ATARAXIA • BELLAMY BLAKE

[ 6 5 ]

The rover rattles over uneven ground, branches scraping loudly against the sides as I steer us through the woods. The headlights cut through the fading darkness in flashes between the trees, bouncing with every dip in the terrain that at times gives way to a view of the slowly rising sun.

"Becca's journal is amazing," Raven says from one of the benches in the back.

I glance at her briefly in the mirror.

She's sitting propped against the wall of the rover with the journal spread open across her lap, brow furrowed in concentration despite the exhaustion still written all over her face. Clarke had gotten the thing back in Polis after Lexa died, but she hadn't been able to make sense of the pages before since it was all codes and equations.

Now Raven flips through it like she's trying to force every piece together at once.

"At twenty-six, she found a pathway to access a human mind." Raven turns another page carefully. "That same year, she had to lock up Alie because her answer for what was wrong with the world was too many people."

The engine groans as I steer around a fallen branch half-buried in the mud. The whole rover shifts hard enough that Jasper grabs onto the side railing to steady himself.

"She was twenty-seven when it launched the bombs," Raven finishes quietly.

The sound of paper flipping fills the silence while I reach over and grab the radio beside me. "Miller, come in. Ride's two minutes out."

Static crackles back. Nothing else.

We still haven't heard from Miller, Harper, or Bryan in a while. Not since we left. We're headed to the cave to fill them in and regroup before we can figure out what step to take next.

"Harper, you there?" I try again. More static.

Beside me, Clarke shifts in her seat and turns toward Raven. "What did she write about the Flame?"

Raven looks down again, fingers brushing across the pages.

"Alie 2.0," she says. "She saw it as a way to atone for her sins. She designed it to not just access a human mind, but to merge with one."

The rover jolts again over rough ground and Bellamy steadies himself against the wall near the back doors, rifle resting against his leg.

"It could never wipe us out because it would be one of us," Raven continues. "She would put it in herself first—altered her genes so her body wouldn't reject the implant."

Clarke stares out the windshield for a second, eyes distant. "Bekka Pramheda," she says softly. "The first commander."

Then something clicks across her face and she turns back sharply. "The gene therapy made her blood black, didn't it?"

"Yeah," Raven answers immediately.

"How did you know that?" Octavia asks Clarke at almost the same time.

"Nightblood," Clarke says. "That's where it came from. Somehow it became hereditary."

I glance over quickly to see Clarke looking surprisingly optimistic. "Luna has it, that's why we have to find her. If she can access Alie 2..."

"Then she can tell us how to stop Alie 1," Octavia cuts in.

The back of the rover goes quiet again.

Clarke had explained Luna to the rest of us earlier. How she had ran away from her conclave instead of facing Lexa to fight for the title of commander. Disappeared before anyone could drag her back.