Iveriani

Every hair on Ivy's body stood on end when she read out the name written in a delicate, flowing script. At the foot of her bed, sitting atop the tattered, rumpled covers, a plain white envelope stared back at her. Her instincts screamed at her to go searching for whoever had left it there, but her eyes could only focus on that damn name of hers.

Her clenched fists threatened to draw blood as her nails dug deep into the flesh of her palms. She could count on one hand the people who knew that name. And only one would be able to find her. The stalker that she had been hunting for days all but left her mind. Unless...could he have been the one to give her the letter? Actually, everything made more sense in the case that he was working for Rose.

She gritted her teeth and snatched up the letter, almost tearing it to pieces the second it touched her hands, but managed to push down her anger. A year wasn’t enough to forgive Rose, but maybe—maybe—Ivy could hear her out. But if there was even the slightest bit of bullshit justification written in here, she’d throw it straight into the…she turned, eying the dead fireplace.

A shiver ran down her spine from the cold more than anything else, but the letter didn’t help. A few moments later, she had a small fire burning, and once again nearly destroyed the letter without consideration. Instead, she dragged the lone chair in the room over to the flames and sat.

For a good while she just glared at her name penned in such a beautiful line and curves that Ivy could never match. Rose had taught her letters years ago, and Ivy sighed remembering those days. A scowl on her face, she flipped over the letter and found a peculiar blot of red wax sealing the envelope. The shape of a four triangular-petaled flower had been sunk into the wax. It didn’t match anything Ivy recognized. Rose didn’t use any emblem that Ivy knew of, and it didn’t belong to Armond nor Virian.

She ripped open the seal and unfolded the letter within.

Iveriani,

I apologize it took so long for me to find you. I seem to have grown a bit complacent in my old age. Nevertheless, I hope this letter finds you well. I know this is strange, and I would approach in person, but that has proven to be problematic in the past. I want to meet, if you will agree to it. Therefore, I request your presence within the sovereign palace of Rhune, at your leisure.

-First Chair and Regent, her Majesty Angelica Rhune

Ivy blinked, her eyes scanning over the words a second time. First, getting knocked on her ass in the snow, and now this? How many more times would she be caught off guard in this strange, church-less city? Her body had still not fully recovered from the bruises she had earned in her encounter with the man who had been following her, and she frowned every time she saw the nearly healed gash on her nose. Yet this letter was all the more troubling.

She could almost believe it was from Rose the whole way through, until, of course, the signature at the bottom. That had dispelled all of Ivy’s assumptions. What could the royalty of Rhune possibly want with her?

It could be as simple as a trap. The stalker might have reported her impossible movement when she had held him at knifepoint. She read the letter again. And again. No. Why go through the trouble of this ridiculous invitation in that case? It would have been better not to announce themselves. She read the letter one more time.

The fact that her full name had been used kept nagging at her. That first line of the letter taunted her.

Iveriani

How much did this woman know? Other than her identity as a witch, Ivy’s full name was one of the last things she’d expect anyone to know about her. Her thoughts drifted back to Rose, trying to find a connection. It was possible, of course. Rose had lived for centuries. She probably had connections across the continent. Her involvement with Ivy was relatively recent, yet there had been years for her to send information to Rhune. It was the most likely explanation.

Yet that didn’t mean much. Rose had admitted to being associated with an archbishop of the church at one point. Ivy had no idea how the royalty of Rhune fit into anything. There was no sense walking into whatever they had planned for her. Right? Right.

She spent the rest of the day pacing her room, periodically picking up the letter and reading it again. The next two she sat stewing in inaction. Upon waking on the fourth day since receiving the letter, she sprung out of bed, read the damn thing one last time, and tossed it into the dying embers of her fire. On the fifth day, she sifted through the ashes in vain, trying to recover any bit of it.

“Damnit!” she yelled; hands blackened by soot. “Fine! You win! I can’t help myself.”

She had all but forgotten about the stalker and his humiliation of her and stormed out of her inn, headed for the center of the city. The palace could be seen from most anywhere within the confines of Rhune’s walls, its golden-tipped, rounded spires reaching up to match the snow-capped mountains in the background. While the great northern range was only miles away, the cityscape rested on a flat plain just before the foothills.

Her darkened mood brightened significantly on her walk through the streets. A part of her always knew she’d answer the summons, if for nothing else, then just for something to do. Back in Atrican, she had always had something she was working toward. Since leaving, she had a goal but had been mostly aimless. Finally, it felt like she might get somewhere, wherever that might be.

Wrapped up in her little bear fur outfit, the weather could even be called pleasant despite the biting chill this far north. The last snow had been several days ago, and it still covered everything, but paths had been cut for travel. With a set path ahead and a beautiful wintry city stroll, Ivy smiled for the first time in weeks.

