A little over a week passed before I could do anything but sleep, have my bandages changed, and eat.

My mother had even offered to let me leave the manor walls and find a place on the hill to watch the end of Amoranora. Not even the promise of what I had spent months fantasizing about could coax me out of my room.

Since I had seen the end of one of the wounds that had not closed, I kept my eyes closed whenever my mother came to rewrap me. The soreness had faded with every passing day. During the brief moments out of my bed, I found a heaviness that made it nearly impossible to move had replaced it.

Arthur came to my room twice. The first time, after he had asked how I was, we had sat in silence for a time and then he had left. The second, he had not asked me anything. The tall man had come with his usual smile and two glass bottles of ice cold milk. One had been for me and we drank them in near silence before he left again.

The first three days, Anna had only left my side when she needed to use the bathroom or to bring us food. We had not talked much. When I slept, she slept. When I ate, she ate. When she left, I stared up at the canopy and counted the seconds until she returned. On the morning of the fourth, my mother had taken her away from me. Along with Ms. Lao, the three of them had gone down to the city for something to help my mother heal the sick woman. When Anna returned, she came with books. There had been boxes of them in her room at the boarding house, but there had not been much time for reading then. Still, she had been truly excited at what she had acquired. Everyday after, whenever we weren’t eating or sleeping, she had her nose buried in a book. In that, I found a way to pass the time. Between my long naps, I would watch the way her brow knit together or the sudden widening of her eyes when something she read suprised her. If she sat next to me on the bed, I could follow her eyes as they moved across the page and watch her hand sway as she took note of what she read. It did not matter to me what she was reading, I was just glad to see her enjoying something. I never asked about her reading and she never tried to tell me. Without the need for words, she understood something that had taken me days to realize.

Mother Azza had not given me a gift. She had forced me into an exchange I had no power to refuse. She had taken something from me, and all I received was the golden choker locked around my throat.

After all I had been through, I had become less.

Mother Azza had taken me from me.

I had never belonged to me to begin with, and I would continue to learn that lesson eight more times.

Anna knew it, I could see it in her smile when she looked at me. There was something sad in the set of her eyes that told me she missed the Autumn she had known before.

Still, she stayed.

In that, I knew I could not lay in my bed and wallow until the next Mother came for me. Until that happened, I needed to make a show of it. I would pretend, go through the motions, to try and keep her from being sad.

On the morning of the eighth day after Adrian’s night, Anna gathered up her books and went down to the city with my mother and her own. I waited long enough to be certain that they were truly gone and crawled out of my bed. I stretched my arms and legs, feeling no pain from the injuries hiding beneath my bandages, and pulled on the cuffed boots from my costume. The air in them was cool and they fit much more loosely without pants stuffed into them.

Even though all I had done was lay in bed, I needed to shower. My hair was tangled and oily. Every place where the parts of me connected under my bandages felt grimy. That small comfort was beyond me. I could not rewrap myself alone and there was no way for me to wash my hair without getting the rest of me wet. I did not bother with my closet, there was nothing inside of it that I would ever wear again. Instead, I left my room and dragged my feet towards Anna’s.

Two guards stood in the hall outside of my door. One I recognized and one that I did not think I had ever seen.

Driskt, the one whose name I knew, turned to look at me when I stepped into the hall. He snapped his gloved hand up to his face and covered his eyes. “Look away, Daphne.”

His partner, Daphne, did as he had been told.

For a moment, I thought that my mother had also forbidden them from looking at me. Then, I remembered that all that I had on to cover me were the bandages and my boots.

“I am sorry,” I muttered, realizing that I had yet again found a way to expose myself. I covered my chest with one arm and continued towards Anna’s room. “I did not know you were out here.”

When I passed them, they both turned their heads in the opposite direction with their eyes closed.

“Is there anything we can do for you, Lady Autumn?” Daphne called after me.

“No, thank you though.” I answered, feeling too heavy to feel embarrassed. I closed Anna’s door behind me and shuffled into her closet, looking for something that could cover me. If my mother was not who I knew her to be, I would have suspected her of tasking the guards with ensuring I did not try and run away. I had done it before, and that had been without having my entire sense of self ground away.

That had not been her intention. I knew that she had placed them upstairs with me in case I needed help.

I pulled something black off the hanger by its long sleeve. It looked like it would fit me well, but the fabric was thin and silky. I let it drop to the floor and found something else. It was too long to be a shirt, but too short to be a dress. The dark blue garment was not silky and the sleeves were loose all the way down to the tightened cuffs.

