Chapter 4 - Ew
Ivander didn't remember the walk home.
One moment he was hanging from ropes, tasting blood and Ivy's perfume.
The next he was on his pallet in the upstairs room, staring at the ceiling beam while pain pulsed through him in slow, stupid waves.
They'd set his ribs. Wrapped his chest. The healer had pressed his fingers along Ivander's side until Ivander saw stars, then nodded and said, "Nothing punctured. Lucky."
Lucky.
Right.
He turned his head.
Nikolia was sitting on the floor by the wall, knees pulled up, chin on them. Her dark braid was messy, her eyes red.
She stared at him like he'd grown a second head.
"…what?" he rasped.
She jerked, startled, then scowled.
"Ew," she said. "You're awake. You look disgusting."
He gave a short, humourless breath that might have been a laugh.
"I feel worse," he said.
She stood up, stalking over to the door.
"Mama said not to bother you," she said. "So I'm going to listen and not bother you. But if you die, I'll be very mad. Because then I did all that for nothing."
He blinked.
"All… what?" he asked.
She paused, hand on the latch.
"Nothing," she said.
She slipped out and shut the door behind her.
He stared at the ceiling again.
His body hurt too much to move.
His mind hurt more.
***
He locked the door as soon as he could stand.
The next day, maybe. Or the one after. Time blurred into a smear of wells and waves.
He ignored the knocking.
At first it was light. Nikolia's fist, polite taps.
"Ivander?" she'd call. "You need food. I stole honey-bread from the neighbour."
He'd stay silent, waiting for her to go away.
Later, Eric's heavier knock joined hers.
"Ivander," he'd say. "You don't get to hide forever. That's my job. I'm the dramatic one."
No answer.
They left food by the door.
Sometimes he ate it. Sometimes he didn't.
The first time he tried to stand properly, his knees gave out. He ended up on the floor, cheek pressed to the boards, breath hissing between his teeth.
His body remembered every blow Ivy's men had thrown.
His skin remembered Ivy's fingers brushing his bruised cheek before she slapped him.
He rolled onto his back and stared at the tiny cracks in the plastered ceiling.
"I'm pathetic," he said aloud.
The word didn't echo.
It just sat there, heavy, clogging his chest.
He laughed.
It came out wrong. Wet. Shaky.
He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, harder and harder until little sparks flashed behind his eyelids.
He saw Meid's hand ruffling his hair.
He saw Ivy's mouth next to his ear, whispering, you tell me, you are beyond pathetic.
He saw his father walking out the cottage door again, turning into the glow of burning huts.
His shoulders shook.
He made a noise he'd never heard from himself before.
Ugly. Raw. Pulled up from somewhere under his ribs, where the healer's fingers had probed and said "lucky."
He didn't feel lucky.
He felt hollowed out.
He cried.
Not little, dignified tears.
He sobbed, full-body, choking on snot and air and shame, trying to muffle the sounds with his arm and failing.
He cried for Meid, who'd died while he was hiding in a lodge.
He cried for Eric, who had to keep saving him like he was a child.
He cried for Nikolia, who'd been born into a world where her mother commanded men who killed people like their father and her brothers belonged to both tribes and neither.
He cried because Ivy had seen the worst of him and decided it was something she could use.
He cried because he'd let her.
He cried until he had nothing left and lay there shaking, chest aching under the bandages.
Outside, the house was quiet.
Then he heard it.
His name.
Soft.
"Ivander."
He sniffed, wiping his face on his sleeve, and turned his head toward the wall.
Eric didn't knock this time.
He just leaned his back against the other side of the plaster and spoke low, like they were lying in the woods together on some childhood hunt.
"I know you think you're not enough," Eric said. "You've been thinking that since we were small enough to both fit on Father's lap."
Ivander swallowed.
"I… am not," he managed.
"So long as you believe that," Eric said, "no one will be able to be enough for you either. You won't let them. You'll scrape yourself raw trying to earn what you already had."
Ivander frowned into the pillow.
