There was a dead silence in the audience. One could almost hear the flies flying. No one dared to speak anymore. Even Philemon did not really expect the queen to propose a supreme challenge.
Then the silence was followed by murmurs, people talking in low voices to each other, almost all turning their gaze to their queen and Clarke, alternating their eyes from one to the other.
The people could not believe what was happening. The queen, their queen whom they loved and respected so much, loved a Zenarian, their enemies.
Then Lexa addressed the people again.
- If I stand before you today, it is because Philemon has betrayed you, he has betrayed the trust you had in him and he has betrayed my own trust!
- He knew all along about Clarke, we are not only together, we have been married for over two years!
- And it is because of our marriage that we are at peace, albeit relative, with the Zenarians.
- Our peace would have been more lasting if Philemon had not tried to end my life. For two years I lost my memory, forgetting my marriage to Clarke and not knowing why we were at peace with the Zenarians.
- Today I still don't have my memory back, but my love for Clarke is as strong as ever. And Philemon will have to pay for his treachery to his people. Attempting to murder his queen will be punishable by death.
Despite Lexa's words, the people didn't seem to be listening to her entirely. There were many outraged looks throughout. Some, however, seemed to have heard her, were thinking, probably wondering what it would be like to finally have true peace.
But the others felt betrayed by their queen, and tensions were rising, fights were starting to break out between those who wanted to support Lexa and those who were absolutely against.
And in the midst of it all, Philemon was enjoying the chaos that was being created.
He ordered guards to take Clarke and Lexa away and put them in a cell. He would have liked to have them killed, but Lexa having invoked the supreme challenge, he could not afford such a thing.
Arrived in cell, Clarke pushed violently Lexa against the wall by calling her crazy and that she should never have done that. She was so afraid of losing her again that her body stiffened, she could hardly breathe and she could not contain herself anymore. She knew she couldn't handle losing her a second time, if this was the end for Lexa, it would be the end for her too.
Clarke tried as best she could to regain her composure, but her body was shaking all over, she was in the middle of waking nightmares.
Lexa had a hard time seeing the woman she loved in this state. She would have really found the right words to comfort her, to tell her that everything would be all right. But the truth is that she herself wasn't sure what was going to happen.
Clarke ended up throwing herself into Lexa's arms. She didn't want to let her go, to enjoy the last moments she would surely spend with the one she loved more than anything, her reason to live, her sun, her life... She nestled her neck directly in Lexa's one who couldn't help but put a hand in her back to reassure her and the second hand in her hair to caress it tenderly...
They remained thus several minutes without moving. Then, Lexa moved away slowly to look at Clarke in the eyes, eyes which were reddened by her tears which did not stop flowing. She took an air on her, even if internally she really did not lead much, and affirmed to him right in the eyes that she knew what she made and she promised to him not to die during this supreme challenge.
- Clarke, I am the best warrior of the country, nobody can beat me but you, I will succeed in this challenge and we will come out victorious, I promise you that!
- Don't make promises you can't keep Lexa, please...
- I don't intend to run away from this one when we've just met again. Tried to reassure Lexa.
- Lexa, I can't beat you, you always defeated me when you still had your memory...
- How is that ? Yet you disarmed me with such ease the last time !
- Well... it's mainly because we always trained together, I know every move you make, every move you make. And it's only because you don't remember our trainings together nor my way of fighting that you didn't defeat me.
- Because normally you would have beaten me up Clarke admitted by lowering his eyes.
- We'll get through this Clarke. We have allies, Philemon doesn't know that Alexander is your brother, he is in the place, he will be able to inform us of Philemon's actions.
- Maybe... but you still shouldn't have, we could have found another way Lexa...
- I don't want to lose you again...
- You won't lose me Clarke... tried to reassure Lexa by encircling the young woman in her arms.
During this time, Alexander was close to Philemon. He made pretence to be on his side in order to have information on what this last one counted on doing. But he was not fooled, he did not trust the young man. After all, it was Lexa who had made him an important member of Isarian and he thought that he was thus indebted to the young woman.
- Alexander, if you want to prove your loyalty to me, you're going to need something for me.
- What was that, Alexander asked?
Philemon proposed that he prove his loyalty by killing Lexa's beloved dog. Alexander was astonished by this request and he knew that if he did that, the queen would never forgive him because she was so fond of this animal.
