9
Rising
OCTAVIA
The man's beady eyes keep flickering over me as he speaks. And I don't like the way he looks at me, a small smirk pulling at his lips, leaving tiny creases in the scars on his cheeks. And I can feel the anger rising in me again.
It starts deep inside the pit of my stomach and crawls slowly up my throat until I can taste it, bitter, metallic, like blood on the tip of my tongue, making my lip curl. With it comes the heat, spreading through my chest, spilling down my arms and into my clenched fists until my fingers shake. By the time the heat reaches my face the blood is already pounding in my ears and fogging my brain like a drug.
I welcome the anger. Not because I enjoy it, but because its sensations have become so familiar. The anger is not my friend. It is not my enemy. But it has become my faithful companion, none the less. It is the only thing I can always count on to be there.
"I am the only remaining Nightblood." Luna tells the man again. "The Commander's throne is my birthright."
Her voice is calm, controlled, steady. She sits upright, regally, as if already perched on the massive throne. Though in reality, the throne is bare and she sits in Floudonkru's designated chair, only one of thirteen identical ones arranged in a circle in the stone chamber. Like the throne, two of the chairs are empty: Skaikru's cold and bare, Azgeda's still warm. The Ice Nation's delegate paces the circle, addressing everyone though his eyes repeatedly linger on Luna and flicker over me. I stand beside Ander in the gap between Luna's and Indra's chairs, bridging Trikru and Floudonkru.
"Any claim you had to the throne you forfeited the night you fled your conclave." The man argues. His ugly, cold voice echoes off the stone walls and finds its way into my chest and I feel the anger rising. "You are a disgrace to the black blood in your veins. It ought to have been spilled long ago, if not by Lexa, then by Ontari. Nightblood or not, we don't need another weak, timid woman on the Commander's throne. We don't need another Lexa."
I can see Luna's posture stiffen at his words. But she makes no reply.
"The last commander was Ice Nation." The man continues. "And the next one shall be as well. King Arlen..."
"King Arlen..." Indra interrupts the man in the deep, powerful voice that I respect more than any other. "Is not a Nightblood and, as such, has no claim to the throne."
"In the event that there are no SUITABLE Nightbloods to rule," The man replies, narrowing his icy blue-gray eyes at Indra. "As is the present case, it falls upon the council to select a non-Nightblood to lead as Regent Commander until a worthy Nightblood arises. I propose the council select King Arlen of Azgeda, brother of the late King Roan, son of the late Queen Nia to serve as Commander."
A few small cheers erupt from the people crowded around the edges of the room. A handful of the seated clan ambassadors nod in approval. But most remain silent, their eyes fluttering back and forth between Luna and the Azgeda delegate as Luna speaks again.
"The council cannot make any decision without all of its members present, Ronto." She speaks.
"Azgeda still does not recognize the legitimacy of Skaikru." Ronto spits at Luna. "Of all of the mistakes Lexa made, inviting the Sky People into the Alliance of the Clans was her greatest moment of incompetency."
"Skaikru took the brand." Indra counters. "As such, Luna kom Floudonkru is correct... The council can make no decision without a delegate from the thirteenth clan present."
Ronto's eyes flicker over me again. But this time his gaze lingers. "We have a member of Skaikru present." He growls. And I still do not like the way he looks at me. And I feel the anger rising inside. "Why don't you take a seat, Sky Girl?"
Before I realize it, I've taken a step towards him. I'm close enough to reach out and trace the ugly marks on his face. I'm close enough to smell the stink of his breath. I clench my fists. Open them. Clench them again. I feel the anger rising.
"Ai laik Octavia kom Trikru." I spit the words at him. My voice is low and gravelly and dangerous. I hear the screech of a chair against stone and suddenly I feel the warm weight of a hand on my shoulder. The sensation is so familiar that for one instant, one glorious instant, I forget that he is gone.
How many times has the simple weight of Lincoln's hand on my shoulder steadied me? Kept me grounded? His hands were so strong. His hands were so gentle. How many times had his calming touch kept me from doing something rash? But the hand on my shoulder is not Lincoln's. It is Indra's. And I feel the anger rising. And her touch cannot quell it.
"Hearing our tongue dishonored by your lips makes my ears bleed, Sky Girl." Ronto says to me. "Stop pretending to be one of us and take your proper seat... At our feet."
I stare into his beady blue-gray eyes. I want to gouge them out. I want to watch the light drain from them. I want to darken them forever. "I am Trikru." I repeat.
"Paint on your face..." Ronto snarls. "A sword on your back... Braids in your hair..." He reaches out and touches a lock of my hair. The fingers on my shoulder tighten their grip. Indra means to hold me back. But I feel the anger rising.
"These things cannot make you a Grounder." Ronto spits in my face.
I feel the anger rising. And I welcome it.
"You're right." I say in Trigedasleng, drawing my sword from my back and plunging it into him. His beady eyes grow wide with surprise as I drive the blade in deeper. "It's what's on the inside that makes you a Grounder."
