Amina of Okha is an aberration. She is young, inexperienced, cast out by her kin, and the whole of the Agraw Imgharan despises her. Her rule should not be.
The jewel of the desert never stopped shining. Her lights shone through the sky even in the middle of the night. The sound of automobiles roaring through the city's arteries and of the wind howling between the great adobe structures across the city gave Agnannet her breath and her life. All that sound and light stopped dead at the walls of the Carnelian Palace, nestled as it was deep within the city center in a wreath of avenues and skyscrapers juxtaposed against the austere and ancient aspect of the palace complex. Even the punks peeling out through the streets, blasting their Mutulese phonk mixes and laying into the horn could not penetrate the thick stone, brick and adobe walls. Those walls swallowed every sound, blocked out the lights of the shining jewel. The Carnelian Palace's own lights were often dimmed these days, most of the complex languishing in disuse. The only signs of life during the way were the glints of scopes and the occasional muzzle peering from the darkened windows of the upper floors, betraying the royal guards who held the complex like a desert fortress beset by danger. It was beneath the palace far away from the outside and from the open air that there was life in the Carnelian relic, within the old servants quarters and the massive kitchens with their thick brick walls and archways, all dug in below grade and well protected from the outside.
Here the royal guards and their master, the infamous Kubra Lamine, were bivouacked. Their provisions acquired directly from army stocks were piled high in pantries that once held only the finest delicacies of the Scipian continent, their vast arsenal of firearms and munitions filling up the cavernous spaces of the old kitchens. And it was here, under the palace, that the old escape passages dug out by paranoid kings of a bygone eras opened up into the complex. For those holding out in the Carnelian fortress against powerful political enemies circling outside, this was the only egress, a sole lifeline to the outside for those who could be shot if they appeared in the open. On the night of 8th of December, it was Amina N'Okha's only way in.
Her footfalls thundered through the vaults, the echoes of one step overlapping with the next so she seemed almost to be sprinting. The royal guards escorting her in were left behind, slowed down by the ballistic vests laden with kit strapped tightly over their formal outfits and by the heavy military rifles they held in their tattooed arms. It was necessary to watch the Queen here, in the depths of the royal hive. The only place in Charnea she could be safe. There were guards at every door, behind every corner. Amina approached one at random.
"Where's Kubra?" she asked him, after a pause to find her breath. When the man looked at her through narrowed eyes, she restated.
"Where is your master?"
"In her room," answered the man, with a slight hesitation, his body turning by instinct as if to point in the direction of the servant's quarters, though the brick and earth that stood before him.
"Thank you." The words seemed to escape Amina against her will. The guard looked at her quizzically, his eyes following her as she left him and made for the servants barracks.
Behind the large vaulted spaces of the kitchens were the places where once the dutiful servants of the lords of Charnea were to live. The rooms were small and bare, resembling monastic cells, with narrow windows opening to the inner courtyards of the palace high up near the ceilings. The men were packed in to these rooms two by two like prison inmates, which many of them had indeed been at a point in their lives. Master Kubra's cell was an especially small one, too small to house more than a single person as it was squeezed between the palace air-cooling earth tubes and the buried portion of the outer wall. The white paint on the walls and ceiling was older than the other rooms too, cracking in places.
When Amina reached the door and turned the knob, she felt a chill down her spine. She understood why as she opened the door to be met by the sight of Kubra meeting her gaze as if she'd anticipated her arrival.
Kubra Lamine was, unlike Amina, of shorter stature with a diminutive physique. Amina had caught her in a white undershirt and a pair of loose fitting pants. Kubra's body had been a canvas for violence for decades, and now told the story of a woman who had passed through the bowels of the Agnannet slums and Adhasna prison and emerged alive, if not unscathed. Most striking of her features was a long winding scar that ran up her right arm like a snake, the eight pointed star tattoo on her left shoulder marking her as a Syndicate captain, and the unmistakable slash twisting across her partly bulging and misshapen left cheek, the very wound that had left her with a clear lisp. She was some 60 years old now and her hair was well on its way to turning the color of salt, her skin adopting the paradoxical rough gossamer texture of an elder.
Kubra sat on her bed with a cigarette smoldering in her hand, a silent conversation between the two women as Amina stood motionless in the door, her narrow gracile build barely occluding the light from the passage beyond. The corner's of Amina's eyes twitched, approaching a pained expression of pity she dared not show in its entirety, to which Kubra nodded ever so slightly in acknowledgement. She knew her brother was dead, the news had reached her some time before Amina had even landed in Agnannet.
"You don't look disturbed..." began Amina, before trailing off. Kubra exhaled softly before raising her cigarette to her lips and taking a drag.
"We weren't close," she responded, with wisps of smoke puffing from her mouth as she spoke. "What do you want," she asked, with a certain bite to her tone.