Rose, for her part, had joined Leonie, they had decided to join forces to get Lexa and Clarke out of the cell. They didn't know yet the laws that governed Isarian, but they knew that this was not normal and that all this was the work of the greed of a man that Lexa cared for a lot.
Outside there were riots, between the pro-Lexa and those who wanted to think she was a traitor, Isarian was on the verge of civil war. Everywhere broken glass, looted shops, invaded houses or violent aggressions.
At the corner of an Isarian alley, a poor man was trying to defend his modest business, while two streets away a group of men managed to enter a house to loot any object that could be resold.
As for Alexander, he was faced with a dilemma. To prove his loyalty, he said he would kill Lexa's dog, but he had no intention of doing so. He asked to go to his quarters to look for a weapon. He was not a fighter, so Philemon gave him permission, although he was suspicious of the young man.
He took the opportunity to join Rose and Léonie who were wondering how she could help. When Alexander arrived, it was he who gave them an idea to help Clarke and Lexa. He was going to tell them where Nayak was and she would be in charge of freeing him, so that when he arrived to kill him, he would not be there anymore.
But before putting this plan into action, Rose asked what exactly the ultimate challenge was. Alexander's eyes darkened. He too was aware that Lexa was going to die, that it was almost impossible for her not to. However, he found the strength to explain what it was all about.
- It is a fight, a fight to the death... A champion will be chosen to fight against Lexa and he will win...
- Yet I thought that Lexa was the best warrior and that nobody had ever been able to defeat her?
- Indeed, only... only before this champion will fight against the queen, this one will have to fight against any person who will wish it. Of course, they don't have any chance, but the goal is not that Lexa loses against them, but to tire her, so that when the fight against the champion will come, she won't have the necessary strength to carry out this battle, and she will die.
- The fights will continue as long as there are volunteers to fight her. And as only the last fight is to the death, she is not obliged to kill the fighters who will pass before the champion, the candidates against her will be legion, because they know that she will never kill her fellow citizens...
- She will be too exhausted in the last fight to succeed in winning, that's why she has no chance to get out of it...
Rose and Leonie were shocked. How could such a duel be allowed, it was not human, not worthy of the Isarians...
- Let's start from the beginning and free the queen's dog, the poor thing didn't ask for anything, said Leonie.
Rose and Leonie went to the place where Nayak was. This one was only a dog, his cell was not guarded, and it was very easy for the two women to free him. Then they left in all discretion to hide him in the forest, in a place that Alexander had indicated to them and that he knew well. There they would be safe while waiting for all to calm down.
When Alexander returned to Philemon with a weapon taken supposedly to kill the animal, he remained doubtful, he didn't know if he should believe this man or not, but in any case the dog had little importance for him. What he wanted was simply to hurt the queen and weaken her as much as possible before the fight started.
No one knew why he was doing this. He was the man who had practically raised Lexa since she was a child, he acted like a father to her. He had taken care of her when her parents died and his betrayal was incomprehensible to everyone. But no matter what the reasons were, Clarke and Lexa were determined to fight to the end.
Alexander asked Philemon when he should go kill the dog, but Philemon had been convincing enough to put this act on the back burner. Instead, he asked Philemon to accompany him to Clarke and Lexa's cell.
He wanted to confront the two women before the challenge began. And as queen, she had the right to be freed to train. Indeed, during the supreme challenges, each candidate had the right to three days of training to prepare. Unfortunately, in the history, few had used this right since none of them escaped alive.
Arrived in front of Clarke and Lexa's cell, the two women moved away from each other instantly. Both of them threw murderous glances at Philemon.
Still, this was probably a good opportunity to find out Philemon's reasons for his actions, why he had betrayed the person he was supposed to care about the most.
Philemon approached the bars, a petty smile on his face and his hands behind his back.
When he was close enough, Clarke rushed over and managed to grab him by the collar and slammed his head against the cell bar. Instantly the blood began to flow along his nose. He tried to brush it away with his sleeve, as if the blow had not hit him. A guard rushed to help Philemon and hit Clarke in his turn with a big kick in the stomach. She twisted in pain and would have fallen to the ground if Lexa hadn't held her back in time.
She screamed at the guard and at Philemon that if he touched her again it would be the last thing he would do on earth.
- Touch one more hair on her head and you're a dead man!
Lexa's glance at the guard was so intense that he was almost frightened himself.
