Jason stood between Clarke and Bellamy in front of the heda, "So," Jason began, breaking the silence with a dry, rhythmic tap of his fingers against his thigh. "What's next on the agenda? Do we have a parchment for me to sign, or is this going to be one of those bloody handshake affairs? I should warn you, I didn't bring a spare shirt."
Lexa didn't look up from the map laid across her table. "No," she said with her voice sounding like a low, steady chime. "First things first. We return to the village of Tondc with the body of our fallen champion. We do not leave our dead behind."
Clarke nodded, her face set in a mask of diplomatic cooperation. "We understand. Respect for the dead is something we share."
"There, in the shadow of our grief, we shall conclude the affairs of the alliance," Lexa added, finally looking up. Her eyes were hard, searching Jason's face for any sign of a crack.
Jason nodded back, his expression unusually earnest for a split second. "Tondc. Fair enough. For what it's worth, Gustus was a fine warrior. He deserved a good death, and he got one fighting in a circle for his people's honor. There's a certain grim poetry in that."
"Did he?" Indra snapped, stepping forward from the shadows. Her hand was white-knuckled on the hilt of her sword, her eyes burning with an accusation she couldn't quite prove.
Jason turned his head slowly, meeting her gaze with a look of feigned, innocent curiosity. "Whatever do you mean, my dear Indra?" he asked, his voice smooth as silk. "The man died in sacred combat. Unless you're suggesting something else."
Indra's face contorted with rage. "You speak so sweetly and yet you spin webs of—"
"He died because he was the executor of a trial we all agreed to," Clarke interrupted, her voice sounding firm, trying to steer the conversation away from the cliff's edge.
The interruption only seemed to infuriate Indra more. She spun toward Clarke, her teeth bared, but before she could launch into a retort, Lexa's hand rose sharply into the air.
"Enough," the Commander commanded. The word was small, but it carried the weight of an avalanche. "What is done, is done. The debt has been paid in blood and witnessed by the sun. We shall depart for Tondc in one hour. Prepare yourselves."
Jason, who hadn't broken eye contact with Indra, offered her a thin, polite smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Of course, Heda. We wouldn't want to keep the mourning waiting." He paused, his smirk widening just a fraction. "Besides, I've heard Tondc is lovely this time of year. Very atmospheric."
He turned on his heel, glancing at his companions. "Let's go, shall we? We have a funeral to attend."
As they stepped out of the tent and into the crisp air of the woods, Bellamy let out a long, frustrated breath. He looked at Jason, shaking his head. "Must you agitate her every chance you get? One of these days, she's going to stop listening to Lexa and try to just take your head."
Jason didn't slow his pace as he moved through the grounders camp. "If I stopped agitating her, Bellamy, she might start thinking she's actually in charge of the room. And we can't have that, can we? It ruins the power dynamic."
Bellamy just shook his head again, a weary smile tugging at his mouth. "You're going to be the death of us all, you know that?"
"Maybe," Jason replied, looking toward the horizon. "But at least it won't be boring."
——
The journey to Tondc was a slow-motion funeral march conducted in absolute, agonizing silence. The tension was thick enough to choke on; the Grounder warriors moved with their eyes fixed on the Sky People.
Jason walked with an air of practiced indifference, ignoring the glares. However, his eyes were constantly scanning the formation. He noticed the way Indra's gaze periodically snapped toward Lincoln with a mixture of betrayal and disgust. He didn't like it. He didn't like it one bit.
Abby, Marcus, and Raven kept a tight formation, their faces etched with the stress of the unknown. Clarke and Octavia were near the front, while Bellamy hovered between the two groups.
Eventually, Bellamy slowed his pace to fall in line with Jason and Clarke.
"We're running out of time," Bellamy said, his voice a low rasp meant only for their ears. "The alliance is great, the trial was a win, but it doesn't change the fact that our people are still trapped in that mountain. Every hour we spend walking to a funeral is another hour they spend being bled dry."
Clarke looked toward the horizon, her jaw tight. "I know, Bellamy. But hitting that mountain from the outside... Lexa's army is strong, but against those doors? Against the fog? It'll be a massacre. We'll lose more than we save."
Bellamy stopped for a second, forcing them to pause. "Then don't hit it from the outside. Not yet. We need an inside man. Someone to disable the fog, someone to open the doors when the army arrives. I'm the only one who knows the layout well enough to slip in. You need to let me go undercover."
Clarke's eyes widened. "No. It's a suicide mission. If they catch you—"
"If they catch me, I'm dead anyway," Bellamy countered, echoing the same desperate logic he'd used back on the Ark. "But if I don't go, everyone in there is dead. We need eyes behind those walls."
