Chapter 43
Nina was barely aware of her surroundings. The blood coating the floor was obscenely garish, and the smell. Gods. It permeated the room and clogged her nostrils until she was sure she would vomit.
Tears blurred her vision, making it so the faces of shock surrounding her were terribly softened into nightmarish visages
of wide eyes and downturned mouths. Kasik was across from her, so close but so far, and between them were endless stretches
of tables and unfamiliar faces. Everything seemed to tilt and list until Nina was unsure which way was up.
They had put something in her drink. Something that made her own body feel foreign. Frantically, she searched for her attay,
trying and failing to reach beneath the fog of terror and probe for threads of life and will, but the icy hand of the achilla
was all she could feel.
Except for Master Wara, whose gold threads faded to a pinprick until winking out of existence forever. She should have escaped
while she still had the chance. Would have, if it wasn’t for a thick and pressing foreboding that rooted her to the spot.
Eyes glued to him, Nina watched as Maicu motioned to the side again. Atik appeared with another hooded figure, this one frail
and stumbling toward the center of the room, their head barely above their shoulders as it rolled this way and that. Atik
moved them slowly, carefully. With much more care than he had shown Master Wara. Whoever it was, they were important. Nina
felt it in her bones.
She tried to stand but lost her footing. She refused to sit and watch Maicu kill another innocent person while Master Wara’s
body was still warm at his feet.
Walk away, her mind screamed at her. Save yourself. But she could do no such thing. She would have to wait and watch and prepare.
“May I present to you,” Emperor Maicu announced, the weight of his words softened by the shifting of bodies and chairs. The
crowd seemed interested and uncomfortable, not quite sure what was happening but enjoying it, nonetheless. Nina didn’t understand
what was happening, either, but she braced herself against some unforeseen enemy when she heard blades being freed from their
sheaths.
Directly across the room, several tables filled with captivated people between them, stood Kasik, and on either side of him
was a walla with a blade held to his neck. Kasik’s hands were in the air, palms out, and his eyes were pinned to hers. A yawning
pit opened in Nina’s stomach. Whatever they had given her made everything feel dampened and slow, but the dread pooling beneath
her skin was visceral enough to pierce the fog.
Movement stole her attention. Maicu reached for the hooded figure, his fingers curling around the edge of the cloth bag. In
his right hand was the blade he had used to slaughter Master Wara. Blood still dripping from the edge and landing on the floor
with a plop.
Nina couldn’t have moved even if she tried. Anticipation tingled in her fingers, and her attay swirled and eddied with nowhere
to go.
Then the bag was off, and the head was free, and Maicu’s words were little more than a whisper among the screaming in her
mind. “Sacha the Seer, from the far reaches of Limac. Sister to my betrothed.”
All at once, Nina moved, a force of fury propelling her out of her seat and over the table. Her attay clawed at her insides,
clawed at the emperor, only to meet wall after impenetrable wall. There was an achilla on each of his limbs, in the circlet
on his head, hanging from his neck. Only then did she notice them. Only then did a firm hand wrap around her shoulder and
quiet the screaming of her power.
“No!” Nina screamed over and over as walla moved in to hold her down. She thrashed and kicked against the hands that tore her from
her mission. No longer was she poised and powerful. She was the wild animal they had feared, screams of rage echoing up to
the ceiling and beyond to the stars, the gods, the whole of the upper realm.
From a distance, she heard Kasik scream her name, his voice broken and beaten. She mourned him already, mourned their freedom,
the plans they had built and the secrets they had kept. They would die with them. But Nina would do anything, sacrifice everything,
to reach her sister’s side. There had never been a question about that. She would throw herself at the feet of the emperor
again and again if it meant saving Sacha.
An arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her against warm flesh. With it, everything went eerily, agonizingly quiet. Her
rage cooled into a low fire. Her mind slowed to the pace of a sea slug crawling over the bottom of the silty ocean.
