Ivy hung limp against the metal cuffs locked tight against her wrists and ankles. There was just enough slack to let her lean a hands-breadth from the cold, wet stone wall. She could say she was used to such treatment after the witch hunters had strung her up in a similar position, but no. At least the hunters had fed her. Given her water. Even occasionally allowed her to bathe. She would be afforded nothing of the sort in the church’s hands. Sleep had likewise been impossible in the nearly two days since she had been caught. But that was mostly Virian’s fault.

Why had he come and given her just the slightest bit of hope? It made everything so much worse. She could no longer accept her fate. Every little sound in the darkness caused her to perk up, searching for a rescue that would never come. What a selfish bastard. He couldn’t do anything. What power could he possibly have that would reach her down here? Why did he have to be so, so cruel…

The sound of metal grinding against stone came from the far side of the prison. Yet again, Ivy’s spirits rose for a fraction of a second before reality hit her. It had been a few hours since they had last poisoned her, and a pair of paladins were no doubt coming to dose her again. Sure enough, the clank of their metal sabatons came next as they made their way to her cell.

Three figures soon appeared through the bars separating her from the dungeon’s hallway, one displaying quite a different silhouette from the others. Instead of the bulky platemail of the paladins, the one between the two warriors wore flowing robes.

“Though you’ve yet to absolve yourself of your sins,” a voice she had come to know as the archbishop of Atrican said, “I’m happy to inform you that the inquisitor has arrived this morning.” Ivy said nothing. “Your lips will part soon enough.”

“You’ll get nothing from me,” Ivy said. Her words came out hoarse from her dry throat, but she thought she sounded confident. She had yet to be tortured, but witches were no stranger to pain.

“So you do speak,” the archbishop said, “good. The other talks far too often.” Ivy’s heart sank. So far her captors had not mentioned Rose at all. She had hoped her sister had seen it all coming and ran before it was too late. The last time Ivy had seen her, she had left her in the worst of terms. This was all Ivy’s fault. “I think I’ll let you watch us start with her.”

Ivy surged against her bonds, the metal cutting gashes into her wrists.

“Don’t you dare touch her!” Her scream filled the dungeon’s dank interior.

“You give away your weakness so easily, witch,” the archbishop said, “It seems the inquisitor won’t have to work on you at all. The more we leave you unharmed, watching your precious sister in agony, the more you spill all your secrets.” Ivy’s manacles were embedding themselves into her flesh, but she didn’t care. She barely felt the pain at all. Her whole body was alight with burning fury. The bishop laughed at her. “Dose her.”

The door to her cell flung open and the two paladins approached her. Still, she lunged against the chains, throwing everything she had against them if only to throw a single, ineffectual strike at the hulking warriors. She didn’t so much as move an inch.

One paladin forced her mouth open with a metal gauntleted hand and the second plugged her nose with two fingers. The first shoved a hand inside her mouth, and she bit down as hard as she could, doing little but chipping her teeth against his steel-wrapped fingers. The glass vial came next, and Ivy writhed against the paladin’s grip, attempting to flail her head back and forth. Another hand gripped the back of her and kept her as steady as a rock. A vile concoction hit her tongue and she sputtered, trying to spit, but she had little control of her lips and…

Wait. Something was different. The potion they fed her was certainly disgusting, but…not revolting. It didn’t have the same…impact as all the doses before. Every time they forced the stuff down her throat, it was almost as though she could feel it absorbing what made her who she was. It took all of her power and encased it where she could no longer access it. But this? It was nothing like that at all. The liquid was just a terrible tasting drink. But why?

The paladins released her and she sagged back against the manacles, not understanding what the hell had just happened. Somehow they had made a mistake. As the paladins retreated beyond the bars and closed it, a million possibilities went through her head. But none of them made sense. There was only one…

It hit her like a club to the forehead. Virian. He had…done it. Somehow. The pretty prince had kept his word. It wasn’t exactly a gallant rescue of a princess in a tower as some of her fellow orphans used to dream about, but it still meant everything to Ivy. He had given her the chance to fight back. The rest was up to her. A wicked smile blossomed on her face. Yes. The rest was up to her. Hopefully Virian would not regret what he had unleashed today. He knew exactly who she was, after all.

