When I woke up I was back in my bed. I was wearing my nightdress and my bed smelled like the sheets had been washed. It was dark outside and I could barely see in front of me. I stumbled around my room until I found the door. I opened the door and grabbed the candle from the hallway. When I went back into my room, I saw a letter beside my bed. I picked it up and unfolded the paper. The letter was from Mom.

Aryet,

You'll probably be reading this in the night, I came to find you when you didn't come downstairs and you were lying in the mud. I would never let any daughter of mine appear so unsightly, so I brought you inside and made sure you were clean. You refused to wake up even after an hour of my cleaning, and so I decided to leave you to rest.

I do deeply apologize for what happened today. I am truly sorry that our argument progressed to such an extent, and I am sorry that I had to use such unruly means to educate you. However, I hope you take the listen I intended for you to learn from this little affair and use it to better yourself as a person, and as a student. Elya consented to practice with the other girls after she saw me disciplining you, so I suppose I thank you for serving as an example. Elya seems like she will need more convincing, and I expect that you will not pursue the same foolish actions you did today.

I don't believe that you will understand why I am acting this way right now, I don't expect you to. Maybe one day when you are older you will look back and be thankful for the lessons I instilled into you at an early age. Your young age entails that if you are not to immediately understand my actions, then instead I must force you to respect them. Unless you want the events of today to happen again, I suggest you learn when and when not to speak quickly.

All the best,

Your one and only mother

This wasn't an apology, this was her saying why what she did was right. Even though she told me that she was trying to help me, I still couldn't believe her. Since when did hurting people ever help them? Since when did Mom think that forcing people to do what she wants is the right thing? The question of "Why?" kept me up the entire night, as I tried to remember any time that Mom had acted this way before. She didn't get mad at Idrel when she burned Dad, she even argued with Dad because he was mad at her. I also couldn't understand why she looked like the woman from my dream. She'd never made that face before, she'd never acted that way before. Was she even the same person? I remembered what I heard Mom and Dad talking about back when we first saw her. That must be it. The curse that made Mom sick must be coming back, that's why Dad left. That's why Dad asked me to take care of my sisters, he knew that Mom would get sick again and that this time it would make her want to hurt us. That's why Mom seems like a different person, it's because she is. But what do I do? If I try to fight her, I'll definitely lose. Even if I do win, what do I do then? Idrel seems to be totally controlled by her, so will she attack me? Will she leave? I don't know when Dad is going to come back, and what would I do while waiting for them? We would eventually run out of food, and we wouldn't be able to get more. There were too many problems that would come up if I tried to deal with the way Mom is acting now, if I tried to fight back against her. If I can just survive and help Elya survive until Dad gets back then this will all be over. He'll have a way to get rid of the curse for good, and we'll all be fine again. Liza and Idrel are sucking up to Mom, so they won't need my help in not getting hurt. All I have to do is listen to her for now, if I don't mess up my practice she won't hurt me. If she hurts Elya, I'll help her get better.

By the time I had decided what I would do, the sun was already up. I went down to get breakfast and then I went down the staircase to the arena. When I got down there, the others were standing on the wall and Mom was in front of them.

"Look who's finally up. Get on the wall, we're talking about a new plan for training."

I quickly got over to the wall and stood next to Elya. I could feel her shaking, and she was breathing really quickly. What did Mom do to her yesterday?

"For the past week, I've left you all to master your affinities in your own way. While I did give you things to do, they were just basic exercises to help you better understand how to control your power. Now that I've given you a week, I think it's time that we move on to the faster way for you to truly get better with your affinities."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

She walked over to us and put her hand in between Elya and Liza.

"Split into pairs."

Me and Elya walked off to one side while Liza and Idrel walked off to the other.

"Liza and Elya, you'll be training with each other. Idrel and Aryet, you wait by the wall."

Liza and Elya both walked onto the arena while Idrel and I each went to the wall on our side.

"Now, what I want you both to do is to have a practice match between you. You will fight, whether using your affinities or your own body and you will fight until one of you either gives up or is knocked unconscious."

What? She's making us fight?

