Chapter 47
The gods shoved Nina back into her body, forcing her to hear and see and think. Up ahead, their party had come to a stop,
their bodies hardly visible through the falling snow. She could feel that Sacha was nearby, that tug in her chest relentlessly
pulsing and pushing and begging Nina to come closer. She thought her sister safe, and now there she was, so close but so far.
Sluggishly, she turned her head to peer at Atik’s face and found him looking at the mountaintop with determination in his
eyes. The achilla around his neck swirled as if full of life.
Nina stared at it, transfixed, until the kunay swung his body out of their seat and then reached out his hands to grasp Nina’s
hips. Unable to feel her legs, she fell into him. Could do nothing as he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder.
“Careful, Atik,” Maicu hissed at him. She could feel his heart underneath the layers of his cloak and tunic, the way it beat
frenzied and erratic.
Nina’s head throbbed as they trekked up a steep incline. Just when she thought they would tumble backward, fall all the way
down to the bottom of the mountain, the ground leveled, and she was being placed on her own two feet.
The world tilted, and then it settled.
The sight took her breath away.
All around them, jagged mountain peaks stabbed into an endlessly steely gray and somber sky. Snow swirled, softening their voices and footsteps. Ice covered thin branches and hung off in weapon-like shards. Below her feet was a circle of dark stone.
Achilla, she realized as a chill worked up her spine that had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the gods’
protection eager to seep into her skin. It was the same feeling Atik’s touch gave her. A bone-chilling emptiness. A thief of her soul.
“Remember what happens if you disobey,” Atik told her.
Nina turned slowly to meet his eyes. “All I have been is obedient, and yet here we are.”
“Patience, Nina. Your reward is coming.”
He left her standing in the center of the flat expanse. Nina’s legs were desperate to carry her to Sacha, but Atik got to
her first, and then Maicu was blocking them from sight.
The snow gave everything a hazy, dreamlike quality. She was having trouble discerning what was real, and what was merely in
her mind, which told her she was in danger, but her body wasn’t responding. Maicu was moving in spurts. Beside her one moment,
then in front of her the next. When she blinked, a circle of people surrounded them.
They were pillars of flesh in the middle of the barren mountaintop. Walla in red, curved blades at their waists and hands
folded in front of them. Atik and Sacha directly behind Maicu, the hem of Sacha’s blue dress fluttering in the wind. Nina
couldn’t help but worry that her sister was cold. That the longer this took, the more danger she was in.
Unwittingly, she sought Kasik. He had always been there when she was in danger, but not this time.
Maicu took Nina’s hands in his. She looked down at the rings on his fingers, the achillas on each of his wrists.
“Do you understand why this must be done?” he beseeched her.
She looked up at him, at the eagerness in his eyes and the slight tremor in his hands. The only thing she understood was that she was willing to do whatever it took to ensure her sister was safe. Even if that meant exposing her throat and letting the gods have her blood.
“Your sacrifice will not be in vain.” Maicu dropped one of her hands and produced a small blade from the folds of his cloak.
Nina glanced over his shoulder toward Atik and Sacha, heart in her throat. “There are those who seek to destroy this empire,
to take our people and kill and convert and conquer. We must prevail, and we shall with the blessing of the gods.”
The tip of the blade was placed right over her heart. Maicu’s right hand joined the left on the hilt. “It will be fast,” he
said. “You will feel no pain.”
But Nina knew it was a lie. Every sacrifice she had made thus far was painful, a sunderance that stole pieces of her soul.
This would be the greatest one. Her final stand. Nina’s hands fell loose to her sides. They had been balled up and fisted
so long, holding on first to her old life, then to her old self, then to the idea of Kasik and his promises. She was exhausted
beyond measure.
“Keep her safe,” Nina whispered, eyes closed and tilted to the sky. “Make sure she—”
There was a strange sound. A deep inhale that might’ve been the wind, and a sputter of life that might have been the cracking
of earth. Nina opened her eyes.
Maicu’s brow was furrowed, his golden eyes wet with unshed tears, his mouth opened in a silent circle. There was a look of
betrayal so deeply etched onto his features that Nina thought she had accidently grabbed on to his threads, but when she looked
to find them, they were there, a brilliant flare of gold that pulsed like a heart.
And beside the center of Maicu’s chest, where those threads began to dim, was the blood-soaked tip of a long blade right through
his heart.
