The dance was ever changing.
A fusion of light and fire, coiling and growing.
Ebbing and flowing.
The warmth.
The heat.
Together.
Closer to being one.
The push, the pull.
The give, the take.
The rise, the fall.
The continuous cycle.
Forever evolving.
Never ending.
Violet opened, ascended over crimson.
The moon.
The sun.
Foreheads touching.
In farewell.
Lips meeting.
In greeting.
The separation.
Eyes clear, present.
Her smile.
“Good morning,” Ivy’s voice gentle and lovely, a sweet blessing.
Zero’s hand found its way through amethyst waves, pulling her back down to claim her lips once more, greedy for their taste. “Good morning,” he greeted quietly when she pulled away.
“Well, aren’t you two precious.”
The couple’s heads turned towards the yawning angel across the tent, his ebony curls a mess while he cracked his neck and stretched his long limbs.
“Good morning, Ren,” the girl chirped happily, making no attempt to move from her place hoovering closely above the boy.
Ren raised a brow at the sight. It wasn’t long ago that the girl spent every morning frantically dashing away after instigating the strange ritual between her and the devil. Now, she didn’t even so much as shy away from the boy, joyfully kissing him at every opportunity throughout the day. “Morning, Little One. Just curious, is this going to become a regular thing with you two?” The girl only smiled as he sighed, wondering why he even bothered asking. “Wonderful. I’m so excited for that. So, are you ready for today?”
“The book shop!” Her face lit up as she was reminded of the treasures that awaited her, and she scrambled from the tent, ready to get the day started.
Zero sat up, displeased with the loss of the warmth before he was ready to let it go. “You ruin everything.”
“Boo-hoo, get over it.” The man scratched the back of his head roughly, not in a particularly pleased mood himself. “You should be used to disappointment by now. Besides, you two need to lay off of each other. It’s excessive. Don’t look at me like that, boy. Like I don’t fucking feed you. Is that what’s wrong with you two? You’re hungry? Is that why you two are constantly trying to eat each other’s faces lately?”
Zero didn’t know what exactly this look was, but it was obvious that the devil had somehow evoked the angel’s ire long before he had even made it, and it would be best to avoid further provoking the conversation. He glanced to the man’s side, noticing the spot empty and a hopeful out to the situation. “Where’s Sakura?”
“She already ran off. Looks like you get out of hunting this morning. Not like there’s much out there worth catching anyways. She’s probably just using it as an excuse to get away from you two. I should have done the same.”
The boy actually enjoyed hunting with the woman, and she with him, and they both looked forward to the times when they could do so. It wasn’t like her to leave him behind, and unlike Ren, Sakura seemed unfazed, even encouraging of the boy and girl’s affections.
There was something more to it.
Crimson narrowed slightly. “What did you do her?”
“Nothing gets past you, does it?” The man chuckled to himself, his attitude making a complete 180. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Mind your own damn business.”
The devil decided to take his advice, least getting involved was more hassle than it was worth.
When the two men exited the tent, Ivy and Sakura were around the fire already eating, the woman listening as the girl chattered on and on, barely coming up for breath.
“No meat,” the demon informed as she spooned the meal into her mouth. “Just oats.”
Ren glanced around the empty landscape. “Well, that’s surprising.”
She held bowls out to the men and continued on hers. “We’ll get something when we get to Sistern. We need to go to the market as well. Don’t even ask him.” She pointed at the girl without looking up.
Ivy snapped her mouth shut but quickly decided to follow through with her plan, disregarding all possible consequences. “Can I put some books in your bag, Ren?” Her eyes begging the angel as the fox groaned. “Please?!”
“How many we talking about?” he asked. It was hard to say no to the fae, but he also had little interest in letting her convince him into lugging around too much more of her belongings. “I already have two of your dresses, a pair of boots, and all those random rocks you’ve been picking up and sneaking into my pack.”
Sakura looked at the man in surprise. “So, you’re getting her special rocks now? I just thought she had finally learned to stop picking them up and putting them in my pack after years of my tossing them. I had no idea they had just started going into yours.”