Amina stepped into the small room, letting the door close behind her. Inside there was only a small bed, a small table and chair, with a cabinet wedged between the foot of the bed and the wall. The air was thick with the smell of cigarette smoke, the open window above the bed doing little to ventilate the cramped quarters. Amina took the chair and turned it around, to sit facing the old woman.
"I need your help," she said. "I'm in danger, real danger."
Kubra sighed, turning for a moment to press the remains of her cigarette into a ceramic ash tray atop the cabinet.
"You have been in danger all these years, it's no different today," she said, with a dismissive gesture.
"With...the Martial dead, I have no support, and only your men to protect me. I need to do something but I don't know what. I need your advice."
"What of the Cobalt Square?" asked Kubra.
"I've been among them with Hamath," answered Amina. "Their loyalty lay with Martuf, they respected him not me. I'm part of his plans but I can't say how long they'll stay faithful to his will. I need to make alliances, and quickly. I know that much, but...who do I go to, what do I say?"
"Amina, I'm not a politician. Go ask someone else."
"I don't have someone else!"
Kubra's jaw tensed in apprehension as Amina fell into a silence, stunned by her own admission. The young woman sat back in the chair, lowering her gaze to the orange tile floor and letting out a sharp exhale. It took her some time to regain a semblance of composure. Kubra remained totally motionless. When Amina raised her eyes again, there was a certain anger within them accentuated by the nearly-yellow hue of her amber pupils and the lingering redness of a series of sleepless nights.
"I have been here half my life, and in that time I have come to hate you Kubra. I'm like a dog to you, you work me like one, you beat me like one. You treat me like dirt, below your other recruits. And with all that, its a cruel irony that you're the only one I can rely on now."
"Gods above..." muttered Kubra as she realized what Amina was saying, throwing her neck back and staring blankly in the ceiling for a long moment.
"I can trust you, can't I." It seemed a question but Amina said it forcefully, like a statement. She already knew the answer, or so she hoped. "I thought you were here out of loyalty to your brother, like the Square. But he's dead and you're still here. You want to be here, don't you."
Kubra didn't answer for a long moment. Amina knew she'd heard her, that she'd taken in her words, but could only wait in tension as the scarred elder processed the roiling thoughts unseen behind her expression of stone. She knew she'd gambled it all challenging the likes of Kubra so directly.
"Yes," she answered finally, "you can trust me."
When she saw the visible relief on Amina face, she added "Just don't ask me to 'be there' for you. I'm not your mother."
"So...what do I do?"
"I ask again, what of the Cobalt Square," answered Kubra, "If they're disloyal, what will buy their fealty to you? What are they after?"
Amina sat up straight again, unconsciously making a fist with her right hand resting on the table as she thought on it.
"They want power, I suppose."
"Specifically, Amina. What do they want," asked Kubra more forcefully.
"They resent the Great Clans, the patrons, the corruption of the high command" she replied, "But what about it? What can I offer them?"
"Ah, they want a chance to rise up in the ranks then," realized Kubra, nodding. "You'll need to side with them. Demand meritocracy in the army, and get your people into the high command."
"The Martial tried that already, he was blocked within the clans' officers. Whatever he ordered, it wasn't carried out and he lacked the authority to force it through."
"That doesn't matter," said Kubra, shaking her head, "so long as the Square sees you're willing to fight for them even without Martuf holding your leash, they'll know to back you."
"Will they really offer their loyalty so cheaply?"
Kubra frowned a little, then smirked.
"No, but it's a start. You can begin earning their respect from there, that is the most important if you want to stay alive."
Amina nodded. She was beginning to understand that Kubra knew little of the machinations of her brother, or the halls of power in Agnannet, but that she seemed to understand perfectly how to maneuver a dangerous field. Amina hoped she would also know how to win loyalty, as she had seen her accomplish with these convicts turned royal guards all around her. She stood up, gathering herself.
"Not going to sleep after this, are you?" asked Kubra.
Amina smiled.
"Of course not. There's so much to do in no time at all."
As Amina turned and left, Kubra rose from her bed. She pushed the chair back under the table, then she stood there with her gaze fixed squarely on the rifle sitting on three wooden pegs over the doorframe. It was an old Elatian K-48 battle rifle, leftover stock from the Ninvite War and it looked like it. The wooden stock and foregrip were was worn down as the scope and the action were shiny and new. It was Kubra's rifle, the very weapon that had taken the lives of her closest associates in the Syndicate, and many more besides.
Kubra sat on her bed, her eyes wondering to the ashtray perched on the edge of the cabinet beside her. She looked at the number of cigarettes squashed into the ashes and wondered how many lives she'd taken for so little. She wondered what it would feel like to kill for a cause.