Pulling it on over my head, I thought about Bool.

When he had pulled me from my deathbed, had he remembered the pain I had caused him only days before? Either he hadn’t, or he had and acted despite it. Whichever possibility proved to be true, both made the guard seem all the more honorable.

Damn the rules. He had said.

Even with my history of forgetting who I was, I would never forget the sound of the guard's rough voice. As long as I was pretending, I should go find him and apologize. Not only had he found me and carried me into the manor, he had not so much as grimaced when I had become sick. The least I could do was tell him I was sorry.

Back in the hall with only my face remaining uncovered, Driskt and Daphne had no need to turn away from me.

“Do either of you know if Bool is around?” I asked, stopping at the top of the stairs and turning to them.

Unmoving and silent, the two guards held their eyes forward.

“You are only allowed to ask me if I need help, right?” I asked them.

Without turning their eyes from the wall, both of them gave me small nods.

On a different day, any of those that had passed before my punishment, I would have tried to aggravate them into disobeying their orders. I simply did not have the strength.

What reason had my mother given me for her order of silence?

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

To know you is to love you, my little Delpha.

My hand found its way around the stone hanging from my choker. If my mother was right about that, Mother Azza was immune to my charms.

The stairs were not the long arduous journey that had been the last time I had taken them. They did not exhaust me, but every descending step I took away from my bed only made my longing to return to it grow. When I reached the kitchen, the sound of muffled impacts and distant shouts came from the back of the manor. With nothing better to do, I shuffled my way past Arthur’s room and stepped through the open door.

After so many days in the dim light of my windowless room, the Erosette sunlight forced me to shade my eyes with my hands. The sound of a bird quickly taking flight from somewhere above came. Two figures, one tall and one short, crossed swords in front of the garden. The taller of the two backstepped and blocked his opponent's attack with his blade. When the two swords met, the shorter of the two did some manner of wrist twist that sent the taller one’s sword to the ground.

My eyes began to adjust and I realized the combatant that had been disarmed was Arthur. His opponent had been the guard Springer, and both of the swords were made of shaped wood.

I walked towards them, feeling hot in my covering clothes.

“It doesn’t matter how strong you are, Ugi, technique wins every time.” Springer said, pacing away from Arthur.

The tall man snatched his wooden sword up from the ground. “You know, telling me that every time you win is starting to get annoying.”

“Ah, then stop losing and you will no longer have to hear it,” Springer’s eyes flickered to me briefly. “We have a visitor, a break perhaps?”

“Hey! Look who's alive!” Arthur said and turned to walk towards me.

“No, do it again. I want to watch.” I said, holding up my hands to stop him.

“Uh. . .” Arthur said, his usually cheerful face looking conflicted.

“Come now, Ugi. Do not be shy. Let’s give the lady what she wants.” Springer shouted, taking quick steps towards Arthur with his sword above his head.

Arthur spun on his heels and swung the sword back in a wide arc. His reach was sufficient, but his height worked against him. Springer lowered himself without slowing his advance and Arthur’s strike sailed over his gray hair without touching it.

The shorter man spun his wooden sword in his hands and brought it snapping down.

The flat side of it smacked against Arthur’s ribs with a fleshy sound.

Arthur grunted and brought his wood blade straight down, aiming for the head he had so narrowly missed.

Springer sidestepped quickly to the left, dragging the blade across his opponent's stomach.

The tip of Arthur’s wooden sword hit nothing but dirt.

Springer's blade broke free and he followed through the movement of the slash.

“Even with your little avian friend, I think that would have done you in, Ugi.” Springer said.

Arthur flicked his wrist and sent his sword down into the dirt where it stood like a post. “That’s not fair, I was distracted.”

“Which is why you would have died. I’m going to swap off with Woolie.” Springer moved to take the path between the wall to my right and the manor. When he crossed where I stood, he nodded and gave me a tight lipped smile. Then, he continued on his way and I walked over to Arthur.

“What were you doing?” I asked him. The tall man's dark hair had grown and his sharp jaw was darkened by patchy stubble. Bright red bruises that would soon turn dark purple covered him like splotches of paint. Arthur looked different in a way that I could not quite put my finger on. He grabbed my hand and carefully placed it on the swollen red skin over his ribs. The place where Springer had struck him was hard with muscle and my hand looked so small in comparison to him.

“Shh. Watch this.” He shushed me.

Pale blue light, the color of his owl spirit, sone dimly through his skin and illuminated my fingers with its color. Through my bandages, I could feel a gentle warmth that felt pleasant on my skin. The light faded and he pulled my hand away to reveal that the new bruise had faded and there was no sign that he had ever been hit.

