Virian led the cheer as they fended off the latest surge of troops the church had sent at the north breach. The gap in the wall was narrow, and the army could not use their vast numbers to overwhelm the defenders.
Once the cries calmed down, any sense of victory evaporated as the men left at the bottom of the breach went about the task of moving bodies. There were more dead on the church’s side—far more—but it didn’t matter. Soon, there would be no one left to defend. He averted his eyes from the gruesome task and looked far into the field. From the top of the unbroken wall, he could see the enormity of the combined army rallied against him. This resistance was a fool’s hope. The church would continue to throw men at them until they had what they wanted.
Was this really worth all the loss of lives? For either side? He could have given up and escaped weeks ago. So why was he still doing this? His eyes kept locking on the hundred paladins in the dark gleaming plate armor sitting on their mounts just out of arrow range. They were just sitting there, so still. Watching all the time.
A scowl formed on his face, and his teeth ground against each other as he watched them watching him. Mother. Camellia. Ivy. Even Rose. The answer to why he was fighting back came just that easy. Something needed to change.
“Patient, aren’t they?” Armond’s voice came from behind.
Virian spun to meet the huge man scaling the stone stairs carved into the wall. Specks of blood and dirt covered his rough leather and chain armor. He had been fighting since morning.
“What are we going to do, Armond? Is it time to flee? We’re just bleeding men here.”
The older man shrugged.
“You tell me. You chose this fight, kid. You probably won’t get a better chance to hurt them like this again. Our position is…good. For now.”
“Yes, but you’re the one doing everything. Fighting, commanding, planning. I—” Virian paused and watched the men pulling bodies out of the rubble. “I wanted to stand for something. Against an injustice. But…I don’t know. After weeks of fighting, this all just feels senseless to me. Can I really change anything?”
Armond let out a gruff laugh.
“You're better off asking someone else that question.”
Virian raised an eyebrow.
“You mean Rose?”
“Well, certainly not the other two.” He raised a hand and pointed over Virian’s shoulder. “Here they come again.”
----------------------------------------
“Raenin!” Ivy called out in a vain attempt to get the man’s attention. The top of the south wall had descended into absolute chaos. All along its length, the invaders’ ladders continued to rise and fall. Volleys of arrows came and went, each wave adding more men to the death toll.
Raenin fought maybe fifty feet down the wall, a torch in one hand, sword in the other. He and a group of Virian’s guard were fighting off one of the king’s rolling siege towers and the soldiers that had burst forth from the gate at its apex. It appeared that they were winning, and soon would set the thing ablaze, but that was only one of many problems to solve.
The crash of the army’s great battering ram against Atrican’s gate shook the foundation of the stone she stood upon, causing her to stumble against the lone soldier by her side. The young man—a cute thing a few years Ivy’s junior—steadied her with both hands on her shoulders, looking down at her as though he could not understand why she was there. Neither did she.
Ivy twisted from his gentle grasp and looked out toward the field just in time to see a legion of bowmen pull back their strings. She ducked behind the parapet only to feel a rush of wind pass over her head a moment later. Her brief companion wasn’t so lucky. The boy crumpled at her feet, arrow in his chest. He stared at her with pleading eyes, gasping for breath against the shaft lodged in his left side. Blood dribbled from his lips as he tried to get out a word.
Damnit. She turned from the dying man and stood, scanning her surroundings. The fallen soldier had been the only one around her for twenty paces in either direction. And the invaders were still coming. Their reservoir of expendable bodies would never run dry. Teams of men supporting more ladders rushed toward the gap in the defenses.
“Raenin!” she tried again, spinning her head in his direction, only to see him enter the bowels of the siege tower, his torch held high.
Damnit. This was not anything like she had imagined. Being on the defense did not suit her. So far, she had been…useless. Her blade had yet to taste another’s flesh since the whole thing had started. She lacked the strength to wrestle the hooked ladders from the wall or the men climbing them, had no skill with a bow, and so far had heeded Rose’s last-minute warning to not expose herself to the paladins. Again, being on the defense was not ideal. This wasn’t like before when she had jumped around the field trashing their trebuchets. She more or less had to stay in one place, and as soon as she accessed her power, they would know. They probably had witch hunters hidden within the army as well, with those damn weapons of theirs.
Still, she had to do something, and something meant using the only thing she knew would help. Her power engulfed her, and the foggy, distorted grayscale of the witch world overtook the battlefield. The ever-twisting lines and pathways of impossible angels added to the disorder of war, making her vision swim amongst the jumbled mess. It took her longer than she wanted to pick out the shapes of the approaching ladders, but still, the way forward opened up to her as naturally as walking in the human world.
