The Arcadia Trilogy Boxed Set

by Bella James

  Arash made his decision. "Do you need to go to class today?"

  Livy laughed, starting to answer him automatically that of course she did, then paused. She was learning every day, but she was reading her text books every night. She'd started late and was now ahead, her grandfather's teachings holding her in good stead.

  Her teachers would wonder where she was. They might even say something to her about missing classes.

  Let them, Livy thought, with some of the old fire that the coming of the Centurions had knocked from her. I'm the girl who talked back to the Plutarch. And lived.

  She took Arash's hand. "Where are we going?" she asked.

  THEY SAT on the end of the carved rock pathway that led to the sand, a different section of path than where Livy had gone before, than where Selene had appeared. She tried not to think what Selene would think of Livy slipping away without her.

  For her part, Livy felt free. In the heat of the day, no one came out of the upper caves except the rebels training with firearms and they exited a far side, well away from where she sat with Arash. By the time they saw the figures heading out into the sand, they were tiny and well away from the two.

  After an hour, their hoods pulled up against the sun, hands tucked into tunic pockets, the sand began to writhe, flowing faster and faster as whatever it was beneath it came toward them.

  Arash knelt then, reaching down as far as he could on the rock toward the sand, slapping his hand against the stone and simulating a person's running footsteps.

  Livy understood instantly. Whatever the machine was he'd plunged into the sand, the thing that had made the bass sounds, it had frightened away the swimmers in the sand. And now he was drawing them. They must come toward the unprotected, the pedestrian running, the person alone and afraid.

  That was the way of predators.

  When the sands were rippling only ten feet away from them, Livy felt the panic building high, wanted to yank Arash back to the safety of higher ground, that's when he pushed himself upright and grabbed her, retreating only a few feet onto higher rock, and turning to watch as the wave of sand crested directly where they'd been sitting.

  The things rose impossibly out of the sand, towering above where they stood, triangular heads raised skyward.

  Livy gasped and backpedaled, moving back so fast she missed all the uneven bits of rock that could have tripped her.

  Swaying over them, two giant snakes flickered their tongues, black greedy eyes watching Livy and Arash as they swayed, not approaching the rock, but threatening at a distance.

  Livy turned and watched Arash with horror.

  "The world serpents," she said. Her voice was very quiet.

  She couldn't have made it louder if she'd tried.

  "They're called that. Yes."

  He wasn't telling her everything.

  "Why did you bring me here?"

  THROUGHOUT THE AFTERNOON he worked with Livy, teaching her to use the reins, spinning them over her head, learning to direct where the lasso would fall, repeating until her arms ached and her shoulders burned and her hands were blistered but she hit her mark with the lasso nine times out of ten.

  When she finally sat, one leg negligently and purposefully over the edge of the rock, dangling toward the sand, he handed her a skin of water and sat beside her, carefully keeping his legs on the pathway, not making noise.

  "Don't get comfortable," he said, as if she could on the sharp rock surface. "You have more to learn."

  Livy let her head rest against the rock and then shook it back and forth, slowly. She took a long pull from the water skin and said, simply, "No."

  Arash looked unimpressed. "No what?"

  "No, I do not have more to learn. No, I will not continue training today. No, I will do nothing more until you tell me what this is about."

  He took a long breath, his chest rising and falling with it, and said simply, "The council of Dawn believes that you are Gan Ddechrau."

  She nodded as if that made sense. "I heard you say that before. What is it?"

  Arash frowned. "When did I – "

  "When we were swimming," she said dismissively. She felt like they had never kissed. He was a stranger. "What does it mean?"

  "It means beginnings in an old, old language. It means they believe you are the Chosen One."

  Frost, she thought. Try to keep up. This is old news. "I am the Chosen One," she said and to his startled glance, "Of the Plutarch. You know that."

  And watched in amazement as Arash shook his head.

  "No. You are Olivia Bane."

  She was too tired and becoming too angry to laugh. Yes, she was Olivia Bane. Still not news. "I know that, Arash. I'm tired and hot and I want to go in. If you have a point, make it."

  In a flash he stood over her, threatening, commanding. "If I have a point. How about this, Olivia Bane. You're the Chosen One."

  Before she could speak, he went on. "The Chosen One. Not of the Plutarch. Or not only. Do you think he didn't know who you were or why he now rages across the land, trying to find you while the Oracle tells him his bride lives in the belly of the beast?"

  "Get away from me," she said. She pushed herself up the wall, keeping back from him, feeling betrayed.

  "Oh, I can't do that, Olivia Bane. Because I'm the one who brought you here. I'm the one who chose to bring the Chosen One right into our homes. Olivia Bane, you are the Chosen One. Not of the Plutarch alone.

  "You are the prophesized one, come to lead us from slavery."

  She sensed his next words before he said them.

  "To freedom."

  CHAPTER 9

  F east first. Fail second?

  Livy couldn't eat. She paced her dorm room, wondering why the Chosen One didn't get larger quarters. Not because she believed she was chosen by anyone other than the Plutarch for his bride, and not because she thought that was anything more than her showing some spirit once.

