“I am the key? What cliche did I wake up to?” Amara laughed as she yanked against her chains. 

Joslyn sucked her teeth. “None of this is funny.”

Amara chuckled quietly. If it was not supposed to be funny, perhaps Joslyn should have phrased it differently. “Look lady, I am a Daughter of Athena. People will be looking for me, you can’t keep me here.”

“Anyone who would be looking for you is presumably dead, grievously injured, or far too busy to notice your absence.” Joslyn paused. “I know exactly who and what you are. Your outfit is not much of a disguise either. ” 

She knew this, which is why she did not like wearing it. Amara hated the outfit more than anything she owned. “Government issued, not my choice. But you would know that since you seem to know everything.”

“Obviously we have gotten off on the wrong foot. Now, I don’t want to keep you chained up in the basement as it is not my style. However, I will unless I know that you are not going to try and kill me as soon as I release you.” Joslyn eyed Amara curiously.

Oh, Amara wanted to hit her but that was all. Throttling Joslyn would not benefit her even if it would help her feel better in the interim. She did not kill humans, only dragons. So, unlike Joslyn and her merry band of misfits, she was not a murderer. Running would be easy, easier than anything if Amara knew where she was. Her curiosity was winning, who were the people that suddenly blew up her life and why did they take her? They could not all be dead, someone would find her eventually. She just had to play nice and bide her time while she still could.

Joslyn interrupted her thoughts, “I can sense your apprehension. As far as I can tell, you have no intention to leave; not that you’d get very far.” 

With a wave of Joslyn’s hand, Amara’s shackles fell to the floor. She rubbed her sore wrists and stood to stretch her legs. Without another word Joslyn walked away, Amara scrambled to follow. She was ready to be out of the dark basement. As they ascended the stairs, sunlight briefly blinded her. 

From what she could see, when her eyes adjusted, it was a pretty ordinary house. Much nicer than her run-down apartment. The stairs from the basement ascended into what Amara believed was a living room, walls painted the same burgundy as the large dragon’s scales. Everything else in the room was black: the furniture, the trim, and even the decorations. Amara wasn’t able to get a very long look at the inside of the house because Joslyn was intent on getting outside. When she reached the doorway, Amara’s mouth fell open at the sight. 

It was not as barren as she had once been told, on the horizon, Athena could be seen. The house she was in front of rested on a lush plot of land, with large trees towering behind it. Amara could see other houses in the distance, and hear the wanderings of feet upon the ground. This meant other people were living out here as well. When she looked back at Athena, she could see the smoke from the still-smoldering city center. 

“Beautiful isn’t it?” Joslyn’s voice carried from behind Amara.

“Where are we?” Amara turned to her. 

“New Chicago, well at least we hope that’s what it will become. After the dragons came, some people fled during the rebuild. So many of our rights had been slowly chipped away by the new regime. New Chicago was built with the hopes that the city of Athena and other cities like it could be overthrown.” Joslyn sat on her front steps.

New Chicago was not exactly a creative name, but Amara was in no place to judge. “What’s so wrong with the protocols? They were made to keep people safe.” 

Joslyn rolled her eyes. “You really are the government’s creation aren’t you? Athena is evil and so are its creations; that is why it needs to end.” 

Evil felt too strong a word, and Amara did not appreciate Joslyn’s accusatory tone. Of course the government created her, that did not mean she was blind. Athena was in constant disrepair, food often became scarce, and day by day they grew more and more overpopulated. However, she understood that such things were the cost of war, of keeping citizens safe in its borders. 

Amara tamped down the bite in her tone, “then who exactly are you supposed to be, our saviors? You just burned several city blocks to the ground.” 

“We are the Sacred Scales.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me? Make up for the fact that you likely murdered most of my siblings and many innocent people? Stop with the literal cloak and dagger and explain yourself, quickly.” Amara interrupted. 

Joslyn held up a hand, signaling for her to wait. “We are a rebellion, the rebellion, my dear. We believe the dragons are important, that they are meant to be worshipped, not destroyed–they came here for a reason. I am sorry about your siblings but forgive me if I do not mourn their deaths. The blood on their hands is equal to ours.”

