The first time I saw his face, I was planning to kill him. 

I can remember it so clearly. He was young, his back broad and arms thick from working in the coffee fields of Brazil. He had a strong jaw and bright eyes, his skin darkened from labor in the sun. Attractive, and of suitable age. He displayed all of the base characteristics of the weaker sex: aggression, pompousness, arrogance. He was the perfect choice.

I watched him from the jungle, leaves obscuring my body, melding into the background of green foliage as I followed him home. Nobody ever noticed me. I had been trained and prepared for that moment. 

The moment I would follow him home, seduce him, and get rid of him. 

But I had failed.

#

“Elena,” Kaiala says. She sits above me, her golden dress encircling her shoulders and draping over her long body in waves. The life tree, dripping with fruit, is woven into the bodice. Her throne nestles in the trunk of a great Kapok, its bark grown into a seat rather than being cut into one with a human’s rudimentary tools. Vines fall around her, the leaves of our rainforest offering us cover. The other Amazons stay to the edge of the trees, leaning against them while I stand in the center. Unprotected. 

I keep my shoulders back, head high. I am unaccustomed to the shame that pricks at the back of my eyes, but I force myself to meet Kaiala’s gaze. 

The coarse brown garments they put on me chafe against my breasts and hips. The skirt comes to my knees, as is custom, but it does nothing to protect me. I miss my armor, but I am not here to be protected. My hands are empty, my spear torn from my clenched fist. 

“Do you understand the charges brought against you?” Kaiala’s eyes are fixed on mine. “Do you realize the seriousness of what you’ve done?” 

“I extended mercy,” I say. 

“You risked us all.” Kaiala doesn’t sound angry. More disappointed. Our sisters had lived in the secret places of the world for hundreds of years, and now I have placed them at risk of exposure. “You know what we must do.” 

The urge to please her, to throw myself at her feet and beg for forgiveness, is overwhelming, but I try to contain it. “Please.” The word bursts from my mouth as though seeking escape. “Don’t kill him. He knows nothing.” 

Kaiala shakes her head. “It is the law. Do you think we would make an exception for you because you loved him?” 

I drop my hand to my round, bare belly. The life that exists there fills me with joy, but that is not the issue here. “I accomplished what needed to be done,” I say. “My daughter will be brave and wise.”

“You did not answer my question.” Kaiala’s beautiful brown eyes are not without kindness. They look at me with the same love and belonging that I’ve felt my entire life. My mother had those eyes, as did many of my sisters who surround us. How could they be full of such love, understanding, and compassion for me and our clan, but not realize that same emotion could be shared and given to others?

And how would I ever be able to explain? 

“I beg you to spare him,” I say. “It is not for myself that I ask.” 

Kaiala’s eyes narrow. Murmurs spread around us as the other Amazons whisper to each other. I do my best to remain tall and strong, but a little of that shame starts to curl my shoulders inward. 

“Explain,” Kaiala demands. 

Where to begin?

#

When I’d followed the man from the fields to his home, I hadn’t noticed the poverty. The city was dark, which made it easy to sneak unseen through streets littered with trash. Tiny houses of various colors were crammed into the mountainside, begging for space. Children played in the muddy ruts in the road while their mothers stared at them with hollow eyes. The road, wide enough for trucks, narrowed until it would barely fit a laboring mule. 

I was callous towards their suffering. The rainforest we had claimed as our own was a perfect protection against such human difficulties. I had been watching the man for weeks, studying his patterns, his weaknesses, and with them my understanding of his kind had increased. I’d heard stories, but seeing their degradation for myself had solidified my opinion of mankind. They were good for one thing, and that thing only. 

Yet, upon reaching the man’s home, even I couldn’t deny its destitution. I watched him push aside mud and wood in order to crawl inside his hovel. I peered through a window with no glass into a dim room lit only by a small oil-burning lantern.

An old woman sat in the corner, her hair wispy and thin as it hung in her lined face. The man walked to her, put his arm around her, and gently kissed her on the cheek. 

“Home at last, little man?” the woman said, her eyes sharp and twinkling despite their age. The man sighed and shook his head, rolling his eyes. 

“How are you, avó?” he asked. “And I’m not little anymore.” 

“If I do not call you little, who will?” the grandmother said. “Your head is too big!” 

I tensed at this. I had seen him throw beer bottles at his companions for such slight insults. If he attempted to harm the woman, I would have no choice but to intervene. I could not allow such violence against a woman, even if she was only human. 

