The Near Infinite Names of Autumn Aubrey (Psychological Fantasy Progression)

I did not run from Alexei on what would be a dueling day just for me.

After Anna had convinced me that there was no reason she could not come and watch, it had not been very hard for her to do, we left the dining hall after lunch and started towards Precept Zetta's classroom.

Not one step past the hall of conquest, I decided that I did not wish to be followed around any longer and more than one way.

I stopped walking.

A quick glance over my shoulder told me that Alexei had as well. I turned as if I was going to head back towards the singing stairs, and his one white eye followed my gaze. I took three more steps forward and though I did not see him move, he was no longer standing where he had been before.

"What are you doing? What did you forget?" Anna asked as I spun on the heels of my sandals.

I took her by her hand and pulled her along behind me. "Being a sorceress."

Alexei stood silently and watched me the whole time I was approaching him. I made a show of taking up by his side before nodding to myself. "There, now we can go."

I started walking again, but he did not join me.

Refusing to accept defeat that easily, I returned to his side and tried again. "There, now we can go."

Once again, he did not move.

"There! Now we can go!" I insisted as I looped my left arm through his and tried to pull him into motion.

I would have had more luck trying to pick up one of the singing stairs he moved so little.

He peered down at me and his eye went from my own to my arm and back up again.

"What are you doing?" He asked as he raised an eyebrow.

There was a questioning tone in his voice and an actual expression on his face. After what I had come to expect from him, he might as well have broken into an elaborate and expressive dance.

"Going to Precept Zetta's classroom. And we are all going to walk together. Right, Anna?" I explained and asked.

"That's right." Anna nodded in agreement.

"No." Alexei answered, still flicking his eye between me and my arm.

His refusal forced a frustrated groan out of me. I let my weight sag down on his arm as I slumped my shoulders and demanded an answer. "Why not? Do I smell bad or something? Are you worried people will think we are together? If it's because my legs aren't as long as yours, I can take bigger steps."

For most of my time at Lun, my questions would have brought nothing out of my guard but a repetition of what he had already said.

That morning, he gave me much more than that.

He gave me an answer, a real one.

"It is impractical. If someone means to harm you and they approach from the front, I am fast enough to stop them. If I am by your side, your back is left less protected." Alexei explained.

"Oh." I said as I considered what he was saying.

Alexei gave a slow nod. "Now that you understand, may we go? Today is not the day to be late."

I thought about it, understood the value of his words, and decided I did not care.

"No. I don't think so. If you don't do what I say, I will sit down right now and you can explain to Precept Zetta why I did not come to class today." I said as I stared up at him, meaning every word that passed through my lips.

So slight that I could have been convinced I imagined it, Alexei's eye twitched as I almost broke his usual mask of stone.

"Why is this important enough that you would do that?" He asked as a group of moon parted and flowed around our unmoving group.

"Because you are my friend and friends walk together." I answered honestly.

Got him. I thought to myself as the faintest hint of a smile I had ever seen played at the corner of his mouth.

He let out a heavy breath through his nose before he spoke again and I knew him well enough to know that it had been intentional. "Is that what I am?"

I could not help but smile up at him. "Yes. But we better go, I don't want you to get yourself in trouble with Precept Zetta."

"And if I refuse?" He raised his eyebrow once again.

Anna shrugged. "She isn't bluffing. You will have to drag her to class, and she won't go quietly."

I gave her hand a squeeze to try and tell her how much I appreciated her being there.

I knew he wouldn't. I knew that I had one by the light in his eye and the way that he had not taken his arm back from me, but it felt like something worth celebrating when I heard him agree.

"Very well, let us walk as friends." He said through a sigh.

I was so happy that I would have skipped all the way down Precept Zetta's hall if the two of them had not been holding me down.

When we finally made it to the door I was so used to just walking through and found it shut, that happiness gave way to doubt.

Precept Zetta's door was never closed. At least, not any of the times that I had been meant to enter it.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Did I get confused? Oh no, is today even the right day?" I asked aloud as I tried to push the slab of worn wood open.

Somehow, my memory had failed me, and I had missed class. I knew it. Zetta and the others had all gone off somewhere else and I had been left behind because I was too silly to count days right.

"No, you have it right, Ire. My little old classroom just wasn't enough for today." Precept Zetta said as she appeared from a different door further down the hall.

"I do not think we have been introduced properly, I am Mon Zetta of Velcreis, Precept of Conflict and Resolution here at Lun Arcancil." My teacher said to Anna once we reached her.

Velcreis. I had heard that name before but I could not remember who I had been when I had.

"I am Anna Lao of the room downstairs. Keeper of Underwitch Ire and drinker of wine." Anna bowed in response, her voice and expression much more serious than what I was used to.

Precept Zetta smiled and pushed her blue black hair back from her brow. "Well met, Anna Lao. All of you follow me, they are all waiting on us."

We turned back towards the way we had come and followed behind my teacher.

"Who is they? Who is waiting on us?" I asked after I had taken several hurried steps to reach her side.

"Your opponents for one. And of course some of their precepts took an interest into why I asked for their students. Two second crescents found out and they have come to watch. And The Mother in Blue may make an appearance. Honestly, the best way to tell anyone anything in this school is to try and keep it a secret." Zetta explained as we left her hall and turned left towards another.

"Like the six treasures of The Mother in Blue?" Anna asked from behind us.