  No. She wanted larger quarters so she could pace more efficiently. Ever since her life turned upside down with the magistrate coming to Agara, her life was one agony of anticipation after another.

  Arash and Selene would be coming to fetch her. No doubt the preparations for the feast were only underway and not yet put in place.

  She was supposed to stay here, wearing a long white dress with a green hummingbird symbol and Arash or Selene or both would come for her.

  The anger that burned in her roared to life. "Rot this," Livy said and whirled into motion. The dress went on her bed, tumbled like a lady fallen, skirts rucked up. She grabbed for the tight grey cotton short-sleeved shirt, her tunic top with the green bird emblem, the loose fitting white pants. No wonder everyone always died in the trial that Livy was facing – how could anyone be expected to move in some idiotic ceremonial dress?

  Shoes on, she was on her feet and out the door, running through the empty dorm rooms, almost envying those students with nothing more than class to anticipate. Out of the dorm, into the streets, she ignored passing vehicles and ornihopters, running faster than most ground traffic went anyway. She reached the ladder in no time and hesitated only briefly when she realized she'd never gone up or down it alone. But the alternative was to wait for whoever was meant to collect her. Livy slipped off her shoes, hung them by the laces and, more surefooted now, scaled the ladder as if she had been raised doing just that.

  There were more people around on the cave level, and more of them would know her. Dressed as she was in the same desert whites as everyone else usually affected, she could hope to pass unseen, but she was unwilling to take the time.

  Livy ran, darting around groups of unmoving people, waiting for someone to call out her name but no one did. She darted to the entrance, was through in a moment's time, her feet bare still, the way she'd run the carved rock path before, leaving her feet bloody messes.

  This time she didn't even feel the rocks. Instead she followed the path farther than ever before, seeing ahead of her finally around to the back a wide low area cl
eared off, not a path but something like a meeting room or a town square, but all of it hacked from the rock, making room like a deck out over the sand, open and inviting and incredibly dangerous given the size of the things that had risen up.

  There were tables set up for the feast, snowy white cloths, ceramic plates, glittering glasses. There was fruit on the tables, and bread, and the scent of meet cooking that made her mouth water.

  And there were people, more than she'd seen since she left the Institute. Everyone in the utopian city had come out.

  But. She paused, caught between one running step and the next. But the people in the above cave, the rebels for whom she was supposed to be a pawn or at least a willing participant? They were still inside. She had just run through them.

  She had more friends or at least friendly acquaintances among the upper cave dwellers, the rebels who worked at the rebellion, than she did among the utopians, even if she didn't believe in the revolution and thought there was a better, more subtle way to change the world.

  Change could come from within.

  For this instant, it was about to come from without. She doubted very much the supreme council was ready for this.

  Livy started to run again, just as people began to look up and see her coming. Consternation covered most faces. Conversations broke off. She wasn't meant to be here yet. They weren't ready. Surely the guest of honor was escorted.

  Livy snorted at the thought. Surely the guest of honor could demand more guests.

  She never got that far.

  "Mother?" and as soon as the woman turned toward her, and Livy saw past her, "Father? What are you doing here?"

  Her mother's pale blond coloring reddened, partly from the sun she wasn't adequately keeping off – her hood had slipped and Livy had seen her hair – and from embarrassment. Still, she reached out and hugged her daughter, passing her off to her father who greeted Livy in his usual bluff way.

  Neither seemed surprised or overwhelmed at seeing her again. The last time they'd seen her, she'd been torn away from them, taken by Arash on a fast horse moments before she was supposed to wed the Plutarch.

  They should have been terrified all the time. The way she had been for them. They should have spent endless sleepless nights wondering –

  "You knew!" The accusation burst from her. "You knew I was going to be taken!" Her gaze flew back and forth between them. Rage curdled inside her. "How could you?"

  "Livy, please," her father started.

  But it was her mother who stepped to Livy and said firmly, "Keep your voice down."

  Livy gaped at her. "Keep my voice down?"

  "We had no choice," her mother said. Livy's father was watching everyone around them, as if by interacting in plain sight they could yet remain hidden. "We could not allow you to marry that beast and be taken into that city."

  The red crept into her vision, the fury rising so high it colored the world around her. "Did you never stop to think it was my choice?"

  Her father turned back to her. "It's never your choice, Olivia. It's always the community or the tradition or the heritage. If you think you've been making choices, you've deluded yourself."

  "If you think you can change things, you're wrong," her mother added.

  But Olivia had stopped to look around. "Where is everyone? Did you bring them?"

  Her mother blinked. "Everyone?"

  "Pip! And everyone!" She wasn't going to list them all.

  Her mother looked horrified. "Jep, she doesn't know." Her mother reached for her, and her father stepped back, his mouth opening as if he meant to explain.

  "The mark you bear – " her mother, hurrying, stumbling on her words.

  "From your grandfather's side, the Banes – " her father's voice.

  "Hereditary, through families, and the one who bears it – "

  "But most have failed. Over the years the trials have only reached this stage – " her father, talking fast.

