From the colosseum, through the black gate, and back to the cliffside.

  All I could do was think about what Rhiannon had said. What a wonderful soul you have turned out to be.

  There were now two things that I would be repeating in my mind endlessly.

  It had hurt her to say it. The pain hadn't left her face for minutes after the black gate had closed. Even then, I was certain that what truly broke her out of her grimace was the clinking rhythm of the on coming gatekeepers.

  "Lets go sit down. I cannot bear to be near them right now." She had said as we left the row of gates and walked to the cliffside. The mansion stood to our left, no signs of light or life in any of its uncountable windows.

  For a long moment, we stood in a silence that I did not find uncomfortable. She wore the same kind of white robe she had been on the night she had taken me from the manor.

  She hadn't really taken me had she? At least, not the way Azza and Gwyn had.

  From somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered seeing Rhiannon through eyes that were not my own. The sorceress that I had been had thought she looked like a statue carved out of marble. She was beyond beautiful, that was without question, but that was the end of the similarities for me. Marble was hard, cold, unalive. The Mother in Red was anything but that.

  I would never be as tall as her and my frame was much to skinny for me to hold out hope that I would fill out into curves like hers, but I couldn't help hoping I would.

  "Have you been hurt? I should have asked you as soon as we crossed." She asked me as she lowered herself to the rocky ground and hung her legs off the side of the cliff.

  "My feelings hurt." I answered her. If I knew how far down the water was from where we were, she must as well and yet, she seemed to give no regard to the height.

  "Come sit, I will not let you fall." She said through a laugh.

  I had not been trying to make a joke, but she had evidently found my response funny.

  I did as she asked, sitting as close to her as I could without touching her and slowly lowering my boots over the edge.

  "How long have you been able to channel out of your palms," She asked me as the metallic sounds of the gatekeeper grew closer.

  "The right one for awhile, but I wasn't very good at doing it. That was the first time I ever used the left one." I answered her.

  She turned and looked at me with one of her eyebrows raised. "You mean to tell me that you opened that channel only moments before using it?"

  "Did I do something wrong?" Her reaction had brought the tiniest trace of fear into my heart.

  "The answer to that depends on who you ask," She laughed. "But no, there is nothing wrong with that in the slightest."

  "Can I ask you a question? I don't think it will make your head hurt." I said. Once I had become certain that she was not going to subject me to pain and torture, I found that there was a near infinite amount of things I wanted to know.

  "Of course." She said with a nod.

  "Why is it called Vowkeeper's Anguish?"

  The rocks underneath her hands cracked and split suddenly.

  I touched her arm. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for it to hurt."

  "No," She smiled. "It didn't, but I do not wish to relive that moment on what has proven to be a very good night. Remember what you carry within in you. If you remain curious, I am sure that the truth will wind its way to you in time."

  I turned around to see the gatekeeper slinking towards the closed gates. Nothing but a mass of tattered fabric and clinking metal, it reached out its hand and I saw the source of the metallic sound. Heavy Chains ran from the wrist of its sharp fingered gauntlet back into the frayed folds of its cloak. Too dark for me to see with what, it traced the inside of one of the closed gates with a horrible scrapping sound. When its returned to where it had started, swirling black energy filled the gate and the gatekeeper vanished.

  Rhiannon shuddered and stood. She wrapped her arms around herself like she had suddenly grown cold. "It won't be long now.

  "What are they?" I asked her timidly, hoping that I would cause her no more pain.

  "People. Souls just like you and I, but the power of the gates, it corrupts, it changes them." She said with a sour look on her face.

  "Is that why you didn't want to use them the night you came for me? You fear the corruption?" I carefully pulled my legs over the edge of the cliffside and scooted myself back before I stood.

  The gatekeeper reappeared from the black gate and held their gauntleted fist up towards Rhiannon. Without a word or other gesture, they stalked back into the darkness they had come from to the sound of their chained rhythm.

  "All power corrupts. But yes, I never want to use them. They are unfortunatly necessary however. Though I dislike it, crossing through them is relatively harmless. Never make a habit of using them too often, no matter what the circumstance is. Let's get you home to your Anna." She answered, the same fare away look that had been in her eyes at dinner my first night with her evident in her eyes.

  We walked to the black gate, but I hesitated to cross.

