The Choosing (The Arcadia Trilogy Book 1)

by James, Bella

  "Has there been a crime?" Livy wondered. The Plutarch wouldn't send a Magistrate to collect a village's taxes.

  The crowd noise grew louder and now the Centurions were stamping harder. Livy threw a terrified glance at Tarah. Any minute now they'd be leaving the stage, coming down into the crowd to make the villagers silence. Noise buffeted her from every side and the crowd hemmed her in, too close for her to move easily. She lost her hold on Tarah's hand and the massing knot of humanity instantly forced them apart. Livy cried out and stretched, reaching for her friend, but Tarah was borne steadily away, her mouth working, her own hands reaching.

  Abruptly someone grabbed hold of Livy, steadying her when she thought she was going to fall. A strong sure grip held her up, and a voice quite close to her ear said, "I've got you. Olivia, stop. Stop, you're all right."

  She went still and turned just far enough to see her mother's face above hers. Relief made her sag for a minute. "Are you all right? Where's Grandfather? Where's – "

  "Everyone is fine, Olivia. We have to get you out of here. It's not safe." She slid her fingers down Livy's arm and took a firm hold of her hand. The minute her fingers closed around Livy's, she turned and started plunging into the sea of people, opening a swath to move through.

  "Wait!" Livy cried. She dug her feet in, trying to find purchase against the asphalt village center streets, scrabbling against her mother's hand. Later she'd wonder if she had only gone willingly, if anything would have changed. "Wait! Mother! I can't just – it's not safe – where – "

  Her voice echoed a little too shrill and loud. By degrees the crowd had quieted. Her mother stopped instantly, fading into a clutch of tall Agaraians, dragging Livy with her into invisibility.

  On the stage the Magistrate spoke. "People of New Agara, province of Pastoreum, subjects of the Plutarch in the reign of life, hear me. This disobedience will not be tolerated. You are loyal subjects of the Plutarch and I am here on business of the realm."

  A few scattered shouts, muttered comments. Madeline had gone still within the crowd, as invisible as a tiny leaf-eared mouse within the corn. An apt comparison – when cornered, the tiny mice shivered, trembling away from their attackers, and Mad was trembling now, her hand in Livy's sweating and cold.

  When silence had worked its way through the crowd, the Magistrate surveyed them coldly and said, "We have come to carry out one of the ancient contracts, collecting a tax due the emperor, for support of the realm."

  Muttering broke out again, subdued but growing. The Magistrate didn't wait. His round belly shook under his blood-red jacket, and the purple sash across it looked like sunrise colors gone wrong.

  "A plague runs throughout our lands, crossing boundaries and sparing no one. There is no such thing as safety from this plague."

  Livy looked up at her mother. Mad stood with her face turned upward, toward the sky, though, not toward the speaker on the stage. When Livy squeezed her hand, Mad opened her eyes, asking what Livy wanted, and Livy in return, opened her eyes wider, questioning.

  Mad nodded, as if to herself, and bent to speak directly into Livy's ear so she could be heard. "There is a plague of sorts, but it is not what they say. It does not spread and it is not a disease. You will not fall ill, Olivia. This is only a trick, meant to give the Plutarch what he wants, to – "

  She broke off when something within the speech and something within the crowd changed.

  "By order of the world leader, the tax to be collected is the periodic Culling that leads to the Choosing. The Plutarch is not cruel. His reign is not abusive. The Plutarch in the reign of life takes from the communities only once a reign. The Culling takes place only once a generation. No one from your village has been offered the opportunity for forty years."

  Livy squeezed her mother's hand, confusion starting to frighten her. What did he mean, opportunity? When Centurions spoke, lies followed – she'd learned that one from her grandfather.

