Chapter 14
Somehow, Nina had convinced Kasik to let her keep watch, and the forest was beginning to lighten with the morning sun. Kasik
had fallen asleep quickly and was still asleep. If she was more vindictive, she could have leaned over and stolen the knife
from his boot while he slept. Perhaps stabbed him in the heart.
But she wasn’t vindictive, and she couldn’t muster enough indignation over his refusal to give her a weapon because he was
right—she probably would manage to hurt herself. It seemed that everything that had gone wrong in her life thus far was her fault.
First, Samaq had been taken only weeks after she had saved Sacha from drowning. Then, Nina had been taken weeks after she
almost took the lives of those boys. But she couldn’t find a common thread, and it felt like the gods were pulling on invisible
strings, guiding her this way and that. She wondered if they found amusement in watching mortals scurry around like ignorant
ants.
She plucked a leaf from a nearby bush and tore it to pieces. They fluttered to the ground, and she plucked another. There
was a pile of broken leaves collecting in the center of her crossed legs. Fitting, she thought. It resembled the pieces of her life.
A noise from the shadows stilled her hands. She listened intently, but a moment passed and there were no other sounds beyond
the normal melody of the forest. She was simply on edge, waiting for some other creature from legend to jump out of the trees
and devour her whole.
All because Kasik wouldn’t give her his knife.
Nina surged to her feet and started pacing. There were so many questions she wanted to ask her mamay. So many things that simply did not make sense. They had hidden when the Harvest came every year. Was it because her mamay couldn’t bear to part with her remaining children, or was there more to it?
Why did they continue to serve a god who had, according to Kasik’s story, gone mad?
And most importantly, why did Nina feel like there was something vital her parents were keeping from her?
It was strange to consider that the people she trusted most in life might have been lying to her all along. If she kept thinking
on it, she would work herself into a frenzy.
The river was close enough that she heard it gurgling, and she found herself walking toward it before she could decide if
it was a bad choice. She needed to clear her head more than ever.
Everything felt out of control and entirely unfair.
There is no such thing as fair. Nina didn’t disagree, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t lament over it.
She parted the thick brush quietly and carefully to avoid waking Kasik. His wound looked less inflamed this morning, but it
also had thin streaks of black creeping along the edges. Nina knew it wasn’t dirt. She had cleaned it more thoroughly than
she had ever cleaned anything. They would just have to keep an eye on it and continue applying the paste and hope it didn’t
get further infected.
When Nina finally reached the water, she dove in without hesitation, surprised that the weight of her worries didn’t immediately
drown her. But the water did exactly as she had hoped—it cleared her mind, silenced the doubt and the uncertainty and grounded
her in the present. In the vow she had made to take her sister’s place.
It was the only thing that mattered. Though she might not have expected it to go so far, to be summoned to serve the emperor so closely, she would do whatever was necessary to see her vow through. And then she would see her family again.
Nina emerged from the water feeling invigorated. Her purpose clearer. As she shook out her days-old braids and carefully untangled
the leaves and knots, she allowed herself to consider what would be expected of her. Not only as a servant to her vow, but
as a wife to the emperor.
A wife. A role she had never imagined she would fulfill.
Nina was more than aware of the roles in a family and an ayllu. The women were just as necessary and vital to sustaining life
as the men, if not more. In Limac, only the women could plant the seeds and nurture the fields. They were responsible for
the health and wealth of their people.
But Nina never saw herself as a wife, or as a mother.
Would Emperor Maicu expect her to provide him with children, to lock herself away to care for them? Would she ever see adventure
or the world beyond the walls of the kancha?
Would she ever see Kasik again?
The thought came unbidden, and Nina’s first instinct was to shove it aside. She shouldn’t want to see him again, not after he was responsible for delivering her to her fate like a lamb to slaughter. But he was simply
doing his job, and he was doing it well. It showed a level of care and dedication that she couldn’t help but admire. And she
couldn’t deny that she felt safe with him, comfortable in his arms after the terror of the night.
That was all that it was; Nina wanted a friend. A familiar face in a strange world. She felt nothing for him beyond that.
Perhaps she could request that Sacha come live with her. Lali was so much younger than them at ten, and would need to stay
with their mamay and tayta, but Sacha was sixteen, and her health was tenuous at best. Surely, the kancha had the space and
the healers to care for her.
Kasik had said she would have power, and this was such a small request in the grand scheme of things. Everything would be okay. Nina had trusted her instincts, and perhaps they were guiding her to the best possible outcome for all of them.
She turned away from the shoreline to wade deeper, where she could submerge herself again, but a sudden flash of movement
made her freeze.
There, directly across from her on the bank of the stream, was a man. He wore a tunic the same shade of green that surrounded
him, and his hair was shorn all the way to his ears. There were streaks of mud on his face that looked purposefully placed.
As if he was attempting to further blend into the foliage.
Heart pounding, Nina sank slowly into the water until it was at her chin. She made no sudden movements, and he came no closer.
They only stared, each of them waiting to see who would make the first move.
And then there was a snap behind her.
