A/N: Many thanks to everyone who continues to read, review, and follow despite the slow updates! :D
The Kingsguard Oath: The full text of it is never given to us, so I have cobbled one together based on quotes from Barristan Selmy and Jaime Lannister.
White Harbor
Jon leads his people south, knowing that he can't just leave them in the ruins of Winterfell. Not with the Long Night upon them and so few to protect them from the occasional bands of wights still roaming the North. It's true that the food stores of Winterfell would last twenty people a very long time, but who knows when they may be overwhelmed or how long the winter may last. So Jon sends Dany scouting, since she is the most trustworthy of the dragons, and finds that the Neck is currently impassable when he looks through her eyes. He takes his ragtag band towards White Harbor instead, hoping that there will be an intact ship. He doesn't hold out much hope for the city to still be standing. It's true that every settlement they pass close to yields a few survivors who join them in order to have the protection of the dragons, but he has yet to find anywhere that fared as well as Winterfell with its ancient magic laced walls.
In fact, he orders Daenerys to burn the Dreadfort to the ground when he sees it teeming full of wights. He'd rather make the keep another Harrenhal than leave it to the dominion of the Others. (And if his decision is influenced by his disgust at how many of the shambling corpses were flayed or mutilated in someway, Dany is the only one who knows, and she will never tell.)
He had hoped at first that he might use the dragons to quickly ferry his people to safety, but few are willing to approach the great creatures and only Dany will tolerate anyone not himself near her - and even then she will not allow them to ride. So they follow the Kingsroad as far as Castle Cerwyn, adding six to their number along the way. The older dragons fly overhead, Jon warging with them as needed to keep them in line and give them direction, and Starkfire alternates trotting along beside him with riding on his shoulders. Jon trusts that she will give warning for any danger her kin miss from the air.
Castle Cerwyn yields four more survivors, and a host of wights in black and silver livery. Not wanting to destroy another northern holding if he can help it, Jon sends his people to hide beyond the road with Dany and Starkfire to guard them, sends Lyanna away mostly to keep her from harming anyone she shouldn't, and has Tasherys circle overhead. He has noticed since they started moving that the wights they come across seem to focus on him, as if they can sense the fire in his blood and long to stamp it out. (That is what he tells himself. He refuses to think of his dream-that-was-not-a-dream, of the Night King looking and seeing him.)
His plan is to stand before the gates and make a racket to draw the dead to him. Once they leave the castle Tasherys will easily burn them all, removing their threat while leaving the castle intact. Then the four survivors - two guardsman, a cook, and a potboy who managed to barricade themselves in the keep's kitchens and use the hearth to hide the heat of their bodies from the wights, known to Jon only because of Dany's keen sense of smell and hearing - will be free to come out.
Only when Jon tells his people to stay put, not all of them do. He finds himself joined by the four most able to fight among them, men he has come to rely on in the past few days. Gawayn: The guard he recognized from Winterfell; Vikon the Blacksmith, Son of Mikken; white haired Ulfgar the Old, who wields a hatchet and a long knife as he was one of Wintertown's butchers before it fell; and the archer Joreg Stagskinner, who is three and ten and stayed behind to take over his father's duties as a hunter and tracker when the banners were called to march to the Wall.
"What are you doing?" Jon asks flatly when the men array themselves around him, their weapons in hand. He doesn't need them here. Tasherys will burn the wights before they get near him, and he need not fear her fire.
But Gawayn levels him with a look of such fierce determination that Jon is reminded of his missing direwolf, Ghost. And Ulfgar, the one least afraid of treating the man he calls king like a pup still wet behind the ears as Ulfgar is old enough to be Jon's father twice over, says, "What does it look like, yer grace? We're guardin' ye."
Jon hefts Ice in his hands. "I don't need guarding," he protests. He is likely the safest person here, between his training, the dragons, and his own strange gifts.
Gawayn snorts, twirling his sword once to loosen the muscles in his wrist. Jon knows the motion well, and misses his old blades. But he will wield nothing but Ice until he is able to put it in the hands of Arya's husband. Let Clynt learn an entirely new fighting style.
"'Course ye need guardin'," Ulfgar answers Jon. "Yer the king, ain't ye? We might not be proper knights, but we're the best ye got at the mo'."
