This is a story about a lie.
A lie that caused a thousand deaths. Sent women wailing to their graves. Bowed men's heads with agony. Tore the world apart. Never died. Broken cries sang for years and the lie lived on. Innocent throats were slit and the lie lived on. The world was bathed in blood and the lie lived on. Kings were crowned and killed and the lie lived on. The gods watched in silence and the lie lived on. Soon it grew and grew so big that even when it was shattered its damage could not be undone.
The gods showed the world no mercy. They looked upon its people and wept in shame. They asked themselves how they had created such evil. They asked themselves why their children lied. It was unclear to them how and when it began. They withdrew and left them godless. They did not answer prayers. They did not grant wishes. They did not listen to the cries of the world. They turned away with disgrace and did not look back.
After years of quiet, some stopped believing. Others put faith in new gods. But they were alone. The world had changed and the gods had left because of this lie. The people prayed and begged for forgiveness but it never came. They had destroyed their world and this was the price they had paid for it. Their prayers fell on deaf ears. Their pleas were never heard. When they died, they died alone.
But the lie lived on in the hearts of those who were touched by its destruction.
And this is the story of that lie.
Lyanna Stark was a beautiful girl. Everyone knew that she was a beautiful girl, and she hated that. She did not want to be a beautiful girl. She wished she had been born horribly ugly so that she would have been shut away in the tallest spire of Winterfell and allowed to study swordsmanship. She wished she had been born a boy so that she would have been allowed to wear armor and throw a spear. Had she been a boy, she would have taken the Black. Sometimes she still fancied she could, if she cut off all her hair and bound her breasts and ran away from home. But the Starks were noble and that nobility blighted her dreams. That nobility painted for her a dreary picture of what her life was meant to be as soon as she came of age. She was to marry Robert Baratheon and bear him sons that would be able to live out her fantasies. When she turned fourteen, Lyanna felt her life had ended.
Robert was everything her girl's heart should love, and everything her boy's heart should envy. Robert was handsome, strong, cunning, and he made her laugh. He was one of Ned's closest friends and thus hers by extension. And she was no idiot––she knew Robert desired her. This was a love match on his end. It was not on hers.
She had been friendly with Robert since they were both youths. She had taken him to the forests of Winterfell and had challenged him to barehanded duels. She had won most of them. She had danced with him at feasts and stepped on his toes. She had sat with him and heard stories at Old Nan's feet. She had watched him grow into a handsome lad just as surely as he had watched her grow into what she was now. Lyanna very much enjoyed Robert. She very much enjoyed him as a brother, for to her that was what he was.
When she was told she was to be his bride, Lyanna had been very angry. She had rode off into the godswood and had prayed to the old gods that this would not come to be. She did not like to challenge her parents but she was sure that this could not be the gods' will, and she answered to the gods above all others. She loved Robert but she could not marry him. She could not give him sons. She could not give him daughters either. Ned had tried to reason with her but she would hear nothing. She had always been self-important and headstrong, Ned would recall in later years. Somehow that had made her all the more warm in his memory.
Never warm enough to obscure the lie.
Cersei Lannister was a beautiful girl. She had heard that the only rival to her beauty was Lyanna Stark. Her brother Jaime told her this wasn't true and she had believed him until the day she married Robert Baratheon. Cersei was golden-haired and lily-skinned. She was little, and feared she was too little for Rhaegar Targaryen. Her father had told her she was to wed him and ever since that day Cersei had loved him. She had imagined him to be beautiful and perfect like her. Jaime had told her no one was as beautiful or perfect as her and she had believed him until the day she married Robert Baratheon.
Rhaegar was feared and adored by many and Cersei preferred it that way. One day he would be king and she believed a king must be equally feared and loved. She herself would equally fear and love him. She hoped to love him more than Jaime, who she loved more than she rightly should. Their wet-nurse had said it was unnatural for them to kiss and play at being married but they found it hard to stop. As she grew older she learned these child's games were more than they appeared. After it was announced that Rhaegar was to marry Elia Martell of Dorne, Cersei decided it was because she wasn't beautiful enough. Jaime had promised her it wasn't so and she had believed him. That was the first time they made love. They swore never to tell. Cersei still wanted to be married. Cersei did not want to bring dishonor upon her father.
