Levi Ashborne's Arc

Chapter 4 of 6

The next day Levi did not go to the farm. He had told himself he would decide by noon. Noon came, and he split wood instead. He carried water. He mended the sagging step of his crooked shack, its walls swallowed by vines. Every task kept his hands from the path Aria wanted him to walk. She had said come if your pond should matter. He told himself it mattered fine, hidden and quiet, and returned to his roof. She came again after dark, but she brought no cart this time. Aria climbed his broken porch and pounded the door with a flat hand. When Levi opened it, she did not step back. Her white dress was gray at the hem with farm mud. She smelled of medicine and smoke. "You did not come," she said. "I gave you the water. That was the deal." "A boy died today." She said it plainly, the way she said everything. "Second in three days. I tested a blue flower on the fever without knowing it was safe. I had nothing else." She wiped her hand across her eyes, once. "It cooled him. Then it stopped his breathing. I could have known. You could have shown me the water's work." Levi gripped the doorframe. "I am not a healer. I hide here so people stop dying near me." "People die everywhere." Aria's voice cracked and steadied. "You hide so you never have to watch. That is not the same as being good." He wanted to shout her off the porch. Instead he looked at her muddy hem, her raw eyes, the tremor in her jaw she would not let win. She had run from his horns once. Now she stood on his rotten step and called him a coward to his face. No one had ever stayed long enough to do that. "You are angry," he said. "Yes." She met his red eyes without flinching. "Because I thought you were more than your fear. I was wrong to think it." The words landed harder than any threat. Levi had left his old life because people judged him before he spoke. Aria had judged him too. But she judged what he chose, not what he was. That was different. That was fair. "I will come," he said. "Tomorrow. I will help you test the water on the flowers." Aria stared at him. The anger drained from her shoulders. She did not smile. She only nodded, slow, as if she did not fully trust it. "At first light," she said. "At first light." She turned and went down the broken steps into the dark. Levi stood in his doorway a long time. He had spent years keeping the world out. Tonight he had promised to walk into it. And somewhere under the anger, he had wanted her to stay.