I was not struck again.

Swirls of light flashed in my eyes as I fought against the daze the first hit had sent me into.

Arthur appeared in front of me. One second, the masked fighters fist was streaking towards my jaw. The next, the tall man was between us and shielding me from the sudden violence.

He caught their strike in one of his massive hands. A sharp crack snapped into the air from the impact.

“Ugi, no!” The captain shouted.

The unrelenting force of the masked fighter drove Arthur back and sent him sliding back on the wooden boards of the platform.

“Get out of my way.” The masked fighter commanded and swung their free fist at Arthur.

He caught it just like the first, and leaned all of his weight forward. Still, he could not hold his ground against my attacker.

What the fuck is happening? The first coherent thought I was able to have after being hit came. How was someone who was smaller than me strong enough to push Arthur back?

Why the fuck did they hit me?

“Come on, boss. Just calm down and we can talk about this." The captain said, walking slowly towards the masked fighter with his palms held towards them in a passive gesture.

Boss?

The masked fighter ignored the captains pleading. “I will not warn you again. Get out of my way.”

“No.” Arthur growled.

A single mote of light floated through the air and past my face. Another and another followed until streams of them formed on either side of me. Murmers and whispers from the hushed crowd rose into a chorus of quiet voices. Where they had been jubilant only minutes before, fear and confusion was evident on each of their faces.

“What is this?” I heard the masked fighter demand from Arthur.

I raised myself onto the tips of my toes and looked over the tall man’s shoulder.

Arthur’s eyes shone with the same pale blue light that Opa was made of. The ends of his fingers and thumbs were alight with sharp glowing talons. A line of the light appeared at the nape of his neck and came to life down the line of his spine. The tips of the tall man’s translucent claws were sunk into the flesh of the masked fighter.

When the lich’s horror had clutched Anna in its horrid middle and taken flight, I had needed to become more than I was so I could save her.

Arthur had come to my defense. When he had not been enough, the tall man had shown himself to be more.

He had done it for me.

“Let’s take a walk, huh? I’m sure this is all one big misunderstanding,” The captain said. He placed his hand on the masked fighter’s back and spoke softly. “You promised me that you were just coming to see.”

“Who is this? What is this?” The masked fighter glanced towards the captain and demanded.

"His name is Arthur, I’ve told you about him. He’s just protecting the girl. Right, Ugi?” The captain answered in the same tone that Anna used with me when I needed to be calmed

Arthur stepped forward and brought his weight to bear against my attacker. The trails of pale blue light streaming from his eyes brightened as he spoke. “I’m not gonna let you hurt her again.”

The crystalline quality that Opa spoke with ran underneath Arthur’s words like a stream underneath ice.

A furious exhale came from within the folds of the white wrap that concealed the masked fighters face.

“Shit! Get her out of here!” The captain looked past me and yelled.

A hand took mine from behind and pulled me towards the edge of the platform.

Anna.

The masked fighter broke free of Arthur’s spirit talons and drove their fist into his middle. I had done the same to Patience the first time I had come to Erosette as Trea.

The crowd gasped collectively and their chorus came apart into a jumbled mess of shouts and yells.

You’re not Trea. The masked fighter’s words repeated in my mind. They were right, I was an escaped criminal using forbidden power to conceal my true identity, but how had they known?

“We have to run!” Anna shouted as she jerked me off the edge of the stage.

The masked fighter struck Arthur in his stomach again before connecting with his jaw. The impacts sent him falling towards the wooden boards of the platform. Before he hit, the captain caught him underneath his arms and held him upright. The tall man’s head lolled to one side and his body went limp.

My aura flared to life within me and filled my hands with a desperate desire to hurt the masked fighter the way they had hurt Arthur. To bring my power to bear across their face and fill their mouth with blood the way they had done me, I could not flee. Anger brought furious words to my lips and I shouted them as I stepped back onto the platform. “Hey! Fuck you!”

“Autumn, no.” Anna whispered harshly from behind me.

My attacker snapped their attention back to me and began to take slow steps towards me.

Every place the bottom of their cloth shoes touched the platform, the wood cracked and broke away into bursts of splinters and dust. Red light shone through the gaps of their clinched fists as they stalked toward me and the heat of my anger turned cold.

Fear, like freezing water was running down my spine, froze me in place.

Another step, another radius of destroyed wood. The red light bubbled up between their fingers like the clear fire of Vowkeeper’s Anguish and I knew it to be aura.

A sorceress. They are a sorceress. I thought. I should have ran. I should have listen to Anna and the captain. I should have stayed at the manor like a good little girl and none of it would have been happening to begin with.

“You’re not Trea. So who are you, girl,” The masked fighter asked me. Every word they spoke and every second they stared at me with their glowing red eyes was a promise of violence once they reached me. "A sorcerer? A sorceress? Who sent you here?"

I took a shaking step back.