The lack of Atik’s threads filled her mind. It subdued her agony enough so that she could see her sister, so far from her reach. Stringy brown hair loose around her chin. Too-big dress hanging from her too-thin frame.
Her eyes half opened; a small hand extended toward Nina.
“Sacha,” Nina cried. She would have fallen if it wasn’t for Atik’s arm holding her up. His other hand wrapped around her chin
and forced her to watch. As if she would turn her eyes away.
The people surrounding her had turned over chairs in their haste to retreat from her wildness. They watched her with shades
of guilt and remorse, sorrow and pleasure, fear and curiosity. So much, yet nothing all at the same time.
Even Empress Chaska, sitting just a few seats away, did nothing. For all she had beseeched Nina to be courageous, she was
sitting like a coward, mouth agape, waiting to watch the show.
No one stepped forward to intervene, to hold Sacha’s hand when Nina could not. No one spoke a whisper of a word.
No one except Kasik, who struggled against the hands that held him, Nina’s name a chanted plea on his lips. One of the walla
dug his blade deeper into Kasik’s throat, and Nina tracked a drop of blood as it carved a path down his neck.
“Tell me, Sacha,” Emperor Maicu said. Nina flicked her eyes back to him, to Sacha who swayed on her feet. “Can you See Nina’s
future? Can you See how her life will enrich Tawantinsuyu?”
Sacha’s mouth worked to form a word, but her voice was little more than the rustle of a solitary leaf as she said, “Yes.”
Her eyes, however, said so much more. They were narrowed in ire, burning from within. They glittered in promise even as the
emperor’s smile was sharp with wicked delight and cunning victory.
Behind her, Atik’s chuckle filled Nina with such a murderous rage that she felt like a hapless creature caged beneath his
touch.
All the pieces she had been haphazardly collecting fell into place.
Nina had used her power, and they had come for her and found Sacha. She had brought their enemies straight to their door.
Kunay Atik had used her love for her sister against her. They were the Girl and the Sister. An Ikara and a Seer.
One as collateral. A pawn.
The other, a spare. A sacrifice.
Nina had been utterly and thoroughly fooled.
The rage came rushing back in like a tidal wave, building up slowly before it reached a crest and broke upon a shore of desperation.
She lunged forward with a roar, hair tearing from her scalp, the pain ignored as she reached deep beneath the blanket of Atik’s attay to grasp at her own, willing to tear it from her insides and let it shred her soul if it meant shredding everyone else in this room.
She would have them beg. She would make them regret ever having set eyes upon her, for craving her—
“Aht, aht,” Maicu tsked, his eerily calm voice breaking through the fog of her wrath enough to clear her mind and see the knife he
held at Sacha’s throat. “We’re not finished yet.”
Sacha was limp in the emperor’s arms, her body fully leaning on Maicu. Her beautiful baby sister with the purest heart, reduced
to a prisoner for the sake of Nina’s cooperation. She simply could not comprehend it. Refused to imagine a scenario in which
that knife went through her sister’s throat.
“There is one more gift.”
The crowd was nonexistent, as far as Nina was concerned. She had eyes and ears only for her sister, whose name she whispered
over and over, a desperate plea for her to open her eyes, to see. They had called her a Seer, and Nina knew the truth of that
word as she knew the truth of her name. Memories of her sister came unbidden, the dreams she had shared with Nina, the strange
conversations and the things Sacha had known that couldn’t be explained. They had always thought her ill and strange. Weak.
But all Nina saw when she looked at her now was the strength of her love.
“This one is for all the citizens of Tawantinsuyu.”
Silence fell as the emperor took slow, measured steps down the length of the room, dragging Sacha along in his arms. Nina
was hoping he would bring her close enough to touch, but he gently let her go into the arms of a walla before walking back
to her.
Behind her, Atik shifted away, and Nina almost collapsed from the loss of his touch.
She heard Kasik say her name again, and she heard a chair shift down the table, but she focused solely on Maicu.
