Anna had been dead to the world and I had left her that way when I had quietly left my room just after sunbreak.

Sam had pressed the habit into me. After two months of waking me at dawn by thumping me in the face with his paws, I found myself unable to sleep in.

It had been cuter and much less painful when he was small enough to fit into my hands.

Down the stairs, past Arthur’s door, and out of the backdoor I had gone without making a single sound. It was much easier to move silently over the brick and stone of the manor house than it had been over the creaking stairs and worn wooden floors of the boarding house.

Even in the low light of the new day, the sun just peaking over the rolling hills that surrounded Erosette had turned the morning air pleasantly warm.

It was never cold in the realm of The Red Mother.

That made more sense to me after seeing the flames of her parade.

A moment later, using my aura to bridge the gap between where I wanted to go and my physical ability to get there, I pulled myself onto the section of roof over Anna and I’s rooms. We were quartered on the third floor of the manor and the limit of what I could see from there was caused by my eyes alone.

The weather was never a concern. Everyday bloomed into a cloudless blue sky that never turned gray or overcast. The breeze that blew in every afternoon was just gentle enough that it was never a bother. The nights were warm enough to never think of needing a coat.

Down the long path that led to the city and over the bridge, the streets that had been filled with citizens and flower buds were quiet and empty. Countless stone buildings, all in the same style as the manor, stretched out of sight below me. Spread throughout them were bursts of vibrant green gardens that I imagined were larger versions of the verdant maze behind the manor. Even before the spectacle of the night before, on any of the countless mornings I had met the new day perched high atop the roof like I was my familiar, the city had practically begged me to jump the wall that surrounded the manor and get lost in its streets.

I couldn’t do that of course, but nine unimaginable punishments hanging over my head or not, what I had witnessed the night before had done nothing but make me want it more.

Everyday was perfectly pleasant in Erosette.

I fucking hated it.

Hate may have been a strong word, but I couldn’t help but miss the old house that had been left in ruin because of me. The sneaking around, the cold, the rain, none of it had been particularly enjoyable at the time but I had caught myself wishing for it instead of the warmth I had been moved into more than once.

It wasn’t a mystery as to why I wanted to go back.

I had been free.

Just before the day had truly begun, the sound of a struggle disrupted the quiet calm of the morning and I moved towards it before I gave myself a chance to consider if I was being foolish or not.

I lowered myself from the third story roof, scraping my knee against the rough stone of the wall as I dropped onto the second story. The uneven surface had become easier and easier for me to traverse as time had passed. The sign of my progress that morning was that I only tripped once on my way to the front of the manor.

I stepped one foot onto the pointed rise of the roof and peered down.

The two guards, neither of them any I had met the night before, were fighting.

“Hey!” I shouted, nearly tipping over and falling to the ground.

Each of them froze at the sound of my voice. They did not stop, stand up, or look at me. They literally froze, becoming utterly still in the positions they had been in before I shouted. The one on my right stood low, his left hand held behind his back and the fingers of his right digging into the stomach of the other guard.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

Only their eyes shifted up to me.

“The girl, she is on the roof.” Said the guard on my left, the others fingers still pressed into his bare stomach.

“We are forbidden from talking to her,” The guard on the right said. “What do we do?”

The guard on the left shrugged and stood. “Ignore her?”

The guard on the right rose as well. “Wise, very wise. My point?”

“Your point,” The guard on the left agreed. “Keep playing?”

The guard on the right dropped back into a ready stance in answer. One arm pinned behind his back with the other held in front of him, he pointed his fingers at his opposite and nodded. The guard on the left mirrored him and without another word they were at each other once again.

Neither of the men seemed to be trying very hard to hurt one another and fighting with one hand didn’t seem like a very effective strategy, but both of them were pouring sweat and wore furious scowls on their faces. The guard on the left arched his back wildly and folded under the spearing hand of his opponent but could not bend himself enough to avoid having two fingers jabbed into the bottom of his chin.

He fell back onto his ass and his opponent pumped a fist in the air, celebrating a victory that I did not remotely understand.

The guard on the ground stood back up. “You got me again, you win, but don’t get all cocky just because we’ve got an audience.”

“You’ve got it wrong my friend, If she hadn't been here I would have taken your head clean off your neck. You should thank her for rendering me merciful.”

I did not enjoy being talked about as if I wasn’t standing right there, but what happened next was so strange I could do nothing but watch.

The guard that had somehow lost straightened and held both his arms behind his back.

The guard that had won squared himself and gently placed his open hand on the cheek of his opponent.

Some show of respect? I wondered, intently focused on what was occurring beneath me.

The victor drew his hand back and slapped the loser across the face so hard that the man went spinning to the ground limply.

“What the fuck!” I shouted

The victor shot a quick glance up at me before casting his eyes down to the loser and helping him off the ground.

The front doors of the manor swung open under my feet and Arthur strode out of the house. “Have either of you seen Autumn? She’s about this tall, red hair, green eyes, last seen wearing a white dress?”

The guard that had been knocked to the ground had been helped to a sitting position and he swung his arm up in my general direction without looking.

“Up here.” I leaned forward, resting my weight on my knee so he could see my face.

