Her foot caught on a rock as she stumbled back from a blow to the chest. She felt heat bloom in her throat as she coughed, retching, tumbling backwards until finally the breath was knocked out of her as her back hit the ground. Dirt flew up around her, coating her tunic in a light dust she wanted to wipe away, but her arms sagged, muscles weary and aching. She let her head fall back.
"Get back up," she heard him growl at her as his feet clomped closer and closer to where her head landed in the dirt. The sound of his boots scraping along the ground was muffled by the dirt and grass surrounding, enveloping, pressing into her ear. She hated that his voice didn't sound nearly as strained as hers would be when she tried to speak. Low and steady, as always, and it was more irritating than ever. She could barely hear him over the ragged sounds of her own breath, but he stood above her, still as a statue, barely sweating.
She spat a clump of mud out from her mouth and turned to glare at him.
"We've done enough," she huffed out. "I need a break."
She looked up to see him frowning at her, a crease between his eyebrows. She watched as a drop of sweat slipped down from his hair, his all too shaggy hair, and get stuck in the squished pocket between his eyebrows. Her own skin was coated in sweat. It was soaking through her hair, tucked up into the cap on her head, sealing it all in. It was dripping down her face, down her neck, down her back. She'd thought she knew what it felt like to be suffocating, but having a thick layer of sweat over each and every one of her pores was teaching her that she didn't actually know much.
Bellamy, of course, agreed.
"Don't waste my time, Griff."
She glared up at him. "We've been at this for hours," she said. "Just give me a few minutes." She let her head drop back down onto the dirt where she lay. She saw his heels lift up from the dirt as his knees bent and he crouched next to her. His chainmail fluttered against the ground, clunking against the solid dirt below as he reached an arm out to turn her chin to face him.
"If you're going to practice," he said. "You're going to practice right. You're never going to ask for a break in a real fight. Now, get. Up." He picked up her sword and tossed it down in front of her nose.
If she was going to practice right, she was going to need to stay alive. She wasn't sure how likely that was with Bellamy as her coach. She wasn't too sure he wouldn't actually run her through with his sword in order to prove a point about 'fighting through the pain.' She wondered if he would go away if she played dead.
An annoyed huff came from above her.
She pushed her palms into the dirt, propping herself up. She ignored how her muscles screamed in protest, and hauled herself up onto her knees. She stopped, leaning her head forward and gulped down a few big breaths. Her fingers wrapped around the hilt of her sword tightly as her eyes closed.
"You're weak, Griff," Bellamy taunted her. It was barely above a whisper, but it niggled its way into her ear and she felt anger surge through her.
Her face grew hot, and the skin of her knuckles went white as she gripped the sword tighter at his words. "I. Am not," she pushed herself up with the tip of her sword digging into the dirt. "Weak."
"Fine, you're scared then," he kicked the blade of her sword, taking away the support it had been offering her. She tumbled forward a bit before she caught herself. "Doesn't matter. Either will get you killed on the battle field."
Clarke pushed herself up the rest of the way. "I am not weak," she growled. "And I am sure as hell not afraid of you."
She saw his teeth sink into the side of his cheek as he hid a smile. A glimmer of pride flickered in his eyes as he held out his own sword in front of him, taking his stance.
"Okay," he said. "Then prove it." Then he swung out his blade, leaving her just enough time to thrust her own sword forward to meet it. At the sound of the metal crashing together, he smiled down at her.
"Again."
Two Weeks Earlier
The guards outside her room seemed to think that she couldn't hear them when they shuffled around and whispered. As if she couldn't hear the thumping footsteps as they moved their legs to block the door or the scuffling as they tried to push back whoever it was that was stretching out an arm to rap their knuckles on the thick wooden door. But she heard it, she heard it every time.
She made a mental note to sneak extra cakes out of the kitchen for her guards that night.
Before she could sneak into the side chambers she heard more whispering and the sighs of her guards. Then, a knock. Clarke ignored the knock on her door and suck further down onto the floor, her back pressed into the side of her bed. She let her head fall back and rest against the quilt, pillowing behind her head. Whoever it was knocked again and she shut her eyes.
The princess isn't at home, she thought. Tell the queen to give it a rest.
She heard the door creak open anyway, and the sound of footsteps walking carefully around the table in the center of her room, and then to the foot of the bed. He sighed at her from the end of the mattress and she opened one eye.
"Hey, Clarke."
Wells. Of course it was Wells.
She felt her lungs expand as she took a shaky breath in. The stone on her chest got a little lighter, and a little smaller. She didn't try to blink back the tears welling in her eyes anymore, but she scooted over, pulling her knees up under her in order to make room for him on the floor.
"Wells," she said, but he cut her off with a wave of his hand. He raised a bottle in his left hand and grabbed two glasses from her table in his right.
"Birthday present for your father," he said.
He slid down on the floor next to Clarke and kicked his boots off, shoving them toward where the fire sat, dying slowly, in the hearth. He set the glasses on the ground between them and poured a generous amount in each. She reached over and grabbed it, about to down it in one, when Wells held his glass up.
"To King Jake," he whispered.
"To King Jake," she said, throat scratchy. She brought it to her lips and let it all slip through her lips and burn as it floated down her tongue and the back of her throat. She liked the way it burned. It took away from the aching in her chest where the stone was digging in, pressing down, strangling her breath.
"Have you been in here all day?" he asked her, turning to rest his head next to hers on the quilt. His drink was still half full. Always better at pacing himself.
She nodded, holding out her cup for more. He raised an eyebrow at her in warning, but poured another glass anyway.
"Your mother has been looking for you," he muttered between sips.
Clarke rolled her head back and groaned. "Yeah, well." She didn't really know what to say to that. She didn't know how to explain that she didn't want to see her mom, or that she'd bribed the guards outside her doors to keep everyone away from her room, saying she wasn't in there, saying she was sick, whatever it took. No surprise that Wells saw through it.
"Monty tried to get by them to give you some sort of 'pain reliever' earlier," Wells said jerking his head toward the doors, toward the guards, and she chuckled. "Unfortunately, that didn't end very well for him. He may stink of rotten tomatoes for a few days, so stay upwind."
"How'd you get past?" Clarke asked, curious. Grateful, but curious.
Wells shot her a wink. "Can't give away all my secrets, now can I princess?"