As she traversed the pathway, the witch world seemed to fold around her in a way she had never noticed before. From early on she had realized that the strange world possessed some level of…self? Not a personality, but a will of its own, maybe. A sentience. At times it guided her. Aided her when she needed it most. But this might be the first time she understood that it accepted her. She was meant to be here. The sense of belonging both warmed and quickened her heart. She didn’t know how to take an alien world—a demon world by all accounts—giving her such a…well alien feeling.
Thankfully she didn’t have to ponder over it right now. She fell out of the witch world above one of the men marching one of the ladders forward and dropped down upon his back. Her dagger plunged into the soft tissue between his neck and shoulder up to the hilt. Ivy lost herself in the joy of the kill, and everything was right again. Ripping her blade free, she jumped off of him as he fell. Having lost his partner supporting half of the ladder’s weight, the other soldier lost balance, and the ladder began to tip past the point of recovery. She didn’t wait to watch the inevitable conclusion.
Back in the unnerving comfort of the witch world, two more teams of ladders were dangerously close to the wall. She toppled the second just as she had the first, but when she revealed herself before the third, a pair of strong arms wrapped around her in an instant. Her dagger hand was extended past his body, and the man had put her in a rib-crushing bear hug, her own arms included. She squirmed against his overpowering strength, attempting in vain to angle her weapon to inflict any kind of damage.
“Let go, you bastard!” she screamed, looking up at his face to catch a whiff of acrid breath. Past him, his ladder partner failed to keep it upright on his own. When she brought her attention back to her captor, a zealous fervor burned in the man’s eyes and he smiled wide at her, exposing the tip of a black-stained tongue.
“Saint Algramath is going to destroy you,” he said, tightening his grip to the point it felt like she might break in two.
She thought she had heard that name before but didn’t have the luxury of time to place it. She had to escape. And the man, unbeknownst to him, had made one mistake. Where his arms wrapped around hers, he came into direct contact with her bracelet. The bracelet warmed against her skin as she fed it her power, but nothing happened. She funneled more and more strength into the band of alaricite on her wrist until it burned. Something tore open—not in her mind or on her body, but somewhere else. A second later they were both ripped across the boundary between worlds and into the witch world.
Somehow the man’s grasp tightened further, and Ivy struggled to breathe.
“W-what have you done?” he asked, his voice shaky. Ivy smiled despite the crushing pain. It was impossible for her to utter a retort, however. “S-stop this! Take me back!”
Finally, his strength began to fail him, and Ivy took in a deep breath.
“You’re dead,” she said, “welcome to hell.”
“No! No!” He let go completely and staggered back. She thought that would be the end of it, but then he spoke again, “STOP IT! PLEASE!”
Huh. Despite letting go of her, he was still seeing the witch world. Apparently, the bracelet only needed initial and final contact to move others between the worlds. She studied his trembling, disfigured form, and laughed.
“Why should I?” she asked.
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“I’ll do anything! Please!” She stepped forward, closer to the man and he screamed. “Don’t come any closer. Just make it stop! MAKE IT STOP!”
“I—”
He howled at the top of his lungs and his twisted shape writhed uncontrollably. Curiosity got the better of her, and though hesitant to interrupt…whatever this was, she slowly reached out to him. And then the wailing stopped suddenly, his movement halting. Still, she placed her bracelet upon him and grunted as she struggled to drag him along a new pathway back to the wall.
Once secure atop the wall, her back already ached from the dead weight of hauling the soldier. She dispelled her power and looked down at the strange man. His face was just a smear of blood and deep gashes. His eyes were…gone.
“Pick up a souvenir?” Raenin stepped up beside her and grimaced. “What the hell did you do to him?”
“Nothing,” Ivy said, surveying the damage with equal disgust. The witch world made him do this to himself?
“So, he clawed his own eyes out?”
“Y-yeah.”
Raenin knelt down by the broken man, who was still alive, a barely audible groaning escaping his lips.
“So—”
“Remember when you asked me what would happen if you opened your eyes while under my power?” Ivy asked.
His head spun around and though it lasted only the briefest of moments, she saw it again. Though this time there was no anger in defense of his wife to mask the shock and wide-eyed fear.
“Well,” he said, “I’m glad—”
The wall shuddered, accompanied by a resounding crack.
“That sounded different,” Ivy said.
“The gate’s failed.”
Ivy peered over the edge of the parapet toward the gatehouse. The church’s men were streaming forward, disappearing into the breach caused by their ram.
“So, we run?” she asked.
Raenin nodded and she held out her arm, exposing her bracelet. He took another look down at the mutilated man.
“Uhh—”
“Oh, come on. I’ll take care of you just like before, okay? Your wife asked me so nicely, after all.”
