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Chapter Text

The boy coughs, clutching at the furs wrapped around his small, fevered body. The fever has made many of the village children sick, and the storyteller is watching the boy and his sister while their parents are working. “Tell a story,” demands the boy.

The storyteller turns to look at the boy. “Alright. I’ll tell a story. It’s a true story, too.”

“Is there warriors?” asks the girl.

The storyteller nods. “Lots.”

“Fisa?”

The storyteller nods again. “Healers, too, and a heda or three. Pirates, even.”

“Monsters?”

The storyteller laughs. “Yes, even a few monsters. Do you want me to tell the story or not?”

The children are quiet, save for the occasional fit of coughing. The storyteller shifts in his chair, getting comfortable.

“Once, a long time ago, there was a village...”

From the moment they touched down in the drop ship, Clarke had been ordering Bellamy around. It was subtle at first, but as the weeks passed and the hundred-and-one settled into life on the ground, her orders went from strong suggestions to outright demands. They got pettier, too. Instead of “build that wall” or “put up those tents,” it was “fill this bucket” and “bring me some rags.”

His answer was always, “As you wish.” He had said it mockingly at first, but as the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, it became more sincere. She was strong, a warrior and a leader. It was on her orders and by her strategy that they had made peace with the grounders.

They had come to their first spring on the ground, and Clarke was working on a trade agreement with the grounders to get seeds for their own crops, and a treaty fitting for peacetime now that they had flushed the mountain men out of the mountain. She had been working at the trade agreement for over six weeks, in between caring for the sick and injured, and she issued orders to Bellamy almost constantly.

“As you wish” began to mean something new as the snows melted and the days lengthened. Bellamy understood it first, but it took Clarke longer to come to the same understanding. Instead of yeah, sure, whatever you say, it meant I’m all yours. It might have even meant I love you.

“Bellamy!” Clarke shouted as she walked through the gate into the camp, followed by Raven and Monty. 

Bellamy appeared from behind a tent. “How’d the negotiations go?” he asked. She’d been gone longer than he expected her to be, but it was the first peace-time treaty they’d negotiated.

“I need everyone in the clearing,” she said. “I want to explain the agreements before anyone starts any rumors.”

Bellamy nodded. “As you wish.” He whistled at one of the sentries sitting on a watchtower, and then nodded. The sentry got out a big metal pan and starting banging on it with a large, crudely carved wooden spoon.

The clearing in front of the dropship filled up within minutes. Clarke knew there were probably a few people who were absent, but it didn’t really matter, so long as most of the camp got the information. Bellamy brought her a box, and she stood in front of the dropship and outlined the treaty for everyone to hear.

The hundred would stay within the boundaries outlined by the grounders, and in return the grounders wouldn’t attack them. Anyone who wanted to go outside the very generous boundaries would have to petition the leadership of the hundred, who in turn would talk to Lexa and her people. The other major part of the treaty was an exchange of personnel. The grounders would send some of their people to learn from the hundred (mostly healers and builders), and the hundred would allow the grounders to choose a few of the hundred to be trained as warriors.

“The commander is sending the warriors tomorrow at midday. They’re going to look at everyone. No exceptions.”

“What about you?” someone shouted.

“If they choose me, I go,” Clarke said, though she already knew they wouldn’t choose her; she was the leader of the hundred, and the one who had brokered the agreement with the grounders. If she left, the treaty could very well fall apart.

Bellamy saw John Murphy roll his eyes and disappear somewhere else. Clarke dismissed the hundred back to their duties and went to check up on Octavia and the few patients they had in the dropship. Bellamy followed her in. “There’s something you’re not telling,” he said.

Clarke shrugged. “Open the clinic,” she told him. “Please.”

Bellamy gave her a sarcastic bow. “As you wish.”

The clinic was something Clarke did for the hundred and grounders alike, opening the dropship and the medical services to people who had questions or who weren’t necessarily in need of medical attention. She also tended to her follow-up patients when the clinic was open. The clinic had irregular hours, but it was open at least an hour a day, signalled by a flag flying from the top of the dropship.

Octavia assisted Clarke at the clinic, and Bellamy hung around so that Clarke could put him to use if she needed. When dusk started to fall over the camp, he pulled the flag down and they closed up the clinic.

While Clarke made another round of the dropship, Bellamy went to the cookfires and brought back food for him and for Clarke. Octavia found him just outside the dropship, a bowl in each hand, and asked, “Where’s mine?”

“Sorry, O. I only have two hands.”

Octavia rolled her eyes. “Sure, Bell.” She flashed him a cheeky grin and walked off toward the cookfires. He found Clarke in the meeting tent next to the dropship, sketching a map of the boundaries outlined in the treaty.

“Hungry?” he asked.

Clarke looked up and took one of the bowls from him. “Thanks. How’s the camp?”

Bellamy shrugged, pulled a stool out from underneath the table, and plunked himself down onto it. “Half of them are hoping they don’t get picked tomorrow. The other half are arguing about who’s more likely to get picked. Miller says he’s had to pull a few people apart who were trying to prove a point. Nothing unusual, though.”

“I want extra guards tonight. Nobody’s running away from this, not if I can help it.”

“Double?”

Clarke thought for a moment, then nodded. “Put a pair of guards at each post. Tell them anyone who leaves is likely to get shot by grounders, and anyone who doesn’t is going to answer to me.”

Bellamy smirked. “As you wish.”

“After you’re done, you should get some sleep. We’ll have a lot to do tomorrow if we’re going to be ready for planting.” She said it stiffly, and Bellamy wondered what she wasn’t saying.

Still, he knew better than to try to force it out of her, so he just said, “As you wish.” He finished his food, and when she was done, he took her bowl with him back to the cookfires, dealt with the guard situation, and went to bed.

The grounders chose twelve to become warriors. Clarke watched from the mouth of the dropship while they inspected every member of the camp, and she wasn’t surprised at any of their choices. When they finished their inspection, one of the warriors came to her and said, “We leave at dawn.”

Clarke nodded. The grounders went to the tent Clarke had set aside for them, and the moment they were gone, she was accosted by the twelve who had been chosen. Bellamy was at their head. Of the other eleven, nine were from the guard, and the other two were the camp’s best hunters. The grounders had pulled out a lot of the infrastructure of the camp. She would have a hell of a time keeping the camp running smoothly.

“What the hell, Griffin!” Monroe snapped. “You’re not going to have a freaking guard left at this camp!”

Clarke looked at the chosen warriors. “We won’t need a guard. You’re the best we have to offer the grounders, the twelve of you. We need you; without you, this whole treaty will fall apart. You have until dawn to prepare. Any tasks you had today will be reassigned; you have the rest of the day off.”

They dispersed with some disgruntled mumbling, all except Bellamy, who had been staring at Clarke. “You knew they’d pick me,” he said.

She shrugged a shoulder. “I’d pick you.”

“And you still agreed to it?”

“We need the treaty if we’re going to survive.”

Bellamy knew she was right, but he hated it anyway.

“But you’d better come back, or I’ll never forgive you.”

Bellamy gave Clarke a smile and an exaggerated bow. “As you wish.”

Clarke spent the rest of the afternoon running the clinic, and when dusk fell, she sent Bellamy to bed for a good night’s sleep. She slept poorly, herself; though she wouldn’t admit it, she was worried about Bellamy and the others. She knew they were all strong, but training as a warrior was a long, treacherous road, and her people were all much older than most trainees.

