26

The Calm Before the Storm

OCTAVIA

Ingranrona arrives dragging dust and dusk behind them. And I have never seen Arkadia so alive with movement. All around me people are busy tending to their horses, sharpening their blades, counting bullets or arrows, streaking their faces with paint, greeting one another... some with friendly smiles, some with perfunctory nods or forearm shakes, some simply with wary glares.

The air is alive with a tense energy, an anticipation of something coming that I can feel in the marrow of my bones. It is the calm before the storm, when the lightning is still just an electric charge buzzing in the air. When the thunder is still just a strange red lining in the gathering gray-black clouds. The horses paw at the ground and throw their heads back anxiously. They can sense the energy building in the air as clearly as the hairs standing on my arms can. The storm is coming.

I'm grateful for the throng of faces and horses all around me. Because in this crowd I am just another face painted black lost in the sea of black Trikru, green and silver Trishana, and the tans and browns and blacks and whites of the Ingranrona, whose faces are splotched in patterns of color as varied as the coats of the mustangs on which they ride. In this mass of warriors, I am not Octavia kom Trikru or Octavia kom Skaikru or Octavia Blake. I am not the "girl from the floor," or the "Grounder-Pounder," or the "Sky-Girl playing warrior." No one here insults me. Even better, no one here tries to comfort me. No one here knows I am broken. No one here cares.

"Octavia kom Trikru?" A voice calls and I turn to see her sitting on a fallen log, watching me curiously. The silvers and greens on her face are intricately painted to depict the end of a tree limb, the silver bough bending along the ridge of one cheek bone and climbing across her nose and brows, its delicate branches creeping up her forehead and down around her lips. The spindly tip of one branch curves along the contours of her temple and ends with the tip of a tiny green leaf meeting the corner of her eye. The effect is stunning... As stunning as the twigs woven into her dark locks, glowing softly in the falling darkness. And it makes me think maybe I should put a little more effort into the messy streaks and smudges of black on my own cheeks and the tangled braids in my unwashed hair.

"Malika kom Trishana." I answer her with a small smile as she rises and extends an arm to greet me. The arm clasp is mercifully brief before she plunks back down and goes back to fiddling with her long, slender bow. I watch her struggling slightly as she tries to slip a thin, forest green, cloth covering over its glowing riser.

"Natsoncha bark is uncommonly strong AND uncommonly supple." She tells me. " The perfect combination for fashioning perfect bows. Trishana's bows are the best in the world. But..." She grumbles as she finally secures the cloth with a small huff. "Unfortunately... outside of our forest, the glow makes concealment a bit... DIFFICULT. And remaining unseen is a Trishana warrior's greatest defense."

I don't have anything to say in reply. But she doesn't seem to care. I plunk down beside her as she pulls a sheath of arrows from behind her and starts slipping another thin cloth over one's shaft. She didn't invite me to sit. But she didn't stop me either. And she doesn't speak again. And neither do I. But the silence is not uncomfortable and I rest my elbows on my knees and gaze around at the hustle and bustle around us as she works. I pull my sword out and start absentmindedly polishing it along the lining of my coat, more so that I have something to do with my hands than for any other reason. Plus I like the weight of the blade in my grip almost as much as the weight of Lincoln's journal.

"You any good with that?" Malika asks.

"Huh?"

"You any good with your blade?" She repeats bluntly.

I think of the hours I spent with Lincoln, his patient hands guiding my awkward hips, his arms wrapping around mine, gripping my wrists as I swung the heavy blade clumsily through the air. I think of the feel of his solid chest pressed against my back and his biceps squeezed gently around my shoulders and how it was all I could do to concentrate on my footwork and my grip when all I could think about was how badly I wanted to turn around and fall into his arms properly. But Lincoln was always so focused, even when I made stupid jokes about how I'd rather play with HIS sword, and most of the time we stayed on task, despite my attempts to lure him into distraction. MOST of the time. Still... I think I've learned a lot more from Indra. There is NOTHING distracting about HER hands on me.

"I can hold my own." I answer, a bit more defensively than I'd planned. "You any good with that bow?"

