I dressed and left the well house not a second after Sam, but there was not a single of his blue hairs in sight on the narrow path between the garden and the wall that surrounded the manor.

“How does he get inside?” I asked aloud. There were no small doors that were his shape and size for him to pass through whenever he needed, that would be ridiculous, but he needed me to open the door for him to leave the well house.

“Familiars should come with guide books.” I said to myself, shaking my arms out to try and loosen the pinching fabric from under my arms. The clothes my mother had left me, like my familiar, needed their own instructions. All in red fabric that was thin and unfortunately silky, there had been a jacket that held no way to fasten it, tight fitting pants that fell to just above my ankles, and a strap of fabric that I had used to cinch the jacket closed.

The night was pleasantly warm, as it always was in Erosette, but if it had not been for the glow coming from within the garden to my left, the night would have been too dark for me to see my hands in front of my face.

A sudden swell of surprised shouts rose from the city beyond the wall. Far louder than what I had heard the night that Suri had taken my body for a walk to see the Red Mother’s parade, the roar bottomed out into a chorus of disappointed noises before erupting into cheers and applause. 

I looked up the path towards the manor and then back over my own shoulder for good measure. No one was there to see me or stop me from what I was about to do. 

“One little peak won’t hurt.” I said, stepping to the wall and focusing my aura within me. I brought it to my right palm and pushed it through my channel. If I jumped up and grabbed the top of the wall, I could pull myself up and look down to see what the second night of Amoranora had transformed the city into. With a half step head start, I kicked off the wall and reached up, my hand glowing hand clamping onto the top like when I uncorked one of Anna’s bribe bottles. 

My movement pulled the silky fabric across my skin in all the wrong places. The sudden sensation made me shudder and my focus slipped. Without my aura to reinforce my grip, my fingers could hold the wall any longer and I fell to the ground in a heap.

Looking around to make sure no one had seen, I fought the bunches out of the uncomfortable clothes as I stood. The peaks and valleys of cheers and sighs continued to rise and fall from beyond the wall. I promised myself that I would be within the city's limits as soon as I could find the right moment to ask my mother and ignored the dull pain from my fall, forcing myself to continue on my way.

When I turned to take the garden path, I found that there was no path to take. 

I found no garden at all.

The hedges stopped on both sides, but the stone path that would normally lead me to the alcove where my mother and I usually met for lunch had given way to a floor of lush green grass. In the middle of the cleared space, Anna and Arthur stood atop a white stoned platform wearing different shades of the same silky uniform I was. 

A hand was placed gently on my back and I looked up to see my mother smiling down at me. “You were in the well house late this night. Was there a particularly interesting memory or were you struggling with the uniform?”

I did not panic and felt no fear at my mothers inquiry into the memories because she had given me an easy out in the same breath. “The uniform. It is too slick and I do not like how it feels on my skin.”

My mother ran her hand up my back and pulled the buttonless jacket away from me in several spots, releasing the tensions from all the places the red fabric pinched me. “Pull the front closed and hold it, your breasts are showing,” She instructed and I listened with a quickness that rivaled Sam’s speed when he had been assaulting the lich’s horror in flashes of yellow lightning. She untied my belt from my middle and lowered it to my waste, tying it back and pulling it tight. “Better?”

I stretched my arms out in front of me and tested the adjustments. “Better.”

“Let me pull your hair up. It will get in the way,” My mother said, gathering it behind my head and fastening it with a small ring of her aura like she had when I was a girl. “It has grown so long. I can trim it for you tomorrow if you would like?”

I had no preference either way, but anything I could do to continue to keep her in good spirits would aid me when I eventually asked her for permission to leave the walls of the manor. Part of me wished to ask her then, to come out and say what I really felt. Mother? The manor is wonderful compared to the little rooms I remember living in. The well house makes repaying my debt to The Mother’s nearly painless. The only two friends I have in all of chaos live with us and I am grateful that you took them in. I know you have been working very hard to bring Amoranora to us, but can I please disregard every bit of kindness you have given me and skip down to the city I am forbidden to enter?”

“I would like that. You did all of this since last night?” I answered and gestured to the open garden, keeping my thoughts to myself for the time being.

“After I left you this afternoon. I am afraid I have overdone it however. After not using my power for so many years, I am out of shape.” My mother said, pulling me onto the soft grass and towards the platform where Anna and Arthur waited.

Months of walking nearly exclusively over stone had hardened my feet, but the mad dashing I had done through the vanished path the night before had left them sore. The grass my mother had grown, or had cast a glamor sufficient enough to make it feel real, soothed my feet as I walked over it. If I had not been being pulled or in the view of nearly everyone I knew, I would have stripped down and thrown myself onto the lush ground.

Arthur raised his hand to me and clapped my own against it when my mother left me and crossed to the otherside of the white stone platform.