They took a sudden step forward and carved a tear of broken wood from the platform. They closed the distance between us faster than I could think. With one hand, they grabbed me by the front of my dress raised their free fist behind them. Molten bubbles of their aura rolled back from the tips of their fingers and burst behind their wrists.

I could feel their power on my chest through the black fabric of my dress and feared what would happen if they brought their fist to bear.

"I will only ask once,” The masked fighter said and I knew there words to be true. “Who are you?”

I almost answered honestly.

I almost dropped my glamor

I almost gave up.

I would have, if I had been alone.

Three things happened all at once between the moment I took a breath to answer and when I opened my mouth to speak.

Thunder cracked from the sky and shook the street outside of seven columns.

Anna appeared at my side and slapped at the hand of the masked fighter that clutched me, screaming. “Let her go!”

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Arthur, his eyes and hands still streaming with pale blue light, drove his shoulder into the side of the masked fighter and took them to the platform.

The fabric they clutched tore away from dress and I stumbled back, free.

The crowd parted and Anna pulled me through them and away from the stage before I knew what was happening.

We ran by the open door of seven columns just as someone stepped out of it. Like the first time I had met her, Pyreme collided with us. I fell hard to the stone street, the skinned places on my knees and shins coming alive with new pain on impact.

“Pyreme! Grab her!” The masked fighter shouted.

Arthur lay limp on his back with my attacker kneeling over him.

I looked into Pyreme’s amber eyes and saw that she understood what had been asked of her.

“What did you say? I didn’t hear you?” The sleepy faced underwitch called back as she looked away from me.

Sam appeared beside me and nudged his big blue head into the side of my leg.

“Follow me, my lady. This place is not safe for you.” He rumbled as Anna helped me to my feet and pulled me into motion. We broke through the stunned crowd and dashed through the alley I had lost myself in earlier that night. The big blue cat lead us through so many streets and turns so quickly, that I would have been lost without him.

We left the halo of torch light that had been so festive and warm far behind us and only stopped once I needed to catch my breath.

"What about Arthur,” I wheezed with my hands on my knees. “We can’t-“

“He has Opa. He’s fine. What the fuck happened? Why did that freak hit you?” Anna cut me off and asked through her own deep gasps.

“I don’t know. They know my name isn’t really Trea.” I answered as I watched Sam pace back and forth in the dark backstreet we had stopped in.

Light, red light, appeared from the direction we had come from and climbed up the walls as it grew closer.

We were being followed.

No, we were being hunted.

“Come, my lady. There is no time.” Sam insisted and we were off again.

Everything was a blur. I didn’t know the city very well under normal circumstances. It took very little for me to get turned around. I could not have named one building or street we passed until Sam led us out of the city and I saw the river.

“Where are we going? What is the plan?” Anna called after him as he turned to our left and continued.

“To the manor, mortal. Her safety is my only concern.” Sam said, his deep voice carrying back to us easily.

“Fuck that, We can’t just run up to the bridge and act like nothings wrong. She has to go up the hill or sneak back in somehow.” Anna spat at my familiar.

“The time for secrecy has long passed. We are going to the bridge.” Sam commanded.

Anna let out a shapeless, frustrated, sound as we round the outside of the city and the bridge came into our sight in the distance. She stopped running and grabbed me by my shoulders. “Hey, I need you to bring your glamor back, okay? I’ve got a plan, but it won’t work if you look like you.”

I brought my hands to my face as if I would be able to feel the difference. “ I didn’t. . .”

When had I lost control of my illusion? How many people in the crowd had seen my true face before we had escaped into the alley?

“I know, I know,” Anna smiled at me. “You just have to do it one last time and then all of this will be over. We can go inside and be safe, alright?”

The sight of Arthur being struck after he had come to my defense came to the front of my mind. The violence in my attackers words and the fear I had felt at the sight of their aura came with it. Every part of my body had settled into a dull throb once we had stopped running.

“I can’t.” I shook my head and looked away from her, feeling embarrassed and pathetic as I spoke.

The sound of thunder cracked through the air for the second time that night and Sam appeared at our feet. “There is no time for this, mortal.”

“Yes you can. You can shoot fireworks out of your fucking belly button. You can do anything.” Anna said, bending down until she could meet my eyes again.

“Mortal!” Sam thundered. The big blue cat circled around our legs and slammed his side into me, his deep blue eyes staring back the way we had come.

Like a small sun was moving through the city, carmine light shone up between the tops of the buildings and grew closer to us by the second.

I couldn’t do it. No matter how desperately I need to conceal myself again, I couldn’t make myself do it.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to rely on myself alone.

Anna reached down into the collar of her shirt and pulled out the bird skull necklace from within it.

“You made this,” she shook it in front of my face. “From nothing. You can do it, I believe in you.”

I sighed and a smile touched the corners of my mouth. “Okay, I can do it.”

We started moving towards the bridge, and much more importantly, away from the oncoming tide of red light and violence.

Once we reached the bridge, I had glamored myself into Trea once again. Anna pulled my arm over her shoulders and took up a way of walking that made it seem like I could not support my own weight.

