The Emperor (Dark Verse 3)

Part 1 – Breeze

“In the middle of the journey of our life

I found myself within a dark wood

where the straight way was lost.”

Dante Alighieri, Inferno

They were kissing.

Amara watched with wide eyes from behind the tree as Mr. Maroni’s son and the pretty girl with pink hair stood with their mouths joined. She had pink hair. Amara has never seen anyone with pink hair.

Tilting her little head to the side, she tried to see exactly what they were doing. She’d seen the heroes and heroines kiss in movies, but never in real life. Since her father wasn’t with them, she hadn’t seen him kiss her ma either.

Wait, were they eating each other’s lips?

Ew.

Nose wrinkling, Amara swiped her tongue over her lips just to test how it felt. Wet. Icky. Making a face, she kept watching, trying to understand with her tiny mind exactly why they were enjoying it so much. It wasn’t like she’d come to spy on them. Not at all. She’d just been walking in the woods (which she absolutely should not have been doing alone) when she’d come across a little shack. Curious, she had walked over to see it, and hidden behind a tree after seeing Mr. Maroni’s son and the girl.

The outside girl.

Amara was young but she knew the rules well enough to know that outsiders weren’t allowed on the compound. That was a new word she’d just learned last week – compound. Caum-paau-nd. That’s what they all lived on. She was allowed because her ma worked at the big house on top of the hill. But this outside girl? She really wasn’t supposed to be there. She could warn them. But why? Maybe they had permission. She was with Mr. Maroni’s son, after all.

And they were kissing again. Weren’t they getting tired? It looked so boring after the first few seconds.

Done with the show, Amara decided to go back home since it was already pretty late. The sun was almost set, the sky about to get dark, and the woods could get scary without light. And she was not supposed to roam on the compound after six ’o’clock; she’d get in trouble.

With that thought in mind, she started to run on her little feet back where the woods ended and the buildings began. The sky darkened and Amara panted, getting scared. She didn’t like the dark. She shouldn’t have stayed out so late. Her small body started to shake as she reached the edge of the woods, and tripping over her own feet, she went down hard. 

Ouch, it hurt.

Amara looked down at her knee below the hem of her skirt, bruised and throbbing, and winced. Ma said her pain threshold was low. That meant she felt more pain when she got hurt. Threshold was a new word for her too. Thresh-hold, she repeated in her head, seeing a drop of blood well up on the skin of her knee. Feeling sick, she looked up at the dark sky to not see the blood.

“Who’s there?” the voice of a man came from a distance, reminding her she had to hurry back home. She wasn’t supposed to be out on the grounds after dark, especially not on these parts of the compound.

Standing up, her injured knee wobbly, Amara hurried over to the building where she lived with her mother. As she went downhill towards her home, feeling the throb in her leg, Amara hated the Maroni grounds. Why did it have to be so big, and on a mountain? Hills were hard to climb and get down on.

“Sneaking out again, ‘Mara?” a boy’s voice from behind her startled her.

Almost falling on her behind again, Amara barely balanced and stopped in her tracks to greet Vin. He was her best friend, her only friend actually. And for some reason, he could never say her name right. She had always been ‘Mara to him.

“Vinnie! What are you doing sneaking around?” she demanded. Vin was just one year older than her – a fact he never forgot to remind her of – and he was wandering even though he wasn’t supposed to either.

Vin came beside her, an inch shorter than she was. She liked to tease him about that until he reminded her he was going to grow tall in a few years and she’d stay the same. Ugh, he annoyed her.

“I was training,” he said quietly, starting the walk downhill, taking her arm to help her. Okay, he was less annoying when he was being nice.

“What do you do in training?” she asked for the hundredth time, genuinely curious. He had begun ‘training’ – whatever that was – a week ago, the day after his eleventh birthday. She knew it had something to do with the big guns she saw the guards carrying, but nothing more. And Vin didn’t tell her what he did, no matter how many times she asked him.

