Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first sun is rising between the mountains in the distance, as Clarke Griffin steps out her front door. Her light, quick footsteps stir up the cool fog that runs across the ground as she makes her way to the pond in the center of the square. She leans down and dips a canister into the crystal blue water, holding it by the burlap apron that is strung around her waist, and looks around as it fills. 

Sanctum is quiet, everything is bathed in a soft, orange glow that keeps the place in a half-awake state. The pink flowers from the gardens are tucked into their buds, the doors on the shipping container homes are shut tight, and all the curtains are still drawn closed. The only movement comes from the colorful banners strung up throughout the square that flutter in the breeze, blowing upwards as if by a soft breath exhaling in sleep. 

Clarke is the first to rise, like always. 

Even when she was a small child, she was up before the second sun, on her way towards the Offering Grove with her mother. They would help untangle people from the roots, when the punishments were over, or coax in the bodies for the ones that didn’t make it. She would watch her mother heal wounds with the tree sap they bottled in the afternoons from the petrified forests outside the radiation shield. And they were together. 

But now Clarke rises alone. Her mother has been dead for over ten years now, and Clarke hasn’t ventured outside the shield since her body was found at the edge of the Grove, mangled by the trees during an unexpected eclipse.

The only people she helps now are her father’s second wife, Simone, and her daughter, Josephine. They are the ones who draw her out of bed so early demanding fresh water for a warm morning bath and a brew of fresh tea.

She stands up when the canister is full and hauls it back to the containers. The Griffin’s pad is short but long. The blue and green-tinted metal form an L-shape along the pond. Large sections are cut out to make room for the glass windows. Clarke can see a hand pulling back a curtain and she sloshes some of the water out as she hurries to make it back inside before she can be scolded. 

She glances back at the suns, the second one now rising above the horizon, the two bright circles lighting up the hill Sanctum sits upon. The Primes’ castle glows against the growing light with its tall spirals of stone and orange shingled keep. Preparations have been underway inside for days to host the Primes’ Masquerade Ball. It signifies the end of the Harvest Feast, a twelve days-long celebration to honor the past year and usher in the new one. 

Clarke lets out a wistful sigh, letting the hope of seeing the inside of the castle, and in turn, a better life out into the crisp air. She continues to push the canister inside. 

The front room is vacant, save for the tall beams holding the room up, and in the corner, a desk that has been pushed aside. It was Clarke’s father’s desk, stacked with building plans and odds-and-ins for his engineering projects. 

He passed away a few years after her mother. But before he did, he had remarried a cruel woman with a daughter about Clarke’s age. They had arrived from the Children of Gabriel’s compound. It was a marriage of convenience, a way out of the clutches of this savage planet, and for the protection, their blood couldn’t provide. 

Clarke and her parents were born with the black blood, a guarantee for a spot granted inside the radiation shield, and coveted by the Primes of Sanctum. Though the Naming Ceremonies were eradicated before Clarke was born, the black blood is still held in high regard. 

But since her father passed away, Clarke has been treated as a Null in her own home. Simone and Josephine are only carriers of the black blood, a step below Clarke’s station, but they treat her like an inferior. She was made a servant with no extra wages or rations, moved into the smallest room in the pad, and with noses always turned up at her from the day her father was laid at the roots of the Offering Grove. 

She’s pulled out of her thoughts as she enters the kitchen, rolling the canister into the room, making quick work to light a fire in the hearth, and then the stovetop. She pours gallons into the tub and drops into the tea kettle. Once the water has warmed, she drags the bathing tank away from the fire, taking ash from the fireplace with it, into the other room. She’s covered in sweat and soot by the time the task is complete. 

When she hears footsteps padding down the hall, Clarke hurries to get out of her stepmother’s way. As soon as she is hidden from view, the kettle begins to whistle, and Josephine Lightbourne’s high-pitched voice rings out, “Mother! Wake up! Wake up this instant, Mother ”

There’s a sudden pounding on her stepmother’s door by her stepsister’s fist, so Clarke takes the chance to slip back into the kitchen and fishes the pot from the stove. As she fixes the tea, a door is opened and voices float down the hall in punctuated whispers that Clarke overhears. 

“By the Primes, Josie, why are you screeching at me this early in the morning? What is it?” her stepmother’s soft voice carries, raspy from just waking up.