But to my shock, the man chuckled, his eyes shining with a light I had never seen from him before—one I had yet to see from anyone of his sex. He disappeared behind a ragged curtain and returned with a hairbrush. Then, kneeling, he began to gently brush the old woman’s hair. 

“I do not know why I put up with you,” he said, his eyes crinkling in the corners. He brushed her hair back from her face. 

“Because you respect your elders,” the woman said with a cackle, but love shone from her as she leaned into his touch.

I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. Was this the same man I had been following? The man who had knocked someone’s tooth out in a fight just the day before? Who screamed and cursed with the fluency of habit, throwing his head back and laughing boisterously as though he hadn’t a care in the world? 

Yet he cradled the old woman gently, as though she were something precious. 

I listened as he sang to her and fed her, his bulging muscles and hard-lined face suddenly soft, melting into expressions and mannerisms I could barely understand. She patted his cheek, love shining from her eyes.

“You’re a good boy, Gabriel,” she told him, her hand cupping his chin.

“Only you think so, avó,” he whispered, then kissed her palm and pulled away. 

I was supposed to take him to my bed that night, but found I couldn’t do it. 

#

“There is a woman,” I say. “An elderly woman who needs him. How can we abandon our sister and kill her caregiver?”

A few of the younger Amazons look shocked, their eyes widening as they turn to each other. I can hear their disbelief. Many have never been beyond the forest which bears our name, have never seen a man. But we all know men weren’t strong enough to care for other people. I can’t blame them for doubting me; the idea of a male caregiver is still strange for me as well. I would not have believed it myself if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. But the older Amazons just look sorrowful, as though they know how my story will end. 

Kaiala’s expression changes to one of pity. 

“Was he a good caregiver, Elena?” she asks. 

I want to defend him. But smoke comes to mind. Little blue pills and a short temper. Tears. 

I look away.

“Tell us what happened, child,” Kaiala insists. 

“I did my duty,” I mutter.

#

I berated myself for becoming so distracted and approached him the next day. Knowing he was caring for the aging woman had spiked my interest rather than depleted it. We were a warrior race, and therefore those with the qualities closest to the war god’s were considered desirable. But there was something fascinating about a man who could break someone’s skull choosing to comb her hair instead. 

I wanted to know more, to understand how this man, who was so full of arrogance and pride, could also be as soft and caring as a mother with her new child. I justified it, thinking that if he was so kind to his aged relative, then perhaps our daughter would be both strong and loving. Perhaps she’d be an Amazon beyond anything we had ever seen. 

He was, of course, enthralled with me. I am descended from the gods—my beauty, like that of all of our kind, exceeds that of human women, and it took very little to seduce him. He handed over his heart without objection. My own was untouched by the hyperbolic stories he told or the simple gifts he crafted in his attempt to gain my affection. He resisted bringing me to his home, instead begging to show me off to his friends. I refused. The law dictated that I was to remain unseen by anyone but the man I had chosen as mate, and I was uninterested in any humans beyond the man and his grandmother.

I followed him home to watch as he carefully made feijão, the simple dish of seasoned black beans he shared with his grandmother. He enchanted me when he brushed her hair, bantered with her, and laughed. He was patient, even kind. The strength his sex so often neglected was on display every second he was with his elder, and I couldn’t understand why he refused to let me in, to see her in person.

But he was embarrassed. He didn’t want to bring me to his home. The more I insisted, the more brisk he became. When I finally managed to convince him to allow me inside, he apologized uncomfortably whenever his grandmother was in the room. He started hiding her behind an old dirty curtain when I visited, wanting more and more time alone with me. 

It was all horribly . . . dissatisfying. 

#

“I distracted him from his duties,” I say. “I should never have chosen him as a mate. I should have left him to take care of his grandmother, but he is a man, and once he knew me . . .” A small smile can’t help but curl my lips, even as I loathe myself for it. I look up at Kaiala and see the same understanding in her face. We are Amazon. Men cannot help being attracted to those superior to themselves. 

“I had already become pregnant with my daughter.” I touch my belly again, feeling the small kick there. “I thought that if I left, the man’s attention would return to his duty. He didn’t know who I was. He didn’t know where I came from. I didn’t think it would be a difficult transition.” 

“Your duty called upon you to end the father’s life, so he would be unable to tell anyone about us,” Kaiala reminds me. She no longer looks sympathetic. I had broken the law. I must be punished. “Your duty was to kill him.” 

“He needs to care for his grandmother,” I say. “He will not come looking for me.” 

“You underestimate man’s desire for the pleasures of a woman,” Kaiala says. 

I bow my head, no longer able to meet her eyes. “Yes, I did.” 

