Chapter 1 #2
“Then we find Lali and run. We know these fields better than them.” Nina shifted back a step and tugged Sacha with her. There
was defeat in her sister’s eyes, but Nina had never been one to give up so easily. “Please, Sacha. Something isn’t right.”
Sacha’s wide brown eyes met hers. Dark circles rested beneath them from the previous night of restless sleep. She knew Sacha
had little energy, that this was a rare day when she felt well enough to play, and Nina would carry her if needed. Even against
her will.
After a tense pause that seemed to last forever, Sacha nodded imperceptibly. A simple acquiescence that felt more like a damning.
It was all Nina needed. Without another word, they turned and ran, but not before Nina caught sight of a sly smile, a twinkle
of anticipation in a pair of dark eyes, a murmured command to hunt.
They ran like the defenseless prey they were. Sacha was slow, and though the beasts and their men were far down the path, she could feel the earth shake from their bounding leaps. One of the men called out a command, and Nina yanked Sacha forward, hoping she kept her feet underneath her.
The path stretched out before them. If they kept on it, eventually they’d reach their small home with its stone walls and
thatched roof, where tiny handprints decorated the step before the door and delicate blue flowers adorned the door casings.
It was a safe place, but their home offered no real protection. Their parents were gone, and there were no weapons within.
Even if there had been, Nina couldn’t use one, and neither could Sacha.
They had never been taught to fight—only to hide. Their best option was to lose themselves within the cornfields.
Nina veered sharply to the right. A blur of black cut them off.
“Nina!” Sacha screamed, but it was too late. The achipuma’s tail lashed out and yanked her feet from underneath her. The ground
slammed into her back and stole her breath. Ears ringing, she rolled onto her side and found Sacha’s arm, ready to tug her
to her feet so they could run again.
But Sacha’s eyes were closed, her arms limp. Nina pushed to her knees, ready to crawl, to shove past all her physical limits
and drag Sacha away. The sting of cold metal against her exposed neck stopped her in her tracks. “Don’t move,” a voice said.
Nina held herself unnaturally still. Metal scraped across her skin until the point of a wickedly curved blade rested on her
throat. Attached to the blade was a tanned hand with several gold rings that glinted in the dying sunlight. At her predator’s
feet, a red cloak swept the ground in an errant breeze, the embroidered wings covering the hem fluttering as if they were
in flight.
Though tempted, Nina didn’t curse or cry or spit at his feet.
She sat back the slightest amount, rested her palms on her thighs, and met the man’s eyes.
They were the same she had seen from a distance, set in a face so carefully crafted he looked carved from stone.
Dark hair brushed his cheeks and forehead, and even darker eyes held hers.
His tunic was sleeveless, and at the center was a golden disc bearing the face of the sun god, Inti.
Golden snakes wove around his upper arms.
Behind him were two more men and beasts, but Nina paid them no mind. She knew the man with the blade at her throat was who
she should fear, and not only because of his weapon. The urge to glance at her sister, to watch her chest move with breath,
was almost more than she could ignore.
“If you’re looking for my mamay and tayta, they are in the fields. They’ll hear if I scream,” Nina lied.
The man didn’t respond.
“You have no reason to be here,” she continued. “The chani isn’t to be collected for several more weeks. We have no debts
with Emperor Maicu or any of the nobles.”
It was true. They were nothing but a small farming community, an ayllu far from Amaru Kancha, where the emperor resided. Their
family always paid the chani on time. They consistently made offerings to Pachamama. They did everything right.
And yet.
“Your fields have grown much since the last time I saw them.” The man tilted his head as he watched Nina absorb his words.
It felt like he was peering into her mind.
“We are diligent with our offerings to Pachamama, and she has favored us in return,” she said, the words heard so often that
she repeated them without thought.
Their home by the ocean should not have had fertile land.
It was said that their ayllu had survived on nothing but fish until Nina’s mamay made the first offering, hoping for healthy children, and for abundance to feed and love them.
Their fields sprouted overnight. It was the women of Limac who continued to carefully cultivate their crops, paying the chani but always giving to Pachamama first.
“Indeed,” he said, a curious glimmer in his eyes that set Nina on edge. “And it seems that her favor has extended to me, and
led me to you.”
