The observation that I and shortly after, my mother, had made about Arthur’s growing mass turned to an undeniable knowledge when I found myself opposite him in the tense moments before our match started.

Ten-moons. She was easier to remember than most of the other eyes I had lived through because I had performed a pale imitation of her workings when Sam and I had gone to meet the lich’s horror behind the boarding house. The men, if they could really still be called men, had made the small sorceress look like a child beside them. The difference between Arthur and I was not that stark, but it felt more like I was preparing to fight a giant than playing a game with my friend from the mortal plane.

“Un, deux, trois!” One of the guards counted off.

Arthur did not move the way his sister had. No feint, no fight, he did not move at all.

For longer than the entirety of the tournament’s first match, we hung in the ready stances, searching each other’s faces for any sign of decision.

“The key is to not move until you are sure you can get a point," Arthur said, most of his usual smile suppressed. “If you strike blindly, you will wind up getting killed, like Anna did.”

“Is that so?” I asked, not enjoying being lectured to by my opponent.

“Like this.” Arthur said, moving much quicker than someone his size should have been able to. His two fingers pushed into my shoulder before I could so much as take a step back.

“Point, Arthur.” My mother called from where she stood outside the platform.

“Now we reset.” Arthur said, pulling his fingers from me and retaking his stance on his side of the center of the platform.

How am I supposed to hit him? I wondered, his arms were so long compared to mine. If I moved close enough to strike any part of him, he could simply step back and out range me. My aura was off limits both because of the rules and the watching eyes of my mother, but I could not help it rising within me. Even with my limited power, I could think of countless ways to use it to ensure my victory.

I reset my feet, glancing to the side of the platform for only long enough to see that Anna wasn’t watching us. Her back was turned to us and she faced the manor, one of the tankards from the guards stall turned up as she drained it.

“Un, deux, trois!”

We had gone to sleep next to one another like any other night. The night had been long and late enough that both of us were too tired to train, but why would she be mad at me for that? If Sam had said something to upset her when I had been on the roof that morning, I would have to find a toilet tank to leave him until he apologized.

Something hit my hand.

“Two points, Arthur!’ My mother called.

“That’s a kill. I win,” Arthur smiled down at me. “Don’t feel bad though. Driskt and Daphne beat me like ten times each before I ever won.”

I lost? I thought, realizing that I had been too distracted to realize the match had continued without me. “Fuck!”

“The next match will be Autumn versus Lady Aubrey.” Springer announced, marking the black board with my loss.

I stormed off the platform with my fists clenched. It was not fair. If I hadn’t been so fucking distracted I could have beaten him, freakishly long arms or not.

Arthur didn’t leave his spot at the center of the platform. Instead, raising his hand and waiting to be called on like he had done before.

“Yes, Arthur?” My mother called on him like she was his precept.

“Can I go ahead and have my next match? Autumn lost so fast I barely got warmed up.” The tall man said, rubbing the back of his head with his hand.

Right there, right then, if my mother had not been watching, I could have killed him.

“It would be better if we maintained the proper order of this, but who would he be dueling next?” My mother called back to the guards in the stall.

“Anna, Lady Aubrey.” Woolie answered after leaning over the wooden counter and looking down at the black board.

At the sound of her name, Anna left the empty tankard on the grass below the platform and took up across from her brother. With none of the urgency and tension she had shown me before, she took up a half hearted shadow of her brother's stance.

Too angry to stand idly and do nothing, I went to the stall and took one of the tankards from the counter. The ale was light and slightly sweet. The bubbles burnt my throat as I drank it. The silky fabric of the uncomfortable uniform annoyed me with every movement I made, and I had fucking lost.

I brought the empty tankard back down harder than I had meant to, banging the bottom of it against the wooden counter and making ale slosh out of its full mates. At the sound, Woolie, the guard that had been taken with The Mother in Red’s arrival at the end of the parade just as I had, looked at me suddenly.

“I’m,” I started to apologize. A jostling pressure rolled up through my chest and burst from my mouth in a bassy burp. I covered my mouth with my hand a moment after it had passed, staring at the guard dressed as a barmaid with my eyes wide in surprise. “Sorry.”

Woolie looked just as surprised as I felt, but the corner of his mouth twitched with a grin that he seemed to be resisting. He had thought my unintended expulsion of air to be funny. I knew I shouldn’t try and speak to him, all of the guards were forbidden from speaking to me, but I could not resist. “I should mind my manners in front of a lady.”

