If I did not allow my mind to wander outside the boundaries of my bedding, all was well.

  The ends of the blue blanket gave me more than enough room to pretend.

  It was thick and soft without being uncomfortably silky or plush. No matter how much I tossed and turned, it was big enough for there to be no danger of a hand or foot slipping out from under it. The cushioned mat and pillow underneath me were the final pieces that allowed me to imagine my reality away.

  It was like the safe place that Rhiannon had sent me to when I had been before The Mothers. If I squinted and stared just below the iron lantern hanging at the peak of the big tent, it almost looked like the canopy around my bed in Erosette.

  You never left the manor. Anna is sitting in her chair, reading one of her books and waiting for you to get up. I thought to myself for the hundredth time. I knew it was not true, but it felt better than admitting I was alone in a tent filled with maidens that I did not know.

  That's not true. I corrected myself. I knew Reese, at least I knew her as well as I could after only meeting her yesterday.

  She had been the one who had needed a nap. When I hadn't eaten any of the soup she had brought to our table, she had helped herself to them. I shuddered at the thought of someone who could eat six bowls of soup and not need to lay down, but for all her excitement and energy, they had defeated her.

  As long as I did not allow my mind to wander past where the chocolate eyed maiden lay sleeping on the mat beside me, all was well.

  I was not very experienced with making friends. I only had two, truly, and I wasn't sure that Anna counted any more. Pyreme, Rhiannon's sleepy eyed rose, was strange, but so was I. If I had not been bound the way I was or had there been more time, she would have counted. With Arthur, I had not really needed experience because he had done most of the work himself.

  Reese had done all of it.

  She had come to check on me after I had stumbled out of the wood line in front of the iron gates of Lun Arcanicil. If she had not taken up for me when Tana had been being mean, I would have just stood there and taken it. Without her dragging me to the river bank, I would have been one of the maidens who had shivered and waited until sunset to take their first attempt.

  Before she had fallen asleep, she had insisted that we both kept trying to brave the bitter deeps. I knew my attempts would be pointless, but I would. Maybe it would help her take one of the three remaining charms in her hand. Maybe it would help her become a new moon.

  Until then, we were camping. Nothing more and nothing less. We were in a camp after all. There was no trial, there was nothing at stake, we were just two maidens becoming friends.

  Lie. The Autumn that I normally liked said in my mind and brought a heavy sigh to my chest.

  The truth was that no matter how much I wished that to be true, it could not be. We were at the camp because of a trial that one of us could not overcome and the other hadn't. I did not want to freeze and get beaten by the frigid water again, but I would go if she did, it was the least I could do.

  Truth. She spoke again.

  When it was all over, I hoped to see her again someday.

  I hoped I never saw Maiden Tana again.

  I hadn't since she had walked up the river's rapids on springs of her perfectly blue aura, and that was still too soon. Precept Shanti had taken her inside shortly after her victory, but I had not seen any sign of her or her blue stoned necklace in any of the places I had gone. There was no reason for her to be outside, but I found it unlikely that she would be sleeping quietly in the main tent that Reese and I were in.

  As long as I did not allow my mind to wander outside of the warm tents and kept my mind off the trial, all was well.

  The trial was ridiculous anyways. The Precepts had told me and all the maidens that there were only five slots for us, that Lun would only accept five of us as whatever a new moon was. Two of the charms had been taken and there had been nothing but failure in the time since.

  I still had not laid eyes on the second maiden that had passed the trial and I had no desire to. It was not as if I would have the chance to get to know her.

  Night had come, the forest outside had only grown darker and colder. Most of the maidens had withdrawn their names after their first drowning in the river. Precept Bellum and Shanti had praised their sensibility and welcomed them inside. They had said that it was better to recognize and accept a limit than it was to come to harm trying to surpass it.

  I and the rest of the sleeping maidens, with the exception of Reese, had agreed.

  She had not been nearly as kind as the others, but Precept Jasna had said much the same thing to me after I had washed up at her feet for the second time.