#

Once I left him, I hadn’t intended to ever return. I knew the law; I knew I risked banishment, debasing my name and that of my line by letting him live. But how could I slaughter a man who had the capacity for kindness? I didn’t love him, no. What Amazon could love a man? But I loved the love he had for the woman under his care. I loved the way she looked at him, as though she knew he would never let her down. 

I couldn’t stay away. I found myself hiding in the woods, watching his little house. I wanted to be sure that everything had returned to the way it was. 

It hadn’t. 

He no longer brushed her hair or sang to her. Instead he would sit outside, his eyes bloodshot and wet, a bottle of porradinha in his hand. Occasionally he would go somewhere by himself and weep.

Months passed and his grandmother wasted away from his neglect. When she called his name, he would avoid her, his eyes darkening. I did not understand it. I couldn’t understand why he was acting this way. 

He spiraled into despair. He’d always been prone to drink, but never at home, never around his grandmother. Now he was drinking, taking other substances—things I didn’t recognize, couldn’t place. They put him into a state of complacency and bliss, but when they wore off, his eyes were more bloodshot and tear-filled than ever. 

His grandmother tried to rise to the challenge, but there was nothing she could do. The fire in her eyes dulled as she tried to help him, and I grieved for the pain I had caused her. My sister. She was not Amazon, but she was female. It was not right that I had abandoned her to this. But it wasn’t her own well-being that she mourned. The lack of food, the clean clothes, none of it seemed to bother her. 

Instead, she worried for him. 

“Gabriel,” she said. “You will give your grandmother a heart attack staying out this late. What are you doing?” 

“Nothing, avó,” he said bluntly. “I will be out with friends.” 

“Again?” Sadness entered her eyes. “You know they are no good.” 

“You don’t get to decide who I spend time with. I am not a child.” 

“You are a better man than this, Gabriel,” she said, voice sharp. 

He turned to look at her with rage in his eyes, but it died and his shoulders slumped. He looked away. “What do you know about it?” he muttered, and then left. 

Tears shone in the woman’s eyes, but she stubbornly held them back. Despite all of this, her love didn’t waver, and the look in her eyes when she saw him never changed.

#

“I made a mistake,” I say, raising my head once more. “I took a good man, one who had very little. All he had was his grandmother. And then I seduced him, deceived him. Made him believe that there was something better in this world then the destitution he lived in. I blinded him. I took him in my arms and made him believe I loved him, and then I vanished without a trace. Perhaps it would have been easier if I had killed him. But I didn’t, and now he has sunken into despair. 

“But there is a woman, a woman who needs him, a woman who refuses to give up on him. She has fire and spirit, a heart to match an Amazon. How can we take him away from her?” 

Kaiala sighs, her hand traveling to the sacred tree embroidered on her gown, her eyes staring at something far overhead. Then she stands and leaps to the ground, the distance nothing to her strong legs. As she walks toward me, shivers travel up and down my spine. 

“Elena,” she says, her voice filled with sorrow. “You misjudged. You thought you found a man with the strength to care for another, but you did not. It was not your actions alone that brought him to this fate. A man weak enough to be seduced by the pleasures of the flesh would have fallen to vice eventually.” 

“No.” I shake my head. “I do not believe it.” 

Kaiala sighs and cups my chin in her hand. “You are not to blame for his decisions,” she tells me. “Only your own. You broke our laws, and now must suffer the consequences. Don’t you think the man’s grandmother would rather have her pain ended quickly then have it drawn out as she watches her grandson spiral into nothingness?” 

I pull free of her grip, holding her hand in my own. “No,” I say again. “She wouldn’t.” 

#

The grandmother’s face is still so vivid in my mind. Her eyes as bright as a flame when she knelt on the dirt floor, clasping her hands together, almost in challenge, holding the cross necklace between her palms. Weak and feeble, yet she looked as powerful as a queen. 

“God,” she said. “Help me.” It didn’t sound like a plea, but a request for assistance, as though between equals. “Gabriel is all I have left in this world. And he is a good man, Lord. He forgets himself. He is afraid to show weakness, but he has always been a good man.” She drew in a breath, steadying herself. “He is hurting. He no longer believes that good exists in the world. All that is good has been taken from him throughout his life. So he flees into those noxious poisons, and they’re killing him. Oh, God. They’re killing him!” Her voice broke, barely above a whisper. “Please help him. Please help me help him.” 

No matter how many nights he left her alone, how often she was forced to drag her aged body away from her soft blankets to cook and clean. She still knelt every day and prayed to her God to watch over her grandson. To take care of him.