“Don’t you fucking dare. We never, ever murder human beings.”

“Perhaps you haven’t, but you can’t truly believe that Athena created an entire army of enhanced beings like you, to only kill the occasional errant dragon.”

“You seem to forget that they attacked us, not the other way around.” Amara realized she had gotten awfully close to Joslyn in her fury, she backed up, putting distance between them. “Why now? You’ve been out here all this time. Keeping me alive doesn’t make much sense if you hate my kind enough to blow them to bits.”

“I wish I knew the answer to that,” Joslyn replied.  “Our mission was to destroy Headquarters along with all of the Daughters we could. Your presence here is just as surprising, and unsettling to me as it is to you.” Joslyn stood up, straightening out her cloak. 

Amara glared. Before she could ask anything else, Joslyn held her hand up again. “No more questions. I need to rest as I have spent most of my day waiting for you to wake up. Feel free to venture around but know that you are spelled and cannot leave this place. If you do, we will find you and we may not keep you alive the next time.” With a flourish of her tacky cloak, Joslyn went inside. 

Amara walked away from the home and into the woods behind it, interested to see what was hidden back there. When she stepped into the tree line, energy vibrated through her so strongly that her knees nearly buckled. It only grew stronger the deeper she went. Sigils were carved into the trees and Amara could feel them channeling some type of power, something stronger than anything she had previously come across.

She stumbled upon a path, against her better judgment, she decided to follow it. Better to die alone in these woods than be executed by heretics. There were several different sets of footprints embedded in the dirt path. It looked to be well-traveled. There were even more sigils as she followed the path up a small hill, which led to a very large cave. So deep that, to her eyes, it felt like the very absence of light. 

“Hello?” She called, her voice simply echoed back to her.

When no one answered, she entered with trepidation. As she dragged her hand across the stone wall, she felt a torch hanging on it. 

“Dife,” she whispered, lighting it and bringing much-needed light to the dark space.

Matching sigils were carved into the walls of the cave’s entrance. Further in, the sigils gave way to drawings. Ancient almost, at least older than most things Amara had seen in her training. There were small dragons, big dragons, and dragon eggs. Women watched over the dragon eggs and one of the largest dragons had a faceless woman riding it. The idea of anyone riding a dragon was ludicrous. She shook her head at the make-believe drawings as she walked past them. Deeper into the cave and came upon an altar. 

Carved from the very stone inside, its surface rough beneath her fingers. Forgotten candles dripped wax down the front and sides. Amara circled it, holding her torch as close as possible. Offerings of various herbs and fruits had begun to spoil, wine glasses were  meticulously placed all around one center object. A book, a tome made of cracking leather, clasped together with some kind of bone charm. She reached out, longing to touch it, knowing this was the source of the energy she felt; her hand met an invisible barrier. Her fingers tingled at their tips as she tried to push through. She pushed until they went numb from the effort.

A deep guttural roar broke her trance, the sound funneled into the cave and amplified tenfold. Amara dropped to her knees and covered her ears, hoping her eardrums did not explode. Sweat dripped from her forehead as fear seeped into her body. It had cornered her inside of the cave. Amara had walked right into a trap. She was smarter than this, she knew better, and yet there she was–primed to die.

Amara reached for her gun for the first time since she woke up, only finding empty space on her thigh. She cursed under her breath. Of course Joslyn took her weapons, no sensible person would leave a living weapon armed. Amara calculated her chances of survival, still crouched behind the altar. The tingling in her fingers gave way to a ringing in her head. A high pitched whine, like a microphone too close to its speaker.

“I mean you no harm.” A soft, feminine voice passed through Amara’s mind.

Amara shivered at the intrusion, her brain felt like there were tiny fingers caressing it. “Who is this?” she pushed her thoughts back to the entity as she gathered courage to leave the cave.

“I am Maiyara. You can come out, I am not going to hurt you.” 

