Arc 14: The New Way
“Everyone who cares doesn't know. Everyone who knows doesn't care. Keep it that way.”
* Merigold Thresh
- - -
Despite three days filled with Clarke's best work, the shadow of Juliana's wounds still clings to her. It's in the canyon-lines on her brow and the ghostly pallor of her skin; the slow, careful way that she moves and the hoarse weakness of her voice. Her arm trembles when she tries to push herself up. Her surprise when her elbow buckles has me sliding free of Clarke's arms and crossing the room. I duck under her shoulder and swing her arm across my back. It's hard for her; her heart's racing by the time she plants her feet on the floor. Her thanks come in a squeeze to my shoulder and the bump of her head into mine.
“How long?” she asks. She knows what it means when I tell her. She knows how close she came to dying. Clarke and I have had three days to grow accustomed to that dreadful realization. Three days we've spent on that road and can still see clearly where we began. It passes behind her narrowed, blue-dark eyes and then she buries it; somewhere deep where she doesn't have to think of it anymore. If only I could do the same. “So,” she suddenly asks, “what'd I miss?”
Her eyes are on Clarke when she does, on the bed we share and the closeness with which we share it. “Quite a bit,” I answer, “and honestly, – that – might be the least of it.”
She pulls away from me a touch; gives me a look of clear surprise. It's of a breed more kind than before, when her body failed her. “It is?”
I move my head and shoulders in some strange gesture that's somewhere between shrug and nod. How do I explain that it began so simply; that we didn't want to argue anymore about who'd take the bed every night? How do I share that it progressed with something so soft and gentle as the brush of our noses? How can I possibly talk about the short, shy kiss we shared, just last night?
I can't. I can't possibly; all I do is perform that strange gesture and say, “There's a curfew now. No one's allowed outside an hour after sunset, unless it's an emergency.”
She hums; works the news over with her teeth. “Who had the authority to do that?” she asks, “Last I heard, the Mayor was dead.”
“There's a new one,” I say, “They had the election the morning after you...the morning after. Merigold's the Mayor now.” There's more to tell, but I hesitate to tell it. She's just woken up after nearly dying; the last thing she needs is to have more worries and woes laid on her.
Her jostle is gentle. So is her voice. “What is it?” she asks, “What else happened?”
Weakened, I can't help but think, not gentle. She needs time to recover; time I mean to give to her. I shake my head and let my eyes rest on Clarke. When I'm not there to hold onto she ends up on her back, limbs outstretched to each corner of the mattress. It's us I mean to talk about when I open my mouth. It truly is, but what I say instead is, “She reinstated the Guard.”
She says nothing, stunned by sheer disbelief. Now that I've begun, I can't seem to stop. The last three days spill from me in a torrent of fear and stress re-lived. I tell her about the stares and whispers that find us everywhere we go; about the Guard's constant harassment and their ever-growing numbers; and how the only place we feel safe is here, is in this room, and the price of it rises by the day. Then there's only one thing left untold. “The city's sealed,” I say, “No one in or out without permission from Merigold, and she's not giving it.”
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We tried every day. Her excuse changes with the asking, but her denial stays. I believed her the first time, when it was because Juliana's recovery would be better somewhere warm, dry, and clean. When we asked a second time it was because she wasn't comfortable allowing 'two beautiful, young ladies wander the countryside without an escort'; that it would be her fault if some ill befell us. She said she was sympathetic, that she understood, but she couldn't spare the men. The last one was a flat and irritated no.
Before Juliana can do anything more than pass a hand over the canyon-lines on her face, Clarke stirs. Cracks her eyes open and calls my name, looks over when I answer, “Here.”
She scrambles out of bed and almost trips over her nightclothes in her hurry to wrap Juliana in a tight hug. Relief hits her so strongly that it leaves her gasping, breathing her thanks to the Goddess into Juliana's short, black hair. Our knight pulls Clarke in with her free arm, and I reach up to tuck my hand into her elbow. There's this brief, beautiful moment in time where it seems as if the worst is behind us; and that from now on, everything will be just fine.