Woolie looked down at his corset and apron. A rolling laugh rumbled out of the big man as he slapped his hands onto his belly.

Springer, stuck his head through the red curtains at the back of the stall and snapped at his fellow guard. “Woolie, calm yourself! It is forbidden!”

“No harm has been done,” My mother said, appearing next to me and placing her hand on my back. “I thank both of you for your dedication to your duty. No ordinary men could don the barmaids garb with such strength and confidence.”

Woolie and Springer both stood a little straighter at my mother’s words. She led me away from the stall, but the wicked smile that had spread across my face from making the guard laugh fell away and the anger that had filled me upon my defeat returned.

A realization came over me and I looked up at my mother. “You? Why would you forbid them from speaking with me? I thought it was The Mother’s.”

“It is for your protection as much as it is for theirs, my little Delpha,” My mother answered, her emerald eyes filled with a softness that soothed the heat in my body. “To know you is to love you. The guards must be able to perform their duties without influence.”

“Oh.” I sighed, understanding her logic without finding pleasure in the truth.

“Un, deux, trois!” Springer counted off again, starting the match between the mismatched Lao’s.

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“Do you remember what I asked of you in the well house this afternoon?” My mother said, speaking to me in barely more than a whisper.

Treat them well, little Delpha, as they have treated you. I heard what she had said echoing in my mind. “I do.”

My mother unbound the ring of her aura from my hair with the touch of her finger before gathering it back up in her hands. “Anna is deeply troubled this night. A shadow has been cast over her and you are just the one who can bring her back into the light.”

Arthur touched his sister's shoulder in the same spot he had scored on me. It seemed like she had not moved at all to avoid it.

“Point, Arthur!” Springer called from where he knelt by the black board.

Anna and Arthur reset on the white stone of the platform and were counted off to begin again.

“Despite the pain it might cause you when you face her, make your goal to bring her back to us, not to win. Do this and I will owe you a favor. It brings me great displeasure to see her this way.” My mother said, binding my long hair behind my head with another ring of aura.

“Two points, Arthur,” Springer called, marking the tall man's victory over his sister. “Arthur is the victor!”

Words passed between the siblings, but they were too quiet and I was too far away to hear them. Arthur held his hands in front of himself and shrugged his shoulders, a confused expression on his face.

Anna stepped towards him like she desired an embrace. She closed her fist and drove it into her brother’s stomach. The tall man staggered back, holding his middle and looking more hurt than hurt. Anna left the platform shaking her hand and immediately went to the stall for another tankard.

“Autumn versus Lady Aubrey will be the next duel!” Springer announced.

“Come, I have something I must teach you.” My mother said, encouraging me off the soft grass and back onto the hard white stones of the platform.

I didn’t want to play any more. There was no one in all of chaos that could have given less of a fuck about The Red Mother’s hand than I did. All I could think about was Anna. I wanted to go to her, to embarrass myself or assault her like I had when we were in my little bedroom after her understanding of reality had been shattered. Like most things however, that was out of my control, and I found myself opposite my mother in the center of the platform.

“Autumn,” My mother said, bringing my attention away from Anna and back to herself. The softness had left her emerald eyes and had been replaced with an intense fierceness that I had never seen before on her beautiful face. “There will come a time where you feel that you are caught between two fires, the fire of those you love,” She glanced at where Anna stood in front of the wooden stall, swapping an empty tankard for a full one. “and the fire of those that mean to harm you.”

I focused back on my mother, trying to pay attention to what she was saying. “Right, two fires.”

“At that moment, when your heart is divided, which fire do you pay attention to?” She asked me

“I. . .I don’t know.” I said, my eyes darting between my mother and my friend.

Springer counted us off. “Un, deux, trois!”

The sound of my mothers movement registered in my mind a moment before I realized her fingers rested against my forehead. Stunned from my sudden and absolute defeat, I stared slack jawed at her, her face less than a hand's breadth from my own.

“The one that is closer to burning you,” She said in a tone that was so unlike her usual voice that it hardly sounded like my mother at all. A smile came from her and she pushed her forehead into mine lovingly. “Learn that lesson well, my daughter,” She withdrew from me as one of the guards announced her victory. “Now, do as I asked. Anna needs you.”

“Autumn versus Anna will be the next duel.” Springer announced as my mother left the platform and Anna took her place across from me.

