Lightning Only Strikes Once - Clexa

Chapter 78: Enemy Territory

Lexa has travelled incognito for long periods before, but not for many years. It was something she had to do occasionally when she first began to organise the alliance, back when it seemed like half of her own people wished her dead just for daring to suggest peace. Back then, she normally pretended to be a wide-eyed Seken, or a merchant girl. Gustus was difficult to disguise, and Costia disliked having to leave behind her treasured bow in Polis, but both willingly accompanied her anyway.

This feels – odd, though. Her own feelings are strange to her. Perhaps it was easier to be Lexa the Seken when those memories were recent, easier to be Lexa the merchant girl when she still felt like a girl. Now she has spent years weighed down with her own power and authority, never shedding it for more than a day or two, and it feels strange to be so fully without it. It embarrasses her, that she is so used to the bows and automatic respect of others that its absence leaves her off-balance.

Or perhaps it is simply the lack of Clarke that leaves her off balance.

"Here," Anya growls. "We're nearly at the border."

"I don't recognise this place from last time," Raven comments. "Last time was a lot more – I don't know, creepy and quiet."

"Because this is not the same place as last time," Anya says flatly. "We are much further east. I do not care how well we disguise ourselves, going past the same villages as we travelled through recently would be an unacceptable risk."

"Right," Raven mutters. "Geez, no need to bite my head off."

"I did not bite your head off," Anya says, a slight smirk creeping onto her face. "I believe it is too big to easily remove."

It takes Raven a moment to understand, and then she groans.

"What does that mean?" Zion asks curiously.

"To have a big head is to be arrogant, as Raven is," Anya tells him smugly.

"She learnt that phrase from me," Raven says, not sounding particularly insulted, "Of course the only Sky People idioms Anya can remember are insults."

Lexa tilts her head thoughtfully. "The only Trigedasleng I have ever heard you use are phrases like 'shof op', 'branwada', 'jok yu' and 'mokskwoma'," she points out to Raven. "Anyway... shof op, both of you. For an hour or so at least. The last thing we need is our own blockade stopping us."

"Sha, Heda," Anya says quietly.

There is no sound for some time, just the steady crunch of their boots on snow. They are headed for an agent of Lexa's who lives in a village east of where Prison Station originally fell. They did not stop at that village last time, though it is near enough to their original route to make Anya antsy, and Lexa feels sure that her spy will have noted hundreds of people passing through. There is no point trying to track the truck Clarke was taken in – Raven told Lexa when Clarke was abducted that the truck had a Maunon device to hide its trail. Well, it might have such a device, but she saw the marks Diana Sydney's three hundred people left, not just in the snow but in the surrounding trees and branches, and she is sure that between her spies and that trail they can find the people of Prison Station.

They have to.

Lexa's face is covered with fake scars. In the old days, Costia would have applied the disguising makeup to her. Costia enjoyed making patterns with it, just as she enjoyed carving wood or making clever little devices, and the scars she created looked real. Lexa is not as skilled with her hands unless she is holding a blade, but she has managed to do a decent job, with the others' help. She looks like an Azgeda. She makes sure she walks like a quiet merchant girl instead of a seasoned warrior, a good pace but not a cautious one.