Without warning, I was thrown backwards across the ground and sent into a rough roll. Every narrow hole in the ground that had been left by the slain creature’s black nailed fingers I crashed over felt like blows from unseen attackers.

The state of knowing that had come with finding the color of my soul returned, and I rolled to my feet and clasp my hands together in one fluid movement. Dragging both of my palms across the other, I manifested my near pink aura through the channel on my right palm and opened my arms as wide as they would go. The working grew between them and I willed another cord, longer and thicker than the first had been, into reality. My right hand was still broken, but fortunately still mostly numb. and I grasped the end of my working within it.

I snapped my right arm out, whipping my working out beside me, I readied myself for battle.

The sorcerer had moved, I had seen him do it, but I hadn’t seen him hit me. Another attack could come at any moment and I had no indication of what direction it would come from.

Standing just a few paces from where I had come to my feet, the sorcerer stared at me, his hands encased in his own gray aura. “Look at you,” He said, an expression of wonder appearing on his face. “Not even in the afterglow of your awakening and still standing on your feet. Most lose themselves their first few times. The fact that the old crones in their hiding hole seemed to have not taught you anything is all that is keeping you from outclassing me completely,” His eyes narrowed and his look of wonder turned to what I identified as suspicion. “Just who are you? How did you come into possession of The Well? With the right training, you could be. . . Fuck!”

The Sorcerer screamed and recoiled, bringing one of his hands to his cheek. A gash, running from the corner of his eye to his jaw line began to bleed down his face.

I had grown very tired and wished to be with the Lao’s, I hadn’t had the patience to listen to him talk.

So, I whipped him across the face with my aura.

“I was paying you a compliment, girl. That was very rude.” The sorcerer growled, turning a savage glare to me. The aura around the hand that covered where I had whipped grew more intense. He pulled it from his face, and thought the size of the gash had diminished, blood still leaked from his cheek.

It seemed I was not the only one who had grown tired.

“Leave me be or I will show you just how fucking rude I can be.” I said, and I meant it. How different would it feel to kill someone and not something? I knew it would be a much larger difference than I was willing to recognize, but the thought was not enough to sway me. I would not be taken from the Lao’s.

"Why are you fighting me, Dearie? I am not and have not been a threat to you," The sorcerer asked, a furious scowl had pinched his face but his word did not sound angry. "I will not harm the mortals that I can see you have grown attached to. I have no quarrel with them. I'll admit I've grown fond of them myself. I've made no move to hurt you seriously and have no intention to. What is driving you to struggle against me?"

I didn't like what I was feeling. The night was ending and the sky was beginning to brighten. So much had happened that I had forgotten it was cold until that moment. Every part of my body ached, both through exhaustion and the strain of the battles I had been faced with. The sorcerer, Eames, was not lying. Granted, he had thrown me backwards with what I reasoned could have only been his aura and had implied he would resort to using force if I didn't go with him freely, but that hadn't been all he'd done. He had taught me and given me the information necessary to defeat the horrors that had come for me and my friend. He had willfully entered combat at my side and had nearly died because of it. I knew, somewhere deep down, that his main motivation was my possession of The Well. That didn't explain his actions, however, because if that was all he was after he would have stolen me away in the dead of night when I had been asleep or trapped in a memory. There again, I found myself being calmed by the rolling accent he spoke with and I couldn't understand why.

I noticed my aura beginning to fade as I spoke. "Can," A shiver ran through my body as the cold creeped further into my bones. "If I go with you," I nodded at the Lao's. Arthur still lay with his head in his mothers lap either asleep or unconscious. Anna was caught in a loop of moving her eyes between me and the man that she thought had been Mrs. Mole. "they are coming with me. They aren't safe here."

I meant for my demand to sound strong and nonnegotiable, but it came out sounding weak.

Eames, walking towards me slowly, cautiously, dropped his voice down low. "Of course, Dearie. I wouldn't dream of leaving them here. I don't know why the things that are hunting you are hunting you, you can explain that to me on the way, but what kind of man would I be if I left them here?"

The sorcerer got to close for my comfort and my aura flared back to life. I snapped my working onto the ground beside me without meaning to.

"Easy, easy," He said, not slowing his steps but holding his hands out in a placating gesture. "Is it the mothers? Is that why you have a bone to pick with me? The same people that placed a seal upon your flesh? Why devote yourself to something that treated you so harshly you had to run away and hide? That's not right, Dearie. They've probably filled your head with lies about The Father's and I. Told you stories about how we stole their magic and meant to destroy them, made you think we were all rampaging tyrants too power hungry to have anything in our minds but war. Lay down your whip, Dearie. Despite what you've been told, we aren't monsters."