  The only memory she will ever have of you is how pathetic you looked. The Autumn I didn't like, the real Autumn, thought.

  A strange notion came with her words. If I went into The Well and could somehow find Precept Jasna's memories amongst the near infinite amount of sorceress's books, I could open it. I could open it and place my hand on one of its last pages and see myself through her eyes.

  Shivering, soaked, and so weak that she had needed to pull me up from the snow, I had not just looked pathetic.

  That would always be her impression of me.

  Once the sun rose again, I would never see her or any of the precepts again.

  Alexei, Reese, the serpent skeleton that hung in the arched windows that looked over the courtyard, they would all soon be nothing but a memory.

  Anna and I’s shack, our little place, would be emptied before it ever got the chance to be decorated. It was small and drafty, the windows rattled when the wind blew or Sam got mad, but it had been ours.

  A lump formed in my throat. I pulled my blanket over my head as I swallowed it and practiced bending branch. The power I built within me shone from my eyes and illuminated the inside of my blanket like a small candle.

  As long as I did not think about what would come with the morning sun and the finality of my failure, all was well.

  You are warm. You are dry. You can eat if you are hungry. You have all of your skin. There are no glowing eyed beasts hunting you. This is like Rhiannon's safe place. You never left Erosette. Anna is sitting in her chair just beyond the canopy. I repeated in my mind as I sunk into the feeling of my aura and brought my reality back to the bundled edges of my blanket.

  If I did not allow my mind to wander outside the boundaries of my bedding, all was well.

  "Ire?" I heard one of the maidens whisper loudly.

  I closed my eyes so whoever was awake would not see my glow.

  "Hey, Ire?" The maiden whispered louder than the first time.

  Whoever they were calling for was outside of my blanket. Therefore, it was not of my concern. The things inside my boundaries that needed my attention were the cracked nail of my toe and the need to turn over that I felt aching in my hip.

  Something clutched my shoulder and shook me hard. "Wake up."

  "Reese?" I whispered harshly as I let go of my aura and rolled onto my back.

  “You ready?” She asked as she stretched her arms above her head.

  “For what?” I answered, keeping everything but my eyes tucked safely within the blanket.

  “Time is running out, we can’t lay around all night.” She said and stood, offering me her hand.

  “No. I can’t.” I told her and brought the blanket back over my head. I turned my back to her and hugged my knees to my chest as tight as I could.

  Outside was bad, cold, and hopeless. Inside was soft, warm, and required nothing from me. I thought I would be able to go with her when the time came, but now that the time had come, I knew I had been just as wrong as Anna had been the night before.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Reese pulled the blanket back off of me without hesitation. “Look, I don’t have anywhere to go if this doesn’t work out. They’ve made it pretty hard to resist, but I have to go back out."

  “What’s hard to resist?” I asked, not understanding what she meant.

  “This,” She said and shook my blanket. “The heat, the soup, all this cozy shit. They are trying to make it difficult for us to decide to try again.”

  “No.” I said again and tried to snatch my blanket back from her.

  Reese was much stronger than I was.

  “Yes. That’s what this is all about. It’s about will. We have to choose to do this even though it is awful. Cherith told me that.” She said as she ripped my blanket out of my hands and pulled me into my feet.

  I reached for my boots and she slapped my hand away. “Don’t bother. If you put them on it’ll be even harder to take them back off.”

  Without another word, she pulled me through the sleeping maidens and I tried my best to not step on any of them as we went.

  Precept Shanti sat by the closed flaps of the entrance, looking much smaller without her coat of pockets on. She looked up at us from her bowl of the red soup and yawned. "Be sure that Precept Jasna sees you before you go in.”

  "Sure." Reese grunted as she pulled me out of the tent and strode into the frigid night.

  A yellow moon shone through the thin spots in the grey clouds above with an eerie glow that cast a sickly tint over the snow. Dark shadows hung within the spaces between the evergreens and the constant roar of The River Eae filled my ears. Somehow, it had gotten even colder, and the freezing wind nearly brought me to my knees as soon as it broke through my little white dress.