“Your Mom is,” Arthur said, looking up at me. “Autumn,” He shouted, whipping his face back down violently and covering his eyes. “I can see right up your dress.”

The heat of embarrassment stung my face instantly. I dropped down as fast as I could and ducked behind the pointed rise I had so proudly been displaying myself from. Pressing the fabric of my dress over my legs, Icalled down. “Did the guards see?”

I heard Arthur whispering, presumably asking them.

“No.” He answered too quickly and calmly.

I snapped back up, the heat of my embarrassment quickly rising to anger. “Don’t lie to me!”

Between the uneven footing, the heat I felt in my face, and my sudden movement, I lost my balance and went tumbling off the roof head first.

My aura flared within me reflexively

I didn’t need it.

Arthur caught me in his arms, spun my momentum away, and placed me on my feet as if it was a well practiced maneuver that we had repeated until we could no longer get it wrong.

I braced myself against him to give my head a chance to stop spinning. Arthur had always been tall, but I didn’t remember him being quite so big. I knew I wasn’t a gargantuan behemoth that weighed as much as a mountain, but I weighed something and he had moved me as if I weighed nothing.

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“Lucky I was here,” Arthur said with a wide grin. “That could have been bad.”

“Why are you out here? You were looking for me, right?” I asked, beginning to get my bearings back.

“Your mom is waiting for you in the well house, she asked me to come tell you.”

A nervous jolt shot through my veins. Why wasn’t she waiting for me in the garden? We had lunch there everyday. She would bring food, I would meet her there between memories, it was one of my favorite parts of the day. The fact that she was in the well house left me thinking that she was still angry or disappointed with me over what had happened the night before. I didn’t think I could bear it.

“How did you know I was out here?” I asked, only realizing that he had come out of the house asking if the guards had seen me. Turns out that falling off a building was rather disorienting and my mind was still moving slowly.

“Anna said she could hear you running around on the roof. How did you get up there?”

Had Arthur knocked on my door expecting me to answer and woken up his sister or had Anna gotten up unusually early? He was alive and unwounded, so I assumed it was the latter.

“I’ve got to go to my mother.” I said, the longer I knew she was waiting for me the worse I would feel. Turning to take the path that ran between the manor and the wall., Arthur stopped me by my hand.

“Hold on, can I talk to you about something first?” A hint of his usual smile the only thing distracting from his otherwise serious expression.

“Let me go see my mother and I’ll come find you. Sam isn’t back yet so I’ll have nothing but time after.” I meant what I said. Arthur got serious so infrequently that I knew well enough to pay attention when he did.

“Yeah, alright. We will talk then.” He said, his smile mostly returning.

I left him then, heading for the path along the wall. Before I turned the corner and was out of ear shot, I heard one of the guards speak up.

“Oi, Ugi, you're a Hezbelth right? You know how to play Points?”

“Ugi?” Arthur answered.

“Doesn’t matter, I’ll teach you.”

I added forcing the guards to talk to me onto the short list of things I needed to do. They had seen up my dress after all, was that not the least they could do?

The well house was built from the same brick and stone as the manor but stood free of the house. The garden had taken an imperialist stance with the structure and overgrown it with vines and flower blossoms of every color. The heavy door, made of the same pink marble that the statue in the garden alcove shared, stood ajar. Other than myself and my familiar, not a soul had been inside since it had become my space.

I slipped through the door with a string of excuses already bubbling out of me.

“I know I promised I wouldn’t

But It’s all I can think about

That’s only happened once before

I didn’t know what I was doing

I promise it won't happen again.”

My Mother looked up at me from where she sat on the edge of the pool, her legs resting in the eternally warm water. Her hair flowed over her shoulders in copper waves and when I met her emerald eyes with my own, despite my fears, she looked genuinely pleased to see me. “Come sit.”

She patted the stone floor next to her and I did as I was told, sitting down next to her with my legs crossed. I spent enough time in the water to not find any additional time appealing. I began again. “I’m sorry.”

“Do not apologize, the fault is mine.” She said calmly.

“I don’t understand.”

“I know your nature, my little Delpha, I did not protect you from it. Samsara insisted I lock the well house while he was away, I should have listened.”

If I had come to the door and found it locked, would that have been enough to stop me? I was still the same girl that had thrown herself into the first portal she had seen after spending the previous ten years confined to the same three rooms after all. “I still broke a promise. You should be furious with me! I didn’t know I was walking out of my mind into a parade, but if Anna and you hadn’t of been there, I would have,”

She held up her hand and I stopped speaking. “We were there however and nothing unforgivable occured.”

I sighed. “Do the guards feel the same? I could have killed them.”

Suri, the sorceress who I had thought I was, had been particularly violent.

“I managed to negotiate their silence,” In the dim light, I saw a smile touch my mother’s lips before she hid it away behind her hand “Do you remember the guard you struck in the crotch?”

Memories from when I was still in the mind of another were blurred at the edges, like a dream, but I did remember Bool. Particularly, the groan of pain that had come from him and how he had crumpled to the ground when my elbow had been driven into him. I thought of my mother grabbing him. . . there. . .to heal the damage I had done, new shame washed over me. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“When I woke this morning, he had sent me the most beautiful bouquet of wildflowers. He had picked them himself not ten paces from his post.” She giggled, sounding like a Maiden from one of the memories I had lived through.