The others nod along to Ulfgar's words, and it is then, looking at them, that Jon realizes what he didn't before. When they left Winterfell he ordered everything useful that they could carry to be packed up and the people to help themselves to the fine furs once worn by the Stark family. He'd thought it was coincidence, if he considered it at all, but now he sees: Gawayn, Vikon, Ulfgar, and Joreg are all wearing thick fur cloaks. And those furs are all white.
Jon has a Kingsguard.
He sighs. "I suppose if I command you back, you won't listen?"
"Not even a little!" Joreg says, smiling brightly. He is a happy soul, laughing and japing even in the face of death, though his eyes tell of the hardships he has faced.
Jon resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. "What's the point of being king if none of you follow orders?"
"Looking pretty and smelling like a lady?" Gawayn offers.
The others snicker quietly as Jon's cheeks flame red. No matter how still he can keep his face, Aunt Sansa was never able to train blushing out of him. Not that he ever tried very hard. Tasha likes his blushes.
"Yes, yes, very funny Ser Gawayn," Jon says to shut them up. "You know the plan. When I signal Tasherys, you will run or I'll given you a reason."
"So long as you're right behind us, your grace," Vikon agrees in a way which is not agreeable at all.
Jon purses his lips, but accepts that is as much of a concession as he is likely to get and he doesn't want to stand around arguing all day. King my frozen arse, he thinks to himself. I've been ordered about more often and by more people as a king than I ever was as a squire.
The plan goes off without a hitch. The wights are burned. The four survivors gladly join Jon's band, though only after being made to bend the knee and swear fealty to Jon by Old Nan, who seems to take grand pleasure in coming up with long-winded ways to introduce her king. But then she always did have a flair for the dramatic, with the way she used to terrify all of us with her stories.
Even more irritating, Ulfgar (who seems to be the Lord Commander of Jon's makeshift Kingsguard that no one asked him if he wanted) produces two white fur cloaks from somewhere and inducts the two guardsman from Castle Cerwyn. Jon gives into the inevitable and learns that their names are Creg and Ondrew.
They sleep in Castle Cerwyn to get out of the cold for a night or so (as best Jon can tell with how irregular sunlight has become) and then they leave the Kingsroad to follow the White Knife river toward White Harbor. A few more stragglers join them as they march over the rough terrain. The have the look of the Mountain Clans, or maybe even wildlings, but at this point Jon doesn't care. They aren't wights, and that's enough.
One is a woman with a sweet face and sharp smile, and a spear longer than she is tall. She will not kneel, but does swear an oath to follow where Jon leads and joins the Kingsguard, bringing the number up to the traditional seven. Her name is Osha. Jon doesn't say a word. At this point he's resigned himself to the fact that his so called subjects will do what they like as regards serving their king. Oh, they look to him for leadership and protection, yes. But as soon as one of them gets something into their heads about preserving his dignity or guarding him or what have you nothing he can say will sway them, not even threats of flogging.
They can probably tell he doesn't mean it. Tasha would be better at this. She is certainly more terrifying.
He misses her.
Osha is full of tales of running ahead of the invasion of wights, living off the land and watching as castle after town after keep fell before the tide. She's survived by making sure it's not worth it to come after her. Jon takes her at her word, not only because she works hard and keeps a sharp eye out for the people under their care, but because her reports match what he sees through the eyes of his dragons.
So he is surprised when they grow close to their destination and Daenerys sends him images not of a gutted port, but a city whose gates have been reinforced by anything and everything available, grim faced northerners manning the walls.
Jon calls Dany back, knowing that she was seen by the alarm that has been sent up among the city's defenders. He doesn't want to terrify whoever has managed to hold White Harbor, so he brings his people out into the open, though out of bow range, and waits to see how they respond.
He doesn't have to wait long before a ladder is lowered over one of the walls and a man carrying a flag of truce comes out to treat with him.
"Why are you here?" the giant of a man asks, his red beard and hair stark against his layers of black clothes, a bright spot in a world covered by snow.
Jon's lips twitch at the man's bluntness. It makes him feel eloquent in comparison. He moves forward to speak to the man, his Kingsguard following a few paces behind in their white furs.
"I seek a ship to take my people south. No more. No less."
"Ain't any," the man barks. "Only a little one left, and the lady already sent it south to tell that fat shit what's happening. So you can fuck right off."
