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Chapter Text

The disappearance of what amounted to a trinket was not of paramount importance to Captain Marcus Kane, not when the capital city was on the verge of anarchy and its people were close to rising up against their King. But if his years entrenched in the politics of Arkadia had taught him anything, it was that there was a sort of power in symbols; an often inexplicable, but nonetheless potent power that ought not to be underestimated. And there were few symbols that held such sway over the imagination as the crown that had once adorned the Lost Queen’s head.

It had been twelve years since she had disappeared into the night, but the Lost Queen and her daughter were as revered — as beloved — as ever. More than King Thelonious would ever be.

The people were dissatisfied already. If they learned that the Lost Queen’s crown had been snatched out of the castle from underneath their noses, Marcus expected nothing less than outright revolution.

Personally, he did not understand the people’s maudlin fascination with the deceased royals, but then he had not been in Arkadia when the Queen and the Princess had disappeared from the kingdom. He had been just a soldier then, rising fast through the ranks of the Arkadian Guard and on a senior diplomatic posting in one of Polis’ trade hubs. Marcus supposed he had been absent from the capital for long enough that the King and the Queen had been just that; distant figureheads issuing proclamations and orders, but even in Polis they had been well-regarded.

It had not always been the case. The ink on the document binding the two kingdoms together in friendship had still been fresh when King Jacob had been found dead in the castle of the neighbouring kingdom. His death had shattered the fragile peace, had plunged the two kingdoms into a war that Arkadia had won decisively, and somewhere amidst the chaos an assassin from Polis had made his way into the Arkadian royal residence and had spirited the Queen and the Princess away into the night.

Marcus had been summoned to Arkadia a fortnight later for an audience with a man who had once been King Jacob’s ambassador and then, his right hand man — a man he had once served as his personal guard — and been promoted to Captain of the Guard.

“I need someone I can trust, Kane,” Jaha had said, King Jacob’s crown already sitting upon his head. “And you have a strength not weakened by sentiment.”

Arkadia’s most powerful noble families — the Wallaces, the Emersons, the Sydneys — had supported Jaha’s claim to the throne, and Marcus had done his duty.

He would do the same now.

The thief had struck, somewhat predictably, at midnight. She had been spotted by a guard, strolling from the scene of the crime with a confidence bordering on arrogance that had Marcus convinced of her identity long before his men had confirmed it. Now all he had to do was find her.

“Raven Reyes?” Bellamy echoed, looking unconvinced. His guard uniform was loose against his chest, half-unbuckled. The boy had evidently been roused from his sleep abruptly as he had.

“It wouldn’t be the first time she has stolen from Arkadia.”

“Arkadia maybe, but not the castle. And not the Lost Queen’s crown.”

That anybody had waltzed into the castle and stolen that , of all things, was a catastrophe; it made a mockery of Marcus himself and it was that, rather than the sentiment, that had convinced him to have the stable boy saddle his own horse for an outing that would not have required the presence of the Captain of the Guard otherwise. That, and Reyes had broken the law. Whether or not the memory of the Lost Queen mattered was inconsequential; Reyes had broken the law and she would be brought to swift justice.

Preferably before the people found out what she had taken.

“The statements from the guards describe Reyes perfectly,” Marcus replied. “Besides, do you know of anybody else with this much gall ?”

Bellamy did not, acknowledging the point with a subtle quirk of his lips. Raven Reyes might be a blight on the kingdom, but one could not help but admire her gumption. Marcus might admire it himself, if she had not proven to be so goddamn difficult to catch, but then he suspected the girl stole just to prove that she could, which made for a wholly unpredictable foe.

“In that case sir, how do you propose we track her down?”

His tone was all business, all trace of amusement gone, and Marcus allowed himself a moment to marvel at how far the boy had come since he had caught him with his fingers in a courtier’s pockets at the tender age of thirteen.

“It’s only been fifteen minutes since Miller sounded the alarm.” Quietly , to his credit, and Marcus made a mental note to consider the boy for a promotion when this was all over. “She can’t have got very far.”

“On foot, perhaps, but she’ll have gone faster on a horse.”

“Perhaps,” Marcus replied, catching the eye of the stable boy as he appeared behind Bellamy, letting them know the horses had been saddled. “But one can only go so far on a horse without tiring on an injured leg. Assemble a team. Be ready to leave in—”

“Captain Kane.”

Marcus stiffened at the intrusion, the voice cutting smoothly through the flurry of activity, and he turned to meet the stony expression of King Thelonious.

“Your Majesty,” he greeted, Bellamy departing dutifully after offering a swift bow. “I suppose you’ve heard?”

“Yes,” the King replied, clasping his hands behind his back in a deceptively casual gesture. But after more than a decade at his side, Marcus knew better. He was worried , and with the Lost Queen’s crown missing he had every reason to be.

The public display of the crown, erected in the one room open to the his people, had been a calculated ploy, a way of the king incumbent publicly honouring his predecessors — and, rather more importantly given his flimsy grasp on power, courting public opinion. The Queen’s image was another thing entirely, the portraits long gone from the hallowed hallways of the castle, as if the likeness of her alone would disrupt the tenuous balance of power and bring the king’s reign crumbling down around him. The crown was all the people had left of a queen that had been just and fair, that had kept taxes low instead of raising them into the stratosphere — that had ruled at her husband’s side with love, not fear . And King Thelonious knew it’s disappearance would not play well in his favour.

“I trust I’m one of the few that have?”

The implied slight to his professionalism was subtle, but it was enough to unnerve him and Marcus suspected the King knew it.

“Of course, sir. We’ll retrieve the crown with the utmost discretion.”

The King was silent, assessing him with a gaze that would make a man of lesser experience fidget, until his lips curved up in a tight smile. “See that you do, Captain.”

Marcus nodded, fingernails digging into his palms, and followed Bellamy to the stables.

The King’s eyes followed him until he disappeared around the corner.

*****

Raven Reyes was beginning to suspect that taking the crown of the Lost Queen was not the best idea she had ever had.

She had come to that conclusion several hours after taking the damn thing, with Kane’s men still hot on her heels and giving no indication they would cease their pursuit any time soon. Which was rather inconvenient, but not exactly a surprise, given that the crown was by far the most precious thing Raven had ever stolen. There were enough encrusted emeralds to feed a hundred villages twice over if prized off, but she had no doubt the thing would make thousands times as much if it were sold as it was, history and all. Raven suspected that the urgency of her tail had more to do with the people of Arkadia’s obsession with the woman who had once worn it.

The whole endeavor was even less of a good idea with a piece of dagger embedded somewhere deep in her leg, but Raven had no intention of letting it slow her down. Except that, for all her bravado, the pain in the limb was beginning to become impossible to ignore. It had been a dull ache at first, spreading from her thigh to her calf, until the pain centered on the scar that was barely a year old.

She was lucky to be alive, according to the healer that had pulled the rusty blade from her flesh and sewn her back up. She had been out cold for the procedure - passing out somewhere between dragging herself from the woods for the first signs of civilization in a rapidly growing pool of her own blood - but the attractive, older woman that had fortuitously happened upon her on her evening walk, dragged her back to her cottage and saved her life had reliably informed her it had been touch and go.

“You’ll live,” she had murmured, fiddling with the bandage around her upper thigh that Raven had disturbed when she had woken to an unfamiliar room. “But not without a little discomfort.”

Discomfort was an understatement, but she supposed it was a small price to pay for the air in her lungs and the years she still had ahead of her thanks to—

The healer.

Her surroundings had been a blur once she had made it past the wall that surrounded the kingdom’s capital and plunged on into the darkness of the woods, but they seemed familiar somehow now: a distinctive tree with thick, twisted roots, a bed of ghostly bluebells illuminated by the moonlight streaming through the trees above. If she climbed them, Raven knew she would see mountains on the horizon, and suddenly she knew precisely where she could go.

It took her another hour, and by that time her leg felt like it was on fire, but Raven breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the old, wooden sign bearing the name Mount Weather .