“You’re blushing!” I pulled my Mothers hand away from her face and her left cheek had indeed become red.

“You weren’t the only one that spent most of the last ten years locked in a room. It feels nice to be flattered.” She said, a playfully defensive tone in her voice.

I had not considered how my sentence had affected that part of my mother’s life until she had brought it to my attention. I had not considered that part of my mothers life, ever, but she wasn’t just my mother. She had been Idensyn Aubrey for one hundred and forty one years before she had become my mother.

“Have you,” I hesitated.

“Go on, ask me what you will.” She encouraged.

“After my father died, I mean, when he wasn’t around anymore,” I couldn’t quite figure out how to word what I wanted to say.

“Do not fret over the details, you will not offend me.” My mother said, patting my knee.

“You’ve been alone since he died.” I said, unable to make it a question.

“Nonsense. I’ve never been alone,” She smiled at me. “I’ve had you and you are more than enough.”

She had not answered my question, not the way I had meant it at least, but I couldn’t keep myself from leaning into her for an embrace. “What was that last night? The dancers and drummers? The lion and everything else?”

“I wondered if you listened to me and came straight here or if you found a way to see it to its end,” My mother said, pulling the hem of her wrap up and drawing her legs out of the water. “What you witnessed is known as Amoranora.”

“Who?” I asked. Is that her name? The Red Mother?

“What, not who. It is a festival honoring The Mother in Red’s seven lovers. Each receives their own day of celebration and last night marked its beginning. I had forgotten it myself until the rhythm makers began their drumming.”

“The guards, Springer and Woolie, said it was her, at the end. Are all of them like that, The Mothers?” I asked, moving through the images of the parade in my mind.

My mother stood and took one of the clean white towels stacked on the bench beside the pool. She dried her legs with it and stretched it out over the stone floor to dry. “We must leave the discussions of last night where they lay for now,” She offered me a hand and I took it, rising to my feet. “There is a serious matter I must speak with you about.”

I didn’t like the way that sounded. I didn’t like it at all. I had not eaten breakfast, my stomach suddenly felt hollow and empty.

“There is no better time for me to tell you this. I have received word from The Mothers.”

A terrible daydream spun to life in my mind upon my mother’s words. Smoke filled the air of the well house. The water in the pool steamed before erupting into a boil. The rose-fire lion stalked into the small room, stone melting under its blazing paws. It snatched me into its massive jaws around my middle. I screamed as the fire burnt me away and all my mother could do was watch.

“The Mother in Brown has chosen to be the first to punish you.”

The daydream ran out of things to burn and snuffed itself out of my mind in a puff of smoke.

“The Mother in Brown,” I repeated, a different kind of fear weighing on my chest. “What will she do to me?”

My mother wrapped her arms around me and I buried my face into her. “I do not know. That will be between The Mother and you.”

Had we not just been smiling and laughing a moment ago? All of that lightness that the meeting with my mother had brought me had left the well house.

The Mother in Red seemed to have an affinity with fire and it had seemed a safe assumption that my punishment would come in that way, but what could The Mother in Brown have planned for me? Something terrible with mud or tree bark, maybe? I didn’t have anything as visceral as fire to point my mind in the right direction.

“What is her name, The Mother in Brown?”

My mother sighed. “I’m sorry my little Delpha, I have been forbidden to tell you. She insisted on you learning her name from her lips. They all did in fact.”

Nami. The Mother in Blue’s name appeared in my mind. She had told me herself that it was hers in the dark room filled with nothing but water. Knowing one name did not make me feel any better about the eight I didn’t.

“That seems like the way they would do things,” I agreed. “Have you been forbidden from telling me what she is like?”

A terrified scream came from somewhere outside the well house and my mother and I both froze.

“Stay here until I return for you.” She commanded, running out the door.

“No.” I denied and followed at her heels.

She tore over the path to the manor and burst through the back door, pushing past Anna and heading towards the kitchen. “What, in the Mother’s names, is the matter?” My mother demanded, slowing to a stop at the entrance.

I ran straight into her back and pushed my head under her arm so I could see.

If I had eaten breakfast that morning, I would have been sick.

A corpse, blood dripping from its snout and open throat onto the light stones of the floor, bulged off the large table on every side. Its hot scent that hung thick in the air filled my nose and my eyes watered.

The guard that had been the victor appeared on the other side of the kitchen, fully dressed with his armor and his sword. “There was nothing I could do to stop him, Lady Aubrey.”

Ms. Lao stood with her back turned to the corpse, bracing herself against the wall with a shaky hand. “I am sorry I screamed. I thought I was being attacked until he showed himself.”

“Stop who? Who showed himself?” My mother asked, searching the room for someone, anyone, that could give her an answer.

A hypnotically low voice gave her the answer she was searching for.

“I have returned,” Sam leapt from where he had been unseen and landed atop the massive flank of the slain boar, his tortoise shell blue fur smeared with gore. “with a gift.”