A warm huff of breath rustled the hairs on her forehead. The achipuma sniffed her once, its moist nose nudging her temple, and then it walked away, leaving her alone in the dark, surrounded by trees that stood over her like sentries.
“And what am I to do with an untrained girl?” No, not alone, she realized as a weathered face appeared above hers. “She’s much too old to be here,” a woman said, her large eyes boring into Nina’s, wrinkled lips pressed into a thin line.
“The kunay said to bring her here.” Nina recognized that voice. She had felt it through her back more than heard it for the last five days. “I know only what I have been told, which is nothing more than you.”
The woman pinched the bridge of her wide nose. Nina tracked the way her gray braids, suspended in the air above Nina’s face, swung from side to side. “Yana, take her to the baths,” she ordered. “Let’s try to get her decent. And then have Qori keep an eye on her.”
Hands slipped under her arms and dragged her through the grass, toward the stone walls she had thought were simply shadows. Everything was painted in shades of darkness. The sky above was a bluish black. The ground below a bluish green. The walls of the building they pulled her into a bluish gray.
Even the woman who dragged her had a bluish tint to her brown skin and black hair, until the door opened, and a shaft of orange light changed everything.
Nina wanted to tell them that she could walk, but she couldn’t make the words come out of her mouth. They dragged her through a large stone room lit with torches in the corners, down long hallways past doors that were closed tight, deeper and deeper into the drafty and colorless building.
Until finally, they opened a door.
It was warmer on the other side of it, and brighter, even though the ceiling was lower. The air seemed to thicken and coalesce, and she reached out a hand to touch it.
“Hold your breath,” the woman called Yana said from above.
Nina managed only a shallow inhale before another set of hands latched on to her ankles, and then she was airborne. She hit water with a slap and quickly sank beneath the surface, her limbs as useless as boulders weighing her down.
She thought she might drown, until she realized it wasn’t very deep. A few heartbeats later, she was breaking through the surface, sputtering and coughing and gasping for air. The water had cleared her hazy mind. An unfortunate inconvenience when two women, without waiting for a word of protest or permission, came at her with sponges and soap. Together, they stripped her of her dress, a pretty blue cotton that she had sewn herself, and scrubbed every inch of her.
Tangles were yanked out of her hair. Her skin burned from the force of their cleansing. Her teeth clattered even with her jaw clenched.
By the end, Nina was on fire. Her skin, her eyes, her heart. She was incandescent with a quiet rage that overshadowed her regret and shame. They pulled a gray robe over her head and walked her to her room in stony silence, and as she slipped into a small, cold bed in a strange and unfamiliar place, it was that rage that kept her company and her dreams at bay.
Nina woke all at once, heart in her throat, a heavy awareness of being watched simmering in her chest. Sure enough, when she looked over, a girl in an identical robe sat on an expertly made bed, her thick hair pulled back in two tight braids that rested on each shoulder, her big, dark eyes pinned to Nina. The room was sparsely decorated, nothing but the narrow beds and an armoire across from them.
The walls and floors were a dingy brown that bordered on gray. The wood, somehow, was also colorless. She thought about her home, about the tapestries that hung from the walls, the plush rugs that covered the floor, the way her family would gather around the hearth each night and eat and tell stories and be filled with warmth and love.
This was cold and foreign. A punishment for existing. The fury from the night before was gone, and Nina wondered if she would ever feel warm again.
“I’m Qori,” the girl said, her voice just as bright as her eyes. Nina tried and failed to cover her wince. “Sorry, but it’s time for prayers. Mamakuna Dusi will be angry if we’re late.”
If it wasn’t for the promise Nina had made to face her consequences head-on, she would have rolled back over. With a sigh, she shifted to a sitting position, bracing herself as the room spun.
Qori stood and extended a hand. Nina begrudgingly took it. She led her out of the room and down a long hall identical to the one Nina had been dragged through last night. “These are the girls’ rooms,” Qori explained quietly. “There are approximately thirty acllas, though this place was designed to hold many more. We are fewer and farther between these days.”
The way she saidwemade Nina’s skin crawl. All the pains her family had taken to ensure Nina and her sisters didn’t end up a piece in a greedy emperor’s game, and there she was, another girl to be shaped and bartered. She wondered what devastation she had left in her wake.
Qori continued. “We spend most of our days creating the garments that the emperor’s men wear. The process is quite tedious but soothing in its familiarity. We are also preparing the chicha for Inti Raymi.”
Inti Raymi was a festival held to celebrate Inti, the sun god, and a bountiful harvest. It was days of feasting and dancing and offerings made to Pachamama, and it was Nina’s favorite time of year. She wondered if her family would continue their traditions without her, like they had after losing Samaq. Would they mourn and beg the gods for her return, or would they accept the loss as something entirely out of their hands?
“Most of the acllas will be chosen for service this year,” Qori said, interrupting her lamenting. “It’s a very exciting time for us. I’m hoping to stay here and continue training under Mamakuna Dusi. She was once an aclla here, and now she presides over all of us.” She grinned. “But I wouldn’t mind visiting another acllahuasi for a time. Where wouldyoulike to go?”
Homewas Nina’s first thought. Already, she was paying close attention to the layout, memorizing each turn they took and door they passed, just in case the opportunity to escape ever presented itself.
Perhaps the kunay would forget all about her, a nobody from a far-off ayllu. Perhaps they had taken her by mistake, and once they learned of Samaq’s dutiful service, they would escort her home.
Nina wanted to believe that her mamay was working to untangle the misunderstanding at that very moment. That her tayta, deep in his heartbreak at finding Nina gone, had demanded answers and a solution.
It was unlikely, she knew, but still she hoped.
“Is this the front door?” Nina paused in a mostly empty room and pointed to a large slab of wood. There was no handle, and no windows beside it to give her a peek of what lay beyond. Torches in each corner provided the barest hint of light that did nothing to alleviate the desolation that filled the space. Like a place one might lay the dead to rest.
“Yes,” Qori said. She placed a cold hand on Nina’s arm, eyes earnest in the pale light. “But there’s never any reason to go near it. We don’t leave the acllahuasi until we are chosen.”