  In truth, I didn't want to go home. I wanted to see Anna and everyone else, yes. The thought of my own bed and the familiarity of my room was a pleasant one, but I had not had enough. It had taken me nearly the entire three days of my time with Rhiannon to accept that she was different than Azza and Gwyn. There were too many questions I needed to ask, and not enough time to hear the answers to them. She was too warm, I felt too safe around her, I was not ready to return to the half life of waiting the noose around my neck to tighten once again.

  I remembered the safe place that Rhiannon had charmed me into when I had been on the stone table.

  Anna loved me.

  Rhiannon, for reasons I did not understand, loved me.

  All was well.

  "Autumn? Are you Well?" Rhiannon asked, leaning down so she could look me in my face.

  "Can I ask you another question? Even if it hurts?" I said with my eyes cast to the ground.

  "One. I do not think I can take more than that tonight and I cannot promise I will be able to answer it." She warned.

  "The other Mothers, the ones that haven't punished me, will they be like Azza and Gwyn or like you?" I whispered, feeling guilty for the pain I was going to bring to her.

  She stood up straight and laughed. It was a wonderful sound and I wished I had more time hear it again. "No pain. None at all. I was terrified for a moment. Think about what you saw, how my sisters acted, what you wish to know can be found there."

  It was not as telling of an answer as I had wished to receive, but if anyone was proficient at searching through memories, it was me.

  I crossed through the black gate and found myself standing out front of the manor.

  "My Lady." Sam's deep voice thundered from where he stood outside the double doors of the manor. The big blue cat's back was arched. His eyes were locked in a furious scowl and arcs of blue lightning circled his tortoise shell fur.

  Before I could answer, something hit me from the side and pulled me into its clutches.

  "Are you alright? what did she do to you? Did she hurt you? I'll fight her right now if she did." Anna spat a flurry of questions at me as she checked me from the top of my head to the bottom of my boots.

  "I am sure you would," Rhiannon laughed as she stepped out of the black gate behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder. "I assure you that she has not been harmed."

  Anna did not so much as flinch at the arrival of The Mother in Red.

  "What is this then?" She said, snatching up my right hand and pointing at the seal on my palm.

  "That wasn't her. It was not like how it has been before." I said, unable to keep myself from smiling at her bravery.

  Anna narrowed her dark eyes. "You didn't grind off her skin or make her think she was being hunted?"

  "You have my word that nothing of the sort happened." Rhiannon said with a smile.

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  Anna furrowed her brows even further. "I'm fucking confused."

  "I doubt there are any secrets between the two of you, Autumn will explain, I am sure," Rhiannon said as the black gate closed behind her. She took her hand off my shoulder and turned around. "You all are keeping very late hours. So late, that perhaps I should call them early."

  I turned to see who she was speaking to and found my mother, Arthur, and two of the guards sitting around a small camp fire.

  At the sight of The Mother in Red, Bool and Schmit threw themselves to a knee and bowed their heads.

  "I'm going to force both of you to retire if you don't stop doing that. On your feet." Rhiannon said with a sigh.

  My mother stood from where she had been sitting next to Bool. She looked as she always did. Wearing one of her thousands of dresses, her long red hair down and her emerald green eyes bright, I nearly cried at the sight of her. The time that had passed since the last time I had seen her had not been very long or difficult, I did not release how much I had missed her until our eyes met." "They insisted on waiting up for her out here. I cannot fault them since I have done the same."

  "As you should. Autumn deserves nothing less than a welcome party as wonderful as this. I will speak with you alone?" Rhiannon asked her as she stepped to where the guards still knelt.

  With the tip of her pointer finger, she pushed each of them in the middle of their brow and sent them stumbling back to their asses. She laughed all the way through helping them up onto their feet and embracing each of them. "Trea didn't bang either of you up too terribly I hope."

  "I thought the two of you were strong. How can you guard anything if you can't stay on your feet? I would never get knocked over that easily." Arthur said as he stood. There was no sign of the damage that The Lady in Red had left him me. If I had not seen him at his worse, I would have never know he had been hurt.

  "Careful, Ugi. She will test that." Bool grunted.

  "Not tonight, I'm afraid. As much as I'd like to, it will have to wait for another day" Rhiannon said, looking up at Arthur with a strange glimmer in her rose colored eyes.