"No. That's not a secret, that's a dumb story that keeps getting spread around for some reason." Zetta shook her head and answered.

It had not sounded dumb when I had heard Azeralphane's voice demanding them, but I had other things to worry about.

"I didn't know there would be other people." I said to my teacher as she stopped in front of a door that was nearly identical to the one I had tried to open before.

"Neither did I, but you will forget about them as soon as your duels start. This way." She sighed as she opened the door and waved all three of us through.

I did not know what I was expecting, but I knew for sure a room that was nearly identical to Precept Zetta's classroom had not been it. Nothing but walls and a floor of grey stone waited on the other side, there was just far more of both than I was used to.

There were small tables and chairs lining both sides of the wall. What looked like a party of faces I was familiar with and people I had never even dreamed of all turned and looked at me as I walked in.

Before I could so much as wave, the shortest girl I had ever seen came bounding over to me and stopped me in my steps.

"You're skinnier than I thought you'd be," She said as she lifted up one of my arms and let it fall back down to my side. "Shame, I was hoping to break a sweat today."

The top of her wavy brown hair only reached the bottom of my chin. Her skin was warm with a deep tan and her eyes were filled with as dark a blue as I had ever seen. Both sleeves of her patterned dress hung loosely around her skinny arms and its hem looked far too wide for how thin her legs were as well.

If I had not known that I was the youngest moon in the history of Lun, I would have thought that I was being inspected by a child.

"Underwitch Ire, this is Underwitch Ailin. She is one of the half moons you will be dueling today." Precept Zetta said. She eyed the tiny underwitch like she had come across a snarling predator and it was not long before I understood why.

Ailin grinned a savage grin and threw herself towards Precept Zetta. "You let your guard down, old lady! I've got you!"

Before my teacher could do anything, my future opponent took Zetta's arm and locked her little legs around her shoulder. Her hair falling towards the floor just like her dress did, she pushed her hips up and straightened Zetta's arm against her body.

"What have I told you about being upside down?" Zetta chuckled as if she did not have a whole person hanging onto her.

Ailin grinned again. "You told me that I should seek to know my enemies better than I know myself, and I know that you would never drop me on my head, so you lose. Deal with it."

"Fine, fine. You win this one, I accept defeat." Precept Zetta said with a sigh as she tried to shake her arm free.

Precept Bellum came and helped my teacher free herself. "My apologies, she started speaking of surprise attacks as soon as you left the room. Hello all, I hope your morning has been warm and well."

I did not know if the silver haired woman was the oldest sorceress I had ever met, but she definitely looked like she was.

Precept Shanti yawned and waved from where she sat by one of the small tables on the far wall. "Good morning."

The sight of the sleepy precept brought the story she had told me about her father and his coffee back to the front of my mind. It nearly spilled over into all the memories I had with the warden, but I pushed it away and gave a small wave back.

Someone lay at her feet, and for a brief moment, I thought that they were dead.

Her arm once again free, Precept Zetta pointed at the motionless person as she herded me further into the room. "That is Underwitch Yume. She is one of the others that you will duel."

As I grew closer to her, the quiet sound of her snoring found its way to my ears and I realized that she was not a corpse, she was asleep.

The shape of her eyes and the line of her lips reminded me far too much of Anna. She even had the same raven black hair, although hers was layed out underneath her like a blanket of pure night. It extended well past her knees and almost looked like another one of the uncountable layers of clothes that she wore.

Farther down the line of chairs was someone else I recognized.

With her blindfolded face turned in my general direction, wearing the same oversized shirt underneath her cloak that she had been wearing every time I had seen her, Ferrin Faux spoke. "Don't worry. I'm just here to watch. I really want to see what happens."

"Jasna? Vivienne?" Precept Zetta asked as she looked around the room.

As if she had been waiting for her name to be called, Precept Jasna came walking through the door and answered my teacher. "You have me, but it is yet to be seen if Vivienne will make an appearance."

"She isn't going to put on clothes, you know?" Underwitch Ailin called out from where she stood near a table filled with food and drinks.

"I told her that if she came I would not care. So, we will see." Jasna answered, her eyes lingering on Alexei just long enough for me to notice as she passed by him.

I wondered if they were speaking of the underwitch that only wore her cloak in the dining hall, but then two more people joined the party and I began to wish that I had gotten my days mixed up.

Auden stayed in the hall, but unfortunately, Maletta and Tana did not stay with the four eyed wolf.

"What are you doing here?" Maletta sneered when her pale blue eyes found their way to Ferrin Faux. If Tana's support had not been the only reason it seemed like Lun's strongest moon was able to stay standing up, I thought she might have run over and hit the blind underwitch she looked so angry.

"Sitting." Ferrin answered, but I could not understand how she knew that Maletta was talking to her.

Precept Zetta went to the door and shut it. "We will not wait then. Ailin, I assume that you want to go first?"

Underwitch Yume rolled over onto her side and opened her eyes with waves of her black hair spilling over her side like black water. "No. It will be me."

"We flipped a dyme. I lost." Underwitch Ailin shrugged with her mouth full of food.

"Take your place, Ire. Just like in my class." Precept Zetta said as she pointed to the center of the floor.

My heart sped in my chest and nervousness began to prickle in the tips of my fingers.

In a room full of people that I knew and one that I wish I didn't, I reached for my aura and prepared myself for my duel.