Chapter 27
The heat of Kasik’s chest against Nina’s back was more familiar than the chill of her welcome to Vira. The people had stared
at her as if she was unfit to walk their proper streets. She imagined she looked frightful, with her hair tangled down her
back and the ill-fitting tunic hanging limply from her body, and she hated that she felt a sort of shame and want to belong
wrapped up inside her because of it. Those kinds of thoughts would only set her off course.
But any and all thoughts fled the moment she caught sight of the temple.
They rounded a shallow corner and there it was, surrounded by paths of the most brilliant green and up on a stone foundation
that lifted it several levels off the ground. The walls were stone, but there was gold everywhere that caught the last light
of the sun, shimmering as if it had been set on fire. It was truly a spectacle to behold, one that took her breath away.
“This is Qorikancha, the temple of the sun.” Kasik had slowed Capac so that Nina could take in the view. “Behind it is Amaru
Kancha, the emperor’s home and the royal grounds.”
Nina had seen the kancha from the hill above the city, but now that they were on ground level with Qorikancha, she couldn’t
see past the sprawling building. She didn’t possess the words to describe the way the stones lay one on top of the other,
how they formed sharp corners and, higher up, designs in the walls that spoke of time and patience.
There were columns jutting into the sky on either side of the main peak, each of which had the image of a god carved into its surface, the largest being the sun god, Inti.
His likeness was gold shaped into a sun with a face in the center.
The tips of each ray were filed to an almost invisible point.
His gaping eyes pierced straight through Nina.
It was the same face that decorated the disc on Kasik’s chest, but larger than life, both beautiful and terrifying to behold.
The homes in Limac were small. The offering site for Pachamama was a modest altar in the middle of the ayllu where the sea
breeze was sharp and sweet and the earth was soft and supple.
This ground was hard, and the building towered over her and spread farther than her eyes could see, and she got the sense
that she was nothing but a tiny, insignificant figure standing in front of an unknowable, unreachable god.
“When we arrived at the first set of gates, the walla there would have sent a message with a bird to my tayta. He’ll be waiting
on the other side.”
“That sounds like an omen.” She half turned to see Kasik’s face, but his eyes were trained on those walls in the near distance,
brows furrowed.
It was hard to imagine not being excited to see her family after being away. If it was her tayta on the other side, she would have been clamoring to open the door, and she knew he would be waiting with a smile and
arms wide open.
Nina wondered if they missed her. If they were worried for her. Sacha’s fragile health and Lali’s carefree spirit kept them
plenty busy, but she was the one who had helped with the fields and the animals, who kept Lali occupied while Sacha was ill.
Perhaps she hadn’t realized it at the time, but she knew her place there. She was needed, and seen, and loved.
Once she passed those walls, there would be no more hope of that. Kasik had made it very clear that her desires mattered little.
That she was a tool. A pawn in the emperor’s schemes. She would play their game, but in her own way.
“Not an omen,” Kasik finally said, his voice unconvincing. “Only an inevitability.”
Nina hoped he was dreading this as much as she was. That this decision and her acquiescence would haunt his dreams. Mostly, she wanted him to remember her and think about her and care enough to wonder what might have happened had he simply disobeyed Emperor Maicu.
The closer they got to the wide wooden doors of Qorikancha, the harder it was to breathe. Fearsome-looking walla in bloody-red
tunics stood at intervals along the perimeter, their wickedly sharp spears glinting with promise like the rays of Inti’s face.
It was a statement to all, one that said, Here I am; do not come any closer.
And Nina was being escorted right through the doors.
“Kamayuq Kasik,” one of the walla called, placing a fist to his chest. Nina wasn’t familiar with the terms of their military,
nor the importance of their ranks, but she had been under the impression that Kasik was someone further down, someone dispensable.
He was young and had been sent on a glorified childminding mission. But the way the other walla nodded in deference told her
a different story.
Kasik dismounted and held out a hand for Nina. She looked at it, and then back at Qorikancha, tempted to take Capac and run
and never look back. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to go back to Shayim and learn to wield her attay. The choice she had made
to kill the emperor felt ridiculous now that she was in the shadow of such grandiosity.
