Sam, as if nothing remarkable had just occurred, was the first soul in the crowded well house to speak.

“My hunger has returned alongside my flesh. I will hunt now.” The big blue cat said simply as he snaked through my legs and made for the open door.

Anna dropped back down to the bench. She wrapped her arms around herself and looked up at me, her eyes brimming with tears.

“I never thought,” My mother spoke softly. “Anna, if you ever-“

“No. Do not talk to her. Tell me why you have done this.” I commanded. The power I held in my right hand had left me feeling like all of chaos would kneel at my feet if I so wished.

I could see how the tone in my voice hurt her, but I did not care. I needed to know why I had been terrorized the way I was.

“Anna,” My mother continued, her eyes focused on something that was just above my head. “I have told you of the bindings that I cannot break? That there are powers much greater than I that prevent me from doing as I wish?”

“I know someone who’s has the same sort of problems.” Anna responded, still looking up at me with tears brimming in her eyes.

“Samsara, I command you to stop.” I shouted, just as my familiar was stepping through the open door way. I do not know if it was the tone of my voice or the aura I was channeling, but the big blue cat obeyed my command.

I could not think while he was moving, but I could not allow him to leave. He had been the cutting edge of the cruel trick that had just been played on me and he would answer for that.

Bindings that I can not break. my mother’s words repeated in my mind. Had The Mothers done something to my mother like what Azza had done to me?

I looked down from the two people I loved more than anything else and tried to settle myself.

Anna was in pain, but she had caused me pain. The desire to comfort her grinded against the anger I was filled with and I felt like I was being torn in two.

The three of them had deceived me. Through that deception, one of the nine rings around my navel that suppressed my power had been broken.

For the first time, I noticed that the dusty remnants of the seal’s red ring was the same shade I knew to be the rose color of The Mother in Red.

If not for the deception my mother had arranged but could not admit she had set into motion, it would still be locked around my navel. My power, my soul, would still be bound within me by her barrier.

Standing there, with my newly coalesced aura hanging from my hand, I knew that I had my mother to thank for how I felt, but she had hurt Anna. She had arrived to the manor and convinced Anna to lie to me in the short time that I had been in The Well.

I had been torn into the two versions of myself once again.

The Autumn that had begged me to go inside and go to bed on the night of Empyre had been wounded grievously. She wanted to lash out in rage and hurt at both of the loved ones before her. With pain in her heart, she did not need to know why it had happened, she only needed to make the others feel the way she did.

The Autumn that had carried me over the walls and down to the city not very long ago stood in stark opposition of the first.

Whose Influence has made this deception necessary? She asked with no feeling in her voice. I knew the answer well before she finished the question.

The Mothers.

Before my punishments and the memories of theirs that I had lived through, thoughts of them came with nothing but awe inspired fear.

Those days had past.

The golden choker felt like it tightened around my neck when Azza’s beautiful face appeared in my mind. Her molten eyes, the long lines of her lean frame, every part of her was perfect in a way that only she could attain. From the version of her that had saved my life and healed my hand to the one that had restrained me and buried me under crushing sand, she was a Mother.

Mother Gwyn, in all of her shapes, came back to me next. Lithe and lethal, every movement she made carried more predatory grace than anything I could hope to do with one hundred years of training. When her power had been spent and her punishment for me had ended, all that had been left her was terror. Still, she was a Mother.

Mother Glim, who I had both seen and been in The Well, seemed to be exactly what I had told Anna she was. A faerie, a sprit, the minute woman was joy incarnate from what I knew of here. Still, she was a Mother and my understanding of her had not yet been made real by her punishment.

Katarina and Nami, whichever one of them I would meet would punish me just the same because they were Mothers.

Rhiannon, whose memory was so fresh in my mind that I could feel the pain on her thigh that Nocti’s teeth had made, I had seen more than any of them. I had seen her atop her lion of rose fire on the opening night of Amoranora and on Dreamtongue’s night as well. Then, I had seen her through the eyes of Katarina on the day that a baby named Jaka had been born. She had walked willingly into a fire that was burning so bright I felt the heat from atop the manor walls. Once I had been her and felt the hollow place in her heart, I had almost begun to feel bad for her.

But, she was a Mother.

If they had not placed their binding on me, there would have been no seal to break. If they had not bound my mother like Azza had bound me, there would be no need for her to find infuriatingly complex ways to tell me things.

