by Bella James
"Where do you think you're going?" he asked Livy.
"Home." It sounded like an excellent plan. She wanted to check on her mother, her sister, her father, her brothers, and most especially on her –
No. Not on Grandfather. Not anymore.
Her eyes filled with tears, she snapped back at the rebel, "I'm going home."
She rounded the corner of the cavern then, following the light and fresh air, and from behind her she heard the rebel call, "Good luck! You're going to need it!"
Once she was out of his sight, she took off the heels, clutched them in both hands, and set off at a run. The entrance to the cave was full of such bright light, it almost looked artificial. She ran to it, determined to win her freedom from both sides of the battle. At the mouth of the cave, she squinted against the light, shading her eyes with her hands, and stepped out.
Before her stretched a vast desert, sand and heat and sunlight as far as she could see. The sun blazed down. The rocks, the very earth, was scorched.
The rebels had brought her here, kidnapped her from her very wedding.
And brought her to the Forbidden Zone.
Whatever happened now, whatever course she took, Livy stood on the brink of a very new world, staring into a wholly unknowable future.
Standing on the blazing plateau, Livy remembered her grandfather's words. Whatever choices she made, whatever direction she took, to her own self she would be true.
End of Book 1
The Chronicles of Arcadia
THE REBELLION
THE ARCADIA TRILOGY
CHAPTER 1
T he desert stretched out around her, a vast, dry ocean, burning like an inferno. A trackless, unending plane of sand and blistering heat, it could swallow Olivia whole if she ventured beyond the confines of the cave. Lifeless, waterless, endless, it was called The Void, the part of the Forbidden Zone where nothing could possibly live. Even the untouchables thrown from the privileged domed city of Arcadia only lived on the edges of the wastes. Surely entering such a place would be suicidal.
Still, while Olivia watched, the sand rose, undulating, shaking as if it were made of nothing but great waves, like the Pac Sea where the islands of Oceanus sprang up, constantly moving, a powerful ebb and flow. Livy watched, holding the edge of the rock wall that formed the cave. The movement of the sand frightened her. All her life she'd been told that The Void was empty, that the danger from the desert was the decaying poisons leftover from the Times Before, the same poisons that took the world down in flames and killed her Grandfather Bane.
But whatever moved beneath the sand, Livy thought it was probably alive - despite what the rebels holding her here in this endless sand-filled prison told her.
That was just one more thing that frightened her.
Sometimes Livy thought there had never been a time when she wasn't afraid. Maybe before the Centurions came en masse to Agara, her village in Pastoreum. Before she was taken to Arcadia as hostage, for training to become tiend to the government, a tax paid and Livy's fate in the hands of testers who could declare her elite, one of the Alpha rulers, or ordinary, one of the Beta workers who live only to toil, or Gamma, the pleasure palace workers, one tiny step above the untouchables.
Was she afraid before the magistrate came to Agara and told them about the once in a generation tax, the taking of every 16-year-old male or female?
She wasn't afraid when the Plutarch chose her as his wife. He'd listened to her once, his attention on her words. They weren't complimentary, weren't the sort of thing almost anyone said to the Plutarch and even Livy for an instant had thought herself dead. Then he'd laughed and said he appreciated her spirit.
She'd thought then she'd learned something about him, or about her place in society, but when she'd spoken up again, after she'd been chosen his bride, he almost killed her. Maybe that's when the fear had settled in for good, like something too large she'd tried to swallow that had wedged in her throat.
Where she sat was a jagged promontory that skirted the rock outcropping housing the cave, rather like a brim on a hat. No one much came out onto it. There was no reason to post a guard in the middle of the desert because no one ever came into The Void. No one went out because the desert was either brutally hot or numbingly cold.
Livy came out because no one else did. Staring at the sand was hypnotic. It quieted her thoughts until she could think again.
Behind her, near the mouth of the cave, she could hear someone moving. Livy didn't bother to look back and see who it was. Probably it was only Arash, the rebel who had taken her from her wedding ceremony, the one who was there when Livy woke, or one of the girls who deferred to him, barely speaking, and who watched Livy whenever he had to step away.
It didn't matter. Early morning sun sank into her shoulders where she sat huddled and watching the sands. There was no horizon here, nothing but rolling sands, going on forever. In another hour or two it would be too hot to venture outside at all. This was only her second day in the rebel camps and already the facts of the Void were coming home to her: too hot to breathe, to move, to venture out during the day without protection, full body coverings and plenty of water.
The Void frightened her. Life in Pastoreum had been hard, a hand to mouth scrabble, but her family had been there, and she had understood the seasons, the heat of summer, snows of winter, the springs spent planting and autumns harvesting. Here, there was killing heat and killing cold within the same day.
If she had been afraid before, she was terrified here. Every step toward her marriage to the Plutarch had made her safer, Olivia Bane and her family, she thought, her thoughts shying away from the loss of her grandfather. That was too painful to think of yet. But her parents and siblings, they'd gained a new house, new privileges, new food rations, and that was because of her. Because Livy was promised to the ruler.