"…what?" he muttered.
"Our love," Eric said, simply. "Mine. Father's. Nikolia's. Even Mother's, in her stupid, sideways way. We're not good at saying it. We're terrible at showing it. But it's there. Has been. You were just too busy hating yourself to see it."
Ivander squeezed his eyes shut.
"That's not true," he whispered.
"It is," Eric said. "I watched you throw yourself into training trying to become someone worth keeping, when you already were. I watched you treat a girl's crumbs of attention like a feast, because you thought that was all you deserved."
The words hit like blows.
Not like the deserter's fists.
Like something sharper.
"You're… lecturing me now?" Ivander croaked. "When I can barely move?"
"Yes," Eric said. "Because if I wait until you can move, you'll run away, and I don't feel like chasing you through the whole damned city."
Ivander snorted, a wet, broken sound.
Silence.
He heard Eric breathe.
"I didn't get to Father in time," Eric said quietly. "I'll carry that until I die. I refuse to carry you dying in front of me too because you decided some tavern whore's opinion counts more than ours."
"I loved her," Ivander said, the words falling out before he could stop them.
"I know," Eric replied. "It happens. People love badly. People love the wrong ones. People get used. That doesn't make you uniquely pathetic. It makes you human."
He paused.
"And there's something else," he added. "Nikolia saw them take you."
Ice slid down Ivander's spine.
"…what?"
"She followed you," Eric said. "She's small and nosy. When you went out to meet Ivy, she tailed you. She saw them grab you. She couldn't fight three grown men, but she could run. She ran straight to the centurion and told her where. That's how we found you before they took your fingers or your eyes."
Ivander's breath caught.
"She… never said," he whispered.
"Of course she didn't," Eric said. "She's like us. She'll wait until the worst possible moment to tell you she loves you. I'm telling you now because I don't want you building a shrine to your suffering in there."
Ivander pressed his hand to his mouth.
Nikolia, small and sharp, trailing him like a shadow. Nikolia, watching him get dragged into a doorway. Nikolia, legs pumping as she sprinted for help.
His chest hurt in a different way.
"For what it's worth," Eric said, voice softer, "I don't think you're pathetic."
"That's because you're an idiot," Ivander muttered.
"Yes," Eric said promptly. "Your idiot. Unfortunately."
Something in Ivander's throat loosened.
He let out a shaky breath.
On impulse, he slid down off the pallet until his back hit the wall, mirroring where he imagined Eric was sitting on the other side.
He felt the faintest vibration through the plaster as Eric shifted too.
They stayed like that for a while.
Breathing.
Not talking.
Not fixing anything.
Just… existing with the thin barrier between them.
It was the closest he'd felt to not being alone since the village.
***
He didn't magically get better.
There were no divine epiphanies.
No moment where he woke up and thought, I am healed now. Time to become a hero.
But the crying jag burnt something out of him.
And Eric's words left something else behind.
A raw, sore place that might, just might, grow into something harder.
He spent the week inside.
He traced every ugly memory with obsessive care. Every mistake. Every blind spot.
Every time he'd let someone else define his worth.
At some point, the disgust shifted.
It was still there.
Just… no longer pointed outward at the world, or inward at some vague sense of brokenness.
It focused.
Ew, he thought, remembering how he'd clung to Ivy's every word, every touch. Look at you. Hungry dog. Begging for scraps and calling it a feast.
He didn't like that version of himself.
He didn't want to be him again.
Revenge crept in, not as fire, but as a slow, cold thing.
Not just on Ivy.
On the part of himself that had made her possible.
***
The house noticed when he came out.
He opened his door on the eighth day.
Morning light stabbed his eyes. His body complained about every movement. His ribs ached under their wrappings. His face was mottled with yellow and purple, the worst of the bruises fading into ugly stains.
Nikolia almost ran into him.
She froze.
Her eyes went wide.
"You're up," she said. "Ew."
He frowned.
"What does 'ew' mean this time?" he asked.