  Precept Jasna and Alexei stood at the river bank, the two of them seemingly caught in some conversation that kept their attention wholly.

  “Slow down!” I shouted as Reese literally dragged me towards them.

  “Can’t do that. I’m gonna go, and then you’re gonna go right after me.” She called back over her shoulder.

  At the sound of my shouting, Precept Jasna and my white haired guard both turned their heads towards us.

  She reached a hand out to him as he was leaving, but Alexei left her where she stood.

  When we reached her, her sky blue eyes looked like she would have killed us on the spot if she could have.

  “Go inside. Neither of you have what it takes.” She said to us angrily, the feathers in her downy black hair whipping in the wind.

  Reese laughed. “If I can’t be a moon here, I won’t be anything anywhere. I'm going in."

  “That can't be true.” I argued, hoping that if I could make her see reason that she would calmly let me return to my blanket and pad. With all of the difficult things I had in my life, I would still be something somewhere. If she had seals over her channels or housed a stolen ethereal construct, I think I would have noticed.

  “I lost my mother not a month ago. That’s the only reason I’m here to begin with.” Reese laughed again.

  “Your mother died?” Precept Jasna asked, her angry eyes softening at their edges.

  All I could do was stare at the chocolate eyed maiden. There had been no sign of the unimaginable pain she must have been in. I could not begin to think of something happening to my mother without feeling like I could not breathe.

  “Worse, she’s hollow, doesn’t even remember that she’s supposed to love me.” Reese said through a smile. "I don't mean to laugh, I get very uncomfortable when I talk about it."

  Hollow? I asked myself, knowing that I had heard the word but not remembering what it meant.

  “That is worse. You are the maiden Cherith invited, aren't you?” Precept Jasna asked.

  “Mmhmm. You're next Ire. Get ready.” Reese laughed. Without another word, she jumped straight into the dark water of the bitter deeps.

  She vanished beneath the rapids and for too long a moment it seemed like she would never come back up. Then, the white water rushing past began to glow. Orange, like the coals of a dying fire or the waning light of a setting sun, illuminated her shape in the water.

  The snow stung my bare feet and I was nearly certain that the cold was trying to kill me specifically, but I could not look away.

  Her power formed between her soles and the river bed like mounds of small stones. She pressed off of them and took a shaking step forward, the pieces of her candied orange aura being carried off in her place.

  “Shanti!” Precept Jasna shouted towards the tents.

  Reese broke through the surface of the water with a high pitched shriek that rose into manic laughter. Every step she took from the river came with more of her power standing underneath her in smoldering defiance against the current.

  Reese’s soul was orange. She was no more blue than I was. We were both the wrong sort of soul.

  "Yes?" Precept Shanti called as she came dragging through the snow with a trail of maidens streaming out of the tents behind her. A smile touched her face when she got close enough for Reese’s light to shine in her half lidded eyes. "You were wrong Jasna!”

  Through the drowning rapids, the maiden with the muddy brown eyes' power turned the bitter deeps into a well of shining stars.

  Reese was much stronger than I was.

  I had barely managed to keep my head above the water, but she strode through it like she was walking downhill, her eyes alight with the color of her aura.

  The other maidens reached the riverside and began to follow alongside her as I was. Silent as she reached for one of the three silver charms that hung over the shallowing water on a length of wire, they broke into cheers when her hand closed around it.

  She did not stop once she took the charm. Her pieces continued to build under her feet and she continued to march up the river, climbing higher and higher atop the growing hill of her power.

  The hair on the nape of my neck stood on end and an all too familiar feeling took my attention away from Reese's victory march. There was no long search or feelings of uncertain vulnerability before I found my watcher. As soon as I turned and stared into the darkness between the trees, two blue eyes stared right back at me.

  “Precept Jesnah?” Precept Shanti called from the gathered maidens.

  “I’ve got her.” Precept Jasna answered as she stepped off the bank and onto the white water

  I let the gathering of maidens engulf me as each of them tried to get a better look at Reese. Like one of the rocks at the bottom of the river, they flooded past me and I sunk to the back of the group. When I was certain that none of them had noticed the separation forming between us, I stepped behind the trunk of an ever green and hoped I had not been seen.