From where she sat, she could have sworn the man’s eyes were darker than they should be, the black in the center bleeding
into the whites. When his attention shifted from her to Sacha, Nina scooted her body to the side as if that could convince
him to look away, but it only made him grin and crouch so that they were almost eye-to-eye.
The blade finally left her neck, but Nina knew she had made a grave mistake.
“Restrain her,” he commanded.
“Yes, Kunay,” a voice responded.
The kunay, the emperor’s personal adviser, was there to collect. None of it made sense, but before Nina could so much as form a thought, hands clamped around her upper
arms and dragged her back.
Nina twisted her body against the viselike grip. “Let go,” she screamed, watching with dread as the kunay knelt before Sacha and gently removed the hair from her face.
“Don’t touch her,” Nina spat. He paid her no mind.
If only she could force him onto his knees like she had the boys who had touched Sacha a fortnight ago. If only she could
find the golden threads that always taunted her, and put them to use.
But the kunay was devoid of all light. She saw in his eyes that his soul was darker than night, and Nina felt weaker and more
delusional than she had ever been.
“She’s perfect,” the kunay whispered reverently, scanning Sacha from head to toe, drinking her in as if in a drought. “The
emperor will be pleased to have her.”
At his words, Nina thrashed against the bruising grip that held her. “No,” she screamed, spittle flying from her mouth, her simple blue dress riding up and exposing her lower legs. “You cannot take
her.”
The man unfurled to his full height and turned his attention to Nina. It was where she wanted it, but it didn’t soothe the
terror that spiked in her chest with the weight of his gaze.
A hand slipped into her hair and yanked her head back. The force of it made her eyes burn. Still, she kept them pinned to
the kunay. “Leave her alone,” she begged. Her voice was ragged, barely a whisper, but she knew from the amusement lining his
mouth that he heard her.
The kunay stepped closer and bent over her, forcing her head farther back to hold his gaze, now hidden by his own shadow.
The curved blade at his side caught Nina’s attention. All she had to do was snatch it from his hand and swing it across his
throat. How difficult could it be to kill a man?
A hand shot out and grasped her chin. Fingers dug into her cheeks and squeezed. “Your thoughts are written all over your face,”
the kunay said. His eyes narrowed, and he moved even closer. Close enough that she could see the hunger in the black depths
of his eyes, so dark she could see herself in them. Tiny cracks bled into the whites like jagged paths in shattered stone.
“What do we have here?” he asked, his voice intimately quiet. Danger lurked behind each word, but Nina’s focus boiled down
to his hand on her face, the way his eyes ate her up, the way his touch silenced something vital within her, as if the darkness
in him had bled out and consumed her. The feeling of inexplicable loss sent her reeling.
“Ah, so it was you I felt,” the man whispered with glee. He brought his left hand to cup the back of her neck and pressed his forehead against hers. Inside, she was screaming. On the outside, Nina held perfectly still. Her shoulders throbbed with the effort of it. “You are favored, indeed.”
The words were a vibration against her forehead, and Nina suddenly understood that nothing she had been taught had prepared
her for this.
Emperor Maicu and his men didn’t commune with Pachamama. They made no offerings to the land and showed up without invitation.
They took what was not theirs to serve an empire that Nina and her people had been forced into.
They felt themselves above the rules. Above the gods.
“There’s another in the fields. Should we grab her as well?” the man behind her asked.
The kunay inhaled sharply and pulled away. Nina surged upward. “No,” she raged, fully breaking the one rule her mamay had given her.
Do not let them see what you love. There was so much Nina loved, her sisters above all else, but her mamay wasn’t there and her guidance wouldn’t serve her
well. Perhaps it never had, for Nina was scared and soft and angry. So angry that she could feel it bubbling within her, rising from her stomach into her chest, where it sat like a fist around
her heart.
The man only smiled. “These two will do. Leave the other be.”
Nina finally glanced at her sister, her failure thick between them. She could no longer feel her like she had always been
able to. In its place was a dark unknown, a gaping hole of uncertainty. Nina wasn’t one to pray often—there had to be a balance,
a give and take, and Nina had always felt she had nothing to give—but she found herself praying then.
She begged the gods for their divine intervention. She prayed for her parents to return just in time to save them. Or, at
the very least, to save Nina from doing what she knew she needed to do.