  Whatever the Magistrate said next, his words were lost on Livy as her mother began to gently guide her back, behind Mad, and then back, into the crowd, Mad leading her, facing away, back toward the stage, but guiding her nonetheless. Livy expected to trample feet, to feel bodies as she backed into them, for hands to shove her away, impatient or simply repelling her, but the crowd seemed to open behind her, leaving space for Mad and Livy to move through so easily it was like a current of water cutting through a river: creating change, but unnoticeable.

  The Magistrate's words reached her again. Livy felt her fear curdle inside her. Bile rose in her throat. She had been told something about this. Her grandfather had told her stories, but they were nothing more than myths, fairytales, legends of the bad old days when life was cheap and the current pacts of nonaggression not in place between the provinces.

  That was all still true… wasn't it?

  Even as she asked the question she remembered asking it years before when she'd been so much younger it had seemed a game to pick apart her grandfather's stories, logicking them into place. But if there's a pact between the provinces, of nonaggression, then how can anyone be hurt or killed? She'd been so young then, death had been a concept, like moving pieces on a game board. She'd challenged her grandfather for no reason but logic and curiosity.

  What had he told her that day?

  Then she had it: that she was correct, that there was a pact of nonaggression between the provinces of Pastoreum, Tundrus, Oceanus and the few scattered outposts on the very edge of the Forbidden Zone, the border of the Void.

  There was no such pact between the seat of government and the governing bodies in the glass-domed city of Arcadia. The Plutarch himself had made no such promises.

  "Today the Culling will take one year of the youths from this province, to serve at the dictates and wishes of the Plutarch," the Magistrate intoned. "Guards will begin passing among you, throughout this square – " such a sneer in his voice, such disdain – "and throughout the village of – " He consulted a note. Clearly he couldn't even be bothered to learn where he was before speaking.

  Livy pushed herself to back more quickly. Her mother instantly picked up her pace, easing Livy back faster.

  "Agara. When your name is called, you are to step to the front of the crowd. Noncompliance will force the guards into action." He paused, his silver hair gleaming above the well fed wattles of his neck. "You do not want this."

  They had reached the edge of the crowd and now Livy saw her mother had been guiding her specifically into a cache of neighbors who now nodded to her, faces somber, eyes flicking only briefly between the Centurions on the stage and the girl standing wide-eyed before them. Just as easily as she and her mother had moved, they flowed around her, blocking her from view, making Livy realize each of the neighbors and friends hemming her in was taller than she was. So what? Everyone was. But these were among the tallest of the people they knew.

  She slid between them and stood still, heart hammering, straining to hear what would happen next.

  The names started then, someone other than the Magistrate speaking. There was no way to know them all. The village of Agara wasn't small; there were generations within it and other young people Livy didn't know. She held her breath, fearing to hear the names of friends, biting her lip before she realized Tarah was a good six months younger than she was. At fifteen, Tarah wouldn't be called.

  But Dav would. She heard his name and a groan from what was probably his father. She heard the commotion from the crowd, like a lapping of waves as they protested without words, the rustle of sleeves of hardwoven as they reached for him. Dav and after him Mira, his twin sister, and after Mira a handful of names she didn't know and one or two she did. It had never occurred to Livy how few friends her own age she actually had.

  All around her people her own age were being called, their families letting out sobs as the sixteen-year-olds filed unwillingly to the stage or were dragged by Centurions, their wrists scanned to access their ID chips. Panic was growing within the crowd, parents ca
lling, shouting, protesting, and starting to try and battle their way to the front where their children were being held. So far no one had moved any of them, there was simply a growing group at the front and Livy bit her lip, uncertain what was happening. That the Centurions were involved was bad, she knew that, but no one had taken them anywhere and –

  "Why have I never heard of this?" she demanded of her mother, who looked horrified at Livy speaking out and shushed her. The crowd around them swayed, restive.

  Anger rose in Livy. Her mother had known something about whatever was happening! She leaned up to her mother and hissed, "What's happening?"