"You stink," she said. "And your face looks like someone tried to paint it with rotten plums."
"Someone did," he said. "Several someones."
Her mouth twisted.
"You're stupid," she said.
"You're short," he replied.
She launched herself at him.
For a heartbeat he flinched, body tensing, expecting another blow.
It wasn't.
She wrapped her arms around his middle, as far as they reached, and squeezed.
He winced.
"Careful," he grunted. "Ribs."
"Should've thought about that before you let yourself get beaten half to death," she sniffed, but she loosened her grip.
He hesitated, then rested his chin on top of her head.
"You followed me," he said.
She stiffened.
"You heard," she muttered.
"Yes," he said. "Thank you."
She shoved him away immediately.
"Ew," she said again, face red. "Don't say things like that, it's gross."
"Gratitude is gross?" he asked.
"Yes," she said firmly. "Feelings are gross. Especially yours."
She stalked past him down the stairs.
He smiled.
It hurt his split lip.
He didn't care.
In the main room, Eric and their mother were at the table with the centurion. Papers lay between them. A map. A list.
They all turned when he walked in.
Eric's chair scraped back so fast it nearly fell over.
"You're upright," he blurted.
"Yes," Ivander said.
His mother's eyes scanned him, cataloguing injuries, posture, the way he held himself.
"You took your time," she said. "Thought we'd have to break the door."
"I considered it," he said. "Seemed like it would just make more work to fix the door after."
The centurion snorted.
"There he is," she said. "The boy with too many thoughts and too few good ideas."
Ivander looked at the map on the table.
Lines like scars across land.
Little carved tokens marking legions, roads, supply lines.
"I want in," he said.
His mother raised a brow.
"In what?" she asked.
"The legion," he said. "Properly. Not just as your pity project in the back yard. I want to sign up."
Eric blew out a breath.
"You almost died," he said. "Now you want to go somewhere you'll probably die for real?"
"Yes," Ivander said.
"Ew," Nikolia said from the doorway, biting into stolen bread. "Men are so stupid."
His mother's mouth tightened.
"Why?" she asked.
He could have said: Because I want to protect you. Because I want to keep you from having to rescue me again. Because I want to kill Ivy with my own hands. Because I hate myself and this is the only way I know to make that useful.
All true.
None helpful.
"Because I'm tired of existing on the edge of things," he said instead. "If I'm going to be used, I'd rather choose who gets to use me. If I'm going to be beaten, I'd rather it be in a line where the man next to me takes the hit too."
The centurion studied him.
"He's still too soft," she said.
"Yes," his mother agreed.
They both kept looking.
"But soft things harden," the centurion added grudgingly. "Some of them, anyway. If you put them through the right fire."
"I will," Ivander said.
"'You will' what?" she asked.
He met her eyes.
"Get harder," he said. "Get better. Not by talent. I know I don't have that. By not stopping."
Silence stretched.
Eric opened his mouth.
Their mother lifted a hand, stopping him.
"You will not be assigned to my cohort," she said. "I won't have people whispering that you rose because of my name. I won't have you thinking every order is love and every punishment is hate."
He nodded.
"I understand," he said.
"You'll go with the Third," she said, tapping the map. "Front line. Boring. Hard. You'll carry shields until your arms fall off. You'll march until your feet bleed. You'll dig ditches until your back wants to snap. You'll be surrounded by men who don't care about your feelings, only whether you hold the line."
"Good," he said.
She tilted her head.
"Eric goes too," she added.
Eric jerked.
"What?" he said.
She shrugged.
"You think I'm letting you two idiots go off in different directions?" she asked. "At least this way, when one of you does something stupid, the other can shout about it. You'll both sign. Together."
Eric looked at Ivander.
"I'm not doing this because of you," he said.
"Yes, you are," Ivander said.
"Yes, I am," Eric sighed.
Nikolia made a face.
"Ew," she said for the third time. "Brotherly love. It smells worse than the latrines."
"Don't worry," Ivander said. "You'll miss it when we're gone."