“I was on the rooftops last night with Delilah and she said she heard from a guard at the castle that the Ball isn’t just for the Harvest Feast Celebration, but a chance for one of the Primes to find a bride!” Josephine lets out in one swift breath. 

“One of the Primes? A bride? Which one? Who’s of age?” Simone fires back. The whispers become indistinct for a moment and Clarke furrows her brows over the sugar crystals she drops into Josephine’s tea trying to make out what they’re saying.

“It has to be a Blake! But oh, Mother, you haven’t heard the best part…”

“Well, spit it out child,” Simone says and the kitchen door swings open revealing Clarke’s stepfamily. The older woman is wrapped up in a cotton shawl and her strawberry-blonde hair is held up tightly in a bun. Josephine barrels into the room after her, her slim figure swallowed in silk and her blonde hair hanging wildly around her brown eyes.

Josephine comes face to face with Clarke. The two young women could pass as actual sisters, maybe even twins in a certain light. Their coloring is almost identical, but their features are the exact opposite. Clarke is soft and curvy where Josephine is sharp and thin. Clarke’s blue eyes flicker to Josephine’s brown ones when she hands her the cup of tea.

A ferocious smile grows across the other woman’s face as she takes the cup, and looks directly at Clarke as she speaks, “All of Sanctum is invited to the Ball tonight.“

“Ah! How wonderful! We must find you something to wear tonight,” Simone says and clasps her hands in front of her face, chuckling behind them. The Lightbourne's were social climbers at their finest. It was an expression Clarke’s father had taught her from an old saying on Earth. A chance to go to the Ball and catch the eye of a Prime—to marry a Prime, was the epitome of success in their eyes. 

“Except for Nulls, of course. You understand, don’t you, Cindafiya?” Josephine holds her gaze upon Clarke a moment longer and then looks away. The comment lands exactly where she means it to and Clarke deflates a fraction of an inch. The nickname comes from a ridiculous, made-up language the Children of Gabriel spoke in the woods. It was a dig at the cinder’s from the fire the always coated Clarke’s skin. 

“Tsk-tsk, Josie. No need to be nasty,” Simone scolds her daughter but the tone is mocking. Clarke straightens her back at their words and turns toward her as she heads for her bath.

“I’m not a Null. I’d like to go to the Ball, too.” 

A sharp intake of breath fills the immediate silence. Clarke isn’t sure if it belongs to Simone’s at the insubordination, Josephine’s in surprise, or Clarke’s in shock. Simone twists to look back at Clarke. 

“Very well…”

“Mother, you can’t be serious. She can’t—,” Josephine whines in protest but stops as soon as her mother raises a hand at her.

“You may go to the Primes’ Ball, but only if you complete all your chores.” 

“That won’t be a problem, stepmother. I…”

“In addition to those, I need Josie’s dress cleaned and pressed. And mine. We’ll need help with getting ready. And let’s see,” she pauses and looks around the room. “The windows washed. Oh yes, and the tapestries and draperies. The flowers in my garden need pruning and..”

“But that will take all day!” 

“Then you better hurry, Cinda—I mean, Clarke,” Simone taunts. Her smile mimics Josephine’s from earlier and recognition flashes in Josephine's eyes. It is an impossible task. There’s no way Clarke will make it into the castle tonight. 

Once Clarke is left alone, she sets to work. She scrubs the windows and beats the drapes. She hangs the wet tapestries on the roof and clips the flowers in the garden. Josephine picks out a red satin dress that she brings to Clarke to iron out. It was stuffed in the back of a closet, full of wrinkles and mothballs. She plaits Simone’s hair into an intricate braid. 

And then she watches them leave. Her chores unfinished and not enough of a fight left in her to follow or protest when they do. She had nothing to wear anyway. Her usual drab attire is coated in flakes of ash and dirt. 

The square is busy when she looks out the window after them, everyone making their up the steps to the palace. Josephine and Simone are not among the most colorful, but they are the most atrocious. Their full skirts and clunky boots are carried with an air of utmost importance by two red-blooded leeches.

Clarke laughs at the sight of them and jumps down from her perched position, running out the door and past the pond, until she is doubled over in stitches that turn to sobs. The hot tears pour down her cheeks and hit the dark violet veins that pulse under the delicate skin of her hands that are resting in her lap. 

