I would have enjoyed the rest of the play more if I had not known who Underwitch Maletta was.

Trying to see her as a graceful hero was fairly difficult when she had been rude to me every time I had interacted with her.

If I had not spent the last several weeks living as the true Katarina for short periods of time, I may have had the same look of wonder on my face as everyone else in the crowd did.

But, I did, I had, and by the time we got to what Anna had called the good stuff, I had become so sore that I just wanted it to end.

I did not want to be Ire again, and I did not want to go back to Lun yet, but sitting in the dark room it was beginning to feel like slow torture.

"And so, The Mother in Blue left the shrine maidens and the priestess in their hidden temple to pray while she set off for the frozen peaks to confront the evil queen that had haunted Golgladdagell for far too long." The same unseen voice from the first part of the play described.

The white fog formed jagged peaks underneath Maletta's feet as she climbed up.

They held her weight somehow, and when she came to a stop high above the crowd, she raised her silver sword high above her head.

"Oh, queen of this lifeless mountain, ruler of the white frost, come. Face me. Defend your throne for I have come to slay thee." Maletta called out, every one of her words over emphasized and sounding nothing like Katarina.

Silence filled the air for a long moment after her calling.

The fog began to rise.

The same shapeless sound of the crowds hushed anticipation that had been present before the play had started returned.

A low rumble rose up underneath it and the fog. It was small at first, like the slight shaking of the floor when someone was walking heavily in a nearby room. By the time the fog reached the bottom of Maletta's boots, I thought that I would be shaken straight out of my chair.

Anna held on to me tightly and shut her eyes just as the shaking stopped.

Peaceful stillness settled over me just long enough for me to put my guard down.

Then, a serpent burst from the spiraling fog and tore around the room with a bone chilling roar.

They held her crowd burst into screams, shouts, and cheers as the serpent circled the false Mother in Blue.

Its scales were perfect white, its fangs were as long as my hands, and it was long enough to be on every side of the room at once.

"Zizi?" I asked towards Alexei, unable to remember fully what he had called the serpent skeleton that filled the hall of conquest.

My white haired guard nodded. "An imitation, yes."

Wrapping itself in great coils, the serpent Zizi lunged his head forward and nearly sank Its fangs through Maletta's middle.

She spun back on the peak and struck out with her silver sword, white frost dripping off it like snow in morning sun.

Every thrust, pivot, near miss, and close call sent gasps and cheers up from the crowd.

Maletta drove the serpent back, gaining ground with every graceful step. Just as she made the final press forward, and the white scaled beast was sure to be slain, it coiled its tail around her legs and brought her to the ground.

With a strike that was so quick something as large as Zizi should not have been able to do it, Maletta vanished within the gaping maw of her enemy.

The crowd went silent once again.

Blue light shone from within the obscuring fog that the battle had sunk into. It was a much lighter shade than my own, but not nearly light enough to look like Katarina's

It brightened, and brightened, and brightened until it was so bright that I had to shade my eyes with my hand.

To the sound of cracking ice, it vanished and the serpent threw its head up out of the fog to show that its jaws had been frozen shut.

The room shook again, but this time it was from the triumphant roar of the crowd as Maletta climbed back to her feet and raised her sword towards the fleeing serpent.

"Do not turn tail now, you terror. Long have you planted the seeds of pain and misery in this place. Now, it is I who will make you reap what you have sown." Maletta announced, somehow sounding even less like Katarina than she had before.

Once again, all it could be seen was white fog and the unseen voice from before returned.

"The Mother in blue gave chase to the wounded queen, and found that there was far more beneath the mountain than there was above. Through tunnels that turned and bent like the serpent she pursued, she found their final confrontation in the place where the queen was at her deadliest. She found herself in the nest of the white death."

Maletta reappeared in the cave of fog that had formed in the center of the room. She crept towards Zizi, who is coiled around three eggs that were each as large as Sam.

The largest one split down its middle and broke open like a split stone before a smaller serpent crawled out of it.

