Livia's Arc

Chapter 6 of 9

Fuego walked back to his own camp with Livia's question still in his chest. He built a fire from stacked logs and sat before it. The embers glowed red at the base. He told himself to plan tomorrow's trial, to think of herbs, of the serpent, of the thing his grandfather sent him to find. Instead he saw her eyes. He let his mind slip into the old trance his grandmother taught him. In the vision Livia sat across the same fire. She smiled at him. They spoke like old friends, easy, unhurried. She laughed, a bright, warm sound, and tipped her head back. He watched the firelight move across her face and did not want to leave. For once the search felt small and the woman felt large. A branch snapped in the dark. Fuego came back to himself at once. His hand went to the knife at his belt. He stood and faced the trees. Voracia stepped into the light. She had curly hair and brown eyes, and she walked like she already owned the ground. She was the other woman in the pit, the rival who had poisoned Livia's tribe before the trial. Fuego had seen her watch Livia too closely all day. He did not lower the knife. "The herbalist," Voracia said. "You treat her hands. You track her through the woods." She looked at the fire, then at him. "You care for her." "Say what you came to say." "I know what you look for." She let the words sit. "Something taken from your people. You think it runs through her serpent." Fuego's jaw tightened. He had told that to Livia alone. "How." "I read things others guard. Years ago. A prophecy with her name in it." Voracia stepped closer. "I can give you the thing you want. The truth of what was stolen. Help me end her in the pit tomorrow, and it is yours." Fuego looked at her a long moment. He thought of the vision. The laugh. The warmth he had not felt in years. "No," he said. Voracia's face did not change. "Then you lose both. Her and your answer." "I'll find my answer without selling her for it." He kept the knife up. "Leave my fire." She studied him, as if filing the refusal away. Then she turned and walked back into the dark without another word. Fuego sat down slow. The choice was made now, and it could not be taken back. He had wanted to stay apart, a searcher passing through. That was gone. He had picked a side, and the side was Livia. Tomorrow Voracia would know it. So would the trial. He fed a log to the fire and watched the sparks climb. The vision would not be enough anymore. He would have to warn her.