Chapter 4
Clarke came to her senses with an anguished scream, arms flailing as her shattered mind tried to put itself back together. She hissed when her elbows struck the side of the tub, the water licking at her breasts turned uncomfortably lukewarm. Her breath rasped painfully against the sides of her throat, chest heaving wildly with every frantic gulp of air she swallowed.
She grasped the tub’s edges with slippery fingers, trying to pull herself up and out of the water, but muscles turned rigid by the nightmare refused to cooperate. Her feet slid against the tub’s bottom, grappling for purchase and her head swam, vision riddled by black blotches as she began to hyperventilate.
Strong arms wound under her armpits and around her torso, rough hands locking over her sternum as she was lifted upwards. Clarke struggled, the last shards of her dream sending her into a frenzied panic at the sudden pressure against her chest.
Rapidly cooling water splashed over the rim and spattered on the floor tiles.
“Clarke, stop!” The strained snarl resounding right behind her ear jerked her out of her blind panic with a shocked gasp. The voice was familiar, hoarse with the effort of restraining her, and lacked its customary snarky undertones.
She blinked back the tears that made the room a hazy mess of wavering shadows and looked up at her rescuer, frowning slightly. Murphy’s face was bathed in flickering half-light, the bruises left by the manhandling he had suffered at Titus’ hands completely faded. However the experience had left the lines of his face forever changed; his nasal septum had been shattered and despite being reset by the healers it was now slightly crooked. It gave his face and hawkish quality, almost predatory, that he used in his favor to intimidate people.
Clarke remembered the first time she’d woken in the tower’s infirmary after the surgery to find him laying on the cot next to hers, face swollen almost beyond recognition. He had been growling at Nyko about everything, the food, his lumpy cot, the lack of moonshine, thought what she remembered the most had been the fleeting relief softening his hard, blue eyes. He liked to play the ruthless cutthroat and perhaps in a way he was, but Clarke knew there were more layers to him than that.
The others held him at arm’s length and that was what had prompted him to leave Arkadia, not the smoky mirage of a promised land. She didn’t think they were really friends, but if there was one who understood that the world they lived in required callousness, it was Murphy. He’d also been the only Skaikru present when she was shot, and that had somehow bonded them.
Clarke blinked again, realizing he was still holding her, half her body submerged in the freezing water, very cold now and still very naked.
Embarassed heat shot down her back and she shrugged his hands off, climbing shakily out of the bathtub with a fierce glower.
“You’re welcome.” He muttered drily.
She knew he wasn’t about to look away anytime soon and the last dregs of her nightmare scratched at her eyelids, even as the details were mercifully fading from her mind. Bile and anger mixed in her guts and the taut rubber band of her patience snapped under the pressure.
So she lashed out, knowing she was being unfair, lacking the strength to care,
“You’re staring.” She stood there naked, dripping wet and shivering, aware that she could use her arms to hide the most intimate parts of herself, yet refusing to be the first one to move. When Murphy’s insolent grin widened, the guilt of using him as focal point to repress her lingering fears vanished.
“Contrary to popular belief, I can resist a pair of tits, “ he barked a laugh as her hand shot up to cover her breasts, and her glare turned from annoyed to furious. “As nice as those breasts are.” he added with a nonchalant roll of his shoulders and she felt her face redden.
Murphy leaned his hip against the table, watching Clarke’s face go from the blanched tones of shock to the red of anger and shame. It crept from just below her eyes to suffuse her cheeks then spilled down her neck, heating her skin. He had no intention of moving his gaze away, throughly enjoying the view. It was truly something, to see the great and feared Wanheda be this… vulnerable . His mouth twitched as self loathing swelled inside him like water from a burst pipe and his eyes dropped to the floor while he reached behind his back blindly grabbing a towel and throwing it in her direction.
He saw her snatch it out of the air with a graceful flick of the wrist and wrap it around herself in one fluid motion.
“Thank you.” It was gnashed between gritted teeth, but it was more than he’d normally receive. Still, Murphy couldn’t resist one final jibe.