The middle egg cracked into uncountable, shards of shell and the second of Zizi's children revealed itself.

The third egg, the smallest egg, did not crack or fall away. It burst open like it had been struck by one of my fireworks and the largest of the baby serpents hissed towards Maletta.

The false Mother in Blue took a slow step forward without a trace of fear on her face, but stopped dead in her tracks when something cracked beneath her feet. She looked all around herself as the fog began to reveal thousands and thousands of Zizi's unhatched eggs.

"The Mother in Blue understood the frozen hell that would be unleashed if the white death's hatchlings were allowed to grow, and though she was better with a blade than any warrior she had ever faced, she knew that this was a battle for a sorceress, not a swordsman." The unseen voice described as Maletta sheathed her silver blade and stretched her hands out to the cave of fog.

Maletta's light began to shine in her palms once again. "Eternal frost!"

All the space within the cave of fog was filled with blue ice that extended out from the false Mother in Blue in sheets and shards. The serpents shivered and shook against it until they were still.

Real cold washed out from the working and if it had not been for Anna holding me, I thought I would have broken to pieces from the force of the chill.

I never thought there would be a day that I truly missed my uniform, but with nothing to cover my legs except my stockings, I would have put all of them on at once if I could have.

Another obscuring swirl of fog followed as Maletta returned to her perch atop the peaks.

The shrine maiden from before and several others that were dressed similarly waited beneath her.

Sword still sheathed, she raised her hands again and spoke. "Let spring bloom once again, the queen has been slain."

So slight that I would have never heard it if I was not sitting right next to him, Alexei let out a small laugh as fog colored flowers began to spread out over the imaginary peaks.

The unseen voice returned. "And so, with the white death and her spawn locked in The Mother in Blue's eternal frost, Katarina assisted the followers of the corner keeper in repairing their temple, and since spring had returned, Hymneth grew up around it. The Mother grew to love Golgladdagell so much that she claimed it as her domain and built her school upon its peaks to keep the serenity of this special place from any who would disturb it."

Everything went dark with the last of the unseen speaker's words. The lights that had been on when we had arrived returned and everyone in the crowd stood as they began to clap.

The unseen speaker called out the names of the actors as they stood in the center of the fogless floor and gladly received the applause.

"Sorceress Gell as the shrine maiden."

The shrine maiden withdrew her hood, smiled and waived as she became herself again.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Sorceress Artin as The Mothers and the white death."

A plain looking woman in a cloth robe stepped into sight and bowed deeply.

"And, Underwitch Maletta as The Mothers in Blue!"

Maletta let her small glamor fall from her face and clapped for herself along with everyone else.

Everyone except Alexei and I, it seemed.

My eyes met my white haired guards.

"That was," I started and shrugged at Anna when she looked at me. "Not very good."

Alexei nodded once. "Agreed."

"It was awful, but don't be rude. Stand up,"Anna said as she pulled me up from my seat. "That's why I wanted to see the one about Lyrian and Astelia. They were apparently mortal enemies until-"

I could not stop the pained groan that slipped through my lips. Alexei and Anna caught me before I collapsed back to my seat, but that did nothing to make the pain go away.

"Come on, let's get some air." Anna said with a concerned smile.

They practically carried me through the crowd and back up the stairs. The lines my boots dragged in the snow between their tracks made a funny looking pattern as they turned me onto an alley and gently let me rest against the wall of the building we had just been inside.

"You should have told me you were hurt," Anna huffed as she unbuttoned the black button of my shirt and exposed my stomach to the dressing night air. Her eyes went wide. "How are you not screaming right now?"

I peered down at my middle and cringed at the sight of the damage that had been done to me.

Great splotches of raised red skin lifted The Mother's seal and spread across my skin like the boundaries of some morbid map.

"Hey, creep, come look at this." Anna called over to Alexei, worry obvious in her voice.

My white haired guard had returned to the end of the alley as Anna had begun to undress me, and did not turn back around until she had told him to.

