The underwitch led us through the alleys and streets of Erosette like it was a labyrinth of her own design.

Anna wrapped her arms around one of mine and slowed my pace, speaking to me in a tone that only I could hear. “Autumn. This is a terrible idea.”

“I know.” I whispered back, unable to keep a nervous smile from touching my lips.

The underwitch had not stopped talking since she had run into us.

“-said they would come tell me when they were leaving. Surprise, they didn’t. I should have known better and asked Nocti,” She continued, speaking as if Anna and I knew who they were. "He says they are mean to me because I’m the youngest but I don’t think that’s it.”

Knowing that I was willfully fanning the flames of danger that I was placing Anna and I in with every word I said, I spoke back to her regardless. “What is it like, the school?”

“Oh, it is probably not like what you are thinking. There aren’t classes or tests or anything,” She stopped suddenly and whipped her head back and forth between an alley on her left and an alley on her right. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

She went right and the air within Erosette grew hotter and hotter as we followed her deeper into the city. Everywhere the shadows of the buildings did not meet was painted with the flickering light I had seen from atop the manor wall. Through empty streets and past closed storefronts, we sped towards the glowing heart that shone like a small sun.

“Thank the Mothers, we made it.” The underwitch called back to us as she turned a corner and bright fire light washed over her.

As soon as I stepped into the light, sweat began to form on my brow.

Flames, as high as the buildings that surrounded the open space within the city, roared as they burned the mass at their base. Uncountable people stood around the pyre, packed shoulder to shoulder in an impenetrable wall of grey robes.

The underwitch reached the back of the crowd we had appeared behind and raised her voice. “Excuse us, we still have to give!”

A man, wearing the same ashen robes as everyone else in the city turned and let us through. “Hurry girl, she’s almost here.”

The crowd parted just long enough for us to pass before rejoining behind us.

“Are you okay? This is a lot of people.” Anna asked me, her hold on my arm one of the few reasons I was.

“What is this?” I answered her question with a question, unable to look away from the fire despite the burning in my eyes.

We reached the front of the crowd and I felt like my skin would burn under my clothes if I stood too close for too long. Shapes formed the mass at the base. Chairs, metal cups, mounds of clothes, books, and every other thing I could imagine had all been thrown into a pile that had been set ablaze.

The underwitch shoved her hand down the front of her robe and pulled out a wad of wrinkled and torn paper. She held it in her hands in front of her chest a closed her eyes. With a slow exhale, she threw it into the fire and it burned away to nothing before it could hit the ground.

“There,” She smiled and turned to Anna and I. “What did you two bring. “I’m Pyreme by the way.”

Anna wiped the sweet from her face on the back of her grey sleeve. “We didn’t know we were supposed to bring something to give.”

“What was the paper you threw?” I asked, still staring into the fire. There was a movement, a pattern, within the flames that drew me in. It was an endless dance that was equal parts hypnotic as it was destructive.

“It was the names of my sisters in my coven. They aren’t very nice to me. The Mother in Red said that I should burn them, to try and let them go.” Pyreme said, casting her eyes to the ground. “It’s silly, but I do feel better.

She knows The Mother in Red. She knows Rhiannon.

“That’s what Embpyre is for,” Pyreme continued, her tan skin glistening from the heat of the fire. “Whatever is darkening your heart, you give it to the fire and let it burn away.”

What is darkening your heart. I repeated in my mind.

Without knowing what I was doing, I pressed my hand to my face and brought my aura to my palm. I felt the hard lines of Azza’s power everywhere she had lain it over my face. My dark red light met her glamor and the ghost of her scent filled my nose.

“You’re a sorcerer!” Pyreme shouted at the sight of my aura.

Like I was pulling off a mask, I pushed my power under the edges of the glamor and snapped my wrist forward violently.

The illusion broke and fell away into dust.

My hair unfurled and fell down within my hood. A weak breath shook out of me and the edges of my vision began to blur with the loss.

“You’re a sorceress?” Pyreme whispered, confusion evident in her voice.

“Easy,” Anna said, keeping me steady. “I’ve got you.”

Several heavy breaths later, I gritted my teeth and took a handful of Azza’s dust into my hand and pressed it into Anna’s. Then, I took a second and pulled us to the edge of the pyre.

The folds of fabric around my feet began to smoke in an instant, but I did not step back. I threw the dust into the fire like it would kill me if I held it any longer. Following my lead, Anna did the same. I watched as it rained down atop the mass and began to burn away like everything else.