“I bet Anna can’t do that.” He smiled, pointing to all the places on him that were no longer bruised.

“Why have you not shown me this before?” I asked him. When Anna had forced him to tell me about his ghost, I had believed him. The night we went into the woods, I had not made fun of him the way his sister had.

“I’ve been trying for a few weeks, but you're always busy or something else is going on,” He shrugged. “Right after we got here, my ghost came out of me and we had a long talk.”

Fuck. I remember him coming and knocking on the pink marble door of the well house. Before that, the morning I had fallen off the roof, I had promised that I would come find him.

I never had.

“I’m sorry,” I sighed, and looked up at him. “Truly.”

Arthur shook his head. “Stop it, I’m not mad. I’m just happy you are finally out of bed. I can’t imagine sleeping for that long,” He stretched his arms above his head. “You can meet him again if you want? He likes you. We will have to wait until it gets dark out though. He’s still an owl.”

“You don’t sleep anymore, do you?” I asked, remembering all the little things over the past months that Arthur had said that should have made me question him.

A good friend would have.

I had not.

“Nope! Your mom said that having two souls in my body gives twice the life or something like that. She told me that’s why I’ve gotten so big, but I think it’s from the push ups.” Arthur said, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.

I had almost forgotten that my mother knew about the spirit. It had been less than two weeks since the morning that should have been the start of my first date. It felt like it had been months. How could that feel so far gone, but the memory of my tomb of sand felt like I had just been freed from it?

My hand crept back up to the stone hanging from my neck and a shiver ran over me.

“I know you aren’t exactly choosing to wear it, but that’s pretty on you, you know?” Arthur said, looking past me at the bulk of Woolie that had just walked around the corner.

“Why are you fighting with the guards,” I asked him. “I thought they liked you.”

Arthur laughed. “It’s not fighting, it's training. They are helping me get stronger so the captain will let me join the guards.”

“Why?” I asked him, not understanding.

“It’s not that hard to figure out,” He looked above me and waved. “Hey, look who's up!”

I turned to see my mother walking out of the manor.

“I wondered where you were when I did not find you upstairs,” My mother smiled at me and gently placed her hand on my back. She looked at Arthur, every bit as beautiful as she always was. “Springer asked me to remind you that technique beats strength every time. He says that you are having problems learning that lesson. Would you like me to assist you?”

Arthur rolled his eyes and unstuck the tip of his wooden sword from the ground.

“I’ll handle that, Lady Aubrey,” Woolie grinned through his thick beard and gave Arthur a small shove. “He just needs a firm hand is all.

I met the guard’s eyes. In a different life, I would have bowed and called him my lady. I thought about doing it regardless of how heavy I felt but I could not find the strength.

“My offer stands if you change your mind, dear. I could take all of the guards at once if I had a mind to,” My mother insisted. Then, she looked down at me. “I am happy to see that you felt well enough to come outside. The sunlight is good for you, but perhaps you should go rest again. I have need of you tomorrow if you are able.”

“Oh?” I asked, wondering what she could ever need me for. More than likely, she was going to want to know the reason I had hid so many things from her.

“Yes, around lunch, but not in the garden. I will come and fetch you from your room,” She answered and kissed me on the top of my head. Then, she whispered to me so only I could hear. “A bath will make you feel better. I will be up shortly to wrap your wounds.”

My mother left us then, and I was left alone with Arthur and Woolie.

“Can you help me back to the door?” I asked Arthur and stuck my arm out for him to walk with me like I had seen him do with his mother.

“Of course.” He agreed.

The height difference between us forced him to stoop down. I used my contrived opportunity to ask him quietly what had not left my mind. “Your mother agreed to let you join the guards?”

The last I had heard, the elder Lao intended to pack up her children and go back from whence they came.

“No, but I’m doing it anyway.” Arthur said, a hint of his mother’s rigidness in his voice.

“Why?” I asked him for the second time.

“To protect you. And Ma and Anna. Your mom too. I can’t sit around and do nothing like Anna does. I have to get stronger.” He answered me, his expression serious and without a hint of a smile.

I thanked him for walking me and agreed to meet the owl spirit again. Then, I went inside and headed back up the stairs. Arthur wanted to protect me and his family. He had to get stronger to join the guards so he could do that.

It was brave, noble even, but he was misguided.

The guards were not meant to protect me.

They were meant to protect people from me.

I had not had the strength to tell him.