Chapter 3 - Deceive
He got stronger.
That was the worst part.
If he'd stayed useless, the fall might have hurt less.
***
Months after the tavern, people started looking at Ivander Ghede differently.
Not everyone. Not all at once. But enough.
The old centurion with the smashed-rock nose stopped sighing quite as loudly when he picked up a training sword. The other recruits stopped laughing every time Eric put him on the ground. Even his mother's gaze, when it passed over him in the yard, had a fraction less pity and a fraction more calculation.
He woke before dawn and drilled until his shirt stuck to his back. He ran the walls until his lungs burned. He did pushups in the corner of the yard long after everyone else had gone to wash or eat or find a warm body and a dark corner.
When he wanted to stop, he thought of Meid's hand on his head.
When that wasn't enough, he thought of Ivy's voice in the alley, saying:
Lose differently. Or get better and start winning.
He clung to that like it was a prayer.
Ivy became his illicit tutor.
Not in sword forms or shield drills. She didn't know those. But she knew people. Angles. How to see what someone wanted and how to give them just enough of it that they showed their throat.
She taught him how to read tells in a man's stance, how to see a punch coming from the way a shoulder tightened. How to use the edge of a table, the corner of a doorframe, the ground itself as extra limbs.
"How does this help me with a spear?" he'd asked, rubbing his bruised jaw after she'd swept his legs out from under him in the alley behind the tavern.
"You think in straight lines," she'd said. "Line up, march, stab. It'll get you k*lled. Learn to see sideways. Learn where it hurts more than people expect. It's the same in bed and in a fight, you know. No one is ready the first time if you go in from the wrong angle."
He'd gone red to his ears.
She'd cackled.
"You're cute when you blush," she'd said, and then, softly, "Don't stay cute. The world eats cute."
She never pushed him into her bed.
She didn't have to.
She sat too close sometimes. Laughed at his worst jokes. Let her fingers linger when she bound his knuckles after another session in the fighting pit. Told him things about herself that she didn't tell the men who groped at her apron ties.
Or at least, that's what he believed.
"I want out of here," she'd said once, lying on the rooftop tiles they'd climbed onto to watch the sun smear itself over the city. "This tavern. These men. This wall. I want roads. Forests. A river that doesn't smell like piss and coin."
"You can leave," he'd said. "Go north. East. My mother's legion—"
She'd snorted.
"I'm not walking into the arms of a general," she'd said. "No offence to your mother. I've done my time as a toy for men in bronze. Once was enough."
His stomach twisted.
"You–"
"Not like that," she said, rolling her eyes. "Not all of them at least. But enough. I serve drinks, I smile when I don't want to. I pretend to like hands that I want to break. Same branches on the same tree, Ivander. Just because no one forces themselves all the way in doesn't mean they aren't taking pieces."
He'd lain there, staring at the sky, and realised that of everyone in this polished-walled city, Ivy might understand something about what it felt like to exist because other people decided you were useful.
He told her things he didn't tell Eric.
About hating his brother and loving him at the same time. About the way Meid's hand still petted his head in dreams and then left. About standing in the ruins of the village and feeling like the ground had opened under his feet.
She listened.
Sometimes she made a rude joke to cut the weight.
Sometimes she just put her hand over his and squeezed once.
No gods. No promises. Just warmth.
Nikolia noticed first.
She always did.
"You smell like smoke and wine," she said one evening when he came in late, muscles aching, new bruises blooming. "And not the good kind of wine, either. Cheap tavern stuff. Where are you going?"
"Out," he said.
"With who?" she pressed.
"A friend."
"A girl friend?" she asked, eyes brightening viciously.
He hesitated just a fraction too long.
She grinned.
"Oh-ho," she said. "Mama, Eric. Ivander has a girl."
"Leave him," Eric said without looking up from the leather he was oiling. "He finally found something to keep him from punching walls. If it's a girl and not the walls, I approve."
Their mother's eyes flicked up.
She studied him for a moment.
