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“She has twenty four hours. If she’s still here by then, she fights in the arena.” Octavia proclaimed, brushing past Echo and Bellamy, heading back to the bunker.
“Why wait?” Echo called after her.
Octavia paused and turned back around. Echo felt Bellamy grabbing for her arm, whispering something but she ignored him and shook him off.
Echo addressed the crowd around them. “What Blodreina says is true. Six years ago, I almost killed all of you by showing dishonour at the Final Conclave. I was banished for my crimes, both by my king and by Blodreina herself.” She looked back to Octavia, stepping forward and dropping to one knee in front of her. “If this is the method by which I can regain my honour, I’ll do it.”
“So be it.” Octavia said. “On your feet, Ekou kom nou weron. Be there in one hour.”
Echo nodded, getting to her feet, as the sound of horns erupted from the remains of the tower above them, people beginning to flee in the direction of the bunker.
“Diyoza’s ship.” Octavia muttered with distaste. “Time to get below ground.”
“Wait.” Echo whispered, watching carefully as the ship began to disgorge its cargo. “It isn’t missiles.”
“What is it then, spy?”
“My guess? Psychological warfare.”
Echo and Octavia watched as the crates floated towards the ground, and Echo noticed that the one about to land in front of them had something the others did not - an antenna. From her work with Emori and Raven on the Ring, she knew what those did. It would help the enemy communicate their message. A message that Echo had suspected would be coming, and one that could not get out.
The crates opened, food rolling out into the street, and the loudspeakers began to blare. Diyoza’s voice rang through the streets. “People of Wonkru -”
The voice cut out abruptly as Echo’s sword sheared through the antenna, cutting the wires and the transmission, and knocking the loudspeakers from their perch. She turned back to Octavia. “She has nothing good to say. But keep the food.”
Octavia nodded curtly. “One hour. Be there.”
“I will.”
Octavia spun on her heel and headed back into the bunker. Echo felt a hand on her arm again and this time she did turn to face Bellamy.
“Echo, what are you doing? This is insane. You don’t need to fight for her to prove yourself.”
“Yes I do, Bellamy. She was right. This isn’t the Ring. This is the ground. I need to atone for what I’ve done.”
“But you have. You did. For years. I’ve forgiven you.”
“She’s the one whose forgiveness I need, not yours. Most of my wrongs were against her, not you. She is the leader of our people. You can’t challenge her publicly like that, not without consequences. I know our ways still seem strange to you, even after all the history I’ve told you, but you need to respect them. Please. She doesn’t need to be fighting two wars. I know you still see her as your little sister that you raised in space, but she’s not that girl anymore.”
“That’s for sure.”
“She’s a queen, Bellamy. Our queen. If you don’t treat her like one, that’ll diminish her in the eyes of her people, make it harder for her to keep them united. She can’t grant special favours, especially not in the middle of a street like this. She needs to be fair and she needs to treat all of her people equally. If a ruler cannot do that, that’s when rebellion starts. I have experience in these matters. I can help her. But she needs to be able to trust me first. And that starts with that fight.”
“There’s no telling what you might face in that pit.”
“I’m a warrior, and before I went to space I was the commander of Azgeda’s army. A fight does not scare me. But what does scare me right now is you.”
“Me?”
“You’re different. You’re not the brother that Octavia put her faith in to open the bunker after the Conclave. You’re not the man with the big heart that kept us together on the Ring. I don’t even recognize you. We’ve had six years of peace. But by what we’ve seen, your sister hasn’t. War like that, for so long, it changes someone. Take it from someone who grew up in war. She needs your compassion, Bellamy. Remember how you were with me when we first got to the Ring?”
“How could I forget?”
“You didn’t know what to do with me, but you also didn’t let me give up. You didn’t trust me, but you still gave me the opportunity to belong. You fought for me when the others were angry at me for reasons I didn’t understand. You gave me a chance, even when you had no reason to, and every reason to want me dead. Octavia’s done nothing to you. She needs your support. We have to work together if we want to win this war.”
“Can we win this war?”
“I don’t know. But with me and Octavia working together, I’d give us better odds.”
“You think you can trust her, after what she said? She threatened you. Yesterday, she threatened me.”
