by Bella James
She pressed her books closer to her body, her fingers digging into the covers. I won't go, she thought. For once I'm going to control my own path and decide where I go. I choose to stay here.
Reading either her mind or her expression, Arash held up a hand. "We'll take your books to your dorm. We're going up for the afternoon. The council will meet us above. It's a test, and something you should pass easily."
It was Selene who correctly read Livy's tight expression. "Just the afternoon, Olivia Bane. You are not being taken from this place."
When Livy let out a sigh of relief, Arash looked between the two of them, confused. "I didn't mean… "
Recovering, Livy grinned. "Just say come on, and let's go," she teased.
CHAPTER 8
T he ladder was only slightly less terrifying when she ascended rather than descended. Arash and Selene roped her off with his reins before they started, and the climb took longer than the descent had, the three of them pausing to breathe noisily increasingly often as they neared the top.
The light was different, even in the cave. Brighter and yet not as clear as it was in the cavern above Dawn. Something about the utopian city already felt like home to Livy. All she needed to do was – and she laughed silently to herself, following the other two who both led. All she needed to do was bring everyone she'd ever known to the city so they could join her in the clean, well-ordered existence.
Instead, she needed to bring that reality outside the caverns. All that required was to change the world.
Her ego was apparently quite healthy.
"Where are we going?" she called after Arash. They'd been moving for nearly an hour, by vehicle to the edge of Dawn where the same ladder they'd taken to arrive touched down, and then up and now apparently out.
"Into the Void," he called back.
Livy forced herself to follow. It wasn't anything she hadn't half expected, but the last time she'd ventured into the burning lands and the sands had shifted even after she had run into them, discovering how hard they were to traverse at the same time something came for her, something fast and huge under the sand.
She wasn't anxious to repeat the experience.
THE COUNCIL in the cave above waited for them, at least three of its members. Jurek and Sarah, like bookends of age, both bent and slight and white haired, and Tia with her long dark braid and disapproving stare.
"This is a mistake," Tia said. "You're pushing her too fast. She's not ready."
"For what?" Livy asked, ignored.
"We don't have time for any other way," said Jurek, at the same time Arash said, "She's been ready since the day she was born. You know that."
Selene stood behind them all, always seeming at ease, never dropping her attention, never relaxing her hold on her stave.
"Just come," Arash said. "I need you to witness. If it is as I expect, we'll need to set up for an actual contest."
Jurek, Sarah and Tia exchanged glances, then looked at Livy, who was annoyed to find herself blushing. She should be used to it by now. Everywhere she went people treated her as something different. Far from going to her head, it confused and sometimes frightened her.
That didn't mean she wanted to be someone else. She was comfortable being Olivia Bane, her grandfather's chosen one. She just wanted everyone to stop watching her the way they often did: like she was going to perform a trick. Or a miracle.
She thought she might. If they'd let her go back to Arcadia like she needed. But since none of them believed she could be the power behind the power, she didn't know what they were waiting for.
So she followed them through the rock corridors with the stories carved into the stone out into the blistering heat of midday, the white glare of burning sands, the lack of horizon, the wall of heat that slammed into her as soon as she left the cave.
The heat was almost welcome.
AS SOON AS they cleared the mouth of the cave, Arash asked the others to stay back.
"My place is with Olivia Bane," Selene said instantly, moving closer to Livy.
"No one is questioning that," Arash answered.
Livy had watched the two of them together, and seen the burgeoning respect there. In an odd way, the fact that both of them were taking each other's measure made Livy trust both of them more, even before they decided to trust each other.
Which clearly they hadn't yet. But Selene took one step back, her staff held in one hand, butt of it on the ground. That was as close to standing down as she seemed to get. It meant that Arash could nod and take Livy's hand, and nod again at the council members who still stood in the cave entrance, giving them space. He led Livy the considerable distance down the carved pathway that jutted out from the stone outcropping that housed the cave, keeping them above sand level. When they reached one of the drop off points, where the path lowered to just above the sand, he stopped and dropped to his knees, seemingly not noticing the hard rock beneath.
Without being asked, Livy joined him, her eyes on the sand, but today it didn't ripple or shift toward her. It was still except for where the restless desert breeze scattered the topmost layer of sand.
"These are the burning lands," Arash said. His voice sounded inwardly focused, almost a chant. Livy glanced at him and away, back at the sands, while she listened. "The Forbidden Zone houses The Void, the lost places of the world where only a few can live, making their homes in the waste. We are those cast out by corrupt society, banished from community that was meant to include all."
His voice held the patterns of a story that had been repeated over the years, so Livy didn't object or interrupt, but it seemed to her that far from being banished, the rebels had chosen to be outcasts, living in the Void because there they could survive without the Plutarch's heavy hand crushing whatever rebellion they planned.
Her mind flashed to the beauty of Arcadia. There had to be some other way than to destroy that place of knowledge and art.
But Arash was moving on, his words coming faster. He talked about the bombs that had fallen as the peoples of the Before Times destroyed themselves and their world, and the radiation that poisoned the land in their wake, and the farther reaches of the Void.
And the creatures within it.