It took a couple of hours to reach the palace gates from her inn, and by then the sun hung high overhead, the snow’s blinding reflection hitting her from all sides. Two fully fur-covered guards stood beside an open iron-barred gate set into a ten-foot-high stone wall. She expected to be stopped or questioned, but neither said a word to her as she passed under the wall into a frozen courtyard.

The cleared path led straight ahead and around a central iced-covered dormant fountain, and up to a set of double doors. Two more guards were leaning against the gray stone exterior of the castle here, chatting away. One straightened up as Ivy approached.

“What’s your business?” he asked.

“I uh,” Ivy stammered, “have an audience with the queen?”

“You have a summons?”

“I did but it’s…gone.”

The guard raised one eyebrow at her, just barely visible beneath his winter clothing.

“General petitions are just through here, take the first right, then a left.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“…good luck.”

He opened one of the doors for her, and she slipped inside to a slightly warmer climate but did not shed any clothing just yet. She tried to follow the guard’s directions, but almost immediately ran into a throng of people crowding the first hallway she turned down. They were all standing around, not accomplishing much of anything.

Ivy, not bothering to investigate the holdup, started to push through and past the loiterers until a strong grip encircled her wrist. She just about cut the offending appendage clean off, but when her free hand went to retrieve her dagger, she remembered that it rested beneath her furs. Before leaving she had stowed it away, assuming it would not be allowed in the palace.

“Where da ya think yer goin’?” a hoarse voice attached to the arm restraining her said.

Her eyes traveled up the man’s arm to his fur-covered torso and hooded head. Deep lines crinkled around his eyes that belied his age, but his frame could be compared to Armond’s. The grip on her arm might as well be a steel manacle for all she could do about it. She set her jaw, not wanting to cause a scene for now.

“I’m looking to make a petition to the queen.”

He laughed, a barking, growling thing.

“Ya and tha rest of us, lass!”

The realization of the reason behind the mass of waiting people hit Ivy like a cruel joke. She hissed through her teeth and shook her arm, but he did not release her.

“Let. Go.”

“I dun mean ta hurt ya,” he loosened his grip, “but—”

The second his fingers left her arm she called out to the witch world. Dizzying colorless lines blurred all around her, and for a moment she considered forcing her way to the queen, but so far, she had not earned any ill-will in Rhune yet. She’d wait till tomorrow.

The trip back to her inn took a fraction of the time it did to get there traversing the distance in the witch world despite not knowing the city that well. She took several branching pathways that led her astray, but in no time at all, she found herself dropping into her bed and...waiting. And waiting.

She dozed off at some point, waking with the dark of night still overhead. A quick rinse of her face from the basin of stale water later, she donned her furs and headed out. With plenty of time to spare, she opted for the longer route, saving her power in case it became necessary once inside the palace. She couldn’t make out the towers in the dead of night, but she remembered the general direction well enough.

By the time she reached the gates, a small crack of morning light shined on the horizon, and…there was already a huge line outside the gate.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said to no one in particular.

Someone off to her right chuckled at her misfortune.

“Palace doesn’t turn anyone away, but…they don’t turn anyone away.”

Ivy buried her face in her hands. There was no way she was going to wait through this. Why did they not have some way of filtering petitions? The corner of her lip curled upward as she imagined Virian dealing with hundreds of civilians coming to see him every day. It only lasted a moment though, bitterness corrupting her thoughts of him.

Once the blue sky of dawn dominated the majority of the skies, the gates were opened. Ivy was waiting for this moment and took a single step into her power before letting it go. The witch world only flashed before her, and she had repositioned herself near the front of the line in an instant.

The people around her offered up a strange look, but with everyone in furs, it was hard to tell anyone apart, and she had seemingly come from nowhere, so she had to have been there all along. No one complained about her presence.

She followed the others in front of her, ending up third in line once they made their way through the front doors and down the corridors leading to the audience hall. She hadn’t noticed it last time due to her frustration, but now, sitting in line and waiting, she got a chance to look around.

The palace of Rhune put Atrican’s to shame. Every inch of the floor was covered in lush multicolored carpets that gave way under her boots. The walls were lined with tapestries and beautiful gold-framed paintings the like she had never seen before. Marble sculptures of animals and people sat on pedestals all through the corridors. Everywhere she looked oozed wealth and culture. It reminded her of…Rose’s room in Atrican.

“Next!” A voice called out from the audience chamber, and Ivy put aside her observations for the moment.

She stepped into a small square room, its perimeter covered in shelves of scrolls and tomes. At its center sat a man maybe in his forties, a pair of spectacles on his eyes, pouring over some document on his desk.

“Grievance, mercy, or aid?” the man asked without looking up.

“What?” Ivy said.

The man adjusted his glasses and rolled his eyes up at her.

“Why are you here?”