  From where I hid, I saw the precepts carrying Reese towards the camp, one of her arms over each of their shoulders and her feet dragging shallow lines in the snow.

  “Will I be sent to The Mother in Orange’s School?” The chocolate eyed maiden muttered, her voice so quiet it was nearly lifeless.

  "No." Precept Jasna answered.

  Precept Shanti gave her a half lidded glare. "We will find the right place for you. You have done very well."

  They disappeared into the folds of the big blue tents and the maidens followed along in their tracks.

  I turned away from the warmth and the comfort that lay inside and went to meet my watcher. Well beyond the small radius of light around the camp, within a tight grouping of snow and shadow blanketed trees, was my familiar.

  "What are you doing here, Sam?" I asked in hushed tones, as I looked back over my shoulder to ensure that I was not followed.

  "Watching you fail. "The Mother in Brown is doing the same. She eagerly awaits it." The big blue cat said simply, his voice just as low as the roaring of the river.

  "Of course she is," I sighed and let my long black hair hang over my head. The moment the trial was over, she would come for me. I would need to tell Reese goodbye before the sun rose again. "But why are you? I'm not in danger and I have no intention of entering The Well."

  Sam pulled his thick clawed paw from the snow and revealed the folded piece of paper that had been hidden underneath it. "From the mortal."

  I unfolded it and read it silently to myself. Hymneth was good. Found a library. Got you milk. Clothes too. Playing dress up when you get back. See you soon.

  It was only a few tears, but her note made me cry.

  "Anna asked you to come all the way here to give this to me and you did?" I sniffled and wiped the freezing tear tracks off my cheeks.

  Sam did not answer for a long moment. "What the mortal asked of me and what I desired to do were not in conflict. How disappointed she would be to know that her note found you defeated."

  "Don't do that to me. Azza set this all up so I would fail," I said, breaking my promise to Rhiannon. "There is nothing I can do. Anna and I will find a way to be happy when she takes us."

  Sam growled. " I find it embarrassing to be in the service of one who would give up so easily. Do not allow me to be bound to a coward. One of the few parts of you I respect is your history of defiance in the face of forces much greater than you. You would let The Mother in Brown defeat you now? Shame."

  There was a time in my life that I would have argued with him, but there was no use, no amount of anger would bring me any closer to becoming a new moon.

  Sam growled again. "Know this, my lady. She will not be taking the mortal if you fail. It is you and you alone that she will bring to her domain."

  "No, that's not true." I said, shaking my head in absolute denial.

  "It is. She said as much to me when she crossed my path. If you fail, you will never see the mortal again." Sam insisted, his big blue eyes deadly serious.

  The heart breaking impact of my familiar’s words left me stunned. Before I could so much as have a thought, I heard the sound of snow crunching under someone's feet from behind me.

  “Out here alone and talking to yourself, have you gone mad or were you always? ” A voice shouted from behind me.

  Underwitch Tana, wearing the right amount of clothes for the frigid cold, walked quickly towards me.

  “Leave.” I whispered to Sam.

  My familiar did not obey my command.

  Tana's perfect blue eyes shifted down from me to the big blue cat that placed himself in front of me. She stopped dead in her tracks and her jaw dropped.

  "You dislike her. Shall I be rid of her for you?" Sam asked as his back arched and he showed his claws.

  "Precept Shanti! Precept Jasna! Precept Bellum! Maiden Ire has a familiar!” Underwitch Tana shouted in a cloud of white breath. Her voice carried easily through the trees and I had no doubt that she had been heard.

  Too fast for me to have time to think, the precepts and all of the maidens that had been watching Reese a moment before had found their way to where I stood.

  All of them silently stared at Sam and Sam scowled back at them.

  I could not have cared less.

  Without hesitation or concern for those who watched me, I strode to the snow covered river bank and threw myself back into the bitter deeps.

  I would not let Azza take me from Anna.

  I would rather die.