To keep him alive. 

#

“I think that for as long as she has breath, she will try to save her grandson. There is a reason he was the person he was before I came, Kaiala. There is a reason he loved his grandmother enough to take care of her the way he did. If she can overcome the innate selfishness of man once, who is to say that she cannot do it again? We have to let her try.” 

Kaiala sighs and removes her hand, walking back toward the great Kapok. My warrior sisters step from the edges of the clearing and grab my arms, pinning me in place. “I see you cannot be reasoned with,” Kaiala says, looking back at me over her shoulder.

I keep my head high, my back straight.

“You will not perform your duty,” she says, forcing me to admit it once again.

“I cannot betray her,” I say.

“As he did.” Kaiala’s eyes are locked on mine and I fight with the shame she expects from me. “Can no others care for her?”

“No,” I admit. “She won’t let them.”

#

It took a long time before I made up my mind to approach the old woman. My daughter had swollen in my belly and it was becoming more difficult to move silently amongst the trees, but I still did it. The man’s weakness had become repulsive to me. I found myself more and more angry as I watched him. 

He was supposed to be different. I’d seen him be different than the other men in this world. I’d seen his strength, and now he was throwing it away because he couldn’t have what he wanted. It was pathetic. I never should have spared him. I had risked my people’s safety, my status amongst my sisters, for him. And for what? It was becoming painfully clear that he was too selfish to appreciate what he had. Everything I had done, and it was all for nothing.

I should have killed him then. He was walking out of the house, his eyes dazed, his hand clutching a bottle, dragging it to his lips, and draining it. He stumbled away from their tiny hovel, his step already swaying. I knew where he was going. I knew the den where he would pump himself full of poison, dulling his mind and forcing him into a state of stupor. 

My spear was heavy in my hands. I could do it. Great with my child or not, it would take little effort to destroy him. 

I was halfway out of the trees before a voice reached my ears. “Elena,” she said. “You came back.” 

The grandmother had been watching her grandson leave through the window and had spotted my movement. Her eyes betrayed no hostility, though they were carefully guarded as they flickered down at my spear and then up again. Whatever she thought of my appearance, she kept it to herself. I drew myself up to my considerable height, staring down at her. 

She looked at my swollen belly and a hint of a smile touched her face. “Foolish child,” she said softly. “I should have known. I thought I’d raised him better.” 

Her face was pale and thin, her hands shaking ever so slightly as she looked at me, her hair in vicious snarls around her face. My anger surged in my veins. How dare he? After everything I’d done, all that I’d sacrificed and risked for him, he’d abandoned her. The only good man I’d ever met, and he’d thrown it away in a temper tantrum. 

“Why do you put up with him,” I growled. “Why don’t you leave him to rot in his own putrescence?” 

Surprise flashed across her face. She shook her head, as though bemused by my ignorance. Her obvious pity made me bristle. I was Amazon. I came from a line of warriors, descended from an ancient race that had spread across the world over two thousand years ago. We had taught the native women to defend themselves, and the people had named the great forest in our honor. She was nothing but a human woman being taken advantage of by a man—how dare she look at me like I understood nothing. 

“Come with me,” I said. I reached forward and grabbed her hand. The bones felt as fragile as a bird’s. “I can take care of you so much better than he ever could. Even before, when he loved you. I can do even better than that.” 

“Oh Elena,” the grandmother sighed. “He still loves me.” 

I scoffed. “Men are incapable of love.” 

I do not know if she knew what I was, or if she guessed. But she looked at me for a long time, studying me, pinning me with her gaze. It was uncomfortable, as though she were attempting to examine my very soul. 

She pulled her hand free and reached into her pocket. After a moment, she pulled out an old photograph. It was wrinkled and stained, as if it had been folded and unfolded many times. 

She held it out for me. The photo was of a young boy, no more than three years old. He was grinning, holding a large fish in front of him, eyes shining with pride. Someone in the background helped him hold it up. 

“Do you want to know why I put up with it?” The grandmother said softly. “Why I don’t kick him out of my home, send him to destroy his life out of my sight? It’s because of this little boy, right here.” She tapped the photo, her wrinkled finger gently touching the child’s face. 

“This little boy needed me,” she said. “When his parents died of malaria, I brought him here to live with me. He was so tiny, so scared. He knew me, of course. But he missed his parents and would cry out for them in the night. He needed me to be strong. He needed me to love him. And when I see that man,” she pointed down the path, where her grandson had disappeared. “When I see him hiding another drink or downing another pill, I think of this little boy.” 

