by Bella James
"So this is where you all live?"
"This?" Arash asked with what sounded like contempt. "Hardly. This is one of the waystations. This is where people come on the journey between the camps. Here, this is what I wanted to show you." He pulled aside a heavy tapestry – more insects, more people, crops in a garden – to reveal a tub filled with steaming hot water.
Livy stepped forward automatically. It looked heavenly. But they were in a desert and there were people depending on the water. She turned back to Arash. "How?"
He gave her a mischievous grin. "Our best kept secret: this cave is on top of a vast aquifer. There's water. I brought the whites for you," he said, showing her again the now somewhat battered bundle of clothes. He tossed it to her and Livy caught it neatly. "Enjoy," he said.
"Right. Like I'm just going to change in front of you."
The grin deepened. "If you like."
The teasing was so normal, so like her oldest brother Geoffrey, Livy laughed aloud and looked around for something to throw at him. Arash ducked as if she had thrown something, and laughed as he moved past the tapestry. She heard his footsteps moving some distance away, heard the sound of the reins coming out of his pocket as he must have started working on them again.
She sank into the water and sighed with pleasure.
WHEN SHE CLIMBED out of the tub, Livy felt almost bonelessly content. Dressing in the utilitarian clothes from the bundle, she noticed the tight cotton short-sleeved shirt clung to her, making movement easy. The white hooded tunic that went over it had long sleeves and a big pocket in front that her hands could pass through and clasp each other. Functional, it would keep the sun off her outdoors, keep her warm indoors. Like most of the clothes the rebels wore, there was a bright green hummingbird embroidered on the left side of the chest. Livy stroked it absently before continuing to dress. The pants were also white, loose, and featured huge pockets on the thighs, like the ones Arash kept the reins in for mending in odd moments. The shoes were sandals. Maybe she'd be able to find something else. Sandals always made Livy feel insecure.
She brushed her hair and fastened it high on her head, then stepped out from behind the curtain.
Arash looked up. "Better?"
Livy nodded, and turned to gather up the twine from the bundle. She could use it to secure her ponytail, which was already falling out of its wet twist. Turning toward the mirror set up in the outer chamber, she ran her hands under her thick, wet hair, scooping it up. She wasn't prepared for Arash to jolt and move fast toward her, his eyes on her neck.
Livy spun back toward him, wary. His face in the mirror had been intense. "What's happened?" She was ready to keep backing away from him until she had the advantage and could attack. Simon had trained her well. If it came to hand to hand combat, she was ready.
Arash held up both hands signaling he meant no harm. "Your neck!"
Even though she'd just been looking in the mirror, atavistic response made her scratch frantically at her neck, convinced there was something there, crawling – spider, insect, flying stinging creature -- !
There was nothing on her neck, though she raked a single small bloody streak into the skin with one fingernail before Arash had stopped moving and put his hands up reassuringly. "Nothing, there's nothing – I just mean." He stopped, visibly stunned, and said, "May I?"
Livy shook her head. "May you what?"
Arash gestured at the base of his own neck. "You've got a mark on your skin." He tapped his own neck on the right side, where neck and shoulder met, visible under Livy's scoop necked shirt.
She let her hands drop, and gave a shaky laugh. "Oh. That. I've always had it."
Far from reassuring him, she saw Arash was now not breathing. He moved nothing but his head, as if he could stretch his neck out far enough to inspect her neck without stepping forward.
Livy stared at him. "Are you all right?"
"You've always had it." He swallowed. "Where did you get it?"
Screwing her face up in consternation, Livy said, "I didn't get it. It's a birthmark. I was born with it."
And Arash finally came closer, moving behind Livy as if she were incapable of turning so he could see her shoulders. "It looks like a butterfly."
No need to comment. She knew that. A mottled brown butterfly missing just the bottom edge of its left wing. Otherwise, it was a perfect shape, like a silhouette of a flutterer.
A sudden memory bore her away. Her grandfather, holding her on his lap when she was very young, tickling her neck, making her squeal and laugh, and touching the birthmark that showed out from under her hard woven clothes. "This is the mark of flight, little fighter. It's the sign of freedom."
And her mother's voice, coming from somewhere behind them. In the flash of memory, her mother's voice comes out of darkness that surrounds them, but that's just the effect of memory. That day had been sunny, warm and beautiful, and her grandfather had been there.
She shook off the memory. Arash looked uncertain, like he meant to say something, but a shattering crash shook the cave as something beyond it detonated. Livy made a grab for him, as if suddenly he were the only thing stable in an off balance world, but nothing in the cave was actually moving. The sound was already ringing back to silence and the floor of the cave was as stable as it had been before the explosion.
"Damn! They're too close today," Arash swore. He looked like he meant to say something else, but didn't. He nodded at Livy. "Come with me. There's someone who needs to see that." He nodded at her neck.
Livy automatically put a hand over the mark. Her mark, her neck, not sure she wanted anyone to see it. She pulled the neckline of the shirt over it, then thought the better of that – the shirt would just move into a natural position again – and pulled on the hooded shirt. "No. I'm sure there are some potatoes I could be peeling." She let bitterness creep into the words.