Amara obliged, timidly stepping out into the light. Her gaze met the ice blue eyes of the burgundy dragon.

Maiyara elongated her neck and tilted her head down so Amara did not feel like she was being lorded over. “I am Queen of the dragons in this realm. The people of New Chicago like to call me Mother, though I am not particularly fond of it. What is your name?” 

Amara swallowed the lump in her throat before she spoke. Even after that she still barely croaked out her name. “My name is Amara. I am a Daughter of Athena.” 

“You mean you were a Daughter of Athena; things will be different now. At least for the sake of my species, I hope they will be. You were indeed created to be a Daughter of Athena, but that is not who you are my dear.” Maiyara turned her head so her eye was facing Amara. 

“It is all I have ever been.” Amara looked away from Maiyara, towards the ground hiding the irritation in her eyes. 

“Ah, but not all you ever have to be. Each one of us gets to choose exactly who we want to be. Even I, a giant cumbersome dragon, get to choose,” Maiyara grunted, the sound coming across as the equivalent of a laugh. 

“Why attack Athena now? Why do any of this at all?” Amara asked, stepping closer.

She grunted again but this time it could not be mistaken for a laugh. “Questions I cannot answer right now. All the pieces are still falling into place, and even I am not certain we can trust our murderer.” 

Before Amara could open her mouth to say another word, Maiyara took off from the top of the cave. The force of the air from her wings knocked Amara back, signaling the end of their conversation. 

The trek back was much shorter since she was quite eager to get out of the woods. When she finally broke past the barrier of trees, all the extra vibration she had been feeling dissipated. Finally she felt like she could breathe correctly and realized she was starving. Luckily, the smell of food wafted in her direction from the house, it was enough to make her mouth water, and heighten her hunger shakes. When she entered the front door, she saw Joslyn in a different outfit setting the table. The ripped blue jeans and simple black t-shirt made Amara wonder why she wore the cloak at all. 

“Come have a seat. I am sure you’re starving,” Joslyn spoke facing the table. “I figured you would have run by now if you were going to. Plus, I see you’ve met Mother.” 

Amara sat down at the table, eager to put sustenance into her body. “Where’s your cloak?” She asked while shoving a biscuit into her mouth.

“Ah, that is purely ceremonial wear. You woke up before I had a chance to change. It is far too hot to be wearing a cloak around all day,” Joslyn laughed.

It was absurd to be wearing a cloak at all. Amara said nothing as she served herself large helpings of food. Macaroni, fried okra, mashed potatoes, green beans, and more biscuits quickly filled her plate. They both ate in silence, though Amara ate with far less decorum than she usually did. Once she was done, she sat back wishing she had something to wear other than a skin-tight catsuit. 

As if reading her mind again, Joslyn spoke.  “I set out some spare clothes for you in your room. You are quite smaller than me but I managed to find some things that I think will fit.” Joslyn cleaned up the table and waved her hand. “Down the hall and to the left.” 

Amara took that as a sign of dismissal. The room designated as hers was painted and decorated in the same colors as the rest of the house, likely an ode to Maiyara. She picked up a pair of black jeans and a flowing black shirt. The jeans were a bit loose but she was grateful for them. Amara rested on the edge of the bed as she pulled the clothes on. 

She wondered if her apartment was still standing or if it had also been claimed by dragon fire. Maiyara seemed nice enough, but at the end of the day she was still a dragon. Every part of Amara’s instincts, her training, screamed to kill her. Her curiosity was getting the better of those instincts now that she had spoken with Maiyara. It was the first time she had ever conversed with a dragon. 

Her knowledge was limited to what she had been taught, no one told her they were able to communicate. They were always depicted as bloodthirsty beasts with a singular thought and goal in mind, to conquer and destroy. Amara hoped to speak to Maiyara again soon. While she was far from believing dragons were something to be worshipped, she did want to know where they came from.She lay back on the bed and shut her eyes, the events of the day and all of the food making her sleepy. Amara fell asleep dreaming of Maiyara and hoping answers would come soon. 

***