The top floor of the dropship had officially been converted into a makeshift brig.
Tied securely to the heavy structural struts on opposite sides of the cramped, dimly lit room were two very different kinds of enemies, representing the dual threats of their new world.
On the left sat Jack, the Mountain Man guard Aleksander had captured in the woods. Stripped of his protective hazmat suit and his advanced weaponry, he looked pale, terrified, and entirely out of his element. He sat with his knees pulled to his chest, shivering slightly in the cool, metallic air of the ship, casting nervous glances at the boy with the glowing magic.
On the right sat Khal, the exiled prince of the Kalkru. Even bound tightly with thick, reinforced dropship cables, the massive warlord radiated raw, uncompromising violence. The side of his jaw was deeply bruised from Aleksander's punch, and his dark eyes tracked every movement in the room with the rabid intensity of a caged predator. He occasionally spat curses in Trigedasleng, testing the tensile strength of his bindings with subtle flexes of his heavy muscles.
Bellamy stood near the hatch, his arms crossed tightly over his chest as he stared at the two prisoners. Clarke stood beside him, her brow furrowed in deep thought. The adrenaline of the battle had completely faded, leaving behind the cold, hard logistics of survival.
"So, what's the play here?" Bellamy asked, keeping his voice low so the prisoners couldn't eavesdrop. "We just survived a massive attack. We have limited rations, limited water, and limited space. What exactly are we doing with these two?"
Clarke nodded in agreement, looking over at Aleksander, who was leaning casually against the metal bulkhead, observing the prisoners with a cold, calculating detachment.
"Bellamy's right, Alex," Clarke added, her medical pragmatism warring with her survival instincts. "We can't just keep them tied up in here forever. It's a drain on our resources, and it's a massive security risk if either of them manages to get loose."
Aleksander pushed off the wall, his expression completely devoid of the stress that was weighing on the other two leaders. He didn't see burdens; he saw chess pieces. He looked at the pale Mountain Man first.
"Jack is our key," Aleksander answered smoothly, his voice a quiet, pragmatic murmur. "Mount Weather is a pre-war bunker—a fortress of steel doors, radiation filters, and heavy artillery. We cannot simply knock on their front gate or blow through their walls. When the time comes to strike the Mountain, Jack is going to give us the layout, the security protocols, and the blind spots. He gets us inside."
Bellamy frowned, accepting the logic, but his gaze immediately shifted to the hulking, bruised Plains Rider on the other side of the room.
"And him?" Bellamy asked, his voice hardening. "The guy who just led fifty riders to slaughter us and steal our guns? I say we execute him and put his head on a pike outside the wall. Send a permanent message to the rest of the Plains Riders to stay out of our woods."
"No," Aleksander countered immediately, his tone leaving absolutely no room for debate. "We cannot kill him."
"Why?" Clarke asked, genuinely surprised. "He's a warlord, Alex. He isn't going to suddenly negotiate peace."
"Because of who he is," Aleksander explained, tapping the side of his head—a subtle reminder of the history he had pulled directly from Khal's mind. "He may be exiled, but he is still the eldest son of the High Chief of the Kalkru. He has royal blood. In their culture, blood demands blood."
Aleksander slowly paced toward the center of the room, entirely unbothered as the warlord snarled and strained against the heavy cables.
"Right now, Khal is a failed rebel who embarrassed his family," Aleksander continued softly, locking eyes with the furious prince. "But if we execute him, we turn him into a martyr. We give his younger brother, Varo—the current heir and a brilliant tactician—the perfect political excuse to march the entire Plains army into these woods to avenge his royal blood. We would unite a fractured clan against us."
Aleksander stopped a few feet from the massive Grounder, his dark eyes flashing with cold authority.
"We keep him alive, and we keep him contained," Aleksander finalized. "Because a living prince, even an exiled one, is the ultimate leverage."
Bellamy stared at the bruised, heavily muscled warlord, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Aleksander's political logic was sound—killing the prince and uniting an entire army against the dropship was tactical suicide. But the physical reality of their situation still gnawed at him.
"Fine. Leverage," Bellamy conceded, his jaw tight. "But leverage still has to eat, Alex. They still drink our water. Every calorie we give them is a calorie stolen from our own people. And right now, we barely have enough smoked meat and purified water to last the week."
Clarke nodded slowly. "He's right. If we're keeping them alive indefinitely, the resource drain is going to become a critical issue for the camp."
Aleksander didn't look concerned. In fact, a faint, almost amused smirk touched the corner of his mouth. He looked between the two young leaders, once again reminding them that they were judging their current reality by the failing, mechanical constraints of the Ark.
