Amara

This Dimedrious wasn’t fooling around. Amara could feel her body will her forwards as they reached the edge of the Yarrukian forest. One their way, their only foes to contend with had been white wolf packs that were easily dispatched, or intimidated into flight, by her gargantuan guardian. Yet others lay down and kissed the snows as they tread past them – strange wolves unlike the rest of the hungering packs they encountered – each one had long, dark scars running down its eyes. Dimedrious didn’t seem too intent on letting them live either way. In fact, it looked like he went out of his way to end them as quickly as possible.

Which struck Amara as odd. It almost looked like they were letting her pass, and yet, Dimedrious fervently denied their surrender.

But such thoughts were pushed from her head the moment she snuck through the final treeline and felt her breath catch in her throat.

There it was.

She’d only ever heard rumors of the great gate rising up out of the snow to meet the heavens their creator had flew off to. As she thought, the stories were half-truths – no great Titans holding the gate up in the earth, but two snow-capped mountains stretching out in the horizon. She couldn’t even see their peaks. As she looked closer she saw something that sparked disgust in her marrow: the great onyx chains composed of starmetal that served more as a warning than an architectural feature. A warning that those of her kind would never escape from this place.

Yet she felt drawn towards it, even as she knew what it represented to the outsiders. To them, it was a place where the old troubles of the world were locked away and secured.

For her, it was the promise of the life she was born to live.

Her dry mouth shuddered to see the sight. She fought against the desire to drop to her knees and scream in joy. Despite it all, she had made it. She had passed the test.

‘Mom,’ she said aloud. ‘I’ve done it.’

No answer.

She slowly planted a foot on the snowfield that stretched out before her.

‘This is as far as I go.’

The voice came from the hound behind her, stepping out of the forest and breathing a final, heavy sigh. Whether it signaled relief or resignation, Amara didn’t know.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Goodbye.’

She said the words, but neither she nor the great hound moved an inch.

The snowfall played lazily across their faces.

‘Changed your mind?’

‘Why didn’t you kill those hybrids?’ she asked.

He seemed surprised by the question.

‘I told you,’ he replied. ‘There’s been enough death today.’

‘They’re going to come for you now, aren’t they? Your people – the Argents.’

She said the word with barely concealed hatred. She knew he’d heard it as he answered her.

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‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘They are.’

The wind picked up and rustled the frozen leaves of the trees.

‘You should’ve killed them.’

‘Maybe I would have, if I’d never found her.’

She heard the admiration and the longing in his voice. Just who was this ‘Yelena’ girl, anyway?

‘Look,’ he grunted. ‘I don’t know you. I don’t know what you’ve seen out there. I can make guesses. I can try to understand. But truthfully, that ain’t what I’m interested in, and it’s not what matters. When I was your age, I was full of hatred too, and definitely wouldn’t listen to an old fuck like me.’

She felt him turn and retreat back into the forest.

‘But I’ll say this: hate this world if you like. But don’t hate the people that live in it. There’s good out there, believe me. You’ve just gotta look for it.’

She heard his footprints begin to crunch into the snow.

‘Sometimes you can find it in the darkest places.’

She stared at her feet, then back at the gate that heralded the way to the world beyond. She felt the call of the abyss urge her forward more than as tried to wrap her head around his words.

But before his footprints totally disappeared from behind her, she turned and shouted back to him.

‘Amara!’

He barely turned his head to acknowledge her.

‘My name,’ she clarified. ‘You asked what it was before.’

Then she stepped forward to meet her destiny without waiting for a reply.

For his part, Dimedrious stayed for a moment and watched her march like a soldier towards the gate, borne inexorably towards the hellhole that had taken in the worst of the world but rejected him.

He allowed a smile to play across his face.

‘Keep your promise, Amara,’ he whispered to himself, before disappearing back through the oaken bars of the frozen forest.

…

The closer she got to the gates, the less she even felt the cold nipping at her wounded limbs.

Subconsciously she’d broken into a run without realizing it, tripping over her bandaged leg as she trudged forward through snow and sleet towards the gates.

As she drew near she saw their invisible beauty unveiled – their shining onyx skin was reflecting the stars of the night sky back at her. She could almost cry in the wave of excitement that was rushing over her. This was The Everloft’s welcome. It was offering her a star-studded sky.

She sank to her knees when she finally reached them, and her hand struck out to gingerly touch the gates to the new world. Her world.

My daughter, the Voice boomed in her mind. Welcome home.

Mom!Her brain all but screeched. You’re alive!

I told you I would be with you always, child. I do not lie.

Amara listened intently as the great gates grunted open, pushing through eons of snow and letting her see the icy corridor that led to the waiting abyss.

You have done well, Amara, Mother said. You have clawed your way to your birthright, defeating all obstacles that have been cast in your way. Now, step forward and meet your fate.

Amara did as she was bid, and with every step she felt the ground itself react to her billowing flame within. There was a sound – like the beating of war drums – that heralded every inch of progress she made before she saw the great caping chasm cut into the throat of the earth. The Everloft, sitting at the bottom of two great glacial walls, dominated her entire vision. Its ghostly appendages rose to meet her.

She clenched her fists. Feeling the flame roam freely through her veins, almost completely unbound.

She thought of her father, of the two cat-slavers, the farmer and the town guard in Milport, all of them victims of her own quest for greater strength. All of them mere stepping coals on her path to power.

Then her mind suddenly flew to think of Anna – of the warmth of her skin pressed up against her, and of her traitorous body roasting beneath the burning wooden beams of her pathetic house.

They did not know you, sweetheart, her Mother whispered inside her skull. They thought to use you for their own gain, as all mortals do, but you showed them what power really is.

She stared at the tiny flames flickering across her palm.

Can I really burn it all down, mom? She asked.

As the tendrils of The Everloft beckoned her ever closer, she heard her mother chuckle in her mind.

Child, she said. You have only begun to see what feats you can perform. But it is only the strongest that make it to the deepest depths of the abyss. There is where you answer awaits, Amara. I cannot guide you to places where not even my mind can reach. But I can tell you that, with your indomitable will, your enemies won’t know what hit them.

She balanced herself on the edge of the great pit, seeing the seething dark tendrils writhe within. She did not close her eyes.

So, take the plunge, my daughter.

She jumped.

What happens next, only you can decide.