Jaime had committed to the idea of remaining unmarried after she had persuaded him to join the Kingsguard, but Cersei was a different matter. Jaime could avoid marriage in pursuit of battle, but Cersei's sole asset in a man's world was her weight in gold. Marriage was an inevitable reality that the brother and sister had to face. Cersei thought she could grow to love her husband. Maybe not like she did Jaime or Rhaegar, but a love she could nurse for years to come along with many healthy babes.
There had existed a time when Cersei Lannister earnestly believed she would be happy one day. That, too, was only the beginning of a lie.
Whenever Robert closed his eyes and dreamt of his future he saw Lyanna. It had been this way as early as he could recall. He had told Ned this and the two had laughed and had sworn to be brothers forever. Robert could not visit Winterfell as often as he pleased and the Starks rarely left. He did not get to see Ned or Lyanna more than four to five times a year. Yet each time he came he felt even stronger for the both of them. When he closed his eyes and dreamt of the future he still saw only Lyanna. He did not know when he began loving her, or why he began loving her, or how he began loving her. All he knew was that he loved her and he always had and he always would. He knew that everything he did was for her. He knew that without her the world would be meaningless. There were many things Robert Baratheon did not know. He did not know how to temper his rage, his appetite, his lust. He did not know how to battle jealousy. He did not know how to handle his wealth. He did not know how to play fair. He loved Lyanna––that is what he knew.
He did not know how Lyanna felt on the matter. He did not care. If she did not love him now she would come to love him, he would make sure of it. They had grown together, learned together, lost together. Now they would be bound to one another for eternity and that was the way of it. He would be a brother to Ned, to Brandon. He would live up to their wintery nobility. Though his sons would be Baratheons, they would make the Starks just as proud. Each child of his and Lyanna's would exemplify the virtues of both houses. Each child of his and Lyanna's would be immortalized in song for their deeds.
For when the wolf and the stag were joined, their power would be limitless.
But one of them was a liar.
Until he met Lyanna Stark, Rhaegar Targaryen believed his only happiness derived from his harp. Viserys was of small joy. Even Elia, Rhaenys, were tiresome. He could not write songs about them. They did not fill his soul. They did not warm his heart. He would sooner make love to a storybook heroine than he would to his own wife. The Silver Prince, they called him. He did not feel silver. He was an alloy, part brass, part copper. Elia asked him why he read so much and he told her the truth. The books fulfilled him better than she did.
Rhaegar was a poet. Rhaegar was a dreamer. Rhaegar was not a prince, not a warrior. He was an intellectual and he wished to remain so. He could wield a sword, he could throw a spear, he could kill a man with his bare hands. He wore the mail of a soldier but the heart of a bard. Blood was only fit to satisfy base needs and he was above those. He was better than Elia, than Viserys, and certainly better than his father, Aerys. He could rule the Seven Kingdoms from his bedroom better than Aerys could from the throne room. One night after Rhaenys was born Rhaegar had told Elia this and she had said to him, 'You will make a great king, my prince. I only hope you will make a great father first.' Rhaegar had looked on his wife and tiny daughter and knew that she was right. If he could not provide for his children he could not provide for his people.
He had kissed Elia's smooth brow and for the first time saw her with pride. He had taken his newborn daughter in his arms and held her to the sky. 'May the gods bless her,' he had whispered to the stars, the naked babe mewling in the moonlight. 'May she bring honor to the House Targaryen.' When he returned to his bed he found Elia weeping softly into her hands. 'Sweet wife, come to me and tell me your sorrow,' Rhaegar had said. Elia of Dorne had taken his hands in hers and pressed them to her lips. 'My prince,' said she, 'you are my only joy. I hope to be a worthy queen.' For Elia was a good woman and she loved her husband because she did not know any other way. She sensed Rhaegar's distance and knew she was not worthy in his eyes. She was a simple woman and only read simple stories of love and war. She loved Rhaegar with her simple heart and she knew this was not enough.
