"What does that mean?" Ms. Lao asked, and I could see the remnants of the fear she had worn the night before beginning to reconnect and grow.

"Apologies, I forgot who I am speaking to," Ulet sighed and some of the tension she held clenched in her jaw released. She turned to me. "The one who had you by the hair? He isn't strong enough to be a part of a council. A weakling, hardly worth considering a sorcerer at all."

Through the memories I had viewed, I had heard the word coven several times and I gathered that a council must be the male version of that. "How many are there?"

"Nine, each of them far stronger on their own than the sorcerer you faced and beyond what I am currently able to do myself," Ulet said bluntly. She waved me towards her. "Hurry now, your familiar too."

I turned to look at Sam, still on the counter by the sink. Next to him was exactly what I needed at that moment.

I would not be leaving the Lao's to meet the terrible danger I had summoned.

Quick as I could manage, I left my seat and stepped to where Sam sat. Pulled from the wooden block it had been sheathed in, I brandished a large kitchen knife in the direction of the sorceress.

"Honestly? You mean to attack me with an ordinary knife?"

"Of course not, I am not stupid," I said, turning the knife and placing the length of its blade in line with the big vein on my wrist. "If I die, The Well goes with me. How long do you think it will take me to bleed out?"

I'd won, I knew it and I could see that Ulet knew it in her furious eyes.

"I do not have time for this." She said flatly.

"That is unfortunate and irrelevant." I threw her own words back at her.

Ms. Lao let out a momentary burst of laughter before she clamped her mouth shut with a hand.

Jaw clenched, I saw her force the symmetrical lines of the cage up from the power gathered at her feet again.

"Autumn Aubrey, come to me please." Ulet spoke, her voice gentle.

I dropped the knife and did as she asked. It would have been awfully rude of me to deny her request. She had said please, after all.

"Autumn! What are you doing?" Anna shouted, standing up from her chair. It looked like she tried to move but it seemed like her shoes were stuck to the ground.

That was a funny thing to happen to someone.

I looked down at my own feet. Ulet had been nice enough to draw me a line with her yellow aura to follow so I wouldn't get lost on my way to her cage.

"She has been charmed." I heard Sam say.

"Come on kitty, it's time to go." I said to my familiar just as I stepped into the cage Ulet had made for us.

The bird atop Ulet's head let out a mad jumble of chirps and whistles and the sorceress rolled her eyes. "Honestly?"

The bird chirped again.

"Fine," She made a gesture with her hand. "Come, all of you. There is little time."

Anna stepped through first, holding on to me. Ms. Lao helped Arthur up from his seat and stepped timidly into the cage. Sam came last and sat his boney ass right on top of Ulet's barefoot.

"If any of you move, we will all die, so be still please."

The yellow lines that made the cage widened until they closed us in completely.

Then, suddenly, I felt like all of my insides were being inverted.

The next moment, the cage vanished and all of us went spilling out of it.

The bird, Av, unfurled its oversized wings and flew out of the broken structure we had landed in. Dilapidated stone wall surrounded us with entire sections crumbled to the ground in heaps. A hard packed dirt floor and a ceiling that steadily let streams of dust fall to the ground completed the structure.

Ulet had stood and held herself up against the far wall with an extended arm.

I went to her.

“How did you do that? I asked

“I do not know.” Ulet replied, sitting herself down on the ground and leaning against the wall.

“How can you not know?”

Eyes closed, Ulet grimaced as if my question had physically harmed her.

“When a feline or a snake has slithered or crept into its nest, does a sparrow need to understand how it is able to fly before it takes to the sky? Or, does it escape the predator and let the wind take it because it is a bird and that's what birds do?" Ulet seethed, the very fact that she was having to speak to me seemed to continue to pain her.

"What kind of fucking answer is that?" I continued, unsatisfied.

"I did it because it is within my nature to do it. We are sorceresses. Shaping reality to our will is what we do." Ulet answered.

"That's why you charmed me?" I asked. The only reason she hadn't left the Lao's for dead was because of the strongly worded birdsong of her familiar. if that was part of the nature of being a sorceress, I wanted no part of it.

"What? No. I charmed you because you are a petulant child who was going to doom us all to a long and torturous death because you couldn't accept the consequences of your actions." Ulet said, a vicious sneer spreading across her beautiful face. She stood up fully, and though we were very near the same height, It felt like she was looming over me like a vulture does a dying animal.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"That's," I started.

She cut me off. "If I were one of the Mothers, your life would endanger The Well no longer. It would be back within the protection of Zenithcidel and you would be a trouble no longer."

I backed away from her. With every step she took towards me, I took one back. I ran out of space to back into and found myself standing next to Anna.

"What's wrong with her?" Anna whispered into my ear.

"I think," I remembered the blind fury I had felt within myself when I had bitten a chunk out of Eames neck. "It has something to do with how much of her aura she has used."

Ulet glared at me. She did not look like she wanted to hurt me or like she was angry with me. She looked at me like I was foreign, unwanted, like she saw my very existence as a stain upon the world.

"You aren't yourself right now." I tried.

"When you've done this as much as I have, you realize that the afterglow is full of truth. Truth, that is too unpleasant to accept when you are whole. I hate you, because you deserve to be hated. They told me how difficult you could be, that you were dangerous, but all I've seen is a silly little girl who deserves none of what she's been given!"

What the fuck have I been given?

Just before Ulet could continue her tirade, I saw all the tension leave the sorceress's body and she fell backwards.

From outside, a woman strode inside the starlit ruins and caught Ulet before she slammed onto her back.

"There, there. You've done quite enough. Rest." The woman said, her voice soft and sweet.

"I. . ." I trailed off.

"Autumn, who is that?" Anna whispered.

