by Bella James
THE MEETING ENDED NOT long after. The cabinet members left grumbling but not daring to glower at Livy. The wedding, now four days away, was to be held in Agara, Pastoreum.
They were leaving the next day, taking a bus across the countries. Julia's broadcast expertise would keep them on the air even if they weren't in Arcadia.
Livy had been assigned her own entourage over the last few months. Selene, Balk and now Arash. Her life was changing faster than she could keep up with.
She'd come away from the meeting alone. Selene caught up to her partway back to her rooms and that was the first time Livy had realized no one walked with her.
When she got back to her rooms and Selene started in on her about being unescorted, Livy yawned, stretched and said, "So fix it. Could you find Arash for me?"
Selene closed her mouth. Then smiled. And went. And 15 minutes later, Arash stood in Livy's quarters. They looked at each other, the brash young rebel suddenly silent and uncertain, the Centurion already bowing out of the room when Livy said, "Wait. Where's Balk?"
"Where's what?" Arash asked.
Selene snapped her fingers. And grinned. "While I was out finding our fine young friend, I ran into your sister, Livy. She has discovered some very interesting uses for common herbs while living at the pleasure palace." Selene examined her nails. "For example, did you know that horsetail fern is a somnolent?"
Livy began to grin. "And where can we find this somnolent?"
Selene turned the handle of the door and stepped halfway through it. "Well, usually from an apothecary, likely in a small bottle. But for tonight? Best place to look would be in the duenna's tea." She smirked.
Livy smirked back, then waved and listened as the door closed and the locks turned. Maybe the locks weren't on her side. That was all right. No one would bother them tonight.
* * *
THEY FACED each other across the common area of her room, the low couches, the trunks used as tables, the sumptuous wall hangings and the table clothes on the trunks. Livy was aware of every luxury in the room.
Aware and ashamed.
What she'd had in the desert. That, suddenly, was all she wanted. She'd talked to the Plutarch about going home, back to Pastoreum, just for a visit, and she'd though to herself she wanted her old life back, her parents, her siblings.
She didn't. She'd changed. She longed for the feeling of the wind in her hair, the open desert spreading around her. She loved the heartless city of Arcadia. Home to a government corrupt and cruel but beautiful in its own right. But she wanted the hot, open, supposedly unlivable vastness of the desert.
She wanted to be with Arash.
She no longer hated the Plutarch. Of recent days she'd seen him as human, complimenting her on how she looked in one of the daily dresses, returning her sister to her and asking nothing for it, laughing at things she'd said, terrified by the things the Oracle had announced. Maybe he hadn't asked a thing about Livy in all the concerned questions he asked the seer, but he'd still been asking about things he cared about. She'd do the same thing in his place: ask about the city, the people at large, the fate of her sister, her own fate – and forget about the man she was supposed to be marrying.
She didn't hate him. That didn't change the fact she knew he was wrong. Wrong in the way he ruled the world. Wrong in the policies he made that allowed – encouraged – torture and executions.
It didn't change the fact that he hurt her on a regular basis or that she was terrified of being married to him, at his disposal, the breeding stock of the world.
Or that she wanted her own life, her own choices.
Her own mate.
Livy reached her hand out to Arash. He looked confused. Clearly he'd heard the doors shut and bolt behind him once Selene had brought him in. There wasn't anywhere they could go.
Livy gestured impatiently again with her arm. Then, getting a smile on her face, she said, "Come on."
The confused expression on Arash's face was replaced with laughter. He reached for her, took her hand, allowed her to lead him, pulling him through the common area, around the tables and sofas, past the pampered house plants, past the fireplace, past the cooling units, past the hanging that separated this room from the next.
He followed her and she stopped in her room beside her bed, turned and found him so close behind her she was already in his arms.
"My choice," she murmured.
"What?" His voice was slow and velvety. He reached out and pulled one of the pins that held her red blond curls on top of her head and watched them tumble down around her face, observing the butterfly birthmark on the back of her neck. He stroked her cheek, his thumb playing over her lips. Livy bit at his thumb and moved closer, into the circle of his arms, looking up into his face.
"The Plutarch told me the guard I chose to protect me 'round the clock was my choice. I choose you."
He ducked his head and kissed her, his lips soft on hers, the upper lip a little rounder than the bottom, both lips parting over hers, his tongue seeking out her tongue.
When he pulled back Livy looked at him sadly. "There's information we have to get out."
Instantly he was at attention. "Wedding moved up?"
Livy nodded. "We're leaving in the morning. The wedding has officially been moved to Pastoreum, Agara. My family will be there."
He brushed a hand over her face. "I'll find Julia. She'll get the word out. Want to come with me?"
She blinked. "What?" She was used to being locked in her room at night, it seemed.
Arash got a devilish smile on his face and held his hand out to her. "Come on," he said, and Livy grinned and took his hand.
Arash opened the door as if it had never been locked and when the guard on the other side challenged him, he pulled rank and took Livy with him, down the corridors to the broadcast studio where they found Julia despite the hour.
She looked up at the two of them holding hands and grinned, running a hand through her dyed, white blond cropped hair. "And what is it you want me to pass along?" she asked archly and Livy laughed.