Bellamy found her just before dawn, working at the table in the meeting tent. “We’re leaving soon.”

Clarke put her pencil down and came to stand in front of Bellamy. She wanted to tell him to be safe, but that was an absurd request, so she said, “Don’t die.”

Bellamy smirked. “I won’t die; who else is going to be your knight in leather armor?”

Clarke shook her head, smiling, and then threw her arms around him. “Seriously, though, Bellamy.”

“I know, princess.” He looped his arms around her, and they stood together for a minute or two before Bellamy cleared his throat. “I have to go.”

Clarke took a half-step back, then put a sweet little kiss at the corner of his mouth.

“What was that for?”

“Luck,” she said.

Bellamy smiled. One of the grounders shouted gruffly, and Bellamy left the tent.

A week later, one of Lexa’s people showed up at the dropship. The warriors and the trainees had run afoul of an ambush by a small band of rogues known as the Trikovakru; the rogue heda had killed all twelve of Clarke’s people.

Clarke kept her composure until the messenger had left. Then she went up into the top level of the dropship, where the supplies were stored, locked the hatch, and cried for a good hour. When she came out, she told the rest of the camp what had happened; dinner that night turned into a memorial service for the twelve, complete with Monty’s moonshine and about fifty-eight vows of revenge against the Trikovakru.

Chapter Text

“You’re telling it wrong,” says the girl.

The storyteller raises an eyebrow, surprised. “I am?”

“Shof op, Athena,” the boy snaps. “Let him tell it all the way.”

The girl pouts. “This better be good.”

The storyteller adjusts his furs and continues his story.

“Five years passed. A clan from the north took over what was left of Mount Weather, and conquered the people of the forest who had been living pretty peacefully. The conquering heda announced that he would take one of the forest people for his wife: the healer from the Sky Clan.”

The girl, Athena, makes a disgusted noise and pulls her furs up to her nose.

“Clarke was still allowed to go out to collect herbs, and it was those times she looked forward to...”

Clarke kicked her toes against a tree, trying to get the mud off her fur-lined boots. Kaiza had sent two of his warriors with her, as usual, and though he claimed they were for her protection, she knew they were mostly there to keep her from running away. She wasn’t going to run away, of course—her people would suffer at the hands of Kaiza if she didn’t go through with the wedding—but Kaiza was nothing if not careful.

Her satchel was full of the herbs and roots she needed, and Kaiza’s men followed her back toward Mount Weather. They called themselves Maunkru—mountain men. The entire forest lived in fear of them; they had no crazy science experiments, but Kaiza’s people were a little too fond of torture, and they had access to a lot of the instruments left in Mount Weather.

A roar sounded from somewhere in front of them. Something big and mean stood between Clarke and Mount Weather. She retreated a few steps as the warriors crept forward. Something big, black, and fast flew out of the trees, pouncing on the nearest warrior. Clarke didn’t wait to see what it was; she ran in the opposite direction. The trees and bushes clawed at her hair and clothes as she ran, and she abandoned her satchel when it caught on a branch. She ran until she came to the river, but by then the screams of the two warriors had died. She hoped the two burly men were enough to occupy the predator, and that it wouldn’t come looking for her.

She stood on the bank of the river and looked toward the mountain. She could run. She could soak a scrap of her clothes in blood and leave it on the riverbank. Kaiza would think she was dead, killed by the animal that had taken both of the warriors, or eaten by the vicious eels that lived in the river.

But her people... If Kaiza didn’t believe Clarke was dead—and maybe even if he did—the people of the Sky Clan would suffer. She couldn’t just leave them. Could she?

The bushes rustled, and three men appeared out of the forest. One was masked, one wore a deep hood, and the other’s face was painted. “Em laik fisa,” said the man with the face paint. He leaned toward Clarke for a better look. She thought he looked a bit familiar. “Em na laik Kaiza houmon!”

“So this is the bride-to-be of the illustrious conqueror king,” said the hooded man in English. “She’s quite pretty.” The hooded man shrugged. “Bring her.”

Clarke looked behind her at the eel-infested water, and then someone hit her on the head, hard, and she passed out.

“Why do you keep looking back there?” asked the hooded man.

The painted man glanced behind the raft again. “Are you sure no one’s following us?”

The hooded man snorted, digging dirt from beneath his fingernails with the point of his knife. “Nobody at the mountain has realized she’s missing, and nobody else saw us leave.”

“Hm.” The painted man looked at the healer. She was starting to stir.

The hooded man sheathed the knife. “Why do you ask?”

The painted man shrugged. “I think there’s someone following us.” He pointed to a dark shape on the river behind them.

“That? It’s just a log.”

“It looks like a man in a canoe.”

The dark shape moved in a way that floating logs didn’t move. “Go faster!” snapped the hooded man. 

The masked man, who had been shoving the raft along the river with a long pole, said, “We’ll crash if I go any faster.”

The healer groaned, her head lolling from side to side. The painted man looked up at the masked man. He picked up a second pole and stood at the front of the raft, dead center. “Let’s do this.”

The masked man poled faster, the painted man shoved the raft away from rocks and stumps, and soon enough the raft rounded a bend in the river and came to a halt in a little shallow cove half-hidden behind moss and branches. The painted man peeked out and saw the canoe, and the man in it, coming around the bend. Fast.

“Moni, we need your climbing hooks, like, now,” said the painted man. The masked man took two contraptions out of his bulging knapsack and handed one to his painted friend. The healer was awake by now, but she seemed to be waiting. Listening. “Come on, princess,” said the painted man. “You’re coming up with me.”

The painted man got the healer to her feet while the other two started climbing up the wall. There were ruins atop the wall, and beyond the ruins lay scattered stands of trees leading south into territory the Maunkru hadn’t conquered. The hooded man’s hood slid down as he climbed, but he and the masked man kept climbing. The painted man climbed his own rope with the healer holding on to him, since she was blindfolded and bound and wouldn’t make it up the rope on her own. At the top, the hooded man shouted at the painted man to hurry up. He got to the top just as their pursuer, a man dressed in all black furs, paddled his canoe into the hidden cove. They pulled their ropes up, and the masked man loaded the contraptions back into his knapsack. 

“You!” barked the hooded man, stabbing a finger at the painted man. “Don’t let him follow us.”

“What do you want me to do? Duel him?”

“If that’s what it takes, yes. You’re as good with a sword as any one of your people could hope to be. You’re certainly better than he is.”

The painted man looked down the wall. The man in black was climbing the wall using the plants and cracks. It would be slow going, but he could probably make it to the top. “I’ll deal with him,” said the painted man, but the hooded man and the masked man were already walking away, healer in tow. He watched the man in black scale the wall; it felt like watching grass grow. The painted man searched around the ruins and found a long, broken willow branch. He threw one end down to the man in black. 

“What’s this for?” asked the man in black. He spoke the language of the people, not the language of warriors.

“You’re going to wear yourself out climbing up like that,” answered the painted man in the same tongue. “Also, I’m getting really bored waiting up here.”

“So you want me to hurry up so you can kill me?”

“If you take the branch, you might have a fighting chance. If you climb up the long way, you’ll be too tired. It’ll be too easy.”

The man in black took the ivy and was up the wall in minutes. He drew his sword, but the painted man shook his head. “I’m not a coward. I’ll let you catch your breath f—”

The man in black lunged, and the painted man drew his sword and blocked the swing in one smooth move.