“By the way you’re not my type.” Untrue, but Princess didn’t need to know that. And Commander Greeneyes especially didn’t need to know that.
“I didn’t think you had a type. Or standards.” Clarke bit back, starting to dry herself off.
There she was, the flippant, highly annoying woman who had managed to coax the Ark’s hierarchy and the Grounder clans into an unthinkable alliance. Murphy couldn’t stand the haughtiness, but he had to admit he’d been relieved when she had woken up from her coma.
She seemed to be the only one from the Ark that gave a damn about him. She had been much more withdrawn and brittle since she had been shot, or at least that had been his impression when he had laid eyes on her from afar. He was glad to see her spark was slowly coming back.
“Anyway what are you doing in here?”
She didn’t wait for an answer, and brushing past him, walked back to the other room to find clean clothes. He snorted and rolled his eyes in exasperation, shaking his head as he followed. Typical that she should forget.
“I’m a slave, remember?” She wiggled into a loose blouse and turned to face him, blue eyes suddenly very sharp.
He didn’t flinch under the flinty stare, grabbing the strings closing the collar of his shirt to untie them and pull the fabric open to expose the metal band around his throat.
She merely looked at him unmoved and a single bead of sweat made its way down the side of his nose. He found it way unnerving when she went all frost queen on him and the only other person he knew could pull that trick was Lexa. The Commander was definitely rubbing off on Clarke. In more ways than one, he thought and snickered silently.
Clarke sighed, pressing the pads of the thumbs to eyes burning with fatigue. As annoying as she found Murphy to be at times, she couldn’t deny that his arrival had been providential. When she saw him undo his shirt to show the collar with an all suffering expression, she felt the urge to hit him with something, possibly heavy and sharp.
“Shouldn’t you be thanking me, considering that the alternative was losing your hands?” She framed the rebuke inside a question and gave a little shrug much like the one she had endured from him and smirked, “if you’ve changed your mind about our deal, Lexa can carry out the original sentence when she gets back.”
He grimaced and tied his shirt close, white lines around his eyes. “I think I’m good thanks.”
“Thought so.” Clarke knew he was grateful and just generally loved to complain about things. Murphy was like that, always grumbling about something. As things turned out, Titus had not been lying when he’d told her John was arrested for being an highwayman, and the penalty for thievery among the Grounders was harsh; perpetrators’ hands were cut off at the wrist and a brand denouncing the crime was burned on their foreheads. Clarke had reeled at the cruelty of it, but hadn’t been surprised. Resources on the ground were scarce too, although not as much as on the Ark, and there was a sense of divine righteousness in the fact that a thief would have to rely on the charity of those he’d wronged to survive after his punishment.
She had fought long and hard with Lexa on the matter, to make the Commander accept that mercy wasn’t synonym of weakness. In the end Lexa had conceded an addendum to the law that didn’t delete the basic principle. If a thief showed sincere remorse, the Commander could commute the sentence to servitude.
Coaching Murphy into showing a semblance of contrition had been an entirely different battle. Sometimes, when he exasperated her, Clarke wondered why she’d bothered, but as his perpetual half-smirk returned to his lips, she knew there had been an entirely selfish reason for it. She needed someone around that remembered the person she’d been and where she came from. She needed Murphy, and had a good hunch that Murphy needed her.
“So why are you here?”
“You should be thanking me,” snark was back into his voice, twining around each word like copper wire, “I am the one who set up your bath.”
“Then you can remove the empty buckets and yourself.” It came out forceful and clipped, much more than she’d intended and she turned towards the window sharply, faking disinterest to hide her chagrin. Her temper was too frayed, the reins she used to command it so well with, worn threadbare by worry.
The light of the candles turned the glass panes into a darkened mirror and she was grateful that the details weren’t clear enough for her to see the obvious hurt that must have flashed through Murphy’s gaze. He bowed low, rigid as if his shirt had been doused with starch where she expected mockery and she knew she may as well have kicked him to the ground.
Her head dipped forward, the chill of the windowpane failing to dispel the headache licking at her temples and closed her eyes.