Anna pulled me back by my arm and started stomping the ends of my robe like she was tamping out a campfire.

“You’re on fire!” Pyreme said, joining Anna in her stomping. The underwitch wore sandals that were just the same as the other underwitchs I had seen wore.

To my surprise, both of them were indeed stomping out the burning ends of my robe. When the flames were out, Pyreme turned to me and looked me in my eyes.

“Who are you?” She asked, nothing but genuine curiosity on her face.

Anna put her hand in the middle of my back and I could almost hear her reminding me of where I was.

I was in the heart of Erosette, with nothing but the hood on my head keeping my unglamored face concealed.

I should have lied. I should have come up with a name and lied to the underwitch. Better yet, I should have taken Anna by the arm and made for the manor. We should have spoken to no one and made no stops on our way.

I should have, but I didn’t because I should not have to do those things.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Was stealing The Well, something I did not even remember doing, severe enough that I had to pretend I did not exist?

No. I was alive, I had power even if it was small, I loved, I had wants and desires.

I should not have to hide who I was.

“My name is Autumn,” I said, feeling the sudden anger that had flared to life within me grow into something I had never felt before. “You said that you know The Mother in Red. Tell me what she is like.”

“Why? Are you trying to join her garden?” Pyreme asked.

“Yes,” I lied. “We have traveled very far and I must know who it is I am to meet.”

Pyreme’s face brightened at my deception and the things I wanted to know began pouring out of her. “Oh, I hope she accepts you! I’m so tired of being the new rose. The Mother in Red is not what people think she is. I’ve never met a more loving soul. I’m not very strong compared to my sisters, but when she spends time with me she makes me feel like I’m the most talented underwitch in all of chaos.”

Her words did not lighten my heart because I knew that The Mother in Red she was describing would not be the one I would meet. Where she had shown Pyreme love, she would show me hate. The attention she had given her would not make me feel talented or valued. She would focus on me with the same intentions that Azza had with her sand and Gwyn had with her hunt.

Silence settled over the crowd as quick as a wink, leaving the roaring of the flames as the only sound in the city.

“Here she comes.” Pyreme whispered turning and pointing to her left.

Down the street that was the dividing line of the heart of Erosette, seven robed figures walked unburdened through the parted crowd. It did not reform as it had when I had come through it. The citizens stayed pressed against the walls on either side, their eyes watching something behind the seven souls that I could not yet see.

“Thank you all,” A woman’s voice echoed, loud and clear enough that it could be heard over the burning pyre. “It fills me with joy that all of you participate in my night of grieving.”

“That’s her.” I said to Anna, rising to the tips of my boots to try and catch a glimpse of Rhiannon. She had been the singer on the night before Amoranora. The memory was so clear in my mind, I would have recognized her voice anywhere.

“My loves, grief is nothing but the recognition of a memory. I will take what has darkened your hearts and turn it to ash,” She continued, stepping into my sight. A cascade of rolling blonde curls spilled out of the unnatural shadows within her hood. The curve of her chest and hips filled the ashen robe she wore and every step she took seemed deliberate and full of intention. “May they remain unburned until we meet again.”

The seven robed figures that had preceded her stopped a formed a line. The Mother in Red embraced each of them on her way to the pyre.

The first, with golden blonde hair hanging within his hood. Galahad.

The second, patting her back gently with a large hand. Morrow.

The third and fourth held no feature that I recognized, but she embraced them just the same.

The fifth stood a head taller and nearly half again as wide as his counterparts. When he wrapped his arms around The Mother in Red, she nearly disappeared in his bulk. Go.

The sixth did not have his hood raised. In its place was a wide brimmed black hat that I had seen several times before. Nocti.

Again, just like the third and fourth, I could not recognize the seventh. I knew that one of three I could not name had to be Patience.

Without a moment passing, The Mother in Red left her lovers and walked into the flames with no more grandeur than if she was stepping into a shower.

She did not scream. She did not writhe or show any sign of pain. Slowly, she climbed to the top of the mass appearing as nothing but a burning silhouette. The robe burned away from her, floating up into the night sky in scraps before crumbling to uncountable embers. She wore nothing underneath it, but her shape alone was enough to hypnotize anyone that had an appreciation for beauty.

