Page 82 of City of Secrets and Shadows
“I’ll kill him,” I said when she finished, the words emerging as a low growl. “I’ll go to the academy tonight and cut his throat while he sleeps.”
Livia shook her head, a bitter smile touching her lips. “And be executed for murdering nobility? No.”
“I don’t care," I said, and meant it. “He touched you. He tried to—”
“I handled it,” she interrupted, wrapping her arms around herself. “I had my knife. I was never truly in danger.”
“That’s not the point!” My voice rose, and I forced myself to lower it. “You shouldn’t have had to handle it. You shouldn’t have to carry a knife to feel safe. The academy was supposed to be—” I broke off, realizing I was shouting again.
“Better than the ludus?” She finished quietly.
The simplicity of that question struck me like a blow. We’d both believed it, hadn’t we? That the academy with its polished stone and ancient traditions would somehow be more civilized than the blood-soaked sands where we'd fought for others’ entertainment.
“Yes,” I admitted. “Better. Safer.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She turned away, facing the small fire. “I was stupid to be so affected by it. In the ludus, it was just another day. This was no different.”
“It is different,” I said firmly, moving to stand beside her. Not touching, but close enough that she could feel my presence. “There, we expected cruelty. We were prepared for it every moment. Here—” I gestured vaguely toward the academy on the hill above us, “—you dared to believe you might be safe. Having that belief shattered hurts differently.”
She looked up at me then, surprise evident in her eyes, as if I’d articulated something she hadn’t been able to name herself.
“Where were Tarshi and Septimus?” I asked, still struggling to contain my anger.
“They can’t escort me to training,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m supposed to be independent. A noblewoman in my own right.”
The irony of it twisted in my gut. Her disguise as nobility, meant to protect her, had instead isolated her when she needed protection most.
“It was your knife that saved me,” she said suddenly, her voice steadier. “The one you gave me.”
“I’m glad,” I said simply.
“I feel so stupid,” she whispered, the words barely audible over the crackling fire. “I’ve survived so much worse. Why does this shake me?”
“Because you’re human, Livia.” I turned to face her fully. “Despite everything they tried to make us into, we’re still human.”
A single tear finally escaped, trailing down her cheek. I’d never seen her cry before, not once in all our years together in the ludus.
“What can I do?” I asked, fighting the urge to wipe that tear away.
She looked up at me, something raw and vulnerable in her expression. “Hold me,” she whispered. “Just... hold me. Please.”
I opened my arms, and she stepped into them without hesitation, her body fitting against mine as if we’d embraced a thousand times rather than never before. I felt her exhale against my chest, some of the tension leaving her frame as my arms encircled her.
I’d meant to offer comfort, nothing more. But then she tilted her face up to mine, and before I could process what was happening, she had drawn my mouth down to hers.
Her lips were soft, urgent, demanding something I’d denied myself even the thought of for so long. For one moment, I surrendered to it, then reason reasserted itself, and I pulled back, searching her face. “Livia, you’re upset. You don’t—”
“Kiss me again,” she interrupted, her voice hoarse. “Please, Marcus. Make it all go away, just for a little while.”
I hesitated, torn between desire and concern. “I don’t want to take advantage—”
“You’re not.” Her fingers traced my jaw, sending shivers across my skin. “I’ve missed you. Every day at that place, surrounded by wealth and power and emptiness…” She shook her head. “You’re the colour in my life. My something beautiful.”
The words pierced something deep within me, resonating with a memory I’d held close through my darkest days. A conversation on the ludus rooftop, watching the sunset — the only beauty we were permitted — when I’d promised her that someday, we would have beautiful things of our own choosing.
“My sunset,” she whispered, confirming the shared memory. “Show me the sunset again, Marcus. Please.”
In her eyes, I saw not just the night’s trauma but years of denied longing, of connection forged in the most inhumane conditions, of two souls who had survived the unsurvivable together. This wasn’t about forgetting pain — it was about remembering who we were beneath our scars.