Murphy shuffled back and forth, gathering the buckets and the empty food tray, clattering about leisurely in a show of noisy rebellion. Snatches of muttered remarks tickled her ears; ungrateful and Princess seemed to feature prominently and she slightly winced at each one as it stabbed between her ribs.
Her eyes snapped open when she heard the door’s latch being undone and she called out without turning.
“John.” His first name came forth, unbidden and unfamiliar, exhaled tiredly and mellow. The shuffling ceased and silence became a living thing between them, crawling at the edges of the candlelight.
“Don’t call me that.” He croaked finally, shakily.
“Thank you.” Her throat seized, refusing to forge her weakness into words. Clarke wanted to, but couldn’t for doing so would make the nightmare coalesce into reality and she bore its mark already, a bullet-shaped wound on her chest.
“It was nothing.” A soft, dulcet baritone so strange coming from him. Then he pushed the door open, gathering his things and added, some of the familiar fire returning. “Try with alcohol. I hear it helps.”
She’d have to remind Angus to send in one of Lexa’s handmaidens next time, although she wouldn’t entirely put it past the warrior to have plagued her with Murphy as payback for the pillow joke.
The door shut quietly behind her and she pulled back from the window, head heavy as if stuffed with wool. Her hands tugged the panes open and the light dimmed around her for a moment as the wind swept inside, bending the flames to its whims.
Clarke moved the candle she had lit for Lexa further away from the open window, noticing it was barely more than a slowly melting stub. She used it to light another one and placed it on the bed table, out of harm’s way.
The gale’s icy touch eased the thumping in her temples a little and she pulled it deep into her lungs filling herself to bursting, teeth aching with the cold. It smelled of something fragile she could only describe as anticipation.
Clarke lowered her gaze, glancing at the rumpled bed with longing. A few pelts had crumpled to the floor and the pillows were scrunched together into a pile on her side of the bed. A sad smile fittered across her lips; she always appropriated Lexa’s pillows, sometimes while the Commander was resting on them.
She shivered and it wasn’t from the cold pushing at her back, a wintry wind so strong it hunched her over and caused her to stagger a step away from the window. Her eyes itched to close the world out, but the prospect of more nightmares made sleep less than appealing.
She puttered aimlessly around, then sat at Lexa’s old and battered secretary desk, hands flat on a wooden surface smoothed down by daily use, imagining she could soak up some of the brunette’s essence.
Lexa was meticulously orderly, bordering compulsive, and as her eyes surmised the supplies neatly arranged on the desk awaiting the Commander’s need, Clarke remembered how delighted she had been when she’d discovered that Lexa could draw perhaps better than her. She had a keen eye for detail, but while Clarke sketched whatever drew her curiosity, the Commander chose to employ her skills for more practical uses. She’d added to the Tower’s already extensive map collection, by charting unexplored territories herself and even drawn the likeness that led to Clarke’s capture, the blonde recollected a smudge less amused.
Her next breath was all regret. She’d wasted so much time hating Lexa that now it felt the hours they managed to spend together were never enough. The wind rustled the stack of thick, blank papers at her elbow and she caught one between pinched fingers delicately so it wouldn’t crease and pinned it before it could flutter away.
Her fingers scrambled blindly for a piece of charcoal, but the sudden knot in her throat that didn’t want to budge no matter how much she swallowed, had her knuckles clenching hard. Too hard, and the piece of coal snapped in two with a dry crack along with the resolve keeping her tears in.
Half of it rolled forward, leaving a black smear on the creamy piece of paper she was holding down on the table, the other shot out of her grip and bounced towards the back of the desk. It lodged itself in a fissure of the wood, a hole left by one of the small drawers so warped by weather or age it didn’t fit well in its casing anymore. Clarke leaned forward, cursing softly, one hand feeling the wood to find the errant charcoal, the other scrubbing angrily at her eyes.
Tears managed to leak through despite her efforts and dripped on the paper below, leaving wet streaks that caught the candles’ glow and made the parchment shimmer with a reflection of stolen light.
