Page 111 of Vesuvius

‘Do you hear that?’ asked Aurelia, and only the abrupt silence that followed made Loren snap from his daze.

All the way out from Pompeii, she’d kept up a running chatter. First an analysis of the weather, which morphed into some fantastical romance of nymphs and wine and demigods, clearly invented as she told it, and – well, Loren filtered her out. Nothing personal. But he recognised his own strategy: talking to mask an uncomfortable silence.

Sometimes he saw too much of himself in her.

Now Aurelia stopped, head cocked, and Loren perked up, too.

‘Hard to hear anything over your stories,’ Livia said, not unkindly.

‘No, listen.’ Aurelia tugged the reins in Livia’s hands. Their horses slowed to a halt on top of a hill, edged on one side by a steep ravine. The afternoon fell into a deep hush. Wind rustled leaves. Somewhere far off, a dove cooed.

‘I don’t hear anything,’ Loren said with a twinge of annoyance.

‘Quiet!’

The pounding beat of racing hooves, quiet but growing. Loren turned in his saddle to squint down the road. A dark blur against the pale horizon, an indistinct figure approached.

Livia whistled. ‘They’re in a hurry. What do we think it is? Urgent news?’

‘Oh! A war declaration. A flood. A coup in the city.’ Aurelia nearly bounced.

Loren winced, thinking of Julia and Servius and poor Umbrius.Anything but a coup.‘Perhaps we should get off the road.’

Once their horses were situated in a pine’s shade, he dismounted for a better look. That, and to escape Livia’s suffocating concern. She hadn’t said a word, but between the tender half glances and tilted mouth, her overwhelming motherly energy gave Loren a rash.

He wasn’t being avoidant. He was safeguarding his gnawed heart.

The rider disappeared behind a rocky outcropping. Behind Loren came the sound of Aurelia riffling through supplies. She’d returned to blabbering about her nymph story.

Parting from them come morning would kill Loren all over again, though he hadn’t yet determined where he’d go. Returning to Pompeii was the sensible choice, but he couldn’t force the city to want him back. Fleeing across the sea would offer a fresh start, but one he didn’t deserve. If he hadn’t shirked his familial duties, tried to pave a path perpendicular to his father’s plan, he wouldn’t be nursing a hole in his stomach, raw from acid.

He ought to go home, where he belonged. Where his visions couldn’t hurt anyone else. Loren deserved this. He’d flown too high, and now he suffered the burns.

Wooziness washed over him, an aftereffect of riding too long under the hot sun. He turned to ask Aurelia to toss a waterskin, but his vision blurred, slipped, and he saw –a sword slinging through empty space.

Hooves of a rearing horse overhead.

A determined brow beneath a helmet, and a familiar crest glinting.

Loren gasped awake, palms against the dirt. How long had he drifted?

‘Aurelia, go!’ he shouted.

The rider burst over the hill, sword glinting cold in the afternoon heat. Loren had no time to think, to scurry from the stampeding horse, before the blade swung. He rolled aside, gravel shredding his tunic.

Livia screamed. Feet crashed through the underbrush.

Let them get away. Please, gods, let them escape.

Ahead, the mercenary wheeled for another swing. Loren lay frozen in the road, terror clawing through his chest. The sword came down.

Something red and round hurtled through the air, striking the mercenary’s helmet in a clean shot. Knocked askew, the sword’s arc fell short. The horse panicked at the abrupt jerk. It reared back with an angry whinny, and the mercenary lost his grip on the saddle, hitting the ground hard. The thrown object tumbled to a stop by Loren’s foot: an apple missing a solitary bite.

Foolish, brave, brilliant Aurelia.

Loren’s senses kicked in. He rose, scrambling from the hooves of the riderless horse as it took off down the road. The mercenary pushed to his feet, flinging his helmet aside.

Maxim, Darius’s companion from the vineyard.

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