  My mother joined her and the two walked down the path that led to the city as they talked.

  "What happened? With your punishment I mean?" Anna asked and brought my attention back to her.

  "I had to sleep on the floor. It was awful. They only brought me pillows and blankets after I was asleep." I told her as I frowned and make my voice sound like it was the most horrible experience I had ever been through.

  Anna narrowed her eyes again and then her nose scrunched as she began to smile. "You poor thing, I'm amazed you survived. When did this happen?"

  She had never left go of my newly sealed right hand.

  "When I went before The Mother's," I answered. A wicked smirk played at the corner of my lips. "I told them to fuck off."

  "You did what?" She demanded, her jaw dropped.

  "I didn't, not really, but kind of. I will tell you later, but I haven't eaten anything and that is beginning to be a problem." My empty stomach rumbled audibly in time with my words and Anna and I made for the kitchen.

  "I felt you entering The Well and then it stopped. Explain." Sam rumbled as he followed us through the door.

  "The Mother in Grey went into it to check the walls they put up inside of it." I started the explanation my familiar had demanded from me.

  "Which aren't there." Anna said as she walked to the cooking side of the kitchen.

  "But they were. At least they were when she was in my mind. I hear this sound whenever it is going to take me. Usually, these loud metal thumps sound in my head three times and then I fall." I continued.

  "Like when those things were attacking us behind the old house and you just kind of fell over?" Anna asked back at me over her shoulder.

  "Right. I didn't want to go. There were all sorts of things being said that I didn't want to miss, so I did bending branch and held my aura. I never heard the third thump and it didn't take me." I finished as Anna handed me a torn off hunk of bread with butter that was still melting into it.

  "That's new! Right? You've never been able to do that before. Your getting stronger." She said with obvious pride on her face.

  "I agree with the mortal. That is a mark of growth. Soon, you will no longer have need of me and I will be unmade." Sam stated simply as he bounded onto the countertop and looked me in my eyes.

  Anna shook her head as she cracked several eggs into a bowl and began to stir them vigorously.

  "Is that true? Do you mean what you say?" I asked the big blue cat. Annoying as he was and as infuriating as he could be, I could not think of my life without his contemptuous stares and baritone insults.

  "I am unsure." He answered after a long silence.

  "Then don't say shit like that. Sometimes I think you like making her sad." Anna snapped at him.

  "Sometimes I do." Sam said. Evidently having grown tired of being around us, he hopped back off the counter and disappeared to wherever it was in the manor that he went when he wished to be alone.

  Wishing to see her be proud of me once again, I staved off my hunger for another moment and left the plate of eggs she had made me untouched.

  "I have a surprise for you. Do you remember how Azza made it to where I couldn't say the names of The Mothers?" I asked, standing up straight with my arms held behind my back.

  "You just did," Anna said as she took two quick steps towards me. "I remember everything about you there is to know, and you just said her name!"

  "I did? Fuck! I ruined the surprise!" I cried as I pressed my palms against my eyes.

  "No, shit, no you didn't," She shook her head and stepped back from me. "I didn't hear a thing. What were you going to tell me?"

  I crossed my arms and began to pout. "It feels stupid now, I know you heard it."

  "Autumn, if you don't tell me what you were before, I'm going to eat your eggs." She threatened.

  "Rhiannon, Nami, Glim, Grey, Gwyn, Ali, Azza." I said the seven names of The Mother's that I knew in quick succession and succeeded in bringing the pride back onto Anna's face.

  From pride to shock to fear, her expression changed in an instant.

  "It would be best for both of us if you promised to only say those names when it is absolutely necessary." Rhiannon said as she walked into the kitchen with my mother at her side. She looked strange in the room. All that was different between it and the kitchen in her mansion was the size. Seeing her inside the manor with the memory of her in the larger version of the same room made her seem even taller than she actually was.

  "I'm sorry. I promise." I agreed and met her with my pinky outstretched.

  "This is the second time you have done this, what does it mean?" Rhiannon asked.

  I pointed at Anna. "She taught me. It means if I break the promise, you get to break my pinky. Right?"

  "Uhm, yes. That's what it means," Anna stuttered. "I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time dealing with the fact that one of The Mother's are here and it's not the worst thing that has ever happened."