"Just the information about the wedding, thank you." Her smile faded. She dry washed her hands together, beginning to pace. "The wedding will be held in the town square. If it's beautiful out, we'll marry outdoors. If it's storming, indoors, or maybe in the town hall, no matter what the weather is doing." She tried to shrug but tears blurred her vision. In all of her imaginings, all of her work to be true to herself as her grandfather had asked of her, in her desire to see the rebellion take hold of all the lands, she had never once truly believed she would marry the Plutarch.
Especially not when she had fallen in love with someone. She squeezed Arash's hand as Julia brought up the communications array and began sending encrypted code to the rebel bases.
"What else?" Julia's white blond hair was still a shock.
Livy ran through it in her mind, and said aloud, "I'm going to have my sister with me on the caravan. We'll be taking the buses the tax tributes are brought to Arcadia on. If there's an attack, they need to watch for Pip."
Julia uploaded Pip's photo, flashed it into the stream of data going out.
"I'll have better dates and times as it gets closer. The generals and the Centurion have insisted we keep the exact date secret until the day of. Then once we're in Agara and set to go, a national holiday will be declared and – " And here she did shrug, pointing at Julia. "You probably know more of what happens then than I do."
"We run the information," Julia said. "Plutarch's communications will overtake every television station, every radio, every functioning computer. Within minutes everyone in the world will know when the wedding is."
"And not until then," Arash said.
They looked at each other. Livy could see on their faces that the plans felt as incomplete to them as they did to her, but there was nothing else for it. Her role was simple. She supplied information along the way and she married a monster.
Julia's was more complex – to get the informa
tion, carefully, secretly, to the rebels to act on.
Arash's was more complex – he would work with the military, using the time on the road to finish figuring out which soldiers were on their side and which might have to be killed.
Selene would do the same in the Centurion forces. It wasn't that both hadn't all along been looking for sympathizers but that now it was down to the wire, every contact had to be checked out one more time.
Not tonight, Livy thought, looking at Arash where he stood in the high tech broadcasting studio along with Julia and all the lights, cameras, computers, microphones and at the rest of the equipment so familiar and commonplace in Arcadia and so desperately needed and rare in the rest of the world.
Enough, she realized. In the morning she'd start the steps that would lead her to marriage.
Tonight was hers.
She held her hand out to Arash. When he glanced at her, surprised, she just gestured with the hand and winked. When he took it, she said again, "Come on," and left the broadcast control room.
Arash was the only one confused. Julia and Selene exchanged grins and Selene, trusting one of soldiers of the Plutarch would get through even if he wasn't real – the other soldiers either didn't know or didn't care – hung back, watching them go.
Livy turned in the doorway and saluted before disappearing with Arash.
CHAPTER 9
T his was her true wedding night.
This was her true groom. The man Livy herself would have chosen. Only months ago he'd kidnapped her and held her against her will, forced her to call and ride a giant scorpion and to lasso and kill one of the deadly sand serpents and take its fangs. Only months ago she'd thought he talked too much and acted too bossy and wanted nothing more than for him to leave her alone.
Now she moved fast through the reaches of the palace, after curfew but probably inviolate, going fast back to her quarters. Halfway there they encountered Earnestine Balk, her expansive bulk draped over a palace staircase in a disused corner of the Plutarch's realm, her head tipped back against the marble wall, her mouth open as she snored.
Livy stifled a laugh and tiptoed past her with Arash, racing again across the marble floor the minute the woman's heavy snoring fell behind them.
Back at her room, confused Centurions stared at the escaped fiancée of the Plutarch, then pulled back from the double doors and allowed her through with her personal guard.
The chambers were empty. Candles had begun to gutter out but they were closer to cavern lights; the electric overhead lights were too harsh.
Once in Livy's bedroom, they came together from fast to slow, touching gently, eyes lingering on eyes, holding gazes. Their breath disturbed the silence and little else. Hands touched, bodies pressed together, they stood beside the bed, looking into each other's eyes as they touched gentle fingers to eyes, cheekbones, lips, jaw lines, to throats and sliding, moved fingers down shoulders and biceps, stroked hands over hands, moved into each other and away. Arash gentled a hand down Olivia's side, his thumb grazing the inside curl of her hip.
Livy bit her lip and traced his mouth with one finger, followed the finger with her mouth. Their clothes seemed to melt away as they removed each other's, kissing skin as it became exposed, making the most of the moment.
There was no way of knowing if there would ever be another one.
LYING beside him within the fur throws and soft blankets, Livy traced a finger down Arash's side, stopping abruptly just above his hip bone. There was a nasty wound there, something showing broken, reddened skin, bruising, scabbing.
Livy pulled back. "What happened?"
Arash narrowed his eyes, confused, then laughed. "My identity as Timmell Cantor comes from a battlefield corpse. There was no other way to suddenly introduce me to the Plutarch's presence."
Livy traced around the wound. It looked superficial. It also looked painful. "But – " she started.
