Chapter Nineteen: The Stillsands, Part One

Nil stood with his arms crossed against his chest.

Dune seas flowed around him; their golden sands rippled by the wind. Ancient ruins jutted from the waves, filling its vastness with an archipelago of rusted iron and concrete. Neon phantoms blanketed the structures with glowing light. Smooth and unbroken, they shimmered with the colorful haze of nostalgia, restoring jagged walls and crumbling roofs to the glamour and grandeur they had once been. And they burned all the brighter under the black curtain of a moonless night.

His Tenakth friends loitered around a crackling campfire, trading jokes as easily as barbs. Some lounged on broken slabs, amused by the light beams dancing around them. While others tended to the chargers, checking their hardware and refilling blaze canisters for the next race.

But they were figments in the background, muted and out of focus.

Because all he could see was her.

Aloy leapt down from her charger and swore, the string of curses as filthy as her dusty tunic and wind-knotted hair. Sweat streaked her face, and she swiped at it with the back of her hand, smearing more of the desert across her ruddy cheeks. Rage seemed to whip inside her, blazing bright like her wild, red hair. He gazed into its flame, unable to look away, even as his thumb rubbed at the scars she'd given him when they parted in the Spearshafts.

He had likened the naïve to moths, yet here he was with singed wings and still consumed by the fire that had burned him. So much so he barely noticed Attah trudging up the dune towards him.

"She does not handle losing well," she said as she approached, "I thought Josekk was a hot-head after doing poorly in a race, but this girl puts him to shame."

Nil grunted absently, his eyes pinned on Aloy as she kicked a pile of sand and sent it flying in a raining plume.

Attah frowned quizzically as she glanced from him to Aloy and back again. Her eyes narrowed, then she put her hand on her hip, elbow akimbo, and asked, "What is this?"

"Hm?" he hummed.

"What is this?" she repeated, pointing a finger between him and Aloy.

He blinked and shook his head, breaking the trance. Then he regarded Attah, his head cocked curiously. "Did you say something?"

Attah sighed, then she pointed again at Aloy. "What is going on here? I've never seen you this distracted before. Usually, you're the one with the best senses. We don't even keep a night watch schedule anymore because you roll out of a dead sleep and into battle mode before anyone awake realizes something is there. Which is eerie, by the way, not that there are any complaints. Then this outlander comes along, and a thunderjaw could sneak up on you…"

He shrugged.

She sucked in a breath, eager to continue her reproach, but the words stalled on her tongue. Her mouth hung open as she studied him.

He eyed her, grateful for the visor that kept his honest face in shadow.

Then her mouth snapped shut, and she hummed thoughtfully through pursed lips. Slowly, her expression brightened, and she started to nod her head. "I get it now. I get it."

"Get what?" he asked warily.

"You know her, don't you?" Attah replied, and she emphatically waved her finger at him. "You know this Nora girl."

He forced a chuckle, hoping it sounded more authentic than it felt. "Just because I'm an outlander doesn't mean I know every other outlander. Frankly, I'm offended by the assumption—"

"Stop," she interrupted, holding up her hand, "I've already seen through you, and while it's clear you love being mysterious with your hood and spooky name, you've done a terrible job of hiding this." She shook her head and grinned. "You know, I couldn't understand why you vouched for her when she came poking around our Dry Yearn hang out. But what made it odd wasn't because you stood up for her, it was that you did it in silence. Because on any other given day, there's no getting you to shut up. It's always a constant flow of cheerful, disconcerting violence pouring from your mouth. Like a damn waterfall but with gushing blood… Except when she came around."

He briefly considered leaping onto Red-Eye's back and riding off into the night. It'd be cowardly and he'd likely regret it tomorrow, but he'd pulled off worse escapes. Then he pushed the thought away, smothering the impulse, and sighed. "It's complicated…"

"I knew it!" she sang.

"Don't get too excited. For both our sakes."

Her effusive grin sobered to a smile, and she slapped him hard on the shoulder. "It's okay. I might be young, but I'm not stupid. Outlanders drift into the Clan Lands on occasion, but none of them hide their faces like you. I have a feeling there's a reason why you do it. Just like Red-Teeth can't possibly be your real name. It's obvious, at least to me, that if you were to take off your hood or if this girl called you out, then we couldn't pretend to be above the world and its politics anymore. Instead, we'd probably have to fight, and personally, I don't care for the odds."

He looked at Attah with his cold, silver eyes, imagining her and the other riders strewn across the ground. They lay there with their broken bodies splayed or sliced open, their blood seeping into the sand.

"Can't say I care for those odds either," he agreed quietly.

She nodded, as if he confirmed what she already knew. Then her puzzled expression returned. She crossed her arms against her chest and absently dug a divot in the sand with her toes. "But it's more than that, isn't it?"

He raised an eyebrow.