The tips of her rustling fingers brushed against something metallic and there was an audible click. Clarke froze instantly, then with infinite care withdrew her hand, examining it for puncture wounds. Her mind was racing with thoughts of poisoned needles and hundreds of agonizing deaths, making her want to call herself all kind of stupid for it, but it was the Commander’s personal desk after all.
A wooden panel at the back fell away with a thud, revealing a small package ensconced within. Normally Clarke would have slotted it back, leaving whatever it was that Lexa had hidden there untouched. If it was something the Commander wanted her to know about she’d tell it herself.
An envelope secured to the box by a frayed length of bowstring held her gaze.
Clarke
Her name in blue ink, written with the precise, angular script that was so Lexa.
Surely if the letter was addressed to her, the contents of the package were as well? Her hand hovered closer, and she trembled inside, her bones shaken by uncertainty like leaves about to fall off a tree.
That was the reasoning which brought her to do the unthinkable; her hand darted forward and before she could reconsider she was holding the package gently with both hands, staring at it wide-eyed, not quite believing she could be so daring.
She settled the package on the table for the time being and turned the letter between questing hands. The envelope creaked softly, reminding her how badly she was trembling, and when she flipped it over hiding her name, she found herself staring at Lexa’s personal sigil, impressed on a dollop of black wax.
Her thumbnail found purchase under the edge of the seal and Clarke broke it off, echoing the soft sound of the wax crumbling with a gasp of her own.
No turning back now.
She unfolded the paper, slanting it towards the light and began to read with baited breath.
Dearest Klark,
I do not know when I will find the courage to address this matter. I see the way you stare into the mirror as you dress. I know you never venture towards the end of the hall, your gaze darkening with the simple possibility of threading old paths that caused you so much suffering.
At that Clarke’s heart stuttered, but she forced herself to read on.
Still, this cannot wait for long. You are the only one I trust, with this or anything else. I trust you, not because I love you but because the Mountain taught me that you do what must be done and are ready to bear the costs and consequences.
The ghosts of the innocents she’d killed screamed at the back of her mind, transformed into vengeance-seeking revenants by her guilt. It itched like a rash on her skin, it penetrated her, slithered through her muscles, replaced the marrow in her bones. The Mountain had been the end of many things, and also a beginning.
There were so many questions, tumbling through Clarke’s mind as she stared at the words uncomprehendingly. When had Lexa written this? Her eyes moved from the letter to the waiting package and back.
Soon now I will be ready. I will shreds this paper and transfer its contents to my lips and then to you. But I had to unburden myself, I…
The last sentence was scrawled hastily, as if Lexa was racing against time, trying to finish a thought before being interrupted. Clarke set the parchment aside and frowned at the package, clasping her hands together in her lap. She wasn’t sure she was ready to uncover its secrets just yet.
More twine was wound around a torn piece of fabric, tattered with age and crusted with dirt at the edges. Clarke leaned closer, squinty-eyed, and tried to discern its original color. It was hard to say what the rag had been a part of originally, but in the golden light, it appeared a washed out pink. Perhaps long ago it had been red. She had held the bundle when she took it out the first time, so she knew there was something hard beneath the cloth. A box, slightly rectangular in shape, probably metal if the weight was anything to go by.
“Screw it.”
She couldn’t hold her curiosity back any longer and unclenched her hands, reaching for the knots, tugging the strings loose with eagerness. Perversely, when the cloth fell away and the box was revealed, a dull metal as she had estimated, her heart quieted and the pressure in the room changed, easing off her shoulders.
She flipped the lid slowly, lifting it inch by inch to peek underneath, like a child savoring a forbidden treat. She paused before opening it completely, fingers drumming against the lid with fleeting hesitation, then let the cover drop heavily against the wood.
Inside a row of surgical instruments glinted faintly in greeting. Scalpels and tweezers and suture thread so thick it made her wince to think of it going through skin. A smaller tin box was tucked away in a corner, the space inside moulded to receive a small object, hexagonal in shape.
The most interesting thing was a small scrapbook, bundles of papers of every quality stitched together in a rudimentary book. An aura of careworn importance hung around it, and as her fingers brushed it with reverence, Clarke knew she was confronted by something sacred.