*****

It was not the first time Clarke had been left alone in the cottage she called home, but then she was hardly a child anymore. Not that her mother had noticed. She had left for the next village earlier that evening to a deliver a child with the same instructions she had left for her when her head had barely reached her chest: lock the door, draw the curtains, and answer the door to no one . She was taller than her mother now, and had turned eighteen just last week, but still, the same instructions.

Eighteen years old, and she had yet to do very much of consequence with her life. She shadowed her mother during the day, accompanying her to the neighbouring villages armed with a medical bag and a cheerful bedside manner that had taken as much mastering as bandaging broken bones and stitching up minor wounds… and the niggling feeling that she was meant for something more than her current lot in life.

That she was somehow waiting for her life to begin.

It was, Clarke knew, entirely unreasonable. Training as a healer was hardly something to be scoffed at given her gender — the way Mr. Miller told it, when Abigail Kane had first turned up in Mount Weather brandishing her herbs and scalpel she had caused quite the scandal — but as admirable as it was, as awed as she was by the force of nature that was her mother, she knew that it was not for her . It was better than working in the bakery, or at the apothecary with Mr. Jackson, no matter how pleasant he was, and it was infinitely better than becoming somebody’s wife , god forbid, but there was an entire world beyond Mount Weather waiting to be explored: more to see, more to do, more to learn… If only her mother would allow it.

She hadn’t minded quite as much when she’d been young: she’d had Octavia then, before her friend had met Lincoln, and they had both been small enough that their little village had seemed like a kingdom that was theirs for them to explore. But they had grown, and Octavia had fallen in love and left her behind, and Clarke had stayed in the same old cottage, in the same old village, watching the same old lights in the distance rise through the trees on the horizon and into the sky.

Eighteen years old and she still didn’t know what those lights were. And she didn’t think she ever would.

Swallowing the familiar disappointment, Clarke dipped her paintbrush into her palette, sweeping up a blob of sun yellow paint, and bringing it up to the wall. She had almost run out of space in her own room, painting the forests, constellations, and distant kingdoms she longed to see, but there was still room for the lights that she saw every year.

The paintbrush in her hand fell to the floor at the sound of a thud coming from the upper floor.

It was, Clarke reasoned, slowly letting out the breath she had been holding, probably nothing more sinister than a branch falling on the roof, but the feeling of increasing unease in her stomach told her it was wishful thinking. She had lived in this cottage for twelve years; she knew every creak of its floorboards, every thump and shudder when the wind battered against the wood. And the thump — first, second, and third — was getting closer , which did nothing to settle Clarke’s nerves.

Adrenaline took over then, driving her — quietly — from her bedroom and into the room next door in search of something she might be able to use as a weapon. She didn’t have time to be picky — the intruder was creeping closer every second (well, more like stumbling — whoever it was, they weren’t exactly the stealthiest of unwanted house guests) — so she scrambled for the closest object, grasping it by the handle and breathing a little easier thanks to its comforting weight.

But not for long. Not when the intruder appeared around the corner with a muttered curse, and Clarke’s heart leapt into her throat, her arm rising up and swinging blindly in the direction of the shadowy figure.

Somehow the frying pan hit its target, and the intruder fell to the floor, their leather satchel falling to the floor beside them with a heavy, metallic thump.

Chapter Text

It was still dark when the intruder regained consciousness, giving Clarke the opportunity to slip into the shadows and observe her as she came round – out of sight and out of danger, at least for now.

The girl didn't look dangerous, but if there was one thing her mother had taught her it was that people were not always what they seemed - that there were monsters out there, and not all of them looked monstrous. She had tied her bonds tight just in case, weaving complicated knots around her wrists like Lincoln had once taught her.

“You might need this one day,” he had said, stoic and serious as always, and Clarke had almost laughed out loud. Why would she need to learn how to tie knots when she would never step foot out of Mount Weather? But even Lincoln could not have foreseen this.

Still, restrained, half-unconscious and rather pretty, Clarke was inclined to believe the girl was no threat to her. Until her eyes snapped open so abruptly Clarke nearly fell over feet in surprise.

“I’m armed!” she called out, cursing herself silently for the unsteadiness of her voice, and tightened her grip on her weapon. She might be tied to a chair but Clarke was not about to underestimate the girl. She had already broken into her home: she didn’t want to find out what else the stranger might be capable of.

“Gee, really?” came back a sarcastic retort, her eyes snapping to where Clarke was concealed and she pressed herself further into the darkness of the corner of the room. “And I thought the lump on my head had appeared by magic.”

She flexed her hands, gritting her teeth as she attempted to wriggle them free of their restraints, before giving up with an irritated puff of air.

“You might as well come out,” she muttered, rolling her eyes at her hiding spot. “I can hardly attack you tied to this chair.”

Clarke hesitated, reluctant to do anything the girl said, before creeping out from the corner. The stranger’s eyes widened, as if she had been expecting something else entirely, and then narrowed, her gaze settling on the object in Clarke’s hand.

“Did you hit me with a frying pan?”

Clarke looked down at the object in question, her hand still grasping it like a lifeline, and she frowned defensively.“You broke into my house!”

“Well, the door was locked!” came the reply, as if it was as good a reason as any, and Clarke almost laughed.

“Evidently for good reason! Who are you?”

The stranger sighed, shoulders slumping as she leaned back in the chair the best she could with her hands bound.

“Look,” she began, her tone almost conciliatory, “I was just looking for a place to hide. I’ve been here before—”

“What are you talking about?” Clarke snapped, and the irritated hiss of her voice made the other girl’s eyes narrow once more. “I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

“Well obviously you weren’t here, genius, or you might not have knocked me unconscious with kitchenware. There was an older woman. A healer, I suppose. She stitched up my—”

“A healer?” Clarke frowned. “You mean my mother?”

“I... suppose? I never asked for her name or life story. She had dark hair, dark eyes.” She smiled, wolfishly. “She was rather easy on the eyes.”

Ugh.

“Enough!” Clarke hissed, her cheeks flushing pink, and she raised the frying pan in a vaguely menacing gesture that wasn't menacing at all. “You said you needed a place to hide? Why? What have you done?”

“I don’t think I’ll be answering any more questions until you untie me,” was the response, coupled with a careless shrug.

Clarke had had just about had enough.

“Then I suppose we’ll be sitting here in silence for a very long time,” she said, giving a theatrical sigh. “Until whoever is looking for you finds you, I’d wager.”

Her words had the effect she had intended them to, the intruder sitting up stiffly in her chair and something akin to fear flashing across her face. For all of her bravado she was scared, Clarke realised, but she would be foolish if she allowed that to sway her.

It was enough to loosen her tongue, and Clarke saw her swallow before answering.

“I took something, alright? From Arkadia.”

“Arkadia?” The word escaped in a rush, all thought of nonchalance disappearing in a cloud of excitement.

There was so much Clarke wanted to know about the world but she knew enough to have heard of Arkadia. To know that the lights came from there. Her mother had been evasive on the subject the last time she had broached it, her fingers combing softly through her hair, her head in her lap, but her grandmother had been a little more forthcoming. Manmade they had concluded, not a naturally occurring phenomenon, and Clarke felt a flush of excitement at the prospect of finding out more.

“You mean the capital city?”

A nod was her only confirmation, a reluctant dip of her dark head and Clarke found herself edging closer.

“What did you take?”

“Something important,” she said in a low voice, as if imparting a great secret. “Something they would do anything to get back.”

Clarke let out the breath she had been unknowingly holding, reaching for the object she had stashed in the shadowy corner in the hope of leverage if things went sour. She gripped the strap, surprising herself with the weight of it as she lifted, and dangled it deliberately in front of her.

“Something in this satchel?”

“My—” A dark cloud passed over the girl’s face. She made a sudden break for freedom, her restraints straining as she lunged in her seat, but Lincoln’s knots held fast. “Give that back.”