“If you so much as lift a hand against me, your sister’s life will be forfeit,” he whispered, his lips close enough that she could feel them against her ear.
Then he turned back to the gathered crowd.
“Nina of Limac, an Ikara with attay the likes of myth, will usher in the favor of the gods in its full glory, through an honored sacrifice.”
Maicu’s extended hand slid around her neck and settled at the back of her head, replacing Atik’s touch. But the damage had
been done. His power had seeped into every crevice of her and filled it with an emptiness that left her hollow. “The gods
have chosen her for their service, and it is her blood that will grant Tawantinsuyu strength and longevity as we face down
those who decide to form against us.”
Whispered confusion erupted from the crowd and melded with the whispered dread of Nina’s heart.
She heard words like archaic and savage. But she also heard words like deserved and necessary. The people were greedy; they would accept whatever gifts they knew would ultimately benefit them, evident in the way the
whispers turned into an excited roar. The sound of it bounced around the room, inside Nina’s skull, rattled her very bones,
and it was a sound of triumph. Of celebration. Their faces had been transformed from shock to victory, sharp smiles and deadly
eyes and hawkish greed.
Nina’s strength was failing. She tipped into the table and braced herself against it. “The Mamacoca leaf, when mixed with
ground achilla, is the perfect substance to quell your powers. With enough of it, we can keep you subdued for weeks.”
As he spoke, chaos erupted in the room. Nina dared to glance away from Maicu and saw Kasik break free of the walla holding
him. His blade swung through the air. Blood splattered the tables. Bystanders scrambled out of the way. Bodies fell to the
floor.
“Take Empress Chaska to her rooms,” Maicu yelled at the same time Atik called out in panic, “For the gods’ sakes, someone
stop him!”
People screamed and ran for the doors, a sea of red and gold passing by, cutting off her sight of Kasik. She saw flashes of Chaska’s long, dark hair in her periphery, but it was Sacha’s small body curled in a walla’s arms that she kept her eyes pinned to.
“Sacha!” Nina yelled, her sister’s name searing her throat. Her tongue felt numb in her mouth. “Do not harm her! I will kill all of you.”
But her threats fell on deaf ears. Atik only smiled and stepped closer. Nina pushed away from the table and collapsed. She
heard Kasik scream her name and then his voice cut off. It had never been clearer just how useless, how powerless, she was.
“She makes a fool of us with her words,” Atik said mildly.
Maicu sighed, and then his hand wrapped around the back of Nina’s neck. There was a tiny prick of pain, and the world around
her began to soften. Her body grew heavier, her arms weaker. They barely held her up as Maicu grasped her chin and spoke.
“Soon, you will be free of this world’s worries, my love. With the gods’ favor and Sacha’s Seeing, our enemies will be defeated.
She will be a savior to our people.”
And then he let her go. Nina fell to the floor and it seemed to swallow her, to pull her down as she tried in vain to crawl
to her sister. She heard the clang of metal, the scuff of boots against stone. Master Wara’s body was being dragged away.
No, not Master Wara, she realized. Kasik. A trail of blood was left in his wake. Nina screamed his name, then Sacha’s. Her fingernails bent back and snapped as she
dug them into the stone.
The room had fallen quiet enough that she heard more than saw Kunay Atik crouch before her. “You have lost,” he whispered
through the havoc of her mind. His eyes were wide, wild, the whites even darker than she remembered, as if he was being consumed
by the void of his soul from the inside out.
“I am still alive,” she spat at him. “It is not done until my soul has left this realm, and even then, I will hunt . . . you . . .
down.”
Atik searched her eyes for truth. Nina wondered what he saw and if it worried him. Firm hands slid under her arms and scooped her up. She hung suspended between them, much like that first day they had dragged her through the halls.
She was weak. Powerless. Consumed with thoughts of Sacha and slaughter.
“I will hunt all of you,” Nina screamed into the quiet.
She heard Maicu’s nervous laughter, and then she finally lost her fight to the darkness.