City of Deception
The White City Series
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Alexa Mackintosh
Copyright © 2017 by Alexa Mackintosh.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permis- sion of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
P.O. Box 670 Harrisonburg, Va. 22801 www.alexamackintosh.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and inci- dents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Book Layout ©2017 BookDesignTemplates.com Cover design by West Coast Design
Ordering Information:
Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corpo- rations, associations, and others. For details, contact the “Special Sales Depart- ment” at the address above.
City of Deception/ Alexa Mackintosh. -- 1st ed.
ISBN 978-0-9989446-0-9 (Print ISBN only. eBook ISBN varies depending on distribution channel.)
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To the dreamers, the believers, and the fighters.
ab
For love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away.
If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love,
it would be utterly scorned.
―Song of Songs 8:6-7 (TNIV)
Contents
Chapter 1 1
Chapter 2 14
Chapter 3 25
Chapter 4 37
Chapter 5 47
Chapter 6 51
Chapter 7 57
Chapter 8 67
Chapter 9 71
Chapter 10 91
Chapter 11 101
Chapter 12 109
Chapter 13 119
Chapter 14 123
Chapter 15 141
Chapter 16 147
Chapter 17 167
Chapter 18 179
Chapter 19 193
Chapter 20 207
Chapter 21 223
Chapter 22 229
Chapter 23 233
Chapter 24 241
Chapter 25 249
Chapter 26 259
Chapter 27 265
Chapter 28 275
Chapter 29 285
Chapter 30 295
Chapter 31 307
Chapter 32 321
Chapter 33 329
Chapter 34 341
Chapter 35 349
Chapter 36 359
Chapter 37 375
Chapter 38 381
Chapter 39 389
Chapter 40 399
Chapter 41 403
Chapter 42 425
Enjoy this book? 433
Coming Fall 2017 and Summer 2018 435
About the Author 439
{ 1 }
Chapter 1
In the Year 2112 on the Earth-like Planet, Zeisryn:
ove is the greatest weakness and the greatest strength. And remember, my starlight, you are spe- cial beyond imagining.
Those are the last words I have left of my father’s. The elegant script has faded over time, and the ink is barely readable now.
He kept a book of quotes, and now that notebook is in my hands open to the last page. I read it before, but this morning after the meeting I read through it again. Today is the tenth anniversary of his death, and he died because of what I did. At seven-years-old I made a choice, and he paid the price.
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I’ve lived with the guilt ever since. Only three people know what happened. Not even my mother knows the truth about his death.
I close the worn notebook and shove it in my pocket. I’ve imagined what life would be like with him here many times, but dwelling on it does nothing.
I pull my father’s watch out of my pocket and press the button on top. The lid snaps open and the white chain slides through my fingers. The glass face is chipped, and the hands are jammed again.
I let a few unladylike words slip. Not two months have passed since the last time I had to fix it.
I guess from the rising sun that my town’s curfew fin- ished twenty minutes ago. Steam rises off the surface of the still pond a few yards away. The rising sun slices through the haze and coats the world in glittering rays of golden warmth.
The curfew begins at midnight and ends at sunrise by order of the Royals. I don’t dare to enter the streets yet, for it will arouse the suspicion of the soldiers. Few villag- ers venture out of their homes this early, and only a hand- ful have begun their morning duties.
The soldiers, all part of the Second Class, stand by their posts. Their eyes droop as they try to keep a thor- ough lookout. Soon their comrades will come to relieve them and take the watch.
The meeting lasted longer than anticipated and went on until early morning. Fifty men and women, my best
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friend and fellow rebel, Angelica, and I assembled to hear the local news and the events surrounding the royal fam- ily, the Mersiovskys. Our meeting was held in a hayloft of the barn on the outskirts of the village. If the soldiers caught us, we would have been arrested and held in prison for several days.
The soldiers try to keep order in our village. They were posted throughout the towns farthest from the capital in May, now seven months prior. No one minded their pres- ence until the government’s new laws.
We have little say in the government, and the meeting was established by a group of fervent dreamers who be- lieved they could better the villagers’ lives.
I am one of those dreamers.
Angelica has been chosen as the assassin to kill the Royal family, the Mersiovskys. I help strategize how she will get where she needs to kill them. No one suspects two women will be the downfall of the most powerful family on the planet. People don’t know that behind Angelica’s flirty smiles and bouncing curls is a girl who will kill. They never suspect that I, the quietest girl in one of the poorest parts of the country, could be one of the top strat- egists and information processors in the rebellion.