But Rhaegar had softened and assured her, 'The people of Westeros will cry out with gratitude the day you are crowned.' Rhaegar was many things but he was not cruel. He may not have loved her as she desired but care for her he did, as any prince should care for his princess. He was better than her and he pitied her for it but he knew she would make a goodly queen and he told her so.
It was only when he told her he loved her that he lied.
Lyanna had met Rhaegar only once before, when they were both children and she was visiting King's Landing with her father and brothers. Even then she had been mesmerized by him in a haunting way. Though he looked much like Aerys, there was something to Rhaegar that quite distinguished him from the other Targaryens. Aerys had frightened her, with his spindly fingers and long wiry hair. The way he looked at her like a piece of meat ready for the butcher. Sometimes he would laugh and other times he would rage, with little impetus. Lyanna had only been a girl and for a long while the Mad King had filled her nightmares but his son was not half as scary. She had wanted to play with Rhaegar but he had been a shy boy and hid in his study most of their visit. Lyanna had always been good at hide and seek but even she could not find him. Later she would learn he had a special hiding place in the library. Later he would show it to her.
When her father told her she, Ned, Brandon, and Robert were to attend a grand Tourney at Harrenhal, she had been pleased. Lyanna loved tourneys, even the most gruesome ones, and she was eager to see how Rhaegar had aged. If he still had that something that made him different than the others. She imagined he did. She had heard tales of his bravery all over Westeros. His feats of strength, his words of wisdom. Knighted at seventeen. He must have outgrown the shyness he had all those years ago, she had thought to herself. He was married to Elia Martell of Dorne now and had a child, a girl. She wondered if she inherited his something special too. If she had the white hair of the Targaryens or the brown hair of Dorne.
She had been thinking about children a lot lately. She imagined she would have many, with Robert as her lord. His virility was praised from Winterfell to Pentos, with hundreds of whores to vouch for it and probably a hundred bastards to vouch for them. Lyanna disapproved of Robert's whoring and would not relent. She held the same standard to Ned and Brandon as well. Their future wives deserved better, she had said. Lyanna was a strong advocate for her sex. She would never understand why Robert would want to marry her if he knew that.
She would never understand a lot of things about Robert. Not because she was stubborn, but because she would never get the chance.
King's Landing was where Cersei saw Lyanna for the first time. She had hit Jaime and informed him that Lyanna was most beautiful in the Seven Kingdoms, he had been wrong. Cersei had left in a huff and hid in the stables so that Jaime could not find her and feed her pride with more falsehoods. She had cried bitterly. She had looked at her golden hair and her crimson robes and she had felt a leper. No wonder only her brother would kiss her, she had told herself. No wonder. She did not want to be at court. She did not want to see Lyanna who was more beautiful than anyone in Westeros. She wanted to remain in the empty stables and feel sorry for herself because she was ugly as a hag, and Jaime hadn't told her the truth. She was as ugly as Tyrion. She wanted her mother but instead she had a hideous dwarf brother. Her mother was the only person in the world to tell her the truth. Jaime hadn't and Tyrion was mean and selfish and she didn't want him. She wanted her mother but that little monster had taken her away.
It was then that the sorry maid was spotted by Robert Baratheon. He was to tie up his horse and meet Lyanna in the castle. He had promised his betrothed a dance. When he saw the little Lannister fretting, he brought her out of the mud and asked her what ailed her. She was a pretty girl that he had met some time ago. He knew her brother and was fond of him. 'Too pretty a girl for such tears,' Robert had told her. 'Come now, a lioness does not cry.'
Cersei had listened to the handsome man and ceased her tears. She had looked at him with her eyes as big as gongs and batted her dark eyelashes. 'I wish I was a wolf,' she lamented. 'A wolf is prettier than a lion.'
