“Ivy, dear!” Miss Angelica’s voice rang up into the second story bedroom where Ivy was trying to get a tiny bit of extra sleep. She rolled under the covers, taking a corner of her rough sewn sheets and wrapping it around her head.

“Ivy!” it was Mister Josef this time, and louder still.

Ivy sat up with a frown on her face, attempting to rub the sleep from her eyes, unwilling to face the morning’s chores. It had been exactly one year since she had escaped from Atrican city if her counting had been accurate over the last months. That meant tonight would be the night that she would have to confront the truth about her nature. If she really was a witch, if everything that had happened in Atrican hadn’t been a wicked fever dream, then tonight the pains would come again in full force. The darkness of her power would come to take its annual toll on her body. And soul.

She had never once used or even tried to use her power since that first night. Mostly out of fear of confirming what she was—and of the strange world it left her in—but also because she just did not know how to access it. If it truly was there. The horror of that night felt far away now, and it had become easier to dismiss something that she had the desire to be untrue. The noble boy’s kindness though, would forever stay in her heart.

She would not have made it had he not been there a year ago. Had he not gifted her with a sum of money she did not deserve. That first night alone after resolving to run had been the toughest. Though not because anyone had pursued her or tried to stop her. The guards of the noble district didn't care much for who left the district, as opposed to who got in. In fact, they had helped her along with a nice shove through the gate. No. What really got to her once she had a moment to herself was the realization that her life had basically ended.

Once she had stumbled past the city limits well into the early morning hours, she had shivered up against a lone tree on the side of the King's Road, the open world ahead of her. The group of dockside thugs had taken her old—albeit uncomfortable life—from her. Had slaughtered her friends. Had likely passed her description to the church. She had had nothing left but the memory of a kindness and a sack of coins to prove it had been real. It had been silly to think back then that her tears had long dried up. They had come again as the sun peaked over the horizon. From that moment onward, she was no longer Iveriani the thief with a talent for lockpicking. Now she was Ivy, the outcast. The hunted. The witch. No matter how much she hadn't wanted and still didn't want to believe it.

For days after she had traveled southward along the road, eventually finding a small farm maybe a week into her trip. She had begged to pay for lodging, but the owners had only offered her the barn and no food for far too much coin. The state of her person had been too unsettling.

Thankfully, the next day she had found a stream to bathe in, and things had gotten much easier. Once she had paid for a pair of clean clothes, she had been able to buy rooms most nights. Often, her temporary landlords had questioned her about why a young girl traveled alone with enough coin for food and lodging, but no one had shown enough malice to hurt her. That, and she had buried her fortune each night far from where she stayed.

Eventually, four months in, she had found a couple generous enough to take her in long term, and she had chosen to stay. Of course, she had still given them a portion of her coin, explaining it away as her late father’s savings, she herself having fled from being sold to a man in the city after her father’s death. She also had to help on the farm, but for nearly three seasons, she had been safe. And even a little bit happy.

Today was the day that was likely to change. But before that, she had to get through Miss Angelica’s chores. She’d have one more day of normalcy before she had to face reality tonight. With another rub to her heavy eyelids, she swung her legs out of bed, and changed out of her night shift into a worn brown smock of a dress. It wasn’t exactly a flattering thing, but it worked for farm labor.

She fumbled down the stairs and found the couple drinking some tea at the supper table. Miss Angelica was a fair skinned woman in her thirties with long, blond curly hair and a rather plain face. Mister Josef on the other hand she could only see as pretty. And not just by Ivy or his wife’s standards. Ivy often saw the glances other women gave him when they went into town for supplies. His tanned skin, angular features, and silky, shoulder length hair did not at all fit the image Ivy had in her head of a country farmer.

“Good morning Miss Angelica, Mister Josef,” she said.

“Morning dear,” Miss Angelica said. Her husband nodded.

“I’ll start with the animals,” Mister Josef said, “you help Ange whip up some breakfast, and I’ll be back in an hour.”

And so went the morning, as it always did. Ivy went to kneading a lump of dough that she would bake for tomorrow’s breakfast, while Miss Angelica prepped some potato porridge on the stove. Once she finished heating that up, it would fall to Ivy to start cooking the loaf.

When Mister Josef came back in, a bit dirtied from his work, the loaf was happily baking and Ivy had already filled three bowls with porridge. They ate, and then the rest of the day also went the same as it had for eight months. Ivy assisted Miss Angelica with a few household chores, and then both of them went out to help with the fields and animals. This lasted until sundown, when they had a second helping of porridge.

Her new life wasn’t the most glamorous or exciting, but it was a life. That was more than she had hoped for a year ago. But it was also a life that might end in just a few hours. Could she continue to stay with them if she did experience those hellish pains again? The church executed anyone found knowingly hiding witches.

She shook her head. That would be a decision for later. Right now, she needed to make an excuse to retire to her room and prepare for the night. Last time it had come after midnight, so she still had plenty of time to make it to the hideaway she had arranged over the last few weeks. With a few words of feeling a bit exhausted, she headed up the stairs to her room and stripped off the ugly dress.

Hidden under the floorboards beneath her bed was a pitch black pair of trousers and matching long sleeved tunic. She had commissioned both at a town many miles away before ever setting foot on Miss Angelica’s land. So far she had only worn the outfit a handful of times, but it had proven itself to be a good decision despite the cost.

She pulled the leggings on over her boots, donned the tunic, and tied her raven-like hair up into a tight knot at the back of her head. Now she could either try to escape through the window and get an early start in case it decided to come prematurely, or wait till the couple retired themselves. Leaving now felt like it held less risk. Getting caught outside of her room meant little to nothing. If they discovered her in the middle of being tortured by the darkness due to her witch powers? Yeah. No comparison.