He was wrong, The Mother's had never told me. . .anything. That is, anything I could remember. I had proof that I had been in their presence once in the way of a seal made of colors and shapes over my navel, but I didn't remember it. They had restricted me, I had never been allowed outside of my mother's quarters. The first time I had seen anything outside of it that hadn't been a memory had been when I had charmed the guard and made my escape.

Ten-Moons had hated the sorcerer Edwuin enough that she had been willing to kill him on sight however. I didn't think she was a murderous loon, she must have had a reason. Sam, where was he?, had spoken of the war between The Mothers and the sorcerers with enough heat in his voice that I understood the seriousness of it. Even my own mother had spoken of it in passing before.

Despite a twisting feeling in my stomach that told me I should not listen, I understood his logic and that understanding washed away any will to fight I had left.

I was tired, it hadn't been that hard to let go.

My aura faded completely and the loss leveled me. My legs gave out and my vision swam, I was going to pass out.

If it hadn't been for Eames catching me, I would have collapsed to the ground.

"There we are. There we are. You'll be back on your feet in a moment, Dearie, your a tough girl." He said.

It felt so relieving to not have to support my own weight any longer, but that twisting pit in my stomach would not relent. Cold sensations, like I had felt when Eames had healed my leg, appeared on my wrists and ankles. Then I felt it wrap around my middle and press against the mothers seal. "Thank you for healing me again." I whispered, trying to force my vision to focus.

"Yes. Yes. I will heal you in a moment." Eames said.

I felt the man lift me onto my feet and support me until I proved I could stand on my own.

"Autumn?" I heard Anna call and the sounds of her running towards the sorcerer and I followed.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The sound of an impact crashed into my ears and I heard Anna shout in surprise. Her panicked voice was enough to focus my eyes and I saw her standing several steps away from me. Just in front of her feet and glowing grey, a section of the ground had exploded into a patch of ruined earth.

"Don't come any closer and I won't have to do that again, understand?" The sorcerer growled towards my friend.

The realization that I had been lied to hit me and the twisting pain in my stomach tore through me. "You said they could come with me."

"Aye, I did, but they won't be. They'll just slow us down, Dearie. I've got to get you to the spire as soon as I can." Eames said, looking at me as if what he was saying was the most obvious thing in the world.

I bit him.

I bit him in the neck.

I bit him in the neck and as my mouth filled with his blood I let out a skin muffled scream. "Fucking liar!"

He grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled my teeth from his flesh, gritting his teeth. With his free hand, he slammed me across the face twice. "You don't know what you're doing, girl. You don't understand what's happening to you right now."

I didn't fucking care. I didn't care that he had slapped me and I didn't care that he was clutching my hair. I threw my fists wildly at his face and swung a kick at the spot where his legs met. I wanted to kill him, I needed to kill him. It was the only way to make things right.

He slapped me again and if he hadn't been holding my hair, I would have been knocked to the ground. I looked up at him, feeling a hot welt forming on my bottom lip and spat. Reaching for my aura, I imagined what he'd look like with my hand running through his stomach.

"Can't let you do that." He smiled, and I noticed the small gray band around his pinky. He turned it between two fingers without releasing me and everything stopped.

All I could see, all I could hear and feel, vanished. In my senses, there was a blinding flash of cold pain that left me prone on the ground. When the pain had receded and I could make sense of the world again, I noticed the gray bands that matched the one the sorcerer wore around his pinky linked around my joints and middle.

"I knew your afterglow was gonna be a bad one, I had to take some precautions didn't I," The sorcerer asked, pulling me off the ground and over his shoulder. "I'd advise against reaching for your aura again, wouldn't want to empty your soul now would you?"

I'd lost. There was nothing I could do. Powerless to stop him, I felt him turn to the woods I had escaped from earlier that night and begin to walk.

Mothers help me. The thought came and went from my mind faster than I could recognize it. It felt so unlike what a regular thought did, that I questioned if Sam had found a way to contact me again from wherever he was.

My running away, all the memories I had seen, the friendships I had made, they were over and for nothing. I had lost. The sorcerer would take me and I'd never see Anna or Arthur again. I had lost. I had been lied to and believed it like a silly little girl. I had lost.

The Mother's hadn't.

Three little words to end it all.

Mothers help me.

I had no choice.

I went through the internal motions that under normal circumstances would have brought my aura to the surface.

I had none left to focus.

Even if I had somehow been able to scrap anything else off of my soul, I was fairly certain the sorcerer's shackles would have prevented me from using it.

I had never felt so empty in my life.

If you had done this the first time you thought of it, none of this would have happened. I thought, powerless to deny the truth of it.

None of it would have happened.