Who was she, except a nobody from Limac with untrained attay and a half-formed plan?
The gods have chosen you, Nina thought. But they had chosen wrong; not because she wasn’t capable, but because she refused to heedlessly follow their
path.
His dark eyes searched her as she took a deep breath and placed her hand in his.
He didn’t let go when she landed on her feet, and he didn’t pull away when she took a step.
If anything, he leaned closer, enough so that if she took a deep breath, her chest would brush his.
Close enough that she had to tilt her head back to hold his eyes.
Close enough that she saw the way his gaze darted over her face and landed on her lips.
“Ask me to stop,” he begged, so quiet she hardly heard him. “Ask me to forsake every vow I’ve ever made so that neither of
us has to see this through.”
It was then that Nina realized that he would turn his back on his duty for her. That she could ask it of him and he would
willingly comply. But she would not, because doing so would mean that she would have to forsake her own vow. “No,” she said.
Kasik’s eyes closed, and his exhale tickled the top of her head. “I have made my choice, and you have made yours. We are both
loyal to our word.”
Kasik moved away from her, and a cold wind replaced the space that he abandoned. The desperation in his eyes shifted to acceptance
in a blink. “The emperor is waiting,” he said again, an echo of the time when they were strangers, the meaning clear in every
word.
They left Capac with a walla and took the steps up to the doors. They opened with a groan, and then Nina was swallowed in
darkness. Their steps echoed in the vastness of the chamber-like room. In the distance, she heard a shuffle that was carried
on a phantom breeze so that it sounded like it was right beside her, but when she whirled to the side, no one was there.
It was quiet enough that she could hear each of her ragged breaths, and dark enough that she could only see a few arm’s lengths
in front of her, and beyond, squares of light cut into the stone walls that looked over what she assumed were the kancha grounds.
The room was empty, which lent to the eeriness and cold. Not what she had imagined for a place that was meant to represent
the gods. It didn’t feel divine, but forgotten. Forsaken.
They walked up another set of steps and over another flat expanse of stone.
Nina glanced behind her but found nothing but shadow.
She could have sworn that the windows ahead were growing smaller instead of larger, that the room was expanding even as they forged on.
But after another set of steps, they were there, outlined in daylight. The doors to her fate.
They opened without touch, and when Nina glanced at Kasik for reassurance, she found none. His attention was forward, his
jaw clenched, the tendons in his neck strained. He was fighting his own battles, and she was left to face hers alone.
The sunlight was harsh after the bleakness of Qorikancha. The first thing she saw was grass, a green so vibrant it hurt her
eyes. When she lifted her face, she next saw people in red milling about. Walla young and old, with achillas on their wrists
or their necks, and what she assumed were attendants in blue scurrying between buildings with baskets full of textiles and
food piled high.
From a distance, she could hear the clashing of metal and grunts and cheers. There was subdued chatter and other sounds of
life that were as familiar as they were foreign. The air felt thinner, and colder, and it did nothing to ease her racing pulse.
Directly ahead, standing between small peaked buildings and in front of a larger stone structure, stood a man in red, his
long coat flapping around his legs, the shape of wings in flight embroidered along the edge. At the center of his chest was
a large golden disk that she knew depicted the sun god. His fingers were adorned with rings that he tapped together with each
step she took.
It sounded like a death march, and when she finally looked up at his face, she saw her demise in the fathomless shadows of
his eyes and the wicked curl of his lips.
The dread that coated her mouth tasted like blood.
The guiding hand at her back slipped away, and then Kasik was in front of her, his hair swaying as he lowered into a deferential
bow.
“Tayta,” she heard Kasik say with such loyalty, such desperation, that she felt it like a plea on her own soul.
See me, that word said. Love me.
“You’re late,” the man responded curtly.
Nina hated that she was intimately familiar with the set of Kasik’s shoulders, enough to see that they fell slightly with
his tayta’s words. That she wanted to reach around him and yank the man’s threads from his chest and send him to the floor
in a puddle of blood and gore and—
Kasik moved aside and turned to face her. Both sets of eyes watched her expectantly, but she didn’t know what they wanted,
hadn’t heard their words over her murderous thoughts and the sudden, chilling realization that the man across from her, Kasik’s
tayta with the black eyes, had no light at the center of his chest.