We are perfect for our jobs as part of the revolution because no one will ever believe we are capable of atro- cious acts.
People look at us and see innocence, but that was taken from us long ago.
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I notice the guards switching posts. I walk into sight and quietly pass the guards. They pay me no mind as they go about their duty. Out of their line of sight, I run down the narrow alleyways and soon arrive at my house.
My mother darts around the kitchen preparing break- fast, and my twin, ten-year-old stepsisters, Liliya and Catryn, are already at the table dressed for school. My stepfather, Rillen Diri, leaves for work before I have time to wish him good morning. He knows what today is and knows my mother will want space to grieve.
My mother remarried six months after my father died. My stepsisters’ mother died giving birth to them. My stepsisters and I cope, as we know we must for our par- ents’ happiness. Besides, they are practically my sisters as they were less than a year old when
our parents married. My mother believes my father died when a band of Royal soldiers came into town one day to the local mines where my father worked. The rebel group was just start- ing then. A riot erupted, and the soldiers put it down by shooting half of the men in the mines. My father’s body was found afterward, but he didn’t die there. He didn’t die
because of the Royals.
My mother never goes to the meetings because of my father’s death. She’s afraid showing sympathy for the re- bels will get us killed like she believes happened to my fa- ther. I’m not supposed to go to the meetings, but I want to stop the Royal family. My father supported the rebels before his death, and I will follow in his steps.
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“Natalia, stoke the fire,” my mother orders.
As I lay wood onto the fire, she says, “You could have skipped the meeting. I know you remember what today is. You should have gone with me to lay flowers on your fa- ther’s grave.”
“I’ll go later, Mama.” I haven’t visited his grave since the day of the funeral. A part of me can’t face him. What must his dying thoughts have been when he realized his daughter would be his murderer?
I dismiss my thoughts and move to the table to eat breakfast.
“I received word this morning that we will be hosting a boarder this summer. You'll have to give up your room and move a cot into the twins’ room,” she says.
My head snaps up. “Give up my bed? There's not enough room for us, much less a boarder!”
“Perhaps, but we also don’t have money for food. Would you rather have your bed and a growling stomach? Or a full stomach and a slightly less comfortable bed? Ril- len and I aren’t asking that you sleep on the floor.” She turns away to check a loaf of bread in the oven.
I’m furious they expect me to give up my room, my one corner of solitude in the world. “Do you know anything about this new boarder?”
“He’s posted to the military base nearby and needs a place to stay. It’s not ideal to have more people under this tiny roof, but you’ll have another person to try your new recipes on. Won’t that be exciting? Perhaps he can tell
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you of the food he has tried in the different places he has been stationed.”
As nice at it may be to have another person to try my recipes, it is not worth moving in with the twins.
“He arrives two weeks from now. Can you be moved by then? I’ll put some of your clothes in a box in my room for the time being.”
“I’ll be ready.”
s
I eat and leave for work. I help the men load carts of goods and take care of trivial duties at the mines. My vil- lage consists of farmers and miners, my family being min- ers. The miners toil from dawn to dusk in the belly of the earth. My mother keeps me out of the tunnels for fear they may collapse.
The day is cold; my fingers grow stiff and bleed while moving through the frosty world. I am bundled from head to toe, but nothing keeps out our harsh winter. A fresh layer of snow fell last night, painting the world white. Our village borders one of the great forests, and it spreads out for miles to the northeast. The snow makes it glisten like glass.
Every day a pall of dust and smog hangs over the town, the air full of the remnants of the local mine’s products. To a visitor, it chokes the air from their lungs, but to those who have grown up in the town, it seems nothing but a
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minor nuisance. The Royals promised new inventions to lessen our work and to decrease the dust, but few of the machines came. If we obey the government, we live. Diso- bey, and we lose what little we have, sometimes including our life.
The classes control us. There are three classes, the Firsts, Seconds, and Thirds. The Firsts are made up of the Royal family, the nobles, scientists, and wealthy business- men. Most of the firsts live in the capital, the White City. The Seconds make up the massive military stationed all over the planet. They make up almost a fifth of the popu- lation.
