Chapter XXIV Loren #2
Aurelia looked a wreck, but she seemed unhurt, and that eased something in Loren’s chest. Maxim couldn’t harm her, couldn’t harm Livia.
Still, Loren couldn’t meet either of their eyes.
He staggered to the horses, legs quaking.
Shame slid sticky over his skin. When he’d driven the stone home over and over, he hadn’t spared a thought for Aurelia or Livia.
He’d thought only of his own animal desire to breathe again.
Whatever had overcome him had sprung from a source truly foul, and Loren feared he knew exactly which one.
When Felix told Loren he lived by his heart, he couldn’t have known Loren’s heart was spoiled. Poisoned. He was every inch a selfish creature, inside and out.
Loren’s mare was still trembling, spooked from the attack and the quake, but he ran a soothing palm down her flank, and she settled.
A fat waterskin hung from her saddlebag.
Unstopping it, he poured it over his arms, scrubbing with his nails until the trickling water tinted pink, then, finally, clear.
When he restrung the pouch, his eye caught on embossed leather tooled into the saddle, a seal he’d neglected to examine before.
Loren could return to Maxim’s body, pluck the crest of Servius from the man’s still chest, hold it to the saddle side by side, but he didn’t need to. The swooping hawk was pressed into his memory, deeper than any embossing.
Soft footsteps crept behind him. Loren knew their owner without looking.
He kept his voice calm. ‘Who secured us these horses, Aurelia? Because they never belonged to Celsi.’
No reply.
‘What did Felix tell you?’ Loren wiped a palm across his face, flinching when it came back smeared with more gore. Sudden desperation burst, and he rounded on her. ‘What did he trade away?’
Aurelia’s stunned silence melted. ‘He found me at Pappa’s grave this morning, said he had an errand to run, and he’d bring the horses after. H-he knew about your visions. Mine, too.’
‘He suspected something would happen.’ Even after Loren, brimming with arrogance, assured Felix in the grove that all would turn out all right. ‘His senses are that sharp. He offered you an escape. So long as—’
‘You came with us.’ Her face crumpled.
Loren’s mind reeled. Felix’s cruelty in the alley struck him as less abrupt now, more calculated. Go home hadn’t been one final nasty blow to Loren’s ribs. It had been a lifesaving plea.
‘Jupiter, Aurelia, why did you lie to me? To us?’ Livia shook her daughter’s shoulders, but Aurelia tore away.
‘Because,’ she said, hiccupping through a choked sob, ‘if Loren goes, we’ll never see him again. And I can’t lose my brother.’
Her words slid home, and Loren understood her in a way he hadn’t before. These weren’t the wailing cries of a little girl fixated on the worst-case scenario. They were the wailing cries of a girl who’d seen the outcome.
Loren braced against a tree, staring hard at the horizon. Underfoot, the ground shivered again. Far off, Vesuvius raged, a blight against the clear sky, Pompeii doomed in its shadow, with everyone still stuck there.
Felix, still stuck there.
Slowly, Loren turned back.
‘I think you’re right,’ he said quietly. ‘Our paths diverge here. This is the last time I’ll see you. I won’t make a promise I cannot keep.’
‘Don’t go,’ Aurelia rasped. ‘I’m sorry for lying.’
‘Aurelia, I’m not angry. But if I can’t save the city, I must go back for Felix.’
That would have to be enough.
She dropped to the ground and hid her face.
Which left Livia. Livia, who had pulled a terrified Loren to her chest when he was fresh to the city.
Livia, who treated him like her son by blood, kept him dressed and never asked for payment.
Who loved him, simply because she felt he was worthy of her love.
Now she clutched the reins of his mare .
‘I had a vision,’ Loren lied, ‘where I get him out. I’ll get both of us to safety. Are you going to stop me?’
Livia’s eyes watered, lips pursed tight, and Loren readied for a fight.
But she shook her head. Taking a deep breath, she placed a hand over his pounding chest. ‘The Egyptians believed thoughts sprang from here. Now we know better; they come from the mind. But I think, sometimes, it’s all right to follow what your heart tells you. ’
‘Mamma.’ Loren’s voice cracked.
She tugged him forward in an embrace that could have lasted for ever. He sank into it.
‘There are few things worth running to,’ she murmured. ‘Love is one.’
When Livia pulled back, she curled Loren’s fingers around the reins, then unhooked the saddle bags. He swung his leg over his mare’s back and guided her to face the mess he’d left behind.
‘Wait!’ Aurelia shrieked. In a flurry of limbs, she scrambled from her huddle to dash to the second horse.
Alarm surged through him. ‘You can’t come with me.’
But Aurelia wasn’t mounting. Instead, she fumbled with the saddle until a familiar sheath slid free. Then she fetched her father’s gladius from where Livia had dropped it after the attack. Aurelia shoved both into his stunned hands.
‘Take this.’ When Loren shook his head, she bared her teeth. ‘Take it.’
Loren looked to Livia. The sword was her last relic of her husband. Surely . . . but she only nodded. He fastened the sheath to his belt and slid the gladius home. It hung heavy, a weight he’d never carried.
Aurelia gripped his knee. With all the wisdom her twelve years afforded her, she said, ‘Fuck destiny.’
Loren spurred his horse without waiting to hear Livia scold Aurelia for cursing. He trained his attention on the black cloud swelling from Vesuvius. He didn’t look back .
As Loren urged his horse faster, hooves kicking swirls of dust, he wondered if Livia had read his latest lie on his face.
I had a vision. What – no offense to his mare – horseshit.