Ivy almost flinched at how much ice there was in his tone. He did not want to hear the people’s problems.

“I’m supposed to meet the queen,” Ivy said, keeping her voice even. For now.

Finally, the man stopped scribbling over his document and sat up straight.

“You’ve been issued a royal summons?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He just sat there staring at her.

“Well?”

Ivy kicked at the carpeted floor with her right foot.

“I…lost it.”

The man let out a mocking laugh. She gave him her best "I'm about to stab you" glare, but he didn't appear to notice her growing frustration. Or didn't care.

“Of course you did. So, pray tell, what did her majesty want of you?”

“It. Didn’t. say.” Each word came out through her clenched jaw.

“Uh huh, perhaps you have a guess?”

“I…don’t.”

He threw up his hands, quill still between thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

“Then I don’t know how you expect me to help you.”

Ivy’s anger began to boil in her chest, heating her from head to toe. She pulled down the cloth mask shielding her nose and mouth from the cold and threw back her fur hood. Her now freed, shimmering dark hair tumbled around her face as she nearly shook with rage.

“Listen to me, you pompous ass. Your liege lord personally summoned me to meet her ‘at my leisure.’ You get it? What do you think she will do when you are named the one responsible for interfering with her wishes?”

The man only narrowed his eyes and then sighed.

“Ah, I see. Please wait here a moment.”

Huh? That worked? Ivy stood dumbfounded as the man rose from his seat, strode to the back of the room, and disappeared through a narrow slit in the far corner that she hadn’t noticed beyond the mess of documents. She waited for at least half an hour, twiddling her thumbs and tapping her feet. There was plenty to read all around her, but she had little interest in the legal proceedings of Rhune. Eventually, she heard footsteps approaching from the opening where the man had left.

He returned to his desk, sat, and held out an arm toward the pathway.

“The queen will see you now.”

“Right,” Ivy said, “good.”

She moved slowly at first, watching the man who was back to his quill and ink, ignoring her completely. What a strange person. Once she had left his room, she found herself in a tight, unadorned hallway wide enough for only one that snaked around in a shallow curve until it hit a spiraling stairway. A guard waited for her at the bottom of the steps and nodded to her.

“This way, please,” he said.

Ivy followed him up the never-ending stairs that ended at an iron-wrought door just as she began to run out of breath. She had no idea how the guardsmen made the same trip in armor and holding his spear. He opened the door for her and gestured inside.

Sure. She gulped in another big breath of air and stepped beyond. The guard immediately shut it behind her. Before her were a dozen more armed guards along a now too-wide hallway that led to an arched double door, gilded with gold. Off to her left another corridor led off to somewhere else in the castle. She shrugged. It was obvious where she was supposed to go.

As she passed each pair of guardsmen, they fell into step behind her, the final pair opening the door to the throne room. All twelve men followed in behind her and slammed the portal shut. They took their places around her at the edge of a great gallery, packed with more opulence than she had ever seen before. The rest of the palace had been showing off Rhune’s wealth, and here was the pinnacle of it all.

The rugs at her feet were so plush her feet sunk into them like a feather mattress. Pure golden chandeliers hung from the ceiling, sparking with diamonds. Along a purple carpeted path leading to the far side of the chamber, gleaming silver shoulder-height candelabras blazed with fiery light despite the morning sun streaming in from floor-to-ceiling stained glass on either side. Every inch of the walls were covered in tapestry or paintings. Not a single speck of the castle’s gray stone was visible. Ivy scanned the artwork, and curiously they were all paintings of various women.

The purple stream of a rug ended where a set of four wide stairs led up to a raised dais of swirling violet marble. The throne rose directly out of the ground made of the same dazzling stone. Atop it sat a middle-aged woman with auburn hair, streaks of gray throughout.

Not a witch, then. A part of Ivy hoped that if she was Rose’s associate as Ivy had suspected, then maybe…just maybe. But no.

“Welcome,” the woman said, her voice carrying the distance from where she sat to the entrance where Ivy was still staring at the overkill of wealth. It was strange really. It felt like this was such a waste, yet she had not seen much poverty in the city, either.

She made her way to the center of the room and stared up at the regent of Rhune.

“Are you Angelica?” she asked.

She heard the guards shifting around her, probably uncomfortable with her lack of respect for their lord’s title.

“I am.”

“So what do you want, then?”

The queen smiled widely.

“You.”

Ivy tensed, as did the guards around her. They were meaningless against her power though, if she had to escape.

“What does that mean?”

“I know why you are here,” Angelica said, “and what you are.”

Ivy slipped a hand into her furs, gripping her dagger hidden beneath.

“Speak plainly, queen.”

“Very well.” She stood from her throne and took a step forward. “I know you are a witch.”

Ivy let the witch world embrace her, dagger in hand.