Still, Clarke resisted the urge to step back at the ferocity in her voice.

“Whatever it is, it's important,” she deduced softly, drawing the satchel to her chest and gripping it with both hands.

The girl in the chair let out a strangled sound when she opened it.

It was the name she saw first, scribbled next to another that had long since become indecipherable.

“Is this your name?” Clarke murmured, letting her fingers brush over the smudged ink that formed five letters. “Raven?”

It was unlike any name she had ever heard before, but it suited her somehow.

Raven didn't reply, but Clarke could tell from the clench of her jaw that she had hit her target.

And then she saw it.

“What is this?” she breathed, almost afraid to reach in and touch it. But the pull was impossible, tempting her to wrap her fingers around the cool metal and draw Raven's prize out of the satchel.

“It’s a spoon,” Raven scoffed. “What does it look like?”

Clarke tossed another glare in the girl’s direction, her mouth opening to let loose an angry retort that died on the tip of her tongue when the moonlight caught one of the gems. She didn’t know much about fine jewellery – the most precious things she had ever seen were the pair of gold rings that lived on her mother’s finger and around her neck – but she was willing to hazard a guess that she was holding gold, real gold, from the weight of the thing alone. Clarke had never had any desire to wear anything other than the ring her father had asked her to keep safe the last time she had seen him – or so her mother had said, she had been too young to remember – but this… this was so beautiful she could scarcely breathe.

“It’s… a crown?” A niggling sense of something told her that it was so much more than that, but she supposed it was easy to be dumbstruck by something so fine. A crown. No wonder her intruder was being hunted down: she could only have taken this from the castle. “Is it the Queen’s?”

“It was,” Raven scoffed, relaxing her grip on the bonds at her wrist in momentary resignation. “Once upon a time, or so the legend goes.”

“Legend?”

Raven raised a brow. “Of the Lost Queen.”

Clarke evidently looked as confused as she suddenly felt because Raven let out a sharp laugh. “Surely this village can’t be even more backwater than I thought? You must have heard of Queen Abigail?”

Abigail.

She had never met anybody else with her mother’s name but Clarke was not foolish enough to believe she was the only woman in the world it belonged to. But suddenly the air in the room felt as thin as the air in her lungs. She remembered very little from her childhood that she had recalled of her own volition: the odd memory here and there, of red velvet drapes so tall they brushed against the floor, of her mother’s green skirts swirling as her father danced her around the room. She remembered even less of the man himself but she knew that he had loved her. She knew it, deep in her bones, with as much certainty as she felt that this could not be a coincidence.

“There are no coincidences, my dear,” her grandmother had always told her, but Clarke had always scoffed at the implication of the existence of something as silly as fate. But in that moment she could think of nothing but her mother’s rich green skirts, her laughter as her father had danced her around a hall with a ceiling so tall she had had to crane her neck to see it.

The way the candlelight had set the emeralds circling her head aflame.

The crown hit the floor with a loud clatter.

A coincidence, she thought, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she fought to slow her breathing. A coincidence and nothing more than a dream, because Clarke could not bring herself to believe it could be a memory if it meant that her mother had kept something so monumental from her for the entirety of her life.

But as hard as she tried, she couldn’t rid herself of the doubt.

“Are you alright?”

Clarke came back to herself with a start, bending down to scoop up the crown and push it back into the satchel where she’d found it: out of sight, but so very far from out of mind, and the beginnings of an plan began to form.

“I assume you’ll want this back?” Clarke barked, ignoring the hoarseness of her voice and throwing herself recklessly headlong into her idea at Raven’s nod. “Then take me to Arkadia.”

Raven’s laugh was raucous. “I’ve just fled from Arkadia with the crown of their incredibly beloved, incredibly dead Queen! You couldn’t get me back there with a blade to my neck!”

“I’m sure the guards could get you back there, if I shouted loud enough,” Clarke retorted with impressive calm. She slung the satchel around her own shoulders, the weight of the crown heavy against both her hip and her heart. “Probably in chains. Possibly to a noose. Do they hang thieves in Arkadia? I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been.”

Raven’s grip tightened on the chair. It was hard to tell with only a sliver of moonlight as illumination but Clarke thought she could see the colour drain from her cheeks. When she spoke, it was between gritted teeth.

“If I agree to take you and you untie me, what’s to stop me from taking my satchel back by force?”

It was a good question, but Clarke was willing to take a gamble that Raven was not quite as tough as she would have her believe. Something about the silver chain - a bird, she thought, as it caught the light - around her neck reminded her of the one around her mother’s.

“I’ll fight back, and I don’t think you want to add murder to your list of transgressions… do you?”

Raven held her gaze for a long moment before jerking her eyes away.

“A one way trip to Arkadia and the satchel and I are gone.” She huffed. “I’m not going to be your tour guide.”

It was enough for Clarke. Either way she didn’t think she’d want to return: if she was wrong there would be a whole new world for her to explore beyond the boundaries of the village and if she was right, if her life here had been nothing more than a lie, then she never wanted to set foot in Mount Weather again.

Mind made up, she kneeled before Raven and got to work on the rope binding her wrists, all too aware of the vulnerability of her position and the other girl’s eyes burning a hole into her head. The rope fell to the floor, but instead of the fist she had half-resigned herself to connecting with her head she looked up to meet Raven’s curiously soft gaze.

“Why do you want to go to Arkadia so badly anyway?” she asked. “It’s a hellhole. The people are on the cusp of rebellion. The King doesn’t care. It isn’t some distant utopia.”

Clarke swallowed hard. She had never been accused of being naïve but she had spent her childhood staring out of her bedroom window at the faraway lights drifting up into the sky and imagined nothing less than paradise. “Was it always like that?”

“I don’t think so.” Raven shrugged. “Not before.”

“Before?” Clarke breathed, her heart hammering painfully in her chest.

“Before King Jacob was killed,” Raven replied, speaking slowly as if she were a very small child. “Before the Queen and the Princess vanished.”

Clarke felt sick. She asked the next question with a strength she did not feel, the room spinning on its axis in step with her world. 

“The Princess?”

Raven frowned. "Princess Clarke."

*****

The door was ajar when Marcus arrived at his mother’s cottage as dawn began to break on the horizon. It was not, in his experience, a good sign, nor was the chair he remembered well enough from his childhood sitting in the centre of the room where it had been obviously dragged from its usual spot by the window. It was possible his mother had moved it in the decade that had passed since he had last been here, but he doubted it. It had been his father’s chair: the chair he had sat in by the window and watched the leaves fall from the trees in fall, where he had smoked his pipe in easy silence and watched his son read across the room. Where he had taken his last breath.

He had been just a boy when his father had died, but Marcus had not forgotten him anymore than he had forgotten Vera Kane. But even if he was not certain that his mother would never dream of moving it, the rope at the foot of the chair would have convinced him.

Panic for his mother rose up in his throat like bile, but he forced it back down with the ease of a man who had been suppressing his emotions for twenty years.

The rope was frayed, Marcus noted as he crouched down and fingered the remains of a knot, suggesting it had been cut by a blunt knife. He doubted that Reyes was still here - if she had been, the unfortunate soul she had tied up would still be tied up, and there was not another soul in sight - but it would be remiss of him not to check the rest of the cottage. He checked each room in turn, lingering almost unconsciously in the room that had been his as a boy. His books were still here, stuffed onto the bookshelf where he had left them as if he had not been gone for more than a day, but the walls were not the same, stark stone he remembered.

Instead they were alive with colour, paint covering every inch of the cold surface and bringing the room spectacularly to life in vivid shades of green, of blue, of yellow. Stone became skies of cornflower blue, overlooking a forest of rich green, and a blanket of stars peppered the wall overlooking the small bed at the far side of the room.

This was not his mother’s work; Vera Kane was dab hand with a needle and thread and a miracle worker in the garden but Marcus had never once seen her reach for a paintbrush. The bed sheets were crumpled, he noticed, the impression of somebody still pressed into the fabric, but whoever his room belonged to now was long gone, their body heat lost from the bed sheets and the yellow paint on the paintbrush that had been abandoned on the floor almost dry.

