Elmira Ashwood's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

The night before the arena, the tributes were locked inside a timber-framed dormitory split by hanging curtains. Elmira walked the central hearth and counted alliances forming in the alcoves. Two districts shared a curtain. Three more whispered around the fire. Her gentle face from the screens had done its job too well. No one looked at her twice. She drifted to the back wall, where a rusted iron cross stood wrapped in vines. The other tributes had marked it as the dead corner, the spot no one wanted. She set her bedroll at its base. Across the room, the strongest tributes had piled wrenches, hammers, and shovels around a leather-strapped post. Their banner hung above it like a claim. She watched them laugh and divide the gear. Elmira knew the math. Alone, she would not last the first morning. She crossed the floor slowly, hands folded over her seed pendant, eyes lowered. She stopped at the edge of their pile and offered the smallest tribute first — a soft voice, a quiet question about water. The largest boy looked down at her. He smiled the way people smile at stray animals. Then he shook his head and turned back to his wrench. She walked back to the vined cross without hurrying. She lay down beneath it and listened to the hearth crackle. The persona had locked. No alliance would take her. Tomorrow she would step into the woods with no one at her back, and every plan she had built would have to be rebuilt around that single, fixed fact.