by Bella James
The alternative was to take on the Plutarch and expose what he'd done, or argue with him, or send Pip away with Selene, the two of them running. Which might work, only it would be three – Livy would have to go as well; it would be too obvious what had happened. And Livy couldn't go yet. The revolution needed her in place.
She moved steadily down the length of the hall and found herself in front of a staircase. There were surely guards, maybe even Centurion – the Plutarch took his pleasure palaces seriously, he did not want his workers strolling away – but she couldn't see anyone and it was late. Time to find the dorms where surely the girls slept.
Livy stole down the stairs, her rubbery soles silent on the marble. Halfway down movement made her jerk to a stop and the sight of someone directly opposite her made her gasp and put one hand out.
The person opposite her did the same thing. Livy let out a shaky laugh. It hadn't occurred to her to wonder how the other person floated in mid-air. It was a window, set into the front of the palace, and now she ran the rest of the staircase, more interested in getting out of sight of the outside world than of whatever minute noise she might make.
The instant she was on the ground floor she chose a direction and ran. Seconds later she was in the kitchens, huge, industrial things, with metal counters and sinks and huge ovens and cooktops.
Wrong way. She raced back into the hall, tearing down the length of it, came to a heavy tapestry hung for warmth, slid through with the expectation of a spear in the face and some questions she couldn't answer.
Instead, she found herself in a passageway that led to the sleeping quarters. A quick check showed the girls slept two to a room, the rooms generally heaped with dresses and shoes and makeup and hair brushes, ribbons and what looked like long underwear for the legs, only transparent. Livy stared, lost for a second. Stockings. She was looking at stockings. Her grandfather had talked about stockings, from the Before Times. Livy had thought they sounded uncomfortable and impractical but seeing them, she couldn't help wondering how her legs would look inside them.
Then one of the girls in the room she was staring into rolled over and sighed and Livy sprinted into motion again, racing from room to room, peeking in briefly, seeing bits of hair, slivers of faces, the moon she'd cursed earlier combining with the low lights in the hall to give her just enough to see by.
In the sixth room, she found Pip.
Her blond sister lay tumbled in sleep the way she always did, sprawled as if she hadn't a care in the world. Pippa's roommate slept in a huddle despite the warmth of the night, her covers mounded up over her as if she were cold. Livy spared her a passing glance, then moved nearly soundlessly across the room to hover over Pippa.
Her sister had always awakened hard, rocky, ready to fight, or to talk. Watching her, Livy realized she had to move fast and she had to prepare for the worst. She leaned down, clamped a hand over her sister's mouth, and hissed, "Pippa Bane, wake up!"
Pip's eyes flew open. In them, in the deep Bane blue, she saw all the horrors Pip had faced for the last month since the new roundups of 16-year-olds as tax payments swept through the villages and 13-year-old Pippa had gotten caught. Obviously by accident. Of course the ruler would have no idea. Livy swore somehow, some day, she'd wreak vengeance on the Plutarch for what he'd done.
"It's me, Pip," she whispered.
But Pip already knew. She was crying silently, holding her arms out to her sister. Livy scooped her close, lowered herself to the edge of the bed, and sat hugging her warm, slight sister, both of them finding a measure of comfort in a stolen moment.
When Livy finally pulled away, it was to finally figure out what Pip was saying, over and over: "You came. You really came for me. You're really here."
Livy bit her lip. The next part wasn't going to be easy. Did she let Pippa talk first, assuming that Livy was here to take her out? Or did she tell her first rather than leading her on but risk Pippa clamming up in fury?
Hating herself for it, Livy chose the easier route. "What happened, love? How did you get here?"
"I'll tell you on the way out," Pip said, sitting up and grabbing for her boots. Livy noticed they were high heeled, extremely hard to walk in, and wondered how her sister expected to run in such things.
Pip was getting dressed fast, in tights and a tunic, what looked like exercise clothes she'd be able to move fast in. Unhappily, Livy put a hand on her arm. Her sister looked up, the knowledge she was trying to deny with fast movements written across her face.
