Page 29

Livy flapped a hand. “Literacy is teachable. Gumption, loyalty—both of which you have plenty of—those are harder to find.”

On a day like this, so fresh and clear, anything seemed possible. Safinia knew, though, that if she thought about a proposal like that too hard, she’d only end up agonized. It had been that way toward the end of their relationship when Hersilia suggested moving into the city to be her personal guard. If she’d taken the job, she’d have had plenty to eat, status among the Quirites, and their romance could have finally flourished.

And she would have no sisters. She wouldn’t have been there the night her home was attacked.

“I don’t think I’ll ever leave Cures,” she told Livy.

“Someone as curious as you?”

She shrugged. Better to enjoy this little burst of travel while she had it than to dwell on what else she might like her life to be. There were very few unlucky enough to live only for themselves.

There was maybe a day left of walking when it hit Safinia that the forest was far too quiet. She’d dismissed the feeling initially as the uncertainty of the unfamiliar—but there were nests above them, tracks on the ground. There should have been accompanying noise.

She stopped in her tracks, holding up a hand to silence Livy’s chattering.

“What—” he began.

“Hush,” Safinia hissed. She tried to summon Timaeus’s otherworldly stillness as she scanned the trees. In the silence, she waited for sound—the rustle of birds moving through the trees, a scrape of hoof against dried leaf—but the quiet was fixed around them.

Safinia dropped her hand. “We need to get off the road.”

“We’re already off the road,” Livy complained. “The Via Salaria would have gotten us to Crustumerium days ago.”

She diverted from the trail they had been following, picking through thickets as quietly as she could while Livy stumbled behind her. The trees were too thin to hide them well.

“Are you going to tell me what your concern is?” Livy hissed.

“We’re not alone,” Safinia said. “A raiding party, maybe. More than just two people, to make the forest go so quiet.”

“I thought you said all the raiding happened along the Salaria!”

“I said most raiding happened along the salt road.” Safinia transferred her spear to her elbow and slid her bow off her shoulder, unwinding sinew to string it. “Raiders go wherever they think they can get something valuable.”

Two of Safinia’s senses activated at once; the sharp, coppery scent of blood, and the sound of men, ten maybe, armed lightly. Then the wind changed and it was gone. “Hide,” Safinia whispered tightly. She nodded to a mossy boulder that would conceal Livy, at least. “They’ll be on us soon.”

Her heart pounded as she turned, looking for some similarly large object and wondering if the best option wouldn’t be to throw herself flat in the mud; the sound was back, a little closer—she could hear laughter and raucous singing. Definitely a raiding party.

Tree, Livy mouthed, and flapped his hands at a pine.

Right. Safinia threw her spear down and flew up the trunk, twice almost stepping on a branch that couldn’t take her weight, holding her breath while she waited to see if it would crack and tumble down the tree, announcing her and Livy’s position.

The tree held up. Even if the raiders noticed her, they’d have to cut it down to get her; she’d have a few moments to fill them full of arrows at least.

The raiding party came into view around a bend in the trail. Safinia could see smoke rising above the tree line. Their victims would be in that direction.

She tried to pick out details about the men, but from this far, it was impossible to tell anything other than that they wielded long, flat swords. Either Latins or Roman, then. Sabine favored spears, and Etruscans short, curved blades.

“Go on,” she muttered. “Pass by.”

But luck was not on her side. The raiding party veered off the trail in the same direction that Safinia and Livy had taken. Twenty paces off the road, they spread out their things and strung canvas to sleep under.

Safinia wanted to yell every curse she’d ever been taught. She stretched her neck from her perch to try to spot Livy and, disturbingly, couldn’t—though his boulder was clearly visible. The sun was yellowing in the west and the smoke on the horizon lessening, soon blown away to nothing, as Safinia shifted her weight and tried to dig in. She didn’t dare whisper Livy’s name.

They were Roman. She was sure of it after an hour or two of watching them from her tree some thirty or forty steps away, her arm and elbow stiff where they hooked around a thin limb, and sap stinging her palms. They had the right swords, and the sound of their Latin was rough, uncultured.

Moreover, from what she could understand, they were talking about the upcoming Games in Cures. Safinia’s stomach churned. The road would take them near her home, and they’d be welcomed into the walls on diplomatic pretense—but she could smell the bloodthirst on them.

It was a long night. As time wore on, she warred with a strange mixture of boredom and terror. Every time her eyes became heavy and it seemed the raiders would never look up, she reminded herself that she might be only moments from her death, or worse.