Unlike Kasik, whose burned brightly in comparison, his tayta possessed no threads. Nothing but a void where his will should
have been.
If Nina hadn’t been standing in front of him watching his lips move and his chest rise and fall with each breath, seeing his
pulse pound in his neck, she would have thought him a walking corpse. A puppet held up by strings she couldn’t see.
It was then, with a scourge of emotions pushing at her skin, that she placed the man. She saw him touching Sacha’s face. Remembered
the hem of his patterned cloak brushing the dirt. Felt his fingers digging into her skin. Heard the words he had murmured
so that only she could hear.
It was you I felt.
As if she were outside herself, she saw the man’s hand reach for her.
It landed on her shoulder with a thud and shook her from the past with a gasp.
She was solidly back in the present, aware of every part of her body, from her toes curled in her slippers to the hair that blew back from her face on a chilly breeze.
She was especially painfully aware of the sudden silence that throbbed in her chest. The beat of her heart that echoed in her ears.
The abrupt disappearance of Kasik’s light.
“We meet again. I am Kunay Atik,” he whispered, and she could have sworn that the black lines of his eyes swirled as he watched
her, that his nostrils flared as he breathed deeper. His fingers curled into her flesh and dug into her bones. “Welcome to
your new home.”
The words were gentle. Perhaps they could have been construed as kind, but she heard them for the threat they were. This is your final resting place. You belong to me.
And in that moment, Nina believed him. Something vital had been hidden from her, and it left her feeling vulnerable but eerily
calm. Less worried about her convictions and the secrets she held close.
The kunay’s head tilted as he watched her breathe through her thoughts. “Your power is strong.” His hand released her, and
Nina fell forward with the loss. “The emperor will be very pleased.”
An arm slid around her middle and braced her. It was Kasik, his jaw clenching as he spoke through gritted teeth. “You knew?”
The moment she was stable, Kasik let go. She pressed a hand to her chest, prodding at the pit of raw hunger in the center
of her. Had she always felt this empty, this powerless?
“Of course. I sensed her the moment she used it for the first time. Across such a distance.” Atik’s eyes sparkled with delight
as he spoke. “Impressive, really. It is why we went through all this trouble to bring her here.” Gentle fingers traced the
edge of her jaw. A shiver of repulsion lifted the hairs on her neck.
“I don’t understand,” Kasik said, despair laced through each word. “You knew she was dangerous, and you sent me without the information I needed to protect myself and her. Did you want me to fail?”
“You’re letting your emotions get the best of you, Son. I gave you that achilla. So long as you kept it around your neck, you would have been aware of her influence.”
Dread filled her belly as Kasik glanced at her, a quick flick of his eyes that Atik saw and grasped on to like a hound on
a scent. “Did you remove it? Did she fill your mind with her power and make you believe that you want her?” He took one step closer and lowered his voice. “Oh, Son, how foolish you can be.”
Kasik was turned fully toward her now, betrayal lining his mouth and between his brows, but Nina was filled with her own rage
beneath the pressure of emptiness that filled her. “I did no such thing,” she argued tensely.
Atik gripped his son’s shoulder and shook once, twice. “This is what they do,” he said harshly. “They use our will to deceive
us into loving them, but who could love such a monster? They are not meant to be loved. Their purpose is so much greater than
that.”
If Nina had been thinking clearly, she would have stopped to consider who they were, but she was lost to his lies, too close to her greatest fears and insecurities, too overcome with outrage to control
herself. She launched at Atik, satisfied when she felt the flesh of his cheek fill the crevices underneath her nails.
Before she could relish the small victory, there were hands on her, bruising her arms as they pulled her back. She kicked
out to no avail. Screamed her threats to the sky.
It was the Harvest all over again. No one was going to come to her aid. There was no one to save her.
Hands gripped her face and held her steady. She glared into the kunay’s eyes as he pulled her face close enough to see every
crack in the whites that gave her a peek into his dark and sinful soul.
Then he leaned forward, pressed his cheek to her cheek, and whispered into her ear. “Should you forget your purpose, I will
bring Sacha to remind you.”