“Or we’ll fight,” said the painted man as their blades clashed. They fought all over the ruins, and the painted man was surprised at his opponent’s skill. “You don’t have six fingers on your hand, do you?”

The man in black slashed viciously. “Only five. Why?”

“I’m looking for a six-fingered man,” the painted man said between blows. “He captured my village and burnt it to the ground. He took all the people, too. I was out hunting, so I wasn’t captured, but I saw him leading my people away. The hand that held his knife had six fingers.”

The man in black deftly disarmed the painted man. “That’s a shame. If I see him, I’ll leave him for you, shall I?”

The painted man sank to his knees. “Get it over with.”

The man in black laughed. “I’m not going to kill you,” he said. “But I don’t want you following me, so—” He struck the painted man on the head with the hilt of his blade. In the tongue of the warriors, he said, “Sleep tight, Jasper Jordan.”

The hooded man stopped at the crest of a hill and looked back. A small, black dot emerged from the trees surrounding the ruins. “That’s the man in black,” said the masked man.

The hooded man growled. “That’s it. You stop him. I’m taking the healer with me. Deal with him and catch up to us.”

The masked man looked at the healer. She had been unusually quiet since she woke, and the masked man wondered if she had really changed that much. No, she was probably just waiting for the opportune moment. “I’ll deal with him,” said the masked man. He dug through his knapsack and pulled out a series of contraptions. The hooded man and the healer took off down the other side of the hill, leaving the masked man to set out his traps.

The man in black stopped running when he was halfway up the hill. He approached the crest of the hill cautiously, stepping around the boulders that littered the otherwise open field. He detected the first trap before it went off, and when the masked man tried to move closer, a knife zinged by his face. The man in black stood with a second knife in his hand, flipping it in the air and catching it by the blade. “I didn’t have to miss,” he said in the tongue of the common people.

“I believe you,” said the masked man.

“Why don’t we do this like men?” asked the man in black.

“You mean you’ll put away your knives and I’ll put away my traps and we’ll fight like civilized human beings?”

The man in black laughed. “If you mean bare-handed, yes.”

“Deal.” The masked man darted between the rocks, quickly disarming and packing up his traps. When the area was clear, he put his pack down by a rock and put his fists up. The man in black just stood there. He kept standing there, even when the masked man had done his best to look completely ready to go. The masked man rushed him, and somehow, even though the two men were of roughly equal size, the man in black didn’t move. He didn’t even flinch. The masked man tried again, with similar results. “What are you doing?” cried the masked man.

“I’m just trying to give you a taste of not losing.” And when the masked man rushed his opponent again, he lasted about twelve seconds before the man in black had him pinned to the ground in an arm bar.

“Get it over with,” grunted the masked man.

“I’m not going to kill you,” the man in black promised. “But I really don’t need you following me, so—” He landed a jab square on the masked man’s temple. He pulled away the mask and nodded to himself. “Good night, Monty Green. Sorry in advance about the headache.” He put the mask back on the masked man’s face and trotted off down the other side of the hill.

Chapter Text

Kaiza crouched among the ruins. His gonakru waited on his command. “They fought,” he said gruffly. “The loser went to the river. The winner went that way.” Kaiza nodded away from the river, toward a rocky hill. “We follow the winner. He has the healer.”

Rougen followed close behind Kaiza. “Heda, this may be a trap.”

Kaiza snorted derisively. “I always expect traps, Rougen. How do you think I’ve stayed alive so long?”

Rougen nodded. Kaiza had wisdom beyond his years; that’s why he was heda. Rougen knew he had a great honor, being the right hand of a leader as great as Kaiza.

The hooded man poured strong, sweet wine into two cups and set them on the stump. He had tied the healer to a tree nearby. He was waiting, sitting at the stump, when the man in black appeared. The man in black looked at the healer, then at the hooded man. “This is a strange custom,” the man in black said. He spoke in English, and gave the hooded man a wry smile.

“Hardly. You are trying to take my prize. You’ve bested both of my warriors, and now I challenge you to a battle of minds.”

The man in black glanced to the woman tied to the tree. “For the healer?”

“To the death,” answered the hooded man.

The man in black shrugged. “Alright, I accept. What’s it to be?”

“I have a small amount of juswoda poison which has no taste or smell, but one drop in a cup of wine will kill a man.” The hooded man held up a vial containing a very small amount of a clear liquid—only a few drops. “I will turn around, and you will put the poison in one of these cups. Then I will choose a cup, and we will drink.”

The man in black smiled. “Sounds fair.”

When the hooded man turned back to the stump to choose his cup, he stroked his graying beard. “The choice is simple. All I need to do is decide from what I know of you, whether or not you are the kind of man who would put the poison in his own cup, or in his opponent’s.”

The man in black expected the hooded man to choose, then and there, but the hooded man began to talk—ramble, really—about the convoluted kind of logic that accompanied games like this. The man in black rested his face in his hands.

“Oh, just pick a damn cup!” snapped the healer. She spoke English, too—not that the man in black was surprised.

The hooded man humphed. “Alright, fine. Let’s drink. I from my cup, and you from yours.”

The man in black lifted his cup to his opponent, and they drained their cups in unison. The hooded man chuckled and drew a long, thin knife. “Well played, but that vial only held water! And now I have won!”

The man in black smiled smugly. “Did you?” He held up a second vial. “Juswoda poison.”

The hooded man’s fingers clenched around the knife as he coughed. Blood dribbled from his lips, and he lurched forward onto the makeshift table, knocking the cups to the ground. The man in black checked the hooded man’s neck for a pulse and finally saw his face.

“Took you long enough,” muttered the man in black. He pulled the hood back over his dead opponent’s face, then pulled out his knife and cut the ropes that bound the woman to the tree. He undid the ropes at her wrists, too, and removed her blindfold. That, he realized too late, was a mistake.

Clarke lunged at the man in black, throwing him to the ground. The paint on her face marked her as a healer, but the skill with which she fought marked her as a warrior. “Take me back to the mountain,” she demanded when she had succeeded in pinning him to the ground, one knee in his back.

“Why? You don’t want to marry Kaiza,” the man in black grunted into the dirt.

“What do you know about it? Kaiza is a warrior, and you—you’re just a pirate.”

The man in black twisted and in three swift moves, he was tying Clarke’s wrists behind her back.

“Who are you?” she demanded when he lifted her to her feet.

The man in black gave her a little shove. He ran a sleeve across his face; he had started to sweat profusely. “Not anyone to mess with, princess. That’s all you need to know.”

They started walking, but the going was slow, since the man in black had started trembling, and he was practically dripping sweat. “How’d you know he’d choose his own cup?” Clarke asked.

“I didn’t. I’ve spent the last few years building up a tolerance to juswoda.” He mopped his face with his sleeve. “He isn’t the first person to try that game with me.”

“You have a fever.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Clarke huffed and kept walking. They stopped at the edge of a steep valley; the only way across was to climb down and back up the other side, or else they would have to follow it until it leveled out into a putrid, acid-ridden swamp. The man in black threw himself down onto a patch of grass, leaning against a log. “Rest,” he commanded. Clarke sat on the other end of the log.

“You won’t outrun Kaiza,” she told him. “He’s a conqueror and a tracker. You’re no match for him.”