Livy almost rose then. She'd seen the carvings, the drawings that showed the giant scorpions and other insects, the huge things that had been altered by the radiation that had killed her own grandfather.
In Pastoreum, Livy had seen scorpions, little black ones with a wicked sting. Her mother was especially good at using herbs to combat their poisons and her mother held a live and let live policy, that something not harming you should be ignored.
Livy hadn't agreed. She'd crushed more than one scorpion beneath her boot while in the fields and since coming to the Void, she'd killed more than one brown scuttling scorpion that had dared to find its way to her in the caves. She hated them.
Her eyes widened as she watched Arash draw the reins from his voluminous pockets.
She was on her feet before he spoke.
"Call one, Livy. Call it and rein it and ride it. It's the first of the tests."
She couldn't help backing away from him. "What tests? Why? I can't do this. Whatever it is you want from me, you have it wrong. All you need do is let me go. I'll go back to the Plutarch. I'll take my place. I'll work from there. I'll send you a signal. Please, you can trust me, that's how I can help. Not – this." She didn't even know what he had in mind, she told herself, but the knowledge was there in her mind.
"The Plutarch has chosen another," Arash said simply.
Livy stared at him, wild eyed, and then laughed. "The Plutarch has chosen another to salvage his pride. When I am returned, he will choose me."
All at once Arash rose smoothly from his knees and whirled into her path, face to face with her, the reins clutched in one hand. "You're so certain of your facts! Call a giant, Livy! Call one of the scorpions and see if the knowledge of how to ride it isn't there in your mind!"
"Why would it be?"
she demanded in return, stepping forward instead of back so that they were face to face.
"Because you're a Bane! You're part of the land. You're from the first families. You're from before the fall, Before Times. Because you have knowledge that others don't, you've been trained for this since you were born. Because the land dwells inside you. Because you sat out in the heat and didn't die. Because you sought the desert and didn't shy away. Because you've already faced so much and you fight back by learning more."
He glared at her, visibly trembling. "Fight back, Olivia Bane. Learn this, Olivia Bane. Become who you have always been meant to be."
Fury so strong it made her shake forced Livy to grab the reins from his hands. What he asked was insane and impossible. Even if such a thing came to her, its sting would be unutterably deadly. She didn't stand a chance.
She was exhausted, tired of fighting, tired of fear, tired of knowing she was meant to be the change and not being allowed to bring it the way she knew it must be brought.
"All right, Arash," she said, her voice cold in the scorching heat of the day. "Stand back and watch me."
THE THING CAME FAST out of the sands, moving toward Livy at a good clip. Repulsive as any of its smaller relatives she'd ever stamped into the earth, it scuttled on its claws, its stinger curled over its back, a promise of poison and agonizing death.
She didn't let that stop her. Livy stood on the end of the pathway, just above the sand, the reins she had no idea how to use clasped in one hand, and trailing through the other, as if her second hand was only there as a guide.
When it got close, Livy realized there were thoughts in her mind, thoughts that weren't her own and weren't human. She heard a sibilant hiss, the scrabbling of claws on sand, and the rush of something called against its will.
She felt no animosity for herself.
She heard: Wrong and lost and pain. I am pain. I am pain. Not as it should be. Not as it was. Years of change against the natural order. Pain and calling and here and answering and maybe change.
Maybe change.
She shuddered, wondering if she heard the insect. It was bigger than the plow horse she'd ridden in Pastoreum. If she let herself stop to think, she'd never be able to do this, no matter how the knowledge raced through her, more physical than mental until she held the reins, loosely in her left hand, hard with her right where she spun the braided leather above her head, letting it circle and circle until the scorpion was close enough she let the leather leads fly and saw them settle around it's head, leading back over the shell-like back of the creature, into her hands.
Her mouth dropped open as the creature raised its stinger, uncoiling it until it was raised straight up.
Out of her way, where it wouldn't harm her.
There was no feeling of menace or malicious intent from it.
It stopped where she need do nothing more than step to its back.
Livy shuddered, seeing the tiny hairs around the creature’s legs, the slick shell of its back, the atavistic horror of other.
And felt the same thing broadcast back at her.
She almost laughed but she was not giving away her advantage to Arash. Let him think she was terrified and repulsed. It was still closer to the truth than not. And let him think the creature, given the chance, would sting and kill her. She didn't know for certain that wasn't the truth. Everyone she knew in Pastoreum, her best friend Tarah, her sister Pip, her grandfather, even, possibly, would say she was mad, not the bearer of impossible knowledge, if she told them she had the thoughts of a scorpion in her mind.
Livy stepped onto the creature's back.
TOGETHER, and once she stepped onto the insect, they were together, their minds functioning not seamlessly but in tandem, they made a wide circle into the burning sands. When Livy saw the path in her mind's eye again, the creature made for it.
When she tried to send her thanks, she got back an image of shuddering and then she did laugh: the insect found her as repulsive as she found it.
She sent no thanks. And neither did the scorpion.
THE FACES of the council members, all of them present now, reflected shock.
Livy almost laughed.