"Be careful," she said simply. "Tavern girls come with knives. Sometimes in their skirts. Sometimes in their eyes."
He should have listened harder to that.
He didn't.
He was too busy clinging to the fact that for once in his life he had something that was his.
Not Meid's expectations. Not Eric's shadow. Not his mother's pity.
His.
***
The duel with Eric happened on a day like any other.
Which made it worse.
Sun high. Heat dancing off the packed dirt of the training yard. Recruits sweating through tunics. The smashed-nose centurion pacing with a stick, ready to crack knuckles that dropped shields too low.
"Pair up," she barked. "Shields and practice blades, full contact. If you break someone's nose, do it clean. If you put out an eye, I'll tan your hide for wasting talent."
Eric found Ivander without being asked.
They always gravitated to each other in these things. It was easier to be beaten by blood than by strangers.
"Try not to fall on your face this time," Eric murmured as they strapped on shields and took the blunted swords.
"Try not to get cocky and lose," Ivander murmured back.
Eric smirked.
They took their positions at opposite ends of the marked circle.
The centurion raised her arm.
Something strange happened then.
Ivander's heart was pounding. His palms were slick inside the grip. The usual chorus began in his head: you're slower, you're weaker, you'll lose, you always lose.
Then Ivy's voice slid in, over and under the noise:
Lose differently. Or get better and start winning.
He inhaled.
For once, he did not look at the sword in Eric's hand.
He looked at his brother's shoulders. At the way his weight sat just a little more on the right leg. At how he always, always led with a high slash, then a thrust, because that had worked on Ivander a hundred times before.
The centurion's arm dropped.
"Begin!"
Eric came in fast.
High slash, just as expected.
Ivander's shield met it with a solid thunk.
The impact jolted up his arm. He let it push him half a step back instead of bracing to stop it entirely.
Eric flowed into the thrust.
Ivander twisted, not away, but into the line of attack, shield turning to catch the blow and knock it off centre.
The wooden blade scraped his side, hard enough to bruise. But not clean. Not the usual stab in the gut that ended things.
Eric blinked.
Ivander saw the flicker of surprise and moved.
He stepped in, trying to crowd Eric's space, to turn the fight from a clean duel into something dirtier.
Eric recovered fast.
Of course he did.
He pivoted, brought his shield around, and slammed it toward Ivander's head.
Ivander ducked.
The edge of the shield caught his ear instead of his temple.
Pain burst hot.
He ignored it.
He let his own shield drop, just a little. Just enough.
Eric's eyes went there.
People always aimed where they thought the opening was.
Eric swung for the apparent weakness.
Ivander snapped his shield back up, caught the blow on the rim, and shoved.
Not straight back.
Sideways.
Eric's balance went.
It was tiny.
Half a foot.
But he'd never been off-balance with Ivander before.
Ivander felt something savage unfurl in his chest.
He followed the shove with a low kick to Eric's shin.
Not enough to break anything.
Enough to make the leg buckle.
Eric grunted.
He went down on one knee, shield arm dragging.
Ivander was already moving.
He stepped around, pivoted, and brought his blunt blade down in a clean, controlled arc that stopped a hair's breadth from Eric's bare neck.
The yard went quiet.
For a second, no one moved.
Sweat ran down Ivander's back. His arm trembled with the effort of holding the strike in check. A single drop of blood from his ear landed on the dust between them.
Eric stared up at him, eyes wide.
Then he laughed.
It wasn't cruel.
It wasn't bitter.
It was surprised and delighted and, weirdly, proud.
"About time," he said, dropping his sword and raising his free hand in surrender. "You devious bastard."
The centurion let out a sharp bark of what might have been laughter.
"Well, look at that," she said. "The tree that refused to grow straight finally found a way to lean on something useful. Again!"
There were a few chuckles.
One of the other recruits muttered, "Didn't think he had it in him."
Ivander lowered his sword.
He reached out a hand.
Eric took it and let himself be hauled to his feet.
They stood there, chests heaving, grins matching.
Ivander felt… light.
Light in a way he'd never felt before.
