On the second morning after I had slain Zetta's sapphire wolf and the false Azeralphane, the gemman were nowhere to be seen when I walked into her classroom.

In their place, just like it had been on the last day of class the week before, was a wide circle of my teacher's glowing aura.

Dueling day had come again, and I was far more excited for it than I had been in a long time.

I was a strong lass, and there was not a new moon alive that could hope to compete with me.

After she had forced me to try and view my own soul that night before, which was something I was supposed to be practicing every night, Anna had helped me accept all the kind things that Zetta had said to me.

Compared to the others, I was talented, I did have great potential, and I was strong.

In the storm of wishing that I had never left Erosette and wanting desperately to return to it, having my teacher tell me I was strong felt like a dry roof in the rain.

I wanted to hear it again.

She was the only sorceress to ever become a knight, if she thought I was strong, it had to be true.

Everyone had beaten me to class except for Tana, and as soon as I walked in the door, Zetta waved me over to the center of her pit.

"Good morning, Ire. Let's see who is brave enough to take you on. What will your question be for today?"

I did not need to think to know what I wanted to ask. "You said we could work on the recoil of my fireworks. I want to know how."

"Combat questions? You are a girl after my own heart," Zetta said as she pointed her finger at the others and swung it between Mallory and Plia. "How about. . . you! Mallory, come show us what that head of yours can do."

Mallory shook her head and made a show of planting her feet. "No thank you. I like you, Ire, I I might even love you if we spent more time together, but what I love most of all is all of my meat and bones still being inside my skin."

"Coward," Zetta muttered as she swung her finger back to Plia. "Plia? You can have dinner with me again if you try. You don't even have to win."

"I can't." The little underwitch said as she crouched down and pulled her knees to her chest. There was no fear in her pallid blue eyes the way there had been before she had known me, but she was scared.

"Come now, girls. I thought you had both grown out of being dandelions." Zetta sighed with a disappointed frown on her lips.

Vanda stepped forward and began unclamping her cloak. "I will face her, Precept Zetta."

My teacher quirked her head to one side as she spoke. "Oh? I thought you no longer had the will for my class."

"I don't," Vanda shrugged. "But I do have the will to help Ire become stronger, and that is enough."

"Well, well, well, what a good sister you are. Although, she might be too much for you to handle." Zetta said as she left the circle.

The kind faced underwitch stepped across the sapphire line with a smile on her face. "Maybe, but I have been a moon for much longer than she has."

Zetta thumped her hand against the front of her half cloak. "Ah, experience against raw talent, a tale as old as time."

"Let's do our best." Vanda smiled and nodded at me before stepping into a ready stance.

I nodded back and started pooling my aura in my palm. Unlike what I felt for Tana, there was nothing in my heart but care for Vanda. I would win, but I would do my best to not hurt her.

"Careful, Ire. She's the only one of us that can heal, so don't kill her on accident." Mallory called out.

"Begin!" Zetta snapped not a moment later.

My bright blue whip came spilling out of my hand without me needing to think about it.

Before the echo of our teacher's shout had faded, I had struck the ground in front of Vanda's boots three times and driven her back to the edge of the pit.

She made no move that was not to evade my lashes, and with just a few more, I knew that victory would be mine.

Coiling my working back around my arms, I stepped forward again and unleashed more of my wild strikes. The cold sound of my whip impacting against the stone floor filled the room as Vanda continued to back closer to the line.

The blue light of her aura, the same blue as a dark room that had been touched by the first hints of dawn, covered her right hand.

Just before she stepped back out of the pit, she reached down and caught my whip before I could drawn it back again.

In place of the crack that should have sounded up from the floor, I heard Mallory gasp at what she had just seen.

I didn't know what to do.

I tried to pull my working back, but her grip was too strong.

Too shocked to resist, she dug her heels in and dropped to the floor. The shift in her weight pulled tightened the length of my aura between us and snatched me forward.

I stumbled across the line before I truly understood what had happened.

Mallory and Plia cheered.

Zetta beat her chest with her fist again. "Someone has been paying attention! Well done, Sorceress Vanda! Reset."

I let my focus slip and my chord turned to dust in our hands as I walked back into the circle.

"Do not worry about it, it is truly not fair. I have been watching you for weeks. I have had time to think about how I would duel you." Vanda said apologetically as she reassumed her stance.

She was right.

More often than not, I had been the one dueling or fighting gemman. Other than when she had healed me, I had absolutely no idea what she was capable of.

"Begin!" Zetta shouted for the second time.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

If my whip would not work, then I had to adapt. I could not try the same thing a second time, I had learned that very well.

With my aura still pooled inside me, I rushed my opponent and began to hunt.

I had spent countless nights learning to score points on men that were much bigger, stronger, and faster than me. My absent familiar had taught me how to use those things to my advantage.

Vanda was many things, but she was nowhere near as well trained as the guards or Arthur were.

Her eyes widened and her body became caught in the panicked movements that told me she did not know what to do.

There was an opening, I could slip right between her arms and press my palm in the space between her breasts.

Small. Small. Small. Just a little one. I repeated in my mind, wanting to make a firework that was just big enough to knock her out of the pit.

My azure light flashed in her eyes and I never got the chance.

Vanda did not need to be strong, fast, or big.

She was a sorceress.

She ducked under my arm and my firework burst into a flash of blue light uselessly. With her hand pressed against my belly, she looked up at me and smiled.

"Ire, will you please leave the circle for me?" She asked in a voice that was so sweet, I could not help but listen to it.

I relaxed immediately and hugged her head to my middle. "Of course, that is no trouble at all."

It took a full three steps out of the circle before I stopped and realized what had just happened.