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
“Yep.” He took a large bite of oats, unfazed by the revelation. “They’ve been going in mine for a long time.”
“And you’ve been keeping them?”
“Every single one.”
“And I appreciate and love you so much for doing that, Ren,” Ivy fawned as she carefully considered what answer to give, knowing she was already pushing her luck and not wanting to get shut down. “How many can I?”
“Two.” The decision was quick and to the point with little wiggle room.
But maybe a little push?
“Three?” Her eyes big and dewy, laying the charm on thick.
“How about none? None is a good number.”
Ivy gasped, realizing the error in her ways. “Two?”
“That’s another good number, Little One.” The angel smiled kindly. “I can do two.”
It only took a few hours to arrive in the large town, but every minute that ticked by only added more fuel to Ivy’s elation until she was standing before the book shop, ready to explode at any moment. She clutched onto Zero’s hand, bouncing up and down, as he held out his other hand to Ren.
“I’m gonna go to the market and get a room, and I’ll be back,” the man told the only one listening as he dropped the gold coin in his hand. “Don’t let her get too out of control. That girl will take you for a ride if you let her, and you’ll be the only one regretting it.”
The boy had barely opened his mouth and closed his fist before the lively fae was yanking at his arm and dragging him inside, unable to contain her excitement any longer.
“Oh, he is fucked. She’s going to completely wreck that shop,” the angel mused as he looked over at the demon. “So, what’s your plan? You gonna go watch the devastation?”
“I’ll go with you,” Sakura said as she hurried past Ren and the mostly red brick shops along the way, the man quickly falling into step beside her. She faced forward, but her eyes darted down to the palm that he held up for her, offering. She set her attention forward and continued on without a word.
Ren shrugged and lowered his hand without complaint. “So how was hunting? You sure took off in a hurry early this morning.”
“I lied. I didn’t even bother to try hunting,” she confessed simply. “I was just avoiding you.”
“Well, that was obvious.” A jovial grin spread across his lips. “But why would you ever want to avoid me?”
“Because you’re trying to trap me.”
The man laughed, “Well, yeah, no shit. I think I’ve been pretty open about that, and it’s kinda the natural progression of things, don’t you think?”
Sakura chewed her cheek, refusing to answer.
“I don’t know why you’re throwing a fit. We know what Ivy is now. Mystery solved. Wonderful. Perfect. Dream come true. Let’s go home.” His smile grew. “Do all the fun things.”
“I’m not throwing a fit,” her voice calm but agitated at the accusation. “But there’s still a lot we don’t know about Ivy. We have no idea why she was left here or where Summerland is.”
The grin slipped from Ren’s face as he looked down at the woman, brows drawn together, finding it hard to believe that she was still willing to go on with this. “Are you listening to the words that are coming out of your mouth? Have you even thought any of this through? You want to continue looking for where Ivy’s from? And how are you gonna do that? It’s not like she’s from the land, and you can just stumble upon some town that she went missing from. You can’t just waltz into Summerland. No one even has any idea of how to get there other than the fae, and the one fae we have doesn’t have any memory of it. Are you just gonna keep traveling forever, hoping to stumble across it?”
Sakura hadn’t thought about it. She had just done, like she always did, driven by instinct and the fear of failure nipping at her heels. This had been a goal that she had worked towards for six years, and now it was becoming clear that it had all been for not. No matter how hard she try, how much she sacrificed, she wouldn’t find Ivy’s home. She wouldn’t be true to her word. That impulse that nagged at her would never settle. “You don’t understand,” she muttered.
“I don’t. Not even a little. So why don’t you go ahead and make me understand?”
She stared forward, unsure of how to put words to a feeling she, herself, couldn’t understand. A longing that pulled at her in the same way it had to find out what Ivy was. In the way it had pulled her into those thorn bushes all those years ago. It wasn’t something she could justify or comprehend, but it wasn’t something she could simply just ignore either.
It had become a part of her.