“Hey, bishop,” Ivy said. The man turned to regard her just as he was about to leave.

“Something more to say, witch?”

“I’ll make you a deal. Release me now. Release Rose. Do that, and you’ll never hear from us again. Refuse, and your whole world will come crashing down around you. I promise you that.”

The archbishop scoffed.

“Threats is it, now? I’ve heard it from your kind before. We’ll see what you say shortly once the inquisitor is prepared.”

With that, he left her in the darkness. But that was okay. Darkness was her home, and she would soon embrace the power lingering in her heart that had been suppressed for far too long.

Minutes passed, and she could still feel the church’s potion coursing through her veins. She reached for her power with each passing second, but it never came. Had she been wrong about her guess? Doubt crept through her, and by the time the paladins returned for her, her hope had once again fallen to despair. It had maybe been another hour in total, but her power was still completely locked away. The paladins unshackled her and she immediately threw a fit, but their hands clamped around her twice as hard as the metal restraints. They carried her one on each side far above the ground as she kicked her legs wildly to no avail. It was like a couple removing their young child from a situation where they were throwing a tantrum. The indignity of it did not stop Ivy from doing anything her body would allow her, though.

They went on for who knew how long through gloomy, twisting tunnels, Ivy screaming and thrashing the whole way. Eventually a new sound reached Ivy’s ears over her own ranting. A feminine scream echoed down the corridor from up ahead. The paladins didn’t react at all, just kept on pushing forward, but Ivy grew still. Her voice caught in her throat. Could it be? No. Not already. Ivy had yet to get her strength back. She couldn’t do anything if…

The paladins literally threw her through an open doorway several paces up in front of them. Ivy hit the hard stone on the side of her hip, pain blossoming through her body. She tried to scramble away, but cold, metal hands were already on her again by the time she got to her hands and knees. One gauntlet on each of her shoulders, the paladins held her firmly in place. She swung her head left and right, taking stock of where they had taken her.

It was a large circular chamber with several tables and chairs strewn about a central blazing furnace. Atop the tables were a myriad of metal devices of all shapes and size. But what caused Ivy to cry out were the people in the room. Off to one side a tall, well built, naked man was strapped to a chair. Blood dripped from several shallow wounds on his chest, down his forehead and nose, and from each raw fingertip. Most of the rest of him was covered in bruises, and his head hung low, perhaps unconscious. A second man was standing over him, examining the tools on the nearby table before choosing one and lifting the prisoner’s head up. Ivy had no idea who the prisoner was, but winced as the church’s torturer continued his work.

Yet that was not nearly the worst scene in the room. Similar to the male prisoner, Rose was also bound to a steel chair with thick straps of leather. Also like the other prisoner, she was naked and bloodied. Gashes and bruises covered nearly every inch of her, as well as several raw patches of skin where it looked like they had burned her. Unlike the man, however, her head was held high and her eyes were crystal clear. Their gazes met, and suddenly Rose lost any of the defiance that Ivy had thought she had seen on her face. Instead, there was only a sad expression of resignation left after she saw Ivy forced to her knees before her.

Ivy trembled with rage, pushing against the paladins above her to no gain.

“Rose, I…” Ivy tried to croak out some kind of apology, but it felt hollow.

“Ah,” one of the torturers said, turning to Ivy and the paladins, “you’ve brought her. Good. Observe, witch.”

He took a few steps over to the blazing furnace where a few metal instruments had been placed within the flames. Oh no. Please, no. With a gloved hand, he retrieved what looked like a foot-long short sword that was glowing red-hot. When he returned to where Rose was, he held up the scorching blade to her face, but paused.

“No!” Ivy screamed. “Please! Stop!” She redoubled her efforts to squirm out of the paladin’s grip, but she knew all too well how futile it was.

The man ignored her and pressed the flat of the blade up against Rose’s cheek. She let out a piercing wail that filled the chamber with her pain. A sickening stench of burnt flesh hit Ivy’s nostrils, and she heaved on the spot.