"Hey! That's not fair!" I shouted and stomped my feet as Vand's charm began to fade.

All the other moons were laughing at me and I had never hated anything more in my life.

"All is fair," Zetta laughed with them as she walked over to me. "That's two, Vanda wins."

My teacher wrapped her arm around my shoulders. I crossed my arms and turned away from her in frustration.

"How about another duel? Let's see how Ire here adapts to being thwarted at every turn." Zetta asked towards Vanda.

"I would rather not, I have seen how she gets when she is defeated," Vanda said with an apologetic look in her eyes. "But if you believe it to be good for her, then so be it."

"Stay calm, Ire! I'm still digging your dust out of places that things should never be." Mallory shouted from across the pit.

Zetta shook her head and began to walk me back into her circle. "Listen. You did not lose here."

She squeezed my shoulders and I gathered that she meant my body.

"Or here." She let me go and poked her fingers into the same spot my firework would have hit Vanda if I had not been charmed.

She brought her hand up and palmed the top of my head. "You lost up here. You are facing an opponent that knows everything you can do, and has a way to counter it. Take a breath, think, and let me know when you are ready."

I didn't care where I lost at, I did not look losing, not one bit.

After what I had gone through earlier that week, the loss and afterglow from my workings were nothing more than a wave of dizziness and a pang of sorrow.

My defeat still stinging in my hands and feet, I did as I was asked.

I thought.

I thought about Anna mostly, what she was doing or how happy I would be to fall asleep next to her that night, but in the gaps between the raven haired thoughts, Arthur appeared.

We had played so many games of points, had faced one another so many times, that a game had formed within the game. He had come to know what I was good at, and I had learned the same for him. We had spent so much time trying to surprise one another with our movements and strikes. There was one night not long before he had left for Rhiannon's that neither of us could beat the other. The game that happened inside our points match had become so complicated that neither of us could truly attempt to win without exposing ourselves.

I could have stayed that way until sunrise, I was just happy to be with him, but Arthur had found a way to win.

"I'm ready!" I shouted as I lowered myself into my stance.

Zetta gave me a nod. "Begin!"

Just like before, my whip came out of me in a bright blue flash and I cracked it at Vanda's feet without hesitation.

"That's not going to work!" I heard Mallory shout.

Once, twice, three times, I sent sharp echoes out against the walls around us. On the fourth, Vanda's morning blue appeared again and she caught my working for a second time.

Before she could shift her weight and pull me out of the circle, I turned my back and tightened my whip over my shoulder in a great heave.

My knees hit the cold stones of the floor hard, and my elbows followed shortly after, but when I looked up with my jaw clinched, Vanda was in the air above me.

During the nothing game with Arthur, the tall man had realized that going back to the beginning and using what had first worked against me had become the most effective strategy once again.

That line of thinking had been what let me catch Vanda off guard.

She collided with the ground on the other side of the circle and I let my working go as I ran to her. "I'm sorry, are you okay? I didn't mean to hurt you."

The kind faced underwitch rolled onto her back, and I was surprised to find that she was giggling.

"Stop. That was very smart. You should be proud," She groaned as she sat up and dusted herself off. "You win. I submit."

Zetta came walking over to us. "Are you sure? I am curious how she means to defend against your charm. If I could-"

Tana came sprinting through the door, out of breath and with her hair pulled up in a messy mass behind her head.

"I'm sorry, Precept Zetta. I'm sorry I'm late," She panted with her hands on her knees. "Auden, my familiar, I can't find him."

"Don't care. At least you are here now. Come finish Vanda's duel with Ire. If you beat her I won't punish you." Zetta said with a snap of her fingers.

Vanda patted me on my cheek gently and pushed me back towards the circle as Tana rushed to unlace her boots.

My time had come.

I had none of the reservations about dueling Tana like I did with Vanda. I would not hurt her, but I would embarrass her in front of everyone if it was the last thing I did.

"Zetta? A word." Alexei called into the classroom from the doorway.

I nearly had to grab my own chin to keep from looking at him, but I succeeded in continuing to pretend he did not exist.

Tana joined me in the circle, but she did not go and stand opposite me like she should have. The honey haired underwitch threw her arms around me in a sudden embrace.

"What are you doing?" I asked as my whole body went rigid. The scent of rain and sweat hung around her thickly, and for a moment, I thought she might cry.

"When we duel today," She whispered into my ear. "You are going to throw the match. You are going to let me win. The Mother in Blue is here, and I will not lose in front of her."

I tried to push away, but Tana's hold on me was firm. "Why would I do that?"

"Because if you don't, I will tell everyone who will listen about those colored rings on your stomach."

I stopped struggling.

After I had fallen back into class, and lunch, and my time with Anna, I had pushed every painful memory of Silkcradle into a dark corner of my mind.

She had seen The Mother's seal around my navel.

If she started telling people, it would only be a matter of time before Azza came for me. I knew that to be true like I knew striking metal with my hand would break it.

Tana stepped back as our teacher came storming back into the room.

The Mother in Blue had indeed come to our classroom. Nami gave me a wink and a wave when I glanced at her, and I wanted nothing more than to yell out what Tana had just said to me.

I wanted to tell her how badly I wanted to go home, and that I knew I should have just stayed there in the first place.

I never got the chance.

"Girls, as you get older, some days are going to feel like all of chaos is conspiring to make you miserable," She pushed her blue black hair back from her face and let out a rough sounding sigh. "Don't embarrass me, Puddles. We have a guest. Begin!"

Tana's watery aura spread out from her feet and reached my own in a matter of seconds. As it flooded up my legs and I felt her force begin to tip me back, I did nothing.

I let her win.

What choice did I have?

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.