"Is she going to be okay? She's not like bleeding on the inside is she?" Anna looked up at him and asked.

He made no expression upon his first glance, but he knelt down beside Anna and took a closer look.

"I do not know. I am not a healer." He said simply as members of the black clad crowd began to mill about outside of the alley.

Anna rolled her eyes. "Everyone here knows you are a sorcerer. Will you stop being all mysterious and brooding for a minute so I can be sure she isn't going to fall over and die? Isn't it your duty or whatever to make sure she is safe?"

"At times, your devotion to her is off putting. At others, it makes me think that I have never seen anyone love someone as deeply as you do her," Alexei sighed and looked up at the gloomy night sky. "I can inspect her further, but in return, I would ask both of you to remain silent in regards to what you have seen and heard of me today."

I remembered him using his aura in the courtyard to scare off the other new moons. Every word that Mother Ali had said about him still hung in my mind. My guard was not an open person by any means, and I understood just how much he had been exposed that day.

"Or what? Are you going to kill us?" Anna asked with her palms held up in feigned fear.

"No, but I would be gravely disappointed in you both. There is no end to the secrets I would feel compelled to tell if I was hurt in such a way." Alexei said, giving the most nonthreatening threat I had ever heard anyone say.

Anna called his bluff. "Yeah right. Like what?"

Alexei was not bluffing. "I seem to recall Lady Autumn leaving your quarters to fetch bread for you the night that you lost a drinking contest to yourself."

Anna hung her head in defeat. "Fine. We won't say anything. Just make sure she is okay."

"Good. I applaud your humility," Alexei said before he turned his cold white stare back up to me. "May I?"

I held the unbuttoned gap of my long black shirt open for him and gave him permission with a nod.

"This might hurt." Alexei said as he brought the back of his hand up and pressed his against my raised flesh.

His aura was darker than mine, richer, with just enough of a grey tint that his blue had a metallic shine.

He was right, it did hurt, and Anna had to hold me up when my knees buckled from the pain.

"It's so cold." I whispered and closed my eyes.

Anna chuckled. "Doesn't that tell us something about his soul?"

Just as quickly as it had begun, the feeling of my guard's aura receded and he stood up from where he had knelt in front of me. "You will not die from this, but the following days will see you in great pain as you heal."

Anna shook her head. "We are already keeping secrets. Why can't you just heal her now? Nobody will know."

"I cannot heal her, but I can offer her relief. Can you walk without assistance?" My guard answered and asked.

I answered him honestly in return. "Yes, but I don't want to."

As Anna began to button my shirt back, my empty stomach let out a ravenous growl. "And I'm hungry."

Alexei sighed. I had seen him do much the same many times that day, but was so used to him not having expressions that it was still a strange sight to see.

"Lady Anna, if you will help her now. I will carry her back to Lun when we are done. Where I am taking both of you, who you are going to meet, I would add that to the things that I have asked you not to speak of." Alexei said as he waved for us to follow him.

Anna wrapped my arm over her shoulder and helped me off the wall. "Why don't we just assume that anything we ever do with you never happened? That way you don't have to keep telling us to be quiet."

"That would be for the best." Alexei agreed as we left the alley.

The black clad crowd had all disappeared down the snowy streets, and other than the occasional guards we slipped past, there was no one else outside in Hymneth. Even being as cold as I was and wincing with every step I took, going wherever we were going as myself was far better than returning to my quarters as Ire.

Our journey through the alleys lead us into yet another alley. By the time we stopped in front of the back door of some unmarked building, it was all I could do to stay upright against the shivering that ran through my body.

Alexei knocked on the door once, and then three more times after a brief silence. A few moments later, it swung inward with a loud groan that echoed off the other buildings around us. A man appeared in the doorway. He wore a thick blonde moustache and was so broad shouldered that I doubted he could fit through the door without turning sideways.

"Little boy blue?" The man asked as he rubbed his eyes and took a second look.

"Hinnigan," Alexei nodded. "Can we come inside?"

