Mother Azza took her time.

It should not have surprised me, it belonged to her after all. The illusion that my time had ever been mine dispelled the moment the gatekeeper had arrived outside of the manor.

Every lithe step she took, every time the muscles of her legs pressed against her red bronze skin, was slow and deliberate. From her perfectly straight hair down to the unwrinkled robe that hung halfway down her thigh, no part of her was out of place.

All I could do was watch her walk away from me and feel my chest tighten with terrified anticipation. My eyes were not all that was being held against my will. I tried to stand, not because of any desire to do anything once I found my feet, but because continuing to sit left me feeling vulnerable . My legs would not move. Any attempt to roll onto my knees or push myself up with my hands died as an intention. I could not so much as wiggle a finger or bend my feet against the unseen force holding me in place.

“This is the first lesson I will teach you,”” Mother Azza began, evidently aware of my attempts at motion. “You are not in control. Do you understand this?”

Yes. I tried to answer, but nothing came out. I do, indeed, of course, yes I fucking understand. My mouth was moving, my tongue was making the proper shapes in the proper places, but all I could produce was silence.

“You will address me properly when I allow you to speak.” Mother Azza said, also aware of my failed replies.

After several more voiceless attempts, I stumbled upon the words that I would be allowed to say.

“Yes, Mother Azza. I understand.” I finally answered her, my voice sounding small and weak in the glass pyramid.

How was I being held the way I was? There was not so much as a glimmer or glow of aura to mark the unseen working that I was being subject to. There was nothing, nothing but pressure and empty air.

I did not understand it, not a single fleck or speck of it.

Mother Azza reached the end of the raised platform and turned back to face me. It hurt me to look at her, to see the hatred that burned in her golden eyes, but she would not allow me to look away.

Even if I could no longer remember it, I understood that stealing The Well had marked me as a thief in the eyes of The Mothers. I knew perfectly well when I escaped my mother's quarters that running away would likely end with the end of my life. Even still, I found a large difference between my imagined punishment and how it felt once it was paralyzing me.

“The second lesson I will teach you begins with,” She continued, raising her black patterned hand. She pressed her thumb and forefinger together in the air above her head. Far enough in front of me that once my eyes focused I could see what she had manifested, an unremarkable speck hung before appeared before me. “This. What is it?”

Dirt, Mother Azza. I tried and failed to say. Not dirt, then. Definitely not dirt.

She did not wait for me to think through her question or stumble upon the right words through trial and error.

“It is sand, child. A single grain of sand. Think of it as one of the stolen memories that you hold in your mind. Think of it as one of the problems left unsolved due to the knowledge you deprive us of. While you are foolishly allowed to bear what you have stolen, think of it as one of the lives you endanger.” She answered for me, every word she spoke feeling like it was striking me square in my chest.

“Yes, Mother Azza.” I whispered in return.

“Look down.” She commanded.

Thrown down onto my hands and knees before I could follow her command, My eyes were turned to gaze through the glass beneath me. Down, so far down that I felt a twinge of fear at how far the fall would be, lay nothing but an endless ocean of sand. All I could see were dunes with windblown streams dusting off the top of them and valleys that stretched far beyond my sight

“The grain I have shown you represents one of the things I have described to you, think how many identical grains lay in my desert below.” Mother Azza continued, her presence alone making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

It was an endless consideration. There was a near infinite amount of sand piled up into one of the dunes. Without accounting for the rest I could see or all that lay beyond my sight, the number was unimaginable. By the words of The Mother in Brown, I thought of every grain as a memory, a piece of knowledge, a life I endangered.

She spoke the truth. There were times that it weighed on my mind more than others, but there had been less of those times as of late. Anna spent a considerable amount of time using her light to chase the darker thoughts I fell into away. The same as the imaginary noose I wore loose around my neck, it was all too easy to forget how my possession of The Well did not burden me alone.

“Do you understand?” She spoke, the scattered remnants of her golden arrival began to shift before me.

“Yes, Mother Azza.”

“The third lesson that I will teach you, is your place in this.” She spoke, her reference to me sounding like it had tasted sour and bitter in her mouth.

Without warning, I bent back up and my hands snapped behind my back.

The dust on the glass between me and The Mother in Brown shimmered away and spun into streams that coalesced in her upraised palm. She held her left hand over the top of the spinning sphere and widened her stance. The hem of her black robe parted. Every lean muscle of her bronze thighs flexed. The pattern that started beneath her ear began to glow and the smell of sun warmed soil filled the air. Burnt sienna light burned down her intricate lines until it crawled over her fingers. With the same power and grace that seemed to emanate from her, she pressed her hands together.

Her long fingers braided together and concealed the sphere. Pressure filled the air and shook the glass panes of the pyramid.

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My ears felt like they were going to burst within my skull, but I could not cover them with my hands.

Then, just as quickly as it had illuminated her arm, her light withdrew and the pressure released.

She came to me then, leaning close and wrapping her arms over my shoulders. Faint scents of spices, sun warmed stone, and clean linen came with her. I felt her lift the back of my hair before a thin warm line wrapped around my neck.

“You will wear this. It is a gift I have made for you.” She whispered into my ear before withdrawing from me and standing. She released whatever unseen force she had been holding with me and I slumped to the floor. I reached a hand up to understand what manner of gift she had bestowed upon me. Even with my chin to my chest, I could see little but the bottom of a stone the same sienna color as her pattern had become. With my fingers, I found a small chain that connected it to a seamless choker that bore no clasp or to remove it. It fit my neck like it had been made for me, which was fitting considering it had been not a moment before.

When I had imagined my noose, it certainly had not been gold.

