Polis sleeps.
That's what they always say — that Polis never truly sleeps. But Kira learns quickly it's not true. The guards doze on their posts. The nobles drink themselves blind. Even the rats in the catacombs grow lazy when the fires burn low.
And that's when she moves.
✦ ✦ ✦
Titus taught her how to watch without being seen — to breathe like stone, to listen like dirt listens for footsteps above.
It starts simple: a bribe here, a whisper there. Kira's fingers slip coins into a stablehand's palm. He blinks at her — Trikru boy, no older than Adena had been — then nods toward the far wall.
"Azgeda riders," he murmurs. "One leaves every dusk. No flag. No trail."
"How long?" Kira asks.
"Three nights."
Her jaw tightens. They're running messages — the same vein she severed with Kerrik, grown back like a weed through stone. Azgeda thinks they can bleed Polis dry while Lexa holds the gate open for their knives.
Not this time.
✦ ✦ ✦
The next night, she trails the rider out of the gates.
He never sees her — not when he stops to piss behind the tannery, not when he feeds his horse dried apples in the trees just beyond the wall. She waits until his breath comes slow and steady, like a man who believes the darkness hides him.
It does not.
Kira slips behind him, loops the wire around his throat, and pulls.
He claws at the garrote, gurgling. She leans into the struggle, legs braced against his bucking knees. When the last breath rattles out, she lowers him gently to the leaves.
No blood this time. No mess. Just a message.
She cuts the mark into his wrist — a single flame, the symbol Lexa wears on her armor. Let Azgeda think the Commander sees every shadow. Let them taste fear with every mouthful of meat they swallow.
When she returns to Polis, Titus is waiting at the gate.
"You could have let him run," he says. "Tracked him to the den."
Kira wipes the wire clean on her sleeve. "Better they know we're watching."
Titus shakes his head. "Better they fear what they can't see. You've still much to learn."
Kira laughs — a low, humorless thing. "Teach me, then."
✦ ✦ ✦
Lexa hears about the dead rider before the sun rises.
When Kira enters the war room, she feels Clarke's eyes on her first — burning a hole between her shoulder blades.
"Tell me you didn't do this," Clarke says. She doesn't wait for an answer. "TELL me you didn't do this."
Lexa looks up from the map table, face carved from ice. "Kira."
Kira folds her hands behind her back, the way Indra taught her. "I did what needed to be done."
"Needed?" Clarke scoffs. "He was a messenger, not a threat."
"Every word he carried was a threat," Kira snaps. "How many more girls like Adena do you want hanging from our gates, Clarke?"
Clarke takes a step forward, eyes bright with fury — and something else, something sharp and helpless. "This is not your choice to make."
"I serve the Commander," Kira says, her voice steady. "I protect her."
Clarke whirls to Lexa. "You can't let this continue! She's your dog now? You let her off the leash and she kills whoever she wants?"
The word stings worse than any blade. Kira feels it dig under her ribs, hollowing her out.
Lexa doesn't flinch. She fixes Kira with that cold, green stare — the one that once made Kira feel safe, untouchable. Now it pins her like an insect to a board.
"Do you understand what you've done?" Lexa says, voice low.
Kira lifts her chin. "I sent a message."
"You started a war," Clarke hisses. "Again."
"I finished one."
Clarke looks at Lexa, pleading now. "She's dangerous."
Lexa closes her eyes for a heartbeat — just a heartbeat. When she opens them again, the Commander is back in place.
"Leave us," Lexa says to Clarke.
Clarke's mouth opens. "Lexa—"
"Wanheda," Lexa snaps. "Leave."
Clarke's jaw works — then she turns on her heel, shoulders stiff, hair brushing Kira's arm as she storms out. The door slams behind her.
Silence settles like ash.
✦ ✦ ✦
Lexa doesn't speak at first. She stands at the map table, tracing her fingers over the borders of Azgeda. Her hands shake, just a little. Kira wants to reach out, wants to still them — but the distance between them yawns wider than any river.
When Lexa finally looks at her, her eyes are tired. So tired.
"You can't keep doing this," Lexa says.
"They'll kill you if we wait," Kira says. She takes a step closer. "You think they won't? They're probing the wall, testing how soft we are. I'm just—"
Lexa's laugh cuts her off — not sharp, not cruel. Just… sad.
"You think you're the only knife I have?" Lexa says. She steps around the table, closes the space between them until Kira can feel her breath. "Polis is made of knives, Kira. You think you frighten Azgeda? You make them bolder."
"They fear me."