The single window of her room was merely a rough wooden shutter with no glass, so that was no problem. The getting down to the ground safely part posed the challenge. She had never actually made this escape before, since she had never come across a reason to sneak away this early in the night until now. When she had been gathering supplies for this very night, she had simply told her hosts that she would need to go into town for a few days. Despite Ivy’s young age and the somewhat parental nature of the relationship, the couple had never really exacted any rules on her. She had made the journey from Atrican by her self, after all.

Dropping from a second story window without hurting herself should be easy for someone as capable as her. Yeah? Yeah. She just had to take it slow and be careful. If she walked with a limp tomorrow, there would be questions. Tonight was a night that she definitely wanted no one to have knowledge of. Lying and saying she was going out was not an option. The illusion that she had been in bed all night happily sleeping during her night of torture gave her an extra layer of cover. No one could tie anything back to her being a witch. As it should be.

She pushed open the double doored window, and the evening light of a nearly set sun flooded into her room. Sitting on the sill, she looked down at the trimmed grasses beneath. It wasn’t that far really. If she lowered herself slowly, and then hung from the edge until…yeah. No big deal. A few moments later, hanging from her fingertips, the ground started to look further and further away. Ivy had always been on the smaller side—height in particular—and that hadn't changed in the last year. But there was no more delaying it, and she let her grip slip.

It took all of her—she thought—considerable willpower to stop herself from letting out a noise as the wind wooshed past her ears. She landed feet first in the blessedly mushy dirt below from yesterday’s downpour, and her knees bent so far that she lost her balance and sat back into the mud.

"Ow," she said, her voice barely audible to her own ears.

Overall, not actually that bad, though. Other than a sore ankle and a muddy butt, she felt alright. Okay. Time to get this over with. Ivy got to her feet and tested her ankle. It hurt a little, but it held her weight. She wouldn’t be running to get to her hideout, but she still had plenty of time.

Leaving the farm heading west towards the setting sun, she took one last look back at the farmhouse. There were no signs that the two inside had witnessed her escape, and she resumed her progress toward the tree line up ahead. It was maybe an hour walk to the forest, and then another to her spot. There, under a tree she had marked with a knife, her buried stash waited to be unearthed.

Coin would be useless tonight, and she set aside the still bulging purse containing her small fortune. Other than that, she had slowly added to her goods over the course of her time at Miss Angelica's farm. She now possessed the dagger she had used to scrape the bark of the tree, some dried foodstuffs, a couple of jugs of cheap wine, and a canvas tent.

First order of business would be getting the tent set up. It wasn’t as cold this far north down the King’s road from the city, but it still helped, and if nothing else gave her privacy. She had already practiced pitching the tent a few times, and the work went quickly. In just several minutes she had her small shelter up against the tree, covering both her and her stash.

Next, of course, would be the wine. If you could call it that. The jugs she had picked up at the nearest town for a single copper each, but quality didn’t matter for tonight. She intended to become thoroughly inebriated for this. It wasn’t going to be a time to enjoy. She popped open the first and took a swig directly out of the stem. Unsurprisingly it went down like some kind of torturous acid, but she kept drinking. It was nothing compared to what was coming. She would suffer anything if it could lessen even the memory of that night a year ago.

The problem was that she had little idea how much she should drink to make her not remember any of what was to come. She had often seen older men in particular in various states of drunkenness, but hardly participated in it herself. Alcohol was mostly a form of entertainment for people who had a bit of extra coin to spend. Until last year, that was not something she possessed.

The more the better, probably. She guzzled down as much as possible in as little time as possible. With one jug already empty, she decided to wait and eat a bit of the dried fruit. Darkness fell over her tent, and her head started to feel cloudy, then heavy, until the point she fell over sideways through no will of her own. Nausea followed, and she wondered if she had accidentally bought poison instead of wine. The taste supported that conclusion well enough.

A few minutes later she was spilling her guts all over her stash. What. The. Hell. This was supposed to make things better, not worse. Curled up on her side and groaning, she spent several hours feeling sicker than she could ever remember, periodically attempting to expel the nothingness still left in her stomach.

When she could finally sit up straight again, she eyed the second bottle of vile swill with a scowl. She would have to go get her money back later. What kind of ass would try to pass off poison as wine to a young girl? She chuckled. Most people, probably. They were all out for themselves. Even the couple she stayed with. They had had no trouble accepting her money, and now they expected her to serve as an extra hand on the farm with no children of their own. She had only ever met one person in her life who had truly helped her for no reward of his own…

Well, no use thinking about that now. She’d never see the noble boy again. The poison had at least hardened her for the trial to come. Her pounding headache was still working to that affect.

Another few hours passed of her munching on dried snacks before she felt…something. Deep in her chest a darkness flared to life, threatened to steal away her very soul. Oh god. It was coming. It was really all true. Iveriani was a witch.

Just like before, the pain tore through her body, coiling through her organs and muscles to the point where she had no idea how they had not turned to mush. Her skin flared up not a moment after, fire lancing in and out of her from her fingertips to her toes. Her back arched involuntarily with each and every cry that escaped her throat. Screams that were more like animal howls tore through the empty night air and out past the canvas of her tent, but she had made sure that no one lived within miles of this place.

It went on for an eternity as far as Ivy was concerned, until it just…ended. She was left as a quivering heap of a person, panting and sobbing, eyes clamped shut, yet still her tears flowed endlessly. Eventually, the faculties of her mind returned, and she dared to open a single eye. What she saw caused her to squeeze it tight immediately. The confusing, bleak, colorless world of her witch power had returned.