“You remembered!” The tall man said excitedly, looking like he could burst through the thin red fabric of his uniform if he truly wanted to.

“A high five.” I nodded, my spirits immediately uplifted by the wide smile my friend constantly wore.

Arthur looked over at his sister. “When we were back home, the first time I tried to high five her, she reached up and held my hand.”

“You two held hands?” Anna asked, looking past me and up at her little brother. She did not seem to find my previous naivety as humorous as her brother did.

My mother raised her voice, pulling our attention to where she stood in the middle of the platform. “On this second night of Amoranora, Galahad’s night, I will tell you how Galahad the Lion won the hand of The Mother in Red.”

Ms. Lao must have been too tired. I thought, realizing the evening was starting with only the four of us.

Two of the guards stood behind a wooden stall decorated with red curtains at the back of the garden near the pink marble statue. One, Springer was his name, knelt next to a small fire beside the stall, slowly turning a spit filled end to end with what looked like large chickens. The other, Woolie, lined up four tankards on the stall counter. Both the men were wearing the clothes of a barmaid, complete with corsets and aprons, and both stopped what they were doing and looked up at my mother when she began speaking.

“Far into the reaches of chaos, somewhere that no longer exists where it did when these events took place, a wretched place known as the Lion’s Maw long served as proving grounds for the mightiest warriors in known reality.” My mother continued, her eyes coming alive as she lost herself in her story.

“What is going on?” I whispered to Arthur and Anna.

Arthur answered, his whisper loud enough that it earned a pointed glance from my mother. “We are going to try and kill one another.” 

My mother did not lose her stride. “When a warrior took up in the Maw, word would spread, acting as a calling card to any that thought they were the mightiest. The Mother in Red caught wind of the impending tournament and searched it out, meaning to offer the eventual champion a place as one of her knights. But much blood had been spilled in the Maw and it held an aura of its own that would twist any that dueled in its arena of bones into the most savage versions of themselves.”

My hand brushed against Anna’s and I felt her pull it away.

“Many arguments and fights broke out amongst the warriors that gathered, all of them insistent that The Red Mother favored them more. Several warriors were killed outside of their assigned duels and to quell the unnecessary violence, she promised the eventual champion her hand.”

Arthur interrupted my mother. “Couldn’t a witch like you or Autumn just show up and,” Arthur waved his hands through the air in front of himself, miming as if he was moving some great power or working. “Nobody with a sword could beat that.”

As she had from the moment she had found us in the ruins outside The City Above, she gave the tall man nothing but patience. “Outside of Zenithcidel, Sorceresses are often excluded from competitions such as these for that very reason. The Red Mother’s tournament this very night restricts any sorceress that enters from using her aura.”

“Oh.” Arthur said, his disbelief evidently suspended.

A roar of cheers and applause erupted from the city and all of us, even the guards in their outfits, turned towards Erosette.

“Are they really fighting? Actually trying to hurt one another?” Anna asked. I looked at her, but she didn’t so much as glance at me.

Had I done something wrong?

“No,” My mother answered. “But that is for after I finish the story. Where was I?”

Springer shouted from where he knelt by the fire pit. “The promise of The Mother in Red’s hand, Lady Aubrey.”

“A silent swordsman by the name of Galahad, whose face was concealed beneath a heavy winged helm and had long blonde hair the color of starlight, proved to be the lone warrior not taken with The Mother in Red. Hundreds of battles led to what would be the last, a duel between a dark haired outlander and the silent swordsman. The outlander was wicked and fast, rendered a true beast by the sinister aura of the Lion’s Maw, but it was Galahad’s blade that lay a hair off of the outlander's neck in the end. Reborn Galahad the Lion, he removed his winged helm and revealed the face of a prince when The Red Mother offered him her hands. He did not wish to intertwine his own with hers and ask her for marriage as all the others had, but asked for aid in saving his sister. The same sister that had been taken by his treacherous uncle after he had slain Galahad’s lord father. Moved by the soft spoken swordsman’s brave heart and his shining beauty, The Mother in Red agreed.” My mother took a well deserved breath through the smile that lit her face.

Marriage? I didn’t know what the word meant.

“In honor of Galahad the Lion, we will be having our own battles to determine who is the mightiest among us,” My mother said with dramatic emphasis. “And unless we are all much less friendly than I think we are, instead of swords and other arms, we will be playing the same game that is being played in The Mother in Red’s tournament. Points.”

Arthur leaned down and whispered to Anna and I. “Good luck. I’ve been playing with the guards when no one is around.”

“Do you wash your hands after?” Anna replied, actually whispering.

The not knowing proved to be too much for me to ignore. I spoke without bothering to hush my voice. “What is marriage?”

“When a man loves a woman.” Arthur began.

“When two people love each other.” Anna corrected.

My mother gave me an amused expression. “When two conscious beings want to devote themselves to one another, they gather in front of those they love and intertwine their souls in a ceremony.”

