AMAIA

“NAME AND AGE.”

“None of your business,” Amaia snapped, her voice like brittle glass. “Every day it’s someone new asking the same thing. Ask the one who questioned me yesterday.”

The woman behind the desk stood up. Not rushed. Not angry. Just… deliberate.

She crossed the short space to Amaia’s chair, steps soft but echoing. There was something off about the way she moved. It was graceful, too graceful. Like those dolls on the market, mimicking a dance. But it really was the puppeteer pulling the strings.

Before she could flinch or recoil or even ready herself, the puppeteer pulled the string hard, and the woman’s hand cracked across Amaia’s face.

The slap came clean and sharp, a burst of heat and pain that lit up her skull. If it weren’t for the armrests, Amaia would have crumpled to the floor like broken lace.

She bit down hard on her lip, swallowing the cry that rose to her throat. Her eyes stung with tears, but she refused to let them fall. Her cheek throbbed. She could feel the bloom of pain there, swelling like something alive.

But she wouldn’t touch it. Wouldn’t give the woman the satisfaction.

There was a skilled artist behind her too, holding the strings steady.

The woman returned to her seat behind the desk, her every movement smooth, composed, almost ritualistic. She placed her gloved hands on the polished surface. White gloves. Cold authority dressed in civility.

“Name and age,” she said again, voice calm, impersonal.

Amaia swallowed her pride with her spit. The taste was bitter, metallic. But she didn’t make her wait. The puppeteer pulled her head up, so she could look the woman in the eye.

“Amaia,” she said. “Everyone calls me Ama. I’m eighteen.”

The woman smiled, but it wasn’t a smile that meant kindness. It was the kind of smile you see in paintings of gods punishing mortals.

“Your father is Nemeth,” she said rather than asked, just stated, like reading the label on a jar. “And you have a brother, Ademund. He should be sixteen now.”

“Had,” Amaia whispered, lowering her gaze. “I had a brother.”

“My condolences,” the woman said, without even pretending to care.

Amaia said nothing.

She remembered what her father used to say: Don’t show all your cards, Ama. Let them guess. Let them work for it. Especially if they’re your enemy.

And this woman, this machine wrapped in that same strange fabric they gave Amaia to wear; that woman, a living sculpture of order and discipline, was undoubtedly her enemy.

Her father used to say something else too. Something stranger. The Black Moon will rise, and when it does, we must be ready for when it comes.

She never fully understood what he meant. It had always sounded like myth. Like prophecy. He believed his whole live, that this will turn the tide of the world. That it will shake its pillars. The gods will fall and their rule with them.

But now, with everything crumbling, with grief and pain hanging from the ceiling like smoke… she wanted it to come.

She wanted the Black Moon.

THE FIRE WAS DYING OUT. Dull embers blinked like tired eyes under the weight of ash. Amaia sat wrapped in silence, but she could feel his gaze. She knew Yanick was watching. Even from across the camp, even with the others sprawled around him, bundled in furs like cocoons, she was certain he was awake.

Everyone else slept. But not him. Not after what he’d done. No one with a soul could sleep after something like that. And yet…

Her heart still whispered his name. Betrayer. Murderer. Yanick.

Farther off, near the edge of the trees where the horses were tethered, Rayla lay alone. She hadn’t eaten with them. She hadn’t spoken a word. She’d simply spread her bedroll in the dirt like it didn’t matter and vanished into her sleep like a ghost.

There was no doubt to whether she was asleep. Of course she was. Rayla wouldn’t be troubled by nightmares. One more death meant nothing to her. A monster like that didn’t even blink at blood.

Amaia closed her eyes for a moment, forcing herself to think of anything else. Anything but the image of her brother lying in that pool of red. His limbs at impossible angles. His face empty of breath.

She focused instead on the rope binding her legs and arms. One end of it attached to a tree. 

At that tree stood the boy guarding her. In fact he was leaning against it. Heavily. Koleth was his name. The one who always worked his mouth. Even in the dark, Amaia could see how much it cost him just to stay upright. He looked ready to fold in on himself. They hadn’t stopped riding since the night before. Not really. Only once, briefly, at the river to refill their water. And then on again, hooves pounding, fatigue weighing down every moment.

Several times, that tall man they called Big Mike had ridden up to Rayla, muttering something. Rayla then snapped at him, sharp like a beast, her arms slicing the air with annoyance, gesturing too much. Afterwards, she’d bark orders for everyone to dismount and walk, so the horses could rest.

Amaia remembered the last time they stopped. Rayla and Mike had argued for nearly half an hour. Rayla may have commanded the group, but Mike… he seemed like the only one with any sense. Even someone like her had to listen to reason. Eventually.

“Get some sleep,” a voice murmured.

Amaia turned her head slightly.

Big Mike wasn’t talking to her. He was addressing the boy by the tree.

He tapped gently on the boy’s shoulder. It took a moment before  Koleth understood, his brain sluggish with exhaustion.

“Go on,” Mike repeated. “You’re done.”

Koleth nodded in thanks, dragging his feet as he moved toward the others. He didn’t even bother with a blanket, just collapsed onto the ground and passed out like a stone dropped into mud.

Amaia’s own body felt like it had been hollowed out. The riding. The walking. The crying. All of it.

She was too tired to think, too broken to sleep.

Big Mike came closer, added a few logs to the fire, and watched the flames grow. The warmth reached her legs like a quiet breath.

Then he pulled something from his belt. Something that looked like a strip of cloth or leather. Big Mike tapped his fingers against it a couple of times, then slid it over his eyes like a blindfold.

Amaia frowned. How could he see anything with his eyes covered?

But somehow, Big Mike moved easily through the camp, stepping over limbs and satchels, circling them like a watchful guardian. Or a shadow.

When he finished his round, he came to sit beside her.

Even seated, he loomed tall. Solid.

He draped a fur cloak over her shoulders without asking. The weight of it was comforting in a way she didn’t expect.

“You holding up?” he asked softly.

She didn’t answer. Just stared into the fire, jaw clenched.

“I know you’d probably rather I left you alone,” he said after a pause. “But I want to tell you a story. A bedtime story, I guess. Might help you sleep. You should try to rest. We’ve got a few more days ahead of us.”

Still, Amaia said nothing.

He continued anyway.

“During the Great War,” he began, his voice barely more than a whisper, “I served in the same unit as Yanick’s father. I’m not proud of what we did back then. But we followed orders. Terrible ones. All in the name of the Black Moon.”

Amaia didn’t react, didn’t move. But her throat ached from the effort of holding back tears.

Big Mike went on.

“There was a village,” he said. “We rounded everyone up. The cleansing. We’ve been told to call it the cleansing. Men, women, children. Maybe a hundred in total. We were to take them to a barn on the outskirts. Always the furthest building, so the fire wouldn’t spread to the rest of the town. That decision wasn’t ours. It came from above.”

Amaia’s breath caught.

“I was walking in the rear with Erick. I mean with Yanick’s father. In front of us was a man carrying a child, maybe five years old. His wife had been killed earlier, during the initial sweep. I remember because he begged for her life. She’d spat in the officer’s face. And that officer buried his mace in her head.”

He paused, the silence stretching like a wound.

“As we walked, Erick tripped the man. Sent him crashing into the tall grass. Then he bent down and whispered something I couldn’t hear. The next second, he started screaming and stabbing the ground like he’d lost his mind. The man used the moment to crawl away with the child. Toward the forest. Eric was already covered with blood of the people we slaughter earlier. No one questioned whether he killed that man or not.”

Amaia turned her head, slowly.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked. Her voice cracked.

Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes and trailed down her cheeks.

Mike didn’t look at her.