Jon feels his eyebrows climbing his forehead. This man is either insane or brave to the point of stupidity.
"Are ya mad?" Osha shouts at the nameless envoy. "You see he's got fuckin' dragons."
The man makes to retort, but Jon holds up a hand before things can devolve any farther. "May I speak with your lady?"
The red haired man growls to himself, sounding almost like a bear, the truce flag twisting in his hands. Osha glares fiercely at him and he grimaces at her just as fiercely. Jon waits, remembering his lessons at Casterly Rock. Often times silence and an impassive face can be more potent than any words.
"Tormund, what's taking so long?!" someone shouts from the walls of White Harbor.
"Fine!" the now named Tormund huffs. "But the dragons stay out here, and you can only bring three people with you." He jerks his thumb at Osha. "And she's gotta be one of 'em!"
"Those terms are acceptable."
Jon turns to select who will accompany him, and finds that Old Nan and Ulfgar have already selected themselves. Jon knows better than to fuss at this point, so he simply tells everyone that Gawayn is in charge and wargs with Dany to tell her to keep her sisters in line.
"This is dangerous, your grace," Old Nan says as they follow Tormund to the ladder that will let them climb White Harbor's wall.
"We'll be fine," Osha insists.
Jon agrees. Even if these people turn out to be hostile, his dragons are just a thought away. He'll only need to keep himself and his companions alive long enough for the denizens of White Harbor to realize they have bigger problems. Three much, much bigger problems.
-l-
When Jon hears Tormund speak of his lady, he doesn't quite know what to expect. Perhaps one of the Manderlys is still alive. Wasn't there a daughter called Wylla? Or given Tormund's appearance and manner, perhaps the lady is a Wildling Chieftan who has conquered and held New Castle against the Others. Perhaps she is a merchant who was in port and took control in the chaos.
None of these suppositions are correct. Instead, when Jon enters the Merman's Court he is greeted by the sight of a stern faced girl of no more than ten namedays sitting upon the Merman's Throne. She is dark of hair and brown of eye, and has the typical long face common amongst northerners, though her cheeks are still plump with youth. There is a scar bisecting one of her arched brows that looks to have been made by a dagger that is still red and puffy, indicating the wound is relatively recent. She wears clothes not too dissimilar to the ones Jon took from Robb's room, though hers are tailored to her small stature. All in all, if it were not for the cold look upon her face and hypnotic quality of her stare, she would resemble nothing so much as a doll.
And yet she is here, ruling in the Merman's Court. A girl of ten able to make grown men and women obey her.
"Who are you and why are you here?" the girl asks in a surprisingly commanding voice, just as blunt as her man Tormund.
Old Nan answers before Jon has a chance.
"Your ladyship, I present to you King Jon Pendragon, First of His Name, Ruler of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Protector of the Realm, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Firewalker, Wightbane, and Rider of Dragons."
The girl's face doesn't so much as twitch. Instead she looks Jon over, her dark eyes raking over every inch of him in a way that makes him feel naked. He is reminded strongly of his good-mother.
After a long moment the girl says, "I am Lyanna Mormont, and I have no time for the begging of southron kings."
Jon bristles. "I am not here to beg, my lady. And I am no southron."
She remains expressionless. "You might have the looks of a northerner, but there is more to it than dark hair and pale skin. It is honor and history, and from where I'm sitting you have neither. Tormund has already told you that we have no ships, so I repeat: why are you here?"
"You dare speak so to the Dragon King?" Old Nan demands, looking very much like she'd enjoy taking Lyanna Mormont over her knee.
"What care I for dragons?" Lyanna asks of Old Nan before settling her piercing gaze back on Jon. "My house was all but destroyed when they went off to fight wildlings and found White Walkers instead," she tells him. "With only sixty-two fighting men, I brought my people here for safety, gathering what survivors I may, staying always one step ahead of the dark forces hunting us. I saw dead rise and slew the corpses of my fellow lords. I trekked through the Wolfswood, and the Rills, and the Barrowlands and found all their so called warriors killed or fled. I found the Neck impassable and choked with wights, and I led the charge to take White Harbor back from the damned. I rebuilt the walls and salvaged ships to defend and feed my people and sent messages to the Fat Stag only to be patted on the head and told to stop listening to tales of snarks and grumpkins. So many lords craven, so many warriors dead, and yet... here I stand." She raises a single eyebrow, stretching the angry red scar tissue. "So tell me again, summer child, why I should care for dragons or kings. House Mormont bends the knee to only one lord, the Warden of the North, whose name is Stark."
