My YA heroine’s life is complicated by some really bad role models. How’s a teenager meant to find her path in life with this crew around her?
Kamsen Knights is the story of a sixteen year old girl trying to survive the end of empire. Her mother passed years ago and her father got himself exiled as a dissident. Yari spent her formative years as a runner for the resistance. Now the Empire has fallen, she’s trying to find her father and the Old Houses who got him arrested don’t want him found. Yari needs help.
Help Wanted
She hires Risto Tallas, a thief and gambler from the Corsair Isles with a poor attitude to both risk and property. Not to mention a vindictive streak when dealing with enemies.
Janus Mikailut comes to her aid against an armed gang. But Mikailut is a veteran of the Emperor’s armored Vipers who slaughtered their way through numerous wars. Mikailut doesn’t take prisoners.
Maybe Lyo Ledran of the fortress garrison can bring some order to her life? Ledran is a disillusioned soldier, damaged by the war in the south and the death of his father.
Perhaps the honest captain of the City Watch can provide some moral direction? Famously law-abiding, what flaws can Captain Branko possibly hide?
Risto recruits Ledran to break into the Imperial Archive inside the fortress. Branko takes Yari to a Seer to gain insight into her dangerous obsession. Mikailut enables Yari to storm an aristocrat’s mansion.
Yari’s crew go with her to the fortress to head off an insurrection. It ends in a violent battle. It’s hardly prime parenting.
Not only do they all have their vices and moral failings, each of them either abets Yari’s dangerous impulses or puts her directly in harm’s way. None of them argues all that hard against her wild schemes.
Redemption Song
Is it stretching things too far to say each of them is on a redemption arc?
Mikailut doesn’t believe in redemption, but chooses to occupy his time fighting for Yari’s cause. Risto wouldn’t admit to chasing redemption, but the rebellion convinced her she could be more than a pirate’s wastrel daughter.
Ledran more than any of them feels the weight of his past collaboration. He’s paid the price, now it’s time to even the scales. And Branko? He’s always told himself he’s on the side of right. But it’s a narrow path and easy to slip.
Motivation
Why does Risto help? Initially, money. But later? Risto sees a lost child like she once was. And here’s a mission, to strike back at authority figures. Risto was part of the rebel crew who took down the Empire. Here’s a chance to do something meaningful again.
Mikailut was sent home injured from the war, then took more injuries when he tried to get revenge on the rebel who did it. He’s jobless, directionless, depressed and a drunk. Yari’s mission gives him a purpose, this lost boy from the slums. This old class warrior sees enemies to fight in shiny mansions and a determined child who refuses to bend the knee.
Ledran is drawn to lost causes. Here’s a child searching for a father. Ledran failed to stop his own father’s murder. The Empire exiled the Vanished while Ledran wore the Imperial uniform. Perhaps he can make amends in some small way?
Captain Branko is implicated in the assassination. The law failed under the Empire while he stood by. The new republic is under threat from dark forces. He wants to keep the child safe, but there’s no turning her from the mission, so he falls into a dangerous conspiracy. Again.
Road Trip
The conclusion of Yari’s mission takes her beyond the borders in the search for her father. The constable doesn’t go. Instead, she picks up a dubious ‘guide’ with a drink problem, a huge ego, and a talent for self-preservation. If her guiding skills are as poor as her moral compass, the crew is in trouble…
With friends like these…
A thief, a mercenary, a soldier and a constable who breaks the law. A prickly guide who is far from reliable. These are Yari’s really bad role models. Not the people you want around an impressionable, angry child. Worst of all, they are the enablers of Yari’s rash, dangerous quest.
If anything, Yari holds back from their tendencies toward violent retribution. In fairness, when she comes close to crossing that line, Risto is the one who pulls her back. Although she needs Mikailut’s violence, she never fully embraces it. Ledran teaches her defense over attack. Through the guide, Yari learns to empathize.
As guardians and protectors, her crew does the best they can against overwhelming odds.
We find our role models in unlikely places, all of us stumbling around trying to find our way through a dangerous world. Yari is no different. Given the choice, I’d happily gather this crew of outcasts, rebels and outlaws.