They both leaned back, empty glasses discarded in front of them. Clarke tilted her head over, watching Wells and the flames dance over his face. How many times had he snuck in her chambers over the years, extra food, cakes, wine in his hand? How many times had they stayed up late by the fire, sometimes sneaking Monty in as well?
How many times had they heard the booming voice of the king down the hall, letting them know to shuffle into the side chambers before someone came in to check on Clarke?
Wells tapped a finger on her knee.
"How do you feel, Clarkey?"
Clarke leaned her head onto his shoulder and sighed, the stone rolling across her rib cage as she slid into his side.
"Afraid," she whispered.
Her hair wouldn't stay tucked up in the servants cap. As soon as she would get one side all tucked up, half from the other would trickle out, tickling her neck. She spent the better part of twenty minutes trying to get it all to stay just by shoving it up and wished, not for the first time, that her mother would let her wear it short, cropped just against her head.
But princess don't have short hair, apparently.
She sighed and, reluctantly, decided that if she was going to get it done in time, she would just have to pin it. She hated pinning her hair. It was exactly as painful as it sounded. But she made quick work of it, wincing a few times when the pin caught a hair and dragged it the wrong way, pulling on her scalp, but it made it quicker and easier to slip the cap on.
She choked out a laugh when she saw her reflection in the mirror. A princess in a gown, hair tucked up into a servants cap. She looked ridiculous.
She went back over to her bed where the bag of clothes Monty had brought her lay. She bent over it to rifle through and find what she needed, and smirked when she caught a slight whiff of tomatoes. She'd have to remember to tell Wells.
She slipped out of her dress, and watched it fall to the ground in a pool around her ankles. It felt good. She stood there for a moment, the silk brushing her ankles, before she grabbed the cloth from her mattress and began wrapping her chest. She needed to look as different from the princess as she possibly could.
Monty had snuck her extra servant's clothes. She felt bad about taking them, and she had a sneaky feeling that they were just spare clothes from his own wardrobe—they were made for someone a bit thinner and taller than herself—but she slipped them on and found she didn't look half as ridiculous as she thought she would.
She also didn't look like herself. Which was perfect.
She heard a knock on the door and she quickly shuffled behind the changing screen.
"Clarke?"
Wells. Of course.
Clarke let out a sigh and stepped out from behind the screen.
"It's late, Wells. You shouldn't be here."
He raised an eyebrow at her. Like we've ever followed the rules, it said. She shrugged, knowing he was right, but knowing that he was going to fight her on this, that he was going to block the door or the window or whichever way she was planning on leaving or he was going to attach himself to her side and refuse to leave. It's just what Wells did.
"I can't explain it. And I don't really want to," she said when she saw him raise a questioning hand and gesture at her appearance. "I need you to trust me though."
"We've been friends our whole lives, Clarke," he said with a smirk. "Of course I don't trust you. You're nothing but trouble."
Clarke tried to scowl at that, but a peal of laughter burst out of her and she couldn't control it. Wells smiled back, relieved, but stepped a bit closer.
"Whatever it is you're planning on doing," he whispered to her, shooting a glance at the door to make sure it was closed. "I'd like to help. I've got your back Clarke."
She pulled him into a hug, and rubbed the top of his hair as she pulled away.
"Don't worry," she whispered back. "I'm not leaving the grounds. Just need a bit of freedom."
She could tell Wells didn't quite believe her, but he nodded and backed away. He looked around the room and saw a bit of leftover, uneaten food on the table and he plopped himself down in front of it.
"Go out the window," he said. "The patrol has already gone by, and won't be back until they've done a full perimeter. I'll stay here a bit and when I leave, if anybody asks I'll say we were eating together and you got a headache and needed to lie down."
Clarke walked over to the table to give him a quick hug and press a kiss to his cheek. "Thank you," she whispered. "I owe you."
"I'll be sure to remember that!" he called as she opened the window and lowered herself out.
Her mother would be horrified if she found out just how easy it was to sneak around the grounds of the castle at night. The same guards took the same routes every night, and if you dressed like a servant of the court, apparently they didn't spare you a second glance.
Though, her mother probably didn't expect her to be sneaking around the citadel at night dressed as a servant, disguising herself as a commoner, especially not with what happened to her father, and especially not with the unrest in the lower towns.
But Clarke wasn't going to sit up in her tower to rot, and she wasn't going to sit in her chambers suffocating, and she wasn't going to let the gnawing fear that had grown as big as a boulder fester in her stomach, in her chest, in her lungs, any longer.
The route to the armory wasn't tricky. Her window let out just a few feet above a ledge in the wall, and if she walked along it a few paces to the left, there was a tree she could reach out and cling to. Then, after climbing the tree it was simply a matter of weaving her way through a few corridors, past the courtyard (that was the trickiest bit because she had to either take the route inside the castle halls, along the courtyard to the other side—which ran the risk of people inside the castle recognizing her—or she had to go out in the open of the courtyard and risk being stopped by someone for walking across the grounds that late at night) and then down one final corridor, into the armory. Just outside the armory was a practice space, usually locked at night, but Monty, being a little light fingered for the apprentice of the court's physician, managed to get her the key she needed.
She decided to risk recognition and walked through the halls instead of out in the courtyard, but she really shouldn't have worried. No one was around, the guards had walked past moments before she got there, and it was a straight shot to where she needed to go.
Still, she felt like she hadn't let out a breath until she yanked open the door to the armory and collapsed against it as she shut it tight behind her.
She hadn't spent much time in the armory in her life. She and Wells would sneak into it when they were little, only to later get their hands slapped for doing something so stupid. A sword could have slipped and cut them, her mother said. Or an axe. Or a mace or a bludgeon or a hammer. Then what would have happened? Would the games have been worth it then?
Then it was her father who took her. He'd put a finger over his lips as he turned to Clarke, away from the queen, and nod his head toward the door. Clarke would sneak past the legs of the guards, small and quick enough to slip around them before they noticed, and meet her father out in the courtyard, where he'd carry her or swing her around or chase her or get chased or tickle her or get ticked. Where he'd toss her a stick and they'd spar because, he said, every princess should know how to fight. He'd teach her simple steps, and how to make simple blocks, and when the sticks they were using became cracked, or the bark started to strip off, he'd hold his hands up and concede, and then he'd lead her into the armory to show her what a real sword looked like.