The man in black laughed. “You think your mighty knight lover will save you.”

“I didn’t say he was my lover, jackass.” Clarke glared at him. “I didn’t say he was a knight, either. But he will find me and take me back to the mountain.”

The man in black got to his feet. “We’re wasting time. If your conqueror boyfriend is going to come get you, I’m sure as hell not going to make it easy on him.” He grabbed Clarke by the arm and pulled her to her feet. When they were on their way again, he asked, “What’s at the mountain, anyway? A secret lover or something?”

“My people are in the mountain. It’s no secret that I’d do anything for them.”

The man in black snorted at that. “You wouldn’t fight Kaiza for them,” he accused. “You abandoned the mountain after you cleared out the original mountain men, and when Kaiza moved in, you didn’t bother trying to flush him out. He conquered the whole forest, and you didn’t do a thing to stop it.”

Clarke whirled, and even though her hands were bound, she shoved him backward, an ugly, mean expression on her painted face. “I did what was best for my people. Kaiza would have slaughtered us if we hadn’t surrendered. He let my people live. You just go around killing people, without honor or respect!”

The man in black crossed his arms over his chest.

“I know who you are. It’s obvious, the way you dress and the way you act. Yu laik heda kom Trikovakru.”

The shadow man threw his arms wide. “Well done, princess.” He affected a mocking bow. “What can I do for you, my lady?”

“You can die a thousand deaths,” she growled. “I’ll let each one of my people cut you twice before you burn.” She spat at his feet.

“Now, now. What have I done?”

“You killed twelve of my people. You murdered my right-hand man.”

“Your right hand? Who was he, this right hand of yours? Some sky-prince, probably.”

“No. He was a warrior among our people, and a leader. He and the others were on their way to be trained in the ways of the forest clans. Your people ambushed them, killed them all.”

The shadow man tapped his chin. “You know, I think I remember them. Sky People, weren’t they? I knew them because they were dressed funny. One of them had the walk of a leader; the others stood behind him. He had little spots on his face, like a dusting of brown mold.”

“They’re called freckles.”

“I remember him,” said the shadow man, amused. “He fought well, and he refused to die. He said the leader of his people had sent him and his companions to keep the peace that would make the sky people and the forest people stronger.” He snorted. “You should be glad I killed them before they found out how weak you really are.”

Clarke lunged at him again. “Shut up!” she screeched. She swept his legs out from under him with a fierce kick, and he stumbled backward. 

He tripped over a tree root, trying to right himself with some wild arm-swinging, and then he was tumbling down the side of the valley, yelling as you wish as he bounced over sticks and rocks.

Her heart pounded erratically in her chest. “Oh, shit,” Clarke muttered. “Bellamy!” She started down the slope, but with her hands tied behind her back, she couldn’t keep her balance, and she tripped, tumbling down after him into the little trickle of a creek that ran along the valley floor.

Chapter Text

The water woke Bellamy. It was cold, and it was getting in his ear. His mask had fallen off in the course of his tumble down the hill. He moved, and groaned when he discovered that every inch of him was covered in bruises. “Ow...”

“Bellamy?”

Clarke was moving now, too, getting to her knees and then her feet, hands still tied behind her back.

“Hang on, princess,” he said through his teeth as he got to his feet. He yanked a knife from his belt and sliced through the rope around her wrists. “Nice to s—”

The force of her slap wrenched his neck painfully. His face stung, too.

“I deserved that.”

Clarke’s lips were pressed together in a thin line. She nodded tersely.

“Nice to see you, too, princess.” He cleared his throat. “How do we get out of here? Kaiza’s probably not far behind now, if he’s as good a tracker as you think he is.”

“We’ll go through the swamp.” Clarke nodded toward the other end of the valley.

“We’ll die in the swamp,” Bellamy protested.

Clarke shrugged. “Either we go through the swamp, which might kill us, or we get caught by Kaiza, and he will kill you.” She took him by the hand and started toward the swamp. Acid geysers erupted from the ground at odd intervals. Now that they were walking into it, Bellamy realized it wasn’t a natural swamp at all, but some kind of old factory whose volatile chemicals had turned the land into a deadly field of acid mud and radioactive mutant organisms. The buildings had crumbled or melted in the last hundred years, leaving only vague outlines sketched in rusted, warped metal.

“There’s no way we’re going to survive this,” Bellamy said. “We’re radiation-proof, not acid-proof.”

Clarke looked out at the swamp. It might be possible to make it through, if they stuck to the islands and pillars of concrete. She glanced back behind them. A series of smudges appeared on the ridgeline. “If anyone’s going to kill you, it’s gonna be me. Let’s go.”

Clarke and Bellamy picked through the deadly acid together. Sometimes Clarke would lead the way, and other times she would defer to Bellamy, when he could see a path she couldn’t.

Clarke’s foot slipped on an unstable block of concrete. Bellamy caught her before she fell, but her foot splashed into the acid. She kicked wildly, trying to get the acid off, but the damage was already done; it had eaten through the fur of her boot, leaving only the skin. Any more acid, and she would have been nursing a chemical burn.

“Whoa, there. Did you get splashed?”

Clarke examined her foot, then shook her head. “Just my boot. You?”

Bellamy looked down. “Nope. I’m fine.”

Clarke nodded. “Right. Don’t touch the acid. Just so you know.”

“I think we’re almost out,” Bellamy said, craning his neck and looking over the swamp in front of them. “Can’t be that much farther, right?”

“Sure.” Clarke found the next step in their treacherous path and kept going. “So, are you actually leader of the Shadow Clan, or did you just make all that up?”

“I didn’t make it up.” He hoisted himself onto a concrete pillar. The pillar was fairly narrow, connected to the next pillar by a metal beam. Clarke had one foot on the beam, but they were still standing extremely close to each other.

“How’d you do it?” she asked. “Because obviously you’re not the original heda.”

Bellamy leaned a little closer to Clarke, a smirk playing on his mouth. “Do you want the short version or the long version?”

He was so close; surely the pillar wasn’t that small. “The complete version,” she said.

He hid a smile behind a surreptitious nose-scratching as she crept out onto the beam. “When we got attacked, we all fought back. A few of the others ran; I ended up wrestling the heda’s right hand after I knocked his weapon out of his hand. He beat the shit out of me, of course, but the heda decided to take me captive instead of kill me. I was a slave for years, but I watched, and I learned. Eventually, I got promoted from slave to manservant, and then, about a year and a half ago, the heda agreed to let one of the warriors take me as second.”

“Okay, this is clearly the long version,” Clarke said. They were three pillars along the chain now, and the last beam was uncomfortably close to an acid geyser.

“Anyway, six months ago, the heda and I had a disagreement. He wanted to do something, I told him it was tactically stupid, he challenged me to single combat, and I won.”

“And the others just... followed you? Like that?”

Bellamy shrugged and hurried across the beam in between acid spurts. “They all thought it was stupid, too. I was just the only one who said anything.”

Clarke shook her head. “I can’t believe you managed that.” She jumps down from the pillar onto a swath of black cement that led to regular dirt and grass. “And we made it.”

Bellamy jumped down beside her. “And we didn’t die.” He grinned winningly, and slipped his hand into Clarke’s as if that were the only way to travel.

Three steps forward, and they were surrounded. Four warriors drove them backward, but when they tried to retreat into the swamp, four more barred their way. “Kaiza,” she growled. Her husband-to-be wore a mask, but she would know that stance anywhere.