"I can't take you out, Pip. I need you to stay here."
Before she could get any farther, Pippa rounded on her. "Oh, that's what you need, is it? 'Hey, Pip, don't ask any questions, just do what your sister needs you to, don't upset the plough cart, don't overturn the seed bucket, don't – "
"Shut up," Livy said. "You're too loud." Her hand was firmly across Pip's mouth again and her sister was so furious it took her an instant to realize she could just pull free of Olivia.
"Tell me why." Her big blue Bane eyes were hurt.
"You know why. Because I've been chosen to wed the Plutarch."
"And that makes you such a big deal, so rotting important and – "
"Pip, shut it." Livy's stomach muscles had started to tremble, strain and adrenaline making her heart race. "It's not that. I think I still stand a chance of making changes in the Plutarch's rule but only if I can get in. Otherwise." She broke off and bit her lip. Sister or not, she wasn't going to tell Pip about the rebels.
"Otherwise what? Go ahead, Olivia, treat me like a foolish infant. Everyone else does!"
"You're acing like one after all," Livy said. "I'm sorry. I don't want to leave you here." She gestured around the small but lavish room. There was so much luxury here! So much beauty.
So much waste. After her time in the Void, Livy looked at it with distaste and distrust. Would she still fit in with the Alphas? Even if Arcadia was a choice for her, could she make that choice?
Pippa jolted her out of her thoughts. "Please take me with you."
Livy dropped her head and breathed in through her nose. "Love, here's what's going on. I don't want you here. I don't care if you don't care what I want. This is a terrible place. They're all terrible places. I won't ask you if they're forcing you to – "
But Pippa took pity on her. "They do less to me than Denny did."
Irrationally, at the name of the boy from back home in Agara, the one Pip had been so madly unrequitedly in love with, Livy felt a rush of fury. "What did he do to you?" Her fingers curled like there was honestly something she could do about Denny if he had done something. There likely wasn't. The Plutarch wasn't going to waste resources on Livy's sister if Livy's sister was now considered a whore.
But Pippa unexpectedly giggled. "He didn't do anything like he thought he was going to. What he did do was lie down unexpectedly."
Frowning, Livy glanced at her sister. Pippa grinned and held up her fist, waggling it back and forth.
"You didn't!"
"I did!"
"Keep those fists handy," Livy said, the stupid pun and the pointlessness of telling Pippa not to lose her own hands making them both start to giggle. "It won't be long. They're really not -- ?"
"I'm in training," Pip emphasized. "I see a lot more than I ever wanted to. But no one is allowed to touch me." She sobered, her eyes big. "That might be because of you. I think they were planning to set a trap for you."
Livy squinted. The Plutarch knew right where she was. She wore an ID chip he'd modified to track her easily. She'd worn the metal arm cuff covering it when she climbed out tonight but she still had to figure out how to dampen it permanently or even remove it. In the meantime, why set a trap for her? He'd know where she was every minute she wasn't dampened.
Why set a trap?
To see if she would do something just like she'd done. Climb out a window and up a wall. Go walking where she shouldn't.
Discover things she shouldn't.
He was testing her
loyalty.
She had to get back. She had to seem loyal. She'd find out from one of the rebel communications how to disable the explosive in the chip. Maybe even how to make it show inaccurate readings of where she was. That could be useful.
In the meantime –
"You're as much a pawn as I am now, Pippa. I'm sorry. This wasn't my idea. I'm not a big deal and I don't think I'm special." She stroked her sister's hair.
Pip let go of the boot she was holding. It clunked to the floor just short of the thick rug.
Livy winced at the noise. The roommate didn't stir. That bothered her more than if the girl had reacted to the sound.
"I just said that," Pippa said. "No one is really hurting me here. I'm just scared and I don't like to be trapped."
"Totally understand that," Livy said. "I'm going to bargain to get you freed and brought to me. That will put me in the Plutarch's debt. It will look like I'm more loyal and trusting – "
"And stupid," Pip put in sourly.
