Amara

She watched the Argent girl for the whole journey through the sand dunes, feeling the warm winds turn into a biting chill as day turned to night. She’d leveled her gaze while the girl had healed Mendax’s eye despite his complaints – the residue of his broken, corrupted flesh breaking apart and re-solidifying till his eye socket was whole again.

“The eye will not come back,” the girl said plainly. “But the pain will linger no longer.”

“Hmpf,” Mendax grunted. Only Amara could tell that it was a gesture of approval, though he made sure to check his eye for signs of infection – as though the Argent had planted some explosive device ready to detonate at any minute there.

When she returned to her edge of the beetle’s hollowed-out carapace she focused her attention on her companion – the one she referred to as Marius. He looked scraggly, smug, and real creepy even in his sleep. Amara wasn’t exactly looking forward to his awakening.

The priestess and Mendax discussed some of the details of their journeys, Amara dropping in and out of the conversation. But at the points when this Argent – this Yelena – spoke up, now, then she was listening in, alright.

“You endured the tortures of your own kind with the pride of a warrior,” Mendax said as he heard about her apparent imprisonment. “It doesn’t mean I respect you or your kind. But I won’t question your strength.”

“’My kind,’” Yelena replied, cooly. “I’ve thought a lot about that phrase recently. Up on Averix, I was Firvak before I was Argent, down here I’m Argent before I am Firvak. Neither one paints me in a good light. For once, it would be nice to have someone ask me who I am.”

“You deny what you Argents have done to our world?”

She bit her lip, bit her answer was clear: “I do not deny that I have seen things I did not want to believe. But this is not our way. We have always devoted ourselves to the cleansing of the Glance, even at the cost of our own Brothers and Sisters’ lives.”

Her eyes darkened. Amara saw it: she was speaking from experience.

“Yet I now hold the weapon of my enemies in my own hands,” the girl continued. “I use it to strike down the evil that I always was taught dwelled in this place. Those I once called my greatest foes I fight beside. I do this because I know that the one you call Blackbird is the true evil of this place.”

“And he is coming from above,” the Red-Woman added.

Yelena nodded back. “Perhaps he was corrupted when he made his dive. Perhaps he already had viciousness in his heart. But he has corrupted the ways of my people just as he has torn your society apart. For that, I will stand with you and take the head from his shoulders.”

“Fair,” Mendax snorted. “But his head belongs to the Lightbringer. Prophecy says so.”

“It is saying the fate of the Blackbird shall be the Lightbringer’s choosing,” the Red-Woman corrected.

And then all eyes turned to Amara.

She sat back and breathed deeply the scents of the cooling sands, billowed and buffeted by the night air. When she turned her face to meet them there was only one pair of eyes she would look at.

“One of your people killed my friend,” she said to Yelena. “Up there.”

The girl’s blonde eyebrows rose. “A Glancer?”

“Does it matter?”

“No,” Yelena replied. “I suppose not.”

“I remember his face,” Amara went on. “How he laughed at us. How he beat her, and how he looked at me. It was like I was an animal.”

Yelena looked away.

“Arekis,” Amara finished. “That was his name.”

Now she suddenly had the Argent’s attention again.

“I know him. He was a Yok’ra without a heart. Without mercy,” she explained, casting a knowing look at the priestess for some reason. “I am sorry for what he did to you, and your friend.”

Amara leaned forward, suddenly overcome with rage. Her sight clamped down on the Argent’s pale face and nostrils flared with fury.

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Then, as quickly as it came, the flickering ember of her wrath died away. She sighed and sat back, closing her eyes to the girl and the whole world.

She remembered the way Mendax had cursed her when they first met. The way he had spat the word ‘Cha’lokk’ at her like it was a brand planted on her forehead. She remembered the words he’d said when she offered him apology

You don’t even know the meaning of the word.

She remembered too the hot flush of shame that had filled her as she considered this. She had said it to placate him. She had said it to get this ‘tool’ on her side.

But this girl wasn’t trying to win anyone’s favor. She was speaking as one who was realizing that the world was bigger than that which she’d seen above.

And that was something Amara could understand. So, it almost scared her to think that, when the girl was apologizing to her for her compatriot, she was actually speaking the truth.

If an Argent could do that, then she had to try to do the same.

“Don’t be,” she finally said through her sigh. “If he hadn’t killed my friend, I probably would have done worse to her.”

Pure silence. The girl stared back at her. The Red-Woman looked at the toes poking under her skirt, and Mendax dared not make eye contact with her at all.

"Lovely awkward moment to wake up to.”

The voice was hoarse, tinged with pain, and it had come from the huddled form of the rogue who had just risen as though from the grave.

“Welcome back, Marius,” Yelena said with a grin. “I see you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

“It’s about the only weapon I got,” Marius agreed, looking around him at all the assemblage.