By the time she recovered and sat back up, the inquisitor was hovering above her, looking down at Ivy with a disgusted frown on his face. He still held the hot blade in his gloved hand, and Ivy feared she would be next, but instead he simply tosses it aside. Ivy followed it with her teary eyes as it clanged against the stone floor. Remnants of Rose’s flesh still clung to it.

“This can all stop, witch,” the inquisitor said, “all you have to do is—”

Ivy stopped listening. Something wasn’t right. She felt…off. Something inside of her was…ah. Ah! No, something wasn’t wrong. It was right. A tiny trickle of her power was flowing freely now, unabsorbed by the paladin’s poison. She reached for it instantly, but it was so little. Too little. There was not enough to touch the witch world. Still, she drew on it as much as it would allow. It was like she was fifteen again, just learning to control it. It would take time to embrace it fully.

She looked up at the inquisitor, who seemed to be waiting for something. Behind her, the paladins had not yet run her through, so she must not be using enough power for them to detect.

“What do you want?” she asked, hoping to buy enough time.

The inquisitor waved a hand, and the paladins holding her down let her free. Her instincts told her to make a run for it, but she knew her power was her only chance.

“Give up your ‘sisters’ and you may yet have a merciful death.”

Ivy scoffed.

“You think I would send more of us to this?”

Her words came out automatically, and she regretted them instantly.

“Must you witness more? I can keep her alive for weeks, you know.”

“I…I don’t know how I can help you,” Ivy said. It was the truth, of course—she really had no idea about any other witches—but she also wanted to seem reluctant. The more they got to talking, the better. She had counted over twenty heartbeats since drawing on her power. Almost there. Just keep talking, idiot.

“Tell me how many more of you there are. And where to find them. Do this, and it will all be over.”

Ivy almost laughed. They were questioning the wrong person. Rose would be the one to know about other witches. But she would also never give any away. This was all a waste of time. For them. She smiled.

“You know what?” she asked. “I think I do have something to say to you.”

“Oh?”

“I’m going to kill you first.”

Ivy embraced the witch world, and its alien environment washed over her. Color bled away from her vision, and the impossible geometries that defined the alternate world crashed into her. The chamber blurred into a mess of barely comprehensible, vibrating angles and spirals that even after years of studying made no sense to her mind. Yet none of that mattered. This place was hers, and its sight caused her heart to soar with joy. Until…

A jolt of pure agony lanced through her temples.

Come to me, Ll'qixllin, and we will kill them all.

The voice of the demon reverberated inside her head, and Ivy had to use all of her willpower to not pass out from the pain.

“S-shut…uuupp!” She yelled. “I don’t have time for you!”

Another voice rang out, “What is happening? Was she not dosed?”

The sound of steel being unsheathed came next, and Ivy sprang into motion. It didn’t matter if the paladins could detect her power, they could never catch her in the witch world. She just needed a way to rescue Rose. A couple of aimless leaps later, well out of reach of the paladins for the moment, she took stock of her surroundings. The church’s dungeon seemed to be full of the strange metal that her dagger was made of. It stuck out like tiny black suns in her altered vision. Small amounts of it were present in the paladins armor, several doors were constructed of the stuff, and…

Her dagger. It was only a few steps away along a witch world path, and right next to it sat the bracelet that the strange beggar witch had bestowed upon her. She was smiling again as she let the witch world guide her, retrieving her belongings. She even put the bracelet back upon her wrist, which once again tightened to a perfect fit. At first she had wanted to be rid of the thing, but something about the way it felt against her skin gave her a sense of comfort no other jewelry did.

Once her weapon was back in her hand, she spun back to the torture chamber. One paladin had gone off in her pursuit it appeared, while the other remained. The rest of the upright figures in the room were huddled in one corner, their twisted bodies shivering under the lens of her power. She would keep her promise. To both the inquisitor and the bastard archbishop.