I stared at the photo. The child was so young. His eyes were bright and full of the light I’d seen in the man’s eyes when I’d first seen him with his grandmother, before I had come into his life and ruined him. Inadvertently my arm encircled my belly, feeling the kicks of my daughter. Looking back into the grandmother’s eyes, I saw her smile.

“This little boy is still somewhere in that big man,” she said. “The world took this baby and destroyed him. It stole his parents from him, forced him to grow up in poverty. Convinced him that in order to be strong, to be protected against the cruelty of the world, he needed to be tough, hardened. That emotions were for the weak. It broke him. And I failed him, because I wasn’t able to stop it. 

“This little boy?” she touched the photo again. “This little boy needs me now just as much as he did that first night he came to me. He needs me, and I’ll be here. I’ll be here until the day he draws his last breath, because he is my grandson and I love him.” 

“What if he no longer loves you?” I whispered. 

She smiled and put her hand on my cheek. “Dear child,” she said. “That was never the point.”

#

Kaiala shakes her head and turns to the warriors lined up against the trees. “Elena, daughter of Amazon,” she says, addressing me. “You have shamed our people, broken our law, and must therefore be punished.” 

I brace myself, my eyes closed. 

“You are stripped of your rank as warrior,” Kaiala says, each word a blow to my heart. “Your daughter will be known as the child of a traitor and a weakling. You will never hold a spear again.” 

I try to stay upright, proud, but my shoulders bow and I drop to my knees. The shame I have been fighting wells within me, and I fear I will choke on it. I know I must stand and accept my fate, for my daughter, but I cannot get myself to do it. 

Kaiala watches me with pity in her eyes but doesn’t waver in her decision. She turns back to the Amazons. “Hunt the man down and kill him. We must clean up this mess.” 

“No!” Stupid, stupid child that I am, I can’t help the word as it bursts from my lips. The Amazons all turn back to me, surprise crossing my sisters’ faces. I force myself once more to my feet. Shame hangs on me like a cloak, but I straighten my shoulders. 

“Please, Kaiala,” I whisper. “You cannot do this. Study him. Watch his grandmother, as I have. Do not take my words alone. See for yourself. But please, please. You must spare him. For our sister.” 

Kaiala stares into my eyes. “I do not understand,” she says eventually. “Why do you care so much?” 

“Because she does,” I whisper. “I was fascinated when I saw him love and care for his grandmother. I had never seen a man act with such compassion, but to the grandmother, it did not matter. When he was kind to her, when he was cruel to her, she acted the exact same way. She loves him, Kaiala. With the love that a warrior has for her child.” At this, I touch my expanded belly, my heart still flush with the shame I’ve brought upon my child. “If we kill him, we will not be serving some great justice. We will only be taking away the last relative of an old woman who doesn’t deserve to be alone.” 

“Maybe she should be alone,” Kaila says bluntly. “Maybe she doesn’t know what is best for her.” 

“Please,” I say. “Please, let her try to help him.” 

Kaiala and I hold each other’s gazes for a long time. “No,” she says, her voice quiet. “I cannot do that.” 

Looking into her eyes, I do not blame her. It is impossible for her to understand. My heart beats painfully in my chest, and it is as though I can feel the heartbeat of my child syncing with mine. I take several steps backward, planting myself between my queen and the path to the village. She watches me with hooded eyes, not understanding. I am unarmed. I have been stripped of my spear. As far as my sisters are concerned, I am nothing. 

But I am not nothing. 

“Then you will have to mow me down,” I say. “For I will not let you hurt him.” 

Kaiala’s eyes darken. Her brow furrows in frustration. She holds out her hand and the rays of light filtering through the trees condense together, forming a golden spear. My heart races at the sight of it, but I hold my ground.

“You would risk this for him?” she says. “You would risk your child?” 

For a brief moment, I hesitate. I can imagine my daughter, how strong she would be, how kind. The thought of her being taken from me is a pain I cannot imagine. But then I think of that little boy in the picture. The hope in his eyes. The smile on his face. My beautiful sisters will take that beloved child and destroy him, taking him from an old woman that has already had the world turn against her. 

I cannot let them do it. 

“Please,” I whisper. It is all I’m able to say. I know I will not live through this. My sisters walk toward me with the grace that we have all been blessed with, their spears sharp and their grips steady. I look into their eyes, hoping to see some glimmer of empathy. 

There is none.

When this is over, I pray they will save my daughter, raise her as one of their own. And that, maybe, their bloodlust will end with me.

“He is not worth this,” Kaiala says. 

I clench my hands and set my feet. “It isn’t about him. It was never about him.”

The End