Lyanna Mormont does not stand from her seat upon the Merman's Throne. She does not raise her voice. And yet Jon feels as if she does, he feels every inch of her glare, sees every moment of the picture she paints in his mind, and suddenly he understands how it is the Young She-Bear is able to command a city at only ten namedays. His skin breaks out in gooseflesh.
"I am a Stark, milady," he says before he even knows that he is speaking at all.
Lady Lyanna takes a breath and leans back in her seat. "Oh?"
"I have never carried the name, but the blood is mine. I was born a Snow, the bastard son of the woman you were named for, Lyanna Stark, and Rhaegar Targaryen. The blood of the First Men flows through my veins. But it isn't just about the blood." He takes a deep breath, his voice growing stronger as he gets his thoughts in order. He has never been one for speeches and manipulation, but he does not need to be. This is no speech. No manipulation. This is the truth and he cares not what she thinks of it.
"It is about the man who claimed me as his son to protect me from the wrath of Robert Baratheon, risking his whole house in the process. It is about my sisters, Sansa and Arya, who wait for me in Casterly Rock. It is about my brothers Bran and Rickon, both lost to the winter in their own ways. It is about my brother Robb who had to slay Eddard Stark to prevent him from rising as a wight, a brother who died at the Last Hearth Stand, and a promise I made to him."
For the first time there is a spark in Lady Lyanna's flat black gaze. "And what promise is that?"
Jon smiles and it is a terrible thing, a look in his eye that would alarm anyone who had ever set eyes on Aerys the Mad. He snarls and outside the city walls his dragons roar. "I will burn them all."
And now, at last, Lyanna's icy mask breaks and she smiles a matching bloodthirsty smile. Then she looks beyond Jon and addresses someone over his right shoulder. "I see why you agreed to follow him, Osha."
Jon whirls to face his guardswoman, already reaching for Ice lest she be about to spear him in the back. He finds her standing there grinning ear to ear, her body relaxed in such a way that it's obvious she's telegraphing she has no intention of attacking him.
"You know Lady Mormont, Osha?"
It is the diminutive lady who answers, drawing Jon's attention back to the dais surrounded by carved mermaids at the end of the hall. "I sent Osha to assess you, Jon Pendragon. There are wargs among my people, and they warned me of your coming and told me of your deeds. I care not for your name or your dragons. That is not enough to make a king. I wanted to know what kind of man you are."
Jon's jaw clenches, but he ignores the outraged noises Old Nan is making and forces himself to let go of the hilt of Ice. "And what kind of man am I, milady?"
The She-Bear stands and, though a child, she somehow seems twelve feet tall.
"You have never carried the Stark name. And yet the wolfsblood is strong within you, and aye, the blood of the dragon too. And so I say you are no mere man: you are my king from this day until your last day."
And with that declaration ringing in the air Lyanna Mormont steps to the side of the Merman's Throne and kneels. "Take your seat, King in the North."
-l-
After settling his people and his dragons into White Harbor and attending a long meeting with Lady Mormont and her advisors, Jon expects to sleep like a rock.
He does not.
He tosses and turns, thrashing beneath the fine furs that adorn the bed in his suite, sweat glistening on his skin for the first time since he was reborn in fire. His hair lies in a matted, tangled mop across his pale brow, and if any were to look upon him in that moment they would see his lips part in a silent cry… or perhaps a howl.
He is a wolf and he is running. DeathSmell everywhere, no food, keep running. There is a smudge of green ahead of him, a forest on the horizon. He has to reach it. There will be good prey there, AliveBlood RedMeat.
But he arrives and it is no forest, no hunting ground. It is a garden, and all of the flowers are dead, the petals shrunken and black, leaves coated in frost. A rose bends beneath the weight of the icy dew and a heavy foot tramples it into the frozen ground.
Jon looks up and sees a DeadOneNotPrey standing on the crushed flower. He runs.