“Frag em op.” Kaiza commanded his right hand, but Clarke stepped between Bellamy and Rougen.

“No. If you kill him, you have to kill me, too.”

Kaiza growled viciously. Clarke could see the murder in his eyes. “Let him go, and I’ll go back to the mountain with you.”

“Clarke!” Bellamy protested.

“I’m not going to get you killed twice,” she told him, her eyes fixed on Kaiza’s. She dropped Bellamy’s hand and grabbed her knife, ready to spring at Kaiza if anyone made so much as a move toward Bellamy.

Kaiza huffed and stepped back. “My future wife has spirit,” he said, chuckling. He nodded to his right hand. “Let the boy live, Rougen.” He took Clarke by the arm and pulled her away, marching her across the field toward the river.

Bellamy watched them go. “You’re not letting me go anywhere, are you?” he asked Rougen.

“There are seven of us and one of you. We could make it a chase.”

Bellamy looked at the massive hulks surrounding him. “Why don’t we skip the chase and you just kill me now?”

“A warrior keeps his word.” Rougen grinned wickedly, and then slid his sword back into its scabbard. Bellamy saw that his hand was disfigured, though he had tried to hide it in his glove.

“You have six fingers on your hand. I know someone who was looking for you.”

Rougen snarled and hit Bellamy over the head.

There was a healer standing over Bellamy when he woke, applying salve to Bellamy’s bruises and scrapes. His wrists, ankles, and head were tied down. Aside from his face, he couldn’t move. “Where am I?” he asked the healer. He spoke in the sleng of the forest.

“Toucha,” the healer answered. His white hair had been dyed blue in places, like an extension of his blue tattoos.

“Ba yu ste fis ai op,” Bellamy protested.

The healer shrugged. “Ai fis yu op gon Kaiza.”

“Kaiza,” Bellamy grumbled. “Kaiza na frag ai op?”

The healer shook his head and pointed to a large, horrible-looking contraption across the room. It looked like it had been cobbled together from the machinery and medical equipment left in the mountain. “Kaiza na breik yu op,” said the healer. He put the salve on a shelf, checked that Bellamy’s bonds were tight, and left.

“Torture,” Bellamy said to the empty room. “Great.”

Chapter Text

The Maunkru didn’t live inside Mount Weather. Kaiza’s people hated the tunnels. They lived in little camps, one outside each entrance, and kept Clarke’s people corralled in the mountain instead. Ever since the swamp incident, Kaiza refused to let Clarke out of the camps. She wasn’t allowed to tend to the sick, either; she had to leave that up to the other healers while she sat in the large meeting tent or stayed holed up in her room. Instead, she spent most of her time glaring at Kaiza or Rougen while they held meetings or discussed strategy or played endless rounds of a game Clarke never quite figured out the rules to.

Today, she slouched in a big wooden chair next to a small wooden table, idly scratching designs into the table with the point of her knife.

Kaiza slammed a cup on the table next to Clarke. It was full of berries and little chunks of well-cooked meat. “Eat,” he demanded.

Clarke glared at him. “I’m not hungry.”

Kaiza growled. Clarke had stopped being scared of Kaiza a long time ago. “This is about that boy I found you with, isn’t it?”

Clarke speared a berry on the end of her knife. She licked it; it was sour and unripe. She flicked it at Kaiza. It flew past him and landed harmlessly in the grass somewhere beyond. “You didn’t let him go, did you?” She inspected another bit of fruit, and decided to smash it into the table rather than eat it. The color leaked out of it and stained the wood where she’d scraped off the beeswax that protected the table from the rain.

Kaiza didn’t answer. He had given his word that he would let Bellamy live; as a warrior, Kaiza would not kill Bellamy—but there had been other warriors there, including Rougen. Her word choice had likely doomed Bellamy to death, or worse.

“Did you kill him?” she asks anyway.

“No.”

Clarke stabbed her knife into the table. “Spichen!” she spat, knocking the cup of fruit and meat at Kaiza with her fist. “Yu don kot em op, don frag em op! Spichen! Spichen! Yu ste kwel!” She was furious, and when she was furious, she liked to yell in the language of the forest. It felt better on her tongue than English. She was accusing the wrong man, of course, but she wanted Kaiza to know she hated him enough to question his honor as a warrior.

“Nou mou!” barked Kaiza. He jerked his head at one of his warriors. “Take her to her room.” He waved a hand dismissively, and the warrior pulled Clarke out of her chair and dragged her into the mountain; a small room near the entrance served as Clarke’s sleeping room, at least until after the ceremony. Since there was nothing else to do—she had no art supplies, even though there were plenty in the vaults—she lay on her bed and took a nap.

The morning after the wedding feast, Kaiza took Clarke down into the mountain and presented her to her people as his chosen.

“What?!” screeches the girl. “That’s not how the story goes!”

The storyteller stops. “Are you sure?”

“Clarke can’t marry Kaiza! He’s evil!”

“Athena!” the boy snaps. “It’s how the story goes.”

“It’s stupid. She’s supposed to save Bellamy and free her people.”

“We can tell it your way, if you want,” says the storyteller.

“No!” protests the boy. “Athena’s never heard this one before. She doesn’t know it.”

The girl sticks her tongue out.

“Keep going,” the boy says. “Beja.”

The storyteller waits, but the girl doesn’t interrupt again. “So Kaiza took Clarke down into the mountain and presented her to her people as his chosen...”

Clarke looked at her people. All of them were quiet, watching the conqueror assert himself as their new heda —this time by bond and blood. “ Ripa ! Ripa !” someone shouted. Octavia strode through the crowd, shouting insults. Her eyes were red and she wore the face of a woman ready to kill.

“Ripa!”

“I’m not a killer,” Clarke answered feebly.

“You left my brother for dead so you could go back to your cozy life with him.” Octavia jabbed a dagger at Kaiza, who didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the girl hurling insults at his wife.

“Kaiza would have killed us both if I hadn’t!” Clarke protested.

Octavia growled. “Bellamy saved you in the acid swamp, and you left him to die. You’re as bad as he says, and you don’t care about your people, or you would have fought for him, too. Or did you forget what you were before Kaiza?”

Clarke shook her head, but now all her people had taken up the chant. “Ripa! Ripa!”

She woke gasping, sweating. She stormed to the door and demanded to see Kaiza.

“I told you,” says the girl. She sticks her tongue out at her brother.

The storyteller smiles. “Yes, you’re very clever.”

Her husband-to-be was annoyed. Clarke didn’t care. “Where is he?”

Kaiza cleaned his fingernails with a knife. “Chon?”

Clarke’s fists clenched. “Where. Is. He.”

“Ai teik em gon we.” Kaiza shrugged.

“You know where he is. I know you do.” She gritted her teeth. She would have spat at him if the warrior next to her had looked a little less like he wanted to throw her off a cliff.

“Chon em bilaik?” Kaiza asked.

Clarke took a step toward Kaiza, staring him square in the eye. “He was my right hand.”

Kaiza laughed. Whether because he didn’t think Clarke warrior enough to have a right hand, or because he didn’t think Bellamy warrior enough to be Clarke’s right hand, Clarke didn’t know. Kaiza waved a hand at her, and his warriors escorted her out, back to her room.