"They mock you!" Lexa says. Her fingers dig into Kira's arm, shaking her like a mother shakes a reckless child. "They call you the Knife That Laughs. They say you're a stray, a ghost. They don't fear ghosts. They feed them."
Kira tries to pull back, but Lexa won't let go. Her eyes flash, a glimpse of the warlord under the crown.
"I love you," Lexa whispers. "But I will not let you become the thing they need you to be."
Kira's throat tightens. "And what is that?"
"A monster."
Lexa releases her arm, stepping back as if scorched. "No more shadows, Kira. I forbid it."
Kira almost laughs. Almost. "And if they come for you?"
Lexa's shoulders stiffen. "They'll find I'm not so easy to kill."
Kira tastes blood in her mouth — from biting her own tongue to keep from shouting the truth. I know exactly how easy you are to kill. But she says nothing. She bows low, as the loyal dog should.
"Yes, Heda."
✦ ✦ ✦
She finds Clarke that night on the tower steps.
They stand under the stars, breath steaming in the cold. For a long time, they don't speak. The city hums below — the faint crackle of fires, the distant sound of a pipe played badly by a drunk noble.
Finally, Clarke breaks the silence.
"Do you think she's strong enough?" Clarke asks.
Kira glances at her. "Lexa?"
Clarke nods. "To hold them all together. To hold us."
Kira exhales, watching her breath drift into nothing. "She has to be."
Clarke huffs a bitter laugh. "You don't believe that."
"No," Kira admits. "I don't."
They fall quiet again.
"Do you hate me?" Clarke asks softly.
Kira blinks at her, surprised. "Why would I?"
"For loving her first."
Kira's mouth opens, closes. She turns to look at Clarke fully, the girl who once pulled a lever and drowned a mountain. The girl who still sees the best in people — and the worst — and carries it all like chains around her throat.
"I don't hate you," Kira says. "I envy you."
Clarke tilts her head. "Why?"
"You knew her before she was a god," Kira says. "You knew her when she was just Lexa."
Clarke's eyes glisten, reflecting the torchlight. "And what is she to you?"
Kira smiles, bitter and small. "Everything."
✦ ✦ ✦
She sleeps little that night. When she does, her dreams are sharp and sour — flashes of Lexa's eyes going glassy, Clarke's hands slick with blood, Titus chanting in the shadows.
She wakes before dawn, sweat cold on her neck.
She thinks she feels Lexa's warmth beside her, but when she rolls over, the bed is empty. The blanket still smells like cedar and soap and war paint.
She lies there, listening to the tower breathe, and thinks about the wire hidden under her pillow. About the poisons tucked into the hollow space beneath the floorboards. About the monster she's becoming — the one Lexa won't look in the eye.
When the first bird cries out on the walls, Kira sits up.
"Fine," she whispers to the empty bed. "No more shadows."
But her hand drifts to the wire all the same.
✦ ✦ ✦
By midday, Polis is buzzing again. Azgeda's envoy stands in the courtyard — smug, armored, flanked by two wolfskin guards with flaying knives on their hips. Word drifts through the tower like wildfire: there's talk of pulling out of the coalition. Talk of war.
Indra finds Kira watching from the upper balcony.
"You did this," Indra says.
Kira doesn't deny it. "Would you have done different?"
Indra's teeth flash in something like a grin — sharp, humorless. "No. But I don't pretend it was for Lexa. You did this for you."
Kira stiffens. "That's not—"
Indra cuts her off with a snort. "You think loving her makes you her shield. It makes you her weakness."
Kira flinches. "I'd die for her."
"I know," Indra says. She pats Kira's shoulder like she's a child with a wooden sword, ready to take on the world. "That's the problem."
✦ ✦ ✦
When night falls, the Ice Nation envoy leaves Polis in chains — but not before spitting curses in the Commander's face.
Lexa stands in the tower window, watching the torches disappear into the trees beyond the wall. Kira stands at her side, quiet as the grave.
"They'll be back," Lexa murmurs. "With more wolves."
Kira nods. "I'll be ready."
Lexa's eyes flick to her — that tired, heavy stare that weighs every secret Kira hasn't spoken aloud.
"No," Lexa says softly. "You won't."
She leaves Kira standing there, the dark pressing close on all sides.
✦ ✦ ✦
That night, Kira dreams she stands on the field where Lexa will fall.
She sees the arrow — the bright flicker of steel, the way Lexa's eyes widen when the pain hits.
She screams herself awake, but the tower doesn't hear. Polis sleeps, and the monster watches over it like a mother over her cradle.
When the dawn comes, Kira lights a single candle in the temple. She doesn't pray. She's not foolish enough to think any god is listening.
She just watches the flame, waiting for it to burn out.
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