“Is that what she said to you?” He shook his head. “Fine. I’ll let the princess rescue me.” Princess again? She raised an eyebrow at him but didn’t say anything. “What about the others?”
Ivy let her eyes wander along the length of the wall. Hundreds of men would be trapped with enemies on both sides in just a matter of minutes. She shrugged. What could they do?
“You care more about them than your wife and child?” she asked.
Raenin let out a long sigh and then placed his hand on her wrist.
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“Fall back!” Virian shouted. He himself had retreated from the top of the wall and was watching the battle from the back lines. Once they had run out of arrows, the church had pushed the breach with everything. Everything save the paladins.
He watched as his vanguard broke and turned tail. The army flooded in as a raging river might overcome a broken dam. He stood frozen in horror, his men cut down from behind. What had he done? This…everything was his fault.
A rough grip squeezed his shoulder and shook.
“Drink this!” Armond yelled, holding something out to him.
Virian blinked, eyeing the vial of cloudy, dark liquid.
“What?” But he didn’t need an answer. He knew the plan if things got to this point. “No. Armond! N—”
It was too late. His mouth stopped working. Everything stopped. An all-encompassing silence fell over the city. And then a voice reached him. He thought he knew the voice, but his thoughts were so sluggish. It took ages to even try to start to recall a memory.
What felt like ages later, fingers pried open his mouth, and a disgusting taste hit his tongue. He sputtered up spit and whatever had been forced down his throat, gasping for air. His thoughts and emotions slammed back into him at the speed of a racehorse at a full gallop. He fell to his knees, wheezing, as though he might never get enough air again. What…what the—
A meaty hand slapped his back and Virian glanced over his shoulder to find the king of outlaws standing over him.
“Let’s go,” Armond said before running off, toward the breach.
“How is,” he took a deep breath, “where is…Cammy?”
Something in his head began to dull his fear and concern over the oncoming army, but nothing could stop him from caring for his sister.
She was singing. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t recognized the voice he knew so well just a moment ago. A mournful song from their childhood filled the otherwise calm air. The same song she had sung at their mother’s funeral.
A second later, the sounds of slaughter overshadowed his sister’s soft voice. He pried himself up from the dirt to find Armond and a group of his men massacring the church army. They stood helpless; their movements almost imperceptible at how slow they were. Like wheat, they were cut down without mercy.
Time dilation, Rose had called it. All around her, Camellia could alter the flow of time. And then he finally saw her. Cammy stood only twenty paces to his right, tears streaking down her reddened cheeks as she watched Armond’s work. A pang of worry stung his heart at the sight of her, but he could not bring himself to care for the deaths of invaders, no matter how unfair it might be. They were the enemy. That was all there was to it. Camellia’s power had given them this opportunity. She shouldn’t feel bad about it.
He took a step toward her but stopped when a glint of darkened armor caught the corner of his eye.
“Virian!” Armond shouted back at him. Just over the huge man’s shoulder, Virian could make out the figure of the first paladin entering the city through the stone-riddled breach. “Get back to where we stashed the horses! Get Rose and your sister to the docks!”
Right. Their horses could not navigate the breach and they would have no way to catch them. But once Cammy was out of the picture, Armond would be overwhelmed.
“And you?” Virian shouted back.
“I’ll catch up! Go!”
More paladins began to funnel in, and if Virian wasn’t mistaken, a party of witch hunters. He sprinted over to Camellia and grabbed her arm, causing her to jump. Her song fell away, and the once-still world splintered into chaos.
“Where’s Rose?” he asked.
“H-huh?”
“Rose! I’ve got to get you two out of here!”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Rose said, her voice cool yet sweet as always.
“What? There’s a whole company of paladins coming for us! And Armond asked me to—”
“The south has been taken,” she said, “The city is lost. Ivy is on her way here. I will protect her whether she likes it or not.”
Virian shook his head. He would never understand this woman. Whatever. Rose was not his responsibility. She had lived thirty times his age. She could get herself out of this as well.
He tugged on Camellia’s arm starting to haul her away when a resounding boom cut through the noise of Armond and his men still managing to cut down the confused soldiers recovering from Camellia’s power. The delicate muscles of her forearm stiffened, and Virian had to bring about his other arm to stop her from falling.
“Cammy?” He lightly shook her, and her eyes rolled back into her head. “Camellia! Wake up!” His eyes dropped from her slack face down to where a splotch of wet blood stained the bodice of her pure white dress. “CAMELLIA!”
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Ivy stared at the thick aura of magic encompassing the area around the northern breach of Atrican’s walls. She figured she could probably navigate it, at least in the witch world. Back in Rhune, her power had been resistant to the other witch. But—
Without warning, the dome of influence disappeared.