Robert had lifted her chin with his finger and cracked a smile. 'Ay, but a lion is quicker at the chase. A wolf will sit on her haunches and watch but a lion will go in for the kill. I ask you, lioness; is it better to mock the game than to play and lose?' This gave Cersei pause. She did not like losing, this she knew and she told him so. He shook his head and laughed and walked her to her chambers. She sat with Jaime and the little imp and her father but the whole time she was dreaming of Robert. Robert was better than the Targaryens, she tried to tell herself. He should rule the Seven Kingdoms. She whispered this conclusion to Jaime and he had ruffed her hair and told her not to speak treason. He was jealous and this pleased her.
Jaime leaned over and told her Robert was to marry Lyanna. She thought she might hit him and stomp off again but there was something inside her that murmured, You'll see, brother; one day he will be mine, and Rhaegar Targaryen will know the mistake he made in letting me go.
Robert had found Cersei Lannister to be a dreary little maiden with her muddied gown and sullen face. Lannisters were vain emotional creatures by nature and she was no exception. Perhaps she was still grieving over the loss of her mother. They did not make women in Casterly Rock like they did in Winterfell. Northern women were warriors. Southern women were show birds. Robert Baratheon saw nothing other than their pretty feathers. Worthless little plumes.
This would be one of the last times he saw Lyanna, though he did not yet know. Later he would wish he had held her hand harder, squeezed tighter, looked longer. Later he would wish she had never left his sight. But destiny had other plans for Robert Baratheon and Lyanna Stark. The destiny that had brought them together would also tear them apart.
But they were trying to enjoy the tourney so Robert did not know this and so he watched the tourney and not Lyanna. Robert did not know this so he cheered for Rhaegar and ignored the lady by his side. He believed he had forever with her and would not watch her now. He would enjoy the revelry and her later. It was only when the tourney ended with the Silver Prince as the victor that Robert began to feel uneasy. It was only when the Silver Prince named Lyanna Stark as the Queen of Love and Beauty that Robert began to rage.
It was only when he saw the look in Rhaegar's eyes that Robert had known one day he would kill him.
The tourney had started innocently enough. Rhaegar had been pulled from his books and handed a lance and in the end, he had won. He had expected to win. He excelled at everything he put his mind to and even that which he didn't. Viserys envied him that. Rhaegar could care less. He had sired the fated chosen son in Aegon. He was exceptional and Viserys was not and he told him so. It was his duty as a brother to be honest. It was his duty as a Targaryen to be brutally so.
Lucky for Rhaegar he had not seen Lyanna until after the tourney. Otherwise he would have lost. He scoured the crowd for his wife and instead set eyes on the Stark girl. There was no contest of beauty, she was the clear victor. Not even his wife could compare. Rhaegar remembered seeing her once before but that was in another age, another world. All that mattered was the present. The present, the tourney crown, her eyes. He did it without thinking. It was only after the flowery diadem was sitting on her ebon hair that Rhaegar realized what he had done.
The backlash was instant. He heard cries of outrage from Lyanna's intended, mournful wails from Elia, confused barks of laughter from Aerys. Above all noise there was her face. Eyes wide, face pale. Mouth forming the faintest whisper of a guilty smile. Those red lips crested by even white teeth. Cheeks stained pink. There was more beauty in the corner of Lyanna's mouth than in Elia's entire body.
Noise erupted in hesitant claps and chuckles all around but Rhaegar and Lyanna heard nothing. Rhaegar and Lyanna heard nothing but the sound of the other's beating hearts. In that sound their fears were quieted. In that sound was the decision reached to meet later that night. His regal purple eyes, hers dark blue. Such a look was given. A look that spoke a thousand words in a language only Rhaegar and Lyanna could understand. Elia saw the look but could not interpret it. Robert saw the look but could not interpret it. Hundreds bore witness to one of the greatest looks in the world. A look that spoke a thousand words but that could only be understand by two. A look that came about once or twice every thousand lifetimes. A look shared by the Silver Prince and the She-Wolf alone.