I barely heard her.

The woman laid the now relaxed Ulet to the ground gently and stood. She had lustrous red hair that came down to her shoulders before it was joined in a braid that reached the middle of her back. Pale skin and emerald eyes standing in contrast, she wore a cream colored wrap that covered all but her hands and shoes. She dusted the dirt off her dress and looked at me.

With the exception of the infinitesimally small changes that age had brought on, it was like looking in a mirror.

"Autumn?" Anna whispered again.

"Mom. . ." I sighed, not realizing I had moved until I threw myself into the arms of my mother.

She smiled and laughed, pulling me tight, and sighed. "My little Delpha."

Whatever part of me that still held a shaky fingertip grasp on the piece that held me together let go. I let my mother support my weight and she gently lowered us to the dusty ground. Tears did not fall, I'd rid myself of those back at the table in the kitchen of the boarding house, but a different kind of relief flooded my exhausted soul. My head cradled in the ruffled fabric of her dress, I lay on my back and wished to never move again. The last time I had seen my mother before I had charmed the guard and made my escape came to my mind. She had left after our morning memory and gone out into the city to handle some sort of issue that I had no knowledge of. I had been very careful to not let her know that the morning was going to be any different than any of the others we shared. How had she felt when she returned home, probably with some sort of sweet bought just for me, and discovered I had gone.

After all I had put her through, the first thing she had done was welcome me into her arms.

"I'm sorry, I. . ." I didn't know what else to say. No words I could find were strong enough to express to her what I was feeling.

"Shhh," she hushed me gently, smoothing my hair back from my head with the palm of her hand. "You are forgiven by me, little Delpha. The joy of having you back is settlement enough. Who have you brought with you?"

I sat up with my mother's assistance and looked at the Lao's. A weak looking Ms. Lao leaned against the dusty stone wall of the dilapidated structure we had appeared in. Anna stood in front of her, eyes locked on my mother. Arthur stood in front of his family, evidently having regained some portion of his strength. Sam sat rigid in front of all of them, his segmented tail swishing violently.

"Sorceress Idensyn, I am Samsara." My familiar spoke, his deep voice taking on the rigidity of formality.

"Well met Samsara, You are my daughter's familiar I take it?"

"Indeed." Sam rumbled in agreement.

My mom looked down at me and whispered. "Is his voice always that low?"

Sam answered for me. "No. I merely speak at this high of a frequency so I can be heard."

"Ohhh," My mom responded. "Is that so?"

I stood, wincing from the pain in my hand when I used it to push myself up.

Not a moment later, the pain receded and then vanished completely.

The glimmering, colorless, light of my mother's aura washed from her hands over my broken one. A strange series of twinges made my fingers twitch and then she was done, her aura disappearing back into her palms.

"You will have to explain to me later how you managed to break your thumb in five places."

Flexing my healed hand several times to make sure the pain was truly gone. I noticed my mother had turned her emerald eyes up to Arthur. "Mom, this is Arthur, Anna, and Ms. Lao," I struggled to find the words necessary to give an accurate description of the family I had brought along with me. "They have been taking care of me."

Even though it was rather reductive, it was true.

"Then I am in your debt, Ms. Lao, Anna, and Arthur. I will ensure you return to your home safely."

"No!" I blurted, surprising myself at the volume and intensity with which I spoke.

I took a breath and tamped down the momentary flare of anger. "Its not safe where we came from. You can't send them back."

"You mean for them to stay with us?" My mother asked me.

"I didn't mean for them to be here at all. I didn't mean for them to know who I was. But they are and they do and I owe them. I owe them more than I am able to repay and I know I'm not in the position to ask you for anything but you can't send them away, I need them." I snapped, angry at. . .angry at, something. I couldn't articulate what that something was, but I very much wanted to hurt it.

"Calm, calm," My mother said, pulling me to her chest and smoothing my hair gently. "I can feel the truth in your words. I will take them home with me and see what I can do."

"With you?" I asked, knowing my mother well enough that she chose her words very carefully almost always.

"With me." She agreed and kissed the top of my head before clasping my shoulders and separating us.

"And me?" I asked, a cold drop running down my spin and making me feel miles away from everyone around me.

"My little Delpha. You must go before The Mothers." My mother sighed.

Of course I did, I knew that, but in the moments of relief I had found in my mother's embrace, I had forgotten.

She led me out of the ruins and I found myself on a hilltop overlooking the city above Zenithcidel. I knew it existed but had never seen it with my own eyes.

Night reigned from above, all encompassing and all reaching, but standing in defiance of the darkness beyond were thousands upon thousands of lights. Each of them powerless on their own, but together, they illuminated the sprawling city like it possessed its own sun. I had been within its streets and attended the various institutions that were scattered around it through the eyes of others, but none of the memories had impressed upon me the sheer scale of it.

"Beautiful isn't it?" My mother asked, turning me away from the dazzling view.

"Yes." I agreed.

"Down there, there are uncountable people, cultures, civilizations. All of them journeyed through chaos and placed their roots here, just for a chance to be near The Mothers," She hugged me again. "This would not be true if they were not fair and reasonable. You are to be punished, but do not fear it my child. I trust in their mercy."

We turned the corner and I saw the black gate. A free standing archway built of some strange black stone that seemed to swallow the starlight around it, stood waiting for me. It was the very same type of gate that I had snuck through when I had ran away.

I heard a shuffle from behind me and saw Anna peaking around the corner.

"You will see her soon, I swear on my power that you will," My mother reassured me. "All that's left is to step through, my little Delpha, they will be waiting on you."

With nothing else to do, I crossed through the black gate to go before The Mother's, to face the consequences of what I had done, to meet my fate with a small hope in my ragged little soul that my mother was right.