He shrugged, glancing at the dark training building to the right, where he’d come from. Amara saw the building in the distance, seeing another boy limping down the hill but in the opposite direction, towards the lake. The new boy. Even though he’d been staying there for as long as she could remember, everyone still called him the ‘new boy’. She’d never met him, but from the way everyone talked about him, she knew he was dangerous.

“Have you talked to the new boy?” she couldn’t contain herself from asking.

“He’s been here five years, ‘Mara,” Vin reminded her. “He’s not new anymore.”

“I know,” she stepped over a stone. They were almost home now. “That’s just what everyone calls him.”

The light from the building showed Vin’s dark, floppy hair and dark eyes, his front tooth slightly crooked as he spoke. “He doesn’t talk to anyone. The kids don’t train with him.”

“He’s a kid too,” climbing the steps, Amara pointed out.

Vin shook his head, the hair on his forehead swaying. “He’s not like any of us. Stay away from him, okay?”

Amara looked at the lake in the distance. She’d never been to that part of the compound. Thinking of the angry boy who lived there, she didn’t even want to go. On the landing of the huge building where she and Vin lived – she on the ground floor and Vin on the third – she stopped him, excited to share her little finding from the day.

“I found a little shed in the woods today,” she told him, trying to keep her voice low so nobody would hear.

Vin, who had been looking up at the stars, looked at her with wide eyes. “You went to the woods alone? Are you crazy?”

“Shh,” she looked around, scared someone older would hear him. If the news got to her ma, she’d be grounded. She hated being grounded. After a second, when no one came, she relaxed slightly.

“The woods are dangerous,” Vin reminded her softly. That’s something every single adult around them had told every kid. Don’t go into the woods.

Amara rolled her eyes. “I didn’t go in deep.”

“But-”

“Oof,” Amara exclaimed in annoyance, punching his arm to shut him up. “I wasn’t the only one there. Mr. Maroni’s son was there too. With a girl,” she whispered, remembering the thrill of going into the woods, only to stumble upon the two teenagers.

Vin blinked, his eyes widening in excitement. “With a girl? An outsider?”

Amara nodded, grinning. Vin whistled. Or tried to. He practiced every day.

“They were kissing,” Amara informed him, her voice dropping even lower. “Kissing! Can you imagine? He was kissing an outside girl!”

Vin tugged at his collar, looking at the entrance door, looking uncomfortable. “That’s cool.”

Amara grinned. “Are you blushing?”

His chubby face flushed even more. “Of course not.”

Laughing, she nudged his side with her elbow and hobbled to the door. Ma always told her to never make people uncomfortable. Though Vin was her best friend, he was uncomfortable, so she stopped.

“Don’t go there alone again, okay?” he told her, entering the building behind her.

She went straight to her door and smiled at him. “Good night, Vinnie.”

He shook his head, heading towards the stairs, already knowing her well enough to know she would sneak out again. Amara watched his back under the lights in the hallway, seeing the bruise on his leg under his shorts turning a nasty color, but he wasn’t limping. She didn’t know what they were doing to train him, but she didn’t like it. Not one bit.

Angry at the thought of something hurting her friend, she opened the door to her apartment and entered the dim living room. It was late and her mother was most likely already asleep, tired from all the work she did during the day.

Her ma was the head housekeeper at the big mansion. She had joined as a cook in the kitchen and over the years gotten promoted. Now, she overlooked the entire kitchen and cleaning staff and the gardeners. And there were lots of them because the grounds were so big. It was one of the highest positions for the staff, which was why she had such a lovely apartment with three big bedrooms, even though it was just her and her mother. Her father had left them years ago. She remembered him sometimes, but she had always loved her mother more. As long as she had her ma, she was happy.

Making her way to the bathroom next to the living room where the first-aid kid was kept, Amara turned on the light.

“And where were you, young lady?”

Amara looked up at her ma, only a few inches taller than herself, her pleated hair falling over one shoulder. People said she looked like her – same dark green eyes, same inky black hair, same sun-kissed skin.

“I was walking with Vin,” Amara told her the half-truth, knowing her mother trusted Vin.