Perching on her seat, squirming to find a comfortable position, she opened the first yellowed page, pushed by an unseen force she could not oppose and began to read. Or rather she attempted to, because the text was line after line of random letters. It wasn’t English and most definitely did not resemble the Trigedasleng she heard and spoke everyday. A deep line appeared between her brows and her eyes narrowed, sparkling with though.
She remembered the games she played with her dad back on the Ark. He’d leave little messages for her to find, letters and words and symbols that made no apparent sense, scratched on scraps of paper or any surface that would hold writing, much to her mother’s annoyance. Except there always was a key, a cipher and no matter how many days it took Clarke always managed to crack it. It made sense, if the contents of the notebook were as important as they appeared.
There was a nagging feeling at the back of her mind that she wouldn’t have the luxury of days to unravel this mystery, so she quickly recovered the broken charcoal and paper and, balancing the ancient scrapbook open on her lap, began to work on the first line of text. Once she had that, it’d be easy to apply it to the rest. Unless the cipher changed of course.
Soon enough phrases that actually made sense began to emerge from the page.
She shook her head ruefully, marvelling at her quick success. Then again the Caesar Shift wasn’t particularly hard to crack if one knew where to look. She wondered why they hadn’t used something more secure, but she would not question her luck too much.
1377 days Post Armageddon
My name is Janduin - and I am Fleimkepa to Bekka Pramheda.
Most of the men that witnessed her falling from the Sky are dead, their flesh rotting off their bodies. One would think the storm of fire killed enough of us, but this death is a more subtle, quieter murderer. I prefer the first kind frankly - to go up in a blaze and a puff of smoke, rather than dissolving from the outside in, little by little.
I shouldn’t moan too much, truly. I lost all my hair and I am told I look ten years older than my age, but there are people in the outer shelters whose teeth fell out along with their hair. Some bled from their orifices before falling over, dead on the spot.
I am indeed lucky.
Clarke’s mouth had been hanging open for several minutes, her jaw starting to ache and it took a conscious effort for her to close it and remind herself to breathe. This man, this Janduin was describing the effect of severe radiation poisoning. The term Pramheda which had sent her mind scurrying in confusion, started to make sense. Bekka had been the first in the line of Commanders, but there was something else that sent a shiver down Clarke’s spine.
“The men that witnessed her falling from the Sky.” She reread the sentence out loud, finger marking along the words, voice sandy with emotion. Her eyes dropped to the cipher and she double checked her translation. She had to be sure. The implications were staggering. Had there been other stations beyond the Ark? Their history before Unity Day was hazy at best, the documents that still existed secreted by the Council. Or had Becca been someone that escaped floating and managed to become a leader? Clarke had thought suicides by Earth were mostly stories.
There was no use wondering about it now, she resolved focusing her attention back to the notebook. She’d have to ask Lexa. She went on and it was clear there was a bundle of pages missing, the ripped edges still attached to the notebook.
1500 days Post Armageddon
I wake to a hacking fit of cough this morning, and something wet sliding up the sides of my throat. I struggle to the edge of the bed just in time to retch a brackish, bloodied fluid onto the floor. There are thicker globs in it, and I fear that upon closer inspection I’ll find tidbits of my lungs among the blood.
Needless to say I do not look.
Clarke flinched, then quickly leafed through the pages. The entries became more frequent, the writing wobbly and insecure from there onward.
1560 days Post Armageddon
Today is much the same as all the ones I can’t keep track off, but despite my best efforts Heda must know because after I’ve emptied my stomach, I notice a glass vial filled with powdered herbs on my night table. I make myself the tea - foul and bitter but I gulp it down anyway and the heat soothes the pain in my chest- before I make my way to the morning meal I always share with her. We discuss plans for the winter, and the possibility that the settlements near Black Ridge will join our growing clan (which reminds me we should really find ourselves a good, strong name). She is sure they will - they need our protection.
Conversation tapers out and when it resumes she doesn’t mention the cough, but gently inquires after my apprentice’s studies.
Heda knows, as she always does.
The next page was dotted with dried blood.
