13 – 2

I think I scream. It's hard to tell. I've heard nothing but a shrill, endless ringing and the galloping beat of my own heart. It feels like it. My chest aches from the cold, wet air I breathe in deep, my throat stinging from the raw scrape of it pushing Clarke's name back out. Maybe I didn't. Maybe the only noise I made is some pitiful whisper, and the only reason it hurt is because all of me hurts. I've no way of knowing, not unless I look away from Juliana's slow, shallow breathing. If I do that, she might stop. If she does, if she dies, I don't know what'll happen. I can't think of it. I can't.

Instead, I think of what must be done. I think of the gate, twisted into a biting mouth with teeth of twisted corners and broken ends. It is the only thing keeping us from her, so it has to go. There's no need to think about how it'll be done, for there's only one way it can be: magic. It was through magic that this was done, so it must be through magic that it is undone. It must be Clarke who does it. There is no other choice.

So I call for her. I raise my voice as high as I can and cry out for her once again. Once again, all I hear is that insistent and endless ringing and the pulsing beat of my own heart. This time is different. This time, I get an answer.

In the corner of my eye there comes a magi, an icy star alight in the hollow of her throat. She reaches for me and touches my cheek with the tips of her fingers. Her magic follows, rushing into me in a wave of soft, soothing cool that dives into the depths of my deafened ears. There's an itching and a strange shift, as if something torn is sewn whole.

Then her voice. “Zira?” she asks, no higher than a whisper. It's cautious; hopeful, as if she held doubt of her success.

I don't know why, but tears burn my eyes. “Clarke,” I answer hoarsely. I had been screaming, it would seem. A shuddering sigh wracks her. She covers her mouth with a trembling hand. There's a confession in her eyes, waiting to spill between her fingers. We haven't time. “Juliana,” I say, “She – we need to get to her.”

“Is she...?” Clarke's hand falls to her throat, wrapping around her piece of ice and holding it tight. “I mean – she's not...?”

“She's alive,” I insist, with all the force of belief my ruined voice can bring, “She's breathing.” One small piece of good fortune, in a place and time absent any others.

Clarke breathes the news in deeply. She finds resolve in it and a place of surety from which to act. Before all of this, before me, she was a healer. A good one, skilled and dedicated. Take everything else away: the foul, choking air; the bloodied, sucking mud; the splintered, empty carts and the still, broken bodies. When all that's gone, what remains? Someone in need of healing, and another who can grant them it.

Simple.

“Right,” she says. She nods to herself and prods at me until I move aside. The gate's teeth bite at her wrists and hands as she reaches past them and takes as much of Juliana's face as she can hold. “Once I start,” she tells me, her eyes fluttering shut, “I can't be interrupted. Not until I'm done. Alright?”

I nod, then realize she can't see me. “Alright,” I answer. Then, though she surely doesn't need it, “Good luck.”

Her lips twitch. “Thanks,” she says, wry and quiet. There blooms to life such a bright and burning star of ice that it's blinding to look at. It pulses once, twice, and with each seems to push away the gloom of night itself. Frost and magic spill from it, twining threads of gossamer power that weave around her shoulders, trace down her arms, and sink into Juliana's body. More and more unspool from the hollow of Clarke's throat until she, too, is blinding to look at.

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The flush of life creeps back into a pale, sunken face. Short, shallow breaths lengthen and deepen. It's working. Whatever injuries her armor hides from sight are closing, whatever broken bones she may have suffered will be knit whole. She will heal. She will wake. She will live.

I could fall from the relief. Right here, to my knees, and give prayerful thanks to a Goddess in slumber. I don't fall. Instead, I lean upon the ruined gate and watch with stinging eyes. My prayers, I keep for the nearing dawn.

Then there comes a cry from behind me; a rough, growling voice that I've come to know and had forgotten about until now. “Get away from her!”

Dary Flint. I turn on my heel, catching my balance on outstretched hand. His dark eyes are panicked, squinting against the shine of the icy star behind me. “It's alright,” I tell him, “It's Clarke, she's healing her!”

He pays no mind to my words, or to me. There is nothing of his once-unflappable calm in how he throws himself into a full sprint. “Leave her alone!” he shouts, ragged and loud. Does he not care, or did he not hear me? The light of working magic catches in wet smears of red-and-brown on his pallid skin. Sluggish blood, trickling from his deafened ears. It is the latter, and his intent is clear. As is mine.