Bellamy yanked and struggled against the straps that held him down, but he might as well have been yanking on the mountain itself; he wasn’t getting free of his own power. The healer hadn’t been to tend him in a long time, and the next time the door opened, it was the heda ’s right hand, and he looked too happy for Bellamy’s liking.

He dragged Bellamy’s gurney over next to the machine and started attaching all kinds of things to Bellamy. “You should know before I start that your little healer friend thinks you’re dead.”

“It’s not the first time,” Bellamy muttered.

Rougen flicked a couple of switches and the machine whirred to life. “I don’t know what this does,” he said. “But it’s going to be painful.” His grin was all too wide as he flicked a few more switches. Bellamy felt an electric current run through his body. It was almost pleasant at first, but then his skin started to crawl; the longer the current ran through his body, the more it hurt, until he was shaking violently, trying to give the energy somewhere to go. When Rougen finally switched the machine off, Bellamy was sweating and panting and the sudden lack of stimulation made his muscles cramp painfully.

“Did that hurt?” Rougen asked.

Bellamy whimpered, but he refused to make a noise. Rougen went back to the machine and turned it on again.

Monty poled the raft toward the shore. There was a bunker here where Monty and Jasper had spent a lot of time hiding from Kaiza’s men or from mutant predators. Monty hoped to find Jasper here. If he didn’t... well, this was the last place he had left to look.

Monty tied the raft to a tree and climbed down the hatch. “Jasper?” he called into the semi-darkness. The emergency lights in the ceiling still glowed faintly, despite being over a hundred years old. Monty found a lantern, turned it on, and held it in front of him.

Jasper was asleep in one of the beds. He smelled like booze, and the paint on his face, which usually resembled the goggles he used to wear, had been badly smeared, making him look like a drunk raccoon.

Monty shook him awake. “Jasper!”

Jasper moaned. “‘M fine,” he said. “I’m—oh, hey, Monty! When’d you get here?”

Monty rolled his eyes and dragged Jasper to the table. He dug some foodstuffs out of their stores and started cooking. “We have less than two days to stop the wedding on the mountain.”

“What wedding?” Jasper slurred.

Monty heaved a sigh and told Jasper what had happened since the fiasco at the ruins—how he’d found the hooded man’s body along with a pair of wine cups, how he’d followed Kaiza and Clarke’s trail as far as the acid swamp, and how he’d gone back to the mountain and discovered that Clarke was back at the mountain, and everyone was preparing for the wedding.

“Oh. I found your six-fingered warrior, too.”

Jasper giggled. “Six fingers.”

Monty rolled his eyes. “I saw him with Kaiza. He’s not very good at keeping the extra finger hidden.”

Jasper didn’t seem to realize what Monty was saying, so Monty just sat in front of his best friend and started spoon-feeding him the soup he’d made. It took the better part of a day, but with his trusted regimen of a bowl of hot soup and a bucket of cold water, Monty got Jasper sobered up.

“Ack!” Jasper shook his wet hair and swiped a hand in Monty’s direction. “Stop it! I’m fine!” He coughed and wiped his face. “Where’s the six-fingered warrior?”

“He’s Kaiza’s right hand,” Monty said.

“Suit up, Monty. We’re gonna crash a wedding.” Jasper grabbed his sword off the bed and started up the ladder.

“Wait! Wait! Jasper!” Monty followed Jasper up the ladder and kicked the hatch shut. “Look, we can’t just waltz in there.”

“Says who?”

“Says the insane number of warriors between us and Kaiza right now. There’s no way we’re going to make it to the ceremony, much less make it out of the ceremony.”

Jasper stared at Monty. “How many warriors?”

“Fifty, at least. Probably more like seventy or eighty. And that’s just the ones near the wedding. There’ll be at least a hundred over the rest of the mountain, and those are just the ones that aren’t partying.”

“How many could you take out?”

Monty just stared. “Seriously? Nowhere near enough.”

“Okay. New plan.” Jasper bounced on the balls of his feet. “Um... new plan... come on, Monty. You’re good at planning!”

Monty snorted. “Not this good. The hooded man was this good.”

“No.” Jasper gripped Monty’s shoulders. “Not him. The man in black! He beat the hooded man at his own game. He beat you—”

“That’s not really—”

“—and he schooled me at swordfighting.”

“Bro, I don’t think—”

“Damn it,” Jasper swore. “We don’t know where he is.”

Chapter Text

Rougen stormed into the room, ending the short respite Bellamy had gotten while Rougen was away in a meeting. Bellamy had suffered through Rougen’s experimentation with short spurts of high voltage and longer intervals at lower voltages, but seemed to prefer torturing Bellamy slowly at the lowest voltages. The very lowest voltage was just enough to make Bellamy’s skin crawl; the highest voltage Rougen had used was just raw pain, and was likely to kill him if Rougen wasn’t careful.

Rougen’s torture was—in Bellamy’s opinion—very effective at maximizing Bellamy’s agony, since the low voltages and long intervals left Bellamy’s muscles cramping after the machine was switched off. But this time, Rougen seemed angry. He turned the voltage up. And up. And up.

Rougen, it seemed, had only experimented with the middle voltages and the low voltages. This was an entirely different level of pain, and Bellamy couldn’t stop the animalistic howls that burst out of him as his back arched with the agony.

“You think you have some kind of attachment to your little healer heda?” Rougen spat. “You think she cares about you? She’s letting you rot down here. She can’t save you now.”

A howl pierced the forest, startling the birds. It didn’t sound like any animal Monty had ever heard.

“Where’d you say the man in black went?”

Monty shrugged. “I guess Kaiza killed him, if Clarke didn’t.”

Jasper shook his head, grinning. “Kaiza didn’t kill him. Not yet, anyway. Come on.” Jasper spun on his heel and headed in the direction of the screams.

Monty followed Jasper through the forest, into the tunnels below Mount Weather. Kaiza’s men didn’t patrol here, because all the tunnels that led into Mount Weather proper had caved in, but there were a few rooms that branched off of these tunnels. “Jasper, where are we going? The rooms down here are aband—”

A scream echoed through the tunnels. “Were,” Jasper corrected. “We need a distraction.”

Monty nodded and set a blast-cap on the floor. The fuse was good for about twenty seconds of running. He just hoped it was louder than the screams. He and Jasper ran further into the tunnels, and the blast cap, small though it was, still shook the ground a little when it exploded.

A few seconds later, they heard a door slam up ahead, and Jasper threw Monty into the shadows against the wall. A warrior stormed past, all braids and tattoos, and when he had passed, Jasper continued down the hall. There were no more screams, and Jasper hurried to the one door with a light on.

Jasper flung the door open. “That’s him!” he exclaimed, and then, “Holy shit! Monty, is that—”

Monty checked the body on the table for a pulse. “His pulse is weak, but he’s not dead. Not yet.”

“Monty.”

“What?”

Jasper pointed to the face. 

Monty studied the face in question. “Isn’t he dead?”

“I knew it.”

“What are you—talking about?” Monty tried to lift Bellamy onto his shoulders, without much luck. “How’d you know?”

Jasper hoisted Bellamy onto his own shoulders. “He knew my name. I thought I dreamt it, since he kind of knocked me out after he won our duel, but—oh, man!”

Monty rolled his eyes. “Great. Look, Jas, I know he’s been dead for, like, five years, but he’s seriously going to die if we don’t get him to a healer. And we’re going to die if we don’t get the hell out of here.”