“After what you told me about that conversation, you deserved it.” Echo stared him down. “Like I said, you can’t challenge her like that in front of her people. You can’t do anything that would make her look weak. So yes, I trust her. And you should too. She’s your blood.”
“But you’re my family.”
Echo smiled sadly. “And that’s why I need to do this. Bellamy, you don’t know how lucky you are. I’m grateful for you, and Monty and Harper and Raven and Emori and yes, even Murphy. You are my family. But that still doesn’t compare to having such a bond your entire life like you’ve had with Octavia. We can’t be at war with one another. Promise me. Promise me that you’ll use your big heart again. That you’ll show your sister the love that she needs. If you don’t do that, there’s no way we can win this war, because she’ll always be looking over her shoulder at you.”
Bellamy sighed. “What if I lose you in that pit?”
“You won’t. I’ve got this.”
* * *
Echo was true to her word - she didn’t end the fight as quickly as she could have, she understood the need for a spectacle, let her opponent get a few minor hits in, but it still ended as she’d planned - the prisoner she was up against flat out on the ground with his throat slit. She raised her sword in triumph, and then dropped to one knee in front of the balcony that held Octavia’s throne, offering her sword up with both hands.
“Ai badan yu klin, Blodreina kom Wonkru. Ai bleirona laik yu bleirona. Ai swega yu klin na gouba raun bilaik yu kru laik ai kru.”
There was silence all around her, despite the crowds that had gathered to watch, and while Echo itched to see the expression on Octavia’s face, she didn’t lift her head, she didn’t stand, she only waited.
“Gyon op, Ekou.” Octavia’s voice came from behind her.
Echo stood and turned, facing Octavia, who was now standing in the middle of the arena with her, knife in one hand. She cut her other palm open, and held the knife out to Echo. Echo did the same, and they joined their bleeding hands together.
“Oso tai choda op kom jus.” Octavia intoned. “Yu laik Wonkru.”
“Oso tai choda op kom jus.” Echo repeated. “Yu laik ai Haiplana.”
Octavia looked out to her people, surrounding the arena. “Echo has earned the right to be called sister. She is one of us now. Omon gon oson.”
“Omon gon oson.” The crowd chanted.
“Omon gon oson.” Echo said, raising her sword in the air again. “Gon uf. Gon gedanes. Gon koma. Gon Blodreina!”
The crowd roared to life, with an enthusiasm that Echo hadn’t yet seen since arriving in Polis, pumping their fists in the air and joining her in chanting Gon Blodreina!
“With me.” Echo heard Octavia say over the chanting as she stalked out of the arena. Echo sheathed her sword and followed her.
A few minutes later, they were alone in Octavia’s office.
“I meant what I said out there.” Octavia said, taking a seat. “I hope you did too. Especially now that you’ve got my people enthusiastic to follow me again.”
“I did.”
“Did my brother put you up to this?”
“No. He thought it was a bad idea. I don’t even know if he came to watch.”
“He was there. But he didn’t look happy.”
“Can’t imagine he would. He doesn’t understand our ways.”
“Our ways?”
“You may have been born in the sky, but you’ve never been one of them. Bellamy thinks that because he raised you, that you were one of them, Skaikru, but you weren’t. You were a Blake.” Echo smiled. “But not Skaikru. Skaikru came to the ground and tried to change us. To colonize us. You came to the ground, and learned our ways and earned your place and your respect as one of us. Which means that as a leader of our people, you must lead like us. Bellamy is having trouble understanding that.”
“I can’t blame him. The things I’ve had to do, Echo… I don’t know how I could even begin to explain them to him.”
“You will, in time. I’d recommend waiting until he gets his head out of his ass to start talking though.”
Octavia chuckled. “Like that’ll ever happen. You know how stubborn he is, I’m sure.”
“I do. But I also know that he loves you more than life itself. He just needs to remember that while he spent six years growing and changing and becoming a different version of himself, you did too, and in much harder circumstances than we had on the Ring. None of us are the same people we were six years ago. Once he recognizes and respects that - and I’ll make sure that he does - he’ll be a lot more tolerable, trust me.”
“You know, I never thought I’d say it, but I do. I do trust you, Ekou kom Wonkru. We have a war to win, and I need someone I can trust who knows how to do that. You in?”
“I’m in.”