From all the memories I had viewed to the stranger situations I had been in through my own life, none of them had been quite so odd.

The Mother in Green lay on her side atop the blanket of red dust that covered the ground. Her legs were curled up to her chest and her hands covered her face.

The Mother in Brown had left her in my care shortly before she had entombed herself with the same golden power she had used to hold Vowkeeper’s Anguish together.

The way she looked, extending her transformation into Goldluster as long as she could to prevent herself from killing me, someone could mistake her as the most beautiful golden statue that had ever been crafted. Every single line and feature of her was visible, down to the individual lines of her short hair.

You must make Gwyn think that she is on a hunt. I repeated Azza’s words in my mind for the hundredth time since she had left me alone.

If I was in any other situation that felt as strange as the one I found myself in did, I would have called for The Mothers. The problem was, two of The Mothers were already near me, and I had somehow been left in charge of them.

What the fuck do I know about hunting? I thought, lost at how I was supposed to perform the task that had been laid at my feet. Mother Gwyn had hunted me. She had seemed to be very excited about doing it. I doubted that dangling myself in front of her like the tantalizing string I had seen Arthur do with Sam would do anything at all.

My punishment had ended with the shift. Unlike the first time, I still had all of my skin. Besides the cuts and scrapes running up my feet and legs, I was actually in better shape than I had been at the start. My hand had been healed by the same woman that had left scars on my arms and legs.

Was she truly the same? I asked myself. She had told me herself that Goldluster was the best of her. When I had watched her work against the split, she had been beyond anything I had ever seen before, through my own eyes or those of another.

The Mother in Green was not normal either.

Silkshifter. That had been the words she said to summon her cloak of green silk. None of the forms she had taken had been glamors. She had actually taken the shape of those things with her power.

It almost felt like someone was playing a joke on me. Two sorceresses so powerful that I could hardly understand it were under my care. One would kill me if I did not convince the other to protect me.

I can’t even take care of myself. How the fuck am I supposed to do this? The only reasons that I had not succumbed to the rage that my afterglows filled me with were Anna and Sam. Even if I thought it would help, I would rather die than comfort anyone the way my girlfriend comforted me. My familiar had been a lightning rod, a place of focus that my anger could be taken out without hurting anyone.

I could not do that for Mother Gwyn. Sam had done everything he could to annoy me, was I supposed to do everything I could to terrify her?

No. I shook my head, feeling a pang of anxiousness when I saw the small crack forming on the cheek of Azza’s golden covering.

Sam hunted.

I had seen him leap from a tree and snatch a bird straight out of the air once.

He had drug a massive boar from wherever he had slayed it all the way back to the manor.

Wherever we were, there was no pig or birds in sight.

There was nothing but red dust and the golden seams that held the volcano above us together.

Lie. The thought came to me, quiet and sudden.

There did not need to be something for Mother Gwyn to hunt.

I only had to make her think there was.

Last I checked, all I could do with my glamor was struggle to change the color of half a pillow. I closed my eyes and reached for my aura. The void that had been left in me after Azza’s punishment was no longer as dark and hollow as it once was. Two small dots, one pearl pink and the other dark red like blood, swam in a sea of iridescent light. I remembered how difficult it had been for me to catch a glimpse of color within myself not very long ago. Before festivals and punishments had interrupted our training, Anna had spent many nights coaching me towards my color.

I could do it. I realized. If I brought my color to my surface, I could work it into the shape of a bird and send it fluttering across the desert of red dust.

You will be seen. The same quiet, rational, line of thinking came again.

The Mothers knew nothing of my color and I did not know if Azza could see through her golden tomb.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The crack on her cheek lengthened.

I had done nothing since she had left me in charge, and I was running out of time.

Moving without really knowing what I was doing, I stepped forward and pressed my foot down into the red dust. Where the surface was warm from the setting sun, underneath it was cool all the way to the solid ground. I spun my foot in a quick circle before stepping forward and repeating the motion. Keeping my eyes shifting between Azza and Mother Gwyn, I made a trail of my little swirls leading away from the Mothers.

When I felt that the false trail was long enough, I jumped out of the last swirl and landed on both feet as far away from them as I could.

“Mother Gwyn?” I said softly, when I reached where she lay on the ground.

She curled into herself at the sound of my voice, keeping her face covered with her hands.

I pitched my voice up and acted like I had just seen something exciting. “There is a. . .bird. It keeps popping its head out of the dust. I tried to catch it, but I’m not fast enough.”

“You’re lying. We are at Vowkeeper’s Anguish, nothing lives here. Stop trying to trick me.” She whined, showing no sign of uncovering her face.

“I’m not,” I lied. “It left tracks and everything!”