1670 day Post Armageddon
She is fighting against time and she knows, the task we’ve set upon us too much for one woman and one lifetime even if she wasn’t surrounded by so much violence. A few weeks ago, as we surveyed yet another battlefield turned charnel house, she told me with that small, distant smile of hers that one day the Earth and the Sky will meet, and then we will have peace.
I can’t decide if she was serious or making jest.
Clarke’s heart burned, the words on the page dancing and merging into a tapestry of ink. They had peace now, or the closest thing to it. She shuddered to think how many sacrifices it was built on.
1825 days Post Armageddon
The season’s changed and there’s a nasty rattle in my chest. Not too long now.
She was lost into the folds of history, the dropping temperature around her going unnoticed. The fire in the hearth had simmered down to glowing embers and her body was rigid from lack of sleep. Clarke wasn’t aware, as she kept scanning the page, eyes feverish.
2002 days Post Armageddon
Heda knows all.
Heda did not see this coming.
Heda is dead - I thought she’d be the one to bury me.
The healers cannot make heads or tails of it - she was found in bed without a mark and they talk to me of natural causes! They wish me to believe that she simply stopped working, like a broken clock that fails to measure the passing of time.
They talk of natural causesbut I see the long reaching hand of our enemies. I must be fast even if the Natblida are not as ready as I’d like - even while we’re finding more. It makes sense now why she would take aside young fertile, oft pregnant women at every settlement we discovered or conquered. She showed me the vials once and explained the specifics. I am but a simple man and did not really follow - this knowledge is best guarded when shrouded in mysticism anyway.
My tasks concern the Flame, and I am content with that. No matter, my successor will have wards more numerous than I did
The Flame? Urgency rolled off the page in waves that seemed to scorch her fingers.
2010 days Post Armageddon
My health is waning and there is no time. Bekka Pramheda has been given proper farewell and we need a new Commander.
Below I describe the ritual of Ascension, the rekindling of the Flame inside a successor Commander. This journal is to be passed from Fleimkepa to Fleimkepa, its knowledge guarded, the same way we guard the Flame.
It was pages upon pages of surgical procedures, accompanied by colorful diagrams. The hand was different, more assured. Younger perhaps.
2014 days Post Armageddon
I walk with a cane now. My legs can barely hold my weight. (and it isn’t much believe me) Moloch is here to help me attend the Conclave, but I wave him away irritably, telling him I do not wish to see the children I trained slaughter each other. I call him close and anoint him. He is Fleimkepa now, and I am a just a dying man. I tell him Zachary will make a fine apprentice.
The last entry was almost unreadable, the hand wielding the pen shaking so badly the one sentence was scattered all over. Clarke pressed her hand to the notebook with a pained sigh, Janduin’s own anguish a stark reflection of her own.
2017 days Post Armageddon
The Flame is the Commander and the Commander is the Flame.
Clarke closed the journal gently, afraid the pages might become dust under a careless touch. Tiredness weighted her down like a sack of stones, and before her mind could force her into a night-long vigil with its questions, she slumped forward, asleep before her cheek touched the table’s surface, arms curled protectively around the diary and its secrets.
An insistent, piercing sound chipped away at her shadowy dreams, and she mumbled, eyes snapping over as her body began to turn off the side of the chair. A hand grasped the table for support, as Clarke’s eyes opened groggily. The sound came again, louder.
“ Wanheda , wake up! Wanheda !”
She gave herself a shake, shoulders bucking to disloge beckoning sleep, glancing out the window squinty-eyed. Grey was barely stroking the edges of the night, like a timid lover short in experience and the clouds were a swirling maelstrom with plenty foreboding.
She became aware of the sticky wetness that seeped out of every pore, clothes a frigid armor she’d sweated through and turned into sodden rags.
“I am coming in Wanheda !” Doziness ceased to muff the voice and the words finally registered,
Angus.
Clarke surged to complete wakefulness, body angling to hide the objects on the table.
“No!” It was a mewling sound - she wet her lips and tried again, “No, Angus!...I....” She fumbled for an excuse, “I am not presentable.”
His voice drifted into the room again, different and it was clear he had been worried.