Her face crumpled for a second.
Then she threw the crust of bread at him and ran back upstairs.
Their mother leaned back.
"Once you sign, you belong to them," she said, voice flat. "Not to me. Not to yourself. To the legion. They will feed you, clothe you, beat you, maybe bury you. You still want that?"
Ivander thought of Ivy's grin as she said you're nothing.
He thought of Meid's hand on his head, saying we'll get it next time.
He thought of Nikolia's arms around his ribs, careful of the bruises.
"Yes," he said. "At least this way I break myself for something bigger than someone else's pocket."
His mother regarded him for a long moment.
Then she nodded.
"Fine," she said. "You want to be soldiers? Then start training like ones. Properly. Enough playing at it in the yard. You have a month before the next levy march. If you collapse on the road, they'll leave you in a ditch. I'm not digging you out."
The centurion smiled, all teeth.
"Oh, we're going to have fun," she said.
***
Those words sound clean.
They weren't.
There was nothing clean about it.
The centurion started by breaking down what Ivander thought he knew.
"You hold your shield like it's a favourite toy," she said, slapping the rim with her stick. "Stop cuddling it. It's a wall. You are part of the wall. You are not special."
She took his sword away.
"Until you can stand for an hour with your shield up without shaking, you don't need a blade," she said. "You'll only drop it and get someone else killed."
He stood.
He held the shield.
His shoulder burned. His wrist screamed. Sweat ran down his back.
He thought of Ivy's men taking turns hitting him, how he hadn't been able to block a single blow.
He held the shield higher.
When his arm started to tremble, the centurion smacked it with the stick.
"Up," she said.
He gritted his teeth.
He held.
When he dropped it, she knocked his legs out and made him get up again.
"You think the enemy will give you time to catch your breath?" she snapped. "They won't. They'll put a spear through your belly while you're wheezing."
Eric went through it too.
He didn't get a pass.
If anything, the centurion hit him harder.
"You look like a hero," she said to Eric. "That's dangerous. Heroes are the first to die. They think the world is watching. It isn't. The world doesn't care. Only your comrades do, and only if you keep standing."
They ran.
Around the yard. Around the block. Up and down the stairs until Nikolia complained that they were shaking the whole house.
"Faster!" the centurion barked. "You can't run, you can't move the line. You can't move the line, you're a corpse with pretty sandals."
They drilled spear thrusts until Ivander's hands blistered and bled and blistered again.
His mother joined them sometimes.
Not as mother.
As commander.
She corrected his stance with the same brusque efficiency she used on strangers.
"Your weight's too far forward," she said, nudging his knee with her boot. "You'll topple. Back. You're not lunging at a deer alone. You're one of many. Think like a many."
He swallowed down the reflexive flare of shame.
He listened.
He did it again.
And again.
The soft part of him that wanted to impress Ivy, to be seen as something other than pathetic, looked around now and realised no one here cared about him like that.
They cared if he held the shield.
They cared if he stayed in line.
They cared if he could march the day after his feet bled.
If he cried in the barracks at night, the man next to him would tell him to shut up because he needed to sleep, not because he cared about his feelings.
Weirdly, that helped.
He didn't have to be charming.
He just had to endure.
He found a certain grim comfort in that.
He started borrowing from Ivy again.
Not her softness.
Her lies.
Her angles.
He watched the centurion fight in demonstrations.
He watched how she feinted, how she telegraphed something wrong on purpose to draw a response.
He tried it in drills.
At first it went badly.
The centurion knocked him flat when she caught him deliberately dropping his guard.
"If you're going to deceive, do it well," she snarled. "No half-tricks. No sloppy feints. The man in front of you is trying to kill you. Don't insult him with bad acting."
He got better.
He learned to shift his weight just enough to suggest he was going to overcommit, then snap back into form.
He learned to let his shield dip a hair's breadth and watch his opponent's eyes go there, then slam forward.
He learned to fight dirty within the rules. Legion training didn't encourage individual cleverness, but it didn't forbid it either, as long as the line held.
