Virian stared down at a barely recognizable Ivy, covered in…grime. And blood. A lot of blood. A pang of nostalgia tugged at his heart, remembering how they had first met in the streets of Atrican all those years ago.

But what he didn’t recall was the stench. He had a hard time not recoiling and covering his nose. The man sitting next to her laughed and elbowed her.

“I told you,” the man said.

Ivy tilted her head down and sniffed, wrinkling her nose. With one hand she brought a strand of her hair up to her face and gave it a whiff. Finally, she leaned over to the man beside her and sniffed again. This time she recoiled, eyes shut, and disgust written plainly on her face.

“It’s still you!” she said.

“Don’t ignore your contribution. We all saw you smell yourself.”

The two of them just sat there eyeing each other, though both with a faint grin on their lips.

“Who is this?” Virian asked, his tone sharp.

Ivy looked up at him, scowl evident on her face despite all the blood, sweat, and dirt.

“Is that the first thing you’re going to say to me, Virian? Are you jealous of this disgusting idiot?”

“Hey!” the man said, “we agreed that I’m handsome and intelligent.”

Ivy’s gaze drifted back down to the man sitting beside her.

“Was that in your dreams?” she asked.

“No, yours,” he said.

And Ivy laughed. She actually laughed at such a stupid retort. Virian’s blood boiled at the sight of her smiling at another man.

“Uh oh,” the man said, pointing up at Virian.

Ivy waved a hand in the air.

“He’s harmless.”

“Don’t worry, I’m married,” the man said.

She hissed through her teeth.

“As if Virian has more of a chance than you do.”

“Don’t say that. You’ll make him sad.”

“Enough!” Virian shouted.

Ivy flinched, but her expression hardened.

“Don’t yell at me!”

“Don’t pretend I don’t exist! I haven’t seen you for over a year, and then you pop up out of nowhere, call for me, and then sit there chatting with…with…who is this guy?”

The man laughed, stood up, and extended a blood-caked hand. Virian didn’t take it and the man dropped it to his side.

“Raenin Iadai,” he said, and then pointed down at Ivy, “and this here is—”

“I know who Ivy is,” Virian said.

“I was just being courteous.”

Ivy also stood and shoved the man, hard.

“Iadai?” she asked. “As in the country you’re from? As in your last name? You’re royalty? From across the sea? Armond sent his son to keep track of me?”

Raenin shrugged. “I am the best, after all.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Virian said, “back up. You’re Armond’s son?”

“That’s me.”

Virian eyed a seething Ivy.

“Did you know he had a son?”

“No! Is everyone a damn prince? What the hell!”

“I’m not a prince,” Raenin said.

“Neither am I. I renounced my—”

“Ugh!” Ivy threw her hands up. “I’m going to find a bath. You two…arm wrestle or something. I’m sick of both of you.”

“You just got h—”

She disappeared in the middle of Virian’s protest.

“Soooo…” Raenin said, “while I’d love to stay and chat, I should find my wife.”

“You’re really married?”

“Why does no one believe that?”

The man shook his head and walked off, leaving Virian standing there surrounded by his guard. He looked around at his men.

“Does anyone know what just happened?”

----------------------------------------

“Why don’t we just see what they have to say?” Virian asked. “What harm could come of it?”

The next morning, the attacks had stopped and Virian had received a message from the church that they wanted to meet a final time before sacking the city.

“I could think of a few things,” Rose said, perched on the central desk beside Armond, watching Ivy.

“No one asked you,” Ivy said, despite Virian having just asked the question. She stood leaning against the wall, as far from Rose as possible, arms crossed.

It had been like this all morning. No matter what Rose said, Ivy was against it. The moment she had walked into Armond’s office to talk about this, she had stormed right up to Rose and whispered something in the older witch’s ear. Virian had never seen Rose so pale before, even after being tortured.

“You…shouldn’t even be here,” Rose said.

“Neither should you. None of us should. So why are we still here, talking about this?”

Virian couldn’t help but stare at Ivy. Her words were harsh as expected, but he still found himself smiling. Having cleaned herself up and donned a long green dress that brought out her eyes, he had a hard time looking away.

“One of you, talk some sense into her, please,” Rose said.

The door to the office flew open, a boot visible where the closed door had stood before. In strode Raenin, Armond’s son.

“You’d have a better chance of convincing a snake not to bite,” he said.

“You weren’t invited for a reason,” Armond said.

Ivy rolled her eyes at the scene and turned her head to Armond.

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“It was good to see you again, Armond. Make sure Mister Couch is here next time,” she said, then disappeared.

Raenin stared at the empty space she had just occupied.

“Mister…couch?”

“It’s a long story,” Virian said.

“She likes to nap on couches,” Armond said, “it’s not that big of a deal.”

