Chapter 1: Little Dove
"Your Grace, a raven arrived." Qyburn announces as he walks towards the queen.
"And…? Is she with them now? Are they on their way back?" Cersei replies as she turns around hiding the excitement in her voice.
"I'm... afraid not, Your Grace, they said the undead got there first and the castle was already burning when they arrived. The Lady of Winterfell, Sansa Stark... is dead." Aside from the raven they received, word of the lady's demise travelled fast as the people of the North go south for refuge.
"Are they certain it's her?" The Queen inquired acidly, gripping the back of the chair before her, her back slouching as if in defeat.
"Her... body was quite mangled, so they had to wait for confirmation. Their spy informed them that it was indeed Lady Stark, and at this very moment the North grieves for her loss." The maester answered rather cautiously. He knows how direly her queen wanted this. How the queen feels Sansa Stark should be hers to kill. After all, she became an instrument in murdering her first born. He finds the queen straightening her back again after a minute of losing her composure.
"I would have wanted to see her alive first. I had a lot of plans in mind." Cersei says as she slowly walks into the front of her chair and sits down.
She heaves a big sigh then asks, "And what of the undead? And the dragons?" The queen asked, knowing that despite her disappointment, they have other matters to discuss.
"The undead was defeated, and though both dragons are still alive, they've lost more than half of their army, but...there's one more news, of utmost importance Your Grace." Qyburn professed.
"What is it now?" Cersei retorted as though she's not interested in anything else besides the Targaryen girl.
"There have been rumors of Jon Snow riding a dragon during the battle with the undead. As you see, upon studying these creatures, I learned that dragons can only bond with and be ridden by a person who has Targaryen blood." Qyburn reports almost scandalously as his queen takes a deep breath staring at him as if he just grew two horns.
"And…?" The queen demands him to continue.
"It seems that Ned Stark's bastard wasn't his bastard after all. Taking into account his age and the mystery behind Lyanna Stark's death, Jon Snow could very well be her son with Rhaegar Targaryen." The hand claimed.
As he finishes, Cersei thinks of how the honorable Ned Stark had to lie to the realm to protect their son from Robert's wrath. She would have loved to see her late husband's reaction to that. Now she seethes with anger as she realizes that because of Ned Stark's lie, another enemy appeared from the snows of the North.
"A dragon raised by wolves?" It almost seems like a jest, and Cersei laughs mockingly to the world. She doesn't need further proof for it. She feels in her bones that it is true.
"I remember how the Lannisters and the Starks rallied behind Robert to end the Targaryen dynasty... And now he and his aunt are working together to take back the Iron Throne, the same throne where his grandfather and uncle's murderer once sat upon? He really is not Ned Stark's son after all..." Cersei rekindled while shaking her head.
"There are rumors of an estrangement happening between the two your grace, my sources said Daenerys views Jon Snow as a threat to her claim especially now that one of her dragons has found its own rider." Qyburn commented earning a smirk from the Lannister queen.
"And we have to take advantage of that... One less dragon for her, one less weapon against me. If he's helping the Targaryen girl, whether trueborn or bastard, that means he doesn't want the Iron Throne for himself." Cersei concludes.
"You can vow not to lay claim to the North and recognize its independence if he withdraws the Northern Forces. You can naturalize him as a Stark now that Sansa Stark's dead. He can be King in the North again." Qyburn proposes.
But the Lannister queen doesn't know the boy enough to assume where his loyalty truly lies. After all, the arrogant bastard already declined the same proposal in the dragon pit all the while declaring he's already bent the knee to the tyrant.
"That's not enough. We cannot guarantee that he won't betray me. We need a leverage against him. If we don't then he's better off dead. I don't want another Targaryen in our midst. And I want him gone now... Send-"
knock knock knock
"Let me see to it first, Your Grace..." Qyburn mumbles as he withdraws from the queen and heads outside to see who might have the decency to interrupt his meeting with the queen. Cersei stands up and starts pacing around the room while waiting for her Hand as she thinks of ways to get rid of Rhaegar's son, until the door opens, and she stops on her tracks and faces it. Qyburn returns alone with a beaming smile.
"My queen, Ser Bronn has arrived." And Cersei thinks, this is it, her victory against the two men who committed treason against her.
"My traitor brothers?" She aked, her whole body shaking from anticipation.
"He didn't find them but-"
"Send him to the black cells!" She couldn't even let him finish, for her anger towards the useless sellsword gives rise first. Despite her fury, her Hand keeps looking at her with a pleased smile and she furrows her brows and finally lets him speak as she breathes unevenly.
"He came back with a gift Your Grace, an unexpected visitor from the North, and she could very well be your leverage against the Targaryen boy." Qyburn reveals, and she feels the hairs in her back rise not from the cold of winter but from the elation of knowing she would have that weapon against another usurper.
"Let her in..." She whispers.
Qyburn retreats again and she can hear the voices of three men speaking. Qyburn comes back holding a woman by the arm with a small black woolcloth covering her head and shoulders. She has no idea who this woman is, but then she saw her hair, peeking through the ends of the cloth and she smiles.
I know that red hair.
"Your Grace, may I present to you, the lady of Winterfell, and the very much alive..." Qyburn declares as he takes off the cloth from her head.
"Sansa Stark."
The Queen doesn't move but she looks at her from head to toe. A whirlwind of memories of this silly little girl come upon her along with flashbacks of her son dying during his wedding. She can already imagine the different ways she can kill her, but she has to set those aside, for now the Stark girl has yet another purpose to serve.
She is a pawn in the game of thrones just like before... She looks at her with amusement and she sees this woman is not the Sansa Stark she once knew. She looks disheveled with a bruise on her left cheek, and her braids falling off. The girl she once knew would be crying by now, but this one doesn't look scared as she stares at her piercingly.
But she broke her before. She can break her again.
"Hello, little dove..."