A look that could never be undone.
Despite years of tenderness it was far easier to betray Robert Baratheon than Lyanna had thought. She knew Ned would never forgive her. Her father would never forgive her. She would likely never forgive herself. Lyanna did not understand her need for the prince just that it must be fulfilled. Fate had grabbed her heartstrings and pulled, hard, and now she had slipped away. Now she had given up all her honor. Now she had surrendered her duty. She wondered if she could rightly be called a Stark.
Lyanna had had no plan. She had lingered after the tourney. She had avoided Robert all night which was easy enough because he had stormed off in a jealous rage. She hadn't spoken to Ned. She hadn't spoken to anybody. Lyanna did not have any words to speak. The crown still weighed her down. Whether with guilt or shame she did not know. It was when she had returned to the stands and thrown the thing into the playing ground that Rhaegar had found her and her wintery nobility began to evaporate in the southern heat.
'Does my gift offend you?' Rhaegar had asked, all silvery pleasantries like his silvery hair. He had emerged from the stands and in the dark of the night she had not seen him. 'Ah well, your beauty wants not for a crown. It has one already in your clear brow.'
'What says your wife about my beauty? ' Lyanna had baited venomously. She had always known her symmetry was a curse. Yet when Rhaegar's finger traced down her jaw she wondered how much of a curse it truly was. She had closed her eyes and tried to cling to her Stark's virtues. She had thought of the old gods and she had felt strengthened. When she opened her eyes that strength was gone. Lost in the waves of silver. Drowned in the sea of purple. Choked on the lust of kings.
'My wife envies it,' he replied, and leaned in to kiss her. Hovered over her face. Hot breath blending together in the space of a second. Eyes locking. Hearts quivering like a bent arrow. Lyanna could not blink. Lyanna could not breathe. Lyanna could not feel her body. Only eyes, lips, fingertips existed in this world. The rest was incorporeal. The rest was him. When their lips met it was as if their souls joined. When their lips met Lyanna felt immortal. When she remembered she was not it was too late but she still tried to run. Rhaegar had caught her arm and had not let her go. She struggled, kicked, hit. He held fast. She bit, scratched, yelled. He held fast. Defeated, she thought of Robert. She looked into Rhaegar and saw his heart. His intent for her. Like a breath she expelled the Stark and like a breath she inhaled the Targaryen. Rhaegar would not let her return to honor. Rhaegar would destroy her honor. She wanted him to.
Worst of all despite years of tenderness it was far easier to betray Robert than she had thought.
Cersei wished for all the Starks to die. Cersei wanted to take Rhaegar's sword and cut up Lyanna's perfect face. Wanted Lyanna's crown more than anything. She would have it. She would be the Queen of Love and Beauty. She would be most beloved of all, even Rhaegar. She would kill every last Stark if it was the last thing she did. Jaime had told her about when Lyanna was given a wreath in testimony of her beauty. And it was then that she decided she would steal him from Lyanna. She would ask her handmaids to teach her tricks of beauty and seduction. She would practice these on Jaime and one day she would make Robert forget his beautiful little wolf. She would have Robert and she would have Jaime and then she would be happy without Rhaegar. She could be happy without him and she would prove it with Robert and Jaime.
That day when they were hers forever, and only that day, would she feel truly beautiful. That was what she had thought and she had been wrong.
She was young and did not understand the gravity of what Rhaegar had begun. She was young and only knew she felt betrayed with no cause. She was young and she coveted Lyanna's beauty. She was young and only saw that Lyanna had taken both her knights. She was young and she suffered quickly and she hated easily. She was young and though Jaime tried to explain it she did not listen. Could not. She suffered, and she hated, for she was young, and did not understand. Later Cersei would learn. She would learn and she would suffer worse, hate more.
She would learn and with that learning she would lose herself. Sucked into playing a game she could never win.