It ends with the three of us sat on the bed, her warmth and breath between me and Clarke. It ends with a tremulous breath and a confession; a sentiment, built of three days spent in stress and fear, breathed into the curve of Juliana's neck, “I don't want to be here anymore,” Clarke whispers, “We – we need to go.”
It ends with Juliana's nod; with her saying, “Alright. Alright. Help me up.”
- - -
They'd taken her armor the first night, Parras Hull's experienced eye pronouncing it a ruin. I'd fought him on it; shouted hoarsely through a ruined throat that he was leaving her defenseless; that it had already saved her life once, and how could he dare to take it from her? My thoughts had been clogged with mud and blood; my ears filled with the echo of ringing deafness. I should think it the closest to madness that I've come, second only to when I left my family.
In the end, I'd forced a promise from him: that he or Turner would stand guard in the hall or at the door, until such time that she awoke. I wouldn't let Flint that near to me, no matter how much remorse he felt. They were able to keep their word for a day, until Turner took me aside and apologized. He'd said they were needed elsewhere and couldn't tell me more. They were gone by morning.
I don't understand how they could just leave; all three of them, gone in the dark. Here their captain is: alive and awake with not one of them here to see. It falls to us, two girls who hardly know her, to help her find her footing. How could they?
We stop at the bottom of the stairs, just outside the inn's common room. Juliana swipes the dotted beads of sweat from her brow, gusting out a surprised breath at the effort this simple act had required of her.
“Are you alright?” Clarke asks. Her fingertips trace the silver wire that frame her piece of ice. “Is there any nausea, or pain?”
“No,” Juliana shakes her head; scrubs her hand dry on her trouser leg. “I'm fine, I'm just a little...tired, I guess.” She huffs a laugh and smiles wryly. “You'd think three days would be enough sleep.”
Clarke shakes her head, but I'm the one who tells her, “That wasn't sleep. I don't know what it was, but – you weren't sleeping.”
“You were in a coma,” comes Clarke's knowledge, softly given, “it's different than sleep, and they can be very, very bad.” You got lucky, she doesn't say. You might never have woken, she doesn't say. I know because she did tell me. We laid in each other's arms, and she breathed her worst and newest fears into my mouth. Our kiss had followed; a short, shy promise:
I'm here. I'm with you.
“Well...” Juliana says. It takes her a searching moment to find her next words, “I'm fine, so don't worry about it anymore, alright? Let's focus on getting out of here.” She meets our eyes in turn and waits for us to agree. Only then does she move past us and out into the common room.
It's a place of tables and wooden, uncomfortable chairs; of cushioned sofas trapping a smoldering hearth against the far wall; of a single, half-filled bookshelf by the largest window; and of increasingly agitated conversation as the days go by. The owner can always be found at the edge of it, sulking over his book of numbers. It's to him that most of my coin has gone; it's him that looks up at our entering with greed in his eyes; and it's him that first goes slack-jawed with shock.
Everyone knew what Juliana had done. None but us expected her to survive it.
She stands tall and fills every corner of the room with her presence alone, all signs of her previous weakness gone. She's magnificent. “I need to talk to Merigold,” she says into the quiet, “Where can I find her?”
“Right here,” comes an answer from the door. The woman herself stands within it. Her round face is finely featured, coming to a gentle point at her chin. Her eyes are wide, large, and brightly green in the daylight. She is small and slender, her short hair a riot of golden curls. There's a pleased smile on her mouth; she looks for all the world as if her greatest wish has just been granted.
“It's – so – good to see you well!” she coos, stepping into the room. Behind her file a trio of guards, all of whom recognize Juliana. “Why, I was just on my way to visit the girls, and what should I find but the Hero of the Gate, up and about!” In the face of silence, two parts stony, one part bewildered, her smile stays undimmed, “What can a humble civil servant like me do for you?”
“You can open the gates,” Juliana says, “I'm taking the girls to Valdenwood. It's not safe for them here anymore.“