heda | clexa

chapter twenty eight

Roan raises a brow, staring back at Clarke. “Imagine this, Clarke,” he begins with utmost hatred seeping through his voice.

“You plan a wonderful escape through an event you talked to the women in prison about, an event you planned to attend while the rest of us escape in the ensuing chaos- or wait, did you? Because you’re the one who talked to those women, you’re the one who would know what that event would be, so you pretend you don’t, but that you’ll take the burden and play the hero. Why? Because you only had one person to send instead of one of us, and because everyone else wasn’t supposed to see what went on in that prison cell after we all left.

"You’d tell us afterwards; the bad teacher drugged you to sabotage everything. We’d hate her, building on the hatred we had for her anyway. But there was no sabotaging- Bellamy, Murphy and I escaped just fine, she didn’t tell anyone who we were even though she must have known, had she really drugged you. And how did a weak teacher get a powerful drug like that? Sounds to me like you could have stolen that from a guard much easier than a good, lawful religion teacher.”

“Roan,” interrupts him. “Get to the goddamn point.”

Roan shakes his head, taking a deep breath and faking complete relaxation. “Fine. Imagine this, then. You plan to attend this strange, mysterious event you know nothing about-”

“I planned for us to escape before we even reached any event!” Clarke cuts in again, and Roan glares at her.

“Fine, you don’t want to listen to me after all. So I’ll talk to you guys, Gods-willing you listen to me. Who is Clarke?”

“Roan, what the hell are you doing?” Echo asks, but Roan just shakes his head.

“I need you to understand. Who is she?”

“What kind of stupid question is that?” Raven asks, so Roan answers it himself. 

“She’s the youngest military leader Arkadia has ever seen. She led an entire army to conquer a village at 16- and was deserted promptly afterwards for unethical conduct. Still, even after that, didn’t you too hear stories about the great Wanheda, about her divine gift to command even death? Isn’t that why you followed her on this insane quest?”

Raven raises her brow, clearly having none of his shit. “I followed her because she’s my childhood best friend, and she used to scream at wasps, so I’m like, super unafraid of her.”

“And she’s been Wanheda through and through,” Roan continues, ignoring Raven. “On this entire journey, when has a plan of hers ever truly failed? Never. When we got caught in Polis, yes, but we ended up in fucking cottages with food and drink, and an upcoming escape plan. So why would this here, this well-planned, perfect escape fail? Why would the great Wanheda fail at the hands of a weak nobody? How did said weak nobody even get to her, how did that teacher drug her in the first place? Have you ever seen any trained warrior defeat Clarke like that? No. An unarmed, untrained teacher? Really? That’s who they send, not a guard? Or did Clarke want her there, did Clarke force her to go to that event and drug herself?” he asks, and suddenly, the tent is quiet while they exchange glances.

Raven looks at Clarke, who is staring at Roan with pure fury. It does seem more sensible the way Roan is putting it, but even if… they’ve done worse than force people to play dress-up. Especially Clarke.

“Because we’re all safe, aren’t we? Everyone’s fine, except… oh, that’s right- the teacher we all now hate as our enemy.”

A second later, the blade of Clarke’s ax finds Roan’s neck, pressing into the skin until it draws blood. “Roan. Tell me what happened to Lexa. You think I would lie about this? Because what you’re describing is a damn genius plan, and all of you know that I’m a monster, I would do that in a heartbeat. I’ve killed, I’ve tortured, I’ve committed things you don’t even want to see in your nightmares. And to save my people? I would send a thousand people to executions. Is that what happened? Is she dead? Tell me!”