Chapter Text
12
—
Clarke
Clarke can feel her nerves practically burning a hole right through her stomach as Kane guides her to the wall of CCTV monitors.
She hadn't realised they were still working.
It's hours from dawn yet, the images on the few working screens flickery and dark. Arkadia is still fast asleep. They stand together silently for a long moment, just watching.
Waiting.
Then, suddenly, there's movement on the screen to the bottom right. Silhouettes moving quickly – purposefully. Five altogether.
All leaving camp through Raven's gate.
Clarke draws in a sharp breath.
“You knew the whole time,” she says without turning to Kane. “You were watching us.”
He sighs wearily. “I suppose I might as well be frank with you now, Clarke. Yes, we were aware of people using the disconnected gap in the fence. Were we monitoring it the entire time? No. God knows we don't have the electricity reserves for that.”
“But you knew. You never put a stop to it.”
“What would've been the point?” The corner of his lips twitch upwards. “Another gap would've magically appeared within a week. It's human nature to crave autonomy. Better we quietly kept an eye on it and just monitored for any security threats.”
Frowning, she turns to face him. Marcus Kane had been part of her world since before she could even remember. He'd been lifelong friends with her father, a council member just like her mother and Wells’ dad. She thought this might be the first time she'd ever spoken to him alone, just the two of them.
As she looks at him, it's undeniable that life on the ground has irreparably aged Kane. His beard is more grey than black now, the creases around his eyes and mouth deep tributaries that seem to spread almost daily.
He used to be stern. Disciplined to a fault.
Now he just looks so very tired.
“Why didn’t you fight my mom to be Chancellor?” She asks, suddenly curious. “You were Jaha's right-hand man. You outranked her.”
Kane blinks at her, then turns back to the screens in front of them.
Another group moves through the gate – eight more this time.
“All I could promise was law and order. Your mother wanted to do things differently,” he replied after a drawn-out beat. “People believed in her. She had so many ideas, Clarke. Good ideas. She never wanted… Well, it goes without saying that life down here proved a lot more taxing than any of us could have imagined.”
Clarke mulls over his admission, her stomach burning and burning.
“I'm rooting for your friends though.”
“Me too,” she replies quietly.
Kane hums, contemplative. “Did you tell them about the alliance? That you weren't going with them?”
No. She was too much of a coward. She'd always hated saying goodbye.
More than that, she hated the small part of herself that believed they might've stayed or, at the very least, tried to stop her. There was no way she could look them in the eye and tell them that was abandoning them.
“I left a note for Raven – some places she'll find it.” Clarke cleared her throat. Now wasn't the time to get emotional. “She'll understand, and she'll know how to rein in the others.”
“Reyes? She's got a good head on her shoulders. Just like you.”
One last group approached Raven's gate – six in total. They moved through the gap, one by one, in well-practiced movements.
The last silhouette paused, halfway to freedom, and glanced back into the shadows.
As if looking for something, or someone.
For her.
Clarke feels bile rise up her throat, and she forces herself to look away. She knows deep in her soul that it's Wells. If it were the other way around, she would look for him too.
“They're gone,” says Kane after a few minutes. “Good luck to them. May we meet again.”
It was done. The delinquents were safely out of camp and on their way to a new life, far away from the wreckage of their old home – their prison.
Relief washes over her.
“Tell my mother I said thank you,” she tells Kane, turning towards the door. “She kept her end of the bargain by letting them leave peacefully, and I'll keep mine by securing the alliance with Ice Nation.”
“Clarke—”
She feels Kane's hand settle gently on her shoulder and pauses. Almost paternal.
“For what it's worth,” he says. “I'm sorry you've been put in this position. If I could go in your place, I would. In a heartbeat. This should not be your burden.”
She feels the first traitorous tear run down her face and swipes angrily at her eyes.
She thinks of her friends and imagines them building a new home for themselves by the ocean, free from danger and the heavy shackles of Arkadia.
Her voice is barely above a whisper when she finally speaks.
“I bear it so they don't have to.”
Kane presses something into her palm – cold, metallic – and steps away.
She looks down at the scalpel in her hand.
“What—?”
“Hide it somewhere they won't find it,” he tells her, his expression deadly serious. “If you have no other choice, I want you to use it. I trust you know how to make it quick.”
She frowned at Kane, shaking her head.
“Don't worry about repercussions. Don't worry about us. Tell me that you understand what I'm saying, Clarke?”
“I—” The words caught in her throat. She is seconds away from throwing up, but she pushes it down and composes herself. Bending, she slides the scalpel into the lining on her boot until it is hidden from sight. “I understand. Thank you, Kane.”
They give each other one last appraising look. In six hours time, Clarke will leave for Azgeda. It might very well be the last time they ever see each other.
She finally turns to leave, the scalpel heavy in her boot. Kane doesn't say anything else and neither does she.