"You're not going to splinter one of these easily," he'd say as he pulled a sword out of its holster and hold it flat in his palms for her to look at. She was allowed to run a single finger down the blade's flat middle, so long as she stayed away from the edges, and she was allowed to wrap both hands around the hilt, so long as she did not swing it.
"First you have to master swinging those sticks around," he'd say laughing when she asked if they could practice with real swords. "Then maybe we can make you a sword of your own to practice with."
He died before he taught her to swing a blade.
She let out a heavy breath, and opened her eyes. It looked exactly as she remembered it. All the swords in one place, the shields lining the opposite walls. Shields with different sigils, and colors. Shields with coats of arms that didn't display the Gryphon, but ones that she knew were loyal to them. She reached her fingers out and pressed them along the front of a shield so beaten and bent that you could no longer see the coat of arms. Her palm fit perfectly into the small dent at the bottom and she let the feeling of the cool metal wash over her hand.
She backed away from the shields, nearly knocking into the rack that held all the practice swords. She put a hand out behind her, bumping the hilt of a sword before she steadied herself and turned around. She picked one with a golden hilt and pulled it out.
She'd forgotten the noise swords made as they were pulled out, ready to be used. A high swishing noise, and she heard it, and remembered her father's laugh alongside it.
She sat on a stool, resting the sword on her knees. She ran a finger along the inside of the blade, the pad of her finger pressing into the steel, slowing sliding down the flat part of the blade, careful to stay away from the edges.
She felt a heat prickle the corner of her eyes so she shut them before it could slip out, taking a moment to catch a few breaths. When she was about to stand, make her way to the practice ring, swing a blade instead of a stick for once, she heard a banging from the other side of the armory, and quickly shoved the sword back into place.
She pressed a hand into her pocket, checking that they key was still there, and she ran out of the armory, slamming the door behind her. It didn't matter if she made noise anymore.
It took her about half the time to get back to her room as it had to get to the armory, and she may have been spotted, and she definitely had scrapes on her knees from the tree, but she tumbled in through the window, and collapsed on her bed without bothering to change out of her clothes.
"Tomorrow," she promised to no one in particular. "I'll go back tomorrow."
Most of her time in the castle was spent doodling.
She was supposed to sit alongside her mother and learn the responsibilities of a Queen, to watch her mother rule and take notes so that one day, when the crown rested heavy on her own head, she would have a model to follow.
Unfortunately, sitting beside the Queen day after day, year after year, became quite the dull affair, and Clarke had taken to bringing the sketchbook Wells and Monty had given her for her last birthday in order to keep herself entertained. She could feel her mother's eye burning into the side of her face, but she kept her head turned down, watching the lines she dragged across the paper grow larger and thicker and more defined. It wasn't as if she had never seen her mother address the people before. There was a long line of them, she would listen to one later.
"Daydreaming about your adventures?" she heard whispered in her ear.
Wells stood behind her, smirking.
Wells never seemed to mind all the courtly responsibilities they had. He freely went to things like this, stood and listened attentively. Watched as his father advised the Queen, watched how they both interacted with their people. Clarke thought that Wells would probably make a better King than she would a Queen.
He smiled down at her sketch, and she glanced over what she had drawn. It was a sword, like the one she had pulled from the rack the night before.
She shook her head at Wells. "Not daydreaming," she whispered. "Planning."
She left earlier that night, before the guards had passed her room for the perimeter patrol, and made her way to the armory quicker than the night before. Wells was still worried, Monty was still happy to help, and she was itching to pick up a sword again.
She was going to swing it this time, she swore to herself, no more looking, no more playing. Time to practice.
She knew it was probably stupid to go two nights in a row, especially when she had left the night before in a clangor, footsteps echoing throughout the halls, crash of the door sure to have been noticed by someone. But she needed to. She couldn't explain it but there was a pull, like a rope knotted at the bottom of her ribs, pulling her from her window, across the castle grounds, into the armory.
She didn't waste any time breathing it in, or letting the smell of everything—the armor, the shields, the sweat, the metal—wash over her, she didn't press her hand into the dented shield, she didn't run her finger down the flattened blade to remember her father.
She just picked up a sword, pulled the key out of her pocket, and unlocked the door to the practice space.
There was a post on one end of the practice field, covered in sacks filled with hay. They were draped and tied around the post vaguely in the shape of a person. She gripped the hilt of the sword tightly, and moved over to it, lifting the blade and swinging once, hard.
There was a dull thunk, and then she let her blade drop to the ground. She hadn't even made a mark.
She lifted the sword once more and tried again. Nothing. Again and again and again and again until her shoulders and armpits were sore from the constant rotation of the lifting the sword and letting it drop, lifting and dropping, lifting and dropping. She felt a few beads of sweat trickle down her forehead across her brow and she swiped her arm across her face to get rid of them.
As she moved, she realized how much she stank. The layer of sweat working its way over her body from the movements and the soreness in her muscles, her ragged breath all made her stop and take a breath, smiling as she felt the sweat from her chest seep into her shirt. She lifted the sword once more and swung, hard.
Finally, there was a tiny cut in the fabric, bits of hay sticking out. She plucked a straw from the hole and put it in her pocket.
She sat on the table as Monty bustled about the room, grabbing bottles and vials and powders.
"I'm just a little sore," she said.
He nodded and dropped them all on the table beside her.
"I've been experimenting a bit," he said quickly. "How open are you to trying something new?" He held up a salve in a jar, a bright purple salve, and quirked an eyebrow at her.
"Exactly how experimental is it?" she asked tentatively taking the jar from his hands. She unscrewed the cap and gave it a sniff. It smelled, surprisingly, of flowers and honey.
"Nothing is likely to happen," he said with a wave of his hand. He sat down on a stool in front of her. "I think I worked out all the kinks with the first batch."
What's the worst that could happen? she thought as she sniffed it once more. Perhaps a bit of webbing in the fingers, a small patch of scales along the stomach, nothing too terrible. It may even help in warding off those god awful suitors mother keeps inviting to dinner. Shrugging, Clarke scooped a bit out with her finger and started rubbing it on the back of her neck. It was cool at first, she hissed in surprise when it made contact with her skin, but a low heat spread as she worked it into her skin with her fingers.
