by Bella James
While her family faced the same hardships as the others who supported Arcadia – illness, hunger, endless labor.
Everything she was working to change. But it was taking so long, and her family didn't know, and times spent like this, dining and pretending and filling out her role as the bride of the Plutarch, she despaired.
Change seemed impossible and even if possible, too far away to matter.
Through dinner, which she hardly tasted, she repeated her lines to herself, over and over, which she'd be doing for the remainder of the evening. As a small quartet with stringed instruments played on the main dais, she would descend to the floor and, taking her cue from Malvin and others on stage, distribute the medals, saying to each soldier, "Thank you for protecting us. We appreciate your devotion and duty in the face of danger and disease."
"Olivia." The Plutarch's voice had an edge. He'd urged her more than once. It was time to set aside her tasteless food and accept the first bundle of medals on ribbons from the curvy, beautiful girl standing now beside both Livy and the ruler.
On nerveless legs she descended the stairs, walking out to a small platform from which she could see into the other three sides of the square where the men she was to honor would be. How silly not to have at least one girl per side, to speed things up.
But speeding things up wasn't what the Plutarch wanted. He wanted ceremony, and for Livy to be seen by as many of them as possible wearing the amazing blue dress and teetering on insanely high heels.
Everything the Plutarch did was planned.
Livy stepped onto the platform and waited.
The first name was called, echoing into a now-still room, and Livy waited, spotted the young man getting unsteadily to his feet. She wondered what his injury was, if he had one. Some of the heroes in the room were simply heroic, not injured, but this man, blond with dark brown skin and a uniform that indicated Oceanus was his origin, swayed on his feet.
When she got close, his eyes followed her lasciviously. Oh, Earnestine Balk, Livy thought wryly. If only you were here to save me from the soldier's thoughts.
Then she was beside him at the table, waiting for him to bow his head so she could drape the medal around it. He was not, she understood instantly, injured. He was drunk.
Livy took a breath, both for courage and because she wanted cleaner air before she leaned in close, and said, "Thank you for protecting us. We appreciate your devotion and duty in the face of danger and disease."
The boy glowed under her praise. Or perhaps because of the alcohol.
The next recipient was older, dark haired, dark eyed, beautiful save for a disfiguring scar running the length of one cheek. His dark eyes tracked her, seeming to say that the scar would be all Olivia Bane saw of him. She made it a point to meet his eyes as she presented the medal, this time stuttering over her words, managing, "Thank you for protecting us. We appreciate your, um, doing your duty in the face of danger and disarray. And disease," she added hastily, her cheeks flaming.
He didn't seem to notice. He ducked his head and let her slip the ribbon over it. When she had, he raised his head and smiled at her. Livy, surprised, smiled back even as she waited for the next, a tall black youth from the borderlands of the Forbidden Zone.
"Thank you for – um – doing what you did and – duty and devotion against disease and – " No, disease came second. This was taking too long. She looked up into his eyes, saw a slight smile there that put her more at ease, and hung the medal on him.
The next soldier was called. Olivia went to him and said, "Thank you for your duty. It was honorable."
The young man smiled and ducked his head and Livy's confidence reasserted itself. She didn't have to use rote phrases that were meaningless as a rock seconds after she started. She could just speak to them like they were humans doing a job they were meant to do, a dangerous job, and doing it well. They were, from Livy's point of view, on the wrong side, but they were representing that side with courage and dignity; the least she could do was act accordingly.
After that, the evening went better for Livy. She moved from soldier to soldier, said something to each, met their eyes, smiled, made them smile. Not all of them were injured. Not all of them were drunk.
As the number of ribboned medals in the hands of the woman now standing behind the Plutarch lessened, Livy found herself almost enjoying what she was doing. She wondered if some of the soldiers being honored didn't feel the government set up by the first Plutarch and perpetuated by generations of them wasn't due for a change and whether it was possible some of them might join the rebellion.
Then her fiancé called a name she didn't recognize, something from the desert borderlands, and she stood, waiting for a man with a dark complexion to stand so she could find him.
Across from the dais a young man stood, his head bowed. Livy clicked her way across the marble floor, the blue ribbon in her hand, the gold medal swaying in time to her footsteps. When she reached him, she started to say, "Thank you for your service in defense of your land," only to have him say it first.
Livy froze, her hands partway out to the man, the medal clutched.
"Put it on me," he said. "They'll be watching."
Now her heart began to pound. What she was thinking was crazy, completely unlikely. She raised the medal, her heart in her throat, pointless hope in her breast, and all of the words dried up in her mouth.
"Aren't you supposed to say something about duty and desire?" he asked as the ribbon settled on the back of his neck.
Livy said, "What?"
And the soldier raised his head and met her eyes.
Disbelief, hope, recognition, pleasure. The emotions shot through her like a current of electricity.
Arash.