Not because he'd beaten his brother.
Because for once his body had done what he'd told it to do. Because he'd seen a path and actually walked it instead of falling over his own feet.
His mother had been watching from the shade.
He only realised when the centurion glanced her way.
She didn't clap.
She didn't shout.
She just nodded once.
Approval.
It hit harder than any praise could.
Later, when he was sitting on the steps outside the house, chest still warm with victory and ears still ringing, he saw Ivy coming up the street.
She wore her work clothes: rough skirt, fitted bodice, apron stained with things you didn't examine too closely. Her hair was tied back, a few strands loose around her face.
She saw him and raised a brow.
"You look smug," she said. "Did you finally beat an old woman at dice?"
"I beat Eric," he said.
Her eyes widened.
She whistled low.
"Ah. That explains the stupid light in your eyes," she said. "Congratulations. Did you remember to enjoy it or were you too busy thinking about how to apologise for winning?"
He opened his mouth to protest.
Closed it.
She laughed.
"Come on," she said. "Walk me to the market. You can tell me every detail in self-obsessed, boring fashion, and I'll nod and pretend to understand."
He walked.
He told her.
She did not pretend.
She asked sharp questions instead. Why he'd shifted his weight when he did. How he'd known Eric would go for the opening. What he'd felt when he realised he could actually choose something in a fight instead of just reacting.
"Good," she said at the end. "You cheated without breaking the rules. That's the sweet spot."
"It wasn't cheating," he said, half-heartedly.
"Of course it was," she replied. "You used knowledge he didn't know you had. You set a trap. You used his habits against him. That's all cheating is, dressed up in armour. Don't look so shocked. That's how people win."
They reached the market.
She turned to go.
He grabbed the moment before it could slip through his fingers like all the others had.
"Ivy," he said.
She paused.
He swallowed.
His heart was pounding harder than in the duel.
"I… want to be with you," he said. It sounded pathetic even as it left his mouth. "Not just… ally, or… punching bag. Properly. As–as–"
"As someone you're allowed to hold without paying first?" she suggested dryly.
He flinched.
"Yes," he said.
"And for how long?" she asked, eyes narrowing, though there was amusement there. "A night? A week? Until you decide you're too important for girls who smell like beer and stain remover?"
"Until you decide you're done with me," he blurted. "Or until I die. Whichever comes first."
She stared at him.
Then, slowly, she smiled.
Not the sly little tilt she gave patrons. A real, open grin that showed the slightly crooked tooth on the left he'd always liked.
"Finally," she said. "You ask, dummy."
His face went hot.
"So…?"
"So yes," she said. "I'll 'date' you. Stupid word. You'll walk me home and not try to push me into alleys unless I say so. You'll tell me when you win. You'll let me laugh when you lose. You'll listen when I say 'not tonight' and not sulk like a boy. You think you can handle that, hero?"
"I'm not a hero," he said.
"Not yet," she said. "But you're getting less useless. That's a start."
He wanted to kiss her.
He didn't.
Not yet.
They had time.
He believed that.
Idiot.
***
The first few weeks were almost good.
They didn't change his life overnight. The world still smelled like sweat and fear. The Empire still trampled what it wanted. His mother still came and went with the legion, Nikolia still teased, Eric still beat him more often than not in sparring.
But now there were small brightnesses spliced into the days.
Ivy leaning against the alley wall, eyebrow raised, when he came off duty. Ivy sneaking him stale bread and bits of sausage from the tavern kitchen. Ivy's hand in his under the table when some drunk regular started bragging about how he'd "teach her how to scream properly one night," and Ivander had to bite his tongue not to break a jaw and get banned.
He learned to read her moods better.
When she was joking.
When she was tired.
When she didn't want him to touch her, even if her smile said otherwise to the room.
He didn't always get it right.
He tried.
Sometimes, in the tiny room she rented above the tavern, with the walls too thin and the bed too narrow, she'd pull him down beside her and run her fingers along the scars on his ribs.