- - -

I tackle him. Push off hard from the gate and throw my body into his, high as I can. Though we're of similar height, I've neither speed nor strength on my side; it is surprise alone that gives me a semblance of success. His filth-slick boots slip, and he stumbles; falls to his knees. Against hope and sense, I shout into his ear, “It's Clarke! She's – healing – her!”

He stinks of mud and metal and acrid sweat. It gets on my mouth and into my nose as I cling to him from behind. Now that he's down, my own weight should be enough to keep him here until Clarke is done. For the mere moments it takes for cold, wet slime to soak me from knee to toe, I am allowed to believe this. He drives his elbow into me after that. The sharp, bony joint hits with no small amount of force, landing with excruciating precision at the exact point my ribs come to an end.

Dary Flint is a trained knight, dedicated and skilled. He has to know how much it would hurt; how much of an opportunity my pain would grant him. My entire body freezes, locked in place and limp in equal measure. With that same arm he reaches behind him and seizes the back of my neck with a clawing hand. The blunt edges of his nails dig in, the grit and grime beneath smearing and sliding as he throws me over his shoulder by that point of contact alone.

I land face up to the gray-dawn fog, gasping and choking for air. Each moment I can't breathe fills me further with panic. It, agony, and the seep of cold, clinging mud are all that I feel. What did he do? Did he kill me? Am I dying?

Flint's grip on my head tightens further. His face appears above mine, caked in filth and twisted by fury. He digs his knee into my chest and leans heavily on it, crushing me into the ground. I push at it, claw at the slickened leather that covers it. He pulls back his free hand, curling it into a fist. Wait, I try to say, it's me, it's Zira! My mouth shapes the words, but I can only think I can do is choke. He snarls, spit falling from his lips. He doesn't see me. He's looking at me, but he doesn't see me.

Blood on my tongue. My teeth tore the inside of my cheek. The old split in my lip re-opens. Then the ache. Its in the bones of my jaw, cheek, and eye. I can't open it, the lids themselves flooded by swollen heat. I can't think. I can't move. I can't breathe. I think I am dying. Flint pulls his fist back, his knuckles stained with blood. My blood.

No. I'm not going to die, not here or anywhere else. I will not be killed by Dary Flint, not when death itself failed to take me. I've seen its long, horrid face; its lipless mouth filled with jagged, blackened teeth; its mane of dead, thorning brambles and the curl of its ram's horns. I've felt the touch of its eight-fingered hand, survived to the end of its cruel game. I remember the sight of it burning and the weight of a sword aflame.

I curl my hands into the muck, squeezing filthy fistfuls in my fists. Then I fling it into his eyes, hard and fast as I can. He recoils, from the shock and the unexpected sting of small stones and earthy grit. His knee lifts, and it's enough. A single, stuttering breath fills my aching chest and I curl my hands around his knee and shove. He topples back, swiping at his blinded eyes and cursing.

Onto my side, then get my hands and knees beneath me. Crawl, until breath comes easy. Then onto my feet. I set my eyes on the dimming star of icy blue and run. “Clarke!” I gasp, her name rasping from my bruised, bleeding mouth. “Clarke!” I don't know if she hears me or if she has simply finished what she began. She turns in time to catch me.

“Zira!” she gasps, folding me into her arms, heedless of the filth that covers me. “What happened?!”

“Flint,” I breathe it into her neck, shuddering. “I didn't – he couldn't hear, he thought you were going to hurt her, and...”

She pushes me back half a step. Takes my face in gentle hands, catalogues my injuries with sharp eyes. “He did this?”

“He was going to stop you, so...” Not until I'm done, she had said. A soft sound of regret leaves her. She pulls me back into a tight embrace.

“Oh, Zira,” she breathes it into my ear, nose brushing my temple. “Zira, you...I'm so sorry. I'm – so – sorry.”

I can't stop shaking. It worsens when Flint growls his way to standing.

“He won't touch you,” Clarke hisses, a vicious promise. Cold light bursts from her piece of ice, curling in the clawing chalice of her upraised hand. The earth churns beneath Flint's feet. It's there when he jumps. It catches him when he runs. Slowly it eats him, just as it had done the other. First to his knees, then up to his waist.

He's up to his chest when a voice from inside the gate calls out, “What the – fuck – is happening here?!”