It seems they are both cowards after all.
—
Bellamy
“I don't understand why we can't go out into the city,” Octavia complains, gesturing despairingly at the open window. The bustle of Polis drifts up from down below, a faint chill on the wind.
“Heda's orders,” replies Bellamy wearily. “Remember when you used to get in trouble, and Mom would make you stay in your room all day and think about what you'd done? That's what this is.”
His sister makes a dramatic groaning noise.
“Can't she just hurry up and decide if she thinks you're guilty or not? I hate being cooped up in here. I would have rather just stayed in Tondc.”
“You and I both,” he mutters. “Lexa wants me to come up with a way to prove myself to her – a show of fealty, if you will.”
“So think of something then! Go and find some Azgeda soldiers to kill or bring back for interrogation. Gods, it can't be that fucking hard, Bell.”
He scoffs, putting down the old world book he'd been thumbing through. Half of it wasn't even legible anymore anyway.
“Do you think killing someone is simple, O?”
“Definitely simpler than losing your own head for a crime you played no part in,” she quips back, exasperated.
He's too tired to argue with his sister. Sleep has been no friend to him since he arrived in Polis – not since he left the bunker, actually, if he were being honest.
And in the small hours of the morning when he does manage to find sleep, he always ends up dreaming of Clarke.
Even now, he can feel the phantom press of her lips against his own. The warm weight of her body beside his. He dreams of the soft dip of her waist under his hands, her delicate fingers brushing the stubble of his jaw.
He wakes up nauseous and irreparably aching every time.
It's too dangerous to let himself think about her. Not now. Certainly not here.
Besides, he doesn't need to remind himself for the twentieth time that he will never, ever see her again. It is better this way, for both of them.
Especially now that he may very well lose his head for a crime he played no part in.
“Why doesn't Lexa just declare war on Azgeda and be done with all this bullshit?”
Bellamy sighs, glancing over at his younger sister. She's finally given up moping by the window and has taken to lying down on the floor and moping instead.
His sister has never been in a real battle before. If she had, she wouldn't be suggesting all out war and the subsequent breakdown of the coalition.
War had caused the world to end once before, in nuclear fire and devastation.
Who knew what mankind might eventually do with the leftovers?
Lexa didn't want to see the world burn again – she wouldn't be their Heda if she did. There were plenty of ways to win a fight without so much as picking up a weapon.
“Politics,” Bellamy finally answers.
Octavia groans again.
“I hate politics,” she says with vitriol.
He is inclined to agree.
“For the record, I really hope she doesn't actually find you guilty,” Octavia says after a pause, her voice smaller than before.
Bellamy laughs despite himself and says, “Good to know. I appreciate the unwavering support.”
“You're my brother. I don't exactly have a say in the matter, do I? Just like I don't have a say in being stuck in this stupid tower.”
The sounds of the city drifted in through the window. Voices, machinery, animals. Laughter and shouting. A whole world that had survived war over and over again.
“I still think you could just go and kidnap someone – a scout or something,” Octavia suddenly said, sitting up to look at him. “It would show initiative, at the very least.”
Bellamy ignored her.
He was already beginning to stitch together the fabric of a plan in his mind, thread by delicate thread.
—
Night fell over Polis quickly, and late into the evening there came the jarring knock of an attendant with orders to get ready for dinner.
Indra meets them in the stairwell, informing them that a delegation from Sangedakru had arrived unexpectedly with news from their northern border. She doesn't know all the details, only that Lexa was even more on edge than before.
Still no mention of Costia.
The atmosphere inside the great hall is palpably tense, almost kinetic. Members of the different clans huddle together, talking brusquely amongst themselves.
One wrong glance, accidentally misinterpreted, could be all it took for the tension to detonate.
Bellamy takes a careful seat between Indra and her friends from Delphikru. Though they are more than happy to engage Octavia in conversation, beseeching her to visit them and see their renowned stock of horses with her own eyes, they are carefully economical with any words for him. Not unkind, just cautiously practical.
After a long wait, Lexa finally enters the room without ceremony and the crowd of guests promptly goes quiet as she takes her seat on the ornate dais.
She does not glance his way.
Bellamy isn't sure whether to take this as a good omen or not.
With a nod to Titus, standing dutifully to her side as always, a flood of attendants began bringing out platters of steaming food and plentiful jugs of spiced wine. It's a lazy display of power, he thinks, showboating what a harvest from a unified coalition looks like.
Showing everyone present in a very simple way that they are stronger together.
He's idly reminded of the pitiful rations Clarke shared with him. Flavourless and severe.
Though the meals in front of him look and smell tantalising, he doesn't feel particularly hungry anymore.
“A whole army,” says one of the Delphikru delegates to the others, drawing Bellamy's attention. He has a long, braided beard and his clan's telltale tattoos underneath his eyes. “That's what I heard.”
