The chieftain moved to draw the curved sword from his belt and obey Zultan Zufar's wild command. Before he could, the sudden mountains that the Split had left in the distance moved.

Once the last piece of shattered sky fell away to dust, the vibrant crowd held their breath in total silence. The shock of what they had witnessed seemed to have cleared their minds of the instinct to take shelter or flee.

“A wave! It is a wave!” The chieftain shouted and pointed.

Their instincts returned at the sight of one of their leaders in fear and the crowd broke. The civility with which the colorful people had come to watch my death with was cast off like a soiled robe. Revealing that the flesh underneath was just as filthy, they mobbed the mouths of every street that led away from the danger.

By the ceaseless thundering of their rhythm, the drumrakers did not share the crowd's panic. If anything, the sudden change of scenery seemed to invigorate them. Their ritual charged the air around me with static energy.

I smoothed the loose strands of my hair that were suspended by the pregnant nature of the air. Even in the face of near certain death, I could not stand for a single lock to be out of place.

Zultan Zufar stood, leaving the precious flesh cat unattended on the golden throne. He shouted upward, caught in an unintelligible rant with his fists raised to the sky. All around him, his chieftains and the lower ranks of his guard filed past him. They rushed down the streets towards the wave with their swords drawn.

“No! Fools,” The chieftain next to me yelled after his brethren, but he made no move to leave the scaffolding. “What do you hope to do, cut the damn water away?”

Idiots. I thought to myself. Living within a vast desert gave no preparation for how to deal with an encroaching wave it seemed.

You judge them while you stand and wait. At least they have taken action. Spoke my daemon.

I was not thinking to you. What should I do? I asked, knowing by the way it towered over the tops of the city despite its distance that there would be no outrunning it, not even for me.

As I have told you. Go to the temple underneath, seek out The Circle of the Nine Mothers. My daemon answered, repeating words that it had said to me thousands of times.

How can I do that if I am to drown in less minutes than I have fingers on my hands? Everywhere I looked offered no feasible means of escape or shelter.

Accept my bargain. You will go to the temple underneath and I will give you the knowledge necessary to survive. It replied.

It is no bargain if I have no alternative. I smoothed my hair back down again. A buzzing ran through my teeth. The drumrakers reached a pitch and pace that should have been beyond their mortal limits. Only in that backwards city could changing the color of fabric be a crime worthy of death, but summoning lightning was not considered magic. I thought about my daemon’s so-called bargain. From the moment I had broken my chains and escaped my former master’s quarters, it had told me of the temple beneath. In the decades since, It had taught me much and rarely led me wrong. I had no other alternative. I accept your bargain, tell me.

Harness your aura, all of it, and bring it to your palms.

I did. There had been a time that holding a single grain of my power for more than a second would have left me dizzy. Fortunately, that time had long passed. And now? I clenched my teeth. There was no dizziness, but holding it all without letting it flow out of me took all of my focus.

When it answered, my daemon’s voice had changed into something dark and resonant that shook the scaffolding under my feet.

“Long I have told you of your rarity.”

“It is Strotzol! The sky god is with us!” The chieftain cheered.

My daemon continued speaking aloud for all to hear.

“Be who you spent your nights dreaming you would be when all you knew was hunger and pain. Take what you desire most as your own with nothing but your might. Seek no permission or approval and shape reality into your own design. You are Azza, she who has no master, and I name you Goldluster. Bear your soul to those fortunate enough to witness and be nothing more than yourself.”

My daemon's words loosed my aura through my palms, but it did not feel like my own. Glancing away from the wave that would sweep the city away at any moment, I found that it was not my color either. Liquid gold flowed from the middle of my left palm like it was my blood. Thin lines spread up my fingers and wrapped around their ends before running over the top of my hand. I pulled my sleeve up to not disrupt their path. Past my elbow and half way up my bicep, they twisted into an end that wrapped around my arm. Every trace of my sun bronzed skin was washed in a seamless golden glove that fit my long fingers perfectly.

“Who are you, Azza?” My daemon demanded.

“Goldluster.” I whispered, knowing it to be true.

Ritual lightning arced down from the dark clouds with a bludgeon of true thunder exploding in its wake.

I caught it in the palm of my golden hand.

The impact blew the chieftain back on his ass. His eyes wide at the sight of me taking the full force of the lightning without so much as flinching.

The wave began to break away the outskirts of Yazz-Zararaz like they were made of sand. The sound of the violent water drowned out all but the crackle of the coursing lighting.

Sand

When the Split had ripped the sun and the desert from around the city, it had not taken the sand that it had been built upon.

Sand, lightning, glass.

It had meant to be how I would die. I would shape it into what would allow me to live.

With a wave of my bare hand and nothing but intention, every single grain began to stream up the scaffolding. It spun up my ankles and circled my waist before compacting into a constant stream up my left arm. I flooded into the lightning and held my working in place with my will as thick globs of molten glass began to pour from my upraised palm.

