Livia's Arc

Chapter 9 of 9

Livia walked to the trial pit at dawn with her mind her own again. But rest was not proof. The second question of the trial of fangs waited for her: what she hid. She would have to name Voracia as the one who poisoned her people. She had the cure. She had no evidence. Without it, her accusation would sound like a loser's excuse before the judges. She needed Fuego. He had refused Voracia once already, and he knew the forest paths better than anyone. If anyone could find a thread of proof, it was him. She followed the game trail toward his usual fire. Instead, she found him on the ground, fighting. Thick green vines wrapped his arms and chest. They pulled tighter the harder he strained. Fuego did not call out. He only clamped his jaw and twisted. The ouroboros tattoo on his chest showed between the coils. Livia dropped to her knees beside him and grabbed a vine. It bit into her palm. Light flared above them. A small winged woman hovered close, her wings flecked with glowing embers. She raised one hand and spoke three sharp words. The vines shuddered, loosened, then crumbled to ash. Fuego sat up, breathing hard. "Thank you," Livia told the fairy. The fairy drifted lower. Her light fell across the dead vines. "I have seen these before," she said. Fuego got to his feet. "Where?" "A black stone sanctuary. Old. Vines and thorns cover it. On the far side of the forest, where no one goes." She studied the ash. "A cloaked figure enters at night and leaves before light. I have heard chanting inside." Livia's snake tightened hard around her neck. It did that near a threat. Voracia used dark magic. Voracia summoned creeping things to do her work. The vines that had just caught Fuego were her craft, and now Livia knew where she worked it. "That is her," Livia said. "That is where she makes the poison." Fuego wiped ash from his arms. "Then that is where the proof is." The fairy nodded once and rose into the branches. Her ember light shrank to a spark, then vanished. Livia stood. The trial would call for her answer by midday. She could not reach the sanctuary and return in time. She would have to walk into the pit and face the second question without the thing hidden in those walls. "I will go," Fuego said. He read her face. "You cannot. The horn calls you. I can." He unsheathed his blade. Livia gripped his wrist. "If she catches you there alone—" "She won't." One flat line, and he was done with it. She let go. For the first time, she knew where Voracia hid her crime. She had a name to speak at the trial, and now a place to point to. But the proof sat behind thorns across the whole forest, and she had to answer the judges before Fuego could reach it. In the meantime, Voracia was hiding in the temple trying to locate where Livia was through her mirror. She stared into it intensely and still couldn’t pinpoint where she was. She then decided to send her obnoxious flies out to look for her but by that time, Livia was at the serpent goddesses temple. The serpent Goddess gave Livia a cloak of her own and she draped it over her body. And handed her an anointing oil to mask her scent.