And his insides spill out of him as I pull my blade from his stomach. His body crumples to the floor at my feet. I delve the tip of my sword into the cavern of one ear until it bleeds. Everyone in the chamber watches me as I watch the light drain from Ronto's blue-gray eyes. And for one moment it is the brown eyes of Pike that I see growing dark before me. And again I have no words. Because the anger is still inside of me, and once again the blood cannot quell it.
So I turn my back on the dying man and no one tries to stop me as I walk silently across the stone chamber and out the door.
...
Helios snorts into my palm as he plows through the oats in my hand, covering my fingers in saliva and mucus and hot horse-breath and scattering the ground with slobbery oats. As he inhales the last of the oats his huge yellow teeth clamp onto my thumb and I suck in a sharp breath at the pain. It's not the first time Helios has bitten me. I'm sure it will not be the last. I should expect it by now.
I pull my thumb from his mouth and inspect the damage. His powerful jaws could crush right through the bone, but he rarely even breaks the skin. Still, it throbs.
"You little shit." I whisper into his ear as I give it a quick nip. But I feel a smile on my face because in all of the world, Helios is my favorite thing. I stroke his mane and he turns his massive head, now trying to nuzzle into the crook of my elbow. Helios has always been Lincoln's horse. He tolerates me. But he is Lincoln's horse, and he constantly reminds me of that whenever he gets the chance: nipping my fingers, purposefully walking under low branches so that I have to duck to avoid being unseated, or suddenly veering sideways so that my leg scrapes against the bark of the trees as we pass. He can be a real shit.
But afterwards, he always tries to nuzzle me and make up and I wonder if he knows. If he knows that Lincoln is gone and that he is stuck with me and if he has decided to make the best of it. And I can't blame Helios for choosing Lincoln over me. I would have too. And if I were him... If I were stuck with me... I would be a real shit too.
I pat his neck and I feel the anger receding within me, retreating back into the hollow space inside of me from which it came. Now that Lincoln is gone, Helios is the only one who calms me, who helps me drive the anger back. And with my fingers tangled in his dark mane, I can finally breathe again.
I sit and I wait. I should clean the blood from my blade, but I find myself reaching into my pack instead, my fingers searching for the familiar worn leather of Lincoln's journal. I rifle through its faded pages, as I've done a thousand times before. My eyes flicker over the pages but my mind is somewhere else completely. I don't ever really look at the drawings anymore. I have memorized every single one of them so that I can see them more clearly on the back of my eyelids than I can on the faded pages. Still, something inside of me craves the familiar feeling of the journal's weight in my hands, the texture of its paper beneath my fingertips. And I suppose it has become habit now.
"Lincoln always did have the soul of an artist." Luna speaks as she plunks down beside me. I did not invite her to join me and I do not acknowledge her presence now. I glance down at the journal in my hands, not at all surprised to find it is open to the page of Lincoln's first drawing of me. I slam the journal shut.
"There is a deep, deep anger inside of you, Octavia kom Trikru." Luna observes casually, as if commenting on the chill of the mist in the air or the absence of the sun. I'm surprised by the boldness of her statement, but I make no reply.
"It's churning inside your blood like a poison." She says. "Anger is like a drug. It makes you feel alive. It intoxicates you. And the rush of it is addicting. Some anger, when kept in its place, can be useful, Octavia. But I worry that you allow yours to take control of your faculties... to take control of you. And I fear that if you are not careful, the anger will destroy you."
She pauses and I wait for the familiar roiling in the pit of my stomach to come at her words. I wait for the heat to spread through my chest. I wait for the blood to pound in my ears. But, for once, I do not feel the anger rising.
She speaks to me in Trigedasleng and her voice is soft and calm and makes me think of Lincoln's. And though I do not want to hear her words, I find myself listening.
"After I stabbed my own brother through the throat," Luna continues. "I was nothing but anger inside. The anger pulsed through my veins. It sank into the marrow of my bones. It burrowed into my very soul. And when I left the conclave moments later, I had no plan, no destination. All I had was the anger. And when I found myself on a bluff overlooking the sea, I was so angry at the world that I stood on its edge and I jumped. And when my head surfaced from the icy waters and I found I was still breathing, I was even angrier. And when two strong arms latched under my own and wrenched me from the waves I was even angrier still. And the man with the strong arms saw the anger in my eyes and he gave me this..."
Luna pauses to reach into an inner pocket of her cloak and when she opens her fist there is a small, delicate seashell resting in her palm.
"My whole life I had been taught to be angry." She continues. "Taught that love is weakness. Taught that blood must have blood. But that man told me that anger hollows you out and hardens you and leaves you like a shell of yourself... Hard, but brittle. Easily chipped. Easily broken. And, even when intact, still always, utterly empty."
"It took me a long time," She sighs. "A long, long time to overcome my anger. But looking back now, I realize that Derek didn't just rescue me from the tumbling waves of the sea that day. He saved my life that day and every day that followed it. Because he taught me how to fight the deadly poison inside of me."
I cannot help but think of the man I watched Luna kill mere days ago. I can still see her sobbing over his body, as his blood drained from his skin and covered her own, painting it crimson. And I cannot understand how the same woman is sitting so calmly beside me now. I cannot understand how it is that she is not broken like me, empty like me... Angry like me.