His dreams weren’t so concrete, nor did his visions project so far out.
Livia knew all that, and still she’d let him go.
Despite what Aurelia predicted, Loren swore if he survived today, he’d find them again and he’d tell them the truth.
Suffocating black devoured the sky beyond, punctuated with orange flares.
Ash fell thick as searing snow. Inhaling set Loren’s lungs ablaze.
Outside Pompeii’s walls, refugees, faces terrorised and streaked with grime, huddled in the meagre shelter of the tombs.
Loren drove past the stragglers and burst into the burning city, dismounting at the gate.
His mare was skittish and drained, and tying her beneath a roof was unfair, but Loren couldn’t afford for her to bolt.
Once he had Felix, they’d need a quick escape.
‘I’ll be back for you,’ he promised.
She didn’t look convinced.
The Via Stabiana lay deserted. Hours had passed since the mountain had exploded.
By now, those who hadn’t fled had retreated to the safety of their homes and shops to avoid debris and wait out the storm.
Smoke billowed from buildings, fires catching from burning pebbles falling.
Loren’s sandals echoed as he dashed up the road, dodging abandoned carts and ducking below awnings sagging from accumulating ash. His gladius knocked against his hip.
If Felix was with Servius, Loren had no idea where to start looking.
He should have demanded to know which house belonged to Servius days ago.
Everything was clearer in retrospect. Loren skidded to a stop at the corner near the theatre, next to the Temple of Isis, and paused, panting, to collect his thoughts.
‘Loren?’
His heart skipped. A figure slumped on the temple’s steps. Even with her short hair matted by sweat and ash, Camilia’s scowl was recognisable anywhere.
Relief soared in Loren’s chest, proof another soul was still alive within Pompeii’s walls. He jogged down the walk to kneel before her. They reached out at the same time, and Camilia clutched his hands to her chest. Up close, she looked even more haggard, the kohl around her eyes smeared.
‘Are you hurt?’ Loren peered through the door. Only the altar bowl inhabited the courtyard now, sending smoke signals never to be received. ‘Where are the others?’
‘Nobody has seen the Priest since this morning,’ Camilia said, fatigued.
‘Sera and Shani . . . I looked. I found – they’re gone, Loren.
Everyone is gone. Even the cats fled last night, like they knew what would happen.
I’ve worked my arse off alone, pulling people from collapsed buildings and putting out fires. Where have you been?’
Off playing victim. That’s what Loren would have said, if he were honest. A pebble struck his shoulder. He flinched.
‘You can’t stay here. You need to leave the city, go as far south as you can.’
‘There are dozens, hundreds more lives in the city, and you suggest I leave?’ Beneath the grime, her cheeks flared angry red. ‘Gods, you never change.’
‘You’ve done all you can. Something worse is coming.’
Camilia sneered. ‘Enough about your visions.’
‘I was right about this,’ Loren snapped.
They were locked in a fierce glaring match, Camilia steady but for the trembling of her mouth and the way she still clung to his hands. Loren allowed it. Slow understanding wriggled under his skin.
‘You can’t find Celsi,’ he guessed gently .
Instantly, she collapsed, hunching into grief.
‘I went by their house as soon as I could. His father was dead, Loren, crushed by a wall while clutching a bottle. Celsi wasn’t there.
I don’t know where he is. He tried to tell me something, you know, the afternoon of the festival.
Something about you, always about you, and his father dragged him away.
To punish him. Just for speaking to me.’ She wiped under her eyes. ‘He’s the closest I have to a brother.’
Loren had spent years in silent competition with a child for Camilia’s regard, and only here at the end of the world did he realise how silly their rivalry had been. Sulphur filled Loren’s lungs. ‘Camilia, there’s nothing more you can do for Celsi. Please. You have to go.’
Her nostrils flared. For a long moment, Loren braced for a strike.
Then she dissolved into silent sobs.
Slowly, he coaxed her up and guided her from the temple steps. Back at the street corner, he gave her wrist a careful squeeze, then detached fully. Words formed on his tongue.
But Camilia didn’t need a goodbye. She looked incredulous. ‘You lecture me, but it’s fine if you stay?’
‘There’s something I need to do.’
‘For who? Julia Fortunata? Priest Umbrius? Haven’t you heard? He’s dead. Or . . .’ She sneered. ‘Don’t tell me you’re here for that shabby thief. I saw you two, you—’
‘His name is Felix,’ Loren snapped, then shook his head when she only stared, dumbstruck. He stepped back. ‘Goodbye, Camilia.’
‘Stop,’ she said before he could dash. The word sounded like it cost her. ‘You should know something. The soldier who chased your thief came back last night. Wanted to know where you lived, what you did.’
‘What did you tell him?’
Her lip curled. ‘To fuck off.’
A laugh bubbled in Loren’s throat. ‘Tell me you saw the direction he went.’
‘Better. I followed. If some bastard’s sticking his nose in my friend’s business, I have the right to know who he is.’ White-hot rock hit her bare arm, and she winced before rattling directions.
For the first time in hours, hope sparked. ‘If you were a man, I’d kiss you.’
‘If you were a woman, I might kiss you back.’ Camilia stepped from the pavement, giving him one last squint. ‘See you around.’
They split, headed in opposite directions.
Loren’s pulse raced faster than his feet could. He had failed the city. Failed the temple. Fallen on his own blade trying to stop the disaster by drawing all the wrong conclusions. But he would find Felix or die trying, that much he knew. Until Loren could finally right his wrongs.
Felix’s ruin wouldn’t come from Loren’s choices.
That was the gods-honest truth.