She allowed herself a small smile. The man who made the world tremble was named John. Nothing more. John Malvin. For all of that unassuming name, he was the beginning and the end of everything.
Especially for Olivia Bane. Her world had turned upside down at the touch of a man she should never have met in person.
The sand near the rocks where she crouched moved again, harder and faster and directly toward her.
Surging to her feet, Livy scanned the sand. Panic beat in her throat. She wanted to run, she wanted someone to come for her, she wanted to understand what was happening, because the fear kept growing, with every thought of her family. The Plutarchracy had given her family a new home, new status, new food rations, and all because of Livy – and what had they done once she'd been taken? Before her wedding ever had a chance to happen, before she was bound to the ruler, the rebels had come and carried her to the Void. No way of knowing that the Plutarch understood it hadn't been Livy's fault.
What if the Aristocracy and Leadership thought Livy had voluntarily gone with the rebels?
What would the Arcadians do to her family?
Over and over she told herself they were all right. No one could think the rebel attack on the wedding festivities had been her fault. Surely they wouldn't take it out on her family…
But what of the young Alpha male she'd seen at graduation, the one held for violating curfew in Arcadia? He'd been banished into the untouchables for nothing more than being outside a few minutes after he was supposed to. And the traitor they'd tried and summarily executed in the same public gathering. He'd refused to speak and the leaders had brutally tortured him, then accepted his unbroken silence as admission. They'd beheaded him and Simon had cautioned her not to look away, lest Livy herself be branded a traitor.
Livy shut her eyes and shuddered. Even the desert heat wasn't enough to warm her.
IN THE EVENING LIVY ROSE, stiff from sitting all day. She shaded her eyes, watching the sands, wondering at the movement she sensed all around her. In the afternoon a hot wind came up, blowing the top layers of sand in sheets, stinging any exposed skin until she pulled the white robes closer
and moved back into the lee of the rock she crouched beside. Similar outcroppings of rock dotted the sand, and the movement of the sand stilled and shifted away from them.
No one sat with her. The length of the day had been hers, to worry, to plan, to reject every idea. The Void itself was the perfect prison. There was no way out of it.
"Of course there is," she said aloud. "They got you here, didn't they? And got out to do so."
In Arcadia, Simon had taught her to defend herself, adding to the instruction she received in classes. Livy had been pretty good by the time they stopped training together and moved on to more intimate uses of their stolen nighttime hours, but she was still small and slight. While Arash wasn't huge, he was wiry strong, and there were so many people coming and going from the cave. What chance did she have of getting away without someone stopping her?
Livy frowned, replaying what she'd just thought. People coming and going from the cave. There had to be somewhere else for the rebels to exist. If there was nothing but the cave, what was the point of existing? Better, surely, to live as Betas, somewhere they'd have food, somewhere not so harsh. Surely not every one of the rebels was an untouchable with nowhere else to go.
There was some way into the Void because that's how people came here. That meant there were ways out of the Void.
She had to find a way to escape.
She had to get back to the Plutarch. Back to the life she was meant to be leading, without the heat, the sand, the wind and the fear.
Maybe the fear would remain. But once she returned, once she showed her loyalty, she'd be able to make a difference. She'd be able to check on her family and make certain they were safe.
She'd be safe, too.
Resolutely she ignored the voice in her mind that told her proximity to the Plutarch was no measure of safety.
"YOU SPENT the day out there?"
Livy, sunblind as she entered the cave at evening, startled in response to the sudden voice and turned to find Tia, one of her minders. Until then she hadn't thought what anyone would think about her being outside all day.
"I had a lot to think about." Olivia bit her lip. If the other woman asked her, what would she say? That she'd thought about running? About how to get through the sand? That the rebels came and went from the cave, so it had to be possible, or that she couldn't understand how anyone lived out here, couldn't resign herself to living in nothing more than a cave, however deep it seemed to be? So far she'd remained near the edges, too afraid to go deep inside. Being in the cave felt like she imagined being buried alive would.
But Tia pushed her long gray hair back from her forehead, using both hands behind her head to braid it into a single plait down her back, and said only, "I could use some help with the evening meal."
Her voice was kind enough, but Livy had no doubt this was an order, and she bristled under it. Hadn't she had enough of laboring in Pastoreum, and enough of being ordered about at the Institute?
Best to play along for now. Until I can figure out a way to escape.
"Come on, girl, no sense mooning around like a sun-dazed bat." Tia moved fast despite her obvious years, and Livy followed her, nearly laughing at the comment, until she realized Tia's years meant she'd survived as a rebel at the very least this long. Had she always been a traitor?
Not traitor. No. That was Arcadian thinking. That was why Livy wanted to go back. To help change things. Change could start in Arcadia, spread out from there, ripples of change like the ripples of sand she'd watched all afternoon.
Pushing herself to catch up, she fell into step beside the older woman. "When I was out there, I saw waves across the sand, like something you'd see on the Pac." She didn't quite make it a question, just waited to see what the other woman would say.
Tia threw a glance at her and began moving faster. "Aye, did you? And what do you make of that?"
Livy felt herself starting to pant for breath. "Could you slow down a little?"