Then he heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps downstairs.

Marcus drew his sword at once, a practiced gesture that saw his weapon slide from its hilt with only the slightest of sound, and crept quietly down the staircase.

It was not Reyes, and Marcus let his sword fall back to his side as he took in the startled figure standing in the centre of the room.

“Marcus?” the achingly familiar voice breathed, tremulous with surprise, and his shoulders slumped in relief.

It had been so long since he had seen his mother he had half-expected an old woman. But her hair was still the same dark auburn, her eyes still as vivid and bright. Her face had more lines and creases than he recalled her possessing but then, so had his. She lifted a tentative hand to his cheek, brushing her thumb against it as if to make certain he was real, and drew in a shaky breath.

“I can't believe it's really you.”

Something inside him crumbled at the sound of her voice. It was not cold as Marcus had imagined it might be when he allowed himself to think of seeing her once more, was not reserved with the strain of his absence. It was soft, warm, and thick with emotion, full of so much love that he found himself drawing in a quiet breath.

“Hello, mother.”

And then he remembered Raven Reyes, and cold, hard reality made him step back abruptly from the hand on his cheek.

“I'm afraid this isn't a social call,” he said, clearing his throat. “The Lost Queen’s crown has been stolen. My men and I are tracking the criminal responsible.”

“And you tracked him here?” Vera replied, and as hard as he tried not to notice Marcus could hear the hurt in her voice. Hurt, and the briefest glimpse of panic she was not quick enough to conceal.

“Her,” he corrected, to his mother's obvious surprise. “I have reason to believe she may have been in this house.”

His mother was instantly on alert, brow creasing and her back stiffening in worry. “What possible reason could you have to suspect that?”

He looked to the chair, eyes drifting to the rope still lying on the ground. He looked back at his mother, and saw the precise moment she pieced it together for herself.

She did not react the way he had expected, checking the house for the few valuables she possessed and the mementos of his father. Instead her face froze in abject terror, her eyes flashing in panic, and she had darted from the room into the next with a cry of “Clarke!” before Marcus had had time to draw his next breath.

Marcus frowned, watching in increasing bafflement as his mother darted from room to room, moving with more speed than he had believed her possible of, the same name exploding from her lips with increasing urgency.

He stopped her as she began the ascent up the stairs, catching her hand in his and forcing her to face him.

“There's nobody here,” he told her, softening his voice deliberately when she shook her head in disbelief. “I checked myself. There's just you and I.”

“That isn't possible,” she replied, her voice cracking. “Clarke should be here!”

“Clarke?” he echoed, his brow knitting in confusion.

It wasn’t an unusual name – certainly not in light of the fanaticism that clung to the memory of the Lost Princess – but something about his mother’s utter panic stirred an uncomfortable feeling in his gut that Marcus had long since learned not to ignore.

“Mother, who is Clarke?”

And then a new voice entered the fray, husky and thick with tension, and Marcus turned the same time his mother did, hand tightening around his sword, to take in the windswept, unfamiliar figure standing by the door.

“My daughter,” the woman said.

Chapter Text

The morning light was just beginning to rise above the mountains, streaming through the crack in the curtains and settling around the woman in the doorway as if she were a celestial being.

She was not a tall woman — if she stood next to him Marcus suspected the top of her head would scarcely reach his shoulder — but one could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Back straight, shoulders squared and meeting his eyes with an imperious stare that made even him shift uncomfortably on the spot in a way the King had not been able to, she held herself with the confidence of a woman who was used to being the draw of attention in any room.

And she was beautiful. At court, Marcus was used to women bedecked in jewels, in sumptuous gowns of rich reds and golds and their hair twisted in all manner of intricate shapes, but the woman in the doorway wore a simple dress — a dark, moss green shift, form fitting enough that Marcus had the ridiculous urge avert to his eyes but loose enough to be practical — and a beige apron tied haphazardly around her waist. She had dark hair that was anything but intricate, tossed over one shoulder in a messy braid with windswept tendrils escaping in all manner of directions. Her eyes were dark, and full of fire.

As valiantly as he tried not to notice, Marcus’ mind traitorously declared her to be the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Uncomfortably aware that he was staring, he cleared his throat.

“This ‘Clarke’ is your daughter, Mrs—?”

He trailed off, waiting for her to fill in the blank. He had become accustomed to people answering his questions without having to be asked twice - either as a mark of respect for his position or but this woman merely pushed past him instead.

“Vera?” His mother sucked in a shuddering breath, eyes darting around the room, settling once more on the rope abandoned by the chair, until the younger woman cupped her cheeks in her hands, bringing her slowly back to earth. “Vera, where’s Clarke?”

“Abby, I…” Vera swallowed, fighting tears. “She was gone when I got back. Marcus checked. There's nobody here.”

“What do you mean gone?” she demanded, her hands moving down to grip his mother’s shoulders so tightly that he saw her knuckles turn white. “How can she be gone?”

“She means precisely that, that she’s gone,” Marcus interjected in a brusque attempt to retain some control of the conversation, but he suspected he was fighting a losing battle. Abby confirmed his suspicions with a glare.

“I wasn’t asking you,” she snarled, but he couldn't help but notice some of the fight go out of her when her eyes took in his captain’s uniform. “My daughter isn’t a reckless teenage tearaway. She does what she's told and she's supposed to be here.”

“We have reason to believe a criminal may be involved.”

“A criminal?” she echoed, looking stricken.

“A thief,” he confirmed. “We’ve tracked her here from the castle with something precious in her possession we are keen to get back.”  

Face ashen, Abby swayed a little on her feet and sagged against his mother, and Marcus had the sudden, ridiculous desire to step closer, to rest a comforting hand on her shoulder. He ignored it, but he could not suppress the urge to say something. Anything, to ease the girl’s mother’s mind even a little.

“I don’t believe her to be dangerous, ma’am,” he murmured, his voice as gentle as he was capable of making it.

She looked up at him then, really looked at him for the first time since she had arrived in the cottage, and Marcus thought he saw a flicker of gratitude cross her face. It didn't last, disappearing in a cloud of anxious concern as quickly as it had surfaced.

“What interest could she possibly have in my daughter? She’s just a girl!” And then, as if speaking the words aloud had somehow answered her own question, Abby sucked in a steadying breath. “What did she take?”

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss that,” Marcus replied, and Abby glared at him in response.

“My daughter is missing, Captain. Tell me, what did she take?”

“The crown, Abigail,” his mother softly interjected, surprising them both with the reminder of her presence. The revelation sparked frustration in Marcus, as well as a petulant sort of irritation that his mother had betrayed his confidence in favour of this stranger.

In Abby, it sparked something else entirely.

“What?”

“The thief,” Vera murmured, reaching for the other woman’s hands and taking them gently in hers. “She took the Lost Queen’s crown from the castle and she brought it here, to Mount Weather. To this cottage.”

Abby was silent for a moment that seemed to stretch into a lifetime, something akin to terror mounting on her pale face, until she broke abruptly from Vera’s gentle grip.

“I have to find her,” she breathed, taking a shaky step backwards. “She can’t have gone far. We only left her a few hours ago. Maybe I can catch up to her—”

“Abigail,” his mother protested, laying a steadying hand on the younger woman’s shoulder but she shook her head vehemently.

“I have to find her Vera. She can’t go to Arkadia. She isn’t safe there.”

“I know, sweetheart,” his mother sighed, resigning herself to whatever the woman was proposing, and Marcus had finally had enough.

“What in god’s name is going on?” he snapped, finally gaining their attention.

“Don’t you see, Marcus?” his mother murmured, smiling wanly from her son to the woman at her side. “Abby is the Lost Queen.”