Arash didn't respond to that. "Come on. Just the council. They'll need to know. They need to see that. I think – " He broke off and shook his head. "No. They can say. Come on."
He was always telling her to come with him. Livy stood her ground. Arash stared at her, clearly not understanding.
"You're always ordering me to follow you or go where you say. You tell me I'm valuable to your cause, but you've got me peeling potatoes."
"Everyone contributes," Arash said mildly. He was still trying to move her along.
Livy stood her ground. Another show of sameness. Nothing changed. Nothing ever changed. Put people into the picture and the picture came out the same: someone led, and everyone else was forced to follow.
"If everyone contributes, if everyone has to contribute while some among them keep saying come on and telling them what to do and when, how is this any different than the communities the Plutarch set up?" Her hands were shaking so she balled them into fists and thrust them into the big single pocket across the front of her tunic.
Arash looked appalled. "You can't see the difference?"
"There isn't any difference!" There were tears in her voice now, though she wasn't crying. Yet. For the first time she realized she wanted there to be a difference. She wanted to go home and find her grandfather mysteriously alive again and tell them all she'd made a difference, she'd been the power behind the power, the woman behind the Plutarch, and she'd changed things. She'd worked her wiles on him. Things were different.
Everyone was safe.
Or at least everyone was as safe as everyone chose to keep him or herself.
For the first time she realized she might not have the power she'd anticipated. The Plutarch had listened to her once and praised her spirit. But now she remembered that scene, she flushed, feeling more like a pet bird repeating dialog for a trick, than like someone speaking truth to power and being listened to.
Maybe she'd been fooling herself.
Maybe she'd been fooling herself because she liked the indulgences and beauty and perceived freedoms of Arcadia. She'd wanted to keep them.
And maybe I really m
eant to try. Even if it didn't work, if everyone gave up before trying, nothing would ever be accomplished.
So if she was caught or taken back by the Plutarch's army, maybe that was what she'd do: try to make changes from the inside. Like she'd dreamed.
Her gaze focused on where Arash stood, waiting for her to come to some kind of decision.
Maybe what Arash was offering her was an alternate route to making a difference. It wasn't what she'd dreamed of doing. It was less an Olivia Bane quest to make a difference, and more the quest of scattered peoples around the world.
It was less a childish dream.
And more a potential reality.
"What does it mean?" she asked, her hand going up to the mark on her neck again. Her eyes met his.
Arash softened, his face losing some of its intensity as he watched her. "It's better for the council to tell you." He held his hand out to her again, but this time it was entreaty, not demand.
"I don't know what that is, the council," she said. She didn't reach for his hand, but she didn't pull away, either.
"They govern here. You have selectmen in your villages?"
She nodded.
"And they answer to regional councils, which answer to the Plutarch."
"But the selectmen and the regional councils only advise," she said. She didn't want to waste time with people who had no authority. "They can't change anything."
He nodded, blinking a little, his lips pursed together and pushed out, as if considering that Livy knew what she was talking about.
Her grandfather had taught her well, it seemed.
"You have the gist of it. At the waystations, there are councils. They answer to regional councils. They have power to work in every station. And there's a central body that makes decisions." He caught sight of her expression and added, "For the good of all, with input of everyone affected."
Livy let out a breath. Her grandfather had read her something about that. The idea of a governing body governing with the input of the people governed and their best interests at heart. At the time it had sounded wonderful – and like any other proposed system that involved people: a wonderful theory but unworkable as soon as the human element entered the picture.
"It can't work," she whispered.
"Olivia, it can. It's not easy. And there's a lot of fighting. But it can work." He held out his hand again. "Will you come with me?"
This time a direct request. She'd expect to have felt triumphant like she'd won something but Livy just felt relieved. She reached for his hand, when alarms shattered the silence around them as thoroughly as the explosions had.
Adrenaline spiked in her. Livy's heart raced and she put a hand to her mouth. "Could someone have been injured in those explosions?" She wanted to ask what they were, but already she could hear running feet, people moving fast toward something.
Back toward the nearest entrance, she realized.
Arash had taken her outstretched hand and was pulling her with him. "No, this is the alarm for an intruder."
Livy's mouth opened in surprise. Hadn't she been telling herself there had to be a way in to the cave, a way across the Forbidden Zone desert to where she was? But now that someone threatened the walls of the keep, she found herself shocked anyone could move through the desert who wasn't expected and therefore fully prepared.
But Arash was already tugging her after him and Livy stumbled into a run behind him.
At the cave mouth, two tall, strong men stood with an equally tall, strong figure between them. Several men and women Livy hadn't met were moving at a run, shoving through the crowd to get to the newcomers. Arash pulled Livy out of the way just before they reached them.
"What is this?" one of the men demanded as they met up to the group. The sunlight behind the trio at the door stopped Livy from seeing much.
She looked up at Arash. He nodded, looking serious. "Council came to us. More or less. That's Jurek, and the man behind him is Scott. The woman with them is Sarah, and the man hanging behind her, her brother, Ben."