An infection that needed to be cured.
“Even if you were to find it,” the man continued when her reasons came up empty. “Then what? You can’t go with her. Are you really willing to just drop her off and leave her to live with the fae who left her behind? Even if you lie and say you are, I’m not okay with doing that. I don’t want to, and I won’t. Have you even bothered to think about Ivy?”
That struck a chord, and the vixen whipped her head towards the angel with a snarl. “I always think about Ivy. Everything I do is for her. This isn’t about what I want, or what you want, or about any idealistic visions we had for ourselves when we were kids. It’s about what’s best for Ivy.”
“That may be true, but you’re not actually thinking about what’s best for her right now. You’re thinking about what you think is best for her,” he challenged, the woman’s disdain fueling his own. “You’ve dragged her around for years searching for answers she never cared to look for, but she’s happily gone along with it. For you, not for her. Just because she’s kept her mouth shut in order to please you doesn’t mean that it’s what she wants. And whether or not you want to admit it, you know it. That girl can’t hide anything, and even if she says she agrees, you can see what she really means. You’ve ignored her for years, and for what? For something you can’t even explain. To find a place that rejected and abandoned her. And what about Zero? You think a devils gonna be welcomed into Summerland with a bunch of fae running around? Do you think Ivy would ever willingly leave him? Would you want that for them?”
Sakura tried to rebut, to dismantle the man’s argument and put him back in his place, but nothing came from her mouth. How could she defend herself to him when he simply spoke what she knew all along? How could she continue a lie when the truth had come to light? She shrunk under his prying gaze, knowing her back was against the wall and there was no where to go. “I would never want that, and I didn’t mean to ignore her,” she muttered in defeat, watching the ground pass beneath her feet. “I only ever wanted the best for Ivy. I thought I was doing the right thing for her.”
“I wouldn’t say you did the wrong thing.” Ren softened as he tugged affectionately at the fox’s ear. “And I don’t think Ivy would say that either. You did what you had to at the time. But things have changed, and it’s her life. She has the right to choose what she does with it. It’s time you stop making those decisions for her.”
“I know.”
“You saw the way she lit up when you told her we were going to Hollis.”
She nodded. “I did. I’m surprised you noticed while in the middle of your pity party, though.”
“Pity party or not, I notice everything.” He pulled a little harder on her ear and received a smack in retaliation. “And I know Ivy wants to go home with us, so let’s take her. We’ll take her home where she can live her life the way she wants, and we can take care of and protect her. She’ll be safer in the mountains than she will be wandering around in search for a place we’ll never find. We won’t have to worry about another devil happening across her. Other than the one, how many of them do you know who like to play in the snow?”
He was right, even though Sakura didn’t want to admit it. The Northern Mountains were sparsely populated with its villages and towns situated further apart from one another in comparison to the rest of the land, so there was no need for Ivy to worry about concealing herself. There had also never been a concrete sighting of a devil further north, unlike the southern areas that still showed the disastrous aftermath of their visits in some towns and villages.
And for the one devil that actually did venture that way, it was the safest place for him as well. Despite their abhorrence for one another, the one thing that devils and angels seemed to have in common was their reluctance to go anywhere near the Northern Mountains. It was probably a good part of the reason why Raz had decided to settle there since he never seemed very fond of his own brethren. And in all the years Sakura had lived there, the only angels other than Ren and Raz she’d ever come in contact with were the two who were sent to collect Ren, and they had little interest in sticking around for longer than necessary.
It really was the best place for Ivy and Zero.
For them to have a home.
Where they could belong.
How could she continue to take that away from them?
She knew she couldn’t. “Fine.”
“Fine.” Ren smirked with the easy win, and turned his attention away from the moping woman only to quickly have it return, his grin growing once more as her fingers shyly intertwined through his. “Oh, come on,” he encouraged the demon who still wouldn’t meet his gaze as he tightened his hold around hers and brought her hand up to press against his lips. “Don’t be like that. We’re gonna have a real good time. You’ll see.”