"You think?" she said skeptically.
"Well, you won't turn green or get a funny rash or anything," he said.
Clarke barked out a laugh and scooped a bit more out, rubbing it along her shoulders. One thing she was certain of, when she was Queen, Monty would officially be made the court physician, and he'd be allowed whatever tools and herbs he needed. His methods were a bit…unorthodox, sure. But pain relief was absolutely his forte.
She watched him bite into an apple, smiling, as she continued to rub the salve into her sore muscles. The scent of honey washed over her as the heat from the salve sank into her muscles, loosening them up, unwinding the knots, and her stomach growled loudly.
Monty tossed her an apple and a chunk of bread which she bit into hungrily.
"How long are you going to keep this up?" he asked her as she chewed.
"Until I can swing a sword and do some damage," she replied.
"I think anyone can do some damage when they swing a sword." Monty grabbed one of the potions he brought to the table and poured a few drops of it into two glasses, then grabbed the pitcher of mead on the physician's table and poured it over the potion. He handed one to Clarke.
"What's this?" she asked.
"Just trust me," Monty said, taking a sip of his own. "Wells is worried, you know."
Clarke rolled her eyes. "Wells is always worried. That's his thing."
Monty shrugged in understanding but watched her with a careful eye. She knew he was worried too, worried that she might be caught, and get herself in trouble, worried that she would hurt herself, worried that someone would find out he was helping the princess sneak out of her chambers and wander the grounds every night.
"No one will find out you helped me," she said, hoping to reassure him.
Monty's smile dropped off his face. "That's not what I'm worried about, Clarke, and you know it." He took a deep breath and carried on. "Things are changing, Clarke. It's not like it was when we were kids. You have to be more careful."
"I'm being careful!"
"Is that why I heard you nearly knock down the entire armory as you ran away from it that first night?"
Oops. He had her there.
"That's not going to happen again."
"It better not," Monty scolded. "I'm not going to help you if you're going to be reckless about it."
Clarke took another sip of the drink he'd made, and found he really was right. There was a pleasant humming crawling from her chest to her fingers and toes. Not overwhelming, not like when Wells would sneak wine into her room and they'd drink until the sun came up. More hesitant than that. But she didn't even feel the aching in her muscles and her head felt, lighter, clearer.
"Look," she said. "I just want to get some practice. You said yourself, things are changing." He opened his mouth, maybe to protest, maybe to warn her or tell her to be careful, but she didn't give him the chance. "It's what my father would have wanted."
Monty held her gaze for a moment, before dropping his eyes down to his cup. He knocked back the rest of it, setting the empty cup on the table behind him.
"Alright, then," he said. "Better rest up then, if you're going back tonight."
"Got anything that might help me relax?"
Another grin split Monty's face. "Well there is something I've been meaning to try…"
She picked the same sword.
The golden hilt got slick with her sweat as she gripped it tighter and tighter as she grew more and more weary. She landed blow after tragic blow against the dummy, barely making a mark, barely moving it at all, hit after hit after hit.
Her arms began to ache in protest. Worse than the night before, worse than that morning. She didn't even want to think about how they would hurt when she had to raise them above her head to be dressed the following day.
She let out a yell one last time as she swung her sword at the dummy, and dropped it to the ground when it made contact.
She heard a low chuckle from behind her. She whipped around and saw a pair or legs sticking out from the shadows, attached to someone leaning up against the door to the armory.
"Who's there?" she called out.
"I might ask you the same question." The voice was low and gravely. And amused. He was amused at her pathetic attempts. She felt humiliation wash over her, but she stood a little straighter.
"I'm not the one lurking in the shadows, am I?"
She saw one of his feet swing back, pushing off of the wall, pushing his whole body into the dim light in the middle of the yard. He was a knight.
She sucked in a quiet breath and swore to herself.
He stepped closer to her. Not close enough to see her face clearly, or the blonde tendrils that had worked their way out of her cap and were sticking to her neck, glued down by sweat, but close enough for her to get a good look at him.
He was young, younger than most of the knights she knew, younger than guards stationed outside her doors at night, younger than the ones who escorted her mother around the castle. He looked about her age, maybe a bit older. And he was tall. The top of her head might just brush the underside of his chin if she stood close enough. He looked more ragged than the knights she knew, chainmail not quite properly fitting him, as if it wasn't made for him, but borrowed for the time being. And he had a mop of black hair, strands falling over onto his forehead in a way that she knew her mother would detest.
A small smile was playing at the corners of his mouth, lips pulling into his tanned cheeks.
"How'd you get in here?" she asked.
"Same way as you, I'd imagine," he said without missing a beat. "It's easy to get in here once the person before you has already stolen the key."
"I didn't steal it!" she lied.
His eyes raked over her appearance. She tried to read his face, but she couldn't tell what he was thinking. He still had a slightly amused glimmer in his eye, but his brows were pulled together when he took in her ill-fitting close and her blistered hands.
"Oh yeah?" he said. "Then tell me, how did a kitchen servant manage to get the keys to the armory?"
She was trapped. There was no way out of it. She could either tell him who she was and be reported back to the queen, who would then put extra guards on her all the time, maybe even station one outside her window at night—or she could say she was a servant of the court and have him report her anyway, and either be punished as a servant or hope someone would recognize her before she was put in the stocks—or worse.
She bit her tongue.
He raised an eyebrow waiting for her to answer, but when it was clear she wasn't going to, he walked around her, over to the dummy and picked up her sword where the sword lay on the ground behind her.
"It's your form," he started to say. He tightened his grip on the hilt of the sword and began to arrange his feet in a defensive stance. "You have to—"
But she decided not to wait around to hear what she had to. When he took the sword in his hands and positioned himself in front of the practice dummy, she took her chance and bolted from the yard, slamming the door behind her.
She could already hear the lecture from Wells when he heard from Monty how loud she was ringing in her ears, but at least it would slow the knight down a bit as he chased her.
Clarke spent the entirety of the next morning shaking in her boots, jumping at every noise she heard. Especially footsteps. Footsteps were the worst. Each one pounded in time with her heart, rattling against her ribs.
She was going to be caught. She was sure of it.
