Again, Atik’s threads sputtered. “You are no Ikara,” Nina said. “We are descended from Pachamama and Killa. We are powerful, and you arepowerless.” She dropped her voice and took a small step closer. “Do you know that you have no threads of life, no free will? You have been consumed by the gods, and soon, they will spit you out—”
Atik’s hand whipped out and wrapped around Nina’s throat, cutting off her words and her air and her attay. She scrabbled for purchase against his wrist, but he was too strong. He pulled her close enough that she could see herself reflected in the black pit of his eyes.
“Do as I say, and she lives. Refuse, and you both die. It is that simple, Nina. I will wield you as a weapon against our enemies, and I will rule over Tawantinsuyu without opposition.”
Her heart was galloping in earnest. Rage and defeat warred within her.
Over Atik’s shoulder, Nina saw her sister stir. Their eyes met, and Sacha’s filled with the softest of reliefs that made Nina’s heart stutter and her eyes burn.
She looked half dead already. The sister she remembered was buried deep beneath sallow skin and protruding bones and cracked lips. Nina wanted to scream at the stars, for her voice to rattle the mountains and bury them all beneath the snow. But the only reason she would open her mouth was to surrender.
It was in that moment Nina realized it was never a question. If she could go back, she would do it all over again. Give her life for Sacha’s as many times as it took. She had been willing to become a bride, and now she was willing to become a weapon.
Sacha’s small hands came up to wrap around the arm of the manthat held her. “Nina,” she called, “Don’t. Please.” Her voice was tender, soft and sweet as Nina had always remembered it. It would stay that way. Nina would keep her safe from the world, from the atrocities she knew she would commit.
There was no length she wouldn’t walk. No height she wouldn’t climb.
This time, Nina did not hope for a savior. She did not pray to the gods to rescue her or look in the distance for the faces of her mamay and tayta. She made this choice willingly, out of the strength of her love.
“...have to do this,” she heard Sacha whisper. The words carried on a gust of wind that blew the thin hairs away from Nina’s face like a gentle caress, but Nina had already looked away and resigned herself to her fate.
Atik held her by the throat, waiting for her answer, the one he knew she would give. She had shown him what she loved, and he would use it against her until the end of time. There was no other choice to be made.
“I’ll do whatever you ask of me,” Nina said, her voice thin but the words heavy with promise.
Atik smiled, and deep from within the pits of his blackened soul, his threads flared to life.
48
They didn’t hear Kasik approach their circle. He didn’t know what he would find, but he hadn’t anticipated the utter stillness on the top of that mountain, or the way Atik held Nina so close, his hand wrapped around her throat, a barbaric smile on his face. Nina smiled as well, but hers was something different altogether. A wicked vow carved in blood.
He couldn’t hear their words, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t need to.
Kasik’s only plan was to kill his tayta. He didn’t intend to live, didn’t care that his tayta would still win, in the end, because Kasik would be dead at his feet. He used the last of his strength to pull himself closer, gathered his final breath and—
Coughed.
Blood spurted from his mouth, stained the pure-white snow in front of him a garish red as he fell to his knees. In his last moment of lucidity, he looked up to find Sacha’s eyes wide open and staring straight at him.Throughhim.
“I have to do this,” she whispered. And Kasik understood the moment the last word left her mouth whatthiswas. It was in the way she tilted her head ever so slightly to give the blade at her throat more space. It was in the way she curled her small hands over the walla’s large arm as if bracing herself. It was in the way her nostrils flared, with one final, deep inhale, as if she was gathering the courage she needed.
Kasik tried to scream his dissent. Nina would never forgive herfor this. It would be the thing that would break her. But he could do nothing, say nothing, as Sacha pushed herself forward against the edge of the blade, as it sliced into her delicate skin, as it painted her hands and the earth a blinding, bloody red.
49
Nina screamed. She screamed until the mountains trembled and the shards of ice on the trees shook free and speared the ground. Atik dropped her and whirled around, an agonized scream leaving his mouth as Sacha fell to her knees. A tide of blood poured from her neck. All Nina saw was red. All she felt was the indescribable need to reach out, to heal, tofix.
Nina could do it. The power of Atik’s touch had died the moment his threads had appeared, and they still burned brightly in her mind’s eye. The achillas around his neck kept him safe for the moment, but her priority was Sacha. She dove for her sister, soaring over Maicu’s body, and caught her before her head could hit the ground.
Sacha’s mouth opened and closed with gurgled words. Nina pulled her close and pushed the hair back from her face, shushing her, soothing her, trying with all her might to ignore the river of blood that pooled around them.
“I’m here, Sacha. I’m here,” she whispered.
“I will not let them turn you into a monster.” Sacha’s voice was barely there. A thin strand of life like the threads in her chest. Nina closed her eyes and reached as deep as she could, but Sacha’s threads were a tangle of possibilities. Endlessly overwhelming. Nina couldn’t determine what was Sacha’s will and what was her own, couldn’t find the strength to tie together flesh and sinew like she had for Kasik.
Kasik.In the distance, she thought she heard his voice. It distracted her, and Sacha’s threads grew thinner and lighter until there wasn’t enough left to grasp. Nina poured herself into Sacha, gave her asmuch of her will as she could. The mending was done, Sacha’s wound had closed, but her body couldn’t replenish her blood. Nina’s will wasn’t enough.
When she opened her eyes, Sacha watched her with a small smile. Her fingers brushed against Nina’s cheek. “It was always you,” she whispered. “You are all I See.”