One green eye peaked out from behind her pale fingers and looked up at me. “Tracks? What kind?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, doing my best to play the bewildered little girl. “I’m not a hunter like you.”

“Where are they?” She asked, pushing herself up onto her elbow and brushing her long black hair back from her face. When she wasn’t in the shape of a venomous serpent or a giant spider, her savage beauty was almost too much to look at. The black garment that fit her like a second skin showed every line of her lean muscles, but the length of her hair and softness of her jaw brought a certain grace to her lethal litheness.

“Right over here. I’ll show you.” I nodded, offering her a hand up.

She took it and I led her over to where I had made the first swirl.

“Your hand, it was broken before.” Mother Gwyn said.

I had not realized I had helped her up with my bandaged hand.

“Mother. . .” Fuck! I was still unable to say her name aloud. “The Mother in Brown healed it for me.”

“Shit! Azza,” Mother Gwyn spat, dropping into a squat and wrapping her arms around her legs. She flipped her hair forward and disappeared under her black veil. “I messed up so bad. They told me not to take you to Deepwood.”

“There it is! Mother Gwyn look!” I said excitedly, tapping her on the shoulder and pointing in the direction of my swirls. My false excitement seemed to have been convincing enough. She stood and took my hand again, keeping me between her and where Azza sat as we walked.

Night came quickly. By the time we reached the tracks, the sun had dipped behind Azza’s golden peak in a blinding flash and left us in low golden light.

Mother Gwyn dropped into a crouch as soon as she saw my marks in the dust.

The same moment she did, the place on Azza’s cheek split further with a sudden sharp crack.

“What was that?” Mother Gwyn screamed and shielded her face with her hands.

“Hey, you’re okay,” I said softly, placing my hand on her back and doing my best impression of Anna. “Have you ever seen tracks like this before?”

Mother Gwyn slowly brought her hand down and stuck her fingers into the dust. She brought it up to her nose and gave it three short sniffs.

“Come, I’ve got the trail. Do you know how to walk quietly?” She asked, setting her eyes to the next place I had disturbed the dust and ash.

I did as I was told, knowing that the only scent she could have found was the smell of my feet. “Uhm, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Watch me,” She said, turning from me and moving towards the next swirl. “Crouch and pad your steps as you move. Like this.”

In the dark of the newborn night, I could see her roll her foot from heel to toe in the dust. Every foot fall fell silently and if I had not been watching her, I would have never known she was there. Staying in a crouch made the muscles in my thighs burn, but I tried to mimic her movement as close as I could. Mother Gwyn passed by the second swirl. I literally followed in her footsteps, hoping that my lies were being believed. At any moment, I felt like the thin fingers of Azza’s hand would wrap around my arm and she would do to me what she had wanted to do to me since I stole The Well.

“That wasn't bad,” Mother Gwyn whispered back to me when we reached the final track. “If you had known how to walk like this when I was hunting you, I would have had a harder time finding you.”

That did not sound like the terrified mess of a Mother I had been dealing with since she had saved my life.

I stopped moving. “Mother Gwyn?”

“Yes?” She spun on her heels and looked back at me.

“Behind you!” I yelled, pointing my finger at nothing and widening my eyes. If she was still caught in her afterglow, my sudden shout would terrify her.

“It’s over, girl. It has been since you showed me the tracks,” Mother Gwyn said calmly. “I was just seeing how long you would let me follow the trail.”

“Why?” I asked, standing.

Mother Gwyn did the same. “The day may come where I have to actually hunt you. The more I understand how your mind works, the easier that. . .”

Her eyes narrowed suddenly and she took several quick steps to where I stood. With one arm, she grabbed me by the front of my night shirt and pulled me behind her.

“This, all of this is your fault.” Azza’s spat as she rose to her feet within the golden ruin of her tomb. She was wearing the same black and gold robe she had been the first time I had seen her. No trace of Godluster, the best of her, was left to be seen. “We did choose incorrectly after Lei. Zara would have never been so careless. Taking her outside of Zenithcidel, how could you be so foolish? Childishly trying to protect that spider of yours, grow up! You are a Mother.”

She moved towards us, her molten gold eyes burning directly into mine. “I will end this nonsense quickly. Step aside, sister.”

Mother Gwyn threw herself forward and dug the side of her foot into one of the swirls I had made. A wave of red and white ash rose up from the ground and struck Azza straight in her elegant face.

“My eyes!” Azza shouted, stopping in her tracks.

“You should have kept your head buried in the sand, sister.” Mother Gwyn growled.

“What do I do?” I asked, feeling the cold wash of new fear spread through me yet again.

“Nothing. Watch if you wish, you might enjoy it.” Mother Gwyn said, dropping into a crouch and throwing herself towards the still stunned Azza.

I did as I was told.

I watched as The Mother in Green and The Mother in Brown went to war.