"Attack now!" Clarke shouted.
"Chil yo daun!" Lexa called out for everyone to stand down as she returned from the ridge. She led a tied-up Mountain Man behind her.
Clarke approached her. "What is this?"
"Hey, look!" Someone shouted. "They're coming out!"
Lincoln turned to the door, his eyes widening in disbelief as hunched over figures began trickling out from inside the Mountain. They were weak, malnourished, barely dressed, and shivering in the chilly autumn night. The Mountain Men's hunger for their blood had been insatiable and now they were suddenly letting them go.
"They're surrendering?" Clarke asked as the prisoners continued to make their way out.
"Not quite," Lexa's Mountain Man said.
More and more people streamed out from the opened door, hundreds of them. They were quickly absorbed into the crowd of warriors, reunited with their clansmen and taken away to safety. Lexa's Mountain Man walked past Lincoln, freed by Lexa to return into the Mountain.
Lincoln walked over to Lexa's and Clarke's side. "What is this?" he asked.
"Your commander's made a deal," Clarke replied.
"What about prisoners from the Ark?" Lincoln asked, terrified of the answer. The Mountain Men could only survive without the blood of his people if they used the Sky People instead.
"They'll all be killed," Clarke said. "But you don't care about that, do you?"
"I do care, Clarke," Lexa said firmly. "But I made this choice with my head and not my heart. The duty to protect my people comes first."
Clarke took a step closer, begging. "Please don't do this."
"I'm sorry, Clarke," Lexa said.
Lincoln stepped forward. "Commander, not like this. Let us fight." The Mountain had taken too much for too long for them to leave without a fight.
"No. The deal is done," Lexa said just as the last of the prisoners were released and the giant door to Mount Weather was shut on the outside world once again. "Teik oso raunnes laud." She ordered.
A warrior blew his horn, sounding for retreat. The warriors immediately obeyed, grumbling and wondering as they turned away and left, leaving behind the Sky People guards, looking perplexed and lost.
"You, too," Lexa said to Lincoln directly, catching him looking to Clarke for guidance. "All our people withdraw. Those are the terms."
"They'll be slaughtered." Lincoln turned to her, this time speaking to her as Lexa and not as his Heda. "Let me help them." He dared to ask a second time.
She indifferently stared him in the eyes as she ordered for him to be taken away. "Sis em op."
Lincoln tensed. Bellamy was still inside that mountain and Octavia wasn't going to leave him behind. And Lincoln wasn't going to leave Octavia behind; not without a fight. Two warriors approached him to restrain him and he briefly fought back until one of them knocked him over the head, temporarily stunning him. They grabbed him under the arms and began dragging him away.
He waited for Clarke to intervene, waited for Clarke to tell Lexa he was her people and to let him go. He could still help her if she would just say the words. She remained silent, betraying him once again and leaving him helpless and at the mercy of Trikru laws.
The Commander's guard brought him back to the Trikru base-camp and tied him to a tree to await Lexa's decision regarding his newly regained status as a natrona. He was expecting to be spat on, maybe even roughened up a little, but they didn't touch him except to transport him and tie him up.
He wasn't the only one upset with Lexa's decision to form a truce with the Mountain Men. They had already won the battle by getting that door open yet Lexa had capitulated to the Mountain Men's conditional surrender, leaving the Sky People behind as some sort of consolation prize.
It was one thing to abandon the Sky People but it was another to allow the Mountain Men to get away with their fifty years of slaughter. Thousands of people across the twelve clans had gone missing over those last fifty years, disappearing inside the Mountain forever with no closure and false hope for those left behind.
Lexa claimed she made the deal with her head and not her heart but it had been all heart: her love for her people above all else. Her people, however, had wanted blood from the Mountain Men, not peace with them.
The base camp was emptying out as the warriors dispersed; the battle over, their people returned. Many left right away, eager to return home to see friends and family again. A few were waiting until daylight when the Commander and the bulk of her forces were leaving to return to Polis.
Indra strode through the empty camp, everyone already gone or asleep except for his lone guard. Octavia hadn't come back with her, as he had known she wouldn't. Caris, the Sankru Second, had told him when she brought him water that Octavia had refused to leave her brother behind. Indra had removed her as her Second and banished her.
"Ai na god yu setnes op. Rid yu op," Indra said to the guard, telling him she would watch Lincoln while he got some sleep.
She came to stand by him and Lincoln was suddenly disgusted with it all. "How could you do this?"
"I swore loyalty to this commander."
"She left our allies to be slaughtered." Like Indra had left Octavia. "She dishonors us all."
"And your disobedience dishonors you."
"Why are you here, Indra?" If it was to insult him and call him a natrona, he'd had enough of that already.
She crouched down next to him. "Because you are also Trikru," she said, surprising him with her answer.
He might be Trikru but Octavia no longer was. "I can't just let her die."
"Under the terms of the truce, the lands surrounding the Mountain are forbidden. If you violate this, Lexa will never take you back." Lexa, not Indra. Indra was telling him she did not fully support the Commander's decision. "Octavia made her choice. Now you make yours." With that, Indra stood up and walked away.
Lincoln had made his choice long ago when he had saved Octavia that first time. He would always make that same choice: Octavia. His hand reached for the knife Indra had left behind.