  "Do not apologize, my sisters have hardly given you a reason to like us. I am leaving, but I wanted to tell you goodbye before I went." Rhiannon said to me.

  The Mother in Red telling me goodbye was something that I never thought would bring me sadness.

  She took my pinky in her hand the way she had before I went before The Mothers. "I have kept my vow. For either promise, do not give me a reason to break your finger."

  "I won't." I said, meeting her warm eyes fully and understanding what she was saying without the need for explination.

  And what a wonderful soul you turned out to be. I heard her words in my mind.

  With that, she left. My third punishment had truly ended. I still had my skin, I had not been hunted like a fox that had been chased out of its den, and I had a full plate of eggs to eat.

  My mother and Anna watched my ravenous consumption of the eggs with silent looks of revulsion and appreciation. The moment that I placed my wooden spoon on the empty plate, Anna broke the silence that had settled into the room.

  "Alright, I can't wait anymore. I need to know what happened." She said as she produced two bottles of wine from beneath the counter and uncorked the first.

  My mother came and planted a kiss on the top of my head. "I am so pleased that you are home and unharmed, my little Delpha, but I cannot stay and listen. The less that I know, the easier it will be for me to be your mother. Goodnight."

  I knew that she was bound by The Mothers the same way I had been and the same way Rhiannon was, but I couldn't help but be sad at her leaving.

  "Not yet, have you ever heard a story about sorceress named Trisolde?" I said as I pulled her arms over my shoulders and made her hold me.

  She chuckled. "I have, though I would need to read it again before I could tell it properly. Why do you ask?"

  "I think there is something I need to know in it. How does it end?" I leaned my head back against her and closed my eyes. Everyone knew that the end of a story was the most important part. Even if I had the book Patience had left out for me in my hands, it would take me my life over again to read it. The earliest memories that I could remember were of being told stories, if she told me the end, maybe I could learn what Rhiannon had been trying to tell me.

  "I don't remember much of it, who was mad at who or what she did to end up where she did, but she was sentenced to death by some queen if I remember correctly. As an act of mercy, she was allowed to choose the manner in which she would die." My Mother said as she leaned me back and held my weight fully.

  "How could anybody choose that?" Anna asked.

  "Trisolde was many things, but most of all, she was cunning. When she was brought before the queen to deliver her decision, she gave the last answer that anyone would ever expect. She chose to die of old age and was freed to allow her to do just that." My Mother said.

  We all laughed. It was a good ending, but I did not find anything useful within it.

  My mother gave me a gentle squeeze and tried to tell me goodnight again.

  I shook my head and chose my words carefully. "Not yet. I have another question. Who was there when I was born?"

  "How strange it is you ask about that now. Anna was just asking about your birthday. What brings it to mind?" She said through a yawn that I was almost certain she had faked.

  "The Mother in Red," I said, making sure that I was keeping my promise. "told me that she has loved me since the day I was born. She would had to have been there for that to be true, right?"

  My mother sighed. "In all of my years, I have never met a soul that loves more than her. She loves everyone, truly. I am sure that is what she meant."

  That did sound like Rhiannon. She was content to have someone routinely try and take her life when she was perfectly capable of stopping it. Still, I did not think that was what she had meant. The way she had looked at me when she had said it, the emotion in her voice, it had not been a general declaration. It had been personal.

  My mother told me goodnight for the third time and I let her go.

  Light had begun to leak through the windows of the manor and a heavy yawn threatened to bring me to the floor.

  "I can wait until you get some sleep to hear what happened, but you are filthy and our sheets are clean. You have to take a shower." Anna said as we started up the stairs.

  "No." I disagreed.

  "Too bad. If you want to get into bed dirty, I'm sleeping alone tonight." Anna threatened, but there was no steel in her voice.

  "No. I mean I don't want to take a shower. I want to take a bath." I clarified.

  Anna stopped in her tracks. "Are you sure? You haven't since. . ."

  "If I can tell the Mothers no straight to there faces and attack the one who hates me the most, I can take a bath. I'm too tired to keep standing anyway. If you come in there with me, I can tell you everything before bed." I said, making sure to keep my other promise.

  "Maybe you need to go away more often. I think I've been holding you back." Anna laughed. "You leave for three days and come back all fearless and brave."

  "I'm just being myself." I said with a tired smile.

  For the time being, all was well.

  I was home and all was well.