Their Will Undone

Chapter 1

The game had just begun, and Nina was determined to win.

The fields around her were eerily silent; the sky above, crisp blue and clear; the soil between her toes, damp and cold. She

stood tall, but even if she stretched, she wouldn’t be able to see above the stalks of corn spread far and wide. Instead,

she crouched low and listened.

The wind was a gentle caress that made the long leaves whisper and tickle her face. In the distance, she heard a familiar

giggle and smiled. Lali could never keep quiet.

It was Sacha she would have trouble finding. Her younger sister had won last time, much to Nina’s dismay. This was a game

they had played many times since they were old enough to walk. One that terrified their mamay, especially when they would

disappear without a trace.

But they always found each other, no matter how long it took.

Nina closed her eyes and exhaled, focusing on the sounds of their home that she knew so intimately. This morning, one of their

llamas had given birth to a stillborn, so her parents had taken it as an offering to their earth goddess, Pachamama, and left

Nina in charge of her sisters. They wouldn’t return until well after dark. There was no one but the three of them for miles.

A loneliness crept beneath her skin—a strange, unspoken desire for a different life. It was one of Nina’s greatest secrets.

She kept it close and only inspected it at night, under the cover of dark and away from her sister’s shrewd eyes, but sometimes

it filled her with a longing that she couldn’t deny. A thirst for adventure among a land devoid of it.

This game was as close as she would get to feeling anticipation. Excitement. Possibility.

Without a word or whisper of noise, Nina took off in a crouched run in the direction of Lali’s pealing laughter, so carefree

and childlike that it replaced her loneliness for a moment longer. She saw a flash of Lali’s ocean-blue dress and long, dark

hair and smiled.

“I see you,” Nina sung quietly, stifling a laugh as Lali shrieked with joy.

But instead of following after her, Nina paused. There was a sudden pressure in the center of her chest. A slight prodding

that pushed her to turn around. It was the same feeling she’d had at market day two weeks ago, when she had gotten distracted

by a black stone sitting on a small table.

It is achilla, the woman had told her. A stone forged by the gods to offer protection from those who wish to harm us. Nina had heard whispers of it, but had thought they were just rumors. She reached out to touch it, mesmerized by its fathomless,

swirling center, when she had felt that prodding again.

Reluctantly, she had abandoned her curiosity to follow that relentless prodding and had found Sacha just off the main path,

her back against the rough stone of a small storehouse, cowering beneath the attention of two boys.

What had happened next was a blur of nightmarish images. The boys on their knees, blood dripping from their noses and ears,

Sacha’s voice pleading with Nina. She shook her head clear of it, determined to shove it back into the recesses of her mind.

And though she also wanted to ignore the sensation of being lured toward danger once again, she couldn’t. Not when her sisters

were her responsibility. Not when a feeling deep in her belly told her something wasn’t right.

At first, her steps were measured. They were in the middle of a game, after all, and Nina’s imagination had a tendency to run away with her logic.

There were times she thought she could see things.

Golden lights and dancing threads that floated in the corners of her vision.

Sometimes, she thought she could feel them.

Like she could reach out and grasp that light in her hands and bend it to her will.

But as the stalks of corn stretched out endlessly before her with no golden threads in sight, and the tug in her chest became

undeniable, she knew that her logic was firmly in place. This was something else entirely. Nina began to run.

Slender leaves whipped against her arms and legs. Panic colored her thoughts. The air stung her nostrils. If she didn’t calm

herself, she would lose all control again. She might hurt someone again. Her mamay had taught them better than this.

Stay calm and in control. Do not let them see what you love. It is the only power that matters, and you are its only master.

But Nina always felt powerless against the strength of her own emotions and insecurities. Against the pressure in her chest

that felt like a flood barely contained. One mistake, and the dam would burst.

Bloody eyes and mouths open in a silent scream flitted across her lids with every blink. She wasn’t sure if it was real or

imagined. A fear of things past or things to come.

A flock of birds burst upward, dots of black puncturing the unending blue. Their calls were the only thing she could hear

above her own breathing. Behind her, deep within the corn, Lali had fallen quiet again, hiding until one of her sisters came

to find her.