CHAPTER 8
F or a startled instant all she could do was stare at him. Then her legs tried to buckle out from under her and Livy used every bit of her training to force herself to remain calm.
It didn't help that Arash, a slight, tilted smile on his mouth, winked.
Under cover of the applause, she asked, "What are you doing here?"
"Is that any way to treat a wounded soldier?" he asked, and raised his chin, indicating she needed to move on.
Rattled, Livy returned for the last handful of medals, feeling like she moved in a daze. When she returned to the table she shared with her fiancé, Malvin held out a hand and said, addressing the guests at the dinner but making it seem he addressed his beloved fiancée, "And now my dear, for a surprise, I would like you to choose one of the brave men awarded tonight as your private guard, a single soldier who will be your private bodyguard around the clock."
Livy stared at him, willing the Plutarch to look at her and realize she didn't understand. Selene was sworn to her. The Centurion ranged the length and breadth of the land. They were the Plutarch's own guard. The soldiers were his army. Why would she choose another guard?
But the opportunity was too great.
Or perhaps the opportunity was too dangerous. What if this were a test? What if John Malvin knew who Arash was and was waiting for her to choose?
In a split second of panic and frustration, she chose Arash, under the name Timmell Cantor that she'd been given, choosing him by pointing, not by remembering one name out of the dozens she'd been given. She rose and moved smoothly through the crowd, climbing to the tier of tables where he sat and indicating her choice. She saw more than one soldier's dark expression as she bypassed them and wondered at the status involved in being the personal guard to the Plutarch's wife.
Surely normally there'd be more than one. Three shifts, or at least two. The guard Livy was choosing was being asked to give up everything outside his job with her.
She wondered again if it were a test. But she'd made her choice. If it were a test, if the Plutarch ordered her seized and held, questioned for her loyalty, she'd shout as she was taken, putting into play Selene and whatever Centurion were loyal to Selene, to Livy, to the rebellion, shouting to Julia to broadcast
the call, shouting to the rebels to start the rebellion.
But even now her fiancé was standing, clapping, asking for the name again, which she remembered only because it had still been ringing in her ears when she'd seen the young soldier was Arash.
He caught her eye, looking proud and militant. He didn't wink or smile or mouth any words to her, nothing that could be played back endlessly on video and studied for any kind of message passing between the two, but Livy thought if she had the powers of the Oracle, she'd hear him in her mind, saying, Come on.
IN PASTOREUM, when all of her family had been alive, mealtimes had been special. Livy, Maddy, Jep, Grandfather Bane and her sisters and brothers came together to eat, sharing food and information in equal amounts. There had never been enough food, but there had always been more than enough talk, more than enough family time together. And afterwards, after cleanup and remaking the house so the younger siblings could sleep where the table had been, there was time to go back into her grandfather's curtained off room and learn to read or write or even math, to talk to the man she loved and hear stories about Before Times, about his adventures in the Forbidden Zone, collecting Before Times technology, to talk about the future that maybe could come. Or more likely, maybe could be created.
In the Plutarch's household, meal times were shows of lavish authority, of absurd uses of time, labor, money, food and privilege. And when they weren't that, they were planning sessions as strategies for government were put into effect, from controlling the outer provinces to the next wave of new alphas coming in to the war that seemed inevitable with the rebel forces.
And more often, mealtimes were show times, when broadcasters came in to film the rich and famous at their meals, to show what the other classes could never have. Livy never knew if this was to keep them in their places or offer the most empty hope imaginable that someday, somehow, they'd be the ones to break through the imposed caste system and work their way up to the Plutarch's table.
This endless dinner of state just falling behind them had been about the Plutarch showing off his child bride as the wedding grew closer, announcing the wedding would be moved up and was now less than a week away, and allowing Livy to choose a guard loyal to her.
That last she didn't understand. Seemed to her Malvin would want to appoint whoever was going to be with his wife around the clock.
But maybe it was nothing more than the fact that every man in the Plutarch's army was considered loyal to the Plutarch.
Or dead.
Arash walked her back to her quarters. The meeting with the Plutarch and his cabinet had been long and dull. They'd talked about taxes, about roads that had to be fixed and what provinces could be forced to supply the labor and funds and materials to do the work. There'd been talk of the rebels, but nothing had happened lately so it was short and to the point: once the wedding took place, action would be taken against the rebellion, even as it gathered force.
Livy would have liked to hear much more of that, but the generals making the plans had already done so and already briefed the Plutarch. There was nothing now but to wait for the wedding and then put into place the military plans meant to crush the rebellion. They didn't helpfully explain these plans for Livy's sake, which meant she first didn't feel she was being tested and second, couldn't relay the plans to anyone. She and the rebels weren't any worse off than they had been. They just weren't any better off, either.
Now she was about to be dismissed, back to her chambers, Arash escorting her and once they arrived, she'd find out whether Selene had had any inkling of what was coming or if Arash's arrival would be a surprise to her, too.