  Something had to be. This was more than a census, more than some kind of demand for everyone to choose a job before they were ready, more than identifying miscreants if something somewhere had happened that the capitol wanted to blame on Pastoreum or more directly, on Agara.

  The panic seething through the crowd of villagers made Livy dig her broken, earth-dirtied nails into the palms of her hands. She stared around her at the faces of neighbors, willing someone to look at her and answer her questions. The faces above her were impassive or covered in rage; no one looked at her.

  She startled back to attention when she heard the Magistrate call from the stage, "Olivia Bane."

  The crowd around her did not move closer, did not, in fact, move, but she felt their muscles tense as they drew themselves tighter, drew in deep breaths and tensed. Uncertain, Olivia only looked around the faces above her, then stared straight ahead as far as she could see, which was the back of the man standing in front of her.

  From the stage, the silver haired man in the purple sash of power said again, "Olivia Bane."

  Livy drew in a breath and closed her eyes, willing herself not to be there.

  A commotion behind them and hands came down on Livy's shoulders. She made an almost inaudible sound of protest and started to fight before her grandfather said, "It's me, girl." He stood as straight and tall as the other men for all his injuries and illnesses, and stared forward at the Centurions and the Magistrate.

  Slowly, coldly, with anger in every syllable, the Magistrate said, "O. liv. Ia. Bane." Even as he spoke the guards were now passing through the crowd, roughly shoving adults and children aside, scanning anyone near sixteen, throwing those they found, now nameless and uncalled, up to other guards who shepherded them to the front. They were pushing them in with the others who even now were being moved onward to a prison wagon, a thing of crisscrossed bars and metal mesh, a hot killing box if dragged and left too long in the sun. Livy's insides went liquid at the idea of being stuffed in there, trapped in there, left in there.

  Her mother's fingers were anxious on Livy's hardwoven tunic shoulders, urging her back and back, away from the stage, and all at once she whispered harshly, "Run, girl. Don't go home."

  But she broke off with a cry as one of the guards threw her hard to the ground, shoved aside the other men who had been parting to let Livy out the back of their shoulder to shoulder stances, and grabbed Livy before she could protest or run.

  "Wrist," snarled the guard and she recognized him as the Centurion who had asked her only the day before if she needed him to fetch her father as she tried to free the wheel from the muddy ground.

  There was no humanity in his eyes today.

  She didn't resist. There was no point. Even if she ran now they'd only catch her. She held her arm out and let him scan it, glaring the entire time. Grandfather had said if you met one who was human, to do everything possible to offer kindness, to be polite.

  This had gone beyond that.

  Her father appeared just as her chip registered on the scanner. "I have her!" the Centurion shouted, and tore her from the grasp of her family, leaving them crying behind her, their voices raised to call after her.

  Livy struggled. There was no way to overcome the grip of the guard but she couldn't stop herself. Her arms waved frantically, wanting the embrace of her own family.

  But she was lifted swiftly and thrown into the wagon, caught by the hands of the teenagers already in the box, who gathered her in, pulling her free of the metal-lined door before it was slammed shut where her feet might have still in that space.

  She heard the guards shouting at the crowd. "There will be repercussions! There will be short rations for the next two weeks! There will be punishments meted out!" But her village had always been adept at hiding food and transferring blame. Livy was more worried about the situation she'd just been cast into than the one she was leaving behind.

  The prison wagon jolted into motion. Next to her people were hanging at the opening in the metal mesh, hands outstretched to their families as if there were still time to be freed.

  Livy only held the bars around the door and looked out longingly.

  From the crowd, she heard her grandfather's voice, stronger than it had been in years. "Remember, Livy," he shouted. "Remember what I told you."

  The Centurions whipped the horses, dragging the wagon and their collected humans towards Arcadia.

  Chapter 4

  When the last of the trees that surrounded Agara faded from sight, Olivia let herself slump down to the floor of the wagon. Many of the girls were already there, in tears, moaning, shaking and terrified. The boys still hung at the edges of the wagon, shaking the bars, trying the lock. They hadn't given up hope yet.