If it were not for The Mothers, there was no end to what I could know and what I could do.

A vision of myself was painted to life in my mind color by color. The porcelain skin of my face, the green of my eyes, and the bright red of my hair framing it all. I wore a simple white dress like I had loved to wear before my arms and legs had been scarred. My feet and legs were held within the brown leather of the sandals that I wanted so desperately. Over my shoulders, hanging to just above my waist, was a red half cloak like the underwitchs of Rhiannon’s garden wore.

There was no gold or sienna. I was free of the golden choker Azza had left around my neck.

In my vision, I was one of The Mother in Red’s roses just like Pyreme. I remembered her freckled face and her amber eyes and wished we could have been friends. We would have been, I was almost certain. There was a warmth to her that made me want to see her again.

All of the colors dimmed and darkened until all that was left was the black truth.

The Mothers were the cause of all of the frustrations and pain I felt, but I was the reason.

I had stolen The Well.

“Daughter?” My mother asked softly, a single tear rolling down the left side of her face.

Anna stayed silent, her legs still bouncing anxiously.

What will you do now? The Autumn that was not ruled by anger or fear asked.

There was nothing I could do, almost everything remained unchanged.

The choker was still locked around my throat. I was still forbidden from leaving the manor. There was still six more punishments hanging loose from my neck, waiting to be pulled tight at any moment. My mother was still keeping her eyes carefully focused just above my head.

The seal was different.

It had been broken because of my mother, Anna, and Sam.

I released my focus and watched as my aura joined the rest of the dust on the stone floor.

The loss took me immediately. My legs grew weak and I stumbled forward, a wave of weariness washing over me.

Without a word, Anna jumped to her feet and caught me under one arm. My mother caught the other and both of them held me up against what my aura had taken from me.

“I think I’m gonna be sick.” I mumbled, shutting my eyes and trying to stop the room from spinning.

Anna began to run her fingers through my hair and my mother rubbed my back gently.

“To answer your question, Anna, the more aura a sorceress uses, the worse her loss and afterglow will be.” My mother said softly, pulling more of my weakened weight onto herself.

“Is there anything a sorceress can do to feel better after she uses her power?” Anna asked. I could tell by the tone of her voice just how careful she was being.

“Rest, a meal, a bath, it is different for everyone of us. The journey of finding what feeds a sorceresses soul is one that that she must set out on for herself.” My mother answered, showing no signs that she would ever grow tired of supporting me.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

There was no journey for me to embark on. What fed my soul, or rather who fed my soul, was brushing out my hair with her fingers and willfully allowing my damp body to moisten her clothes.

As much as the loss had taken from me, I was already beginning to feel my strength returning.

Then, like the eyes of a beast glowing in the dark of night, my afterglow took light within me.

I gritted my teeth and balled my fists. Every muscle in my body clenched and sent small twinges of pain through every nick and scrape I had received during my last punishment.

“You’re okay,” Anna started, her voice low and soothing. “Why don’t we go have lunch. I’m sure you’re hungry.”

“I know what you are doing,” I growled. There was nothing I wanted more than to strike out and hit something. Fists, feet, arms, or legs, it did not matter. “It will not work.”

I kept myself still.

If I did anything, if allowed the afterglow to rule me, I would hurt my mother or Anna.

They did not deserve that. It was The Mothers that deserved my wrath. For fucks sake, they could not even punish me without a disaster like the shift nearly killing one of them.

“You’re right. I’m just a mortal. You are an all powerful sorceress that can make magic rope and seems to find a new way everyday to not wear clothes. I could never convince you of anything.” Anna said with a laugh so small I thought I imagined it.

My mother’s laugh was not small. It came from her belly and she threw her head back and reveled in it.

“Do not laugh at me!” I stomped my foot and shouted. Anger still burning within me, I was powerless to stop the corners of my mouth from turning up into a smile.

“The two of you, oh,” My mother sighed as her laughter continued. She wiped the tears off the left side of her face with a finger and took a desperate breath. “It reminds me of when I was a girl.”

My afterglow forced me into resistance, but Anna and my mother’s attempts to comfort and up lift me drove it out in a matter of moments.

“Mother? Can we have lunch in the garden? It has been a long time since we did that.” I asked, standing with my own strength and looking into her emerald eyes.