The memory of the chitinous feeling of the scorpion stopped her. All she wanted was to get clean. She brushed past the people in the mouth of the cave.
"Fix this," she said to Arash, and didn't explain further.
AFTER THE CLIMB back down the ladder, prompt because Livy refused to stay with the council, Arash took her to a swimming hole outside the main city of dawn. Tiny wooden structures around the natural lake offered places to change and bathing suits to change into. Livy found a one-piece black suit carefully laundered and tied in a twine bundle with a towel and small sandals to wear to the water's edge. She took her own clothes with her, left them on the shore, marveling at the fact that Selene had changed as well and was already slipping into the water alongside Arash as if the three of them were all friends, not bound together by need and purpose.
Her eyes went to Arash, and lingered. He was strong, lean with wiry muscle, not overly huge or bulging muscle like some men. If she hadn't known him, she might not have realized how strong he was. His shoulders were broad and she thought he would grow into more muscle and more height as he reached his late teens or early twenties. For now she admired the way his neck joined the muscles at the top of his shoulders, the way his back, while not huge, still formed a V, the musculature leading the eye downward to a trim, tight waist. She didn't let herself look any farther down.
Instead, she raised her eyes to seek out his face even as he turned, smiling, beckoning her to join him.
Livy slipped into the water and swam out to meet Arash and Selene.
SHE STAYED in the water so long her fingers and toes wrinkled like raisins and she could no longer control the shivering from the clear, cold water. She stayed in the water long enough she could no longer feel the shiny, almost oily feel of the scorpion beneath her hands and between her parted knees.
And then just a little bit longer.
When she joined Arash and Selene on the beach surrounded by other residents, she assumed their silence was only because, like her, they were tired. When she stepped away to head back to the changing rooms with her clothes, she heard Arash draw in a breath from behind her. Instants later she felt his hand on her arm, making her pause. She looked over her shoulder at him and saw he was examining the butterfly birthmark on her neck.
"You've seen it before," she said lightly.
"I'm seeing it in a different light," he said simply and at first she thought he meant the difference between the cave and the cavern that housed the city but then she realized he only perceived it differently.
When she met his eyes she saw wonder there, more than she could explain. She was Olivia Bane, nothing more or less than she had been yesterday or would be tomorrow. Livy shook her head, angling to move so she could meet his eyes, forcing him to look at her.
When he did, she wished he hadn't. His intense stare caused Selene to move closer to them again, her muscles taut. It made Livy back a step away, watching him warily.
Arash paid no attention. He said, to himself, it seemed, "She bears the mark. We always expected a man. But she called the toxic creatures from the wastes. She has spoken truth to power and lived. She has healed those who require healing. She bears the mark of the Chosen One."
His monologue ended. His eyes flicked up to hers and he said softly, "Gan Ddechrau," and nothing more.
And Livy, knowing only that she was separate and apart again, waited.
THAT NIGHT ARASH came to her room after Livy had turned out her dorm lights and gone to bed. He slid in like a shadow, mingling with the darkness, and woke her with a soft hand over her mouth.
Livy woke without panicking. She smelled the almond scent of Arash's skin, sensed his warmth beside her as he sat on the edge of her bed, and any fear that might have stirred subsided.
Livy didn't have a roommate but sound carried
in the institutional hard surfaces of the school. She didn't speak, but as her eyes adjusted to the light, she asked her question silently.
Arash wrapped long fingers around her wrist and stood, gentle pressure on her arm, clearly indicating the unspoken Come on.
Livy tugged back, drawing him down again to the bed beside her, clearly indicating Stay.
In the dark she felt bolder, able to reach up and draw him down to her, laying side by side on the narrow bed the way she'd laid with Simon in those days at the Institute. He was training her then. Arash was training her now. She moved from one to the next, learning, always passive.
Tonight she meant to act. Pressing him down, Livy shifted, pulling herself up until she could lay along his body, her arms propping her up so she looked down into his face. He was unsmiling, his dark eyes serious as he watched her, his lips parted. Livy leaned down, slowly, softly took his mouth with hers, kissing him, his lower lip, his upper lip, and then gently on the mouth, a kiss that deepened and became more passionate, filling the world. Arash surged beneath her, his arms around her, spinning until they lay side by side, looking into each other's eyes, neither on top, neither on the bottom. No one leading or following.
She lost herself in the cinnamon and clove taste of his mouth, the heat of his tongue, the warmth of his hands on her back, her sides. She ran her fingers into his thick dark hair, along his chiseled cheekbones, down to his shoulders and arms. Their mouths twined, their feet locked together, their kisses speeding until they were breathless, then slowing, long slow kisses that spoke all the words they might never say aloud.
In the morning, when the insanity and confusion of a new day was enough for Arash to rise and prepare to slip away into the confusion of students not much younger than he was, Livy ventured to ask, "Why did you come for me last night?"
As students streamed behind them in the halls, most of them ignoring Arash and Livy where they stood, Arash bit his lip, apparently considering whether to answer her. Finally he said, "I came to warn you."
"About what?" But the adrenaline didn't spike, her heart didn't hammer. She'd survived so much in less than a year. What could he warn her about that she'd fear now?