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They find Aden when he’s six - he had just started to train with his nontu and a glancing blow to his nose had exposed the black blood running through his veins. People look at him differently after that - they murmur to each other when they think he can’t hear.
Natblida,
Marked for Death,
Heda.
He is six and he doesn’t understand when the gonas ride into his village and approach his nomon.
He doesn’t understand when she breaks down.
He doesn’t understand when his nontu looks at him for a long moment and then nods stiffly.
He doesn’t understand when he’s lead away from his parents and placed reverently onto a horse.
He is six when they take him to Polis.
He is six the last time he sees his family.
He doesn’t stop crying until they bring him to the tower. He’s never seen something so tall. He doesn’t understand how a tree can have no bark or how it can feel so cold and hard when he runs his fingertips along the surface.
This place is terrifying and so wholly unlike his village.
He is guided into a box. He clings tightly to the leg of the guard escorting him when he feels it judder and begin to move up.
Aden wants his nomon.
He wants her to gather him up into her arms and tell him that it’ll be okay.
His nomon isn‘t here.
He is lead into a room with a tall, bald tattooed man and a girl sitting on a chair.
The tall man doesn’t look happy to see him and he shrinks back.
Aden is told that he is special, that his black blood makes him so.
He’s told that he’ll start to train and learn with others like him and that, maybe, one day he will be Heda.
He doesn’t understand and all he wants is to go home to his nomon but when he tells the tall man, the tall man frowns so deeply and spurns his request so sharply that Aden begins to tremble.
The girl in the chair looks at him and her green eyes soften. Someone’s painted part of her face and it makes her look scary. She tells the tall man to leave and, though he objects, he acquiesces after a flick of her wrist.
Aden thinks that this must be Heda.
His nontu has spoken of her; he says she is a revolutionary.
Aden doesn’t care, he just wants to go home.
She stands and beckons him over.
Heda takes a seat on the lower most step and he joins her.
She tells him that her name is Lexa and that she was three when they found her. She tells him to hold onto the memories of his parents.
She tells him that he will never see them again.
He breaks down into noisy sobs beside her and he feels thin arms encircle him. He buries his face into the crook of her neck and, for a moment, he doesn’t feel so alone.
“We are all orphans in this tower, Aden. We look after each other.”
***
He is twelve when she dies and he feels the loss keenly. He leads the funeral rites and watches Wanheda break over his mentor’s body.
He will succeed her. Lexa had faith in that. He has trained long and hard for this.
When the rites are completed, he walks over to the broken blonde girl.
He remembers this.
He remembers how it felt to have everything stripped away in an instant.
He places a hand on her forearm and she flinches at the contact.
“We all loved her. We all vowed we’d protect your people. We all vowed to her that we’d protect you.”
Her blue eyes land on his as she rasps “Why?”
Aden smiles then and he can almost hear Lexa as he speaks.
“We are all orphans in this tower, Clarke. We look after each other.”