The overwhelming sense of failure and unfairness washes over her and she lets her body shake, purging the negative thoughts out. When she looks up, she is near the radiation shield. 

Her feet have carried her to the familiar edge of Sanctum where a path to the Offering Grove is a short distance away. She wipes away a few tears and stands up, walking slowly to the shield. She can feel the electricity buzzing before her but she doesn’t get too close. Her black blood protects her from the effects but it still hurts like hell. She remembers her mother’s voice when she was younger, telling her to keep her hands by her side as they skipped through the barrier.  The shield protects the people of Sanctum during an eclipse, and from the other terrors that plague the planet, but the world wasn’t all bad. Clarke had seen parts of it. And it was miraculous. 

The evening sky is violent beyond the trees. A swirl of green mixing into the air, but Clarke doesn’t feel any wind. 

  She lowers her hands to her side and takes a step forward, but a break in the branches of the trees directly in front of her stops her tracks immediately. 

She crouches down in the tall grass, hoping to hide from whatever—or whoever was scaling down the tree. A figure lands heavily into the clearing as if they fell directly from the sky. Their face is hidden by the hood of a black cloak. It drags along the grass behind them as they approach the radiation shield. 

Clarke’s instinct reacts and she shouts, “Don’t get too close! It’s radiated!”

But her voice doesn’t reach the figure in time and they step directly through the shield. She expects them to fall and writhe in pain, but nothing happens. 

Now that Clarke’s revealed herself, the figure drops their hood and Clarke comes face to face with Prime Gabriel Santiago. 

“Gabriel. Hallowed be thy name,” she chants, her voice breathy from her crying, and drops her head to her chest. Clarke had never met a Prime before, but she recognizes him from the portraits hanging around Sanctum. 

He was the leader of the Children of Gabriel when they were at war with the Primes. Once the Primes gave up their immortal mind drives, Gabriel returned to his woods to study the Anomaly. It was a phenomenon that bewitched him and kept everyone else far away from it out of fear of the unknown.

He had aged considerably, his body was thin and his hair was completely gray now, but he still seemed nimble enough to trapeze through a hostile forest. 

“What are you doing out here, child?” his rough voice questions her. 

“I was running...away from...something,” Clarke struggles to explain her predicament. It was quite childish when she thought of it and tried to explain it out loud. 

“Or maybe you were running towards something?” Gabriel raises an eyebrow at her. 

“I wanted to go to the Masquerade Ball for the Primes,” she says and nods at him again out of respect. “But I wasn’t allowed. By my stepmother.”

“The Prime Ball, you say? I wasn’t even invited. What with all the bad blood and all, I understand,” Gabriel says and takes a step towards her. 

“If we’re talking about blood, then mine should count for an invite anyway,” Clarke throws back. Her black blood bubbling hot under her skin at the fact. 

“You don’t look like a Sacred of Sanctum,” Gabriel declares and looks her overtaking in the Null clothing and her plain appearance. When she blushes in embarrassment her cheeks flush dusky black and his eyes narrow in understanding. “I see.” 

“Maybe you were right. I should run towards something else.” 

“I have a feeling you should run in that direction.” The man gently turns Clarke around so she’s facing Sanctum. Even from this distance, she can see the Primes’ castle rising up high into the sky alight with twinkling lights that shine through the windows. 

“I’ll never make it in time and I have absolutely nothing to wear,” Clarke sighs and wants to curl up in a ball in defeat. The feeling reminds her of the night her mother died and then her father when she realized she was all alone in the universe. A large hand tilts her chin up to the sky and she sees the swirling green. 

“I just happen to have both of the things you need, transportation and attire, via the Anomaly.” 

He lets go of her chin gently, smiling serenely, but Clarke continues to stare up at the green churning in the sky. It seems to be speeding up, the swirl blocking out the rest of the fading daylight, and the wind has finally touched down on the ground whipping around the couple and the fields of dry grass. 

“What’s happening?” Clarke shouts over the ringing of the wind. She looks back at Gabriel and notices how old, yet young the Prime is for his true age. The Mind Drives have been destroyed, but Gabriel looks like he still had the touch of immortality.  

