Kasik slowly moved back and out of their periphery. Perhaps they would forget he was there, and he could learn everything there was to know about Nina. Though they had spent so much time together, it had been under duress. Life or death. He wanted to know who she was when she was happy, where she had come from, what she enjoyed.
“Yes,” Nina said. “Your creation story is... involved.”
Master Wara chuckled. It had takenyearsfor the man to crack a smile in Kasik’s presence. “There are many differing opinions as to the truth of that story.”
Kasik snapped his eyes to Master Wara. He had never been told about thesediffering opinions. He had only been told the one story and had taken it as absolute. If Master Wara felt Kasik’s incredulity, he ignored it and continued speaking to Nina. “Kunay Atik says that your ayllu is greatly favored by Pachamama.”
Nina nodded. “The story is that my mamay made offerings to Pachamama for healthy land and healthy children, and Pachamama wasso appreciative of being remembered that she imbued the land with favor. Our crops grew overnight. Our animals strengthened. And my siblings and I...”
Her voice trailed off. Kasik hadn’t realized he had leaned into the table next to him. It shifted under his weight and both Nina’s and Master Wara’s attention darted to him. “You may leave now, walla. This is no place for a brute,” his teacher said.
Kasik straightened and rolled his eyes. “I’ll be back soon,” he said to Nina, but her attention was already on the quipu and the stories contained within.
“Now the fun begins,” he heard Master Wara say as the door closed behind him.
The last time Kasik had trained was the last day he had seen Samaq. Before that, they had taken every opportunity to spar, not only because it kept them agile and prepared for whatever mission Emperor Maicu sent them on, but because it helped to ground him. To remind Kasik that he was capable and strong, despite what his tayta thought about him.
Atik was not a man easily impressed, but that hadn’t stopped Kasik from trying. Then, as he grew older, he realized that his efforts were wasted. Atik was uncompromising and uncaring and incapable of love. If Kasik hadn’t been standing there, alive and breathing, he would’ve questioned if anyone could love such a man.
But somehow, unexplainably, his mamay had. At least enough to create Kasik. Mindlessly, he wrapped a hand around the achilla at his neck. It was always cold even though it sat against the heat of his chest. He remembered when his tayta had tossed it to him after a particularly long day of training. Kasik had only been ten years old at the time, and he had just met Samaq.
Atik had barged into the kallankas and marched to the corner where Kasik’s bed was. The achilla had landed on the bed at his feet and stared at him. “Wear this, and don’t take it off for anyone. Do you hear?”
Kasik, thinking it meant his tayta cared about him, reached for it with a gentleness that his tayta scoffed at. “It was your mamay’s. The rest of her things are being burned, and Emperor Yachua thought this might serve a greater purpose.”
Then Kunay Atik left, and Kasik had stared a long time at the space where he no longer stood, the stone pressed so hard into his palm that it drew blood. In his memory, the stone had been warm, but he knew now that it was only childish fondness that gilded the moment, for when Samaq pried the achilla from his hands and slipped it over his head, the sting of cold against his bare chest had brought him back to reality and the truth of his circumstances.
Atik had erased all traces of Aliyma’s life and given the only thing left of her to Kasik, the son he had discarded and denied.
Kasik had trained with renewed vigor after that, for no one but himself. To be stronger, faster,betterthan his tayta ever was, and eventually, because it felt like breathing. Like being free. It was the only time that his mind was clear and he didn’t have to worry or consider or plan.
After leaving Nina, Kasik took the side exit out of the kancha, the same one he had taken the day he found Samaq and Chaska whispering in the shadows, and paused just outside the door. The training ring was close enough to touch, but between it and him strode Emperor Maicu, his gait relaxed, a curved blade spinning idly in his hands. Kasik was immediately on guard.
“Care for a spar?” Maicu asked. “It’s been quite some time since we’ve had fun.”
Kasik couldn’t help but think he had manifested this moment withhis foolishly reminiscent thoughts. “Of course,” he said, because he had no other choice. Nobody said no to the emperor.
“I know I can always count on you.” Maicu gripped his shoulder and steered him toward the center of the ring. The walla that were training scampered away with murmured honorifics, but Maicu paid them no mind. All his attention was focused on Kasik.
The brocaded red-and-gold tunic he wore looked out of place, and his blade flashed in the light as it twirled in his hand. Maicu wasn’t a strong fighter, but he knew how to distract his opponent and entertain a crowd. One was growing on the other side of the short wall. Walla and attendants alike leaned on their elbows, thirsty for royal intrigue, making guesses behind their hands.
Kasik pulled his blade from the sheath at his hip and spread his feet shoulder-width apart.
“Don’t go easy on me, all right?” Maicu flashed a smile. “Just like it used to be.”
Like it used to be, when Maicu wasn’t the emperor and instead Kasik’s friend. When they were just boys without real responsibilities, without the lives of men in their hands, without the burden of failure on their backs.
Maicu made the first move, bringing his blade around and against Kasik’s. The sound of metal against metal clanged through the air and vibrated up Kasik’s arms and into his jaw and ears. He braced himself for Maicu’s next move. They knew each other’s dances well enough that the first several moments of the fight were equally matched, Kasik meeting each of Maicu’s swings with a perfectly placed one of his own.
“You’re not trying, Kasik.”
It was true that he was holding back, only meeting Maicu blow for blow, and as his movements increased in speed and pressure, so too did Kasik’s.
Maicu brought his blade up and around to the right and Kasik spun away, moving in a circle that had the emperor turning and turning. Kasik lightly kicked the back of Maicu’s knees. It had always been his weak spot when they were kids, and Kasik assumed Maicu would have worked on it in the year since he had become emperor. He hadn’t done so expecting to fool the emperor.
But that was exactly what happened. By the time Kasik was facing Maicu again, he was on his knees, eyes turned up to Kasik, who towered before him, shock and betrayal screaming from his expression. There was a moment, just a fleeting, whispered heartbeat, where Kasik could see the edge of his blade swiping across Maicu’s throat, his eyes widening in surprise, his hands scrabbling for purchase against the blood-soaked skin, trying to hold all of himself in.
The single moment of distraction cost Kasik. Maicu’s leg swept him from the side and he landed on his back, all the air in his lungs gone in onewhoosh.