"You are still thinking like scavengers on a dying space station," Aleksander said smoothly, his voice echoing lightly in the metallic room. "The laws of scarcity that governed the Ark do not apply here. Not while I am on the ground."
Bellamy crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow. "Is that right? You can just pull rations out of thin air?"
"Not thin air, Bellamy. The earth," Aleksander corrected calmly. He stepped away from the prisoners, holding up his hand. A soft, vibrant emerald light began to hum at his fingertips, radiating a deep, ancient warmth that smelled faintly of rain and crushed pine needles.
"My magic is deeply tied to the natural world," Aleksander explained, his Fey senses reaching out past the metal walls of the ship. "Water is the simplest matter. I can weave a condensation ward that pulls moisture directly from the morning fog, yielding gallons of perfectly pure water a day. Or I can draw groundwater up through the soil and instantly filter out any heavy metals or radiation."
Clarke watched the green light dance across his fingers, her scientific mind endlessly fascinated by the sheer biological impossibility of his power. "And food?" she asked.
"I can accelerate the cellular growth cycles of the edible plants you and Monty have been cataloging from the Forestry Bunker," Aleksander answered, letting the magic fade back into his skin. "I can grow a month's worth of medicinal herbs and root vegetables in a single afternoon. Furthermore, I can cast preservation wards on the meat we hunt. We won't need to smoke it or salt it to keep it from rotting; it will remain perfectly fresh indefinitely. We will not starve."
Bellamy stared at him for a long moment, slowly shaking his head. He let out a breathless, slightly disbelieving scoff. No matter how many times he saw it, the reality of having an all-powerful sorcerer on their side was still hard to fully process.
"Right," Bellamy muttered, dropping his arms. "Magic. I keep forgetting the rules don't apply to you."
"The rules of survival have changed, Bellamy," Aleksander stated, his dark eyes fixed on the two bound prisoners. "We keep them alive. We keep them fed. And when the time is right, we use them to secure our absolute dominance over this sector."
The heavy knot of anxiety in Clarke's chest finally loosened. They had a fortified camp, the deadliest cavalry on the continent, a live video feed ready to connect to the Ark, and a magical solution to their resource crisis.
But as if on cue to ruin the moment of relief, Khal let out another sudden, violent roar, thrashing wildly against the heavy dropship cables. Across the room, Jack flinched, pulling his knees tighter to his chest and whimpering in the shadows.
Bellamy rubbed his temples, a headache beginning to form behind his eyes. "Okay, so they won't starve. But are we supposed to just listen to this guy scream about his birthright twenty-four hours a day?"
Aleksander looked over at the struggling warlord, his expression completely flat.
"No," Aleksander answered simply. "We have actual work to do, and I find the noise tedious."
He casually stepped away from Bellamy and Clarke, walking back into the center of the room between the two prisoners. He didn't raise his voice or take a fighting stance. He simply raised his right hand, his index and middle fingers extended, and traced a fluid, glowing silver rune into the cool, stagnant air of the dropship.
The rune hung there for a fraction of a second, humming with a soft, lethargic energy, before Aleksander flicked his wrist outward.
The silver light fractured, washing over both Khal and Jack in a silent, invisible wave of heavy psychic pressure.
The effect was instantaneous.
Khal, who was mid-curse and straining against his bonds, suddenly froze. His jaw went slack. The furious, rabid fire in his dark eyes instantly glazed over as a massive, unnatural exhaustion crashed into his nervous system. He let out a long, heavy exhale, his head rolling forward as his massive body went completely limp against the cables, instantly pulled into a deep, dreamless slumber.
Across the room, Jack didn't even have time to fight it. The terrified Mountain Man simply slumped over sideways against the metal strut, snoring softly before his head even hit the floor.
The top floor of the dropship fell into absolute, blissful silence.
Bellamy blinked, staring at the two unconscious men, and then looked back at Aleksander. "You can just... turn them off?"
"It is a basic sleeping charm," Aleksander explained, lowering his hand as the silver magic faded from his fingertips. "It slows their heart rates and induces a heavy, coma like sleep. They will remain completely unconscious until I decide to wake them. They cannot scheme, they cannot struggle, and they cannot waste their energy."
Clarke let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding, looking incredibly grateful for the quiet. "That... makes things a lot easier."
"Indeed," Aleksander said, turning toward the heavy metal hatch that led down to the second level. "Now that our guests are secured, we have an appointment to keep. Raven should have the video link bypassed by now. It is time we properly introduced the Chancellor to the ground."