"My father was one of Trishana's finest archers." She replies. "As soon as I could stand upright he thrust my first tiny bow into my chubby fists. And I carried it with me everywhere I went. Other kids dragged teddy bears and blankets around... I dragged my bow. As long as I can remember I've had a bow in my hand or slung across my shoulders or resting against my leg. I'm more likely to forget to put on underwear before I leave the house than I am to leave my bow behind. So... Yes... I can hold my own." She laughs, imitating me. Her words are cocky, but her tone is simply confident, not arrogant. And surprisingly, I don't feel any anger rising.

"Doesn't matter if it's a frightened rabbit or a running deer or a bird on wing..." She continues. "I never miss my target. Straight in the eye every time."

"The eye?" My lip curls at the thought.

"It's the most merciful kill. Takes them down quickly. I always take the mercy shot with animals."

"And with men?" I ask, because the way she emphasized animals has spiked my curiosity. I imagine taking an arrow through the eye. Doesn't exactly scream "merciful" to me.

She flashes me a smirk, leaning back on the log casually. "With men... Well... There are so many great targets to choose from. Really, it depends on my mood... How much fun I want to have."

A small chuckle escapes me. I think I like this girl. I think we might have a thing or two in common. Because, like Lincoln, I may fight for peace or to protect the ones I love. I may fight for what is good and right. But I know I am more like the girl sitting beside me than I ever was like Lincoln. Because Lincoln only killed when absolutely necessary and I watched him droop a little lower under the weight of every new scar he added to his shoulders. But me... Deep down... I've ALWAYS enjoyed the kill.

"Your brother doesn't look ready for battle." I comment, spotting Teeko struggling to light a small cook fire a few yards from our log. The scrawny boy carries no weapons. He wears no armor. The only color on his face is the red splotches of acne that practically glow amongst the freckles on his pasty white skin.

"He's not going into battle." Malika answers. "My father shoved a bow in Teeko's hands too. Everyone expected Teeko to be the next warrior in my family, what with him being the boy and all." She says a bit bitterly. "But Teeko didn't take a liking to it the way I did. He was always setting it down and leaving it lying around in strange, forgotten places, frustrating my father to no end." She lets out a sad chuckle and I suddenly remember that her father is gone... Gone to the Land of Eternal Light, as she had called it. Gone... Just like Lincoln.

"Teeko was an alright shot." Malika continues. "Not nearly as good as I was... But decent enough. And my father still had high hopes for him. But as soon as our father decided to graduate us from cardboard targets to living creatures, it was obvious Teeko was not cut out to be a warrior. He couldn't bring himself to shoot a rabbit, let alone another human being. While my father and I hunted, he spent most of his time plucking flowers and ferns and weeds from the forest floor. The boy is crazy about botany." She shakes her head as if torn between amusement, confusion, and a whole lot of embarrassment on his behalf.

"If he's not fighting, then why is he here?" I ask. "If our defenses don't hold, we're most likely all going to die." I say it matter-of-factly. I'm not worried. I'm not afraid of dying. It seems Malika isn't either.

"He's here to help with the medical team." She answers nonchalantly. "He's been apprenticing with Healer Orna for months now. He's got a whole sack of vials of medicinal crushed leaves and ground flower petals and dried mosses. I don't know anything about any of it. But if you've got a couple of hours to kill, I'm sure he'll happily tell you all about them. He talked non-stop about you all the way here." She laughs, throwing me a sideways glance with a teasing smirk. "Would NOT shut-up. I think, MAYBE, he MIGHT like you, just a little bit." She finished with a sarcastic, perfectly executed eye-roll.

I eye the boy crouched over the small pile of twigs, still struggling. I don't see the flicker of a single flame or even the hint of smoke and I wonder how any Grounder has managed to get through childhood without learning how to properly build a simple cook fire. "I think I'll pass on that." I mumble. "Maybe another time."

As if he can sense my eyes on him, Teeko rises from his crouch, frustratedly kicks at the heap of twigs, and turns towards us. His angry frown pulls into a pathetic grin when his eyes meet mine.

"Octavia!" He calls out as I frantically run through a list of possible excuses I could make for having to rapidly disappear. A sudden bout of diarrhea? Cramps? The unexpected onset of my period? I'm so desperate, nothing seems too embarrassing.