Like Pyreme had with her ball of paper, The Mother in red brought her hands up to her chest and held them in a dome. Thorny vines of her rose colored aura crawled down from her hands and grew until they hung just above her feet. They coiled and intertwined with one another, taking shape as she gripped the top of them like a handle.

“Upon this burning altar, I will keep my vows.” The Mother in Red spoke in the same clear voice she had before. The vines of her power burst into flame inside the fire, darker and slower than those around it. In their place, a sword took shape. Longer than her body and as wide as her waist, she raised it straight up above her head and plunged it straight down into the mass of freely given burdens.

The heat that left my clothes soaked through with sweat vanished in an instant. Up from the gray stones of the street, rose colored fire swallowed the flames of the pyre and painted the heart of Erosette with its light.

The Mother in Red raised her sword and swung the massive blade around herself in an ascending circle. With nothing but strength and power, she spun her fire into a spiraling vortex that concealed her burning silhouette.

Wind that smelled of sweet wine and smoke blew the hood off of my head. My hair whipped against my face but I was too stunned to care.

The fire swirled into the night sky at a dizzying speed and winked out as if it had never been there at all.

Darkness reclaimed the heart. I had not realized that I was clutching Anna in my arms like my life depended on it until it was over.

The Mother in Red was gone.

No trace of the mass remained.

Not a single stone on the street was so much as singed or charred.

If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would have never known that it had happened.

No one in the crowd moved or made a sound. All of them, including Anna and I, waited. For what, I did not know, but something was coming. Embpyre had not come to an end yet.

When the embers began to fall from the sky like glowing snow, the crowd finally broke into cheers and celebration.

I reached up and caught one of them in my palm. It did not burn my skin, there was only a small feeling of momentary warmth. Then, the rose colored ember dimmed and died as two more settled onto my hand. Everywhere I looked, I found the same. The roof tops, the heads and shoulders of the ashen cloaked citizens, in Anna’s raven hair, everything was touched by the little glimmering lights.

“Pyreme, come. We are meeting your sisters at Seven Columns.” A voice said suddenly, breaking me out of my dazzled observation.

“Yes, my lady.” Pyreme chirped, rushing past us.

Two robed figures stood a small way away from where the three of us had stopped before the pyre. The one who had spoken faced the street The Mother in Red had appeared from. An ember found its way into the hood of the other and lit his face.

The captain. I realized. Oh fuck, I told her my name.

Cold panic ran rough against the warm air and I began to sweat for an altogether different reason than I had before.

Pyreme spun back on the heels of her sandals before she reached the woman who had called for her. “You two should come, I want to get to know you better.”

I froze.

On one hand, having drinks with Anna like I had drank with Arthur and asking the underwitch every question I could think of sounded nearly perfect. On the other, I knew in my heart that there was absolutely no way I could agree.

“Another time.” Anna answered for me, turning us in the opposite direction Pyreme seemed to be heading.

“Oh, okay. It was nice to meet you, Autumn.” The amber eyed girl said with a parting wave.

Fuck.

Anna led me away as fast as she could without actually pulling me into a run.

I looked back over my shoulder to see the captain and the woman who had spoken holding hands as they moved through the dissipating crowd with Pyreme.

Every step I took was a stumbling mess. Anna had the presence of mind to jerk the too long robe up from around my feet and the rest of our escape was much less unstable. Somewhere between the heart and what I hoped was the direction of the manor, we ducked into an alley that appeared to be empty enough to catch our breath.

After a moment of nothing but heavy breaths and the warm touches of the embers falling on my face, Anna spoke first.

“Autumn?” She said, bent over with her hands on her knees.

“Yes?” I answered.

“What the fuck just happened?” She asked.

“A lot.” I said, looking down both ends of the alley to be certain that we were not followed.

“No,” Anna sighed and stood. She threw her arms over my shoulders and pressed her weight down onto me. “Why did you tell that girl your name?”

“It was my afterglow, mostly. Like the night The Mother in Green took me. I’m just so fucking tired of having to hide myself.” It did not take me long to answer, I had been asking myself the same question since the anger within me had died back down.

“I can’t imagine what that feels like,” Anna sighed, pulling me into her embrace fully. “But you won’t have to do it forever. I’m your coach remember? We are gonna get through The Well in no time. Then, you can scream your name off the roof tops. I’ll help you do it.”

It may have been foolish and there may have been countless reasons I should not have, but with the rain of gentle fire shimmering all around us, I believed her completely.