"Is that all of them?" Livy asked. She'd want to know later, when she became afraid again of being presented to the council. For the moment, she just wanted the three in the light to step in where she could see them. Something seemed so familiar…
"Tia's on the council. Kind of. She's new. An alternate. Otherwise, yes." But his attention wasn't on her, and when Livy wandered away from him, he didn't notice.
Her heart was hammering in her chest, her thoughts moving fast. If it's the Plutarch's army, I'll go with them. Why not? Back where I belong. I don't belong here.
And if it turned out to be someone – or even three someones, she couldn't easily see who all the figures were, maybe the two strong man surrounding the slighter figure were strangers also – if it was someone who meant harm to the rebel waystation?
She didn't know. But she wished she were armed. Looking around the corridors where they stood, many of the citizens joining them carried staves or knives or some other kind of weapons.
To her surprise, she saw a number of guns and wondered silently if any of them were loaded with bullets her father had created. Bullets Livy herself had held the mold for as they were poured, turning from molten metal to – what had her father said?
Freedom.
Her mind made a quick series of connections. From the last time she'd seen her father, just before Livy's aborted wedding to the ruler. They'd shared a meal in the new house the Aristocracy had provided her family once Livy was chosen. Nut bread, before the meal. It was the last time she'd seen her grandfather alive.
She hadn't been allowed to go to her parents' house alone.
She'd been in the company of –
"Selene!"
Several people around her turned back, startled, curious and then suspicious. Livy didn't blame them. She was suspicious herself.
Pushing through the taller adults who were congregating up in the front of the crowd, Livy moved until she ran into Arash, who tried to hold her back.
"You don't want to. That's a Centurion! You don't understand," he said, pushing her.
Furious with him again, Livy shoved him hard, barely moving him but just enough she could move to the mouth of the cave. "You don't understand," she told Arash. "I've been in their care."
The last word might have been a bit of an exaggeration. But Selene had worked to keep Olivia safe. She didn't stop moving until she stood where the other woman was, held fast by the two men flanking her who, now Livy could blink the sun tears out of her eyes and blink away the dark of the cave, she saw were rebels.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded of the Plutarch's guard. A dozen Centurions she'd have understood. But one?
Selene took cold eyes from the men who held her and the council who confronted her and turned to Livy, first hard, and then softening. "You were my charge. I was to see you through your preparations and get you together with the person who would stand for you at your wedding. I was to deliver you there, to be wed. I failed. But you are still my charge. I will not fail again."
It was the longest speech Livy had ever heard the Centurion make. She blinked, and before anyone could say anything, she asked, "You will not fail at what?"
Selene looked momentarily confused, as if her duty was so clear to her she couldn't understand anyone asking her about it. Then she said simply: "To keep you safe."
The man Arash had called Ben stepped forward. "Safe from what? She's out of danger here. And who do you answer to?"
Selene turned her cold gaze on him. "Understand," she said. "I answer now to Olivia Bane, Chosen One of the Plutarch, the Plutarchracy and the Aristocracy. I do not answer to you. As for keeping her safe, you'll choose to use her as a pawn in whatever plans you have. Understand I will see no harm come to her." Her storm blue eyes took him in and looked away again. She wore the red coat of the Centurions, the black tights, the black gloves. She carried her stave, though she held it loosely and no one had tried to take it from her.
Ben tried again. "Do you renounce the Plutarch?"
"I renounce nothing. I am sworn only to Olivia Bane."
Ben nodded. His eyes swept the other members of the council and they seemed to reach a silent agreement. "Hold her in the cells," he said, and the men holding her arms began to drive her forward.
"No!" Livy shouted, reaching out to stop them.
Ben whirled on her. "You do not speak here. You are not council. You are not community. You are not in control."
Livy looked back and forth between him and Arash, and between him and Tia who had come running up, but there was no support to be had. She wanted to sink back into herself and pretend she'd never spoken.
Too late. She'd faced the Plutarch. She could face this man.
"I didn't think I was in control. I believe that I am truly a prisoner here. But you lock that woman up, and you will have no hostage. I will escape. Or I will end myself. I will find some way to fight you. And know this: leave her to stay with me, pledged to my service, and I will cooperate with you."
I'd already planned to. But you don't need to know that.
She watched the play of emotions over the man's face and, to a lesser extent, over the faces of the other council members and thought again: Nothing changes. People are people. Challenge their authority and they bristle. No one likes to be controlled and beaten down.
Maybe the leadership should learn that.
CHAPTER 4
"Why have you come here?" Jurek demanded.
Though everyone sat at the same level, everyone around a table built in a circle to make them all even, there was no doubt Jurek was in charge of the council. The others deferred to him. He was white haired, small and stooped, but his eyes were bright and alive and he observed the Centurion in their midst with no apparent fear.
For her part, Selene stood tall and proud, her Pastoreum background obvious in her fair coloring, her bright brassy gold hair, her pale skin. She had refused to let go of her staff, but had peace-tied it to her side. Olivia was skeptical. She thought red ribbons would slash through in an instant should Selene turn out to be something other than the friend she claimed.