"It's not just that you know her. Or that you're trying to preserve our little machine riding band. She means something to you, doesn't she?"

Escaping off into the night was starting to sound pretty good, and he eyed his charger as it milled about with the others, waiting for the next race.

She caught his line of sight and grinned. "You realize that running away will only prove me right."

He scoffed and turned away, but he could feel her beaming smugness, burning his cheek like the noonday sun. He grumbled under his breath. "And why do you believe she means something to me? As you've pointed out, you don't even know me."

She stared at him, then burst out laughing. "I don't have to know your name or life story to see what's in front of my eyes. That aside, you're being so damn evasive. You dodge less in battle than you're doing right now. So, that's the first clue."

He nodded to himself, conceding her point.

"And the second is that you're caught up in the chase."

A knot tightened in his chest, and he turned back to her, his words cutting. "What do you mean by that?"

She blinked, and took a step back, fumbling as she spoke. "You're caught up in the chase. Like when we race through the gauntlet runs or hunt game in the sage. Usually, it's the act of pursuing that consumes a person. They're overwhelmed by the lust to vanquish the object of their desire, and it drives them to sometimes sublime, or destructive, ends." She shrugged. "But you're not looking for any of that. No, you want to be the one who is chased."

He snorted. "That's ridiculous. I'm not interested in any of that. And besides, I've always been the hunter…"

And his scars itched at that lie.

She held up her hands in a placating manner. "I'm only calling out what I see. You gave up your spot in Dry Yearn when she first showed up so that she could have a taste. Until then you never missed a single race. Then you slipped away, disappearing without saying goodbye. I thought maybe you had moved on, but next thing I know, we're getting word that you've marked out new runs across the Clan Lands for us to test our mettle. We rode along the lowland beaches and over snowy ridges, battling for victory, but I never saw you. Though I'm certain you were there, watching us vie for the finish line and waiting for her to prove her worthiness before you revealed yourself again."

"Sounds like a test more than a chase."

Attah smiled, and she tapped her lip pensively. "It does, doesn't it? Except there's something else to it. Like enjoying a delicious meal where you draw out every bite to relish the flavors. Or you pour more ale to sip in between each morsel. You turn the plate. Set your utensils down. Pick them up again. You do anything to prolong the experience."

He chuckled under his breath. "Aloy can be like the wind, pausing long enough to rustle the grass before she's gone, sweeping across the land towards her next aim."

"Yes," she agreed, "You're doing everything you can to keep her wound up and hungry. To keep her chasing you, so you prolong the experience."

His gaze returned to Aloy, and he watched her stomp and pace, her lips moving as she swore just out of earshot.

"Whenever we'd race before," Attah said, "You'd always give that charger you ride the lead and let it run as fast as it can. I don't know where you got it or what you did to it, but there's no other machine in the wasteland that can tear up the ground like it can. The best the rest of us can hope for is battling it out for second place whenever you're on the track." She laughed and added conspiratorially. "One time I tried to inspect your charger. See if there was some kind of additive you put in its blaze to get that kind of performance, and it nearly gored me with those razor-sharp horns. I decided then that your machine would be a mystery I plan to let stand…"

He smiled inwardly. "It has its moods."

She continued. "…But what's more than clear is that you haven't given your charger the lead ever since we arrived in The Stillsands. Instead, you keep a few strides ahead of us, feeding it enough power to stay just out of reach. It's been a thrill for the others to be so close to winning. I've never seen them ride better, but I know you're not doing it for us. You're doing it to keep her hooked." She nodded towards an old, battered chest half-buried in the sand. "Just like why you stashed a prize in there for any winner who isn't you. Which is the nicest bow I've ever seen, though I have no idea where you found it."

He sighed. "I killed a guy."

She tapped her chin with her fingertips, weighing his reply. "Have to admit I thought as much."

He frowned, then nudged at the sand with his foot, digging a divot beside hers. "I don't know what to do. A lot happened when we last saw each other. None of it was good and most of it was my fault. I didn't think I'd ever see her again. Didn't know if I wanted to see her again. But I do know that if this is the last time we spend time together, I want it to last forever."

"You love her?"

"I've been told I do."

She shrugged. "Then just like you can't bottle the wind, you can't keep her locked in this battle. This next run will be the fifteenth time we've done this race. Don't make us go to sixteen. Either you blast through it and prove to her there's no hope in winning. Or let her be the first one to cross the finish line. But no matter what, it has to end."

He sighed deeply. "If this is the final farewell, make it an honest one?"

She laughed. "Well, as honest as a hooded man with a fake name can make it."

He chuckled, then he looked at her, his eyes crinkling with warmth. "Thank you."

She glanced away nervously, her dark cheeks flushing under her war paint. "I have ulterior motives. I've been dying for the day when I'd see you lose a race."

He laughed, then gave her a wink before he headed down the dune towards Aloy and the race that awaited them.