The shadows ran deeper than anyone realized.
Even Lexa.
Kira sat alone on the rooftop of the tower, her freshly bandaged shoulder aching faintly beneath the leather. The stars were buried behind thick stormclouds, but she didn't need light to think.
She needed silence.
And silence was dangerous. It allowed the past to whisper again.
Her thoughts circled back to the poison plot, to the servant girl now sitting in a guarded cell three floors down. Her story hadn't changed. She'd been manipulated. Lied to. Fed lines about Azgeda's betrayal and Skaikru's responsibility.
But she had no names.
No face behind the orders.
Only a single instruction left behind in the form of a folded slip of parchment that Kira had quietly retrieved before the guards saw it.
It read:Balance the flame before it is consumed.
Kira now turned the paper over in her fingers, lips tightening.
The handwriting was clean. Methodical. Grounder script—but trained, refined.
This wasn't a panicked traitor.
This was someone patient.
Deliberate.
And very, very close.
Downstairs, the clans were spinning out of control.
Despite the ritual bloodshed Kira had offered in Clarke's name, tension still festered.
Azgeda demanded compensation.
Skaikru was silent—per Kane's instruction, likely to avoid more damage.
The other clans watched eagerly, waiting to see who would make the next move, ready to turn whichever way the wind blew hardest.
Lexa sat in council, looking like a storm about to break.
"We cannot afford another war," she said, each word controlled like a dagger sheathed at her side. "If we fracture now, we fall apart forever."
"The fracture has already begun," Roan of Azgeda said coolly. "You just haven't acknowledged it yet."
His gaze flicked toward Kira.
Lexa didn't blink. "Do you accuse the Shadow of betrayal?"
"No," Roan said. "I accuse someone in this hall of manipulating you both."
Kira sat forward, interest sparked.
Roan leaned in. "Poisoning one of mine was an act of war. Unless... it was meant to start a war."
He let that hang.
Lexa met his gaze evenly. "You believe another clan is trying to divide us."
"I believe someone benefits from chaos," he said.
"And I believe," Kira interrupted, "that whoever it is... is already watching this conversation."
Silence.
Her eyes scanned the room, measuring every twitch, every shift.
No one looked guilty.
Which meant they were professionals.
That made it worse.
That evening, Kira and Clarke walked the lower halls of the tower.
Clarke was quiet.
Too quiet.
"You're thinking about the girl," Kira said eventually.
"She's sixteen," Clarke said. "Barely older than I was when I was forced to make my first kill."
Kira nodded. "This world doesn't wait for innocence."
"She's not a murderer."
"No," Kira agreed. "She's a message."
Clarke looked over. "From who?"
"That's the question."
They stopped near the prison wing. The door to the girl's cell stood guarded.
"Do you want to talk to her again?" Clarke asked.
"I already did," Kira said softly. "While everyone else was focused on the council."
Clarke blinked. "And?"
"She told me one more thing. Something she remembered in a dream."
Kira's voice dropped lower.
"She said the man who gave her the mission... wore no clan markings. No paint. No braids. No accent. Just a clean cloak. Black. And he smelled... like something sharp."
Clarke's brows furrowed. "Like what?"
"Like gun oil."
The meaning settled between them.
Clarke exhaled. "Someone from the Mountain."
"No," Kira said. "Someone from before the Mountain."
That night, Kira returned to her chambers.
The note still weighed in her pocket.
She shut the door behind her—and paused.
Something was wrong.
The shadows were too still.
She stepped slowly, gaze sweeping the corners. Her hand drifted toward the knife at her hip.
Then a voice whispered behind her, from the darkness.
"You've gotten better."
Kira froze.
Then turned.
And saw a ghost.
He wore black armor with no insignia. His face was partially hidden by a thin scarf. But she knew him.
Even now.
It had been years.
Back when she was barely fifteen. Back before the sky fell. Before she ever saw Grounders, before she learned to fight like one.
Back when the only war was the one inside the Ark.
"Marcus," she breathed.
He bowed his head.
Her stomach twisted. "You're supposed to be dead."
"I was."
"What do you want?"
He held out a small data chip.
"This is what you need to see."
She didn't move. "Why me?"
"Because you're the only one who still remembers before. And because you're already inside the fire."
She hesitated. Took the chip.
He stepped back.
"You'll only see me again if you choose wrong."
"Cryptic much?" she muttered.
He disappeared into the shadows.
Later, Kira brought the chip to the only person she trusted with tech.
Linh.
The Vietnamese-Swedish coder who had been a sleeper inside Polis for months now, secretly working on decoding ancient Ark records hidden in Grounder script.
They met in the old forge chamber beneath the tower, where Linh was supposedly tending to radio repairs.
Kira handed her the chip.
"Burn after viewing," she said.
Linh inserted it into her custom modded laptop—built from scavenged tech and wrapped in worn leather.
The screen flickered.
Lines of old code filled it.
Then video.
Ark surveillance footage.
Clarke's mother.
Jaha.
And a man with a clean cloak.
Black. No insignia.
Giving orders.
His voice: "Prepare the sleeper protocol. If the Flame rises, burn the Shadow. Balance must be preserved."
Kira's pulse spiked.
Clarke's mother nodded on screen.
"Understood."
Linh's mouth fell open.
"What the hell did we just watch?"
Kira closed the laptop gently.
"A conspiracy," she said.
"And the beginning of war."
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