Back against the stone walls of the Black Cells, Brandon Stark worked his jaw to keep it from locking with his teeth clenched together, and damned Rhaegar Targaryen to the Eighth Circle of hell. True, he had never put much stock in the King, but he would have been willing to serve, for honor's sake, if – if.
And that was where he ran into trouble.
What kind of warrior hid behind his mad father? What kind of man would steal a girl away from her family without so much as a word, as though she were some sort of village wench to be stolen from her family and used until she could be cast aside-
He fought the chains and roared into the darkness again, though his voice was growing hoarse. "Coward! Some dragon, hiding, come so I can kill you with my bare hands!"
The door creaked, and for a moment Brandon's heart leapt against his rib cage, thumping loudly, and he tensed, but it was only the old jailguard. He was more surprised when the man crossed to his cell and unlocked the door. He held very still and waited. The jailer said nothing.
"What now? Has Rhaegar returned to take up the challenge? Have you produced some harlot purporting to be my sister from some dark corner, hoping to appease us? I assure you it is late for that now. How well do dragons hold up to ice?"
Still the jailer said nothing, but bent, unlocking his shackles from the wall. His hands stayed locked together, to his annoyance, and he laughed outright, sourly. "What does the Mad King think, that I will strangle him as soon as look at him? I am too badly outnumbered for that…" Recklessness, he chided himself, recklessness, when you have a wife to return to.
And a sister to save. He knew which had to be more important.
For her sake, he kept his mouth shut on the walk up the stairs. The shackles rubbed against his hands and that grated on his temper, but he could hold it in. Unless Rhaegar was there, in which case the three-headed dragon might have one less head, sword or no sword.
They stopped him before the great doors and he blinked, once as the wet leather cord was placed over his head, still in dead silence. It was loose enough that he wasn't concerned, though he did cast a look sideways at his strange and silent companion.
He should have expected it, between the slowness with which the doors swung open and the sound of fire he could hear through the door. But he was tethered before he could understand what he was seeing.
The fire reached upward, toward the rafters, crackling. Suspended from the ceiling, a man in armor, his cloak grey and white where it wasn't burned away. Brandon could hear the laughter of the Mad King and finally understood.
His sword was just out of reach. He had nothing with which to put out the fire. There was no sign of Rhaegar or his sister. His father would roast alive in answer for Brandon's own folly. Through the shimmering blaze of the fire, he could see the young Lannister in white below the King's throne, staring straight ahead, motionless.
Brandon loosed the ties on his anger and let the rage he had suppressed roar free. He ceased to think, ceased to be, gaze narrowing to the madman laughing in glee and the sword glittering red and orange in the glow of the flames.
He lunged for it. Almost, with his fingertips – only leather, leather could be broken – again. He strained, could hear his father start to scream.
Lyanna-!
The cord bit into his skin and he knew he would lose, but that didn't mean he would stop fighting.
Black spots before his eyes. Fighting.
Trying to suck in air, even when he fell back the cord did not loosen. Fighting.
His father stopped screaming before Brandon's legs gave out, his mouth forming the shape of a howl he could not make, and still he could hear the Mad King laughing, laughing, laughing.