"Good," she'd murmur. "You're getting tougher. Less likely to break."
He'd trail his hand over the line of her hip, careful, reverent.
"You're too good for this place," he'd say.
She'd snort.
"No one is 'too good' for anything," she'd reply. "We just survive what we get dealt. Some of us cheat the dealer. That's all."
He thought he loved her.
He told her, once.
She rolled her eyes and told him he was confusing gratitude, lust, and the first time someone had really looked at him.
"Give it time," she'd said. "If you still feel it when I'm old and yelling at you for leaving your boots in the doorway, then we'll call it love. Until then, it's… nice."
He'd taken 'nice'.
He would have taken scraps.
He didn't notice the absences at first.
A late start here.
A missed meeting there.
Tavern patrons getting rowdier.
Rumours filtering through the camp of unrest in the city: gangs organising, foreign coin in the slums, someone whispering that certain officers might be worth taking hostage, if you could find the right leverage.
He didn't connect any of it to Ivy.
Why would he?
She was his.
His little bit of warmth carved out of a cold world.
Then she missed a whole night.
He went to the tavern.
She wasn't there.
The owner squinted at him.
"She's off," he said. "Said she had business. Don't worry, boy. She always comes back. The city doesn't let its dolls go easily."
Ivander waited in the alley behind the tavern until the moon crawled up the sky.
No Ivy.
He told himself she'd got stuck with friends. Or had found better coin somewhere. Or just didn't want to see him and hadn't bothered to send word.
He went home.
He didn't sleep.
The next day, he had drills. The centurion cracked his knuckles when his shield drooped.
"You're slower," she said. "Too much drinking, not enough thinking."
Nikolia cornered him in the hallway.
"You look like someone spat in your stew," she said. "Your girl break up with you?"
"No," he said. "She's just… busy."
"Hm," Nikolia said, unconvinced.
Eric watched him with that older-brother look that saw more than Ivander wanted to admit.
"If she hurts you," Eric said quietly, when they were side by side cleaning gear, "tell me. I may not be able to fix it, but I can help you not bleed alone."
Ivander shrugged him off.
He was fine.
He was always fine.
He had to be.
Weeks scraped by.
She met him again. She didn't explain.
He didn't ask.
He told himself he trusted her.
He told himself questions were for men who didn't understand how busy tavern life could be.
He lied to himself with the same desperate stubbornness he'd once spent on trying to draw a bow properly.
Then one evening she sent a message.
A kid ran up to him as he left the barracks, breathless.
"Girl with green eyes said to give you this," he panted, holding out a scrap of cloth with a smeared thumbprint in cheap wine. "Behind the old warehouse. Usual time."
He tossed the boy a coin.
His heart sped up.
He went.
The alley behind the warehouse was quiet.
Sky bruised purple overhead. Smell of rot from a nearby gutter.
He leaned against the wall and waited, fingers tapping his belt.
He didn't notice the man behind him until the cloth went over his mouth.
He had a fraction of a second to inhale.
Sharp, bitter, chemical stench flooded his head.
He tried to twist, throw an elbow, do any of the things Ivy had taught him.
Something hard cracked against the back of his skull.
The world tipped.
He fell into blackness kicking and clawing at nothing.
***
He woke to pain.
That was his first solid thought.
Head pounding. Jaw aching. Throbbing, pulsing hurt in his ribs, his shoulders, his wrists.
His wrists.
He tried to move them.
Rope bit into his skin.
He was tied to something. A post? A pillar? His shoulders screamed when he tested the bonds.
The room smelled like damp and old blood.
Not fresh blood.
Old.
Stale.
Worn-in.
He blinked, vision blurry, and tried to focus.
Stone walls. No windows. A single torch guttering in a bracket, throwing long, ugly shadows.
Three figures in front of him.
Two men. One woman.
He knew the woman.
"Ivy," he croaked.
His voice sounded wrong in his own ears.
She grinned.
It was not the grin she gave him on rooftops.
"My, my," she said. "You sleep like a log, don't you?"
His stomach turned.