Time seemed to stand still, the statement hanging in the air between them as Abby's head snapped sharply to regard his mother with the same look of horror Marcus undoubtedly wore on his own face. But there was no trace of irony in his mother's expression, no hint that she was anything other than utterly serious, as she looked up at the younger woman with such fondness than Marcus began to feel distinctly like he was intruding. 

Abby breathed in sharply, coming out of her stupor before Marcus had time to respond to the sheer, spectacular absurdity of the claim.

“You knew, all this time?” she rasped, her response the very opposite of what he had expected, and this time Marcus' head snapped to her to do a double take. “And you still—”

“Oh my dear,” Vera breathed, smiling fondly as she cupped her cheek. “How could have I turned you and that poor child away?”

“But Jaha’s men were looking for us. If they’d found us, if they’d discovered that you’d helped us, you—”

“Has everybody gone mad?” Marcus exploded, looking between the two women as if they had collectively lost their minds.  “The Lost Queen is dead. She’s been dead for twelve years!”

Abby’s lip curled up in a bitter imitation of a smile.

“That’s what Jaha would have you believe,” she muttered, striding purposefully across the room in the direction of the stairs and Marcus frowned, unease filling his belly as he watched her mount the first step.

“What are you doing?” he demanded, but he had a feeling he knew precisely what she was doing.

“I’m going after my daughter,” she tossed over her shoulder, as if the proposition was not sheer madness, and Marcus barked out a short laugh.

“Going after her? You can’t be serious.”

Abby fixed him with a sharp look that stopped his laughter short. “Perfectly. And if I know my daughter she’s on her way to Arkadia right now with your thief in tow.”

He raised an incredulous eyebrow. “You can’t possibly believe I’ll allow you to go after a criminal?”

Abby smirked. “I suppose it’s a good thing I’m not asking for your permission then, isn’t it?”

“Ma’am—” he protested, but she didn’t give him a chance to continue.

“There is nothing you can possibly say that will stop me from going out there and finding my daughter and bringing her home.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but somebody cleared their throat from the doorway instead. Bellamy stood there, flanked by Miller and Riley who concealed their curiosity with far less subtlety than Marcus’ protegee had managed observing their captain in his childhood home.

“Captain Kane,” he greeted, glancing briefly at the two women and back at Marcus, seeking permission to continue in front of their audience. He granted it with a short nod. “There’s no sign of Reyes in the village. If she was here, she’s gone now.”

“That’s alright, Bellamy,” he replied. His mother’s eyebrows rose at the boy’s name, her expression warming, but he and Marcus had a thief to catch: this was not time for a family reunion. “I think I know where she’s headed.”

“Sir?”

“Take your men and go back to Arkadia. I believe Reyes is on her way back there, very possibly in the company of another young woman.”

“Going back?” Bellamy exclaimed. “With the Lost Queen’s crown in tow?”

“Yes,” he confirmed, and Bellamy schooled his dubious expression. He had his doubts, like Marcus did, but right now it was their best lead and the lieutenant had been trained well enough to keep his uncertainty to himself. “Go back to Arkadia and wait for them there. You’ll get there before them on horseback.”

“And you sir?” Bellamy replied with clear reluctance to leave him, and Marcus felt perhaps a little of what Clarke’s mother was feeling at the thought of ever losing him. “What will you do?”

“I’ll follow them on foot.”

“Alone?”

Marcus allowed himself a small smile, the corner of his mouth upturning as he met Abby’s suspicious gaze across the room.

“I expect I’ll have company, whether I approve or not.”

*****

Abby left the captain with his lieutenant, making her way up the stairs to gather supplies for the journey ahead of her. She had half a mind to slip out while the man was distracted, setting out after Clarke by herself without the captain’s interference, but she had always been a practical woman and the truth was she didn’t remember the way to Arkadia. She had only made the journey between the capital and Mount Weather once, after all, fearful and desperate and riding blindly in pursuit of a safe haven. She had not exactly taken the time to memorise the route with Clarke sobbing against her chest and Thelonious Jaha's men hots on her heels.

She needed Kane, whether she liked it or not, but that didn’t mean she had any intention of trusting him.

Coming back down the stairs, a satchel slung over her shoulder and a dagger tucked into the pouch of the belt strewn loosely around her waist, she found herself drifting into her daughter’s room, drawn in by the bright, swirling colours and the scent of her that seemed to still linger in the air. She had been here recently, waiting for her to come home, putting the finishing touches on the painting she had been quietly working on for days now. Clarke had been bashful about it, waving off her interest until Abby had convinced herself her daughter had outgrown her mother’s affection, but she understood now, taking in the spiralling spray of golden colour climbing up the wall, and she sucked in a shuddering breath, feeling distinctly like her heart had been torn from her chest.

The lights. Arkadia.

It had been a topic that had been practically taboo in their household, easy enough to discourage from conversation when Clarke had been a little girl, asking about the lights as her mother had gently pulled a brush through her soft, golden hair, but it had been difficult to dissuade her as she had grown, both in years and wisdom, when the distance between the village and the capital city had not seemed quite so insurmountable.

Clarke hadn't mentioned Arkadia in a long time, but it had obviously not been far from her mind. And now she was on her way there, in the company of a stranger, with only a piece of the puzzle in her possession and the lies her mother had told her about their past unravelling around her.

She heard footsteps behind her, soft and uncertain, and she did not have to turn her head to know who they belonged to.

“Are you sure about this, sweetheart?” Vera murmured, lingering in the doorway behind her.

Clarke's constellations swirled and pulsed around them, the colours blinding in Abby's periphery, and she squeezed her eyes shut to prevent the sting of tears.

“She's in danger, Vera. If he finds out that she's alive—” She broke off, her breath hitching at the thought of the danger waiting for her daughter in Arkadia. “I have to get to her before he does.”

Vera was silent for a moment, her presence a comfort at Abby's back, but her body stiffened at her words.

“He's a good man,” Vera murmured, venturing deeper into the room. “Marcus.”

Abby resisted the urge to scoff.

“He's the Captain of the Guard. He's Thelonious’ right hand man.”

“He's a soldier,” Vera soothed, pressing a hand against her back. “He's just doing his duty. If he knew—”

“He would do his duty,” Abby interrupted, her voice barely concealing her anger. “He would hand us both over to his king without a second thought.”

“That wouldn't be the man I raised.”

“You haven't seen him in more than ten years," Abby reminded her, turning to face her with a pointed arch of her brow. "How can you be certain he hasn't changed?”

Vera smiled, a small, tender thing that crinkled the corner of her eyes.

“Because he's my son. And you Abby, you…” Vera trailed off, her voice trailing off, choked with the same emotion flooding into Abby’s chest. “I can't imagine my life without you and Clarke. I can't imagine the last twelve years without you.” She reached up, a worn hand cupping her cheek, and Abby’s heart tightened. “ Please be safe.”

A creak in the floorboards behind them shattered the moment.

Vera’s son was a tall man - taller, she thought, than her husband had been and Jake had been at least a head taller than her - but not quite as broad. Jacob had been a bear of a man, intimidating enough on the battlefield but the softest man she had ever known. The captain wore his height like armour, shoulders squared as if steeling for battle, chin imperiously raised, and his brown eyes as cold and as sharp as the sword at his side.  

The stiff uniform suited him, the leather waistcoat stretching over the obvious muscles of his chest, though Abby found it difficult to linger on the royal crest there that Jaha had clearly not seen fit to replace, but the facial hair seemed curiously out of place. The thick, dark beard was neatly groomed, strewn with a smattering of flattering grey - softer, somehow, than the rest of him, save for the soft lock of hair that fell against his forehead in a rebellious wave.

Kane cleared his throat.

“We ought to leave now, ma’am, before the trail gets cold.” He arched his brow. “Unless you’ve changed your mind?”

Abby bristled, roughly tightening her belt. 

“Of course not. Let’s go Captain.”

*****

Alone, for the first time since they had said goodbye to his mother, Marcus took the opportunity to observe the woman walking at his side.

