The closest I had ever come to sculpting anything was when I had made the ribbons that hung around Anna's throat.

It seemed so simple in that moment, but I knew that I would not be able to do it again without spending a considerable amount of time practicing. That's what I had learned from all of the pushing, pulling, lifting, and catching that Precept Seram had put me through.

Doing things with my power took time and practice.

Doing anything well took time and practice.

Precept Seram had not been born one of the best teachers in all of chaos. She had been a baby first and then had grown into what I knew her to be.

To my knowledge, The warden had not been born with his full beard and the spider silk belt he wore around his waist. He had been a baby and had grown into the man that I stood next to in the fire lit chamber.

I had not been what I was then at first. My memory of growing up was woefully incomplete, but it was easy for me to find all the places I had grown. When I first met Anna, the most I could do with my power was charm someone or wear a glamor and both of those things took a great amount of effort. I had gained two colors since then, and I had seen a small glimpse of my own soul. Still, I knew that I had come nowhere close to what I was truly capable of.

Time and practice were the only things that would bring me closer to my limits.

In the flickering light of the torches that the warden had lit with his burner, I knew that whoever had made the statue of Sam's mother must have been immortal and had spent every waking hour of their endless life practicing before they had carved the work of art before me.

They had done things with stone that seemed to be against the nature of the material itself.

She took up all of the back wall.

A carved veil hung over her that was so thin and delicate that it looked like it would blow in the wind if the ocean breeze found some way to reach it.

Beneath it, in so much detail that I could see every single black strand, was a sweeping curtain of black hair that concealed all but her thin lips and sharp jaw. The veil hung down over her narrow shoulders before catching on all the tips of all four pairs of her steepled hands.

The statue of the cornerkeeper in Hymneth had only three pairs.

I shook my head and rubbed my eyes, trying desperately to understand what I was seeing.

Her body was bare beneath the veil, and every curve, line, and muscle that had been carved out of the dark stone lay in perfect symmetry.

I had seen all manner of beauty before.

Anna, my mother, Precept Seram.

Each of The Mothers, from Rhiannon's flawless features to Gwyn's savage litheness, were so remarkable in their own right that they looked as much like other sorceresses as Fetti-Gami had a scrap of parchment.

None of them had ever made me feel like looking at the statue did.

The longer I looked at her, the more it felt like she was looming over me, waiting in perfect stillness for the perfect moment to reveal that she was no statue at all. From the eight spider legs that cradled out from her back and held the veil of stone aloft to the mounds of silk tapestries that had been laid out at her very human shaped feet, every part of her felt wrong.

Or maybe, I felt wrong for looking at her. Maybe, I was not meant to think of her as beautiful and the fact that I thought she was meant that something was wrong with me.

I backed away slowly. Unable to take my eyes from her until something met my back, I turned to see the warden standing behind me.

"It's perfectly normal if you feel strange, Underwitch Ire. It happens to everyone the first few times they see her. Taloo wouldn't come in here for a year after his first time." The warden said in a low and soft tone.

I had to swallow before I could speak, and when I did, my voice was barely a whisper. "That's Sam's mother? She really looks like that?"

"Him and every other familiar, but maker is a better way to think of her than mother. Though she did have an actual child. And from what I could see, this is very close. Her son thought so as well when he visited this place." He said as he ran his hands over his beard.

I had to literally bite my tongue to keep from saying Schwarz's name. I had met her child, he had saved my life just like the warden had, but I could not tell him that. Telling that I had been there when Schwarz had died would leave me open to an uncountable amount of questions that I could not answer.

I had not been taught about shifts at Lun Arcanicil, I had lived through one. How big of a lie would I have to tell to explain how Ire Ap Viven had been saved from the clear for of Vowkeeper's Anguish by the titan Schwarz and The Mother in Green?

Too many, even if I could string something believable together which I did not think I could, it was far more lies than I was willing to tell.

Not being able to be myself in front of the warden was dishonest enough.

Fortunately, he had said something that was easy for my attention to grab onto. "You have met her?"

The warden smiled. "If you are caught in the current of a river, did you meet the river? If you are in a lightless room, did you meet the darkness? I have been in her presence once before, but I was much too small to say that I have met her."

With nothing but his words, he had made me feel small myself. Not weak, scared, or insignificant, but small like I had been shortly after I had taken The Well. Just like I had done then with my mother's stories, I felt myself becoming captured by what I was being told.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

All I needed was a glass of milk and a blanket and I would not have been able to tell the difference.

"Will you tell me about it?" I looked up as I asked him, hoping very much that he would say yes.

In the short part of my life that I could remember, I had come face to face with a lich and horrors of its design. I had done battle with a sorcerer and his familiar. In the memories of others, I had met a god made of pink gas, a shark that could swallow a village in one bite, and faceless shades that had clawed out of the void. I had spoken to the titan Schwarz moments before his death and traded blows with The Lady in Red.

I had met The Circle of The Nine Mothers more times than I wished I had.

There was no end to all of the powers I had found myself standing before, but she felt different.

A statue of her was enough to shake me all the way down to my bones. I could not begin to imagine what actually meeting her would be like.

"Please? I will tell you anything you want to know about Sam. I will draw you a picture of him if that is what it takes." I begged, trying to look as innocent as I could to shift the odds in my favor.

The warden furrowed his brows and crossed his arms. "So we are bargaining now? I have to warn you that I've never met a sorceress I could not out stubborn."