Livy stroked her hair again. "Than ever before. Can you stay here? I'll ask for an audience tomorrow." She watched her sister's expressions.
"It's not like I'm a baby who can't be trusted with anything," Pip said sulkily, sounding exactly like that's what she was.
"You don't know what they do to people when they want to find something out," Livy said and didn't have to fake the shudder than ran through her. "I want you safe. If you don't know anything, no one will hurt you to learn it."
She expected Pippa to laugh at the terrible sentence but she was quiet, her eyes wider than ever.
She was scared, Livy realized, and no matter how much she wanted to comfort her little sister, having Pippa scared was exactly the right thing. So she leaned over and kissed Pip on the forehead and said, "I'll start in the morning. Hang on, little one, OK?"
Pippa nodded and sank back down in her bed. Now she was as covered in mounds of blankets as her roommate.
Livy nodded. She understood that, too.
Giving the bundle of roommate one more suspicious glance, she padded to the doorway and slipped out. And stopped, and held her breath. Nothing for half a dozen quick heartbeats, and then there came the nearly inevitable shifting of bedclothes and a voice not nearly sleepy enough asked Pip: "Who was that?"
Livy winced, closing her eyes briefly, and thought: You already know. You heard all of it.
All that was left was whatever the roommate would decide to do with the information.
Livy slipped back into the night.
CHAPTER 2
A long passageway opened in front of her, leading between rock walls. Trailing her fingers along the uneven stone, Livy reflected the corridor was half rebel caves, half Plutarchracy maze of buildings.
She couldn't remember how she'd arrived there. One minute she'd been somewhere dark, the next she walked the dimly lit passage, with a feeling she'd forgotten something important. But then, the rebels had drugged her before leaving her at the edges of Arcadia to be found, rescued by Selene the Centurion, who was loyal to Livy and now assigned to her permanently.
…Selene wasn't with her. Livy frowned and shook her head, trying to clear it. Selene went nearly everywhere with Livy. Only the direst of threats made her stay behind. Even when the rebels made demands that she stay behind, Selene decided for herself. Something had made her swear herself to Livy. Hopefully Livy would prove worthy of the devotion.
For now, she rather wished the Centurion was with her. She had no idea which way would lead her faster out of the passages and to wherever it was she was supposed to be going, so she continued the way she'd been going when she had –
What? Awakened? Come to?
The passageway was marble, like the Plutarch's palaces, with decorative arches and tables along the walls filled with vases full of fresh flowers. The flowers stank like funereal bouquets. Livy breathed shallowly, catching sight of herself as she walked. She wore a gown of deep crimson, long and sweeping her feet. She already knew she was barefoot; again, a combination of her time in Arcadia among the elegant gowns and her time in the rebel caves, often barefoot.
She wanted to pause, to examine the gown, to check if her feet were bleeding or whole, which would tell her if her entire journey had been the slick hard floors of the Aristocracy or if she'd been outside at some point, either in Arcadia or in the Forbidden Zone.
But the end of the corridor suddenly appeared, an ornate door that towered up more than one story tall, and the knob was glowing, like a glass jar with a candle inside, or like a dozen candles, or like the sun. Livy tried to look away but now the entire door was glowing, outlined in fire, brilliant as the sun at noonday in summer back home in Agara and Livy's heart began to thud. She rubbed suddenly clammy palms together and swallowed, staring at the door, just before she began to run. Slightly damp feet slipped on the marble floors, sending her off kilter. She stepped on the hem of the dress and dragged herself halfway down to the hard floor. Panic clogged her throat. She couldn't breathe properly.
Livy ran, grabbed hold of the doorknob, noticing it was smooth and cold, and yanked the door open.
Chaos exploded on the other side. She saw the villages of Pastoreum laid out before her as if on a map. Fires burned. Children screamed, wailing for parents who would never again come to their frightened calls. Men and women were locked in combat against the Plutarch's army and the Plutarch's guard, because even the Centurion were involved in this battle. Behind the combatants the fires raged, eating the rest of the villages down to stubble charred on the ground.