“Think of where you want to go and think of how you want to appear!” he shouts back. Clarke shakes her head, still not understanding, but the Anomaly has started to creep down swallowing her into the emerald mist. Gabriel vanishes from her line of view and a tugging sensation at her navel pulls her straight up. 

It feels like an out-of-body experience as she stares down at the field she was just standing in, then the Offering Grove comes into view, a deep longing pulls her closer, but she blinks, and Sanctum comes hurling below her into sharp focus. She imagines the Primes’ Ball taking place inside the castle, with all the extravagant food and exciting music, the dancing and the people.

As the Anomaly slows, Clarke can see the individual drops of green molecules that are spiraling around her. Time and space seem to be suspended where she exists, wherever that is.

“And how you want to appear!” Gabriel’s voice shouts through a tunnel, the echo ringing like the Anomaly itself right into her ear.

Clarke touches the apron on her waist, and then up to the ashes caked into her skin. She wants to appear clean. She wants to appear like she belongs. 

The gray ash flickers in the green light at her thoughts, like it is rekindling back into the flames of the fire that shed it. Sparks run up and down her limbs, over her chest, and through her hair. The soot burns white-hot, but it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t even touch her skin. It transforms into soft lace, hugging her curves and welding over her body like a glove. A skirt tumbles down to her ankles made of lace and silk, and the muddy sneakers she had on are changed into slippers as the moisture collects and turns from muddy water to clear glass. 

She can feel her hair falling freely over her shoulders and down her back. The soft tresses are coiled into large, loose ringlets. And her skin feels absolutely flawless. 

Once the Anomaly as worked its magic over her, the green smoke blows away with the wind that topples over the bluff. She’s left standing at the bottom of the staircase that leads inside the Primes’ castle. Gabriel reappears and takes her hand. 

The guards at the front door become aware of their presence soon after and Clarke straightens up, pulling at her gown. 

“I can’t go in there. My step sister will recognize me and my stepmother will drag me home,” she pants nervously. The panic wells up in her throat. Her dress suddenly feels too tight and her heart beats quicker inside her chest. 

“Good thing it’s a Masquerade Ball then,” Gabriel soothes her nerves and reaches into his cloak. He pulls out a mask made of crystal and pearls. He places it over the crown of her head and it falls over her blue eyes. The frames curl up into her hair and cover the bridge of her nose. 

“You look more than worthy of a Prime. You look like you could be a Prime,” Gabriel whispers and gives her a slight push up the stairs into the waiting night. Clarke tries to thank him, looking back over her shoulder as she climbs up, or ask him to explain how this is all possible. But the doors of the castle are thrown open and Clarke Griffin has no choice but to step inside. 

Chapter Text

“Breathe. Just breathe,” Clarke reminds herself as a guard leads her through the golden halls of the Primes’ castle. She steadies her breathing and on the next exhale they turn a corner, her footsteps falter at the sight before her and she has to suck in a deep breath. 

Sanctum was a colorful world and the people of it filled it with even more vibrancy. Clarke had grown accustomed to it, but nothing prepared her for what lay past those golden halls. 

A red, paper-thin screen outlined in gold like a lotus flower parts, opening into the grand ballroom. It’s all still golden but bathed in blue light from the candles of all sizes that are set out throughout the room. Drapes of purple velvet cover some of the walls and silver vases are filled to the brim with the blossoms of the Joberry seeds, a plant created by Gabriel, for his first beloved. 

The tables are overflowing with the bounty from the Harvest. No one in Sanctum ever goes hungry, not since the first Primes discovered the rich soil on the high hills they settled on, so there are always plenty of leftovers at the end of the celebration. Cakes and delicacies are added by a fountain of dark chocolate that cascades down onto the floor. It disappears into an unseen reservoir and then cycles back up. 

Clarke doesn’t know where to go or what to try first, so she rests her weight on the banister of the steps that lower to the dance floor. The air around her holds some kind of sparkling mist that floats in front of her face making everything dream-like. All the guests certainly seem to be in a trance as they stare up at her. 

She reaches up to her face and her fingertips are met with the pearls on her mask. She looks down and her gown is glowing cerulean in the candlelight, a mix of blues that give her a look that is simply divine. No one knows who she is and they all murmur in wonder behind their own masks. 