“I see,” Raenin said, “are we doing this, then?”

Armond stood. “You are not doing anything. You’re more likely to somehow make them hate us more than do any good.”

“But everyone loves me.”

“No one likes you. How you conned that woman into marrying you I will never understand.”

“You too, old man? You were at our wedding!” Faint, girlish laughter filled the room, but Rose certainly was not laughing. He swiveled his head, scanning the room but couldn’t find her anywhere. “Come out you couch-loving coward and face me!”

Armond just left the room without another word, Rose on his heels. Virian left as well and spent the next few hours pacing the top of the south wall, waiting for the supposed parley. Only the north had been breached, and the day’s worth of peace had given them some time to repair. In truth, it was likely due to Ivy’s efforts to de-fang their siege weapons than anything else. The church needed time to repair as well.

Around midday, a rider raising a white flag approached the gatehouse with a pair of paladins on each side. Before Virian could even take a step toward the stairway down, Ivy—appeared at his side. He jumped, losing his balance, and almost falling to his death over the wall.

“I should kill that bastard,” she said, matching his gaze out over the army-ridden plains.

“What good would that do?”

“Nothing, probably, but it would make me feel better.”

He sighed. “You should probably find a healthier pastime.”

Her body shifted, and when he turned to look down at her, he once again became stunned at her simple smile. She stared up at him with a glint in her eye, the afternoon sun shining down against the dark wavy locks framing her face.

“What, like jumping into bed with you?” she asked.

It took all of his willpower to stop his body from flinching. This was not something he expected to hear. He’d have to roll with it.

“You said, it,” he said, mirroring her smile, “not me.”

“It also might make me feel better for a moment,” she said, “but we both know how that ended last time.”

Well, so much for that.

“Am I that awful?”

She turned back to the battlefield.

“I just don’t know if it can ever be the same between us. I needed you back then. And you turned your back on me.”

“I didn’t—”

A small hand against his shoulder stopped him. “Forget it, Virian. It’s already done.” Her hand fell, but he could still feel the lingering brush of her fingertips. A silence fell over them as they watched the bishop and his paladins realize no one was coming to meet them. They turned back to their waiting army, galloping away. It wouldn’t be long now until the assault resumed.

“Why did you come back?” Virian asked finally.

He felt her turn back toward him, but when he met her eyes this time, he saw no smile nor the melancholy regarding their relationship. In its place was a face crinkled in anger. Uh oh.

Ivy flung her arms out, gesturing toward the army.

“Look around you. Was I supposed to just let you die without trying to help?”

“But you just said—”

Her jaw clenched and he thought she was about to disappear again, but instead, she stepped up and slapped him.

“How can you be so insensitive? Just because I’m upset with you, doesn’t mean I don’t care whether you live or die! It wouldn’t have hurt so much a year ago if I didn’t care about you!”

Then, she vanished.

Virian just stood there, dumbfounded, until he felt a hand clap him on the shoulder and he flinched.

“Better luck next time,” Raenin said. He batted away the man’s hand and turned to glare at him. Raenin backed a step away and held up both hands, palms out. “I’m truly not your rival.”

“I’m not stupid,” Virian said, “I can see there’s something between you two. And you’d be lying if you said you didn’t find her attractive.”

“No one is denying she’s pretty. And sure, she makes things interesting. But again, I’m married. And Ivy is insane. Did you know she jumped into a house of fifteen witch hunters alone?” Virian blinked, and Raenin shook his head. “I couldn’t handle the stress if the mother of my children lived that recklessly.”

He…actually made some good points. Yet if anything Virian had heard about this man was true, he was just as reckless as her.

“Well, okay. Good.”

“You’re damn right it’s good for you. Let’s be honest, you’re no competition for me.”

Virian frowned, searching for something to put the smug ass in his place, but Raenin raised a hand to his eyes to shield the sun and let out a sharp whistle. It was easy to follow the other man’s line of vision. Instead of readying repaired or rebuilt catapults, the church had started prepping enormous ladders and rolling towers filled with men. They were done trying to break the sturdy walls of Atrican. Men and women would be fighting—and dying—very soon.

----------------------------------------

A single step in the witch world took Ivy from the wall to the ground. She hardly had to think about such a simple movement anymore. Shortcuts like that were becoming second nature. She found herself using her power without really noticing it during everyday motions. Why take the ten steps from her bed to the door of her room when she could do it in one?

She glared up at the top of the wall where Virian still stood. Ugh. What an idiot. For a moment—just a moment—she had considered what it would feel like to feel his lips against her again. And then he had to go and open his mouth. Ugh!

She stomped off down the road leading into the market, cursing herself for coming back here. What use was she? She couldn’t stop an army! Why hadn’t she brought someone like Dahlia with her from Rhune? This was crazy. Holding a city against the church and the king’s army? She needed to go back to Virian and get him out. And Armond. Even Rose. They should have left long ago. Was Virian so stubborn he saw himself winning this?