"Mothers bless me, yes, come in," Hinnigan said as he waved us through the door. "I never thought I would see you in Hymneth again and then you show up in the small hours with two young ladies following behind you? You haven't heard about the bad business that has been happening here? That one is barely wearing any clothes, are you trying to freeze her to death? Come inside before one of those damn guards sees."

Inside was much better than outside.

It was warm, smelled of hot food, and had a small chair that Anna helped me settle into.

Hinnegan did not stop talking, not even to take a breath. "How long has it been? Ten years? Twenty? It might as well have been a century for as little as you've changed. What do you need? Food? Drink? Blankets? I can't offer you a bed, we've got a lad staying here that is so big we had to put four beds together just so the sorry sod could lay down."

For as large as he was, he moved around the back room of wherever my guard had brought us with surprising speed and grace. He produced a second chair from some dark corner and placed it beside me before patting the seat and giving Anna a smile. "Sit, lassy. If you are out this late with little boy blue, there is no doubt that you have had a long night."

Anna did as she was told, and I rested my head down onto her shoulder as the big man continued his mad hosting.

"I hope you still like stew, it's still on after all these years. Three bowls and a half round of bread, how does that sound? Ah, I just opened a bottle of cider. You all should drink that as well, Mothers know I have had enough. And your coin is no good here, I've already counted up the till tonight, just don't tell Lauren if you see her. I'll be right back."

Alexei had said nothing since we had come inside. All he had done was smile. It was a real smile, like the ones that spread across my face when I was with Arthur or my mother. When the big man moved to leave the back room, Alexei finally spoke. "We will need a sleeper, Hinnigan."

Hinnigan stopped dead in his tracks. "Who is hurt?"

Alexei gave a small nod in my direction. "My young ward here. It will be better for her if she does not have to be awake on our walk back to Lun."

The big man's eyes shifted to me and then back to Alexei with anger. "So you are telling me that after all these years, you show up at my back door and ask me for a favor. No greeting, no how have you been, nothing."

"Yes." Alexei said simply.

"It's good to know you haven't changed on the inside either," Hinnegan laughed as he gave my white haired guard a small push. "Don't you worry, lassy. I've been putting little boy blue here to sleep ever since I was a boy."

"Is that why you called that? You've known him since he was young?" I asked as I stared at my unusually happy guard.

"Not exactly. I knew him when he was younger, and my father knew him when he was younger than that. My grandfather Heath knew him when he was actually young. They used to play together," The big man frowned as he looked himself over in a small mirror that hung on the wall. "It's hard to believe that you and Jasna used to babysit me and now I look old enough to be your older brother."

Alexei's eyes brightened as he stepped towards the big man. "Come now, Hinnegan. Let's be honest in front of the guests. You look old enough to be my father."

Hinnegan scowled and crossed his arms as he blew his moustache out in an angry huff. "What a terrible thing to say to me after I have welcomed you into my tavern at such a late hour."

Alexei laughed.

It was not small. He did not try to hide it or play it off. It was deep, full, and the strangest thing I had ever seen my white haired guard do.

"I'll take care of you and your ward, but you have to tell what happened to your eye, deal?"

"Deal." Alexei laughed.

I felt tears well up in my eyes, and they spilled over my cheeks and onto Anna's shoulder.

"Does it hurt that bad?" She asked me softly as she rubbed my back to comfort me.

"It's not that," I whispered as Hinnegan returned with two silver trays that were piled high with all the things he was bringing us. "He is just like me."

"I don't understand." Anna whispered back.

I had not enjoyed the play very much at all, but that may have been because I spent nearly every waking hour of my life pretending to be someone else.

"This is the real Alexei. All the stone faces and emotionless words might as well be a glamor." I sighed, wanting very much to go and hug my guard.

"Hmmm," Anna hummed in agreement and gave me a small squeeze. "You're pretty smart sometimes. You know that?"

I flinched against the pressure she had put on me. "I was wrong. It does hurt that bad."

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