The music quiets and then swells, a note change to a higher key from the string quartet, and the base thrums faster under Clarke’s glass slippers. Most of the guests go back to their business, but a handsome man catches her eye as he moves across the dance floor in her direction, leaving his dance partner behind in surprise. 

His long strides quickly make their way to her, the dark, well-tailored suit pulls against his fit form, and he stretches out a tan hand for her to take hold of at his approach. A copper masquerade mask is stenciled onto his freckled face, around his eyes, and up into his slick back curls causing a three-dimensional effect that makes his eyes smolder. 

“May I be so bold to ask you for a dance, ma’am?” 

Clarke, feeling bold as well, under the mystery of her own costume, nods her head and follows him to the dance floor. She looks around at everyone twirling around them and the man leans down to her ear and whispers, “It’s a waltz. Do you know it?” 

“A little.” 

“Just follow me,” he tells her and guides her hand up to his shoulder when he lets it go to place his hand around her waist, she lets her hand slip down to his chest. She can feel his heart thrumming quickly and with all his bravado he seems to be as nervous as she is. 

With another swell in the music, they began to sway with the crowd, circling about the room in slow, broad circles. She finally lets herself relax and she pushes off his chest to spin in a circle. He follows her lead now and lifts his arm up so she can spin underneath before pulling her back tightly against him.

“I thought you didn’t know this waltz.”

“I said I knew a little. The spins might be the only part I enjoyed enough to learn,” she winks at him and he chuckles, his eyes crinkling under his mask. Clarke wants him to laugh again. She had learned to dance as a young child when her parents were alive. She would stand on her father’s toes and spin around their pod until they left for the Harvest Celebration. It was one of her fondest memories, but one she usually kept locked away.  

“How are you enjoying the Ball, Miss…?” he trails off, fishing for her name. He threads his fingers through hers and leads her straight through the center of the dance floor like they’re doing the Cha-Cha.

“I’ve only just arrived, Mr…?” she echoes his question of naming. Over the centuries, Sanctum had become a pretty profuse settlement. It was easy to not know everyone, whether they were Primes or not, though Clarke hoped she would recognize one if she met them, even if they weren't as well known as the originals. There were so many Prime families now that lived in the castle. She looks up at the mystery man and wonders who he could be. 

“You don’t recognize me?” 

“No, should I?” Clarke asks and searches his face in concentration. 

“Maybe. But I think we’d both enjoy the evening more if you don’t.” 

Clarke isn’t sure if he’s offended by her ignorance or not, and she’s not sure if she should take offense at his comment, but she does feel him relax slightly. The crease between his brows smooth out and she notices a scar on his forehead. She avoids dropping her eyes to the one above his lip and looks away from his face altogether out into the crowd. 

The ballroom is filled with people. Some are dancing and some are tasting the Harvest bounty, but most are watching the dance floor. Clarke shivers at their disguised faces. Her stepmother and stepsister are here somewhere. 

“Cold?” her dance partner asks with concern.

“They’re lol all staring at us.” 

“Believe me, they are most certainly all staring at you,” he tries to soothe her, but his words only seem to cause her heart to beat faster and the color to warm up under her cheeks. “You are absolutely beautiful, I swear on the Primes.” 

Clarke turns her face down quickly so he doesn’t catch the black blood of the sacred lighting up her features. She’s spent so many years hiding who she was because of her horrible family that it’s almost second nature to her. 

“Thank you,” she murmurs politely and they continue to dance to another waltz, this one slower than the first. She follows his lead for the steps and a light banter picks up between them. She gasps at a table they pass, filled with pastries, and he laughs at a group of young women who are fawning over a Prime couple. 

Gold sketched masks line their faces, like her mysterious dance partner, but she does recognize them after a moment. Clarke can tell they are Primes by the mirrored tattoos that adorn their foreheads and cheekbones. 

“Murphy and Emori. Hallowed be their names,” Clarke says in awe. The couple was known for the way they carried their worship over even after the Primes fell. They loved having people dote over them, especially Murphy, who looks up suddenly from the group and meets her stare. 

“Excuse me a second,” the man she’s dancing with says and leaves her at the edge of the dance floor. He meets Murphy, clapping him firmly on the back, and they walk off together into the shadows. 