“Marius of Corbeck,” he said to Amara and Mendax. “Enchantee.”

The Gnoll sniffed, totally unimpressed. “You an Argent, too?”

“Afraid not,” he said, stretching his long, rugged limbs covered in his torn leather armor. “I lack the honor nor the desire for magical bloodshed.”

“Well I can certainly count on you to make these people see us as good, normal humans,” Yelena remarked with a roll of her eyes.

“Yelena, I think we’re well past the point of normalcy at this point. It’s time to embrace the weirdness of the First Layer, methinks. Ain’t that right, Mendy?”

Amara stifled a laugh as Mendax’s eyes burned with fury.

“Call me that again,” he said. “And you’ll take a sand nap, rogue.”

“And thus you make another enemy, Marius,” Yelena said. “Well done. That must be a new record.”

Despite it all, they chuckled together – even the Red-Woman, Anthethra, who, from her demeanor, Amara had naively believed was actually incapable of cracking anything approaching a smile.

“Righto,” Marius said. “Now, be so kind as to let me sort out our loot from dear old Frezia. Personally, I believe the bow suits my taste. My stats clearly make this weapon tailor made for me. Disagree? That’s fine. Let’s put it to a vote. Now, before we begin our democratic process, I believe, as the one who fired the blow that ended the beast’s life, I deserve two votes to be used in this loot distribution decision. Now, with that settled, let’s…”

The rogue was not an honest man. She knew that as she looked over his scraggly form, unshaven face, and beady, twinkling eyes – eyes that felt like they were prospecting her for value. Eyes that seemed like their owner was examining each lock of her red-hair and considering what price it would fetch on the market.

You should not trust him, the Mother said. But you already know this.

She nodded mutely to her mom. It was good to hear her again, amidst all this craziness.

You did well, dear, she continued. You destroyed Frezia. You have found your true allies. These two shall be your true tools. The Gnolls are simply a means to an end.

Amara frowned. To what end?

To the end you are destined for. You must go below. And we only get below through the death of this Blackbird – the one they call Revok.

Amara turned her head towards the land in front of them, seeing the striking towers of what must be the Gnoll Stronghold rising in the distance.

Am I really ready for this? She asked her mother with silent fascination. For a war?

You are more than just ready, her mother replied with excitement. You are the catalyst itself. You will lead them against their enemy and they will win. They will live and die in your name, as long as you remain.

She winced at the thought, though she thought it best to keep it from her mother. The thought of Kimon dying to save her. The thought of Lokar losing his mind…

Come to think of it, they’d truly left him back there, hadn’t they?

What would become of him now, alone with his insanity, in the empty halls of the Scorpionness…

Think not upon that blathering dolt, her mother commanded with authority. And instead remember this: this woman - this ‘Yelena’ – this one is dangerous.

Amara turned back to the group, who were each lost in their own bubble of thoughts. Her eyes drifted from her knees towards the Argent girl, she got caught staring, and then instantly darted her attention back to her knees.

Who is she? Amara asked, quiet desperation filling her whole being.

And her mother’s response scared her more than she could have imagined: I do not know.

What?

Most denizens of this place weave their path in the threads of fate, her mother tacitly explained. But this one is not known to me. Not her face, nor the path she walks. I look at her through your eyes, but I cannot see. I see only a web of potential. A free radical – if such a thing can truly exist. She does not walk a set path.

Amara found herself looking at the girl again.

A free radical…

She is an unknown, her mother continued. And so, I can only caution you to tread lightly. She is strong, but should her power end up compromising your own rising strength…

Her mother let the implication lie.

And Amara was brough back into the reality in front of her by the sudden flash of Yelena’s eyes. She realized she’d been staring again.

“It is ok, Amara,” she said. “I’m used to it.”

“It’s just,” Amara began, knotting her brows. “Your face – it is…pale.”

Yelena looked at her for a moment before smiling.

“Well, that’s because I’m a Firvak,” she replied. “Have you ever seen one before?”

Amara shook her head.

“We are about as hated as Glancers like you are up on Averix,” Yelena continued with a sharp intake of breath.

“Is that why you wanted to be an Argent?” Amara asked, keeping her tone neutral.

“I never had a choice to not be an Argent,” Yelena replied, matter of fact. “No more choice, I think, than you had in being a Glancer.”

Amara sat back again, feeling the great beetle begin to slow its scurrying.

But you have a choice now, don’t you? She pondered. You must have one – you don’t have a destiny set out for you. You don’t have a whole people waiting to die for you.

And as the sandstone towers of the most pitiable castle Amara had ever seen now rose up before them, surrounded on all sides by a gyrating wall of sand, she heard her mother’s voice once more grip the back of her mind:

She is dangerous, Amara, she repeated. Be wary.