Of course she had not meant to hurt me. I knew that like I knew my own name. The only reason she had been forced to do what she had done was because of The Mothers.

“No, my little Delpha. I am sorry. I have only returned for a change of clothes. I shall not leave Mai alone for any longer than it is necessary,” My mother apologized with sadness on her face. “Anna, I will speak with you alone before I depart, will you accompany me inside?”

“Yes,” Anna nodded to her before turning to me. “Get dressed, I’ll make you something to eat, okay?”

There was uncertainty in her eyes, almost fear, that told me she was still in the throes of guilt from being complicit in my mother’s trick.

The two of them left me alone in the well house and did as I was told.

As I dressed, an uncomfortable thought came to me.

If it had not been for the mothers, none of what had happened would have happened. If it had not been for them, I would have never run away and met Anna.

The feelings that thought brought were too much for me to handle. I let out a sigh and looked through the open door at the sun outside.

A dark shape darkened the doorway.

Oh fuck. . .Sam! I thought, realizing that my familiar still stood in the exact position he had been in when I had commanded him to stop moving.

“Samsara, I release you from my command.” I spat the words out as quickly as I could form them in my mouth.

As if time itself had frozen and unfrozen only for the big blue, Sam continued his nearly endless step and vanished from my sight without a word.

“Oh no,” I sighed, pulling the lingerie shorts of my night clothes up my legs until the lacy band reached my waist. “I will pay for that.”

Anna had washed my filthy clothes as soon as we had returned from Embpyre. There were holes in them that had not been there before Mother Gwyn’s punishment. Regardless, like the simple white dresses before them, they were all I wanted to wear. The big shirt with its untied collar still smelled of smoke when I pulled it over my head, but I found it pleasant.

I liked being the Autumn I had been while I had been wearing them.

My mother and Anna were no where to be seen when my feet touched the worn out path outside the well house.

Someone else stood in their place.

“I’m your friend. You like me,” Arthur said, approaching me like he was facing down some snarling fanged beast. “Don’t try and kill me, alright?”

The tall man wore the same stupid fucking smile he always did, but his movements were slow and cautious.

Despite his teasing and the anger that had left me not long before, the sight of him brought a smile to my face. When I saw the pink scars that formed the shape of my teeth in the skin of his throat, the smile vanished just as quickly as it had appeared.

“Is that from me?” I asked, running up to him and placing my fingers on the bite marks.

“I don’t know any other girls that have tried to rip my throat out so I’m pretty sure it is.” Arthur laughed, turning up his chin to give me a better look at the damage I had done.

I had marked him just like Azza had marked me.

“I didn’t-my mother could-I am so sorry,” I said, every one of my scattered thoughts trying to come out of my mouth at once. “I don’t know how to heal it.”

Arthur placed his big hand gently on top of me. “Don’t worry about it. You can just not be mad when I tell you what I’m about to tell you.”

“Why would I be mad at what you are about to tell me?” I asked, confusion joining the shame I was already filled with.

“I signed you up for another points tournament at seven columns.” Arthur said, smiling down at me as if had not said something that was completely ridiculous.

“No. I can never go back there. I can never leave here. It’s forbidden for me to leave these walls.” I pulled my hand back from him and shook my head in disagreement.

“That’s never stopped you before,” He laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it all figured out. It’s the championship tournament, so I used the Trea name like you did the night we went together and I made sure that Patience wasn’t going to be there.”

“Arthur, no!” I yelled, thinking of all the reasons that returning to the place that I had driven my fist into one of The Mother in Red’s lovers stomach was an awful idea. I did not mean to raise my voice, but thinking of what had happened that night brought the heat of embarrassment to my face.

“Hey, don’t bite my head off. I just think you deserve to have a little fun.” Arthur said, rubbing the scar on his neck with his hand.

“Fuck you, that’s not fair!” I yelled again, knowing exactly why he had chosen the words he had spoken.

“All’s fair in love and war. I think that’s how that goes,” Arthur laughed. He spun on his heels and started for the manor. “Come on, we’ve only got a couple of days and you need a lot of training if you don’t want to embarrass yourself again.”

It took a moment, a moment of wild thoughts and thousands of anxious questions, but I called after him the moment he turned the corner. “Where are we going?”