She made her way through the castle's corridors, having to fight the urge to duck into nooks and crannies any time she heard the distinctive rattle of chainmail, or the laughter of the knights come back from training. She forced herself to press on, ducking her head none the less. She hoped it would be enough.
She was making her way back from the throne room to her own chambers when an arm reached out and wrapped around her own, yanking her into a small storage cupboard, a hand clapping over her mouth as she shrieked.
Yanking her body away, pressing herself up against the wall she saw that it was only Monty. She swatted his arm.
"Monty!" she hissed. "You nearly stopped my heart!" She let out a breath, collapsing against the wall.
"What happened last night? I heard yelling in the courtyard."
Monty's brows were knit together, his hands playing with the strap of his bag, and Clarke swore that though they bore no resemblance in their outward appearance, he had never looked less like himself and more like Wells in his entire life.
"I was…intruded upon," Clarke grit out. She couldn't help but grind her teeth at the memory of the arrogant knight, leaning up against the wall, watching her for who knew how long, smirking at her, laughing.
Monty snapped his fingers in front of her face. "Clarke? Who was it? Did they recognize you?"
"No," she said immediately, without thinking. But she had no idea. He didn't seem to know who she was, he called her a kitchen servant after all. Was he bluffing? Did he recognize her right away? "He was a knight. One I didn't recognize."
"You can't go back, Clarke. They're going put extra patrols out if they think people are sneaking around the grounds at night, especially if they think they're getting into private rooms with stolen keys."
Monty was holding her arm, waiting for her to promise. He wasn't going to let her go until she agreed.
She knew he was right, anyway. There would be extra patrols around if the knight had reported her—which he did, no doubt.
"Okay," she whispered. "I'm too sore to go tonight anyway." She held out her blistered hands as evidence.
Monty dug into his bag, pulling out the salve he'd given her the day before. It was in a larger jar, it even had a bow wrapped around the rim.
"Here," he said shoving it into her hands. "I made another batch for you. Put it on before you go to sleep, those blisters should be gone by morning." He hesitated, narrowing his eyes at her. She hated when he did that. It was worse than when Wells did it. "Look, I know you're going to go back. Just be better than you have been, okay?" He gave her shoulder a friendly punch. "I don't think you know the meaning of the word careful, if the past few nights are anything to go by, but no screaming, no slamming doors, no knocking down the entire armory, and you should be fine."
Clarke opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand.
"Excuse me, your Highness, but I don't believe I've finished." He smirked at her. "I think you're stupid for going back tonight, but if it's another close call like yesterday, don't run back to your rooms. You'll just be giving yourself away. Come to my chambers and you can hide out there a bit until the coast is clear, yeah?"
Clarke pulled him into a hug. "Thanks, Monty."
"Yeah, I still think you're a lunatic for going back tonight, don't think I'm with you on this one." He raised an eyebrow at her. "But I won't tell Wells about the knight."
She let out a sigh of relief. If Wells had any idea that she'd been spotted by someone, he'd either block her window himself (conveniently forgetting which one of them was the stronger wrestler) or follow her across the grounds to watch over her himself.
Neither option was very appealing.
"Thank you!" she said giving him another squeeze. "I owe you." That seemed to be happening a lot, lately.
"I'll keep that in mind."
She knew Monty was right. She knew it was stupid to go back.
She knew it as she pinned her hair up under the cap, and she knew it as she wrapped her chest in the long strip of fabric before pulling on Monty's old clothes, and she knew it as she tucked the old brass key into her pocket and lowered herself out of the window.
She was beginning to think it was less stupid when she turned the key and opened the door and found no one there.
The practice field was empty and there were no footsteps outside the armory to warn her of anyone making their way toward her. Maybe the knight hadn't told anyone. Maybe he didn't want to let on that he'd seen someone breaking into private rooms, and instead of intervening, he'd just sat back and laughed. Maybe he was embarrassed that he hadn't been able to catch her.
She let herself stretch out a bit before she started, sighing at the release of pressure in her lower back when she grabbed her wrists above her head and twisted back and forth.
She ignored the blisters on her hands as she grabbed the familiar sword and gave a few practice swings in the air before stepping in front of the dummy. She stood straight on, sword out at her side, pointed forward at the still figure in front of her.
"You'll never even land a blow if you stand like that," she heard a voice from behind her. Startled, she jumped back, losing her posture. She whipped around, not realizing how close he had been to her, the top of her sword nearly scraping against his stomach as she whirled around to face him. She suddenly couldn't find any air in her lungs.
"You'll be run through before you even get the chance to strike," he explained further, though she didn't ask for it.
"What are you doing here?" she breathed out.
"Well," he said, sticking his hands up in the air. "I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. I didn't tell anyone about last night, because I figured you wouldn't be stupid enough to come back here tonight, but this part of the castle grounds is on my route, so I had to check."
"Why weren't you here the first night, then?"
"You came here three nights in a row?" He barked out a laugh. "You're a lot dumber than you look, kid."
Clarke felt a wave of anger crash over her. She wanted to swat the stupid, smug, smirk right off his face. "I'm not stupid," she spat. "And I'm not a kid."
He actually snorted. "Okay."
She held her sword up to his chin, not caring how reckless it was, or that she was basically just proving his point about her stupidity. He didn't have the right to just walk in and insult her. If he wanted to punish her, fine. But it was unattractive for a cat to play with the mouse after catching it.
"Look," she said. "Just because you're a knight doesn't mean you get to treat people as if they're below you." She bent her arm to allow her to walk a bit closer, and she hoped it looked more threatening than ridiculous. "You don't even know me."
"I know you'd be dead in a fight already," he whispered, leaning his face closer to hers. She could see streaks of dirt over his cheekbones. And freckles. Lots of freckles.
But before she'd even had a chance to process his words, he'd grabbed her arm and twisted it, forcing her to lose her grip on the sword, and then with one quick movement of his foot, he knocked her legs out from under her, leaving her to slam onto the ground. He stood above her, lips pulled up at the corners, her own sword pointed at her neck.
She raised her arms in surrender. As if there'd ever even been a fight.
"Like I said," he crouched down next to her. "Dead before you could even land a blow."
She sat herself up and shoved him away from her, watching with pleasure as he momentarily lost his balance, slipping backwards before landing on the arm he had thrown out to catch him. She stood up and brushed herself off.
"Fine," she said. "You've made your point. Are you finished?"
