Livia's Arc

Chapter 5 of 9

The trial was done for the day. Livia had held her place in the pit, but her rival still wore a face she could not name. Now night pressed on the forest of Nepenthe. She sat alone by a small fire she had built from stacked logs. The embers glowed red between them. She leaned toward the flame and warmed her hands. But her mind drifted. She kept seeing Fuego at the mats that morning, carrying cups without a word. His steady brown eyes. The way his jaw had tightened when the serpent gave its venom. She told herself to stop. She could not. Her snake went still against her neck. Not afraid. Still, the way it went when she was the problem she had not seen. Livia frowned and looked up. Fuego stepped out of the dark trees. He carried a cloth bundle under one arm. He had tracked her by the smoke. He crouched across the fire and set the bundle down. "You left the camp," he said. "Dangerous, alone." "I needed to think." She did not say about what. He pulled the cloth open. Dried roots, a few stems, a flat gray stone for grinding. He worked without looking at her. "Your hands," he said. "They're raw from the milking. This stops the cracking." She held them out. He took her wrist and spread a paste across her palm. His fingers were warm and careful. For a moment neither of them spoke. The fire snapped. Livia watched his face in the light and felt her chest tighten. Her snake did not move. "Why did you help me this morning?" she asked. "You don't know my people." Fuego stopped. He looked at the ouroboros marked on his chest, then at her. "My grandfather wore this. He told me something was taken from our people long ago. He asked me to bring it back." He let go of her hand. "I don't know what it is. But when your serpent gave its venom, I felt it. Close. Like I'd found a thread." Livia went cold. "You think your people and mine are one." "I think our paths cross for a reason." He wrapped the stone back in the cloth. He would not look at her now. "That's all I'll say." She understood then why her snake had gone still. The problem was not her rival tonight. It was this. She had let a stranger into the one grief she guarded. She had warmed to him when she should be hunting the one who poisoned her tribe. Fuego stood. "Keep the paste. Sleep. The trial takes more tomorrow." He turned toward the trees. "Fuego." He paused. "What was taken from your people. Do you think I have it?" He looked back at her over the fire. "I think you are it." Then he was gone into the dark. Livia sat alone. The embers dimmed. She had come here to clear her head. Instead she carried a new question now, heavier than the last.