He was one of those people who didn't really know who to believe anymore. On the one hand, he thought Lexa had betrayed his people, but on the other hand Philemon was not necessarily taking a better path. But as a guard, his job was to follow orders, so he did.
Lexa helped Clarke to get up. She passed the hand on the face of her companion to make sure that she was not wounded and threw to him a glance filled with tenderness and concern and internally she was enraged that her wife was so twisted of pain, she would have wanted to cut the head of the one who had dared to put the hand on her. Besides, she promised herself that this man would pay with his life.
But the two women quickly pulled themselves together, wanting absolutely to know what Philemon wanted.
Philemon put on a serious face.
- I just wanted to let you know that you are going to be released and returned to your private quarters. Since Lexa's death is almost certain, I don't want the people to think I'm taking it out on you. The challenge will take care of her quickly enough.
The face of Clarke tightened on these last words, and she wanted again to strike it, but she was held back by Lexa who held her by the size. The young woman wanting to throw herself on him in spite of the bars, she had all the difficulty of the world to retain it.
Philemon continued as if Clarke had not tried to throw herself on him.
- So you can train during the three days before the fight. But there will be guards to escort you every time you move, so you'll never be alone.
The two women did not understand. Lexa's heart didn't understand how the man she considered her surrogate father could come to this.
- WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?
This time, the man lost his arrogance and approached the bars of the cell, the guard positioned next to him ready to intervene at the slightest altercation.
The look of Clarke and Lexa was a mixture of anger and disappointment. Particularly that of Lexa who felt betrayed from the bottom of her being.
- You wonder why I betrayed you?
- I will tell you why!
- When your parents died Lexa, I did everything I could to make you the accomplished warrior you should have become. I thought that if you were educated enough, you would dislike our enemies so much that you would finally wipe their clan off the map.
- I had such high hopes for you! And then you had to fall in love with our enemy's daughter and even marry her, thus ending the war between our two peoples thanks to our laws!
- Zenarians are nothing but impudent dogs, you betrayed our people first before I betrayed you! I regained my hope when you lost your memory, you were back to the bloodthirsty warrior I had hoped to mold. I had so hoped you would shave Zenaria. But no, even with your memory erased, an invisible link had always prevented you from doing so, even though you didn't know why they weren't attacking us.
- Of course your marriage, which only I and the Zenarian leader knew about, prevented any attack. And I couldn't have broken that bond myself. I did everything I could to make your hatred of Zenarians grow again and again. And I had almost done it when Clarke came back into your life, sweeping away years of effort to make them into a bloodthirsty, lawless enemy in your eyes.
- So I had this idea to use the neutral territory for this slavery thing. If enough Isarians disappeared, then it would have been easy for me to charge Zenaria without you really knowing what was going on. But no, here again you both stepped in, discovering this traffic.
- This time I had no choice but to get rid of you two, and I must say that by invoking the ultimate challenge, Lexa, you went far beyond my expectations!
- What's that? Is that it? You don't like my people so you want to kill the girl you raised? Clarke shouted in her turn with eyes full of incomprehension and anger.
The question seemed to unnerve Philemon, but he didn't give up and answered with more emotion in his voice, his eyes were a mixture of hatred and disappointment, neither of the two women could say exactly what it was.
- If I hate the Zenarians so much, it's because they cost me the person I loved the most in the world! Your mother Clarke!
- PARDON? MY MOTHER? WHAT DID MY MOTHER HAVE TO DO WITH YOU?
- Your mother and I were once in love, we genuinely loved each other. At least on my side I was madly in love with her, but she was a Zenarian... And we were young, and we didn't have the strength to stand up against the prohibition to love each other.
- And one day your mother left me, I thought she couldn't stand that we had to hide. But the reality was that she had fallen in love with another man, your father Clarke. She didn't love me anymore, but she, but I still loved her and she had rebuilt her life. Then she gave birth to you. And one day she was killed, murdered, and with her death my hatred of your people only increased and I never stopped hating you for taking away the one I loved most in the world.
- My mother would never have loved a despicable being like you, Clarke whispered, she must have seen the evil in you and preferred to stay away from it, and she was right to do so!
This time it was Philemon who approached the bars and he spat shamelessly in Clarke's face without saying a word.
Then he left as he had come, ordering the guard to free them and to put them under constant escort as soon as he was out of the room.