Clarke exits the dance floor quickly, too, not wanting to be swept up with the moving crowd. She finds an empty table and plops down. Her face is flushed and she waves a hand in front of her face to cool it off. She reaches to pull up her mask but stops at the sound of a high-pitched voice a table over. 

“How are we expected to turn his head if it’s pressed up against her all night? Honestly,” Josephine complains to a gaggle of gossipers. Clarke can see her stepsister spilling out of her red dress, the women are all crowded around her, and haven’t noticed Clarke sitting so close. 

“Do you recognize her, Josie?”

“Of course not! She’s got to be from one of the lower farms. Look at her!” 

“She’s gorgeous! She’s the perfect match for Prime Bellamy,” another girl speaks up, Josephine huffs, and they all look in the direction of the dance floor. Clarke looks back to try to spot the Prime of the hour, the one who was looking for a wife among the Ball goers. 

She cranes her neck to see, but can’t determine who they are talking about. No one catches her eye. They all just seem like normal Sanctumites dressed up in elegant gowns and fine suits. It takes her a moment longer to realize the table next to her as gone completely silent and when she looks back at the girls, Josephine is staring daggers at her.

Clarke shoots up in her chair and rushes toward the nearest exit. It leads out to a balcony, but Clarke doesn’t care, she needs to get as far away from her stepsister before she can force her back home. The air is cool on her skin and she places her fingers against her cheek to feel the blood slowly drain down from it. 

“Trying to escape?” the man from before steps out and asks her, then leans against the curtains that had billowed out through the open door. His curls have sprung free from the restraint of gel, the cause of it is evident by the way his fingers are knitted in them now. 

“I needed some fresh air,” Clarke says and looks down at Sanctum. The homes in the squares and the fields that circle down the hill are minuscule compared to the feeling she has of being up in the tall castle tower. The only world she has ever known looks different to her from this height, smaller in a way.

 “It can be pretty suffocating up here.”

“The air is thinner,” she quips back. He laughs, a full one that pulls his lips back over his teeth, and Clarke feels the edges of her own lips pulling upward. When he quiets, he pokes his tongue out and rubs it along his bottom lip, then steps out onto the balcony. The music drifts out with him.

“ Mmm mmm mmm…so this is...” he hums out the tune of the ballad playing by the string instruments inside. When he reaches Clarke, he extends his hand and they began to dance again. The balcony is big enough for them to turn a time or two, but they’re closer. His arm wraps around her waist and she places both her arms around his neck. 

“Do you believe in fate, mystery girl?” 

“Do you believe that Gabriel, hallowed be his name, dropped out of the sky and escorted me to the Ball himself tonight?” Clarke lets out her words in a big breath before she could stop herself from telling the truth. It’s absurd enough that she doubts he’ll take her seriously. But he does. 

“Yes,” he says with unwavering conviction. “He’s here...in the castle.” 

“Wha-what is he doing here?” Clarke asks perplexed by the Prime and his actions. Since she saw him appear at the edge of Sanctum, right when she needed him, and then to have him disappear once she made it to the Ball, she wondered what he was up to. 

”To negotiate for his Children,” he explains, telling her how the Old Man had come to discuss his need for a remote compound for his people by using the Primes technology for a radiation shield. 

“And you trust him?”

“I do now. I believe we should forgive the ones who wrong us,” he says and his statement feels heavy like he had learned to live with that principle when it came to more than just Gabriel. 

“Even if they’ve hurt you so many times?” Clarke thinks of her cruel stepmother and jealous stepsister, the way they demanded everything from her from sunup to sundown but never showed her an ounce of appreciation or love. 

“Then you leave them behind in the past,” he says simply. They’ve stopped dancing now, but their hands are still resting on each other. 

“I’d have to marry Prime Bellamy to do that,” Clarke jokes, laughter threatening to bubble up to the surface because of how ridiculous that idea seemed. It was more ridiculous than green smoke and slippers made of glass. She hadn’t even seen the Prime yet and had spent all night with this mysterious man, but now when she meets his eyes they’re glowing brightly like amber. 