Jasper nodded and followed Monty out into the tunnels. They went out through different tunnels than they’d come in. “Right. Abby?”

“That’s all I can think of.” Monty led Jasper to a hidden clearing and a cave a little way downriver. “Hello?” he called.

A man appeared. He was dressed in a cotton t-shirt and dark jeans, like someone from the Sky Clan, except the Sky Clan hadn’t dressed like that in years. “Chon yu bilaik?” asked the man.

Monty rolled his eyes. “Where’s Abby?” he asked. “My friend’s almost dead.” Monty nodded at Bellamy.

“Why is he almost dead?”

“Kaiza’s right hand was torturing him.”

“Marcus!” called a woman’s voice. “What are you doing?” The woman who appeared from the little cave was also dressed in Sky Clan clothes.

“Abby, please,” Monty said. “You have to help us. We’re trying to stop—something. And we need him. Also, he’s one of us. And he’s dying.”

Abby scrutinized Bellamy’s face. “He looks familiar...” She shook her head. “What happened to him?”

“Torture,” Monty answered. “I don’t know what kind.”

Abby put two fingers to Bellamy’s pulse point. “He’s barely got a pulse. Get him inside. Marcus, get my equipment.”

Marcus refused to let Monty and Jasper inside, so they sat in the grass outside the cave and waited. Abby came out half an hour later, her arms crossed over her chest. “He’ll live,” she said before they could ask. “But I’d like you boys to tell me what you’re doing with Bellamy Blake.”

Jasper feigned surprise. “That’s—that can’t be Bellamy. He got killed by grounders years ago.”

“I’d know that face anywhere,” Abby said tersely. “He shot Chancellor Jaha.”

“Did he?”

Monty slid his wooden mask over his face and hung his head. Jasper was such a bad liar. It was embarrassing, really.

A disgruntled groan came from the cave, and Bellamy stumbled out, followed quickly by Marcus. “You were supposed to keep him in bed,” Abby scolded Marcus.

“I tried!” Marcus protested. “He won’t stay!”

Abby rolled her eyes and grabbed Bellamy by the shoulders. She checked his eyes, his forehead, and his pulse. “He should really rest for a few days.”

“We don’t have a few days,” Jasper said. “But thanks.”

Abby threw an old, tattered grey t-shirt at Monty. “Stay out of trouble,” she said, even as they were leaving the little hidden clearing. Jasper had to carry Bellamy most of the way, but they made it up the mountain, and by the time they were camped just outside the ceremony site, Bellamy had come to all the way.

“How do you feel?” asked Monty.

“Like I got hit by a spaceship,” Bellamy complained. Monty handed him the t-shirt, and he pulled it on over his head. “Why are we up here on the mountain?”

“Uh, well. Jasper wants revenge on the six-fingered man, we kind of need to stop a wedding, and there’s half an army between here and there. I’m not that good at strategy.”

Bellamy peeked out from behind the fallen logs they were hiding behind. “What do we have?”

Jasper patted his hip. “I have a sword.”

“I have...” Monty looked in his knapsack. “Five blasting caps, two tripwire setups, an old pin grenade that may or may not work, and some wire. Oh, and my mask.”

Bellamy snorted. “Great. Well, we’re sure as hell not getting past all those men in broad daylight. If we can stay hidden until nightfall, we might be able to sneak in behind the big tent, and use Monty’s stuff to throw the whole place into chaos. After that, there’s a good chance we’ll be killed, but if we live, we might be able to make it down the mountainside and into a hiding place before Kaiza realizes we’re gone. Of course, I can’t run, and even if we do make it somewhere safe, we’ll pretty much be stuck in our hiding spot until Kaiza’s dead.”

“Well...” Monty rubbed his chin. “What if we killed Kaiza?”

Bellamy arched an eyebrow. “Kill Kaiza? Good luck with that.”

“Why not? Jasper’s already planning to kill Kaiza’s right hand. Besides, knowing Clarke, she’s probably ready to kill the man herself. He is keeping the entire forest locked up inside Mount Weather.”

“I knew we should have caved in more of those tunnels,” Jasper grumbled.

Bellamy folded his arms over his chest. “Fine. So, what? We blow stuff up, run in, find Clarke, kill Kaiza and Rougen, and that’s that?”

Jasper and Monty exchanged a look. “Yeah, pretty much.”

Bellamy sighed heavily. “We’re going to die,” he muttered. “Come on. We can at least get closer to the big tent before dark.” He struggled to his feet, leaning on the tree for support.

Jasper had to help Bellamy, but he could walk on his own, for the most part, which was a huge improvement, considering he’d almost died only a few hours before. They hid themselves behind a tree, and Bellamy took a nap while they waited for sundown.

Clarke hated her wedding clothes. The top was stiff and uncomfortable; the skirt was thin and ragged. It was also impossible for her to focus on what she was supposed to be doing in the ceremony, because the skirt was about six inches longer than her legs, and she had to kick it out with every step of her boots or risk falling flat on her face.

Plus, she was wearing them solely because she was marrying Kaiza. She hated him. He was only marrying her so that the people of the forest would join him in trying to take over the world.

Kaiza glared at her, annoyed that she wasn’t paying attention to her cues. He reminded her of what she was supposed to be doing, and she was about to snap back at him when all hell broke loose.

First, things exploded, which sent Kaiza’s people running wild. Then Kaiza grabbed Clarke by the arm and dragged her bodily into his tent, which wasn’t supposed to happen until after the joining. He left her there when he heard Rougen shout for him, and Clarke wasn’t about to sit in the tent and wait for Kaiza to come back. She shucked off the skirt and stuck her knife through the waistband of the pants underneath. It was her only weapon, but she had a healer’s knowledge of anatomy. Kaiza was going to pay.

Chapter Text

Bellamy decided he could hide his weakness best in Kaiza’s tent, so Monty and Jasper left to find Clarke and Rougen. Jasper saw Kaiza duck into the mountain, but Rougen was headed down the mountainside. Jasper followed Rougen, sword in hand, and when Rougen finally turned on him, Jasper grinned, despite the small throwing knife that Rougen had sunk into his shoulder.

“Chon yu bilaik?” growled Rougen.

Jasper yanked the knife from his shoulder. “Ai laik Jaspa Jodan. Yu don jak ai kru op; nau yu na wan op.” He dropped into a fighting stance, ignoring the pain and blood.

Rougen snarled. “Yu laik kom Skaikru. Yu ste kwel!”

Jasper growled back. “Ai laik Jaspa Jodan. Yu don jak ai kru op; nau yu na wan op!” It was a mantra and a weapon, and Jasper wielded it with all the force he could muster.

Rougen laughed. “Yu get in bilaik yu na frag ai op?”

Jasper only repeated his mantra, over and over. Rougen lunged at him, and then they were fighting, ducking behind trees, running down hills, slashing at arms and legs and anything left unguarded. Jasper repeated the mantra through it all. It started to irk Rougen after the fifth or sixth repetition, but Jasper had no intention of shutting up.

Rougen’s fighting got messier the more they fought. Jasper drove Rougen back up the mountain and through the camp and into the mountain. Jasper chased his opponent through the tunnels until Rougen made a wrong turn in his haste and ended up in a room with no second exit.