He opens his mouth to say something, but before he can get a word out, the blaring of a horn cuts through the night air, ringing through the empty spaces, rebounding off the trees. It is a Trikru horn. The horn of a scout. It sounds a second time and then a third. And suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck are standing up and the tingling burn of adrenaline is rushing like a drug through my veins and I feel my lips pull into a wild smile.

"What was that?" Teeko asks, fear and confusion battling for prominence in his cracking voice. All around us, the hustle and bustle has stopped as if we are all a part of some movie and someone just hit the pause button. People blink at each other stupidly for one moment, two moments, three. And then everyone bursts into frantic action at once.

"What's happening?" Teeko asks me. There is panic in his wide blue eyes. I glance from him to Malika. Her own blue eyes are alive with excitement. She is smiling like me. And again I wonder how it is that she got all the good genes in the family.

She reaches out to grasp my forearm before I can even think to pull it away. "May the light guide you."

"May we meet again." I answer. And for once, I am not just reciting the words. For once, a small part of me actually hopes they come true.

Malika turns to the boy we've both been ignoring. "Come on, little brother... Let's get you inside."

"What's happening?" He asks a final time, turning his terrified eyes from me, to his sister, and then back to me.

"They're coming." Malika answers for me.

...

CLARKE

At last the rear of the army passed, and when the roar of the drums softened into a dull throbbing like blood in her ears, Clarke pushed herself out of the thorns. They had crouched so long it felt like the thorns had climbed under her skin and into the depths of her muscles, and she shook the prickles from her legs violently before pulling at Bellamy's sleeve and starting at a jog through the trees.

Clarke had always hated running and she cursed her lazy past-self when the side ache forced her jog into a speed-walk and the fire in her lungs forced her speed-walk back into a normal walk. Because she knew that with every minute that passed another Skaikru or Trikru warrior, another friend or loved one, might be ripped from her hands as irrevocably as Lexa or Lincoln or Finn or Wells or her father had been. So many friends and loved ones had been stolen from her desperate clutches and she couldn't bear to lose anyone else. But the Polis tower was still just a distant, black pillar looming in the growing darkness and her feet could not carry her into its shadow quickly enough.

At last Bellamy and Clarke reached the outskirts of the city, now under the cloak of proper darkness. They sneaked in the same way she and Murphy had only so many days ago. But this time the city was not empty. Clarke was both relieved and worried by the vast number of Azgeda guards wandering the streets. Worried for obvious reasons. Because the idea of sneaking into the tower unseen was beginning to seem crazier and stupider with every passing second. But she was also relieved, because it seemed Indra was right: King Arlen was not marching honorably with his forces, fearlessly leading the front lines into battle like Lexa would have. He was sitting safely on his usurped throne, exactly where Clarke was hoping to find him.

Clarke took a deep breath, pulled the edges of her hood closer around her ears, and stepped out from the shadows with Bellamy at her heels. She tried to walk naturally, as if her legs weren't wobbly beneath her, as if her pounding heart was not threatening to break her open like a wild creature throwing itself against the bars of her rib cage with every step she took. She kept her gaze forward, avoiding eyes and faces as she weaved through the guards mulling about around her, sticking close to the shadows. And the adrenaline burning in her veins and lungs and fingertips was almost painful. But it seemed, with the aid of the city's semi-darkness, their disguises were just good enough to pass. Because no one bothered to give her a second glance.

Clarke released a long, heavy breath as they squeezed their way into the darkness of the tunnels running beneath the tower. She pulled a small flashlight from the pocket of her cargo pants and they followed its tiny ring of yellow light through the emptiness, creeping along in the silence, until they reached the rusted old maintenance ladder. Clarke sucked in another deep breath. With only the two of them, there was no way they were hi-jacking the lift, and the prospect of climbing this rickety ladder up the entirety of Polis tower was almost as daunting as the task she would face if she ever managed to reach the top.

...

OCTAVIA

"Smooth riding, my sister."

"Smooth riding, old friend."

Helios impatiently paws at the ground beneath us as the women part. Like me, he is eager. I weave my fingers into his mane and take a deep, deep breath, savoring the weight of it in the very bottoms of my lungs. I feel the oxygen flooding my blood, joining the adrenaline and pure excitement already coursing through it like liquid fire.

The sea of warriors is eerily silent as we pass through the gates to meet them. Rashanna leads the way, and as the warriors part down the middle for her, I feel like I am following Moses through the Red Sea and into the wilderness. Only we are not fleeing from the enemy. We are rushing to greet them.