Jason listened, his face a neutral mask. "He's right that we can't take the mountain without heavy losses," Jason mused, his voice cool. "But sending you into the belly of the beast, Bellamy? It's high-stakes gambling. It's too risky. If the 'inside man' gets caught before the doors open, the army outside is just a target for a missile strike."
'But then again,' Jason thought privately, his mind already calculating the variables, 'it's the only move on the board that actually ends in a checkmate.'
He let out a long, weary sigh and looked back at the center of the Grounder column, where Lexa rode her horse with a regal, untouchable posture.
"Hold that thought," Jason muttered to Bellamy and Clarke.
He slowed his pace, drifting back through the line of scowling warriors until he was walking directly beside Lexa's horse. The horse snorted, sensing his presence, and Lexa turned her head slightly. Her eyes were like flint.
"What do you want, Butcher?" she asked, her voice devoid of warmth. "Have you come to tell me another riddle, or are you here to gloat over the dead?"
Jason let out a low, melodic chuckle that seemed to vibrate against the rhythmic thud of the horses' hooves. "Butcher," he mused, tasting the word. "How harsh of you, Heda. I was hoping we'd moved past the name-calling phase of our relationship."
Lexa didn't turn her head. Her gaze remained fixed on the path ahead, her posture as rigid as the mountains surrounding them. "What is harsh in a title that is earned? A name is a record of deeds, Jason of the Sky. It is a shadow cast by the man who walks in the sun. You carry that name because you have shown you can do what is necessary. Do not shy away from the weight of your own hands."
Jason looked up at her, silenced for a moment by the sheer weight of her conviction. He offered a slow, genuine nod. "Fair point. I suppose we all have our crosses to bear. Or our brands."
He walked in silence for a few paces before speaking again, his tone shifting into something more contemplative. "I spoke to Lincoln. About the twelve clans. About how they're going to take this little partnership of ours." He glanced at her sharply. "He seems to think there are those who see your mercy as a crack in the armor. Is this going to be a problem, Lexa? I'd hate for our alliance to end because someone decided to play 'King of the Hill' with your throne."
"They shall follow because I am the Commander," Lexa replied, her voice ringing with absolute authority. "But they will stay because of what you offer. Clarke has shown she can cure the Reapers, the very 'animals' that have stolen the sons and daughters of every clan. To bring back the dead is a miracle they cannot ignore. And to finally break the Mountain... that is a dream they have bled for since the fire fell from the sky. They will follow because they want to go home."
Jason tucked his hands into his pockets, his gaze drifting to the canopy above. His posture relaxed, becoming languid and almost lazy, "It's strange, isn't it?" he asked, his voice taking on a haunting, melodic quality.
"What is strange?" Lexa asked, her curiosity piqued by his sudden change in energy.
"This," Jason said, gesturing vaguely to the forest, the army, and the distant peak of Mount Weather. "All of this. We're all fighting so desperately for a home that we claim is rightfully ours. We've turned survival into a religion, and blood into the tithe. But if you step back... if you look at it from high enough up... it doesn't make any sense."
He sighed, a soft sound that seemed to carry the weariness of a thousand years. "In a better world, a world that wasn't broken, my people, your people, and even the people inside that mountain would realize we're all just the same species of frightened animal. We'd unite as humanity to build a civilization, to raise cities, to ensure the next generation doesn't have to sleep with a knife under their pillow. And yet, here we are... slaughtering one another in the mud, proving only who is better at being a monster."
Lexa looked down at him then, her eyes searching his. "A beautiful dream, Butcher. But a dream nonetheless. As your Clarke has pointed out, the Mountain Men do not want peace. They want our blood so they can walk in the sun. They will always kill us because they believe their survival requires our extinction. How do you build a future with a man who sees you only as a resource?"
"You can't," Jason agreed, his voice growing darker. "That's the tragedy of it. The world is broken because the cycle of 'us or them' is the only gear that still turns. We fix it by killing the ones who won't stop, hoping that the ones left behind are tired enough of the blood to try something new."
He fell silent, his mind racing through a thousand tactical possibilities and a dozen moral failures. 'We are all just architects of a different kind of ruin,' he thought. 'Building peace out of the bricks of the dead.'
He looked forward, his gaze landing on Raven. She was a few yards ahead, her pace steady but her head slightly turned, watching him. She didn't say anything, but the look in her eyes was a mixture of that lingering hurt and a desperate need to understand the man he had become.
Jason let out a long, heavy sigh and looked back at the dirt beneath his feet.
"We're a long way from home," he whispered to himself. "And the road only gets darker from here."