"But nothing. The owner of the identity was Timmell Cantor and he died of a wound much greater than this. It hurt like hell, just getting this one, so I'm grateful I didn't have to imitate him exactly." He smiled down on her while Livy panicked, imagining what would have happened to Arash if he'd had to replicate the wound precisely. Only –
"That would have killed you. If this would is what killed the other guy.”
"Now you’ve got it," he said.
Livy slid her hands down his torso, gently touching the edges of the wound. "You did this so you could come in here."
Arash nodded.
"That was brave."
He leaned up onto one shoulder. "No. It felt like a rotten thing to do. The soldier who was wounded fought bravely. He wounded and captured several opponents." His voice was ragged with emotion.
Livy considered. "But the opponents are us," she said finally.
Arash nodded.
"I don't understand."
"I hope you never have to," he said, kissing her neck, beginning to let his kisses drift lower. "But he was serving the side he believed in. He was doing what he thought right. That's all any of us can do. I think he chose wrong, if he even had a choice. But that was his realty."
She thought about what he'd said, opened her mouth and started to reply, and realized he was asleep. She snuggled down in the bed beside him, promising herself she'd wake him early. Long before she had to leave.
This was her wedding night. She wasn't missing it.
Lying in the darkness beside Arash, Livy wondered if she'd changed as much as she'd earlier thought she had. Maybe she'd only traded one set of wants for another.
Arash, sleeping beside her, voluntarily wounded in order to pursue the fight for freedom – that was what she wanted now. What she aspired to be. More than the dress of the day. More than the Plutarch's bride who hoped to sway him with breathy words and pleas for understanding.
She wanted to be a leader.
BY THE TIME Earnestine Balk pounded on Livy's chamber doors, Livy had been awake for hours. The duenna appeared, angry and huffing, horrified by her own dereliction of duty. She'd awakened to find herself asleep on a stair, small palace brats running by and laughing at her.
Far from making her more humble, it just made her angry. Discovering Arash in residence, she began to scream.
"Where is that blasted Centurion? We need a doctor in here! Three days before the royal wedding and under my care? I will not have it! This instant, we will discover – "
Livy had no intention of letting any of the Plutarch's physicians lay a finger on her, but she shrank back from the woman's obvious fury.
Moments later, Selene appeared from inside Livy's bedchamber which should have been impossible but neither Livy nor Arash questioned it.
The duenna instantly silenced herself.
Selene looked impassively at all of them. "Shall we go? It doesn't pay to keep the Plutarch waiting." She proceeded Livy and Arash, leading the way from the suite.
THE BIG BLACK busses with silver winds painted swirling along their flanks waited for them. Livy, Selene and Arash all boarded the first bus. Both swords people were sworn to Livy and the Plutarch had saddled her with the duenna. But before Balk could board the bus, one of the ruler's assistants came out and redirected her.
Livy just heard the girl saying, "It's extremely unlikely she'll lose her virginity on a bus with all the guards and her fiancée."
The bus rolled out early morning, passing through the gates of Arcadia. Somewhere in one of the other buses, Julia traveled with her equipment. Across from Livy, uncomfortably close to the Plutarch for Livy's tastes, Pippa slept again, her head cradled on her arm and propped against the window.
The buses had barely cleared the gates and moved no more than a mile down the straightaway that led from the city, which still showed in the rearview mirrors, when the first of the fireballs exploded, sending shockwaves through the busses.
The driver swerved, avoiding nothing, simply startled. Arash and Selene, and the Plutarch's Centurion, leaped to their feet, weapons in
hand. Moments later half of them had leapt from the bus and rushed up ladders on the side of the bus, standing on the top to survey what was happening.
Livy found both hands in fists, pressed tight against her chest. Timmell – Arash – was outside on the rooftop.
They know him. Everyone in the rebellion knows him.
But her heart hammered in fear. The rebels knew him. A Before Times long distance incendiary device didn't know him and wouldn't hesitate to strike.
After a long time, spent by Livy holding onto Pip when she woke and wanted to run, and watching the Plutarch pace the bus, the guards came back in, grim faced.
"The city is under attack," one of the Plutarch's Centurion said.
"Gods save Arcadia," said a soldier.
Inside the bus, silence spread until the ruler's cabinet members came from the other bus, babbling opinions rendered as fact, demanding actions that made no sense, fearing those that did.
It was the Plutarch himself who stated they would go on. No one knew their ultimate destination.
"Who cares?" demanded General Kent. "They know where you are now." He spread his hands, as if looking for logic. "Getting you out of harm's way is important, but if the rebels know exactly where you are, perhaps it's best to stand and fight."
Livy held her breath. Beside her Arash stood at attention, the soldier ready to protect his charge, his duty reduced to babysitting in the eyes of many soldiers.
If they took a stand in Arcadia, she wouldn't have a chance to see her family before the rebellion launched. Though her fists tightened at the thought, nails cutting into her palms, the sooner the rebellion began, the sooner the world would be a little safer.
Provided they won.
It had never occurred to her the rebellion might fail. Even on the most sleepless dark nights she'd shoved the idea away. The rebellion had to succeed.
Back when she'd first understood the extent of the undertaking, what the hidden desert camps were all about, what the training was for, non-soldiers learning the ways of war, she'd not yet had her own role in the events to come.