Ma shook her head, sighing, before her eyes fell to her knee. “Oh Mumu, what happened?” she asked, reverting to the little nickname she loved.

“I just fell, Ma,” she sat on the closed toilet seat, already knowing her mother would clean the little wound. As she thought, her mother quickly took out the box and got on her knees, putting Amara’s feet on her lap.

“Does it hurt, Mumu?” her ma asked her quietly. It did hurt. Amara shook her head. After her father left them, she had become her mother’s whole world. Any pain of hers, any happiness of hers, anything she felt, Ma felt. She was her other best friend.   

“Ma?” Amara broke the silence as her mother put ointment on her wound, wondering if she should voice her question.

“Hmm?” her mother started putting the box away.

“You know Mr. Maroni’s son?” she asked finally, feeling her face heat oddly. 

Her mother’s green eyes, so like her own, came to her. “Little Damien?”

Amara shook her head. “No, the older one.”

“Dante?”

Amara nodded, her heart thumping. Hopping down from the seat, she walked out to her bedroom as her mother followed, turning down the lights behind her. Amara walked to her closet and picked out her nightdress. She didn’t like to wear shorts or pants. Even for school, she preferred skirts and flowing dresses.

“Of course I know him,” her mother said. “Why?”

She sat on her bed as Amara stripped to her underwear with the pretty blue flowers and put on the simple cotton nightdress.

“I just saw him today, that’s all,” Amara tried to be casual as she climbed on her bed and sat in front of her mother. “You never speak of him.”

Feeling her mother’s hands in her long hair, Amara tilted her head back as the nightly braiding started. Braiding the hair at night, her mother always told her, made it more beautiful and healthy in the morning. For as long as she could remember, her mother had been braiding her hair every night, and every morning they were wavy and pretty.

“He’s a good boy, that one,” her mother told her, her hands moving.

Amara had seen him from a distance for as long as she’d lived. He had always been there, but she had never focused on how soft his hair looked or how tall he already was. She felt a little flutter in her belly and rubbed it to shoo it away.

“How old is he?” she asked, tugging at the hem of her nightdress.

“Fifteen,” her mother replied. “Poor boy lost his ma so young. He’s taken care of his brother since then. And Mr. Maroni is… a very strict man.”

Amara stared at the chest of drawers across from her, imagining how not having a mother must feel to him. Not very nice, she supposed. Kids should always have mothers like she did. Well, she could share hers.

“You should make him some sweets, Ma,” Amara commented, feeling the wisdom in her idea. “Cookies. The chocolate ones. Yes, he’d like that I think.”

Finished with the hair, her mother moved off the bed, letting Amara climb in. Pulling the covers over her, tucking them around her just as she liked, her mother smiled softly. It put a little dimple on her cheek that Amara wished she had. Vin told her she’d get one if she poked her finger into her cheek. So far, it hadn’t worked.

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Mumu,” she stroked her cheek softly. “I’ll do that tomorrow.”

Amara smiled, taking a hold of her ma’s right hand. It was rough and slender and not too big. She loved it. “Make me some too.”

Chuckling, her mother dropped a kiss to her forehead. “Don’t ever lose your heart, my baby.”

Amara didn’t really understand what that meant. How could someone lose their heart? Wouldn’t they die? It was such a strange thing to say. But she just smiled as her mother left the room, feeling happy and safe and loved.

Staring up at the ceiling, she blinked, remembering the kiss she’d seen. It had looked icky, but maybe doing it was more fun. Maybe that was why they had just kept kissing. Why would people kiss if it was boring, right? She must have been missing something.

The room was quiet, only the little melody of her nightlight beside her. Amara settled in and closed her eyes, deciding to read more about kissing to understand why people enjoyed it. Then, maybe one day, when she grew up and looked beautiful, she could ask Mr. Maroni’s son to give her one. He was very handsome. Maybe, he’d be nice and kiss her, after she became pretty enough to match his handsomeness.

His name was handsome too. Could names be handsome? In that quiet of the room, in that dark of the night, Amara giggled at the thought and tasted his name for the first time on her lips.

Yes, she decided. He would be her first kiss.