But still I hold my tongue. I do not ask her, but she answers anyway, as if I did. "Forgiveness." She says. "Forgiveness is the only thing more powerful than the anger."
"Some people do not deserve forgiveness." I open my mouth for the first time and I am surprised because the words rushed out of me and I never meant to speak them. And I am thinking about Pike and I am thinking about Bellamy. And the anger should be rising inside of me, but still it does not come.
Luna chuckles at my words and drapes a palm around the curve of my shoulder. "Kid... No one ever does." She says. "But that's not the point. Figure out who you need to forgive, Octavia. Maybe it's someone you've already killed. Maybe it's someone you long to kill but cannot. Maybe... It's Lincoln."
I'm so taken aback by her words that I raise my eyes to look at her for the first time since she sat down beside me. I expect to see the apology written in her eyes, but her face is completely nonchalant. I should feel the anger rising inside of me. I should want to pry her fingers from my shoulder and break them one by one until they are twisted and gnarled. I should want to make her hurt, make her bleed. But still, the anger is strangely absent.
"But from my own experience..." Luna continues, ignoring my glare. "I suspect the person most in need of your forgiveness is yourself. Figure out how to fight your poison, Octavia." She says, finally pulling her hand off of me and reaching between us to place her small shell carefully onto the tattered cover of Lincoln's journal. She rises to her feet. "May the waves rock you gently... Until I find you on the Other Shore." She says and I know it is her clan's farewell.
"You're leaving?" I blurt out as she begins to walk away. "What about..."
"The Coalition has fallen." Luna answers before I can finish. "There is now no need for a new Commander."
I struggle to grasp the weight of her words as she turns to walk away again. "So, that's it?" I call after her, because... At last... I feel the anger rising. "You're running away again?"
"I don't run away." She answers calmly. "I simply know exactly where it is that I belong in this world. Learn to forgive, Octavia... And maybe one day you'll find your place in this world too."
I do not bother to watch as she and her men mount their horses. I am staring down at the seashell, Luna's words echoing in my mind. And I can feel the anger rising, because I know that what she said was true.
I've directed all of my anger towards Pike and towards Bellamy. But I watched both of them bleed at my hands and the blood could not quell the anger. Because I am angry at Pike and I am angry at Bellamy.
And I am angrier at Lincoln.
Because I asked Lincoln to leave with me and he chose to stay. And I asked Lincoln to let me die with him. And I told him that we fight together. And he stole that choice from me. And I know deep down that Lincoln always made the right choice. And I am angry because always making the right choice is what got him killed.
And I am angry, so angry, at Lincoln. But I know that I am even angrier at myself. Because if he had never met me, never loved me, Lincoln would still be alive right now. Even before he knew my name Lincoln was already prepared to die for me. But I never wanted him to. Because I am not worth dying for.
Because Lincoln was good... Too good for this world. Too good. Too kind. Too gentle. And he was everything that I long to be. And he is everything that I am not. Because I am a little shit. And Lincoln should be alive. And I should be dead.
And I reach down and snag Luna's seashell and I roll it in my palm. And I feel the anger rising. And I know I can never forgive myself. Because I know I do not deserve forgiveness. And I clench the shell in my fist and I rear back my arm. Because I want to bash this shell against the ground. And I want to watch it shatter into pieces. And I want to grind the pieces under my boot until they are nothing but sand scattered in the wind.
But before I can release it another body plunks down beside me and I lower my arm in surprise. Indra doesn't say anything. But I think nothing of that. She has always been a quiet person and lately there has been a lot of silence between us. But the silence is comfortable and familiar and safe and I let it linger a long moment before I break it.
"Luna's gone." I say and my voice is hollow.
"It doesn't matter." She replies. "The Alliance has fallen. The Coalition has disbanded. There is no Coalition to command, now."
"What happened?" I ask. But I am afraid I already know the answer.
"Azgeda was the first to secede from the Alliance." She confirms my fears. "Sangedakru and Louwoda Kliron followed. It won't be long until Azgeda makes a move for Polis and Trikru will not be able to stand on its own, not after Pike's massacre. The real question is which clans will stand by our side."
At her words, the anger in me has receded and guilt, cold and thick, washes in to take its place. And I do not welcome it. Because the guilt is so much harder to stomach than the anger ever was.
"I probably shouldn't have killed Ronto." I admit. Because Luna was right about that too... I do let the anger control me. And these words are the closest thing I can manage to an apology. I want forgiveness. I know I do not deserve it.
"Probably not." Indra agrees. But there is no anger in her voice. No disappointment or condemnation. There is only sadness. "But you did not kill the Alliance, Octavia." She says with a sigh. "The Coalition died the moment Lexa stopped breathing."
Silence gathers in the space between us once more and I let it linger. Only now do I realize that I have been absentmindedly worrying the ridges of Luna's seashell in my fingertips.
"What do we do now?" I finally ask.
"Now..." Indra answers and I hear the fierceness in the voice of the warrior I admire. "We choose our side and we sharpen our blades and we wait... We wait for the storm."