He was just shaking his head smiling. "What's your name?"
Clarke froze.
"What's it to you?" she asked instead of answering.
"Just being friendly. How about I go first? My name is Bellamy." He bowed, mockingly, from his position on the dirt, dipping his head comically low to the ground and she had to fight the urge not to push on his back to close the remaining distance between him and the ground.
She sighed. "Griff. My name is Griff."
He pulled himself up to tower over her once again. She watched as his fingers shook off the dirt from his trousers, scattering it back on the ground below. He was taking his time, walking around her in circles, taking her appearance in one inch at a time, deciding whether or not he actually believed her.
He didn't, of course. Clarke had never been a very good liar.
"That your given name?"
"It's the only name you're getting," she said back, reaching down to grab the sword, but his hand stopped her movement.
"Wait a minute," he said grabbing her wrist with one hand, and the sword with the other. He held it off at his side, out of her reach. "Rule number one, no touching the sword until you learn how to stand."
Clarke looked at him perplexed. He hadn't let go of her wrist, but his grip wasn't tight and she could have shaken him loose if she needed to. His other hand was waving the sword back and forth, as if to tempt her, and she couldn't figure out exactly where this game was going.
"Excuse me?" she said.
"I can teach you."
Well. That she hadn't been expecting.
Clarke looked down at her blistered hands and felt her sore muscles blanketing her frame. She felt the memory of the previous days sweat drip down her back and the sigh of relief her shoulders seemed to give when she laid down on her mattress every night. She thought of how her body was aching and she still couldn't hold a sword with one hand and strike. She thought of how she still felt like an old wooden stick was the weapon best suited to her, and how her father would bring her into the armory and talk about how someday he was going to make her a sword of her own, and she was going to hold it better than any knight, fight truer than any king. She imagined what she must look like now, not even able to beat a sack of straw.
He took her silence as something else.
"Or I could turn you in," he said simply. "Your choice."
Clarke held out her hand for the sword. "Teach me."
If Clarke thought her muscles were aching before, it was nothing compared to how she felt after one practice session with Bellamy.
The first hour, he didn't even let her touch the sword.
He plunged it into the grass a few feet away from her and pointed at it. "I don't think you understand what that is," he said.
She rolled her eyes. Perfect. She'd gotten a philosopher as a coach.
"It's a sword," she said flatly.
"It's a weapon." He stood between her and the sword. "Have you thought about what that means?"
"It means," she said sighing. "That once I can use it, I can make sure you never bother me with ridiculous questions like this, ever again."
"It means you're going to use it to kill someone."
He wasn't smiling anymore. He face was completely stony, but his eyes were wide and boring into hers, almost pleading, and she wondered for a moment exactly what this man had done and why he was a knight.
"You understand that right?" All the condescension was gone from his tone.
The image of a carriage rolling up to the castle gates, a blanket over the still figure inside, popped up at the front of Clarke's mind.
"Yes," she said. "I understand that."
He nodded. "Good. Okay. Let's begin."
Clarke straightened her shoulders and moved toward the sword, only to once again feel his fingers wrap themselves along her wrist.
"Not yet," he said.
Clarke rolled her eyes and pulled her hand away. At the pace this was going, she was never going to learn to fight. She should have just stayed in her room. She should have asked her mother for lessons (for the fifth time) or asked Wells to teach her. Wells had been training for years, he could have taught her.
She pictured that and snorted. Yeah right.
"Seriously?" she asked him. "What are we going to do? Mime it? Practice with sticks?"
Bellamy ignored her question. He walked back over to the straw filled dummy and stood behind it, resting his arms on top of it, watching her. She turned around to face him and waited.
"Do you know why you barely made a mark on this?"
"Because every time I tried to practice, some arrogant knight kept interrupting me?"
"Because your form was terrible." He picked up a couple sticks on the ground and tossed one to her. Suddenly she felt as if she was eight years old, running around, chasing her father around the courtyard, not eighteen learning to use a sword to fight. She opened her mouth to protest but he held up a hand. "Just shut up for a minute, and let me explain." She snapped her jaw shut. "Stand like you were before, like you were when you were practicing."
She turned to face the dummy head on, her arm out to her side, the stick slanted slightly in front of her chest.
"If you stand like that in a fight, you're going to get yourself killed," he said. Bellamy walked over to her until he was standing just in front of her. "Your balance for one thing," he said and then he shoved at her shoulder, causing her to stumble back. "If you can't maintain your center, you won't be able to control the sword. You're going to be falling all over yourself just trying to stand up straight. Plus," he said, poking her in the stomach with his own stick. "You're leaving yourself wide open. Two moves and your opponent will be standing over your body on the ground."
She took in his own posture. His legs were further apart than her own, so she shuffled her feet until they lined up with her shoulders. She looked at his torso and saw that it wasn't perfectly aligned with his hips, he was twisted a bit, his arm shielding his belly, so she twisted her own.
"Good," he said. "That's better. You might actually stay on your feet for more than a few seconds if you stand like that." He set his stick down by his feet and wandered behind her. She felt his hands on her shoulders, tugging them back the tiniest bit.
"Don't hunch over so much," he said softly as he adjusted her shoulders. He pressed a hand into her lower back, straightening her up further. "Your movements will be less sloppy if you aren't curled in on yourself."
Then he wandered next to her and crouched down by your legs. He tapped her right leg. "Your leading foot needs to be in front of your other just a bit," he said. She shuffled her foot forward across the grass. His hands gripped her foot, readjusting it when she stepped too far. "There, like that," he said. His hands ran along the back of her calves and she forced herself to stay standing upright, just like he showed her, and ignored the startling sensation of his fingers along her leg. When he got to her knee, he pushed in a little. She glanced down at him.
"Don't lock your knees," he explained. "Bend them a little. Not too much," he corrected when she began to crouch midair. "Just enough to free yourself up for some movement. It'll help keep you balanced."
He stood up and walked backward a few steps to take in her stance. The smile was back. "Now you look like you could stand a chance," he said.
He stepped forward and shoved her shoulder once more. She only swayed a bit at his touch, instead of crumbling to the ground like she did before.
"Not bad, Griff." He picked up his stick again and mirrored her stance. "We'll make a knight out of you yet."