Nina’s attay surged in defiance. She stepped back, and Maicu’s hands fell. The small blade he had been holding to her heart clattered to the ground. The blade in his chest disappeared, and then Maicu fell to his knees. A shudder ran through the black stone. Blood formed a circle around Maicu.
The earth shifted beneath their feet, and then the world fell silent.
Nina looked up into Atik’s eyes, the blade he had used to kill Maicu dripping blood onto the ground at his feet.
“What have you done?” she whispered.
Atik smiled, a wicked tilt of his lips that was sharpened by the dark glint of his eyes. For a moment, she could see a flash
of gold light at his chest. But it was gone with the wind and in its place was a hole devoid of life.
She remembered what she went to tell Master Wara the day she found his room in disarray. A part of his story that had not
been right.
“I have finally taken what is rightfully mine,” Atik said. He stepped over Maicu’s body without a glance and prowled closer.
Nina backed away. “Aht, aht, stop right there. Any farther, and he’ll bring her closer.”
Nina followed the line of Atik’s pointed finger to find a broad-chested walla holding Sacha, her head resting on his shoulder
and a knife glinting at her throat.
Nina laughed. She couldn’t help it. “How can I believe anything you say when you’ve already broken your word? She isn’t supposed
to be here. She was supposed to be safe.”
“And she will be,” Atik answered. “So long as you comply.”
“Just as Kasik complied. Just as Maicu complied. We have all been complying, Kunay Atik.” Nina’s chest was heaving, her words echoing across the mountaintop. She saw men in red on the outskirts of
her vision, their tunics like gashes of blood against the snow. She felt them lean closer. “What is it that you want from
me?”
At this, Atik spread his hands. “I only want what I have been promised.” He spun the blade from one hand to the other. “We are gods-touched, you and I. Ikara. We are meant to rule, not serve. I have given the gods their sacrifice, and so I will have their favor and rule over Tawantinsuyu.”
Again, Atik’s threads sputtered. “You are no Ikara,” Nina said. “We are descended from Pachamama and Killa. We are powerful,
and you are powerless.” She dropped her voice and took a small step closer. “Do you know that you have no threads of life, no free will? You have
been consumed by the gods, and soon, they will spit you out—”
Atik’s hand whipped out and wrapped around Nina’s throat, cutting off her words and her air and her attay. She scrabbled for
purchase against his wrist, but he was too strong. He pulled her close enough that she could see herself reflected in the
black pit of his eyes.
“Do as I say, and she lives. Refuse, and you both die. It is that simple, Nina. I will wield you as a weapon against our enemies,
and I will rule over Tawantinsuyu without opposition.”
Her heart was galloping in earnest. Rage and defeat warred within her.
Over Atik’s shoulder, Nina saw her sister stir. Their eyes met, and Sacha’s filled with the softest of reliefs that made Nina’s
heart stutter and her eyes burn.
She looked half dead already. The sister she remembered was buried deep beneath sallow skin and protruding bones and cracked
lips. Nina wanted to scream at the stars, for her voice to rattle the mountains and bury them all beneath the snow. But the
only reason she would open her mouth was to surrender.
It was in that moment Nina realized it was never a question. If she could go back, she would do it all over again. Give her
life for Sacha’s as many times as it took. She had been willing to become a bride, and now she was willing to become a weapon.
Sacha’s small hands came up to wrap around the arm of the man that held her. “Nina,” she called, “Don’t. Please.” Her voice was tender, soft and sweet as Nina had always remembered it. It would stay that way. Nina would keep her safe from the world, from the atrocities she knew she would commit.
There was no length she wouldn’t walk. No height she wouldn’t climb.
This time, Nina did not hope for a savior. She did not pray to the gods to rescue her or look in the distance for the faces
of her mamay and tayta. She made this choice willingly, out of the strength of her love.
“. . . have to do this,” she heard Sacha whisper. The words carried on a gust of wind that blew the thin hairs away from Nina’s
face like a gentle caress, but Nina had already looked away and resigned herself to her fate.
Atik held her by the throat, waiting for her answer, the one he knew she would give. She had shown him what she loved, and
he would use it against her until the end of time. There was no other choice to be made.
“I’ll do whatever you ask of me,” Nina said, her voice thin but the words heavy with promise.
Atik smiled, and deep from within the pits of his blackened soul, his threads flared to life.