Rashanna pauses in the middle of the quiet horde and shouts into the night. "Riders of the Great Plains... Tonight we ride amongst friends and allies to stamp sand, ice, and stone under our horses' hooves. May your spears be sharp and swift. May your hands be strong and steady. And may your steeds be sure of foot. Smooth riding to each of you, until we reach the Great Horizon."

"Until we reach the Great Horizon." Voices echo from every corner of the sea of warriors and I shiver as all around me the tips of spears rise as if to pierce the night sky.

"Smooth riding, kid." Roddek calls softly to me. Then he and Rashanna trot to the edge of the sea and ride off in opposite directions. Riders split out of the mass of warriors, half following Roddek as he sweeps out to form our Eastern front, the others following Rashanna to the West.

The remaining mass of warriors presses in closer around us in the wake of Ingranrona's departure. A number of Trikru are mounted like Indra and me, but the vast majority stand steady on their own two feet, as Turlino steps into the middle of the crowd next and raises his bow into the space above him. He has not yet covered his riser and the bow glows softly, beautifully in the semi-darkness as if the man's fist brandishes moonlight, itself.

"Archers of Trishana," He bellows in his gruff voice. "Warriors of the light... Tonight we gather in a forest not our own to shed our light into its darkness. May the branches of its trees embrace you and hold you firmly. May your arrows find their marks. May the night conceal you. And may the light ever guide you."

"May the light ever guide you." The archers echo back and Turlino leads them into the forest to our North. They will spread out to the Northeast and Northwest to form a wide semi-circle before Arkadia. And they will hide in the branches above and let the enemy gather below them, let the enemy flood the forest, before they open fire and rain down arrows from above.

I look for the branches of a tree in the faces of green and silver passing by me. I search for the glowing white woven into her dark locks, but wherever Malika is, she is lost in the black ocean of archers, each clad in cloaks as dark as night. I watch as the archers reach the edges of the forest and disappear like shadows into the trees.

The number of warriors pressed in around us is significantly smaller now and the faces staring up at us are only streaked in black or not at all.

"Warriors of Trikru..." Indra calls out in Trigedasleng in her powerful, deep voice, and I am surprised when she pauses and nods at Kane standing beside her.

"Arkers of Arkadia..." Kane addresses the crowd in English.

"We band together tonight not as Trikru and Skaikru." Indra speaks.

"We stand side-by-side not as people of the ground and people of the sky." Kane echoes her.

"Tonight we unite as warriors of this forest to make our stand against those who seek to cut it down, to cut us down."

"We unite as defenders to protect the lands that we call home and the lives of those whom we call 'family' and those whom we call 'friends.'"

"May your feet be planted as solid and strong as the trees. May your blades sink into flesh as deep as their roots into earth."

"May your hands be steady and your aim be true. And may your courage hold through the night."

"Mebi oso na hit choda op nodotaim."

"May we meet again."

"May we meet again." The crowd echoes back, and in the loudness of it all, it is hard to distinguish the English from the Trigedasleng.

"Mebi oso na hit choda op nodotaim." I whisper, even as my mind still hears my words as "May we meet again."

The crowd disperses around us, Arkers climbing the walls of Arkadia to find sniping positions or moving in the direction of the secret bunkers we've long since cut out of the earth in the forests surrounding Arkadia. Trikru warriors form tight lines in the open space between Arkadia's walls and the surrounding forest. They form their own walls of soft flesh and sharp steel. No... I think to myself as I look again at the warriors standing strong and steady, side-by-side before me. They haven't formed walls. They've formed a forest... A forest of flesh and steel.

I keep Helios planted beside Cedar, directly in front of Arkadia's gates, where the battle will be thickest. "I am not afraid." I tell myself. And for once, the words are true. Because I do not fear death. And, for the first time in a long time, I feel so much more than just the anger and the emptiness. I feel ALIVE.

For the first time since Lincoln's arms released me, I feel like I have found a 'home.' Because this is where I belong... Beside Indra, with Lincoln's sword in my hand. Soon, I will be in the center, the heart of the battle. The storm is coming and I will not retreat. I will wait for it here, in the core. I will stand firm in the eye of the storm.