A hop and skip later and she was back in the room, right behind one of the torturers. She let her power fade and plunged her dagger into the middle of the small of the inquisitor’s back. The man groaned, his hands reached backward as Ivy ripped her weapon free. He crumpled to the ground, control of his legs failing in an instant. Ivy wanted to gloat over his misery, but the single paladin left in the room was already charging her with his weapon drawn. Ivy called to her power and again and took a single step to her left. In an instant she was on the other side of the room, twirling her dagger. Her strength was returning in earnest, more and more filling her with each moment that passed.

“I’m going to kill you slow, inquisitor,” she said.

The paladin whirled on her, taking his time in approaching as opposed to his previous charge. He stopped a few paces in front of the downed inquisitor, taking up a stance.

“What are you doing?” the inquisitor squeaked out. “Kill her!” The paladin did not move.

“He thinks he can save you.”

Ivy stepped back into the witch world, feinted a step to the paladin’s left, and his form moved nearly as fast as she had. Not wanting to test whether or not his sword could actually touch her in the witch world, she sidestepped right around him, sliding down low and dispelled her power. This time her dagger found the inquisitor’s side, piercing a kidney. By the time the paladin understood what had happened, Ivy was back in the witch world. Once again she reappeared on the far side of the room, smirking at her victims.

“I can do this all day, paladin,” she said.

But as she said it, the second paladin entered the room, his helmet donned, and tossed a second helm to his partner who immediately threw it atop his head. Both had virtually no weak points for her blade to pierce save for the eye slits, and could detect her movements nearly as fast as she could make them. Damnit.

“Ivy,” Rose’s weak voice interrupted Ivy’s thirst for revenge, and she eyed her sister’s broken form. The right side of her face was reduced to little more than a bloody red splotch that almost made Ivy ill again. “Must you play your sick games with them? Just kill these bastards!”

Oh. Uhm. She had never expected Rose to tell her to kill someone. But…Ivy wasn’t sure she could actually best two paladins that were ready for her. The church’s warriors turned to each other, then nodded.

“The inquisitor is lost,” the first one said.

“Then the witch is the priority,” the second said.

“Indeed.”

Then they both trained on her, swords at the ready, approaching one step at a time.

“Are you guys serious?” Ivy asked. They said nothing, and once they got within striking distance, she dropped into the witch world, stepping over to the other side of the room in a single bound. “I’m over here, by the way.”

Just for good measure, she stabbed the inquisitor again, deep in his gut. The second torturer who had been working on the male prisoner lashed out at her with some kind of scissor device, but missed entirely, his hand shaking so much he dropped the thing. Ivy gave him a one raised eyebrow look before cutting his throat. His blood splashed against her face and dirtied tunic.

“Well?” she asked the paladins, a big smile on her face. “Just us now. Unless you count this half dead piece of shit.” She kicked the inquisitor in the side where she had stabbed him the second time, eliciting a barely audible moan.

One of the paladins turned his head toward Rose, still fastened tight to the chair. Oh. He began to move toward her at the same pace they had advanced on Ivy. It would only be seconds until they reached her.

“Ivy,” Rose said, the pain in her voice made Ivy want to do everything possible to help her, but she didn’t have a plan to stop the paladins.

“Wait!” Ivy shouted, but the paladins didn’t care. “You know you can’t catch me. Touch her and I disappear from here and slaughter your bishop.” The paladins halted. “You know he couldn’t stop me.”

Ivy was the one to advance forward now, holding her dagger extended out in front of her.

“Back up! Back!”

Surprisingly they obeyed, and Ivy sent them into the wall of the circular room before reaching Rose near the center where the furnace still burned bright.

The older witch looked up at her with tired, drooping eyes.

“Ivy,” she said, “I’m sorry.”

“Huh?”

“I should have seen this coming. I was just so…distracted.”

“This is my fault, Rose, I…I’ve…I don’t know what to—”

“I know. It’s okay. Just let’s get out of here, please.”

A metal footstep reached Ivy’s ears and she spun on her heel, dagger extended again.

“Back. Up.”

The paladin stopped, but did not return to his position on the far wall. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep this up. But Rose was bound so thoroughly and could probably not even walk with her injuries. There was basically zero chance of escaping with her. There was also zero chance Ivy would run away by herself. Which meant she had to take on a pair of paladins…

Suddenly the bracelet on her arm began to heat up. It grew to the point where it began to hurt, and she tried to wrest it from her arm when the demon spoke again.