Her thoughts made her turn to look back at the wall one last time. For another fleeting moment, her heart skipped, imagining Virian chasing after her. Instead, she saw Raenin strutting down the steps of the wall. The sight of his face only further soured her mood.

And then a woman that Ivy could not place joined him, speaking with a smile on her face. Aha! She grinned, needing something to take her mind off of…everything else. Letting the witch world guide her to her two targets, she reappeared in the human world right beside Raenin, and the woman jumped with a little shriek.

“So, this is her, huh?” Ivy asked, giving the startled woman a once-over. She had on a simple, ankle-length white dress with a certain charm about it. Cute in the face, but softer looking than Ivy herself, and young. As young as Ivy if she wasn’t mistaken. Raenin had to have ten years on her. “How much is he paying you?”

The woman, hand against her chest, recoiled.

“Huh? Wha…who is—”

“Ivy, please,” Raenin said.

Immediately, the woman’s expression softened, but then she gave Raenin a dark look.

“Rae,” she said, “you never told me your new friend was such an obnoxiously beautiful woman.”

“That’s because he’s an annoying piece of crap,” Ivy said, though she looked down at herself dressed in her dark assassin’s leathers. She didn’t quite feel “obnoxiously beautiful.”

Raenin took a step forward, grabbing the woman’s hand.

“I told you about her,” he said.

The woman’s brows knitted.

“I believe your words were, ‘the crazy girl’.”

It seemed like the woman didn’t know much, which was good for now, but Ivy felt like it wouldn’t be long before everyone knew who she was. Yet that being said, how could she let Raenin get away with such a thing?

“Oh, is that, right?” Ivy asked. She stepped up too and she noticed a redness in Raenin’s cheeks. Perfect. “Did you know he’s been flirting with me all the way from Rhune?” The woman’s eyes flicked to Ivy with a scowl on her lips. “Don’t worry. He has about as much chance as the flea on the bottom of my boot.”

Finally, Raenin’s wife burst into laughter. Huh? “I see why you two get along so well,” she said after a long breath. Huh? “You are so alike.” HUH? “You seem to love making people as uncomfortable as Rae does.”

She could ponder that statement later. For now, “you are so alike”? She placed a hand on the hilt of her dagger with no intention of using it. Perhaps the gesture was part of that whole “making people uncomfortable” thing.

“Take that back,” Ivy said.

But before anyone said anything, an iron grip tightened around her wrist.

“Don’t,” Raenin said. His voice held none of its usual cheer to it.

She rolled her eyes upward and found Raenin with a hand on his own weapon, a mask of icy anger written all over his face.

“Don’t,” he repeated.

Ivy stared up at him in shock, trying and failing to twist her aching arm. Was this truly the irritating idiot she knew?

“Oh, look what you’ve done!” his wife said. She pushed forward between them, and he let go immediately. The woman reached out and grabbed Ivy’s hand. “You’ve hurt her! She was just being silly!”

“You don’t know her, Merideth.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! She was going to attack me over that?”

“…maybe.”

Merideth rolled her eyes and brought her attention to Ivy.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

Ivy had to blink a few times to bring herself back from disbelief.

“Yeah,” she said, “it’s nothing.” She pulled her hand away from the woman and rubbed her wrist with her other hand. She could see Raenin tense out of the corner of her eye. Did he really expect her to retaliate somehow? Did people really see her as so volatile? She thought back to their travels together and it…made some sense.

A different sort of pain hit her deep in her chest, almost like a backlash of her power. Raenin…feared her. What she might do. It was an about-face from when they had fought together, and he had trusted her with her power. She…didn’t like this. At all. Begrudgingly, she had to admit to herself that Raenin, of all people, she considered a friend.

When Ivy recovered from the strain of admitting such a thing, she saw Raenin grab his wife’s arm.

“Head to the ship with Kai,” he said, “I’ll see you soon.”

The ship? Were the people evacuated already? The news didn’t make Ivy feel any better about the upcoming battle.

Before Merideth left, she extricated herself from her husband’s grip and stunned Ivy with a hug.

“Take care of him,” she whispered in Ivy’s ear.

“What? That’s not—”

“Please.”

And then the woman let go, turning on her heel, leaving them standing side by side in the street. For a moment, there was only silence. She needed to say something. It felt…wrong between them.

“I’m sorry,” Ivy said, “I really wasn’t going to do anything, I just—”

He turned to her with a grin.

“I know.” Silence a second time. “But don’t do it again.”

Ivy nodded just as a horn rang out from the direction of the wall.

“Well,” she said, “you ready to kill some people?”

Raenin grunted.

“Only you would say that with a smile on your face.”