“Then marry me,” he says and peels his mask off revealing more freckles on his cheeks and across his nose letting his curls fall down on his forehead. Without the mask, Clarke can see him clearly and knows his words are sincere, but that would mean…

Clarke realizes too many things too quickly in the next instant. There’s a commotion inside and Clarke looks that way as Josephine and a group of women comes barging out onto the patio. They pull the man away from her and she realizes it. It’s him. He’s Prime Bellamy. Josephine had been watching them since Clarke stepped outside. She didn’t recognize Clarke, but she did recognize Bellamy. There is frantic pleads for him to dance with them. 

“I have to go,” Clarke exclaims over the growing chatter, a terrified look on her face that Bellamy catches. She turns and runs through the ballroom. 

“No, wait. I must know who you are,” he calls after her and pushes away from the women. 

She runs through the golden halls and down the castle steps as fast as she can. One of her glass slippers loosen as she steps down onto a wider step, but she doesn’t let it stop her as it slips off her foot. The heel cracks under her next step and the glass pierces the bottom of her foot. It hurts immensely but she keeps going until she has cleared the castle grounds. 

She doesn’t look back, but if she had, she would have seen Bellamy picking up the shoe and gently wiping away the stain of black blood Clarke left behind with his thumb. 

She’s too determined to make it down the hill before anyone can follow her. The quickest way back to her pod is through the many gardens of Sanctum, that keep her hidden, so by the time she makes it home her feet are muddied and her gown is soiled at the bottom. She takes off her mask and it crumbles into powder, like matcha. The gown turns back to soot as she peels it off her body. 

She collapses onto her bed, exhausted from the day and the events that transpired, and unable to take off the remaining slipper. So she doesn’t pay attention to what happens to it. The magic of the Anomaly preserves it, though, as the clock in the square strikes midnight.

When she awakes the next morning, everything feels like a dream. Her body is sore from the mountain of chores she had completed the day before. She stretches under the covers of her bed but stops when a sound of tinkling glass crashes onto the floor. She sits up and looks over her bed. A glass slipper lays on top of a pile of ash. 

The Masquerade Ball comes rushing back into her mind. The dream wasn’t a dream. Clarke covers her mouth with her hands in disbelief. Gabriel...The Ball...Primes...Bellamy. It was all real. 

Before she can process it any further, someone is at her door. She hears the jiggle of the metal handle and Simone walks in. Her shawl is wrapped around her tightly to keep out the morning chill and her eyes are dark, tired-looking. 

“Are you ill?” Simone asks her and looks around her room suspiciously. Clarke throws the blanket off her bed to hide the glass slipper.

“No.” The room swims as she stands up quickly and she falls back down. “Uh, yes. Maybe.”

“Well, breakfast isn’t going to make itself so get yourself together…now.”

Her stepmother leaves and Clarke eases herself off the bed slowly this time then hurries to get dressed. She slips the glass slipper into the pocket of her apron and heads down the hall. She runs her fingers along the cool, bumpy metal of the container home and thinks of the golden halls in the castle. “ Mmm mmm mmm…so this is love.”

Josephine finds her later dancing around the kitchen with a broom, humming under her breath. 

“What’s gotten into you, Cindafaya?” Josephine asks sleepily. When she turns around to fix her tea, Clarke glares at the back of her head but quickly averts her eyes not wanting her stepsister to recognize her from the Ball last night. She doesn’t. 

Suddenly, there is a knock at the door and Clarke pulls it open revealing a guard from the castle. He nods hello at her and unrolls a piece of paper before reading from it out loud, “Prime Bellamy will be searching all of Sanctum until he finds the woman who lost a glass shoe at the Ball last night.” 

“A glass shoe? Seriously, how absurd,” Simone says, walking into the kitchen, but the guard cuts her off from saying more. 

“Whosever foot fits will become his bride. The Primes bid you a hallowed day.” 

The finality of his words echoes around the pod as he leaves, leaving the three women to stare blankly after his absence. Simone is the first to speak. 

“Clarke, fetch some water for a bath. Josephine, go and get your gray sweater vest.” Neither girl moves until Simone shouts, “Now!” 

Clarke drags the full canister back inside the pod later that morning. All of Sanctum is abuzz with the Prime’s decree. Neighbors linger in the tavern and their doorways whispering about the mysterious blonde who captured the Prime’s heart. Clarke keeps a small smile on her face at the thought of being the one, though she hides her locks under a rag so no one tries to point her out. 