"Why?" he managed. His tongue was thick. His throat tasted of bile and whatever they'd used to knock him out. "Why did you–"
"Do this?" she finished for him, tilting her head. "You really have to ask?"
She stepped closer.
She looked different here. Same green eyes. Same mouth. But the way she held herself was sharper. Less shrug, more knife.
"We had a look at your mother," she said conversationally. "Not just the way you talk about her. Her actual record. Campaign lists. Reports. She's been very busy, hasn't she? Very successful. Almost every assignment: village pacified, border held, rebellion crushed. A good little Empire hound."
He swallowed.
"What does that–"
"Mean?" Ivy smiled. "It means she's valuable. And valuable people attract enemies. Enemies look for leverage. Sons. Daughters. Lovers. That sort of thing."
His skin went cold.
"You–"
"Naive, naive, naive Ivander," she said, almost sing-song. "You're nothing. But you're connected to someone who isn't. That makes you… something. For a little while."
The two men behind her shifted.
They weren't tavern thugs.
Not just thugs, anyway.
One had the bearing of a deserter: hair cropped in the old legion style, scars on his hands where a shield strap would have rubbed. The other had foreign tattoos crawling up his neck, eyes flat and unreadable.
"State of the Empire, dear," Ivy went on. "Your mother helps crush locals who don't want to pay taxes for a war three valleys over. We just… play on the other side of the board. Don't pout. Someone had to use you for something. You weren't managing it yourself."
He felt sick.
All those nights. All those talks. All the little pieces of himself he'd handed over, thinking he was finally worth something to someone.
"For how long?" he asked dully. "Since the beginning?"
She shrugged.
"Does it matter?" she asked. "You got what you wanted. Motivation. Sex. Someone to listen to you whine about your brother. You helped me get close to certain information. We both took what we needed."
His vision blurred.
He bit his cheek until he tasted blood and forced the world back into focus.
"I… loved you," he said.
Ivy rolled her eyes.
"You loved the idea of someone looking at you like you weren't expendable," she said. "That's not the same. Don't make it bigger than it was."
The man with the legion scars stepped forward.
"You said he'd be quieter," he grunted. "If you're done, let's get to the point."
"Of course," Ivy said, stepping aside.
She clicked her tongue.
"Torture him," she said.
The word should have sounded theatrical.
It didn't.
It just dropped into the air like a stone into a well.
Ivander's heart slammed.
"Wait–" he started.
The deserter's fist hit his stomach.
Air exploded out of his lungs.
He doubled over as far as the rope allowed, gasping.
The second blow caught his ribs.
He heard something crack.
Pain flared white-hot.
He couldn't stop the noise that escaped him.
He tried not to scream.
He really did.
He'd imagined this, in the back of his mind, in the stories recruits told each other when they were trying to scare themselves more than the enemy. He'd always thought he'd be able to grit his teeth, bear it in silence, spit in the torturer's face like heroes in songs.
Reality stripped that away in seconds.
The deserter knew exactly where to hit to make things hurt without breaking too fast. Body shots. Kicks to the thighs. A slap across the face when his eyes started to unfocus, sharp enough to bring him back.
"You want to send a message," the man said over his blows. "You don't kill the hostage. You hurt him where it shows. Then you let him stagger back to camp and everyone sees what happens if certain people don't start listening."
Ivy leaned against the wall, arms folded.
She watched with detached interest.
No pleasure.
No disgust.
Just… assessment.
Ivander tasted blood more than once.
His left eye started to close.
His shoulder felt wrong.
"Stop," he croaked at one point. "Please."
The deserter paused.
Looked back at Ivy.
"See?" Ivy said, pushing off the wall and walking toward Ivander. "That's the problem. Right there."
She came close.
Too close.
She leaned in until he could smell her: smoke, cheap soap, the faint sweet under-note he'd always associated with her skin.
"You always ask nicely," she whispered in his ear. "Ask to be taken. Ask to be used. Ask to be hurt less. You never take anything. That's why you're pathetic."