The garden is dead, no prey there, no life. He needs somewhere warmer. Somewhere the ice can't go. He turns until he sees a flaming sun high above a field of sand. He takes off, his easy lope covering the distance in a ground eating pace. But just when he can feel the sun on his skin, his paws warm for the first time since he started running, he is confronted with a dragon.
He tries to speak with it, and finds it will not talk with him, only open its mouth and roar with the voices of a thousand men. Jon tries to evade, but the dragon is too fast.
It swallows him in a single gulp.
Only when he falls down its gullet, he discovers the dragon is no dragon. Not fire made flesh, but a puppet of wood and silk. And within the dragon is a host of men in gold armor.
Jon tears a hole in the mummer dragon's belly, and the golden men come pouring out, scrambling to form up ranks so they can steal the sun for their own. Jon growls and sets his feet, ready to defend his source of warmth.
But there is no need. For the sun defends itself, hatching like an egg to reveal an enormous Red Viper that strikes at the golden men, poisoning them and maiming them and squeezing them until the sand is streaked with blood. Another false dragon with a bellyful of men - in multiple colored armor this time, and with white hair - launches itself from an island to the north of the sun-egg that birthed the Red Viper, but it is chased by a stag with flaming antlers that runs through the sky, lightning and thunder booming in its wake.
The second dragon is gored before it can reach the warm land Jon has found, and the men it carries fall into a sea churned by storms, and there they drown.
But the Storm Stag does not stop coming. It enters the warm land, and stands before the Viper. Jon watches, unable to move, though he wishes to, to show them they are not enemies, to point out that they both fought against the false dragons.
But it is not to be.
He can't say which one moves first, but suddenly the Viper is striking and the Stag is charging and they are rolling end over end in the wet, red sand, the Viper wrapped around the Stag with its fangs in the Stag's throat, and the Stag's flaming antlers through one of the Viper's eyes.
Together they convulse.
Jon wills their bodies to burn, fearing that any moment the ColdDeathNotPreyOthers will arrive, but no matter how he howls and blows, no fire comes.
And yet, the dead remain dead.
"They have not yet got that far," comes a familiar voice.
Jon turns to see Bran standing behind him, and suddenly he is a person again, standing on two feet in the armor that he lost at Last Hearth and something heavy resting on his head. He reaches up to remove whatever it is and finds it will not budge, so explores it with his fingers instead.
It is a crown of dragon teeth. It cuts his hands.
Jon huffs and says, "Are you really here?"
Bran smiles an infuriating, mysterious smile and says, "I am everywhere. And nowhere. A thousand eyes and one."
Jon has no idea what Bran means by that, but senses he won't get a clearer answer, so asks a different question. "What was all that? Did you send me some kind of vision? Is this really happening?"
Bran moves to stand next to Jon, looking down at the entwined bodies of the Viper and the Stag. "Yes. It is happening. It happened. But I did not send you these portents. You are a greenseer through House Stark, and granted dragon dreams through the Targaryens. Twice Blessed, or Twice Cursed, depending on the point of view." Bran smiles again, and for a moment it is like they are back in Winterfell, brothers teasing each other in the practice yard.
But it does not last.
"The frozen rose," Jon says. "The Reach has fallen to the Others."
Bran nods. "It has."
"But then what of the false dragons?" Jon demands. It feels as if someone has poured boiling water over his head. He has thought himself a worthless Northern bastard for most of his life, far longer than he has known the truth of his parentage, and yet he finds the idea of someone pretending to the Targaryen legacy infuriates him as almost nothing else, the dragon blood within him inflamed. The arrogance, the presumption, the sheer, unmitigated gall of it! And on the heels of that inferno of wrath comes a cold determination, an implacable drive for justice that feeds on the heat in his blood and hones it into a chilling, killing edge.
It tames the dragon raging within him, but in some back corner of his mind Jon is frightened by himself, by this ruthless logic that takes his mind tripping down every lesson he has ever had at the feet of the Lannisters, that details all the ways he can make these false dragons wish they had never dared to don scales. That is, if any of them still live.
Jon is the Son of Ice and Fire, and the ice frightens him, for it reminds him far too much of the Night King. And yet neither does he wish to be the next Mad Dragon. He can only hope that the two elements that war within him will remain at war, and thus keep him from either extreme.