“AI LAIK JASPA JODAN. YU DON JAK AI KRU OP; NAU YU NA WAN OP!” Jasper shouted. He drove Rougen back in a rain of vicious slashes, knocked the blade from his hand, and pinned him against the wall with his own blade at his throat. “Move, and you die.”

Fear glinted in Rougen’s eyes, and Jasper grinned. “You killed three of my people when you took them captive. I ought to give you death by a thousand cuts, but I’m impatient.”

“You won’t kill me.”

Jasper saw a long, drawn-out scene coming, full of you’re too weak to kill mes and I’m strong enough to let you lives. “Wanna bet?” he sneered. A twist of his wrist and a step back, and Rougen was dead, bleeding out on the floor of some random room in the belly of Mount Weather. “Yu gonplei ste odon,” he muttered reluctantly, because it felt like bad luck not to.

Jasper walked out into the hallway and looked around. Mount Weather was a maze in the places you weren’t supposed to go. He knew which way he’d come in this room, but he hadn’t really been paying attention to where he was going while he’d been chasing Rougen. He sighed. “Well, shit.”

Clarke searched for Kaiza, but after ten minutes with no luck at all, she thought that maybe waiting in his tent might actually be a good idea. She snuck into the tent, making sure Kaiza wasn’t there yet, and was surprised to find someone—not Kaiza—laying in the bed.

She blinked. “Bellamy?”

“Hey, princess. Nice place.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I was going to say ‘rescuing you’, but I figure ‘helping you escape’ is a little more accurate.”

“Why are you laying on the bed?”

“It’s comfortable, and you wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had.” Bellamy propped himself up on one elbow.

Clarke actually laughed at that, possibly because she hadn’t heard anyone say anything remotely funny in, like, years—swamp day not included—but more likely because it was Bellamy. “It’s not over yet,” she said. “Kaiza’s going to come back here eventually.”

“That’s kind of what I’m hoping for.”

“What’s your plan?”

Bellamy ticked the points off on his fingers. “Well, we blew stuff up, Jasper went after Rougen, Monty’s out blowing more stuff up, and I found you. That leaves ‘kill Kaiza’ on my to-do list.”

“What a coincidence. That’s on my to-do list, too. I mean, I was going to wait until after I was married to him, and then kill him in his sleep or something, but since it looks like the wedding’s off...” Clarke heard footsteps and gruff voices outside the tent. She darted out of the way of the tent-flap, and when Kaiza walked in, he didn’t look her way. Bellamy was a pretty effective distraction, laying completely at ease in Kaiza’s bed, one leg cocked up like one of those old pre-Ark pin-up boys.

“Explain yourself,” Kaiza demanded.

“I’m here to steal your girl,” Bellamy said. “Well, steal her back, actually. It’s not your fault, though. I was dead for a while, and you didn’t know.”

“You speak of Clarke.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Where is she?” Kaiza growled.

But Clarke was at Kaiza’s back now, her approach drowned out by the chaos outside. She grinned. “I’m right here, houmon,” she said, sinking her knife into his ribs. Kaiza made a strangled noise and then collapsed, bleeding profusely. She made a face at the dead man and spat, “Yu gonplei ste odon.”

Bellamy was struggling to his feet now. “Did you actually marry him?”

Clarke laughed. “No.”

Bellamy seemed to sag with relief, or possibly fatigue. It was hard to tell.

“Why? Jealous, Blake?”

Bellamy only smiled.

Monty burst in then, his knapsack ominously limp. He glanced at the body on the floor, then at Clarke supporting Bellamy. “Has anyone seen Jasper?”

Bellamy leaned heavily on Clarke as he walked. “He went after Rougen. I haven’t seen him since.”

Monty looked nervously out at the camp. The chaos was quickly dying down now that someone had started putting the fires out. “We should probably go.”

Bellamy nodded. “Good idea. Any idea how to get out of this tent without getting murdered?”

Monty glanced at the dead body again. “You killed Kaiza?”

“I did,” Clarke said. She bit her lip for a moment. “Monty, help him. I’m going to make a distraction.” She handed Bellamy off and untied the back corner of the tent. “You two can go out this way. I’ll meet you at the river.”

Bellamy grabbed Clarke’s arm as they passed each other, and laid a kiss at the corner of her mouth.

“What was that for?”

“Luck,” he said, smirking, and then he and Monty were gone.

Clarke strode out of the front of the tent and started shouting for Rougen. Another warrior approached her after a minute or so and said, “Rougen is dead. Where is Kaiza?”

“I don’t know,” Clarke lied. “He left me in the tent, and he didn’t come back. What are the alarms for?”

The warrior ignored her question and brushed Clarke aside on his way to Kaiza’s tent. She glanced around her, and then bolted for the trees before the warrior could find Kaiza’s body. She headed down, toward the river, and heard a voice calling, “Monty! Monty!”

Clarke followed the shouts until she found Jasper.

“Where’s Monty?” he asked.

“He’s with Bellamy. They’ll meet us at the river.”

Jasper grinned. “Oh, man, Clarke, you should have seen what me and Monty did!” He sounded like a child, giddy with excitement.

Clarke jumped over a log and narrowly missed smacking her face on a branch. “I’m sure it was great, Jasper, but I’m kind of trying not to get murdered by Kaiza’s men.”

“Oh, right, Kaiza. Did you actually get married?”

“No. I gave him his wedding present early,” she joked.

“You—” Jasper made a slightly vulgar gesture with his hands.

“No! I killed him.” Clarke looked behind them. She could hear war cries, and picked up the pace, hoping Monty and Bellamy had gotten enough of a head start to outrun the angry mob of Kaiza’s men.

Monty and Bellamy met them at the river, in a little cove where Monty and Jasper had stashed a raft. Bellamy sprawled in the middle of the boat, arms flung wide, breathing heavily. Clarke jumped onto the boat while Monty and Jasper retrieved two long poles. They shoved out into the river, safe enough for now from Kaiza’s men. “Did you guys get the others out?” Bellamy asked.

Clarke stared at Jasper as he and Monty explained how they’d made a lot of noise and helped the Woods Clan and the Sky Clan escape their prison. “Great. That’s not going to start a war or anything,” Clarke grumbled, dutifully checking Bellamy over.

Bellamy tucked his hands behind his head, his breathing slowing to a more normal pace. “I thought the goal was to free your people, princess.”

“The goal was to keep my people alive. It always has been.”

Bellamy closed his eyes. “Mm.”

Clarke knew he was tired; he hadn’t had time to recover from his latest near-death experience. It would be hours before they disembarked by the dropship. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

“Hm?”

“You’re going to have to find a new heda for the Shadow Clan,” she said. “Because I’m sure as hell not giving up my right hand man right before my people go to war.”

Bellamy smiled, eyes still closed. “As you wish.”

The boy’s father walks into the tent. “Are you filling my kids’ heads with nonsense again?”

The storyteller shakes his head and holds up his hands. “Strictly history this time, my friend.”

The boy’s father rolls his eyes. “That story?” he laughs. “I know you and Monty exaggerate more and more every time you tell it.” He fixes his gaze on the girl. “Don’t believe all the stories you hear, little princess.”

The boy hears his mother’s voice outside the house. The boy’s father kisses his children on their fevered foreheads and leaves again. The storyteller gets up, too. “I’m gonna let you two yongons rest.”

“Will you come tell the story again tomorrow?” asks the girl. “Please?”

The storyteller smiles. “As you wish.”