It went on like that for a week. She hardly even touched the sword, and when she did, he almost immediately ripped it out of her hand to correct her form before giving it back.
"Stop gripping the hilt so tight," Bellamy said as he pulled her hand into his. His rubbed on her knuckles until she loosened her grip a bit.
"I'm going to drop it," she said.
"No," he said. "You're not. You're going to tire out too quickly if you hold it so tight. And," he added, pulling her fingers from the hilt completely. "You're going to make the blisters worse." He ran a thumb over her palm, barely grazing the tender skin of her hand, but she pulled it back, hissing in pain none the less.
"I think we should be done for today," he said, sticking his own sword in the ground.
"I need to practice," Clarke protested. She bent down and picked her own sword up off the ground, forcing herself to loosen her grip, and she stood tall, blade at the ready, waiting for him.
"Put it down, Griff," he said. "We're done."
Clarke slammed her sword on the patch of dirt in front of her feet. All week he'd been doing this. One step forward, two steps back. He taught her the posture, he taught her to steady her breathing, he taught her how to hold a sword. But she'd barely gotten to swing one.
"I'm never going to learn to fight at this rate," she grumbled.
"Fighting," he said, a hint of amusement in his voice. "Is not the problem. You've fought me plenty." He walked over to where her satchel sat on the ledge of a window in the armory. He pulled out Monty's salve and sat down, waving her over. She leaned back against the cool stone next to him, and he removed the cap and grabbed her hands.
"Look," he said. He dipped his fingers into the salve and pressed them into the palm of her right hand, swirling them around, back and forth and back and forth. "You've got spirit, and that's great. You need that in a fight. But there's no enemy at your door right now. And I'd prefer to teach you slowly so that when there is, you don't get yourself killed because you made a dumb mistake."
His thumb pressed into her skin, drawing circles in her hand, and she knew it was the salve that was relieving the tension, she knew it was the salve causing heat to spread from the palm of her hand to the tips of her ears, but even so she felt a bit of it missing when he pulled his hand away to scoop out more for her other hand.
"Where did you learn to fight?" she asked quietly.
Bellamy pulled back. He did that a lot when she asked him about his life before he became a knight. The only thing she really knew about him was that he loved apples and that he liked to read.
"All over the lower towns, actually," he said. He glanced up at her out of the corner of his eye. "Me and a bunch of other street rats learned pretty quickly that we weren't going to last long doing whatever the hell we wanted if we didn't have the skills to back it up."
"Figures you'd be trouble even as a kid," she joked. His smile spread across his face.
"Who says I was the one causing trouble?"
Clarke just rolled her eyes and held out her other hand. His hands wrapped around it and pulled her closer to him for a moment, keeping still, just holding her there, but then the moment was up and he was spreading the balm over her skin forwards and backwards and side to side, both thumbs massaging it deep into her palm. She let her head fall back against the wall and she closed her eyes and sighed.
When he finished, he put the top of the jar back on and slipped it back into her satchel which he then handed to her.
"Get some sleep, Griff," he said pulling the strap of her bag onto her shoulder. "Maybe I'll let you actually swing the sword tomorrow."
"How are you a knight if you grew up in the lower towns?" she asked, sticking the tip of her sword into a patch of mossy grass. Bellamy straightened up, brows furrowed as he studied her.
"What?" he said.
"You said you learned to fight in the lower towns," she reminded him. "You called yourself a street rat."
It didn't make sense. She hadn't given it a second thought when he'd told her, hadn't even realized that it didn't make sense until she'd gotten back into her rooms. She'd been lying on her bed, his words ringing around in her ears when she thought of it. Only nobles became knights. No one from the lower towns had ever been a part of the castle guard.
He picked up his sword and swung a few times against the dummy.
"I said I learned in the lower towns," he said eventually. "I didn't say I lived there."
She studied the way his feet moved, soft and quick. She'd tried to mimic his movements just minutes before and had found herself falling backwards on her ass as she tripped over her own feet. But he moved smooth, like a cat.
"So you didn't live in the lower towns then?" she asked.
He dropped his sword and turned to her, an exasperated look on his face. "Couldn't be a knight if I did, could I?"
She shrugged, nodding a bit when she met his eye and didn't point out that he still wasn't really answering the question.
"Okay," he said, voice loud. He was going to change the subject, so she stood up and brushed her legs off, preparing. "Pick up your sword."
She did and he held his own in front of him. His eyebrows quirked up as he smiled at her.
"Ready for your first spar?"
Clarke couldn't remember what it felt like not to be sore.
Wells had begun teasing her about it; getting people to ask her to run back and forth all over the castle before she realized that no, her mother didn't need to see her-usually she figured it out whenever she heard snickering from behind a corner, and saw Wells and Monty duck in behind it as if she hadn't seen them.
She could tell her mother was curious, certain she knew that something was going on, but unsure of exactly what. And Clarke knew her mother, until she had something to go on, she wasn't about to ask her about it. Clarke just had to make sure Wells or Monty wouldn't let anything slip.
Other than that, she'd just have to be careful not to be too obvious about it.
She eased herself down onto her mattress, ever grateful for Monty's salve as she worked it into her thighs and her calves, then her arms. Bellamy always took a few minutes at the end of every lesson to help her work it into her palms, to help her prevent blisters he said, and she hid how sore the rest of her body was until she got back to her chambers and collapsed on her bed. She wished she was flexible enough to work it into her back, but after a few minutes of struggling she gave up and flopped back onto her mattress.
It was the only time she ever really got to talk to him, she realized, in those last few minutes outside the armory, his hands working in circles over her own.
Any other time she'd ask him something, try to learn anything about his life outside the castle, where he'd grown up, what his family was like, he'd swing his sword against the dummy before telling her to get ready to spar. She was aching from head to toe because he'd rather work her bones into dust than tell her his mother's name.
But the five minutes he took at the end, he'd usually let something slip. Like that he still got lost in the castle sometimes, or that he loved to read but only had one book of his own, or that he actually hated the taste of mead but drank it anyway.
Then she'd linger and he'd wander off, back to the rest of his patrol, and he'd throw a smile and a wave over his shoulder as he walked away.
"Cook me something good in the kitchens tomorrow!" he'd tease as he backed away from her. "Gotta pay me somehow, right?"
Clarke woke to bells ringing around the citadel.