Robert sensed her change. Smelled it in her veins, felt it in her touch, tasted it in her lips. She had withdrawn and was in a world he could not reach. He would have broken down a wall of iron to reach it. Would have given his lands. Would have given himself, everything he had, everything he would ever have. But destiny was not in Robert's favor and somehow he knew that. Had always known that but ignored it.
When he looked at her he saw forever. Forever devoted. Forever loving. Her name was stitched into the chambers of his heart. Sewn across the bloody flesh. Tethered to his soul. Lyanna, it said. His heart beat and it said Lyanna. His blood flowed and it said Lyanna. He breathed in and out and this breath was a gift that brought him closer to her, to Lyanna.
He wanted to make her stay. Make her love him. Soon news came of Brandon Stark's engagement to Catelyn Tully. Soon it would be time for Robert to wed Lyanna. They had discussed a summer wedding. Put an end to those horrid words of the Starks, Winter is Coming.
Yet winter was coming and no one could have prepared for it.
And within a day of the tourney Lyanna was gone.
Rhaegar knew that Targaryens commonly took more than one wife. He could have Lyanna for his own if she could agree. He would make her agree. Elia would object but she was nothing. Robert Baratheon would object but he was nothing. Rhaegar was the Silver Prince, heir to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms, a Targaryen, father to the prophesied son. Elia and Robert Baratheon were meaningless. Nothing. He would kill them all if it meant getting to Lyanna. He had only met her once but Rhaegar knew she belonged to him and only him. Rhaegar knew she was his muse, his Queen of Love and Beauty, his Wolf Lady. Rhaegar had tasted her but once and yet she was his blood, his fire, his essence, his. He would not share her with the Baratheon and the Baratheon would have no choice in this. He was but a stag and Rhaegar was a dragon and everyone knew a dragon never lost a battle.
Since he had met her Rhaegar's fingers had ached to tender the harp in her honor. Sing songs of her. Write her praises. Three tunes in three days and he could not stop. Ten poems in ten days and he could not stop. Lyanna had eclipsed all else. Soon he convinced himself that Aegon was not and could not be the prophesied son. That son was Lyanna's and Lyanna's alone. Elia could never produce a fated being, not even with Rhaegar's aid. Fate had shown him Lyanna and Rhaegar knew this now. Fate told him now to make this fated son with her. Fate told him to abandon his wife and children. They were legitimate issue on record but beyond that they were nothing. Shadows of his darker days. Semblance of who he had been before fate had led him to his fated son's mother. He wanted nothing to do with Rhaenys, Aegon, Elia. They were dirt beneath his feet. Dornish scum under his nails. Bad taste in his mouth.
Lyanna was the sun, the future, the one. In her womb would she carry his seed and this seed would bloom under his love and bear the foreordained boy. She would give him the Prince Who Was Promised. She would, she.
Lyanna Stark was Rhaegar's birthright. She was his and he would have her. She was his and he would take her from Robert Baratheon and keep her forever.
She had been bathing when he came for her. Such a simple task to lead to a war. Lyanna Stark had just gotten out of the bath when she found Rhaegar in her chambers at Harrenhal. Without thinking she had gone to him like moth to a flame. Like sword to the sheath she was home again. His crazed violet eyes did not frighten her then but they would later. His calm devious smile did not frighten her then but it would later.
She looked into his eyes and did not know herself. This is where the fear began but did not end. The flurry of her heartbeat was louder than her fear so that when he said, 'Come away with me,' the first time she could not hear him, but when he said it again she vowed she would.
In an instant Lyanna was no longer her own, she was his, and together they journeyed to what Rhaegar called the 'Tower of Joy,' and they were safe. The rolling red mountains of Dorne shielded them from the chaos that exploded across Westeros in their names.
When they arrived it was only a matter of minutes before they were alone, their flesh calling to one another with such tenacity that they had no choice but to answer it.
For Rhaegar there was no song written could touch Lyanna's beauty that night.
For Lyanna this was the first and last time they laid together that she was not terrified of him.
For you see, there was a thin line between love and obsession.