The sky above Erosette was clear of clouds and filled with an uncountable amount of stars despite the fact that it and every other part of Zenithcidel was deep underground. It must have been particularly beautiful to Anna that night because she kept her eyes just above my head when she took up her stance opposite me.

“Anna.” I said.

“Un, deux, trois.” My mother counted off.

The moment my mother finished her count and the duel began, I ducked my head and drove my shoulder into Anna’s hips, tackling her to the white stone of the platform. Using her shoulders to pull myself up against her struggling, I pinned her arms under my knees and stared down at her.

“What,” She tried to shake herself free of my weight, but I had pinned her well. “The fuck are you doing?”

I tried to think of something funny or antagonistic to say to her. I couldn’t. Even with her looking like she wanted to actually kill me, I could do nothing but tell her the truth. “You haven’t looked at me all night and I don’t like it one fucking bit.”

She tried to push me off. “It’s not like that.”

“Are you not always insisting that you could beat me in a fight? Now is your chance to prove your empty words.” I said, pushing off of her and dropping into the most dramatic version of the stance as I could.

Anna shot to her feet and faced me down.

I had made her angry, but at least she was looking at me.

“Girls, a moment.” My mother called, holding up a hand. Her, Arthur, and the guards had gathered in front of the stall. Several points and hushed words later, my mother left the tight grouping and walked to the edge of the platform. “Anna, we will be giving you a point because of Autumn’s illegal tackle. Do you find this sufficient or would you prefer disqualification?”

Anna didn’t take her dark eyes off of mine. “I’ll take the point.”

In all the time I had known her, Anna had been the one pulling me out whatever gloom or spiral I found my mind in. She was much better at it than I was, but that didn’t mean I was helpless. While my mother counted us down again, just as her lips passed over ‘trois’, I stuck my tongue out and winked at Anna.

“Fuck you.” She snapped and tried to kill me. With a hard step, she jabbed her two fingers towards my face and if I hadn't leaned to my right, they would have gone straight into the eye I had winked with. Close enough that I didn’t need to extend my arm fully, I pushed my own fingers into the hard spot between her breasts.

“Point, Autumn!” My mother called, tying my score with Anna’s. I stepped back, grinning. Having her being mad at me was better than having her be nothing to me.

Anna rubbed the silky fabric over where I had struck her, taking up the starting position with a sigh. “That hurt.”

“Then don’t be so easy to hit,” I said, feeling bad the moment the word left my lips. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Don’t apologize. It doesn’t matter. I’m about to win anyways.” Anna replied, a hint of her usual self playing at the corner of her eyes.

“Is that so?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Anna chuckled. “Of course, how could I not?” I know your weak spot.”

Once again, my mother counted. “Un, deux, trois!”

Without letting a second pass, I dropped low into my stance. Meaning to slip underneath any attacks Anna threw at my perceived weak spots and to come up and jab her in the same spot I had before, all I wanted was to keep her anger focused on me.

I never got the chance.

When I had reached the furthest depth that I could lower myself to, Anna withdrew her hand and faced me fully. She grabbed each side of her silky red jacket and pulled it apart, flashing me.

It was not that the sight of her bare chest dazzled me to the point that I lost my balance and fell backwards. The sheer shock of her brilliant combat maneuver was the cause for my fall and nothing else.

Anna closed her jacket and walked over to me, gently placing her two fingers on my forehead. “If you could see your face,” She laughed, really laughed, and helped me onto my feet. “It works every time.”

“Anna is the victor!” My mother called as we met her at the edge of the platform, she stopped me as I passed her. “Well done, little Delpha. Think of something you want and ask me for it, I will provide it for you.”

“What just happened? Is that legal?” Arthur asked towards Woolie and Springer.

Anna passed by her brother on her way to me, a tankard in each hand. “In some states.”

Springer, marking on the black board, spoke without looking up. “That leads us to the final duel to break the tie between Arthur and Lady Aubrey.”

I took the tankard from Anna and drank, still wondering what I had done to upset her.

“Hey, I’m sorry for how I’ve been tonight.” She said, looking down at our feet.

I swallowed and hoped another burp would not interrupt me. “If I have,”

“We can talk later, I want to see this.” She cut me off as Springer began to count down to the beginning of Arthur and my mother’s duel. She dropped to the soft grass beneath us and pulled me down beside her. I sat and took another drink, feeling her rest her head on my shoulder just as the duel began.

A warm contentment settled over me. I had learned a valuable lesson on Galahad’s night.

A head on the shoulder was worth a thousand of The Red Mother’s hands.