It had been unexpected, finding his mother playing house with a strange woman, but no more awkward than her insistence that her lodger was the Lost Queen . It had been some fifteen years since he had last seen Vera Kane in person - long enough for her mind to have softened with the passage of time, but she had been so adamant it had given Marcus pause.

And Abby , whoever the woman was, believed it too.

At least Vera had not been alone. He had spent the last fifteen years convinced of his place in the world, and that place had been anywhere but a village in the middle of nowhere, but Marcus had not forgotten his mother. If the goodbye she'd shared with Abby was any indication he ought not to have worried. She had not lacked for love.

Marcus supposed spending twelve years under the same roof was enough time to forge a bond with anybody, but there had been so much more than mere friendship in the moment Vera had shared with the younger woman: his mother had looked at her the way he sometimes saw women in Arkadia look at their children.

He was surprised to find that it had stung him, but only for a moment. He had been absent, after all, for so many years.

He looked up, his gaze once again drifting to his companion, and found his eyes meeting hers. She looked away, the movement jerky and abrupt, and Marcus thought he saw the beginnings of a flush on her cheeks.

“Your mother said you’re the Captain of the Guard,” she said, startling him a little.

“That’s right,” he replied warily, half-convinced she was leading him into a trap. She knew perfectly well who he was, after all: if his mother hadn't told her then the badge pinned to his belt buckle surely did.

She hummed, a short, non-committal sound that managed to sound both amused and derisive at the same time. “Is it standard procedure to send the Captain of the Guard after lost jewellery these days?”

“No. But then the Lost Queen’s crown is no ordinary trinket.”

She scoffed at that, folding her arms across her chest. “I find it difficult to believe it will be especially missed after so long.”

“You’d be wrong,” Marcus shrugged. “The people still love her dearly. Beyond reason. I’ve never understood it myself. I suspect the King doesn’t, either.”

He coloured then, once his mind caught up to his mouth and heard the words that had come from it, but it was too late to take them back. Speaking, even vaguely, against the king was tantamount to treason in Arkadia, and he had spoken of him freely as if this woman wasn’t a perfect stranger.

Abby’s lips curled up in the slightest smile as if she had proved some sort of point. She was quiet for a moment, long enough that Marcus began to believe he had been granted a reprieve before she spoke again.

“You don't believe it, do you?” she said quietly, and Marcus looked up to meet the sudden intensity of her gaze. “It is entirely inconceivable that the ‘Lost Queen’ might have survived? And that I might be her?”

“No,” he conceded after a long pause, turning his answer over and over in his head, but he was loath to give this woman the impression he would play any part in her fantasy and posed a question of his own. “But why would you not have come forward if that’s true, instead of living in exile for twelve years?”

“Perhaps it was impossible for me to come back,” Abby retorted. “Perhaps my life was in danger.”

“From what?”

“From whom.”

They held each other’s gaze for a beat, Marcus’ mind whirling until he halted in his tracks.

“The king?” he concluded, almost gaping at the sheer audacity of the claim. “Do you really expect me to believe that the king drove the queen and the princess from the kingdom? After what, having King Jacob killed?”

“It's the truth,” Abby shrugged, coming to a stop beside him, and Marcus let out a hollow laugh.

“It's nonsense. The king may be many things but he is not a murderer.”

“Believe what you will,” she muttered. “It's no concern of mine. All I need from you is my daughter.”

They fell into an uncomfortable, irritable silence, Marcus glaring at her back as she resumed her stride and forced him to jog just to catch up to her, the accusations she had made - his own doubts about his king - niggling relentlessly in the back of his mind.

Chapter Text

They had glanced the familiar, uniform clad figures of the king’s royal guard as they had fled from the village hours earlier, Raven recognising Captain Kane’s severe expression before they had darted off into the trees.

Raven had run afoul of Kane enough times to know that if he was on the hunt they had no time to waste; the other guards were easy enough to shake off, most of them underestimating her capabilities entirely thanks to her gender, but Kane was a clever man - clever, cold, and calculating - and Raven had absolutely no doubt that no matter how much distance they put between them and Mount Weather they would still have to keep looking over their shoulders.

So they kept moving,  through the night, and through the early hours of the morning, until the sun had risen high into the sky and Raven’s leg began to hurt, to put it plainly, like an absolute bitch.

She came to a halt, sucking in a sharp, pained breath as she plonked herself down on the nearest flat surface - a rock with a convenient moss cushion, just what she needed to take the edge off. But her mysterious companion was having none of it, whirling round the second she noticed she was no longer trailing behind her, hands on her hips and glaring so hard Raven half expected to transform into stone.

“What are you doing?” the blonde demanded. “We have to keep going.”  

Raven scoffed. “You won’t be getting anywhere near Arkadia if I die of exhaustion first,” she said, stretching her leg out in front of her. A spasm of pain ran through it from her knee to her ankle, a quiet hiss escaping her lips, but it was not quiet enough to go unnoticed. The other girl’s expression changed in an instant, irritation giving way to concern, and she took a tentative step closer.

“What’s wrong?” she asked gently, far more compassion in her voice than Raven was comfortable with, and she shot her an irritated look.

“Nothing.”

“Is it your leg?” the blonde persisted, too observant for her own good, coming to a hesitant halt in front of her. “You said you’d been to Mount Weather before. Did my mother heal you?”

“It’s nothing,” she hissed, with more venom than she really felt, and Raven felt mildly guilty when she watched the girl take a step back. “An old injury,” she conceded, giving into the pain in her leg and reaching down to massage the muscle. “The healer… your mother took good care of me.”

The answer seemed to satisfy her companion, her mouth opening to ask something more but Raven was quite finished with the interrogation, however well-intentioned. “Why do you get to ask all the questions, anyway?”

The blonde fixed her with a stare. “You’re the one that broke into my house.”

“And you hit me with a frying pan,” Raven countered, with a pointed glance at the handle sticking out of the satchel that still held the crown. “So that makes us even.”

The other girl's lips twitched in acknowledgement, visibly mulling over her options before letting let out a sigh. “What do you want to know?”

“Your name, for starters,” Raven shrugged. “You make a bargain with a strange girl that might get you arrested, I figure you should at least know her name.”

“Clarke,” she answered, after a long moment of stagnant silence, and Raven let out a laugh.

“Clarke?” she echoed, raising a dubious eyebrow. “Like the princess?”

Clarke gave her a strange look, her fingers busying themselves with her belt. “If you say so. Nobody has ever told me anything about a missing princess, or a queen for that matter.”

Well, Raven supposed that went some way to explaining the other girl’s utter ignorance but even the most remote corner of the kingdom knew about the Lost bloody Queen. The healer had been a practical woman, impressing Raven even in her pain-induced stupor as someone far too sensible to fawn over the missing royals, but she was surely old enough to remember them before they had become the stuff of legend.

“Your mother never told you that story?”

“My mother never tells me anything,” she retorted, her voice edged with a sudden harshness that took Raven by surprise.

“I suppose you've never been to Arkadia then?” she muttered, watching Clarke closely as she shifted awkwardly on the jagged stone she was sat on, the high spots of angry colour fading from her cheeks.

“No. My mother said it was a dangerous place. That the people were cold and unfeeling. That’s why we left, she said, when I was a little girl. To find somewhere where we could make a home.”

“And you still want to go there?” Raven snorted. “Mother knows best… or so they say.”

Clarke gave her a strange look at that, her brow creasing in an odd, pensive sort of expression. “I think,” she began, her voice curiously small for a girl that had run away from home to charge recklessly through unfamiliar woods, “that my mother knows more than she’s ever told me.”

There was something in the way she said it - with sadness and a touch of mystery - that made Raven lean ever so slightly in.

“And what is it that you think she’s never told you?”

Clarke hesitated. “I’m not sure I want to know. I don't know if I want to be right." She sucked in a shuddering breath. "I should just turn around now."

