, the resentment, the hope, the fear.
One by one, she tucked the emotions behind a stone wall in her mind—she would not allow the emperor or the kunay to use these things against her—and slipped on a mask of indifference.
Then she mentally listed the details of her circumstance to inspect.
Kasik had fabricated how much power she would have. As of right then, she had none.
Kunay Atik, Kasik’stayta, had no will. There was no thread within him, nothing with which she could use to kill him, or persuade him, if his insinuations were to be believed.
He was like the gods’ puppet, Dimas, able to dampen her power with one touch. She knew it wasn’t permanent, because it had come back eventually when she was traveling with Kasik. She would need to avoid him and his touch at all costs. At least, until she was ready to kill him with her bare hands.
Kasik had said Emperor Maicu wore many achillas, which meant that her attay couldn’t be used to harm him so long as he wore them. They would have to be removed.Howwas the only question.
And finally, she was well and truly alone.
No more, she told herself. No more hoping someone was going to save her. No more praying for the gods to intervene. No more waiting for the perfect opportunity.
She was going to take control of her power and use it to mold her fate, and then she was going to ensure that nobody threatened her freedom or her family ever again.
She awoke hours later to the sound of a door pushing open. Disoriented, she opened her eyes and took stock of her surroundings; the bottom half of a bed, a rough rug underneath her cheek, slanted firelight on the walls, a fierce pounding in her head. A boot-clad pair of feetapproached her and stopped, and she dragged her eyes up to find Kasik frowning down at her. There was a moment of relief, a small, hopeful part of her that saw his face and sighed with comfort.
Then her last waking moments reached her addled brain and she quickly sat upright, ready to attack and feed the vengeance simmering beneath her skin.
The anger was back. She had only a moment to realize it before Kasik caught her as she stood, his large, warm hands wrapping around her upper arms and bringing them face-to-face. It was too close. Too much. She tore herself free and raised a hand, to hit or to push, she wasn’t sure. Kasik grabbed her wrist, somehow gentle but also firm, and said, “Please,” as soft as a whisper meant only for her ears. He had not come alone.