Indra makes a noise of distate. “Nia would never be so carelessly overt. Amassing an army right under our noses would be a death sentence for all of Azgeda.”
“They're bigger than most of us combined,” argued someone else. “I wouldn't underestimate her, especially not with winter on it's way. Azgeda are trained for battling in ice and snow, could we say the same?”
“They can't fight the whole coalition,” the bearded man interjects. “All of us against one clan? We would eviscerate them.”
“But what if they aren't acting alone?” asks Octavia. “Who's to say they don't have an alliance with another clan?”
Everyone, including Bellamy, turns to stare at her in surprise.
“That would be treason,” Indra states grimly.
Just as the bearded man says something in response, the attendant leaning over Bellamy's shoulder almost drops the jug of wine she's holding.
She manages to catch it at the last second, murmuring a sheepish apology.
Her accent catches him off guard.
Northern, just barely. The slight rasp of the s is the only real giveaway. As if she'd practiced a great deal to correct it, to soften the consonants like Trikru and Boudalankru did.
He would know – he and his mother had learned to do exactly the same.
Bellamy turns, but she disappears into the crowd before he can get a good look at her face. He tells himself it doesn't matter. It wasn't unusual for people to travel or migrate to different areas.
But—
Titus abruptly claps, four times in quick succession, to get everyone's attention.
As is tradition, the host's table is last to be catered to. It's a show of solidarity and good hospitality. In return, all guests must wait until the host is served before they begin eating.
The attendants bring out several platters and dishes, laying them carefully before Lexa. She sits in her throne quietly, her gaze moving over her guests but never stopping for too long.
Assessing.
Calculating, more like.
The last platter is put on the table before the Heda and everyone leans forward eagerly, ready to begin the meal. An attendant lifts the domed lid, then immediately cries out in shock.
The lid drops to the floor with an echoing clang.
For a second, the room is deadly silent.
Then someone starts to scream.
On the platter in front of Lexa, presented with floral garnishes and steaming vegetables, is a decapitated head.
Costia's head.
Someone has nailed a thin scroll of bloodied parchment to her forehead.
Several things happen very quickly. The guards mobilise to seal the doors of the great hall, barking orders to see that the tower is locked down. Beside him, Octavia is retching into her elbow. People are shouting, even shoving at one another. More screaming.
Lexa staggers to her feet.
The last shreds of her composure fissure as she raises one trembling hand, beckoning Titus forward.
Ashen-faced, he retrieves the scroll and quickly steps back to unroll it.
“It is a notice of betrothal,” he says, frowning and shaking his head. “For Prince Roan of Azgeda and the Skaikru Princess. Two days from now they will be wed.”
Titus lowers the parchment slowly.
For a heartbeat, there is only silence; a vacuum of horror and confusion.
Then the great hall erupts.
Voices rise in overlapping bursts, angry and disbelieving. Chairs scrape back from the floor. Several people unsheathe their weapons, ready for blood.
“An act of war—”
“—allying with Skaikru—”
“—they insult the Heda and mean to fracture us—”
Bellamy feels Octavia press closer to his side, her fingers digging into his sleeve.
Indra rises to her feet in one smooth motion, her presence cutting through the din like a blade. He has never seen her look so severe.
“This was delivered from within Polis,” she says grimly. “Azgeda did not act alone.”
That, more than anything, stills the room. Suspicion coils tight and immediate. Eyes turn, assessing one another. Counting allies. Measuring potential enemies.
Through it all, Lexa has not moved.
Her hands are braced against the edge of the table now, knuckles bone white, shoulders drawn taut as a bowstring. Her raw gaze is fixed on Costia’s face.
Grief crosses her features in a single, unguarded flash.
Then it is gone.
When Lexa straightens, the room falls silent.
She is their formidable Heda again.
“Seal the city,” she says, eerily calm. “No one enters or leaves Polis without my approval. Whoever did this can't have gone far.”
Titus bows his head. “As you command.”
Lexa’s gaze lifts then, sweeping the hall with renewed focus—measuring, cutting, precise.
“They seek to make a spectacle of us,” she says. “To break the Coalition. To bring their war to our table. ”
Her eyes finally stops on Bellamy.
The weight of her gaze crucifies him in place.
“They have named a bride,” Lexa continues, her voice cold as iron as she turns to her generals. “I will not let them have her.”
She steps down from the dais, each footfall deliberate, her controlled fury held barely in check. She is vibrating with unspent rage.
“There will be no wedding.”
The room is so quiet Bellamy can hear Octavia’s sharp inhale beside him.
He can feel the blood pounding inside his own head like a war drum. He knows what she is going to say before she says it.
“Find the Skaikru Princess,” Lexa commands with finality. “Bring her to me me – dead or alive."