Chapter 8
765 Words
Livia
My aunt arrived with the dusk.
I knew before I saw her.
The house shifted when Aurelia Valerius crossed its threshold—servants moved with less fear and more purpose, voices softened, footsteps lightened. Even my father changed in small, telling ways. His shoulders eased. His words slowed. Grief did not loosen its grip on him for many things, but his sister was one of them.
She had always been.
Aurelia was nothing like my father. Where he was stone, she was water. Where he commanded, she observed. She dressed simply despite her status, wore her hair loose, and spoke as if every word mattered because it did.
She had loved my mother.
I ran to her before propriety could catch me, skirts gathered in my hands as I crossed the atrium. She laughed when I reached her, arms opening instinctively, and held me the way my mother once had—firm, grounding, real.
“Livia,” she said warmly. “You’ve grown quieter.”
I pulled back, forcing a smile. “You always say that.”
“And I am always right,” she replied gently.
We walked together through the garden later, the air cool and heavy with night-blooming flowers. Aurelia listened as she always had—without interruption, without judgment—letting silence stretch until I filled it.
She watched me more than she listened.
That unnerved me.
“You’re different,” she said at last, stopping near the old fountain my mother had loved. “Something weighs on you.”
I looked away, fingers brushing the stone edge, worn smooth by years of neglect and memory. “This house weighs on me.”
“That has always been true,” she said. “This is something else.”
I swallowed.
I trusted her. I always had. She had been my refuge when my mother’s health faded, when grief made my father unreachable. She was the only one who had ever told me it was acceptable to want more than survival.
“I think…” My voice faltered. “I think I care about someone I shouldn’t.”
Aurelia did not gasp. Did not scold.
She simply waited.
“He’s a gladiator,” I said quietly.
The word felt dangerous even spoken aloud.
She turned to face me fully then, eyes sharp with concern—but not shock. Not disgust.
“Does he know?” she asked.
“No,” I said quickly. “And he must never. It’s not—there’s nothing happening. Just looks. Moments. Silence.”
“Silence can be louder than action,” she said softly.
I hugged myself, suddenly cold. “I hate what this house does to them. I always have. But this—this is different. He looks at me like he sees something worth protecting. And that frightens me.”
Aurelia studied my face for a long moment.
“Because it makes you feel seen,” she said.
I nodded, tears burning unexpectedly behind my eyes. “And because it makes me selfish. Wanting someone who bleeds for this place while I live safely above it.”
“Feeling is not a crime, Livia,” she said. “But acting without wisdom can become one.”
I laughed weakly. “I wouldn’t even know how.”
She reached for my hand, squeezing gently. “Leave that to me.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” she said smoothly. Too smoothly. “Only that sometimes fate needs a nudge to reveal what it truly is.”
Her visit stretched from days into weeks.
My father welcomed the distraction, and Aurelia claimed chambers near mine, insisting she had grown tired of travel. She watched the house closely—too closely. Asked careful questions. Spoke to servants, guards, even trainers under the guise of polite curiosity.
I did not notice the pattern.
I was too busy trying not to think about Kael.
But Aurelia noticed everything.
One afternoon, she observed from the balcony with me, silent as the gladiators trained below. When Kael entered the yard, she felt the shift in me before I did. My breath caught. My posture changed. My attention narrowed.
She followed my gaze.
Ah, she thought.
That night, I slept uneasily, unaware that plans were forming beyond my knowledge—careful, deliberate plans shaped by a woman who had survived this house without letting it claim her soul.
Aurelia Valerius did not believe in accidents.
And she had already decided that if love was going to be dangerous—
—it would at least be honest.
- Writer