My right hand free, I spun the liquid glass into a river and sent it streaming towards the roaring wave.

More, I needed more.

“Take it, Goldluster.” My daemon encouraged me.

My eyes snapped to Zultan Zufar's golden throne just as my river collided with the wave in a burst of steam.

A curl of my pinky was all it took for currents of dust to begin to flow from the throne and into me. As soon as it joined with my lustering glove, ounce by ounce, it became one with my soul. Into the lightning I pushed it and let it flow out through the river, widening my working as it went. Wherever it touched the wave, it cooled to solid in an instant. From nothing but my will, my newborn glass towered upwards faster than the wave could fall. The violent water split to either side of my gold glittering wall.

“What are you?” The chieftain shouted up at me, peeking out through a crack in his fingers.

“She who has no master! She with the golden soul! She who will not perish this day! Do you understand this, chieftain? It is not your sky god that will save you, but I!” I shouted, knowing that my words were true.

A torrent of water burst from an alleyway and crashed into the tower to heaven. Golden bricks toppled from its unfinished top and the tower began to fall.

Zultan Zufar struggled to keep his hold on the cat that would be mine. A single brick landed at his feet and he looked at the tower too late to escape it.

With another bend of my pinky, I unmade the tower and every loose brick that had broken off of it. Like a harnessed sandstorm, the golden dust spun into me and filled my soul with blinding power.

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I would allow no harm to come to the glorious creature fighting valiantly against its ignorant master.

The crackling lightning attempted to dissipate, but I refused and held it in place with my will. Just as the liquid gold had spread up each of my fingers, I split my stream of glass into thin jets. Up every street and alley between the wave and I, they streaked. Wherever they collided, narrow walls of glittering glass towered upwards in bursts of steam. Wherever the wave broke between them, I sent another.

Then, it was over.

I released the lightning and let it die it's instant death. Whatever sand had coiled around me atop the scaffolding fell away. The last traces of molten glass still in the air melded into my walls. My golden glove fell into dust like the jagged pieces of sky after the Split.

I had won.

The fingers of my left hand shook and curled inward in a sudden cramp. The small bones within it cracked violently. The sound of my arm snapping in two places, once high and once low, sent me to my knees with it clutched to my chest. The skin that had been gilded gold only moments before withered and blackened.

I was powerless. All I could do was watch and suffer

“What is this? I do not understand!” I cried out in pain and confusion.

Now is not the time for explanation, Azza. You will heal. It is the time for escape. My daemon answered, his voice returned to its usual state and place in my mind.

I have just prevented this city from becoming a memory. I pushed the last of my aura through my arm and numbed the pain. I did not know how long it would take me to replenish the loss I had taken or regain the strength to heal myself. Feeling nothing would be all I could afford for the time being. They will not come for me.

“Again, drumrakers! Chieftain Kiel, seize her! She has stolen my throne and tower!” Zultan Zufar shrieked from the base of where the tower to heaven once stood. The cat that would be mine had settled in his fabric draped arms, but displeasure was obvious in it's eyes.

Chieftain Kiel glanced at me, but did not move to follow the task he had been charged with.

I needed no other opportunity.

Cradling my ruined arm to my chest, I rolled to my left and dropped off the scaffolding.

Down I fell, from much higher than I had anticipated. I landed on top of the colorful crowd that had previously gathered to watch my execution.

Rising much more quickly to my feet than those I had landed on, I bent my knees and began to move through the crowd with speed. The Zultan screamed for his people to apprehend me, to clutch onto me like ants in a flood, but none did. Bending at the knees rendered me close in height to the taller members of the crowd. I covered my dark robe in a glamor and brightened it to a color that would allow me to weave seamlessly into the patchwork shades of the crowd.

Notice what you have done, Azza. There are very few that could rival such a feat. My daemon advised me.

Only buildings remained in their original places. Everywhere I looked I saw the absence of what I had taken. The scaffolding that once stood level atop the ground was now raised atop a column of sand at least ten feet tall. The crowd had been lowered into in a sprawling pit that was the shape and form of the streets they once paraded down. High above the rooftops, surrounding the city completely, was my wall. It stood, a seamless dam of clear glass. Streaks of gold ran through it and they began to shimmer from the light breaking through the dark clouds.

I had made something beautiful, in form and in function.

Daemon, why did you not grant me this power before? I asked, ducking into a narrow passage that had been once been an alley before I had removed its bottom.

I granted you nothing but encouragement. All that you have done has come from you. My daemon answered.

Just as I reached the other end of the passage, the tip of a curved sword appeared a finger length from my face. The chieftain that had officiated my failed execution, Kiel, walked me back with slow steps and dangerous glint in his eyes.

“You did not break the sky. You saved Zultan Zufar despite his calls for your life. By Strotzel’s golden beard, you saved all of Yazz-Zararaz. And yet, you have done this through acts of blasphemy.” Chieftain Kiel said.