She jolted up in her bed, startled awake from her dream, and recognized the alarm as it ran through the tower. She heard footsteps running through the hall, pounding outside her door. And shouts—broken off, bits of phrases, echoing down the stone hallway, too panicked for her to understand, but loud enough for her to get the picture.
She ran to her window.
There was fire. Just in the distance, she saw flames flickering. The lower towns, it must have been. She couldn't tell what else was happening, all she saw were figures running outside her window, all she heard were shouts and screams, and the banging of metal as knights ran back and forth, as swords were held, and shields were bumped and armor scraped against armor.
She jumped at a banging on her door.
Wells slipped in. "Clarke!" he shouted. He was pulling clothes out of her wardrobe. The same clothes she wore every night to the armory. He ran towards her and shoved them into her hands.
"Put these on. Find your mother. Get to the lower rooms, stay there until I come to get you." He looked at her, waiting for her to nod, to answer, to say something but everything was happening and Wells was standing in front of her with a look she'd never seen on his face, and she couldn't put any of it together, she couldn't understand what was happening. "Clarke!"
She startled out of her daze. "What's happening?"
Wells shook his head. "I don't know, I don't know. I heard the alarm and I came right here. I'm finding Monty next. You'll do what I said?" she just stared at him. "Clarke! You'll find your mother?"
Clarke nodded dumbly. What is my mother going to do? She wondered. What would I do If I were queen?
Wells pulled a dagger from his belt. He pressed it into her palm. "You shouldn't be unarmed," he said. "I know it's not a sword, but you can do some damage with it."
I would fight, she thought. I would fight if I were queen.
"Hey," Wells drew her face up to look at him. "Don't worry, Clarkey. I got this." He pulled her into a hug, and dropped a kiss to the top of her head, before shoving at the clothes once more. He was pulling the doors to her chambers back open, when he turned and shouted over his shoulder at her.
"Don't do anything stupid!"
She pressed herself into the wall on the side of the armory.
Shouts. All she could hear were shouts. And footsteps, pounding in and out of the armory as knights ran in and gathered shields and swords and ran out again. She pulled her cap tighter, down around her head.
As the footsteps died down she inched her way closer the the door, about to slip in when she felt a hand wrap itself around her arm and yank her backwards. She pulled the knife out from her sleeve and pressed it forward, into the neck of the man standing opposite her before she even saw who it was.
"What the hell are you doing Griff?" Bellamy hissed at her.
She pulled herself out of his grasp and shoved the knife back into it's hiding spot, adjusting her tunic back in it's place.
"Getting a sword," she said. "Being useful."
"No," Bellamy shook his head. "Not this time." She opened her mouth to protest but he cut her off. "You're not ready. You'll do more harm than good."
His hand was wrapped back around her arm and he was pulling her into a back corridor, weaving his way through the halls of the castle.
"Thought you still got lost in here,"she huffed.
Bellamy pushed open a door to a small room she'd never even known existed. He shoved her shoulder until she was inside. He gripped her shoulders.
"Griff," he said. For the first time since she'd met him, his voice wasn't masking anything, it wasn't low or smirking or blank. He was nervous. "You don't leave this room. Got it? You stay here. I'll come find you later. Keep the knife out just in case."
He had smears of soot all along his face and across his knuckles. She hadn't noticed at the armory, but his under tunic was smudged too, burned it even looked like at the hem.
"What happened-where did you-"
He shook his head.
"Look next time I'm sure you'll be ready and you can grab a sword and sneak off and help everyone but right now, you're staying here. Okay?"
She shoved his hands off of her shoulders and nodded.
"Fine," she agreed. She knew he was right. She could barely walk and swing at the same time, she wasn't ready to take a sword out of the practice field. But no one would tell her what was happening and all she could hear were the shouts and the footsteps, running, pounding in every direction, and the bells, still ringing and ringing and ringing.
He nodded curtly, pulling himself back up away from her.
"I'll be back," he said, and he closed the door.
She hadn't seen Bellamy since the attack on the lower towns.
She'd waited until she was sure he was gone and she'd slipped out of the room and went to find her mother like Wells had told her to do, knuckles gripped tightly around the dagger the whole time.
But even when it all settled down, when the fires were put out and the bells had stopped ringing and the shouts had stopped, she hadn't dared go back to the armory. She didn't want to, not until she knew what was going on.
When her mother had called her to the throne room only two days after the attacks, she thought that maybe, finally, somebody was going to tell her everything they'd been keeping from her.
But she walked in to see Bellamy, standing ten feet off from where her mother and Thelonious sat at a table, pouring over letters and maps. His eyes were wide and confused and she ducked her head as she saw them rake up and down her body, taking in her dress where there should have been ratty trousers, watching her hair fall over her shoulders when it should have been tucked into a cap.
"Griff-?" he'd started, but at his voice her mother looked up.
"Clarke," she said standing. "Good, come here," she held out her hand. Clarke took it but there was suddenly a ringing in her ears that she couldn't explain and she couldn't hear anything Abby was saying. All she could hear was the ringing and all she could feel was the flush working it's way up her neck, bleeding into her cheeks and all she could see was the way Bellamy's eyes hardened as the pieces finally came together for him.
"-Sir Bellamy, at all times. After the other night we can't be too careful and I want someone at your side always." She paused expecting Clarke to protest, but Clarke merely blinked dumbly up at her.
"There's not going to be an argument about this, Clarke," she warned. "I'm not taking any risks, not with you."
Clarke nodded, still not meeting her eye, and she peeked over at where Bellamy stood, facing the opposite wall, avoiding her gaze.
"If that's it," Clarke said weakly. "I've got a bit of a headache and I'd like to return to my rooms."
Abby nodded and Clarke turned to go.
"I guess you're coming with me then, Sir Bellamy," she said.
He nodded, eyes trained just above her head.
"After you, your Highness," he said.
She turned from her mother and walked out into the hall, waiting to hear the door close and Bellamy's steady footsteps behind her. Once they were down the corridor and around the corner, she turned to face him.
"I can explain-" she started, steps coming to a stop beside him, but he kept walking.
"No need to explain yourself to me, princess," he said bitterly and she felt a small weight press itself into her ribs. She swallowed thickly and jogged to catch up to him, ignoring the ache in her muscles as she moved.