My class is the Thirds. We are the laboring class, con- sisting of everything from miners to shopkeepers to farm- ers. Few of the Thirds are wealthy, and those that are, try to move up to the Second class. Anyone can supposedly change their class, but it is nearly impossible. As a Third, I could marry well or join the military for life and auto- matically become a Second. Of course, I could miracu- lously make enough money to become a First, but that doesn’t happen. The Firsts are a small class and work to keep rising Seconds and Thirds out.
The miners take a short break when the town clock chimes noon. I join the men with my lunch, as they don’t care that a woman works alongside them. Sweat and grime cover my body as much as theirs. No one can say I do not work as hard as the youngest men. Besides, after the riot that killed my father, many of the men are long
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dead. The women have learned to fill in the gaps left be- hind and to take on the jobs of those gone. A few women work in the mines along with me, but most work in the shops.
My arms are sore and my fingertips callused, one fin- ger bleeding where I bruised it earlier this morning. Somehow my finger ended up between two crates and got smashed. I try to rub the numbness and pain from my limbs, but the cold doesn’t leave. As I eat, energy surges back into my body, and I start to feel human again.
The mine supervisor walks over to me. “May I see you in my office, Miss Alkaev?”
I have known the burly supervisor all my life, and I have never met anyone kinder. Though massive in size and intimidating, he treats every worker as his child. He serves dual roles of mine and town supervisor. Every town has a supervisor to help the government control regions far from the capital. Few know that the supervisor is in- volved in the rebellion despite his position as town super- visor. I know because I assist him. He may be the leader, but he turns to me for plans. My life revolves around plan- ning the Royals’ assassination.
I swallow before nodding. I hand the remainder of the food to my stepfather who takes it wordlessly. He knows why the supervisor wants to see me. Unlike my mother, my stepfather does not mind my choice.
I follow the supervisor up the path to a small building several hundred yards from the entrance of the mine. He
City of Deception
opens the door and ushers me in. I spot Angelica curled up on the rug by the fire and stand beside her to warm my hands. Circles hang beneath her eyes, and I guess she hasn’t gotten any sleep since the meeting.
The supervisor takes a seat at his desk. “I’ve received news about the enemy.”
“The Mersiovskys made a move?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No, Natalia. I’ve heard confiden- tial information from the leaders. I’ve known for some time, but the leaders did not want me to tell anyone.”
“Why tell us now?” Angelica asks. She doesn’t even wait to hear what the information is.
“Because soon the Royals will take you to the palace, and you will kill them,” he says.
Angelica gasps. “You mean it is time for me to com- plete my mission to kill the Mersiovskys? My training is over?”
“Not quite yet, but by next spring, a year from now, you will most assuredly be in the palace. Much remains to be done, but finally we have a time frame to expect.”
Angelica smiles, and I try to return her excitement. The beginning of her mission means she’ll leave soon, and I’ll only see my best friend if she survives. There are no guarantees she will succeed.
So much rests on the Royals choosing Angelica over millions of other girls and even with the help of some of the government officials, there is no guarantee she will be the one. Some of the Royal officials work for the rebellion,
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so they will help turn the Royals’ attention to our village. No Royal family has implemented a policy of bringing a stranger into the palace and making him or her their ward. We know from our spies the Royals will choose a female, but we have no idea why they wish to take a girl as a ward.
We speculate they want to take in a ward to placate the classes. It will be a sign of their charity.
Though taking in one starving girl doesn’t fix the planet’s problems.
“What is the information you want to tell us other than news of Angelica’s mission? You spoke as if there was more,” I ask.
He shifts in his seat as he reaches down into a drawer for his pipe. He smokes when he’s uneasy.
“The leaders told me the enemy isn’t the Mersiovskys.” “What?” Angelica and I exclaim.
“One of the Mersiovsky princes will be a tyrant worse than any we have seen in centuries.”
“You said it wasn’t the Mersiovskys!” Angelica says. “Our enemy is the dictator who will hold power with
one of the princes,” he says.
“‘Will?’ What do you mean they ‘will’ hold power?” I ask.
“We’re trying to stop the enemy before they become powerful. The evil we fight is partially the Mersiovskys, but a greater ruler will eclipse them in the next few dec- ades. We’re trying to stop the ruler before he or she can take the throne.”
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“We’re fighting because of the leaders’ speculation?” Angelica’s face scrunches up in frustration. We thought we were fighting to help free citizens now, not years down the road. It is hard to think far into the future when you aren’t sure you will have food on your table in a week’s time.
“It’s not speculation. They’ve seen the ruler and what they can do.”
By now, I am confused.
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