“Yes.” I agreed. It was blasphemy to him and I had more enriching ways to spend my time than to argue with him. All I had done was to stay alive and prevent the precious life of the hairless cat from being cut short, but he did not need to know that.

A short moment of silence passed between us. Without lowering his blade, he glanced down at where my arm hung limply atop the tie of my robe and then back up to my eyes.

“Be gone. May Strotzel shine on you for what you have done.” The chieftain said. Then, he sheathed his curved blade and hurried back the way he had come.

I needed no further encouragement.

Where do you mean to go? My daemon asked as I left the passage and rejoined the colorful crowd.

To take what is mine. I answered, bending my knees to reduce my height yet again. I must have the cat.

Before I could make it another step, my vision grew dark at its edges. The chaos of Yazz-Zararaz began to dim. I heard my daemon urging me to forget the creature and find somewhere to hide, but its voice sounded distant.

Then, I felt myself fall. . .

No pressure.

No weight.

No pain.

Only flickering fire light.

I could not keep my eyes open for very long at all, but through the small glimpses I managed, I knew I was in The Well. Around one of the near infinite fireplaces, in one of the near infinite arm chairs that surrounded them, I had come out of Mother Azza’s memory and not been returned to her punishment.

Many times before, I had woken just the same, but there was something very different than those times.

I was not alone.

Out of my peripherals, a dark figure sat in the chair next to me.

My eyes slammed shut suddenly and my head became too heavy for my neck to hold. I fought against my exhaustion and forced myself to look back at the figure, too weak to resist the force for long. Beyond learning that the figure in my mind had arms, I was defeated and sleep took me to the sound of a strange, metallic, voice.

“It is time for you to leave, now.”

Darkness.

Pressure.

Weight.

Pain, so much pain.

“-nami! Why do you favor her so? She knows of Constance. We must take The Well from her, we are at war!” I heard Mother Azza speaking harshly from somewhere above.

Azza, Azza, Azza. I thought, turning her name into a little song within my head. Azza, Azza, Azza, and her daemon.

“-two days. This is beyond punishment. This is cruel.” A new voice spoke.

Nami. The name floated up from my memory like seaweed carried on a tide. Nami with the blue hair and dark skin. Nami, who had drowned a newborn sun before it could burn everything away. Nami, who had fought with two of The Mothers after walking in on them in bed together. It hadn’t been the way Anna and I shared a bed, they had been together and that had hurt her.

What would being together with Anna be like? I was not ignorant of what it would entail, The Well had shown me much, but the thought alone made me too nervous to dwell on it for long.

Anna, Anna, Anna. I thought, wishing desperately to see her. It was then that I remembered how profoundly sad I was. The cold ache that had settled in my chest before The Well had taken me had been burned away. My breaths were short and my heart was speeding in my chest as an all consuming heat radiated over me.

I snapped my eyes open.

The choker locked around my neck was supposed to send me home when I had learned my lesson. My understanding was still painfully incomplete, it seemed. The wisp remained, still circling the wine stain over my shoulder, but I could not keep focus on it. Two more appeared beside the first and mirrored its movements perfectly. Then, they collided back with the first in a dizzying display. I looked up from the wisp to the sand illuminated pink by my aura. Where it had moved in a slow writhe before I had entered The Well, it reverberated in nauseating patterns.

I was going to die.

I was not strong enough to endure my punishment any longer.

“-end this, Azza, or I will.” Mother Nami said.

They must have been standing right on top of me if I could hear them so well.

“As you command.” Mother Azza sighed.

How would she feel when she realized that she had killed me? Joy? No, I did not think that would be the case. Even after all she had put me through, I did not think she saw me as an enemy. Pity and relief? That felt much more likely.

The sand began to part above me. The pressure and weight that crushed me lessened and then released all together. A sigh passed through my lips as my consciousness began to fade into nothing.

Mother Nami, who had met me in the room of shallow water, had come to save me.

Nami, Nami, Nami.

A hand with long slender fingers appeared above me, silhouetted by golden light.. Just as it clutched the front of my dress the darkness took me.

Pain, so much pain.

Light, faint and silver.

Darkness in the sky above.

A breeze, cool and gentle brushed my ravaged flesh.

A campfire with two armored guards sleeping soundly around it painted the double doors of the manor with dancing shadows. Some distant cheer rose from Erosette and found my ears atop the hill.

I was home.

Mother Nami had saved me. My punishment had ended.

No sand, only tall grass lay on the hillside next to me.

I was home.

Anna, Sam, My mother, Arthur, and Ms. Lao were all inside, only a short walk away.

I was home, but I could not go inside.

Biting my lip to stifle the screams that I was powerless to prevent, I threw myself off the footpath and into the tall grass. The night sky above me whited out in flashes and I tried to choke my expression of agony so I would not wake the guards. My vision swam. If I looked at the horrid mess I must be, I would likely faint yet again. I could not allow that. I needed to push myself further into the grass. I needed to roll down the hill so no one would find me. As soon as I could move again, I would.

I was home, and all I had left to do was let myself die.