But what Livy, who usually wanted nothing more than to be out of the presence of the Plutarch, wanted was audience with her fiancé.
She had to convince him to move the wedding to Pastoreum and the meeting was about to end and she, very clearly, would be sent off to get her beauty rest and not worry her pretty little head, especially given the number of people she now had guarding it (not to mention guarding other parts of her body, they way the duenna was).
So Livy spoke up at the meeting. "About the wedding," she started, and then glared when General Kent responded that yes, of course she was excited, but there was no room for feminine discussions about dresses and flowers in their meeting.
Feeling almost as if she were outside herself, Livy glared at Kent and stood, addressing the assembled cabinet and military advisors. Where earlier in the evening she'd frozen with 200 people in a room who would see her walking from one to the next of them, possibly while feeling as endlessly bored as Livy herself, now suddenly she had confidence.
And fire. The inner fire, the anger her grandfather had counseled her so often to control, was flaring.
"General Kent, I wasn't about to address the meeting about my dress or my flowers or the Plutarch's dress or flowers." She glanced at her fiancé as she said this and winked broadly, wondering if she had just gone mad or was banking on the human male she'd so recently heard laugh.
The Plutarch tucked his lips together tightly, very clearly stifling his laughter.
Even the general seemed more surprised than anything else. Livy had been so determined to lay low until she could move on behalf of the rebels that everyone just took her for a quiet, unassuming mouse.
Suddenly, the mouse was making noise.
"I shouldn't have assumed," the general said. "You have the floor."
She didn't, really. They were meeting in one of the more austere rooms the Plutarch kept for when he wanted meetings to run fast and on course. Plate glass windows overlooked hallways where people came and went. Blinds could be drawn if they wanted privacy. The room featured several small tables, chairs, a sink, glasses, a small cold box and not much else.
The people there, however, were making up for the not much else by talking amongst themselves. Which was fine by Olivia – all she wanted was the attention of the Plutarch.
Everyone else would fall in with whatever he decided anyway.
"I'm afraid," she said quickly. "Every day we hear reports about rebels attacking the villages and the battles that are going on there." Not rebels doing the attacking and burning, but there was no reason to let them know she knew the truth. Her education at the Institute had been all about the Plutarch's reign, not about the rebels' cause. "I know you've said my family is safe, and I believe you," she lied. "But there were so many people I left behind in Pastoreum, so many friends and neighbors, and I'd so like to see them again before the wedding. I want to see my family. I want to know how my baby brother is doing. He's been sick and it was some time ago I learned that."
The Plutarch looked as if he were considering her words.
Livy rushed on. "What I'm afraid of is that if we have the wedding in Arcadia, we open the city to attack. The Oracle said there'd be attacks on the city. She didn't say when. Isn't that a logical time?"
"But anywhere you hold the wedding you'll be opened up to the potential of attacks," the general said and Livy blinked, surprised he'd actually been listening.
The man next to the ruler, one of the undersecretaries of communications, turned and appealed to the Plutarch. "The wedding is a gift to the people," he said, shooting Livy a look that seemed to suggest she was making work for him that he wasn't interested in doing. "We're set up to broadcast the wedding worldwide. Everyone will be able to share in your joy."
Was it her imagination or was there just enough emphasis on the word joy that it came out somewhat rudely?
John Malvin turned his gaze to his cabinet, which sprang up, men and women both, with reasons to stay in Arcadia and hold the wedding there. The army could be called back from its scattered battles to defend the city. If Livy really had to have her family with her, said one prune-faced old woman, certainly she could have them brought to her, at taxpayer expense, she added, as if Livy were the first girl ever to want her family with her on her wedding day. The general pointed out calling back the army for a single event – even one so
world altering, he added hastily, might send the wrong message, that the soldiers could be called off their duty for various reasons and mightn't then the rebels try to create reasons, leaving various villages unattended so they, the rebels, could slip in and seize power?
That's crazier than any of the ideas the rebels actually came up with, Livy thought; including the kidnapping of me.
When the voices died down, the Plutarch paced, squeezing his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger. His gaze was sharp and present, not distant and thoughtful. Livy couldn't imagine what he was thinking.
Until he stopped and turned and told them. "Livy, you want your family with you? You truly do?"
She nodded. With her. Her with them. Living with them. Still having her life in Pastoreum. Yes. Please.
And even as she assured him she did, even as she sowed the seeds of the rebellion right there in the Plutarch's own meeting room, Livy understood she would never again be content to be simply Livy Bane, living in Agara, working in the fields, saving her pennies to buy beautiful things. Even traveling without a guard, or even a reason for a guard, even being allowed to read and having books, none of that would be enough.
"I want my family with me." Usually she'd add "sir" here. This time she didn't. "We're getting married. That's something I want my family to see. In person."