Pour your strength into Elindreal’s Band, Ll'qixllin.

What the hell did that mean? She had never ‘poured’ her power into anything. It just sort of came and let her walk in the witch world. Yet still, she tried to do as the demon asked. It had wanted to kill the church bastards before, so it was probably trying to help. At least in some way.

The darkness swirling in her heart felt stronger than ever before, and it coursed through every fiber of her being. The church’s poison had left her entirely, and her strength yearned to be exerted. Keeping her blade leveled at the paladins she directed the flow of her power to coalesce at her wrist where the bracelet sat.

It heated to new levels of pain, but then drank it all in and cooled in an instant to an icy frost. It felt just as it had when the paladin’s had dosed her. The thing sucked up her power and left her with little left. The demon had betrayed her! It…no. That wasn’t it. Though the metal had taken her power, it more accepted it rather than stole it. The congealed strength inside the metal had purpose.

She reached for it and found just like the wellspring within her core, she could access the new, slightly altered magic. It’s use came to her in a vision from the demon.

A beautiful statuesque woman with waist-length flowing blonde hair stood atop the walls of a marble palace. She wore a suit of shining armor from her neck down. On her back rested a greatsword longer than Ivy was tall. She was alone until out of nowhere, a second, smaller dark haired woman appeared. This one had no armor at all, only a loose fitted black tunic and leggings with a oddly familiar dagger sheathed at her hip.

“My queen,” the blonde woman said, bowing her head.

Queen? Ivy’s own thoughts interrupted the scene. This woman looked nothing like royalty.

“Are you ready?” the queen asked.

“As I ever will be.”

The queen extended her arm, and once again, a very familiar sight came to Ivy’s perception. The blonde woman took hold of the bracelet around the queen’s wrist, and then both women disappeared.

The vision ended as quickly as it had come, leaving Ivy with more questions than answers. Thankfully the paladins were still holding their ground, but it wouldn’t last forever. Sooner or later someone would come to check on the progress of the interrogation and more paladins would be summoned. Ivy had to try whatever it was she had just seen.

“Rose,” she said, “hold on to my wrist.”

She lowered down to Rose’s restrained hand, putting the bracelet directly in reach. Rose frowned, but clasped around the metal.

“Aa!” Rose cried out. “It’s freezing!”

“Just…please.”

Rose gave it another squeeze, and everything fell into place. The modified power allowed her to take whoever touched it with her into the witch world. As soon as Rose grabbed it, the knowledge came to her. She understood it as certain as she knew how to call the power for herself. Simultaneously, she activated her own power and the strength stored within the bracelet, and the world warped around them. For the first time ever, when she looked at Rose from within the witch world, she saw her. As she should be. Her bonds were nothing in this place, and with a small adjustment, she pulled Rose free and then let go of her power.

When they resurfaced, they were no longer at the center of the room, but over by the corpses of the torturers.

“Ha!” Ivy said. “It actually worked.”

“Ivy,” Rose was staring at her with wide eyes. Wonder, and even reverence replaced the agony on her face. “how did you do that?”

“I don’t know, really. Kind of just happened.”

“Do you know what that place is?”

“Of course, I told you about it a long time ago.”

“Your description was…lacking.”

Ivy shrugged. She looked over the battered form of Rose.

“We can talk later. For now…”

The two paladins edging ever closer, thinking Ivy hadn’t been noticing all along.

“I don’t think I can move much on my own,” Rose said.

“Right.”

“And we also have to take him,” she waved a hand at the male prisoner.

“What? Why?”

“He tried to save us.”

“Huh?”

“Your prince’s man.”

Oh. Well…okay then. She draped half of Rose’s body over her shoulder and dragged her over to the male prisoner. Once within arm’s reach, Ivy brought both of their hands together around her bracelet and gave the paladins one last scornful look.

“I’m still going to kill your bishop,” she said, and then escaped into the witch world with her two dead weights in tow.