Arthur led me through the back door and into the kitchen, refusing to answer my question

My mother stood by the front doors, speaking with Anna. A small pack rested on her back, the change of clothes she had returned for no doubt within it. When she saw me, a smile that made me feel like nothing in all of chaos could ever harm me spread across her face.

“There you are, my little Delpha. Come, tell me goodbye before I go.” She said, waving me over to her.

Her command made me much less angry than when Arthur did it.

“I will be return shortly, two or three days at most. If all goes well, I will be bringing Mai home and our house will be complete once again,” She told me as she hugged me tightly and planted a kiss on the top of my head. “If you need me, all you must do is tell one of the guards and I will be here before you know it.”

I did not want her to go. Even though it meant I would have to sneak around if I decided to do something that I knew I shouldn’t do, I wanted her to stay. Part of me wanted to eat her food and fall asleep at the table while she told one of her stories like I had so many times in the part of my life I could remember.

That want only made it harder to let her go and watch her grow smaller and smaller as she took the path to the city.

All of us watched her. Me, Anna and Arthur, and both of the guards outside the manor walls.

When she reached the bridge, Arthur clapped his hands suddenly. “Shall we?”

“Shall we what?” Anna asked him, her dark eyes narrowing.

“What if the captain comes?” Woolie asked his partner, running his thick hands down his long beard.

“His lady is in the city, he’s practically dead until she leaves,” Springer answered. “We can start now, I’ve lost sight of her.”

“Will someone tell me what we are we starting?” Anna demanded.

Arthur stepped over to her and spoke in a hushed tone. “The guards don’t know that I put Autumn’s fake name in for the tournament, so let’s keep that between us.”

“You did what?” Anna shouted.

“Get over it, you’re not her mom,” Arthur said, pushing his sister on her shoulder playfully. He raised his voice to its usual volume. “Springer and Woolie here have been ordered to not talk to Autumn, nobody has said anything about them playing points with her.”

Springer scrapped his boot over the loose dirt of the path and took up the ready stance that any game of points began with.

“Really?” I asked happily, looking between the guards and Arthur. All three of them looked amused at my sudden delight.

“I told you, you need a lot of training.” Arthur chuckled.

I threw my arms around his middle and squeezed as tight as I could before rushing over to stand opposite Springer.

“I’m getting a drink.” Anna sighed and went back inside.

The first match between Springer and I did not last long. They tended to go that way when one of the people playing could not manage to score a single point. After the first, we played another and then a third. Woolie swapped in for his partner and the games continued. After three with the bearded and burly guard, Arthur became my opponent and the rotation repeated itself every three matches.

Arthur had been right. I did need a lot of training. We played all the way until the sun began to set and it became too dark for me to see.

I walked over to where Anna sat amongst a bed of notebooks and wine bottles and dropped to the ground beside her. My hair was slick with sweat and my breaths came hard and heavy, but I wanted nothing more to try and win again.

Arthur had been right. I needed a lot of training considering that I had not won a single of the uncountable games I had played. Arthur had no lost once, but there had been none of his usual teasing. All he had done was watch me.

Anna gave me a sip of her wine to quench my thirst and smoother the stray hairs that were stuck to my face with her hand.

“You can be honest with me,” She said while we watched Arthur and the guards begin to build a campfire. “You actually like getting dirty don’t you?”

“What did my mother talk to you about? I can’t take being tricked like that again.” I asked, already feeling my body beginning to grow stiff.

“Not that, I will never do that again, even if it is to help you. Besides, it should be pretty easy to tell when I’m not being honest with you. I shake like a damn leaf.” Anna answered immediately, placing her hand on my thigh.

“Promise?” I stuck my pinky out to her.

She took it in her own. “Promise.”

“She told me about things that a sorceress who had just found her power could do to learn how to use it.”Anna said after a moment.

“I’m glad she told you, but part of me wished she could just teach me herself.” I sighed, bringing my knees to my chest and resting my head on my arms.

“That’s why she left, dummy. If she isn’t here to see you using your power or sneaking over the walls, there won’t be anything for her to tell The Mothers.” Anna said.

“If it wasn’t for The fucking Mothers, she wouldn’t have anything to tell them.” I muttered.

“I’ll drink to that,” Anna said, raising her bottle of wine and taking a long drink. “Fuck The Mothers.”