"Wait, Mom-"

Mom looked over at me like she was going to hurt me again. She had that same smile that went all the way from one side of her face to the other, with her eyes buried beneath her eyelids.

"Hey, Aryet. Do you remember what I wrote about in the letter I gave you?"

"Yeah."

"So do you just want another taste of electricity, or do you have memory loss?"

I looked away from Mom and didn't talk anymore.

"In fact, that gives me a good idea for how to help you all do your best in these matches. Whoever loses is going to get a punishment from yours truly."

She was going to do what? Why would she punish someone for losing, what if they were knocked out? Does she want to kill us? Was this her way of punishing me, by hurting Elya? I knew that Elya would lose, there's no way she could've gotten good enough to even put up a fight against Liza. She's also way too weak. I hoped that Liza would stand up to Mom, maybe if all three of us said that we wouldn't fight each other then Mom would have no choice but to listen. Liza isn't dumb, and why would she want to hurt Elya-

The next thing I knew, Elya was on the ground and crying in pain. Liza had thrown a rock at her with her powers, and it hit Elya right in the head. She was bleeding, and I watched as Liza walked up to her slowly. I could see Mom looking right at me out of the corner of my eye. If I tried to move, if I tried to do anything, she would either punish me or hurt Elya more.

Elya was still sobbing on the ground, and Liza had lifted up a large piece of the arena and she was holding it over her.

"Say that you give up."

"Please! I'm sorry, please! Don't hurt me!"

"Say it."

Elya could barely stop sobbing just for her to beg Liza to not drop the boulder over her head on her.

"Please! I don't want to die!"

"Say that you give up."

"Liza, please!"

Liza let go of the boulder, and as it fell I couldn't control myself. Elya put her arms above her head and screamed so loud I felt like my ears would burst.

"No!"

"I give up!"

Liza caught the boulder again just before it hit Elya. I hadn't noticed, but I was holding a ball of water in my right hand, and I wasn't on the wall anymore. Liza put the boulder back where it originally was, and Mom walked into the arena. She clicked her tongue while l dropped the water in my hand and immediately got back on the wall.

"Good job, Liza."

She patted Liza on the head and then walked over to Elya.

"Well, you know the rules."

She grabbed Elya by the hair with one hand and pulled her head up. She put her other hand on the side of Elya's head and as she was doing this she looked at me.

"You knew the rules too, Aryet. That means you need to get punished as well."

"I didn't do anything!"

"But you were going to, that's all that matters. Just because you don't break the rules doesn't mean the fact that you intended to doesn't mean anything. Liza, Idrel, go hold her."

"What?"

Liza and Idrel both dashed over to me and they held me up against the wall.

"What are you doing?"

"Elya deserves the worst punishment here, she didn't even try to fight. You, however, apparently didn't get the message from yesterday. I will now demonstrate for you again what happens when you don't listen to me, and I want you to look at it clearly so you'll understand this time."

She started to hurt Elya, it was the same thing that she did to me yesterday. Elya immediately started screaming, she tried to speak to Mom but she was only able to make weird noises. I looked away, I couldn't watch Mom hurt her like this. The sound of Mom's power stopped, and I opened my eyes again.

"Keep your eyes open, Aryet. You need to see what happens when I'm disobeyed."

"I won't do it!"

"Either you look at her now, or you're going to be standing there with your eyes closed listening to her scream until you listen."

I closed my eyes once more, and she started hurting Elya again. All I heard was Mom's power mixed with Elya screaming so loud that I thought she was going to die. I closed my eyes as hard as I possibly could and I tried not to listen to Elya screaming until she couldn't make a single sound. Her voice sounded like it was giving up, and instead of screaming, she was just making whatever noise she could. I tried to ignore her, but I kept hearing the sound of Mom's power. I couldn't take it any longer, tears were flowing down my face and I was in pain myself from being pushed against the wall by Liza and Idrel.

I opened my eyes and after the tears went away I looked at Mom. She wasn't smiling like she did when she hurt me, she was staring at me with a grin on her face. I couldn't hear what she was trying to say to me, but I was able to see a few words come out of her mouth.

"You did this."