Anna would not have been exposed to a dark and powerful entity that not only had compelled her to come to it from within her own mind but had sent a horrific creature to take her away. Ms. Lao would not have had to see her son die at the hands of the horror. Arthur, wouldn't have had to learn what it felt like to be gored through the back and out of his stomach by something that should have only existed in his nightmares.

None of it would have happened if I had not been so selfish.

My soul would still be colorless and weak. I wouldn't have been around long enough for Anna's curiosity to spark into a friendship that I would protect until my dying breath. Arthur wouldn't have found his ghost. He would have spent the rest of his life believing in something that he knew to be true but was utterly unable to prove to those he loved.

None of it would have happened if I had not been so selfish, but I couldn't make myself believe that it wasn't worth it.

The three little words that would end it all were coming quickly to my lips, and I knew I had no other choice. I had to prevent me, The Well, from falling into the hands of The Mother's greatest enemies. I owed them much more than that. I would call for them and though I knew it would end with me in so many chains that I would have to ask permission to blink, it was my responsibility to protect them.

I raised my head and looked at the Lao's beyond my hair and hoped that in the moments that followed I would be able to tell them goodbye.

"You'll only have to be like this until you calm down, Dearie. We have many miles to. . .," The sorcerer must have felt something, because he threw me onto the ground before him. "Wait! what are you doing?"

With the intention of lacing my words with my power and the twisting rage I still felt in my stomach, I spoke. "Mother's help me."

In an instant, The Mothers would arrive and put an end to the sorcerer without so much as saying a word. Then, I would be thrown to my knees at their feet and reprimanded. They might decide to withdraw my opportunity to repay my debt and retain my life in the process and just kill me. Why would they offer me such a kindness when all I had done with it was run away and fall into the clutches of a Sorcerer of the Spire. I could make peace with all of that, but the heavier question that came to my mind was what would happen to the Lao's. Would they kill them? I was under the impression that mortals who knew of what lay outside their understanding of reality were not viewed favorably and it wasn't just that they knew about aura or The Mothers, but they knew about me and what I possessed. They wouldn't be left to just return to their lives as if nothing had happened, of that, I was certain. Maybe, A foolish thought ran through my exhausted mind. They will bring them to Zenithcidel.

I didn't get the opportunity to find out however, because The Mother's never came.

"Right, as I was saying, We have many miles to cover." The Sorcerer said when nothing came after my call but silence.

Auden, who had been waiting patiently just outside of the wood line for his master and me, suddenly bared his fangs and turned his four silver eyes in the direction of the trail that led to the house.

What was at first a gentle roaring sound gradually grew louder until a car burst from the side yard and came to a sliding stop in the grass behind the boarding house. A short man, bearing a tangled mess of wispy blonde hair atop his head and a brown suit that hung off his shoulders and didn't reach his shoes, stepped out of the still running car and flashed an utterly too intense smile at me.

"Mr. Bill," Ms. Lao shouted with a glance at her ruined home. "Go inside, but please forgive the mess. I have not had the chance to clean!"

Mr. Bill Argus started walking towards us. "Autumn Aubrey, has he hurt you?"

It took me a moment to realize the man that had moved in after me and had left a sour taste in my mouth every time I saw him had spoken to me.

He had used my real name.

Did no one respect privacy in that house?

Every step he took towards us in the low light of the morning left a print of pastel yellow light in its wake.

Mr. Bill whistled, a quick and sharp melody that sounded more like the chirping of birds than a song, and a flock of shining yellow birds made of what could only be aura obscured him from view.

"I knew it!" Eames growled, bounding past me and towards the new arrival, his gray aura springing to life in his own hands. Auden, following his master, began speeding towards Mr. Bill Argus.

Just before they reached their target, they had to slow and brace themselves against the impact of thousands of workings. Each bird pelted into them and burst into tiny bursts of sparks upon impact.

The rapid stream ended suddenly and Mr. Bill Argus had disappeared.

In his place, a spritely woman who shared his jumbled mess of blonde hair and nothing else stood in his place. She was barefoot, wearing a dress that matched the color of her aura and barely managed to cover the places that clothes are supposed to cover. A wild smile stretched across her mousy face and she laughed at the halted sorcerer. "Begone, thief! Return to your dilapidated tower immediately and I will have no need to further humiliate you."

"Is everyone wearing a fucking disguise?" I heard Anna say, confusion evident in her voice.

"Anna!" Ms. Lao gasped at her daughter's vulgarity.

Just as Mrs. Mole had turned out to be Eames, Mr. Bill Argus had been a Sorceress under the guise of a glamor.

Weakly, I heard Arthur whisper behind me. "That's the prettiest man I've ever seen."