She ducked her head, her eyes conspicuously moist, and Raven felt something unpleasant twist in her gut, something that made her want to reach out and rest her hand on Clarke's shoulders. She ignored the urge, clenching her hand stubbornly at her side, but she couldn't ignore the niggling suspicion that there was more to this girl than met the eye. That whatever quest they were on was worth pursuing.

“Only one way to find out," she muttered, and Clarke's head shot up, her eyes flickering to Raven's leg uncertainly before meeting her determined gaze.

Raven shrugged. "What are we sitting around here for? Let's go."

*****

After their first spat — the first of many, Marcus was sure — they had kept on moving, no doubt hours behind Reyes and Abby’s daughter but hopefully gaining. There had been peace between them since then, a grudging, stubborn sort of peace that they have maintained at first through a mutual adherence to silence. They had stewed in it at first, silently seething as they had stalked through the woods like it was a competition. And then Abby had stumbled, her foot catching on the twisted root of a tree, and he had caught her, his hand gripping a surprisingly strong arm to stop her from falling to the floor.

She looked up at him for a moment, her eyes cool and assessing, sharp enough that he almost fidgeted under her gaze.

“Are you alright?” he murmured, his voice soft as he helped her to stand up straight.

“Fine,” she replied, with no more warmth than she had afforded him when they had first set out on this journey, but before she had pushed past him Marcus had thought he’d seen the beginnings of a smile.

It had been almost peaceful since then, a comfortable sort of silence as they made progress through the endless trees, Marcus occasionally glancing across at her as they walked side by side. He hadn’t been wrong at the cottage; she was a uniquely beautiful woman, but the stamina with which she moved through the woods, the determination which pushed her on in the direction of her daughter…

Abby was unlike anyone he had ever known.

She was also, he reminded himself, recalling her outlandish claims, quite possibly delusional, but delusions of grandeur aside, his mother loved her: he ought to make an effort if they were going to spend the next few days together.

“How long have you lived in Mount Weather?” he finally asked, his curiosity breaking the silence between them.

“Twelve years,” Abby replied, more than a note of surprise in her voice that he had broken the unspoken stalemate. “Give or take a few days.”

“ Twelve?” Marcus repeated, ignoring the obvious implication and letting the subject of the Lost Queen and her damned crown drop, if only for the length of a single conversation. “How did you come to live with my mother?”

Abby hesitated, the silence between them stretching long enough to make him uncomfortable. Long enough to convince him he had asked the wrong thing entirely, and the sudden crease of her brow, the lost look in her eyes, made him feel distinctly uncomfortable.

“I lost my husband,” she admitted quietly.

“I’m sorry,” he replied, and meant it. He’d had his suspicions: he did not think any man would allow his wife to abscond with a strange man and go after a criminal, but he was not glad to have been proved right. “How old was your daughter?”

“Six,” she murmured, tucking an errant strand of hair that had fallen free of her braid behind her ear.

“So was I,” Marcus said after a moment, surprising his companion with the revelation and surprising himself by sharing it. He cleared his throat, willing the flush on his cheeks away as he elaborated. “When my father died. I don’t remember very much about him.”

“Neither does Clarke,” Abby replied, her eyes unexpectedly soft as she regarded him. “Sometimes I don’t know whether that’s a blessing or a curse.”

“He was a good man,” he murmured, a statement rather than a question and Abby confirmed it with a nod.

“The very best. He loved with his whole heart.”

“You must miss him,” he ventured, feeling his own heart stir at the thought of anybody loving him the way this woman still loved the husband she had lost. At the thought of anybody loving him at all.

“More than anything,” Abby sighed, and Marcus opened his mouth to offer some sort of comfort, as paltry as it might be, only to freeze as his ears picked up the sound of horse hoofs on the road ahead of them.

He reached for Abby’s arm instinctively, gripping her bicep through the forest green fabric of her dress and pulling her back until she was behind him, his body in front of hers and his hand grasping for the hilt of his sword.

There were three figures atop of three horses, all clothed in familiar colours, and Marcus felt the tension begin to seep out of him as he recognised the royal crest stitched into the leather across their chests. It stood to reason some of his men had lingered in the vicinity while Bellamy and the rest had gone on to Arkadia as he had ordered, but his brow creased as they came closer, close enough that Marcus was able to recognise their faces and unease began to grow in the pit of his stomach.

“Captain Kane,” Shumway greeted, an altogether too pleasant smile on his face as the horses came to a stop in front of them. He felt Abby stiffen, her arm rigid where his hand still held it, and he gave her flesh a light, reassuring squeeze before he released it.  

“Commander,” he returned, echoing his smile with a cool one of his own. “I confess, this is a surprise. I don’t remember asking you to look for Reyes.”

“We’re here on a different mission,” he replied, his voice pleasant but his cool gaze finding Abby, and Marcus began to hear alarm bells. “One that you’ve made a great deal easier! It was kind of you to find our fugitive.”

There was no noise for a torturously long moment save for the birds, the soft breeze drifting through the trees, and Abby’s pained breath behind him as the word fugitive rippled through his mind like a distant echo. And then Abby let out a laugh, a short, harsh, ugly thing that made his heart sink.

“This was you,” she hissed as he whirled round to face her, all the progress they had made in tatters around them.

“Abby, no—”

“Were you tracking me, Kane?” she stabbed, cheeks pink as she took a generous step away from him. “Have you been looking for me this entire time?”

The accusation hurt Marcus more than he cared to admit. He  had reached for her before he was even conscious of the movement, reaching for her arm, her shoulder - anywhere he could place his hand and restore the tentative trust between them, but there was nothing but loathing in Abby’s dark eyes.

“Abby, I swear to you, I—”

“Captain,” Shumway interrupted. “I really must insist you hand over this criminal at once.”

Marcus felt his blood begin to boil, both at the sheer condescension and the insistence that Abby was something he knew in his bones she was not, as keenly as he knew that there was something very wrong with what the king was asking him to do.

“A criminal?” he repeated, arching a dubious eyebrow. “What exactly does she stand accused of, Commander?”

Shumway blanched at the emphasis on his rank, his expression turning stormy as he tightened his grip on his horse’s reins.

“Crimes against the kingdom, sir,” he replied, his jaw clenching. “Does His Majesty need to elaborate?”

“When he’s asking me to arrest an unarmed woman heading to Arkadia of her own volition, yes.”

“Stand aside, Captain.”

He straightened his shoulders, his expression a challenge as much as a refusal, and took his position directly in front of Abby.

“I will not.”

Shumway nodded briskly at his companions, and they dismounted their horses and drew their swords. They were tall, broad men, more than a match for Marcus individually on body mass alone, but he had thirty years of experience behind him.

Experience, and Abby.

“Captain, you don't have to do this,” Abby breathed behind him, her warm hand pressing against the curve of his shoulder blade and the soft touch merely strengthened his resolve.  

“I’ll ask you one more time, Captain,” Shumway smirked. “Stand aside, by order of the King.”

He drew his own sword, his blade glinting in the light seeping through the trees.

And then they attacked.

Both guards charged at once, but Marcus had anticipated that, easily meeting the swing of the first sword with his own, pushing the first attacker away with a sharp jab of his elbow in time to meet the blow of the second. He had less than five seconds to recover before they were on him again, a fist striking him in the jaw before he had chance to block it but managing to sidestep the rather more fatal blow of sharp steel. His jaw throbbed but he pushed through the pain, sucking in a deep, steadying breath as he reminded himself of the stakes.

Abby was still behind him, wide-eyed and pale with fright, but staring at him as if she was seeing him anew. It stirred something in him, his chest tightening with fresh emotion, and he would had missed the next attack entirely if Abby’s eyes had not jerked up, her breath catching in her throat as she called out in a frantic voice, “Captain, look out!”

Marcus thrust his hand out blindly, just in time to stop the progress of the sword heading on a collision course for his heart. It sliced his palm instead, cutting a long, deep line into his tender flesh. The wound stung, the blood hot and sticky against his hand, but he didn't have time to acknowledge it. He had barely enough time to let out a hiss of pain before he was forced to fend off another blow, sore and outnumbered and feeling his body protest with every movement.