  I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye.

  But there was anger mixed with her sorrow and fear. Her parents had known something was coming, that something was going to happen, and they hadn't told her. If she'd known to expect something, maybe she could have taken steps. Run and hid before the announcement that something was happening in the town square, before she and Tarah joined hands and ran there.

  How could they not have told her? Grandfather Bane had given her hints but even he had never come out and said that when she turned sixteen, she might be taken by the capital.

  Though not everyone was. Livy frowned, turning the puzzle over in her mind. Something her parents had said the night before at dinner, about it not being time yet, being too soon, about it being a new tax.

  It couldn't happen every year. Everyone would be aware that sixteen was a dangerous age and take care not to be caught.

  Or maybe, Livy thought, the parents would take care not to have children born into a cycle that would result in their being taken when they reached sixteen and whatever timeline the Plutarch's troops followed to come looking.

  Her luck, then, had been to turn sixteen at the wrong time.

  That almost made her smile.

  Then she turned her attention back to her current situation. Things were bad enough without what if's and might have's. For now, she needed to concentrate on learning everything she could and surviving whatever this situation meant.

  She turned her face forward and looked to whatever the future held in store.

  Chapter 5

  They were on the road for a week, driving through Pastoreum and stopping in every village from Orem to Lauke. Pastoreum's villages were small, the largest being the ill-named Friends, a small city of 50,000, where nearly two-thirds of the residents were tasked with producing the cheeses spread through the commonwealth.

  "We're not going to miss a single town," Livy finally moaned on the fifth day. As soon as the prison cart had cleared the borders of Agara, it had stopped and the prisoners were transferred to a bus, something long and shiny and totally unreal in Livy's opinion. The sound and stench of it scared her, and she'd spent the first day expecting the thing to tip over or explode. When nothing happened she grudgingly realized that the plumbing on the bus meant not having to head for bushes with every stop, and the seats were comfortable, the windows opened and closed, at least enough to get air. There were enough places to sit that sometimes she could be alone and other times she could sit with some of the others. By day five there were better than thirty of them on their bus, and more buses joined the convoy daily.

  "You're just lucky you were
picked up after Tundrus and Oceanus," Simon said, flopping down next to her. Livy held her breath, hoping he'd stay. There was something more grown up about Simon than about a lot of the others – and something far more beautiful. Today he held a rubber ball in one hand, alternately squeezing it and throwing it against the ceiling of the bus. "We've been on the road since before the world began."

  "Oh, please," said one of the girl's whose name Livy still wasn't sure of. The girl had a round sallow face and dark blond hair and she was tiny and quick. What Livy most noticed about her was her ability to compliment someone while actually saying awful things. When she'd been introduced to a handful of the prisoners from Agara she'd talked loudly about what was waiting for them in Arcadia, as if she knew.

  "They're separating us out by ability," she said, preening. "Those with a talent for the arts have nothing to fear! We'll be welcomed into court life, able to spend our days training in our arts and perfecting them."

  "Oh, right?" a boy named Cal who had been on the bus since Tundrus asked. "And those of us without talents? What then? The Plutarch just keeps us there out of the goodness of his heart?"

  Cindy – Livy thought that was her name – had laughed like she thought Cal was actually joking, and then said, "I'm sure you have tons of talent, Calvin. I'm sure there's something you can do," which both seemed supportive and horrible at the same time. After watching Cindy do that half a dozen more times, Livy just took to avoiding her.

  What Cindy thought was going to happen now was beyond Livy's understanding. What she did know was that anyone who wanted to give them a chance at determining their talents likely wouldn't come from the capital, where no one seemed to have much interest in those living in the "Outlying territories" which was, as Olivia had once pointed out, most of the rest of the world.

  Another boy, Zach, who weighed probably three times what anyone else did, believed gloomily that they were all being taken for sacrifice.