He failed often.
He went to bed with bruises, cuts, exhaustion humming in his bones.
He woke up and did it again.
The memory of Ivy faded from sting to scar.
Still there.
Still ugly.
Less raw.
The disgust at his old self remained.
It kept him from reaching for easy warmth again.
A couple of times, women in the market smiled at him. Not tavern girls, not like Ivy. Washerwomen. Wives. Widows.
He smiled back, polite.
He didn't linger.
Ew, he thought, catching himself once staring too long at a pretty mouth. Not at her. At the part of him that wanted to fall into that easy story again. You're not ready for that. You'll break it or it'll break you. Later.
If there was a later.
***
The day they signed, the courtyard was full.
Young men. Old men. A few women with scars and harder eyes who'd already proven themselves elsewhere and wanted a legion number on their shields.
A clerk sat behind a table with rolls of parchment.
A priest stood nearby, bored, ready to mumble the standard blessings.
The centurion was there.
Their mother was not.
She was already on the field, reviewing her own troops.
Ivander stepped up when his name was called.
He held the stylus in a hand that didn't shake.
He scratched his name onto the parchment, neat as he could.
Ivander, son of Meid.
Eric signed beside him.
Eric, son of Meid.
The clerk sanded the ink, gave them each a thin strip of leather stamped with the legion mark.
"Third Legion," he said. "Welcome. Don't die."
The priest stepped forward, droning about duty and glory and the gods watching.
Ivander bowed his head.
He didn't know if he believed in gods.
If they existed, they'd watched his village burn and done nothing.
But he believed in lines.
In brothers.
In small, stubborn choices.
He glanced at Eric.
Eric met his eye and grinned.
They both looked straight ahead as the priest finished.
After, when they moved to join the others, the centurion caught Ivander's arm.
"You're still not talented," she said.
"I know," he said.
"You'll probably never be the best swordsman in any line you stand in," she went on. "You'll never be the strongest. The fastest. You started too far behind for that."
He felt the familiar twist of shame.
Nodded anyway.
"But," she said, and her mouth quirked, "you're getting very good at not staying down. That counts for more than you think. Most men don't die because they aren't brilliant. They die because they finally get tired and lie down in the wrong place. Don't do that."
"I won't," he said.
"You will," she said. "Once. Maybe twice. Learn from it. Or you'll die. Those are your choices."
He swallowed.
"Understood," he said.
"Good," she said. "Now go. The Third drills harder than we do. If you embarrass me, I'll deny ever training you."
***
Years blurred.
They marched.
They dug.
They drilled until form became reflex.
Ivander learned the rhythm of the horn calls, the feel of a comrade's shield pressed against his own in the line, the stink of men who'd been walking in armour for days.
He learned where feet blistered.
Where straps chafed.
Where exhaustion lived in bones.
He learned how little the world cared for individual pain.
He learned to survive anyway.
Eric was there.
Always a step ahead, always a bit louder, a bit faster, a bit more obviously heroic.
He got noticed.
He got promoted once, then knocked back down when he mouthed off to the wrong officer.
They laughed about it later.
"Ew," Ivander would say, mimicking Nikolia whenever Eric boasted about some girl in some village who'd kissed him behind a shrine.
"Shut up," Eric would fire back. "Just because you're celibate now doesn't mean the rest of us have to be."
Ivander would shrug.
"I'm busy," he'd say. "We can't both be stupid at the same time."
He meant it.
He poured everything into the line.
Into the shield.
Into the training yards whenever they broke camp and had a day to breathe.
He wasn't special.
He wasn't gifted.
He wasn't chosen.
He was just there.
Again and again.
Years later, when the songs were written, no one would mention the endless drills, the blisters, the nights spent staring at the tent canvas and wondering if he'd die tomorrow.
They'd just say: One, a fallen knight.
They'd skip the part where he was a boy who got lied to in an alley and decided, finally, that if the world was going to use him, he'd at least sharpen himself first.