The man’s eyes darted away from her at the same time he raised a bow and arrow in his hands. Nina’s stomach turned. The world
narrowed to a point with her at the center. She was going to die in that river. She was never going to see her family again.
Or Kasik. All this had been for nothing.
“Nina.” A voice pierced her panicked thoughts. “Walk backward toward me. Slowly, please.”
Kasik. His tone authoritative yet soothing. Nina obeyed. It was the easiest choice she had made thus far. The man’s bow swung to
point directly between her eyes.
“Don’t,” she heard Kasik warn. “Keep coming, Nina.”
Nina stayed low in the water and filled with despair as it receded. She felt exposed. Vulnerable. But she was almost fully
on shore. A few more steps and she could—
Another shape appeared across the river, a face seemingly floating between the leaves. She saw the glint of a blade in their
hand, held low.
“Nina. Listen to my voice. Keep walking.”
She hadn’t realized she had stopped. Her legs felt heavy and unmovable. The air felt too thick to breathe. Time seemed to slow, and then all at once, it exploded.
The man with the blade took a step forward and an arrow punched into his shoulder two heartbeats after. The man with the bow
and arrow ducked low and dove into the water, coming straight for her. Nina turned and ran. The water slowed her down, but
Kasik stayed where he was, notching another arrow that he pointed somewhere behind her.
“Kasik!” she screamed, but it was too late. Another man in green had run out of the bushes behind Kasik, a broad-ended weapon in one
hand that he swung at Kasik’s temple. Kasik turned, but he was too late. Nina watched with horror as he crumpled into a heap.
Arms wrapped around her from behind and lifted her off the ground. Nina kicked her legs and jerked her body from side to side.
She opened her mouth to scream, but a rough hand covered it before a sound could escape.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” a voice whispered in her ear. But he already was. His grip was bruising and Nina could scarcely
breathe from the pressure of his arm around her chest and his hand over her mouth. Panic had wormed its way into her heart
and her mind. She was losing strength and losing consciousness.
The last thing she saw, before everything went dark, was Kasik’s blood dripping into the dirt beneath him.
Kasik groaned. The earth tilted underneath his cheek and the urge to vomit made his mouth water viciously. But he swallowed
it down and rolled onto his back.
The first thing he noticed was the lack of light.
The canopy of leaves was gone and in its place was a green fabric, the same color the men in the forest had worn.
The one that made it so they were hardly visible.
As if they were hiding in the Tuta Kulla.
The tent was circular, so there were no corners, and entirely bare.
There was only the dirt floor and him lying sprawled in the middle. Nina was gone.
Kasik tried to sit up, but his hands were bound above his head and when he tugged, there was resistance. He looked up to see
he was tethered to a wooden column. They had bound him like an animal, and they had Nina in their clutches, hopefully alive,
though he knew there were worse things than death.
A flutter of panic urged Kasik to yank harder, the rope biting into his wrists and his head pounding with every tug.
He heard the shuffle of a boot a heartbeat before the tent flap parted and a man strolled through. Kasik stilled. He didn’t
want to give the man any reason to run him through with the tumi at his waist.
The man prowled closer and stood over his head. “What is a walla doing deep in the Tuta Kulla?”
They didn’t know who he was, then. Kasik had removed his tunic for Nina to clean his wounds, and his armbands were tucked
away somewhere on the forest floor. Any evidence of his station was gone. Kasik inspected the stranger, from his shorn hair
and the lack of achilla on his person to the green tunic that he wore that was not the emperor’s red, or the loyal’s blue,
or the gods’ purple, or even the foreigner’s black. Who did they belong to, and what did they want with them?
“Where is she?” Kasik asked, tongue heavy.
The man tutted at him. “I am the one asking questions. How did you find us?”
If Kasik played this right, he might be able to get answers while also stalling long enough to free himself from the binds.
They were tight, but he wasn’t unwilling to break his hands and squeeze them through if necessary. “I’ll tell you everything
you want to know if you let me see her.”
Head tilted, the man smiled wide, teeth almost glowing in the semidark. “Smart boy,” he said. “But I am not stupid. Answer my questions, and I won’t have her killed.”
“If you touch a single hair on her head,” Kasik seethed, “I will kill you. Slowly and painfully.”
“Big promises coming from a boy tied up like a boar ready for the spit.” The man straightened and came to stand near Kasik’s
stomach. “I’ll ask you again; what are you doing so deep in the Tuta Kulla?”
Kasik kept his mouth closed and stared straight ahead. He wasn’t prepared for the blow that stole his breath, or the vomit
that surged up and almost choked him. On his side, his wrists burning above him, he spat into the dirt and sucked in a ragged
breath.
“How did you find us?”
Before he got the chance to answer, another kick landed squarely in his abdomen. He felt something give way under the man’s
boot. A sharp crack that made the world spin again.
“What does the emperor want?”
Kasik smiled through bloody teeth. “You’re going to have to kill me,” he whispered. “If you keep me alive, you will regret
every second of it.”
“We’ll take our chances, Kamayuq.”
Guess I was wrong was Kasik’s last thought before there was a flash of agony, and then everything faded away.