“Your presence is required, Wanheda . Indra’s back.”
That had her in a mad rush to make ready. She banged the window shut, surprised the entire room wasn’t covered in frost and concealed the metal box and its contents, then changed her clothes hurriedly, engaging in a fight with their buttons that had her slavering in frustration. She didn’t even bother with her hair, it was a tangled lion’s mane that would take ages to tame and whatever Indra had to say she needed to hear it right away. She resigned herself to comb her fingers through it as she strode to the door, undoubtedly making it worse.
When the door was pulled open, almost violently, Angus gripped the hilt of the hunting knife at his hip to cover his fidgeting. He’d been a breath away from barging through the door - hinges and all - when Clarke had finally answered his calls.
He looked her over, searching for injuries anyway. She looked tired, more the epitome of grumpy sleepiness than anything else, shoulders slightly hunched, feet dragging against the stone floor. The circles around her eyes were so deep they looked like warpaint and she sported the worst case of bedhead he’d ever seen. She looked, for a lack of a better word, slept in .
She stepped into the corridor, not bothering to mumble a good morning, even if really it wasn’t even dawn yet, and simply motioned for him to lead.
He kept glancing at her as they walked, but her eyes, a midnight blue in the scant light of a few torches, were withdrawn and distant. Concern pulled her mouth into a grimace and he could almost hear the question that must have been roaring through her head. Why was Indra back and not Lexa? He wondered the same thing.
He saw her gaze refocus as she realized where they were going, and at the same time he knew he had made a mistake in his haste to settle things. Clarke faltered, halted and, one hand pressed to the wall for support, turned her gaze on him.
Clarke lifted her eyes, Angus’s face horror stricken at the realization they had come to at the same time. A hurricane spun to life in her chest; it split her bones and cracked her marrow and she had to lean against the wall for support as the world around her tilted and dimmed with tides of desperation. Struggling, wet rasps echoed down the empty hall and it repulsed her to know they emerged from a throat scraped raw by racing panic. Long moments rolled forth as she struggled to batten down her hatches, shaken by the inner storm that howled through her core.
“Clarke.” His hand on her shoulder was comforting, but there was a iota of her that was disgusted by his pity.
“It doesn’t matter.” She chewed the words and spit them out, and knew she looked resentful.
She had not visited her old room since the shooting. She had tried, alone and in company, with Lexa and without, yet frigid terror would always seize her, causing her body to short circuit. She and Nyko had pored over the matter for hours and the best solution they’d come up with had been to avoid that part of the tower. Mental trauma took time to mend, the healer had said, far more than physical damage did.
But now she’d run out of time, and the door to her old quarters loomed in front of her.
She pushed the door open and stepped inside her nightmare in the flesh.
The servants had cleaned the rooms, but abandonment was blatant everywhere she looked. Her stuff was gone, the furniture that had been damaged during the shootout had been replaced and the walls still bore the sign of scorches and bullet holes.
The maidens had been thorough, but had missed the faint traces of her blood, half concealed as they were by the edge of the carpet
She gulped and tore her eyes away, pushing her surroundings to the back of her mind.
Lexa’s most trusted General after Anya’s passing turned around to face them and Clarke moved to her, so that the growing light that filtered through the window illuminated them both.
Indra's usually stoic, immovable face was etched with new taut lines, dug into her skin by acidic fear.
Clarke’s heartbeat was a rush of blood inside her ears, the call of distant war drums.
"What's going on, Indra?"
Without replying, the General maneuvered a satchel Clarke hadn't noticed to sit around her front. What she did notice was how badly Indra's hands were shaking as she struggled with the clasps and buckles sealing it.
Finally she managed to tug them loose, and Lexa's sash spilled onto her hands, the red a muted hue in the pearly light of earliest morning. There was something wrong with it, but it took a moment for Clarke's eyes to register the rents in the fabric and the black blood that patterned it in swirls.
"The Commander," the woman took a shuddering half breath, a desperate intake of air similar to those of drowning men. Her eyes widened to their fullest showing the white, and her lips trembled.
“The Commander is dead."