i can release you
Murphy joins the Commander in the hall. Bellamy has already gone on ahead with the rest of Skaikru, but the Commander hooks an arm around his shoulders, so he steps into place. The Commander’s two handmaidens/bodyguards and Ryfe and a nightblood make up the rest of their party. Where is Clarke?
Lexa’s hand is warm on the back of his neck. Clarke cutting the skin on the back of his neck. Silver blood. Black blood. Thinks about cutting the Command out of her, the Flame, the computer chip. It can’t be doing much now, can it? What it was built to defeat is gone. Would she even be the Commander anymore? Would she have any power at all?
Her grip tightens as she guides him into the middle of the room. As she makes whatever little speech she does, on the raised dais. His tattoos are already done, his gun is returned. He feels. His palms are too warm. His face is flushed. He wants, maybe, some of Monty’s moonshine, to clear whatever is going on in his head. If he had the courage, he could —
He sits next to the Commander at the long table. Clarke is with the rest of Skaikru. Ryfe stays far away. He’s glad of it.
If he had the courage, he could dig the chip out. He’d only need one knife, and a handful of seconds. But she’d have to stay still for it, and her hair —
Lexa touches his hand. “She is your seingeda,” she says. “You will do as she says.”
What? He follows her gaze. Ryfe. Of course. “She tortured me,” he says. Doesn’t tack on: you did too. Knows when to stop himself. Mostly.
“You were… not yourself,” says Lexa, careful. She must have gotten some sort of story. Whatever.
“Blood must have blood, Commander,” he tells her, bitter, but there’s a mirthless smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“You are her second,” says Lexa, still so careful. “You will do as she says.” And then, a tiny smile matching his own, although hers at least crinkles the corners of her eyes: “Besides, she has already been punished.”
“What?”
A pointed nod. “You saw her face?”
“Yeah.”
“Blood has already been taken.”
“You did that?” Murphy asks, pleased despite himself. “For me?”
“Yes.”
And he forgives her. Just a bit. Blood must have blood, after all, and she’s — repaid a little of that debt.
He doesn’t say that. He says: “Give me another sweet roll,” and she really does smile then, and passes him another roll.
—
He tries to slip out as soon as there’s less eyes on him, but Lexa’s hand is at his wrist before he even leaves the table. “Where are you going?” she asks, all gentle.
“Out,” he says. Doesn’t tug his hand away. Looks her in the eye.
She drops his wrist. “Then go,” she says. “You’ll be back soon.”
He nods, and she turns her attention away from him, so he gets out of there.
Goes wandering. Out of Polis, past the marketplace. Till he gets to the tunnel that separates the woods from the city. Climbs on top of it, lets his feet dangle into the blackness. Looks out at the sunset, at the darkening sky.
He lets himself miss the City of Light. Its winding streets, its grid network, Emori with her two perfect hands and Mbege smiling with perfect speech — He should have known it wasn’t real. That he couldn’t — that it wasn’t real. Mbege is dead. Emori is — Her hands are already both perfect. And she’s alive. And she’s real. And she knows — where he is. Whether she’ll — want him, now. That’s something else entirely.
Fireflies are just starting to come out. Teeny pinpricks of light, flashing into the twilight.
“Heyo, lukotwar,” says a voice behind him. He doesn’t get up. Doesn’t look. “Time to go back home now.” Doesn’t recognize the voice, either.
“Sit with me,” he says.
There’s a sigh behind him. “Not for long,” she says. She sits down beside him, a couple inches away. One of Lexa’s bodyguards/handmaidens. The taller one.
He has no desire to go back to Polis. He points the sky out to her, even though she can see it: it’s all around them. “You know what stardust smells like? It’s like hot metal, but sweet. Kind of pleasant. It’s mostly carbon.”
“Carbon?” she says.
He doesn’t answer the question. “My —“ Impossible to describe Mbege as his best friend. Sacreligious. “My brother. He’s just carbon now.”
“He’s dead,” she says, not a question.
“Yes,” says Murphy.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and her voice has a touch of warmth. He shies away from it. “My brothers are dead too.” Not pity. Empathy. That’s alright, then.
Miserably, he lets out: “I want to go home.”
“Then come on.”
“No,” he says, sharp. “Not there. I want to go back. To my brother.” To space? To the dropship? Everything has been destroyed.
“You can make Polis your home,” she says. Gentle? Reassuring?
Right. “Do you see what Polis did to me?” Bitter again.
“Polis breaks everyone, lukotwar.”
He looks at her then, really looks at her. She is dark-skinned. Real tall, probably taller than Bellamy. Her eyes meet his. “Do you think we can do what we do without being broken?” she asks. “And healed up, all wrong?”
It’s. Not what he expected, not from her. “How do you do it, then.”
“Mostly you die inside and change what’s important to you. Find one thing, a single thing, that you want to do well. Do it. Every day when you wake up, do that one thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“That working out okay for you?”
She shrugs one shoulder. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
Deep breath. Darkening sky. Fireflies. The prospect of sleep. His sling comes off tomorrow. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay. Okay. Let’s go home.”
She offers him a hand up. They walk back in silence.
Before he gets on the elevator. “My name is Murphy. Not lukotwar.”
“Alright,” she says. “Mofi.”
He won’t expect the same from her. “Yeah,” he says.
After another beat. “Mine is Ruth,” she says. “Kom Polis.”
—
There is noise at the end of his bed that night; he wakes with one fist curled around his knife. Bellamy sleeps on.
“Some lukotwar you are,” she says. She holds a flashlight in one hand, but it’s not on.
“Emori?” he asks, sits up.
“Let’s get you out of here,” she says.
“Yeah,” he says, and that’s — relief. To leave, to be allowed to leave, with Emori. “In the morning. Gotta ask Lexa first.”
“Are you chained?” Emori asks, soft, desperate. “I can release you.”
“No,” he says. “She gets me now, we’re cool.” Knows that his sudden loyalty is suspicious, can’t really explain himself for it. Just has that conversation from dinner, and a feeling in his gut.
“The Commander isn’t someone you should trust,” says Emori, careful.
“I said we’re cool, Emori,” he says, trying not to be too forceful.
Emori sighs, and he wants to touch her, but — There is so much space between them, so he keeps his hands to himself. “I will wait for you for one day,” she says. “At the market in Wildekru.”
“Wildekru?” he asks.
“The land outside Polis,” she explains. “The little town.”
Where Moss had taken him, once, for hot cocoa, in the rain. With the gardens and penned-up goats. “That’s not a real kru,” he says.
“It likes to think it is,” she says, and he can hear her smile more than he can see it.
“Alright,” he promises. “I’ll be there.”
“If your Commander lets you,” she says, and her tone is all mockery.
“She will,” says Murphy, sure of himself. But she’s already gone.