All the time I had spent with Anna and Arthur had prepared me for that moment in the torchlit structure. "Yes, but before tonight, you have never met me. You know about Samsara, but do you know about Othersam?"

"You underwitches are scary, do you know that? I was going to tell you tomorrow regardless, but now I fear what may happen to me if I don't right now." The warden said, feigned worry obvious in his face.

Again, I found myself wishing that my guard was a little more like the warden and a little less like an unmoving stone.

"Tomorrow?" I asked.

"Showing you the temple, letting you see the statue of Hexis, I had planned on doing all of this tomorrow while the others meet the familiars seeing as how you've already got one, but Taloo gave me the opportunity to do it tonight." The warden explained as he turned around and looked back through the open doorway.

"Is that her true name? Hexis?" I asked aloud.

The warden shrugged and hooked his thumbs into the silken tether that he wore as a belt. "An old familiar that used to stay here called her that, said he could remember when she made him. If she has a problem with it, she has never said anything to me."

A familiar voice echoed into the temple. "Patience has never been your strong suit, Warden, but I turn my back for a mere moment and you steal away one of my students?"

The warden clapped his hands in delight and opened his arms out wide, his sudden loudness sounding strange in the otherwise quiet place. "Is that little Seram I hear?"

Sure enough, Precept Seram came walking out of the darkness with a bright smile on her face.

I had never seen her with her hair down. Every time I had ever seen her before, it had been tucked into a pale pink bun that did not allow a single strand to fall out of place. She still wore the robe she had been in before, and her unbound hair stretched all the way down to her waist. Her usual white gloves were nowhere to be seen and her feet were bare atop the cold stone of the temple.

"I will see my one thousandth year before you stop calling me that, will I not?" Precept Seram said as they shared a friendly hug.

"I hate to burst your bubble," The warden said and laughed at his own joke. "But I'll be dead and gone well before then."

Precept Seram took his hand in hers and slapped the top of it with her other. "Oh hush, we both know she will never let you go so soon."

I found myself smiling along with them despite the nervous feeling I felt knowing the statue of Hexis was still looming behind me.

Precept Seram walked past me and stood before the statue. She clasped her hands behind her back and gave a deep bow. "I have never been able to bring myself in here, but if Underwitch Ire is brave enough, her teacher should be as well."

It had not been bravery at all, I had followed the warden inside simply because I wished to continue being around him, but I would not bother Precept Seram with that detail just yet.

"Now there are three sorceresses here that know what she looks like. That's a new record," The warden said with another laugh. "I just finished telling Ire here how silk cradle came to be."

Precept Seram gasped in obvious anger. "You did no such thing! You knew I was planning on telling the new moons that story over dinner!"

I had never heard my teacher's voice be quite so far from nice. It was like when I had watched Rhiannon's eyes grow sad at her dinner table or when I had seen Azza curled up beneath M.D.G's painting inside Lun. My perfectly pleasant, pink haired, precept had been replaced by someone that looked just like her, that was the only thing that made sense in the strange place I found myself in.

"Alright. Alright. Alright. I was just having a bit of fun," The warden said, his scarred hands held up in a placating gesture. "But I am concerned that after knowing you for so long, you seem to suddenly not care if your feet get dirty. Are you feeling well?"

"Come now, warden. You know me better than that."Precept Seram sighed as she lifted her foot to show the thin bubble of her aura that was formed against its bottom.

The warden laughed. "Oh, forgive me. That is a perfectly reasonable thing that I should have suspected."

"Yes, it is. Now, if you are done with Underwitch Ire, I believe that it is time for dinner." Precept Seram said with a playful glint in her eyes.

I could have stood back and listened to them talk until the sun came up. There was something so familiar about their back and forth, something so close, that it could not be mistaken for anything else. There was love between them, like I had with my mother or Arthur and Anna had with Ms. Lao.

It was a joy to be around, but it brought that temporarily soothed ache in my heart back to life.

Spending time with the warden had made me aware of something I wanted but had not known I was missing.

He had saved my life twice in the short time I had known him. He had encouraged me and let me know that I was safe when fear had stopped me in my tracks. He answered my questions honestly and without hesitation. I hoped that meeting him early because of Taloo did not mean that I would not see him again the following day. No part of me cared about meeting more familiars, I had done enough of that already, but I had not spent nearly enough time with the warden of Silkcradle.

"Come, Underwitch Ire, I do not wish to leave the others unsupervised for long." Precept Seram said as she turned to leave the temple.

"One moment, little Seram." The warden said with one finger held up towards my teacher.

He turned to me and a serious expression came over his face. "Before you go, I'm afraid that I need to ask something of you. I do not need to know when, but I need you to promise me that you will bring your Samsara here, to this very temple, as soon as you can find the time. It is very important that he sees this statue of Hexis."

As fond of him as I was, he could have asked me to overthrow The Circle of The Nine Mothers and I would have agreed. My pinky outstretched to him, I gave him my word as he completed the gesture. "I promise."

"Thank you, Underwitch Ire." The warden said with a deep nod as the furrows in his brow relaxed.

"Why is it so important, warden?" Precept Seram asked, curiosity evident on her face.

The warden let out a long and weary sigh before he answered.

"Because she has gone from wherever we are," He said and spread his arms out wide. I understood that he did not mean the temple, Silkcradle, Zenithcidel, or anywhere else I knew of in chaos. He was speaking broadly, very, very, broadly. "And Samsara was the last thing she made before she left. He is the last familiar."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.