archenemy | clexa

forty six

Costia makes a quick decision. Her only chance to make up for what she did wrong. She throws her knife and it lodges between Nia's shoulder blades.

Roan lowers his sword, hand still on Lexa until she stumbles back. Her head is spinning, ears still ringing.

Sister?

Roan did not say sister. She is dreaming. She is dead.

"What did you call me?" she stutters, eyes going to the woman dead on the floor now, to Costia who threw the knife. Everything is blurry except Nia. It is almost like Lexa has never seen a red brighter than Nia's blood, a corpse more pale than Nia's although her blood cannot possibly have drained yet. Her face is distorted, pulled into a shape of surprised agony and hatred.

Sister.

The scene is ugly, cold, sick, yet Lexa feels nothing except that word ringing in her head and the rising anger.

Her knees tremble, her entire body does. "What did you call me?" she yells now, too shaken to thank the one who saved her life.

"Lexa-" Roan's voice is rough but Lexa can tell he tries to speak calmly.

"You are not my family. You do not get to call me by my name!"

"I gave it to you," Roan says carefully. "It means 'defender of mankind' because I knew you would be Heda one day."

"That's not true. That's not fucking true, you're lying!"

"Don't you know your scar? It's an 'r' for Roan, because I had to cut you anyway and I wanted you to know. I sent you a present each year the day I left you on the tower steps on Nia's orders."

"I never got a present. You are lying." Lexa has a better foundation now- never has she gotten a present, Roan cannot be telling the truth. It is too absurd.

Roan frowns and falters slightly. "You must have gotten a present," he argues, voice weaker than intended.

For 21 years, he made the biggest effort to sneak out of the castle and ride all the long, long way to Polis. A nine year-old with a self-made toy horse. A ten year-old with a card that had the only words he knew written on it. An eleven year-old with a knife. He had even tried sewing her clothing once for the winter, but that didn't turn out so well.

"A horse and a cow of wood. Pencils. A card. A book," Roan begins to count up the presents he can remember.

Lexa stares at him as he speaks, though her expressions change when he mentions a certain carved toy sword. She laughs bitterly. "That was you?"

"You did get them?"

"No," she spits. "Titus did. He thought I made a friend on the streets against the rules." She tears off the black shirt she wears now that she had to take off her armor and turns her shoulder to him. There are white slashes of scars, the marks of a whip, gleaming in the sun that now shines through the window behind the abandoned throne.

"This is the only thing that I ever got, every year once when Titus would lecture me about forbidden friendships and I had no idea why. If you claim to be my brother, claim the responsiblity for this. Claim the responsiblity for abandoning me and thinking I should be at a stranger's feet after 21 years of being enemies. For cheating on me with my fake spy girlfriend. You are no brother to me."

"Nia wanted me to leave you in the woods! I travelled for days as a child to get you to Polis and I did so every year for your presents. Is it really my fault you didn't get them?"

"You shouldn't have given them!"

"I know you are used to getting what you expect, but you cannot expect your brother's love to be conditional. You are my responsibility, you never stopped being it, and I had no bad intent."