“Oh, I thought it was something to do with aura.” I said, feeling more confused by knowing the answer to my question.

“We can all discuss this between the duels. If we do not begin immediately, Galahad’s night will pass without us crowning the Lion,” My mother looked over her shoulder at the barmaids. “Woolie?”

“Yes, Lady Aubrey?” Woolie snapped to attention after placing a small barrel on the counter behind him.

“Can you give us a history of Points before I explain the rules?”

Woolie adjusted his little red corset and scratched at his short beard. “I learned it at the Enclave, Lady Aubrey.”

My mother turned back to us. “ A short history indeed. As for the rules, the purpose of the game is to simulate combat between two individuals without anyone getting hurt.”

Arthur raised his hand.

“I’m sorry, Idensyn. You may have to repeat yourself two or three times for his sake. He is a bit slow.” Anna said.

“Put your hand down, dear. I am not your precept. You may speak freely.” My mother acknowledged Arthur, smiling pleasantly.

“Can I explain it? I learned it in like five minutes and I’m ready to play,” Arthur asked, already walking to where my mother stood in the center of the platform. When he reached her, he took up the same pose I had seen the guards at the front of the manor in the morning before. “You can only use one hand.”

My mother mirrored him. Both of them looked ridiculous in the silky red uniforms that all of us but the guards were dressed in.

“Everything below the waist is off limits,” He gestured to my mother’s off limits with two fingers. “Hands are worth two points, everything else is worth one. If you hit the head,” Arthur slowly stretched his pointed fingers out and placed them against my mothers forehead. “You get three points. Three points is a kill. You get a kill, you win.” 

“Oi, Ugi! Don’t forget about the reset.” Woolie shouted from the stall.

Arthur pressed his head into the heel of his palm. “Right. When you get a point but it’s not a kill, you reset to how you started.”

“That is much less detailed than how I would have explained it, but time is of the essence. Do you both understand?” 

Between Arthur’s explanation and what I had gathered from the morning I had fallen off the roof, I thought I understood the game well enough. “Do you understand?” I asked Anna.

She didn’t answer me. “What do we get if we win? An apple?” 

My mother laughed. “No, no. You get what Galahad the Lion received, The Red Mother’s hand.”

“It is probably some strange hand shaped fruit.” I said to Anna, holding my hand out.

She glanced at me and let out a half hearted exhale from her nose.

She is ignoring me. I realized. Should I have not pushed her to stay in my room the night before? Was there something she had asked me to do and I had forgotten? Had I been so tired that my snoring had kept her awake all night? 

Another thunderous crack of noise came from the city as iridescent light bloomed between my mother’s hands. “Come, draw your lots so we may begin.” 

Arthur reached his hand into my mothers aura and pulled out a small strip of paper that held a shimmering number two across it. I went next, my number being two. Anna drew last, looking back at the manor just after she pulled the number four. 

“That leaves me with number one,” My mother said, her aura and the papers turning to dust in  all of our hands. “Springer?”

The guard left his post by the fire and hurried over to the stall, leaving the big chickens unturned. He pulled the red curtain from the front of the wooden structure, revealing a black board where he furiously scribbled the lots and names my mother called out to him with white chalk. A moment later, a box that showed each of the combatants was laid out for all to see.

“First up, Anna and I,” My mother announced, pushing Arthur and I off the platform. “Go eat and drink. It is not a proper meal, but if there is a food better than roast chicken and ale for watching a sporting event, I do not know it.” 

I would eat and I would drink, but as soon as my feet touched the soft grass, I turned around and watched as my mother and Anna went to the center of the ring and faced one another. Both of them dropped into the stance that Arthur had demonstrated and held their left hands behind their backs

I had not known Anna very long where time was concerned, but in that time, I had come to know her deeper than I knew anyone else. She was not a fighter, but there was a tension in her body that I had never seen before.

One of the guards, I didn’t turn to see which, counted off the start of the match. “Un, deux, trois!”

Anna turned her eyes to my mother’s right hand, bringing her own across her body to strike it and score a point. The moment my mother pulled her hand back to avoid the attack, Anna pivoted and shot her pointed fingers towards her opponent's face.

Then, it was over. 

Anna’s shoulders slumped and my mother withdrew her two fingers from my friend's forehead. 

It began and ended in less than a quarter of a minute, and Anna had lost.

Her and my mother left the platform and she walked by me without a word.

“That was a very smart strategy, I did not expect you to be as aggressive as you were.” My mother said to her as they walked to the stall.

I needed to know what I had done to her. With her ignoring me, none of what we were doing was fun. All I could think about was when I had wronged her and what I could do to make it right.

One of the guards called through another round of roaring applause from the city. “The next match will be Autumn versus Arthur.”

Arthur appeared beside me, still chewing what must have been a bite of the big chicken. “I’ll go easy on you. I know it’s your first time.”