“Get your hands off me,” Marcus heard from behind him, his heart stopping dead when he turned to find one of Shumway’s lackeys grasping Abby’s arm, his fingers digging into her flesh hard enough to leave marks, and Marcus felt a surge of adrenaline shoot through him coupled with white hot fury as he watched her struggle against the grip.

He moved without hesitation, forcing his own attacker away from him with a clever aim of his foot, and crossing the distance between him and Abby in an instant. He raised his sword, bringing it down in the direction of his chest but Marcus was quicker, dodging the blow with a swift duck underneath his assailant’s arm and striking out and thrusting his own sword through the flesh of the man’s side.

“This isn't over,” Shumway hissed, fleeing into the forest with his man at his side, the third horse bolting and leaving Marcus alone with Abby and the body of the man that he had killed.

In his three decades of service, this was by no means the first man that Marcus had killed, but it was the first - the only death - that he took genuine pleasure in, knowing what it might have meant for Abby if he had not acted as quickly as he had.

Abby.

He looked around wildly for Abby, his heart hammering furiously in his chest until his eyes fell on her, a couple of feet away from him. He reached for her hand, clasping it without thinking and tugging her in the direction of the trees.

“We have to get off the road. It’s not safe out in the open.”

“But, your hand—”

“I’ll live. But we might not if we don’t get off the road.”

He stopped when he saw the expression on her face. God, what he been thinking, snapping orders as if she was one of his men? His men were trained to deal with ambushes like this; Abby was not.

He softened, the harsh lines of his face smoothing into sympathy as he reached up to cup her cheek with his good hand. The touch was enough to bring Abby back to him, her panicked eyes meeting his, and Marcus gave her his softest smile. “We’re alright, Abby. They’ve gone. I won’t let anybody hurt you.”

Abby let out the breath she had been holding in a rush, and Marcus was relieved to see some of the colour flood back into her cheeks.

“I have to find Clarke.”

Some odd, undefinable feeling tugged at his chest at the hoarse proclamation. She had just been attacked in broad daylight by guards wearing the crest of the King - she might have been killed, would most likely have been if he had allowed Shumway and his men to take her into custody - but all Abby could think about was her daughter’s safety.

“We’ll find her, together,” Marcus promised, and despite all the odds he believed it.

*****

They didn't stop until they had put three hours of distance between them and their attackers, retreating deep into the forest, as far away from the path as they could reasonably get without going in the wrong direction entirely. Abby had no doubt that the commander and his man had fled in the direction of Arkadia to have Kane charged with treason, so she did not expect them to have followed, but with Abby’s life at stake he was not willing to take any chances.

It was her that stopped them, reaching out to grasp Kane’s hand in hers and halting his progress through the trees. They had come to a sort of clearing, a patch of grass and rocks sheltered by the tall shrubs and trees that was as good a place as any for them to regain their strength before they carried on. She suspected Kane would have kept going forever if it had been up to him judging by the way he had charged them through the woods, relentless in his desire to get her to safety, and she felt a surge of guilt for the accusation she had levelled at him before he had killed a man for her.

He’d had no part in the ambush: she knew now he had meant every word he had ever said she met his startled gaze as he turned back to her with a soft smile.

“Captain,” Abby murmured, breathless with exertion. “We’re safe. We can stop now. Besides, someone ought to take a look at that hand.”

She had the hand in question in her grasp, bringing it up, palm flat, to expose the nasty gash that had been left by the blade. It was a bloody mess, smeared with dirt picked up in their retreat from the battle, but it had not slowed him down. From the surprise on his face, Abby suspected the captain had not even registered it. Adrenaline most likely, or sheer bloody mindedness, but she felt admiration for him swell up regardless.

“Come and sit down,” Abby said, already tugging him in the direction of a smooth looking stone that would accommodate both of them. “Let me that a look at it.”

“There's no need,” he protested, shaking his head, the stubborn curl she had noticed back at Vera’s house swaying against his forehead. “I’m-”

“Please,” she insisted, a note of desperation lacing her voice. “It's the least I can do. You saved my life.”

Kane gave a her a shaky smile, relenting and sitting down. “They would have arrested you, not executed you,” he quipped, and Abby sat down next to him with a dubious stare.

“I'm not sure you believe that, Captain.”

His smile faltered, his eyes dropping to his hand, his silence saying more about his doubts than any words could have.

She pulled her bag from her shoulders, dropping it into her lap and rifled through the hastily packed contents. There had not been much time to pack before setting out on the road after Clarke, but she never travelled anywhere without the absolute essentials: a needle in this case, and a small bottle of moonshine.

“Keep your hand just like this,” she murmured, flattening his palm and holding it up to face her. “Keep it steady.”

“Are you going to sing to me?” he asked wryly, watching her progress, and Abby looked up sharply, eyes narrowing briefly before understanding dawned, and she let out a quiet laugh.

“I’m afraid I don’t have magical, healing hair, Captain,” she smirked, dousing a clean cloth she fished from her satchel with moonshine. “Though I’m pleased to hear your mother is consistent in her bedtime stories. We’ll have to do this the old fashioned way. Hold this on your hand, please.”

“The old fashioned way?” he echoed, following her instructions without question and pressing his good hand against his injured palm.

“Medicine, not magic,” she replied, retrieving her needle and dipping it into the bottle. She left it in for twenty seconds, keenly aware of the captain’s eyes on her as she worked, and then threading it swiftly. “I hope you’re not squeamish.”

The captain didn’t reply, but even in the dim light cast by the rapidly setting sun she could see some of the colour leave his cheeks which was answer enough for her. She reached for his hand again, her fingers curling around his in a comforting grasp.

“Hold still,” she said softly, wiping away the last of the sticky blood from his palm and setting to work before the blood began gushing again.

"You're a healer?" he asked in surprise, watching in mounting awe as the needle weaved back and forth, binding his flesh together in a neat, tidy line.

"You needn't sound so shocked...” she replied, trailing off purposefully.

Kane’s head snapped up, his cheeks colouring as he opened his mouth to stutter out a response. “I didn’t mean to imply— Not that I’m surprised because you’re a woman, I just meant—”

He broke off, words failing him utterly, and the remorse on his face endeared him to her almost as much as his proclamation that they would find Clarke together had. Her lips twitched, her eyes twinkling in a manner that was undeniably mirthful, and he gave her a relieved smile.

“You’re teasing me.”

“Well deduced,” she said, her lips curling up in a small smirk as she glanced up from her handiwork.

“That isn't particularly nice after I saved your life ma’am,” he said lightly, and she reluctantly let go of his hand.

“Abby," she murmured. It took him a moment to comprehend what she was asking before his face went slack with surprise, and Abby ducked her head to hide her flush.  "Though if you’re to insist on being so formal, I suppose Mrs. Kane would suffice.”

“Kane—?" His brow creased, then smoothed in swift realisation. "My mother.”

She nodded, busying herself by putting away her equipment.

“She took us in without question. Gave us a new identity. A home. To everyone that’s ever asked, I’ve been a widow of a nephew for the last twelve years." Abby trained her eyes on his hands, busying herself with checking the bandage but she suspected he could see she was not unaffected by the memory. And then she smiled; a small, fragile thing, in an attempt to lighten the conversation. "You were obviously too busy to attend the wedding.”

Kane laughed, flexing his hand and drawing it back to his lap.

“I would have made time had I known a cousin was marrying a queen.”

He didn’t mean it. Abby had no illusions that he believed her to be anything but mentally unbalanced, and she didn’t blame him really. She had left her kingdom, her people, at the mercy of a tyrant for more than a decade and retreated into the safety of anonymity in a remote village: for all intents and purposes she was dead. But she wanted him to believe her, needed him to, for reasons she preferred not to ponder, and she swallowed back her disappointment with difficulty.  

“I haven’t been a queen for a very long time, Captain.”