As the journey continues her optimism only grew, and her plans quickly sprouted out. She continued to chat with Beth and becomes very fond of the older woman and even the grumpy old man. The wagon made no stops as Beth had predicted but they were given stale bread and water in a wooden cup as the cage rattled along the lone road. Livia managed to eat the food and her headache abated just the tiniest bit. Hours pass and she quickly lost feeling in her butt and legs but grew closer with her cellmates. They all agreed to stick together and help one another out. They made a pack. As the journey came to an end, and a town could be seen in the distance, everyone was smiling and laughing as if they were sitting by a warm campfire and not huddled together in chains.
Livia had hope.
She drifted off on the old man's shoulder and dreamed of fighting monsters and farming. The next time she wakes up, she expects to be in the small town of Zinnia and one step away from her new life.
Livia wakes up to the sound of waves crashing, crying, and a rolling stomach.
When her eyes snap open, she is met with darkness and a faintly blurry vision. Her head spins and her stomach gives a great heave as the surface she rests on rocks in a way that makes her nauseous. She barely refrains from seeing the stale bread she ate early and realizes that she is laying down on a surface that is hard and unforgiving.
She tries to make sense of where she is, and absently feels at the space where the old man should be, but her hand meets empty air.
She still hears crying.
Who the hell was crying?
Her chains were still on. She could feel the weight of them and hear them rattle as she tries to move about but her movement was restricted. All she could do was sit up and get her knees under her before she couldn't move further.
"Where?" She slurs, her voice barely a murmur as her eyes adjust to the darkness that surrounds her.
She could make out vague shapes, some unmoving, and others were.
'People?', Livia thinks dimly.
"B-Beth? Old Man?" She calls out to one of the shapes, but she does not get an answer back.
The crying gets worse. The person was outright sobbing and wailing at this point.
Not just one.
Livia could feel a deep pit of dread start to form as her thoughts slowly cleared. The sound of the sea was unmistakable. She was on some kind of ship, and given how little to know lighting could be seen, she was in the cargo hold. The figures in the darkness were in fact people, but all of them were no doubt women. They were chained just as she was, and lay or sit on a piece of thin fabric. All of them wore drab clothes and looked as if they hadn't seen the sun in weeks.
She sees the answer to the question before she could even think it. The silver stands out in the darkness, a thin band that wraps around the slender necks of all the women.
Livia scrambles back as much as she is able, her eyes widening in horror.
No.
She mouths the words as she shakes her head in denial. Her hands come up to grasp at her own neck, and it easily finds the thin band around it.
'No, no, no! He wouldn't! Rodale would never be so cruel!' Livia thinks in utter panic as she claws at the thin piece of metal, trying to break it.
She couldn't, of course.
Her sharp nails do more damage to her own skin then it did the silver choker still wrapped securely around her neck. It would take magic to break it, and her meager amount was already sealed away by the chains on her wrist.
Small and insignificant as it was, she knew the small piece of silver around her neck was basically a death sentence. Her fingers turned it until she found the small crest carved into it. Her fingers traced it over, confirming her suspicions.
The crest was made up of two Es overlapping another as small serpents wrapped around the letters possessively with a fierce look.
It was the symbol of the Empire.
Livia felt tears sting her eyes as her heart sink into the pit of her stomach.
There was only one Empire that used such brands.
The Eastern Empire.
It was one of the most corrupt places in all of Etheria.
It was also where she was being shipped off too.
The silver band around her neck marked her as a buyable slave, merchandise to be purchased, and used by whoever had enough money to afford her.
It was a fate worst than death.
Livia had no illusions on what her fate is to be. As a young, beautiful female, it was obvious just what her use would be.
If she was naïve, she would think that on her way to Zinnia, they had been intercepted by slave traders and she must have been taken then. She might think that it was just a matter of very rotten luck.
But she wasn't a foolish girl.
There was no doubt in her mind. Only one person could orchestra such a thing. After all, it was no easy feat to snatch up someone and ship them off all away across the ocean. No, that would cost too much time and money for slave traders just to have a few pretty faces they could get a lot closer. Not unless they were properly motivated.
'Was it the Rodale or Orin?' She thinks numbly.
She sits there, staring into nothing with a face devoid of emotions as silent tears stream down her face. The small tentative light of hope that she had nurtured over a few hours shatters into nothing, leaving her cold and listless.
'Which one would have done this to me?' Livia wonders numbly.
'Which one of them would have me think I escape death only to condemn me to an even worse fate?'
'Which one of them hates me more?'
It starts at the center of her chest. A single ember that sparks up into a blazing fire. With each throb of her beating heart, it spreads. It chases away the cold, the numbness.
'Orin or Rodale...Rodale or Orin...'
The waves continue to crash against the ship, the sense of the ground below her moving and shifting with waves in which it floats on continue to disturb her. The women around her all have come to the same conclusion as she has. She can see it in their eyes. They had already given up. Some stare with soulless eyes, eerily quiet, while others curl up and just cry.
'Which one...which one...?'
No one will come to save them.
'Why do this to me? I was already gone from their lives.'
They were as alone as she was.
'Did you really hate me that much?'
In the middle of the ocean, chained up, branded, and unable to do magic. They could all try to fight, but that was hard to do with limited mobility and with a crew that likely outnumbered them.
There was nowhere to go and nowhere to run or hide.
It was hopeless.
She tried to avoid her fate and only incurred a worse one.
Maybe it would have been better if I had just died?
"NO!" Livia screams, slamming her cuffed wrist on the hard floor with a loud clang that startles the other women.
She does it again, and again, yelling and screaming like a lunatic, tears burning down her eyes all the while. Her screams grow louder when the binds around her wrist grow a bright red, burning them. She doesn't stop though. She can't. She rages until her wrist and fist are bleeding and her throat goes hoarse until she can't move another muscle.
Livia eventually collapses on her side, breathing heavily.
She angrily wipes at the tears on her face, keeping her mouth firmly close so a sob didn't dare escape. Her jaw is tense and her teeth begin to ache from the force that she grits them, but she refuses to utter another sound.
She wasn't sad.
She wasn't crying from despair.
It was rage.
A fury that is so great that it makes her body tremble with it and her eyes water from it.
Never before has she been so angry in all of her lives.
It seems she had underestimated the hatred they had for her.
It was a mistake she would never make again.
'It does not matter if it was Rodale, Orin, or both of them together. What did matter was that they got in my way!'
'I only wanted one thing.'
Just one little thing.
But they couldn't even let me have that!
She would make them pay. She would make them suffer.
Livia knew she was too weak to stop the course her life has turned. She could think of nothing short of her own death that would stop her dark fate from happening, and she refused to take her own life.
No.
She would survive if it was the last thing that she did. She would get stronger and then she would return.
As her vision begins to fade, and the noise around her becomes distant and faraway, Livia forms a new plan a new list. It is almost as short as the last one.
Step One: Survive. No matter at what cost.
Step Two: Become Stronger.
Step Three: Return and wreak havoc on all those who sought to see her suffer.