Amara

Bethalmz was a town like many others she’d seen. Drab, unremarkable – really even ‘hamlet’ would have been a euphemism for the dilapidated streets and boarded up windows that made up this place.

The key difference lay in the people.

As she walked the streets, her sturdy shoes clicking on the holes in the stonework, Amara was regarded with suspicion by citizens who walked by her with a shambling gait. They were like ghosts gliding through the streets, and only once or twice did she ever see them flash a smile at her or anyone else they met. They seemed preoccupied with something. As she scanned their crumbling, ramshackle homes she saw them lighting candles on their windows or laying charms outside their doors – wooden carvings of the Goddess Amarata with her distinctive wild hair and broken chains.

She stayed at a dimly lit inn for a few hours, using the money she’d ‘reclaimed’ from a bandit on the road to buy a miniscule chunk of bone-filled mutton. She washed it down with some local swill that burned the inside of her throat, and looked around at the dejected patrons of the dismal bar.

By now, she didn’t have to ask the Voice why she was here. She just got a feeling sometimes, as she made her way towards the promised town of Yarruck, that there were places she had to stop by.

The further North she moved, the more a chill began to bite at her bones. The air felt different up here, close to the mountains. She felt it acutely now as she had used up a lot of her power recently – on wild animals and hunters both – and her head was spinning with weariness. She knew, right now, that she was at her weakest. She was a far better judge of her abilities now than she’d ever been in the past three years. She knew that if someone came for her here, she’d be as powerless as she was during her year of darkness under her father.

So she kept quiet, huddled as close to the burning fire in the hearth as she could, wishing that she could draw the embers into herself somehow.

She felt only the need for slumber overtake her as the hours went on, and then finally she heard a general alarm soar throughout the streets outside.

The people in the inn instantly perked up. Those who had seemed like mere shadows in a crypt were suddenly seized by a wild passion. They wiped the poor-quality ale from their mouths as a crow with the body of a man barged into the inn, breathless with excitement. A Jilae, Amara remembered. The crow-human hybrids.

"They got ‘im!" he squawked, much to the joy of all the assembled patrons. "Town square boys! You know what ta do!"

They all did, it seemed. They surged as one collective whole from their seats and ran from the inn for their houses, and Amara could hear that the streets had altogether been transformed from a deserted collection of paths into walkways paved with an almost primordial joy.

She peeked outside and saw men re-emerge from their houses with torches in their hands, their wives and children following them gleefully, some carrying their laughing sons on their shoulders, letting them carry the torch. Friends greeted each other as equals as they all moved, serpent-like, towards the town square.

The church bells Amara had grown used to across all the big towns and cities of Averix she’d seen chimed with their unending, metallic drone, and the people almost broke into sprints, each dying to reach their destination.

"This is what I’m here for, huh?" she whispered.

The Voice acknowledged her. You know where to go, kid.

From the tavern she snuck into the crowd and was greeted now by smiles and cheers from the townsfolk. Night had well and truly fallen, and any foreigner to this place would think this were some glorious festival of new life. She’d seen those as she walked past farm towns and little, out-of-the-way settlements that praised Gods of their own, not this ‘Amarata’ most people spoke of. She never did spend too much time in such places, however. The Voice didn’t seem interested in showing her them.

Finally, they reached the town square. Just like the rest of the village its simple, dust-filled nature had been uplifted by the screams of hundreds as they crowded together, all bellowing in a unified mass of frenzy and excitement. Amara cursed her small stature – she jumped to see what the fuss was about but was afforded a vision of only the weathered shoulders of the villagers and their fists pumping the air with wild abandon.

She moved through the crowd as best she could, aiming to climb on top of a grimy statue of Amarata on the precipice of the square. As she shoved passed each cheer-filled face she began to look at them with more focus – no, there wasn’t just cheer plastered upon the faces of the humans here. There was hate. A kind of joyful hatred that had been dredged up from deep within their hearts. A fury that never could find its proper expression in their day to day lives had suddenly exploded into life and was projecting itself out their screaming mouths. They were angry at something, but happy to be angry.

And as she made it to the statue and climbed on top of the chainless arm of the Goddess, Amara saw the object of the peoples’ scorn:

Tied to a stake that had been wedged into the earthen mound at the square’s center, surrounded by wooden beams and planks, was a naked Tigran child. He looked like he was crying, but his voice was lost this far away, swallowed up by the ravenous crowd.

His fur had been stripped from his flesh – so that he resembled an even more unusual sight than Amara was used to when she observed the cat-people or other hybrids of the world. Both of his ears had been sliced through, and it looked like they were still bleeding. His eyes darted around the crowd, looking for something, or someone, and she saw that he was struggling against the ropes that bound him to the grisly stake.

Stolen novel; please report.

This was new.

Amara suddenly felt the fire within her billow and rage, as though power was returning to her body. All around her the people rose their torches in unison and threw curses and scraps of rotted meat at the little child who could do nothing but bear the brunt of their assaults with tear-filled eyes.

The people thrust their torches in the air again, and she could feel the power of each flame flickering in the wind. No. More than just the flame – she could feel the burning sensation of their collective hatred for the boy. She felt it like it rose from her own stomach. In this moment, she almost shared their rage – she had never met a Tigran who was not a slaver, or a thief.

Then again, she was a thief herself, wasn’t she?

