Haunted By You

Chapter 20 You Cannot Take the Coalition

He stepped out of the trees, meeting her gaze with a sharp glare. She watched him approach, her face giving nothing away and her dagger twirling around in her hand. She smiled on the inside, when she realized Lexa had done the same thing to her when they had first met.

He stopped a few feet away, saying nothing, so she decided to greet him. "Uzac." He sneered at her, "Wanheda."

She regarded him with a skillfully impassive expression, refusing to take his bait. Instead, she questioned, "Is there a particular reason you have been watching me for the past hour? Or had your warriors start a fight in the streets so Heda would leave and I would be alone?"

"Heda favors you." It wasn't spoken as a question. He knew. Or, at least, he thought he did. "Heda favors no one," Clarke replied.

The Ambassador took another step towards her, and the sun glinted off of the knife he had poorly concealed in his robes. "She favors you. You cannot convince me otherwise. You make her weak. And we will not stand to have a weak Heda."

At this, Clarke raised an eyebrow, "We? Are there others who believe your theories?" He didn't answer her, instead closing in the remaining distance between them and standing chest to chest with her. "You may have taken down the Mountain, Sky Girl. But you cannot take the Coalition."

"Why would I want to destroy the Coalition?" Clarke spoke with a bored tone, but she was thoroughly intrigued by this man's theories. "Because you can. You are Wanheda. The Commander of Death. I just watched you defeat Heda in battle. You seek to destroy as it is all you know."

"And if that is what I aim to do?" She asked, forcing him back a step, "What do you think you can do?"

She was thankful for all the work she had been putting into training these last few weeks, whether she was training with Octavia or Lincoln or just running through the motions early in the mornings out on the balcony or late at night when sleep just wouldn't come, she had vastly improved.

Her reflexes were sharper than they ever had been, and she met his first strike with a solid block, using her forearm to stop the motion of the dagger coming towards her. She pushed him back a step and they started to circle each other, each with a dagger twirling in their hand.

They traded blows back and forth, his height and strength and training keeping the fight a little more on his side, though she did manage to slash his thigh at one point. She was tiring, the hours of training catching up with her, and she knew they couldn't do this forever.

In a reckless act of bravery, she turned her back to him, diving and rolling outside the ring markings on the ground and grabbing her sword from her small pile of clothes and guards. Her grip adjusted around the handle like it was built for her, and she started to understand what the Grounders meant with the whole 'soul bond' thing.

She swung back around just in time to block the dagger that was coming dangerously close to her neck. The loud clash of steel filled the small clearing. She held her blade evenly, level, the way her teachers had taught her.

Though she had stopped his main attack, she watched a sadistic grin fill his features as her strength wavered under his brute strength. Quickly, she reached beside her where she had dropped her dagger and shoved it into the gaping cut that she had already made on the Ambassador's thigh.

He grunted and staggered back, allowing her to get back to her feet. "Our weapons do not belong in the hands of the Skaikru," he spit. Clarke was annoyed before, but now she was just pissed off. "We are not just Skaikru anymore. We are the Coalition just as much as the other clans are. I'm giving you one more chance, Uzac. Stop this, put down your weapon and we can forget this ever happened. I won't speak a word of it to anybody. Not even Heda. Please, don't make me end this."

He laughed, "Unfortunately, Wanheda. I cannot do that."

With that, he sprang forward, tackling her to the ground. She struggled, feeling all her muscles straining against him. He raised his fist, and brought the pommel down on her temple. Spots erupted in her vision, the world growing fuzzy for a moment. She almost wished she would have gone unconscious, then she wouldn't have felt it when his dagger pushed through her shoulder, tearing into each muscle and hitting bone before it stopped.

She screamed, a primal screech of pain and rage, and her animalistic instinct to survive forced her body to shove her knee between them and force him onto the ground under her. She wasn't sure where her sword had landed when her tackled her and so she used her fist to force blow after blow to his face and neck.

She vaguely noticed that he had stopped fighting back and stopped her flurry of attacks to simply sneer down at him, spitting some of the blood and spit in her mouth onto his face. "I tried to tell you, Uzac. And you said it yourself. I am the Commander of Death."

She saw her sword in her peripheral vision and reached for it, placing it on his neck, pressing slightly down on his jugular. The thought of taking yet another life sickened her. Especially taking it here in Polis, the city that had only even know peace. And so once again she begged of a dying man, "Please. Don't make me do this."

She felt him reaching behind her, and knowing he had a dagger poised ready to kill her, she jerked her arm to the side, slitting his throat and watched as the life slowly left his eyes. "Yu gonplei ste odon, Uzac kom Yujleda."

She reached down with shaking hands and closed his glassy eyes. Her whole body was shaking as she swayed from her kneeling position over Uzac's body. Time slowed and the world around her blurred as she crashed to the ground beside him.

The last thing she felt was a sharp pain in her lower back and she heard herself chuckle when she realized that she had clumsily fallen right onto the dagger that Uzac had prepared to end her life with.

No longer wanting to face the idea of another person's life ended by her hand, she welcomed the numbing river of blackness.

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Can you tell that I've been really into badass Clarke recently? That and fight scenes even though I'm not sure if I write them well. I'd love to know what you guys thought of this chapter and the turn of events! -Sam