“You will wear this until your punishment is done. When I feel that you understand the burden my misguided sisters allow you to carry, I will be done with you and you will return from whence you came.” She explained, her molten eyes narrowed with every word.

I do understand! I thought, feeling tears beginning to form in my eyes. I blinked them away. I would not cry in front of her. “I do understand, Mother Azza.”

She shook her head in disagreement. “You do not, but you will. In that small manner, I believe in your ability. You will understand the truth that my sisters and your fool of a mother refuse to accept. You will come to know the pressure and weight that you are under in a way that you will ensure you never forget it.”

A trickle of sand fell from above and dusted onto the top of my head.

The trickle turned to a stream and the stream widened into a river. With nothing to steady myself, the dry current pushed me down and out as the pyramid began to fill with sand. It did not pile and mound the way it should have, it curved and bent, sweeping me towards the wall at my back. The Mother in Brown's slender fingers rolled back and forth in a wave as she washed me back into the glass with her power. The current rammed me from wall to wall and took me higher and higher with its rising tide.

I could not have given less of a fuck.

Mother Azza had called my mother a fool.

Idensyn Aubrey was not a fool. Even I knew enough to know that. She had taken my theft of a priceless piece of magic in stride and not loved me any less despite all it had cost her. When I had left her without so much as a hint, the first thing she had done when I returned was welcome me back with open arms. Not only had she taken me back, but the three mortals I had dragged along with me. After I entered a portal I had no promise to return from, she had accepted them as members of her house without pause. She had worked herself to exhaustion just so I would be able to experience some part of Amoranora. Almost every day, she brought me food at lunch time. She gave me my dresses. She was my mother.

I fought against the writhing sand, thrashing and rolling to keep my eyes locked on The Mother. The pounding current of hot sand sent sweat dripping down my face, but the red anger that burned within me was an entirely different manner of heat. I threw myself off the inclined glass and landed near the torrent of sand flooding down from the tip of the pyramid.

Mother Azza stood calmly atop the rising tide, her golden eyed glare boring into me.

“You-I-don’t talk about my mother that way!” I yelled at her, wishing I could lash out at her the way I had done at Sam. I could feel my aura swelling behind my palm, begging for me to give in and express my rage.

“This is why I must teach you these lessons, child. You do not understand your place. I am The Mother Azza. You have no power here.” She spoke calmly, her voice clear in my ears despite the low roar of the shifting sands.

I did have power. I held it within my hand, but as desperate as I was to whip it towards her, my mother's words rang out in my mind before I could.

They could take her from us, leave her mindless, or execute her.

The memory of her words alone were all that kept me from trying to attack Mother Azza. There was much that The Mother’s did not know. All I would gain by trying to strike her was death and my mother having to learn that I was never coming home again.

Violence was not the answer.

Yet.

My anger coursed through me regardless, searching for any channel to escape through. I should have been in my bed laying next to Anna instead of being thrashed around like a ragdoll. I should have been disagreeing with Anna about what I would wear on our date instead of being reminded how fucking powerless I was. My arms and legs were growing too tired to continue struggling. I was losing ground and the sand would swallow me once they gave out. The anger found its way out of me through my mouth.

“This is bullshit! I was a fucking child! How do you hate me for doing something I can’t even remember?”

Mother Azza answered my ranting. “I hate when the sky is grey and yet it does not rain. I hate when my mind is too restless for my body to sleep. I hate when my bath is neither hot nor cold. Do you understand this?”

I tried to respond, but a mouthful of sand came in before I could get my words out.

She continued.

“I hate indecision, child. The blame for your thievery rests on the shoulders of your mother and The Well-watcher,” Mother Azza walked to where I was drowning and pulled me up by my wrist. She lifted me out of the sand as if I weighed no more than a feather and forced me to look into her eyes. “If I were the Mother alone, you would have been an unfortunate loss that came as the cost of protecting The Well. The blame for the continued danger you present rests on the shoulders of my sisters. I did not hate you, child. I merely wished for reason,” She paused. The air around me became charged with her power. “Then, you escaped. Still, I did not hate you. Imprisonment is something I have known, I understand how it eats at you. When no measure was made to reclaim you and you returned with no regret, no remorse, my hate was born.”

When I had laid on the stone table in the room of shallow water and all nine of The Mothers had gathered around me. One of them, I had no way of telling which, had asked me if I regretted what I had done. I had answered honestly and simply, giving them the words that had been nothing but the truth.

“Even still, I carry pity for you. Perhaps if you had been placed in my care, you would not have grown to be so petulant. Perhaps, I would not have grown to hate you,” I felt her begin to release her hold on me. “But you did and so did I,” She dropped me. “Take this punishment, Autumn Aubrey, and learn your place.”

By the time I recovered from smacking against the shifting dune, Mother Azza was gone.

Unseen force clutched my ankles and snatched me straight down. Beneath the surface faster than I could scream, I tried to claw my way back up, but my back met the bottom of the pyramid in a matter of moments. The weight came first, a crushing heaviness that ground every part of me into the glass beneath me. The pressure followed, forcing me to close my eyes and hold my breath. At any moment, my body would meet its limit and collapse in on itself and leave nothing but a red stain in the sand.

I had been buried alive, but remaining that way did not feel very likely.

When I thought I understood the extent of the torture I would endure, the sand began to move. It grinded against the parts of me that were not covered by my dress. Only uncomfortable at first, the slow scraping of my arms and legs quickly turned to pain as my skin became raw.

As if that was not enough, the sand closed in on the loose space that had been left in my wake and total darkness swallowed me.

It was then that I began to understand where my place truly was.

Powerless, under an incomprehensible pressure and weight, raw and exhausted.

With nothing left to do, I began to cry.