Simone keeps her busy dusting the house and fixing food for when the Prime arrives. Josephine sits perched on a sofa unable to lift a finger in fear of wrinkling her clothes or smearing her face, but Clarke is dusted in soot and washed in suds by the time the day draws close to its end. She is back to her normal farce and far from the appearance that accompanied her Ball attire. It makes her feel like last night was even more of a dream when she looks in the mirror. Until she sees him.

The guards enter the square first, there are not many young women here so it doesn’t take them long to reach Clarke’s pod, and then Bellamy steps from behind them. The fading rays of the suns catch in his curls and he’s wearing a wool cardigan over dark clothes and boots. It’s far more casual than the night before, but something in the way he carries himself signifies who he is. Clarke can’t believe she missed that he was a Prime. 

“Go and wait in your room, Clarke.” Simone’s voice pulls her away from the window.

“What? I-I-i…,” Clarke struggles to argue with her stepmother. She feels small, no match against the woman, yet if she hides Bellamy won’t find her. Before she can make up her mind, Simone pushes her towards the hall to her bedroom as Josephine goes to open the door.

“Just stay out of sight unless I call. I won’t let anything stand in the way of Josie’s chances. The guards said this is one of the last houses they have to stop at! Now, go!” 

Clarke relents and stays hidden in the kitchen, but she stands up on her tiptoes so she can see the room through a long opening in the wall. 

Bellamy walks in and asks for all the young woman in the household. Simone tells him it is only her and her daughter. Josephine sits down on the sofa, Bellamy sighs, and he places Clarke’s glass slipper at her foot. Clarke lets out a gasp at the sight out it. The shoe is identical to the one in her apron. 

Josephine forces her foot into the glass, her toes scrunch up at the tip and her heel starts to turn red. She’s a size larger than Clarke, but she’s desperate to make herself fit. The crack in the glass pinches her foot, Josephine yelps in pain, and red blood spills out onto the floor. 

“Clarke!” Simone calls and Clarke hurries into the room. She takes in the scene, leans down to wipe the blood from the floor with her apron and watches Josephine yank the glass slipper off. 

“You’re not the one,” Bellamy whispers, knowing she can’t possibly be who he’s looking for. Clarke quirks her head and looks back at him, her own foot throbs a little and she thinks of the cut on her foot scarred black. She shakes her head and goes to wrap the wound up. 

“Have we met before?” Bellamy asks drawn to her presence for the first time. 

“Oh, you couldn’t possibly have. She’s a Null,” Josephine says laughing at the thought. Bellamy continues to look at her expectantly and Josephine’s head bobs back and forth between the two. Her laughter dies down and a loud crack breaks the tense silence. The glass slipper lays crushed in her hands. 

“Oh, shoot. I broke it,” Josephine says and bats her eyes at Bellamy, still trying to woo him, even if he won’t look away from Clarke. Clarke stands up slowly and Bellamy goes to move toward her. The guard moves toward Josephine to collect the glass. 

“While that’s it, sir. It’s gone,” a guard tells Bellamy. The glass is dissolving, water runs down their hands and onto the floor. Bellamy’s face falls a fraction of an inch. His only lead is gone. 

“Gone like Gabriel and his blue Anomaly,” he says quietly. 

“Clarke, mop that up,” Simone commands and turns to Bellamy, “By the beloved Primes, Bellamy, my daughter is very beautiful and would make a nice match for you...if you would have a seat…”

Josephine pours a cup of tea as Simone guides a distracted Bellamy to the sofa. 

“It was green,” Clarke says suddenly. Everyone in the room stares at her. “I mean, the Anomaly, it’s green. Everyone knows…”

Bellamy breaks free of Simone’s grasp and stares back at Clarke. “Her eyes were blue, though.” 

He’s inches from her face now and Clarke can see his irises swirling as he searches her face. Her cheeks heat up involuntarily. All of the pieces start to fall into place. 

They both ignore the protests of her family, Simone denying Clarke ever left the pod last night and Josephine clamoring for Bellamy’s attention again. Even the guards are urging Bellamy to return to the castle now. But Bellamy waits, holding his breath for an answered question he’s almost too afraid to ask. 

“Do you believe in fate?” Bellamy barely breathes out. 

Clarke smiles at him, reaches into the pocket of her apron, and pulls out the glass slipper.