A man wearing a cloak of velvet then broke through the crowd, silencing them with upturned palms just visible through his long sleeves. He walked with the confident, arrogant gait of the religious fanatics Amara was all too used to seeing existed under the Goddess Amarata. When he reached the pinnacle of the young Tigran’s stake, he turned to the crowd and spoke through his hooded veil.

"We commend this soul to the cleansing flame of Amarata’s righteous fury," he said. The people, like stings being plucked by a born composer, bellowed even louder, and then fell into silence as the speaker’s hands flew up once more.

"We know the crime this soul shall be punished for," he said in the old, sand-clogged voice of a weary priest. "By members of our own hamlet this creature was seen employing the heretical art of The Glance against one of our fair guardsmen. Do any here deny this claim?"

Amara looked at the struggling cat-boy with the eyes of a patient hawk, flying high above, watching a worm crawl against the dying sun:

Appraisal: Success

Morphology: Tigran

Class: NULL

GLANCE: NULL

They were wrong.

He was no Glancer. He didn’t have any power in him at all.

The crowd was now dead silent. Eyes darted from one face to the other in accusatory fashion. Amara felt herself stunned. But she realized, if any were to speak up in this moment against such an accusation, they would likely meet the absolute fury of the crowd. Who would dare speak out against the priest’s accusation?

Not even the cat said anything. He simply let out a shrill, tear-choked moan, that barely registered in the crowd at all.

The Voice rumbled inside her chest.

Unfortunately, sweetie, it said. You’re catching on quick.

The priest lowered his head and breathed deep, inhaling the smoky plumes that rose from the villagers’ torches.

"So let it be," he said. "Let the flesh of this heretic be burned away and let his soul be stripped of the evil power that consumed it. May the fires of Amarata purify his soul. Pray for him, children, and let the Will of Our Lady be done."

Once again Amara found herself staring into the eyes of some of the assembled crowd. No pity was to be found in their eyes. Amara had had plenty of time to watch people out of the corners of alleys or forgotten places in the big towns. She knew what hate looked like – and their entire beings were clothed in its garb.

As the fire was lit by the priest, and the townsfolk lined up around the Tigran to throw their own torches into the growing conflagration, Amara’s eyes settled on those of the doomed boy.

She watched him struggle with renewed effort as the embers of the fire singed his feet, then cry out in pain when the rippling threads of flame coiled up the stake and consumed him. The chanting of the crowd drowned out his screaming, and yet Amara felt she could still hear his shrill death wail as the slow onset of his life’s end crept upon him – traveling up his torso and searing the flesh that remained from his bones. His arms shook, blackened, and turned to charred cinders within the cloak of fire that engulfed his form. And only when the cloak had draped itself in billowing orange ribbons of killing light did his weeping cease. His body had become a bonfire for the townsfolk, who rose their arms and their voices to praise their Goddess – for they had just sent her another soul.

Amara slid down the statue and touched her cheeks where small tear droplets had settled mixed. In truth, the experience had been a cacophony of disparate emotions: she felt the pain of the little Tigran – saw the fear and terror, all the pain in his eyes – and yet too just feeling the warmth of the fire had filled her with the fury of the crowd. She had breathed in more than just the fumes of the flames – she had taken in their hate and had known, then, that it was a part of her too.

"Why?" she asked in a silent whisper, looking back for a second at the still billowing bonfire.

You know why, the Voice answered, clear amidst the yells of the faith-possessed crowd. The boy is both a Hybrid, and rumored to bear the Glance. One truth leads to an assumption. And, up here, that assumption ends in death

She found that she couldn’t turn her gaze away from the skeletonized body within the flames. There was power still there, in his bones. She could feel it coursing through her own. And as the body that bore such strength within it burned, she staggered as she realized that more than just a mortal was lost. This boy was not the same breed as the cackling cat-fiends whom she killed in the forest outside her home. This was a creature after her own image, facing the same world of oppression she would have to endure if knowledge of her power was ever revealed. This dead boy was a brother she never knew she had.

"They hate us…" she mumbled. "They all hate us."

No, dear, the Voice corrected. ‘They fear you. They are afraid of what you are capable of – of the great power locked within even the tiniest child born with the Art.

She listened as she watched the people dance round the flames, feeling them fill her heart and mind.

Fear is a curious emotion. It is the mechanism by which all life survives – we fear things that threaten us, with good reason, and so we avoid those things. But fear is also a tool to galvanize mortal minds – especially those that are weak, and dull. Those without aspirations to be greater than they are. These people need fear, and those that worship Amarata know this. And so, the tale of The Glance is born – the comforting lie that it is a malign art that corrupted the world and dominated the minds of all mortals. That it created the hybrids that roam Averix – unnatural abominations in the eyes of the Goddess’ followers. These things are feared, Amara, not because their nature is evil, but because they are not understood. Mortals are taught to fear. It is the only way they can be effectively controlled by those without the Power that flows in your veins.

Amara looked down at her dirt covered palm and flexed her fingers instinctively.

There’s only one way you can stop that fear, honey, the Voice whispered. One day, you’ll have to make this whole place your own. Tear it down, and rebuild it from dust.

A tiny flame blazed into life in Amara’s hand, and she watched it dance there under the light of the people’s fire, till finally only smoke and ash remained.