“What’s going on?” Raenin asked.
“Don’t open your eyes!”
“Trust me, I wasn’t planning on it.”
She pulled on his wrist.
“Come on.”
A few moments later an all too familiar boom rang out, and Ivy took Raenin and herself out of the witch world.
“Uh,” Raenin said, “should we turn around?”
She hadn’t told him it was safe to look yet, but apparently, he had sensed it somehow. And he was right. The north was just as bad as the south. Worse. Paladins and witch hunters were crawling over the fallen stones of the wall with their sights aimed directly at Ivy.
“CAMELLIA!”
She jerked her head in the direction of Virian’s heartrending scream. Just to her left, he and Rose were huddled around a downed woman. Oh, no. The power she had sensed. The shot of the witch hunter’s weapon.
Ivy rushed over and found Virian’s sister unconscious, bleeding from a hole in her gut. She looked over at Rose. Maybe she could do something, but the older witch shook her head and pointed past Ivy’s shoulder. There was no need to look back to know their time was ever so short. Was there any hope?
A hand clasped around her own.
“Ivy, help her,” Virian said. He held Ivy’s gaze with a tear-streaked face that she could not break away from.
“I…I don’t know how,” she said.
“Please.”
“Wha—”
“Use your power. Get her to the boats. Someone there can help. Please.”
It made sense. Kind of. But Camellia was six inches taller than Ivy and dead weight. If she could manage to haul her through the witch world, by the time she got back, Virian and everyone else would be dead.
“Virian,” she said, “we have to go. We have to go.”
“Now,” Rose added.
He just stared at her with those misty blue eyes.
“Please.”
How could she say no?
“Okay. I’ll try.”
She reached down to press her bracelet against Camellia but gave Rose one last look, who grunted and drew her sword.
“Come on, prince,” Rose said, “if I let you die here, she’ll never forgive me.”
“Thank you, Ivy,” Virian said, and then was pulled up to his feet by Rose. They retreated down the road at a sprint.
Ivy couldn’t stop herself from looking over her shoulder at her approaching doom. Armond and his remaining men were fighting a losing battle, and the paladins were only seconds away from joining the fray. More than a hundred of the elite warriors marched forward, dark steel weapons drawn. And at their head…
Ivy found herself transfixed. There was something wrong with this paladin. He walked at the head of an approaching legion yet stopped when he saw her. The men behind him didn’t dare pass him. Though she couldn’t see his face or even his eyes through his jet-black helmet, Ivy got the sense he was looking straight into her soul. And it wasn’t just his helmet that drank in the light. Every bit of his impossibly perfect armor made it seem like she was staring into a moonless night sky. In one hand, he wielded an equally midnight greatsword longer than she was tall. Speaking of height, he somehow towered at least a foot over any other man she had ever laid eyes on.
“IVY, RUUUNN!” Rose’s bloodcurdling scream echoed through the open air from down the road.
Every hair on Ivy's body stood on end. The rational side of her begged the rest of her to listen to Rose. The older witch had never sounded so scared. So desperate. Yet…for a moment, Ivy and the hulking paladin studied each other. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.
The color of his armor clicked with Ivy. Pure alaricite. It was almost impossible, yet here it was. Was this the supposed saint come to destroy her? The king of the paladins? If she killed him, the church would truly fear her. Alaricite wouldn’t save him from her dagger.
Ivy called upon her power, and witch world unraveled around her. Her target lay just ahead, a couple of steps away in this place. But…no. This was wrong. It couldn’t be.
His alaricite armor stood out as an unmoving splotch of blackness in the witch world, but it was more than that. His presence warped the twisted space around him in a way she had only seen once before in the depths of Atrican’s cathedral. H-how?
And then he took his helmet off. Two eyes darker than nothingness stared back at her.
For once, she obeyed Rose’s advice and ran as fast as she could. But it didn’t matter. The second she moved, he was there. An iron grip closed around her throat, and her power was forced from her body.
He held her aloft, right up to his face, and she tried to scream but found no air. Panic took over as she flailed and kicked her legs to no avail. None of her struggling mattered, anyway. The moment she met his gaze, the sight of his dark eyes paralyzed her. His flowing black hair that cascaded down his shoulders shined like crystallized ebony made flesh. He was by far the most beautiful man she had ever seen. He looked like…like her. A male witch.
The man smiled as though greeting an old friend. His voice came out like dark velvet against the skin of her cheeks. Despite the raging battle around her, nothing mattered save for that solitary, smooth-as-silk, deep voice.
“Hello, little flower.”