He swallowed a sob.
He hated himself for it.
"Was… any of it real?" he forced out. "Anything you said. Anything we… did. Was any of it… you?"
She smiled.
It was very gentle.
"'Real' is a stupid word," she said. "Did I laugh when you made that joke about the centurion's nose? Yes. Did I like the way your hands shook the first time I undressed in front of you? Yes. Did I care more than I should about whether you got yourself killed in those pit fights before we were done with you? Maybe."
Her fingers brushed his bruised cheek.
Then she slapped him, sharp and fast.
His head snapped to the side.
"Does that make it a romance?" she asked. "No. It makes it… complicated. People are like that, Ivander. We use each other and feel things at the same time. Shocking, I know."
She leaned in closer, lips almost brushing his ear.
"You tell me," she murmured, just loud enough for him to hear over the roaring in his ears. "Was it real? Or were you just so desperate to be seen that any attention felt like love?"
The deserter's fist drove into his kidney.
Pain like a hot knife ripped through him.
He screamed.
He couldn't help it.
His throat tore on the sound.
"You are beyond pathetic," Ivy said, and there was something almost like anger in it now. "If your brother was as stupid and pathetic as you, he'd have been an even better hostage. At least he's worth something on his own."
That hurt more than the blows.
Eric.
They'd considered Eric.
He gagged, stomach trying to spit up nothing.
They kept working him over.
He lost track of time.
It might have been an hour.
It might have been ten minutes.
He hung in the ropes like a piece of meat, every breath a battle. His thoughts skittered when he tried to hold them. His world shrank to pain, rope, the torch's flicker, Ivy's voice and the deserter's methodical rhythm.
He didn't hear the first crash.
Or rather, he heard it and his brain filed it away as just another noise in the orchestra of his suffering.
He only reacted when the deserter stopped mid-swing.
When all three of his captors looked toward the door.
A shout.
Steel on steel.
Another shout, in a voice Ivander knew like his own heartbeat.
"GET AWAY FROM HIM!"
Eric.
There was a blur of motion.
The door slammed back against stone.
Torchlight jolted.
For a second, Ivander saw his brother through his good eye: hair damp with sweat, chest heaving, training sword in one hand, stolen shield in the other. Armour thrown on in a hurry.
Behind him, the smashed-nose centurion with a real blade and murder in her gaze.
"Ivander," Eric said, and something broke in his voice.
The deserter moved.
Eric met him with a shield slam that would have made Meid nod once and grunt approval.
Ivander's vision swam.
He saw flashes.
Ivy darting back, knife in hand, eyes suddenly wary where before they'd been amused.
The centurion's blade catching the tattooed man's arm.
Someone's blood spraying the wall.
Eric's boot on a throat.
The sound of bone cracking.
The world tilted.
Someone cut the rope at his wrists.
He fell.
Hands caught him before he hit the floor.
Eric.
He knew from the smell of sweat and leather and the barely controlled shaking in the arms that wrapped around him.
"Ivander," Eric said again, closer now. "Hey. Stay with me. Stay with me, you idiot. Gods, you look like shit."
Ivander tried to laugh.
It came out as a wet cough.
"She… used me," he mumbled. His tongue felt too big. His lips weren't cooperating. "I'm… stupid."
Eric's grip on him tightened.
"Yeah," Eric said, voice rough. "You are. You're the stupidest, kindest, most trusting bastard I've ever known. We'll fix that. Later. Right now you're going to breathe."
Footsteps.
Voices.
He thought he heard Ivy's name shouted.
Thought he heard the centurion curse that she'd slipped through someone's fingers like smoke.
He didn't see her leave.
He didn't see anything except Eric's face, pale with fury and terror.
Ivander tried to say something more.
An apology. A joke. A promise he wouldn't make again—
His body had had enough.
The edges of the world went dark.
As he slid under, one last, bitter thought curled up in his chest like a dying animal:
I really am beyond pathetic. I needed to be beaten half to death to see the most obvious lie in my life.
Then there was nothing.