Everything is as it should be, Nina told herself. Everything is fine. Perhaps, if she imagined it hard enough, it would be true.

The last line of tall stalks parted beneath her hands.

Steps slowing, she pushed through and breathed a sigh of relief.

There, in the colorful dress her mamay had sewn for her just this season, was Sacha.

Her dark, chin-length hair blew gently forward so that it hid her features, and her bare feet were planted firmly in the rocky dirt of the path that led from the center of their ayllu to their home.

She was doing a terrible job of hiding, but she was standing, and she seemed fine, and that was all that mattered.

“Sacha,” Nina called out. “You do realize that you’ve lost the game? It will take but a moment for me to find Lali again and . . .”

Nina’s words trailed off as she walked closer to Sacha, who hadn’t moved since Nina called her name. A breeze had blown her

hair from her face, and Nina now saw that her eyes were trained on the distance, toward the edge of their fields and the far-off

ayllu center.

“Sacha?” Nina said again.

“They’re coming,” Sacha finally answered, but it was barely a murmur. A string of words almost drowned out by the thrumming

of Nina’s heart.

Nina glanced down the path but saw nothing. “Who’s coming? Mamay and Tayta?”

The closer she got, the more persistent the tug became, until Nina could have sworn there was a light in the center of Sacha’s

chest like a beacon calling her home. Nina squeezed her eyes shut for a heartbeat, took another step, and reached for her

sister. She wanted to pull Sacha into her and ground herself in logic, in the things she knew to be truth. They were safe,

and Nina would do everything in her power to keep it that way.

All she had to do was tug Sacha out of the stupor that had come over her, like she had many times before. They would end their

game with no winner and go back inside to wait for Mamay and Tayta to come home. Everything was just as it should be.

“Sacha, come. Let’s find Lali and then—”

From far-off, Nina heard the huff of an animal. The whisper of a command. The shuffle of dirt and rocks. She finally reached Sacha, but Nina’s attention was focused on the bent road, on the things she could not see and the way her imagination filled in the blanks.

Mind racing, she calculated the time of year. There were weeks before the growing season came to an end and their ayllu was

required to pay the chani, the price for belonging to the united empire of Tawantinsuyu. The empire took their crops, textiles,

knowledge, and sometimes even children. Sons to serve in the emperor’s military, as walla who were trained to fight and defend.

Daughters, always the most beautiful, to serve as acllas that were kept cloistered in the acllahuasi, trained to become wives

and servants and gifted to houses the emperor deemed worthy.

An honor, they were told. But it hadn’t felt like an honor when the walla had come to take Samaq ten years ago. It had felt like a punishment.

Like a price too high to pay. There was nothing left they were willing to give, and so Nina, Sacha, and Lali had hidden during

every following harvest on their mamay’s orders.

No one should have been there to collect. They should have had more time.

And yet.

Nina sucked in a sharp breath as the first beast rounded the corner, just as large and ferocious looking as she remembered,

even from such a distance. The achipuma’s sleek black fur glistened in the early-afternoon light. Large clawed paws carried

it silently closer. It prowled casually, as if it was in no hurry at all and nothing was important enough to merit its attention,

but its pointed ears flicked back and turned from side to side, listening to sounds Nina couldn’t begin to hear. Then its

glossy black eyes landed on her, and a chill spread down Nina’s back.

That chill crawled further when her eyes found the man sitting atop the beast, broad shoulders clad in a tunic so red it was almost black. The sharp lines of his jaw, the length of his hair, the way his body seemed an extension of the beast he rode, all spoke of unfathomable strength and power.

Sacha’s hand slipped into hers, and Nina squeezed gently, painfully aware of how fragile it felt. How small they were in the

face of man and beast.

“We should hide,” Nina whispered, voice high-pitched and thin. Standing there in full sight was a slap to the face of their

brother—the boy, only eleven years then, who had concealed his fear and followed the men in red on their terrifying beasts,

never to be seen again. It was a direct slight against their parents, who made sacrifices to Pachamama and worked tirelessly

to gather enough crops to pay the chani and keep them all safe.

Sacha shifted closer. Her hand trembled, but her voice was steady as she said, “There is no hiding from this.”