Tia looked coldly away from Livy, back at the path winding through the rock. "We're already late to start the meals. That's because you were outside, sunbathing."
Livy snorted. Hardly that! But Tia didn't relent.
"Keep up, or find your own way."
And given Livy had seen no one else on their trip and the cave had to be so very much larger than she thought, Livy hurried. She didn't stop asking, though.
“The sand, Tia. Do you know?"
They were in the narrows between two of the craggy rock walls and Tia stopped abruptly, whirling on Livy. "You need to keep to your place and not ask questions." She was so much taller than Livy she had to bend down to meet her face to face and when she did, Livy pulled back from the anger there. "Stay away from the sand."
"But – "
"Stay away! Arash will explain everything you need to know, but know this, if you persist in what you're doing, if you step foot into the sand, he will have no reason to explain."
Livy frowned, swallowed hard, and followed Tia again because she'd already resumed her fast-paced walk to the kitchen. Far from finding out what she wanted, Livy now had more questions that ever.
She didn't think she was going to get them answered tonight.
THE CAVE apparently dipped downward at some point, because the sand gave way in the cave floor to actual dirt. Which was why Livy was peeling potatoes and had been, as her Grandfather Bane might have said, since Hector was a pup. Her hands hurt from the unfamiliar work and her fingers were nicked from using the knife.
But worse was that the kitchens were loud, with the machines that vented the smoke through the surface into the sand, dissipating it before it reached the air. "Not that anyone ever comes into the Void this far," said Cal. He was six one, beefy, dark as Arash and tall as Tia but nice for a change. Which was probably why they'd sentenced him to kitchen duty, Livy thought – not to save him from dangers of rebel behavior but because he was nice and they wanted to beat it out of him.
No one else she'd met there was.
"If no one comes this far, then why… " she started and saw him smiling. "What?"
"I've asked that. The answer is 'better safe than sorry, now shut it and peel your potatoes.'" He shrugged.
Livy looked down at the potato in her hands. "Well, I'm peeling your potatoes now, so I say spill it."
That amused him but all he did was toss her another sack of potatoes. "My sweet girl, such questions are not going to be answered. Not any more than your queries about what you saw in the sand and why you shouldn't set foot on the sand and why Tante Tia is so unpleasant that she seemed to be overflowing with sand," and he looked back at the food he was endlessly preparing.
Livy sighed and threw the potato she was holding back into the bag. "How many people are in this wretched place?"
"More than can be counted, and more than those potatoes, so move faster, girl."
The kitchen was huge, the ceiling still too close for Livy to catch her breath properly, but wide enough for a dozen people to move easily without getting in each other's ways. The ceiling itself was all hard sharp angles, the counters of gleaming metal, the counters of polished wood, where so much of the rest of what she'd seen was rough rock and sandy floors. The kitchen itself was made up of ovens and brick fireplaces and containers full of food. She'd expected they'd go hungry here a lot, but other than fruit they seemed to be lacking nothing. Somewhere in the cave there must be goats, because she recognized the thin goat milk from having Sweet Girl back in Pastoreum. Goats meant cheese, and also meant there had to be something for the goat to eat. Grasses? Here?
"Can I ask… " she started and Cal sighed, looking honestly angry for the first time.
"You can ask anything you like, but the only person who can answer you is Arash. He brought you, he's your protector, he's your connection to the community."
Slowly, Livy shut her mouth. "Fine," she said angrily. "I'll ask Arash."
* * *
THEY CAN'T TREAT me this way! I was supposed to marry the Plutarch!
Her shoulders rose and her head dropped into her hands. She'd meant only to get away from everyone for a few minutes, volunteering to head into one of the cold rooms where they stored vegetables, but being alone had felt good and Livy, sinking against one wall with her shoulder, had instantly been overcome.
She'd been meant to marry the Plutarch. How could they take her away from that? How dare they treat her like a prisoner? Like anyone else?
In her fury, which thinly masked fear, she'd forgotten what she even wanted, why she hadn't run when they'd named her the Plutarch's bride and the mother of the race.
She'd been looking for information and she could do that here, too. The rebels, the Centurions, including Selene who had saved her more than once, and the aristocracy in Arcadia – they were all parts of the same puzzle.
She didn't know why, but Livy thought she was the one who had to put the pieces together.
In her ears, the last thing her grandfather had told her before the Centurions bore her away from Agara rang in her ears:
To thine own self be true.
AT DINNER LIVY finally got to see how many people were in the cave. More than she'd expected and less than she'd feared. She lost track around ninety. If everyone had a job to do and if most of them were involved in whatever kind of rebellion they thought they were brewing, surely they couldn't always assign someone to watch her.
Tia sat down next to her on the long bench. The tables were communal, long and rough hewn. Everyone there wore simple clothes, gray pull over short sleeved shirts of cotton, and loose trousers, some of them cut above the knee. Hooded white tunic tops kept the sun off or the wearer warm, and each had a single bright green hummingbird embroidered over the left breast. Those clothes looked cooler than the robes Livy was still wearing that had kept the sun off her during the day. She slipped those off and found everyone near her suddenly staring.