There were bodies everywhere.
Livy clapped both hands hard over her mouth, trying not to scream.
From somewhere nearby, she heard a small child sobbing, wrenching sobs that tore at Livy's heart. Even in the midst of such destruction, the sounds the child was making stood out. Livy turned in that direction, searching the battlefield with her eyes.
There. The child sat amongst the dead and Livy froze, too terrified to move forward. She knew the red hair on the male, the blond on the woman.
"No!"
She tried to run but her feet seemed weighed down as if she ran through the sand in the Void, the sucking porous inland sea feel of it pulling her down. Those were her parents lying still and cold, their features slack in death and that, the child, the sobbing one –
--was Livy's sister, unborn when Livy had been taken and now already a toddler, so this couldn't be real, her sister wasn't toddler age yet, she'd be eight months old; this was the child she'd dreamed of so many times.
The child without a face.
Even as Livy ran forward the child turned toward her, eerily smooth features no less anguished. Her sister held her arms out to Livy, her sobs turning to screams, her attention suddenly beyond Livy who turned, feeling dread crawl along her spine.
The soldier was too far for her to reach. Too close for her to evade. He lifted his weapon, a rifle like her father had hidden in his workrooms, and aimed it at Livy, who startled, trying to run, and then with a laugh, switched his target to Livy's sister.
She threw herself in front of the weapon, between the solider and her sister, screaming as the gun exploded and the bullet spiraled through the air, seeking her.
LIVY EXPLODED UPRIGHT IN BED. Shuddering, she felt for the electric light beside her, snapping it on and revealing the luxurious room she slept in. The end of the bed was mounded in blankets, all at the ready in case Livy felt the slightest chill. Hanging from the bed post, a beautiful dressing gown she never wore because Livy preferred tunics and to be clothed and ready to go when she was awake.
The furniture in the room was rich, warm wood, with silver and gold inlays. The mirror was flawless. There was a marble bath through an archway that led to the bathroom. Sumptuous wall hangings softened the glossy marble. Huge windows looked out over the city of Arcadia, unbarred because they were so high up, surely Livy was safe.
"Dream," she said aloud. "It was only a dream."
It had left her
too shaken to even consider going back to sleep. The dream had been of the future.
"I don't believe such things," she said aloud.
But the dream of the future, of her parents death and the destruction of the villages, hung on.
Livy moved to one of the silk covered couches to watch as the morning brightened the world around her.
Some time after the sun had been up long enough for the summer day to heat up, after she'd showered and dressed, there was a knock at her door. Livy glowered at it. What was the point of anyone knocking when they were on the side where the locks were? She shouted acceptance at whoever was out there – as if she couldn't guess – and returned her attention to the day outside her prison.
The Plutarch stepped through the door, flanked by two of his guard. He never went anywhere without the Centurions or soldiers from his army, and since Livy had returned from the rebel kidnapping with her story of getting free as the rebels tried to move her from one location to another, always bound, always blindfolded, and being rescued by Selene, John Malvin never came near her without guards.
So much for him trusting her.
Her fiancé carried her breakfast tray himself. He frequently did. It did nothing for convincing Livy that she meant anything to him. Those days were past. She thought she stood a chance of influencing him once they were married, if for no other reason than he'd chosen her himself so she must have some value. But there was no caring between them. He was her jailer, her master, her tormenter, who kept her from her family and ruled the world with an iron fist.
Bringing her breakfast was an empty gesture. Then again, likely she wasn't the one meant to see and appreciate the gesture. That might be left for those who reported the news to the provinces.
Behind Malvin came several serving maids, carrying the elegant gowns Livy was expected to wear, along with beautiful heels that nearly crippled her. The ladies of the Aristocracy loved the highest heels imaginable, so high and thin and painful they all walked with jerky unnatural movements like a harlequin on wires, and so crippling they stood no chance of ever running away, had such a thought ever even occurred in any of their empty heads.