  "To call the snakes, to control them, to prove the chosen – "

  "Not for centuries," her father said, "since right after the fall from the wars."

  "Leftover from the Before Times – " her mother said. "The danger of it. The plague is real – "

  "The Plutarch was the first to master the snakes." A full sentence from her father.

  Livy put a hand over her mouth and backed up several steps. Control the snakes. That's how the Plutarch came to power.

  "It means freedom but – " her father, cut off by her mother saying something about the plague.

  And by Livy crying out, "That's what this is? I'm to control them? And then what? Take the place of the Plutarch? That will only make me the ruler. It will change nothing!"

  "You don't understand," both of her parents tried, speaking at the same time.

  Livy backed up another step. Everyone from Dawn had gone silent, only sibilant hisses of conversations still going and now solely about her reached her. From the corner of her eye Livy could see Arash and Selene running toward her but she didn't turn. She faced her parents.

  "There is no plague! It's a lie, a controlling tactic." Her voice was panicked.

  "There is plague," her mother said

  "Your brother, Tad – " but her father broke off even as Livy stared in horror at him. "Olivia – "

  But the screaming started, people suddenly turning from the deck, running hard for the rocks in the center and even that wouldn't be far enough from the sand.

  The snake that had crested there towered higher than imagination could credit it. weaving back and forth, it would attack in minutes. Most of the people on the rock deck had run far enough from it, but Livy could feel the others coming from the beat of their heavy bodies in the sand and the rapid movement that sprayed sand in the air, moving to the rocks.

  Arash caught her by the shoulders, shaking her. "You've got to lasso it. Control it. Ride it until it drops and kill it. Then take the fangs." He held out a pouch, heavy leather, and gloves of equally heavy but supple leather. The knife he gave her to strap around her waist. The reins were already in her hands.

  She stared at him, one long instant of horror and confusion and the wish that she could say she didn't understand.

  Wouldn't understand.

  Then she turned, running for the edge of the deck, and was stopped before she got there. Selene stood barring her way.

  No! There's no time for this!

  But the Centurion mutely handed Livy her staff, the wicked sharp tip exposed. "Go," she said.

  And Livy ran for the edge of the rock pathway, coming up just behind the snake. It started to turn from its intended target, those people huddling against the central rocks and trying to force their way back to the cave entrances, but it turned to late.

  Livy pushed herself and leaped, soaring a short distance through the air to land on the snake's back.

  WITHOUT HER SHOES she had better purchase than she would have expected. Livy dug her toes into the scales, wedging them between the giant plates. For an instant she panicked. No one had had prepared her for this, no one had trained her.

  Next instant she was laughing. No one could prepare her for this. No one in decades had attempted it and lived. Who would train her?

  There was no communication, not like with the scorpion. The snake was a beast, and nothing else.

  The snake reared, muscles tensing as it shot up out of the sand, diamond head pointed at the sky and the rock deck below turning tiny in an instant. Livy gasped, slipping on the creature's back, and snarled. She tore the knife off her hip and punched it into the neck column of the snake, hanging on as the beast reared again, this time frothing the sand with its writhing, body coiling and pounding the desert.

  Livy didn't wait. The reins were in her hand and the lasso swinging in wide circles. Her other hand gripped the hilt of the knife, the end of the reins feeding through it between her cupped palm and the knife hilt.

  She held to the knife with only her fingers, and her concentration was on the swingin
g leather above her head. She let it fly, the weighted lasso with the metal pieces, the grabbling hooks or desert ram's head thorns, she'd never thought what the sharp weighted bits looked like. Only that they were razor sharp.

  The lasso went over the snake's head. The metal hooks bit into its flesh. It reared again just before it slammed its head and neck down, body slamming into the sand behind it, trying to throw Livy from its neck.

  But she pulled back on the lasso, the reins securely wrapped around her hands, the metal sleeve glinting in the sun and lending her left hand unnatural strength. She had the beast now, control of the giant snake, the pain in its snout every time she yanked on the leather leads too much for it to ignore. When it tried to shake her off, she dug in with the knife, found her footing again, and stabbed downward with the staff.

  The snake shuddered and fell full length into the sand.

  LIVY PULLED the serrated knife free of the scales on the snake's neck, tucked it into her belt, took hold of the reins and used them to slide down the side of the dead creature.

  The fangs gave way easily to the blade. She held them gingerly. They were deadly at the same time they promised anti venom cures.

  When she presented the fangs to the supreme council of Dawn, it was the first she'd actually seen of the exalted group.

  Livy wasn't overly impressed.

  ARASH REACHED her before anyone else. His arms went round her and he swung her up off her feet and in a circle.

  Livy came back down to earth face to face with her parents. It seemed the most logical thing in the world for them to announce that now the chosen one, the mother of change, could come back home to Pastoreum. When the changes began, the signs would be clear.

  There was time.

  It was the most logical thing in the world to Livy to understand the time for such plans had passed.

  A new plan was put in place. Arash whistled, soft and low, calling falcons to carry messages to the other camps, telling them the plan being put in place and Livy's part in it.

  She would have preferred going home.