Bool and Schmit met us halfway across the bridge, with their hands resting on the crystalline pommels of their swords.

“Lady Anna? What has happened?” Bool asked, looking from her to me to Sam and back again.

“I don’t know, I think somebody robbed her. She’s hurt. We need to take her up to the manor.” Anna said, her voice shrill and full of false panic. She did not slow our advance for a single step despite the guards rigid posture.

I kept my eyes cast down to the stones of the bridge. With all the reasons it had been nearly impossible for me to glamor myself again, I didn’t think I could take lying to Bool’s face.

He had found me after Mother Azza’s punishment. The guard that was infatuated with my mother had given me as much comfort and care as he could have. I had gotten sick on him and he didn’t so much as grimace.

“Take her to our quarters on the corner there,” Schmit pointed back towards the city. “We can figure out who attacked her and go after them.”

“No,” Bool said, and raised his sword out of its scabbard a small amount. He raised his free hand and pointed towards me. “Little Aubrey wears a necklace just like that, does she not?”

The choker, the golden fucking choker that Azza had locked around my throat. My dress had covered it in part before it had been torn away.

“She wears those same kind of boots too.” Schmit added.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“Little Aubrey?” Bool asked.

“Fuck.” I muttered and watched as red dust rained from my face.

“You’re supposed to be up at the manor, sick and in bed!” Schmit shouted.

Thunder cracked from the sky for the third time that night.

“Mortal guards, someone is after my lady and means to do bring her harm.” Sam growled and turned his face back towards the city.

The masked fighter had found us.

Just like it had been on the wooden platform, every step they took broke and scattered the stone underneath their feet. The bubbles of their molten aura streamed fully up their arms and rose above their shoulders like armor made entirely of their power.

“Get behind us, little Aubrey. Schmit, send up the signal. That’s a sorceresses.” Bool commanded as he stepped in front of Anna and I. He drew his sword full and took two quick steps towards the city side of the bridge.

Schmit did the same. He raised the tip of his sword to the sky and crushed the crystalline pommel.

Vines of rose colored light sprouted from the sword and climbs into the sky like the greenery that had overgrown one side of the well house. The vines met and spun into the shape of a rose before bursting into a shower of sparks.

The masked fighter reached the end of the bridge and brought their fist straight down to the broken stone beneath them. A jagged line of their aura streaked through the stones and ran straight towards where Anna and I stood.

Just before it reached us, Bool crushed the pommel of his sword and drove its tip into the stone. The same as Schmit’s, rose colored vines grew from the blade and stopped my attackers power dead where they met.

“Why are you still here? To the manor, go. Now.” Bool commanded

I did not obey. The events playing out before me made so little sense that I needed to understand it before I could think of anything else.

“Why are you protecting me? You are suppose to keep me from the city, guard its people from me, aren’t you?”

“You have it backwards.” Schmit answered, the rose colored power settling over his blade like a solid flame.

Bool drew his sword from the bridge and held it in front of himself, the same solid flame as his counterparts forming. “We are your guards, little Aubrey. This is our duty.”

“Leave this place,” Bool shouted to my attacker. “You have no business here!”

The masked fighter stepped onto the bridge as the white fabric of their sleeves were torn away within their molten power. “The girl, Bool. Whoever she is, give her to me!”

“Do you know who that is?” Schmit asked in a harsh whisper.

“No,” Bool grunted in response before repeating his words. “Leave this place! You have no business-“

The masked fighter reached out and ripped a hunk of stone from the ground like they were tearing off a corner of bread and hurled it towards the guards.

Their power came with it, but Bool did not so much as flinch.

The guard raised his sword in the exact same motion I had seen Arthur practicing with the hayman and brought it down in a savage arc.

The rose fire of his blade cut the molten rock in two and sent each half sailing away harmlessly.

“Enough! Enough! Everybody hold on a second!” Someone shouted from beyond the bridge.

“Captain?” Schmit called back.

Sure enough, the captain of the guards sprinted towards the bridge with two small shields buckled to his arms.

“This is all one big misunderstanding. Everybody calm down and we can talk about this civilly!” He shouted once he reached the masked fighter.

“Lets go. We need to get you out of here.” Anna said, pulling me back by my arm.

“I agree, mortal. Listen to her, my lady.” Sam growled from where he leaned against the front of my legs.

“No.” I answered. Whatever the fuck was happening, I wanted to know about it.

Driskt and Daphne streaked past us and took up next to their fellow guards, their swords alight with the same power.

“This was suppose to be an easy job. We weren’t suppose to get into any shit.” Daphne said under his breath as he passed.

The captain passed by the masked fighter and planted his feet at the point of the battle ready guards. “Boss, let’s not do this again. Just calm down and let’s talk.”

The masked fighter answer came in the way of a sudden charge.

On the bridge that connected the manor to the city, the violence that my attacker had promised came to pass.