"A Blackfyre claiming to be a Targaryen," Bran explains, jolting Jon out of his spiral of dark thoughts. He blinks and shifts uneasily from foot to foot.
"The boy was raised to believe he was your elder brother Aegon," Bran continues. "He landed in Dorne with the backing of the Golden Company, thinking to find allies among his putative kin. But the Martells did not believe the ruse, and you see the result before you."
Jon looks down at the body of the Red Viper. At the very least Oberyn Martell is dead.
"And the stag? One of the Baratheons?"
"Stannis," Bran confirms dispassionately. "When the Targaryen Loyalists of Dragonstone went to join the false Aegon, he gave chase. And once they were routed, he would not believe the Martells were innocent of rebellion, given that Elia was the mother of the true Aegon."
Jon wants to scream. To kick at the sand. To draw his blade and hack at the corpses lying before him. He wants to burn and beat and bleed and conquer and cry.
He does none of those things. He merely stands, every inch of himself shaking, opening and closing his fists, clenching his teeth so hard he can hear his jaw creak. He will not give in to the fire in his blood. They will never tell stories of King Jon the Mad.
"It gets worse," Bran informs him in that same flat tone that makes Jon want to punch him.
Of course it gets worse, Jon thinks. I honestly don't know why I expected anything different.
Jon does not say this aloud, but Bran laughs anyway.
Bran gestures before them and the sands of Dorne vanish, revealing instead a pathway of smooth stone. The Kingsroad. "King's Landing is under siege. Come with me if you wish to stand witness."
Jon doesn't want to.
He goes anyway.
-l-
A few steps onto the Kingsroad and they are transported to the chambers of the Small Council. Jon has never been within them, but he recognizes them from the descriptions given by his good-father and good-brothers. It helps that King Robert is around a table with a handful of other men, one of them being Ser Barristan Selmy, moving around tokens on a map. His queen, Margaery Tyrell Baratheon, stands in a corner of the room with her brother Ser Loras at her side, both of them dressed for travel, though Loras still wears the signature white cloak of the Kingsguard. In Queen Margaery's arms is a tightly bundled babe, likely the Crown Prince Steffan Baratheon.
"No!" King Robert roars out, making Jon jump and return his attention to the men gathered around the map. Bran wanders over and examines the tokens placed on the map just before Robert knocks them onto the floor with a sweep of his arm, quite a few of the stone figurines flying through Bran as if he is not there. Then Robert walks through Bran as well, a disturbing sight, and Jon resolves to stay out of the path of any in the waking world, lest they go through him too and make him feel like a ghost.
"I will not flee!" Robert declares.
"Your grace," the fat man in the robe that Jon thinks may be the Master of Whispers begins, but Robert will hear none of it, cutting the man off with a loud, "Bah! Have someone fetch my hammer!"
The queen hands her baby to Ser Loras and steps up to run her hand down the king's arm, drawing his attention and throwing back her cloak so that her bosom is revealed. Jon's eye is drawn for a bare moment, but then catches himself. Now is not the time, and Tasha's are much better besides.
"My king," the queen simpers. "The city is lost. We must retreat for now so that we may gather your armies and then return to rout the fiends just as you conquered the dragons years ago."
Jon sees what the queen is doing. Tasha used to do it to him all the time until he figured it out and told her she didn't have to manipulate him to get him to listen. It took him an embarrassingly long time to catch on, however. Though in his defense, she was beautiful and he was seven and ten at the time.
For a second the king's eyes fix on the queen's displayed chest, and it seems that she will have her way. But then Robert looks up and declares, "Eunuchs and women! What else can I expect but cravens from eunuchs and women! Dorne's in revolt, Stannis fucked up like he always does and got the Stormlands mixed up in it and let the prancing Red Viper poison him, half the Small Council's missing, the fucking dead are walking around thanks to some foul sorcery, probably caused by some Targaryen magic shit left lying about, and you want to run away?!"
He turns away from the queen, brusquely pulling his arm out of her grasp. "You can take your sword swallowing brother and run back to your grandmother's skirts if you like, but I will show those who dare to rebel against my throne that Ours is the Fury!"
Before the queen or anyone else can respond to that, the entire keep shakes with a sound of cracking stone and groaning wood. The king and the Master of Whispers are thrown off their feet, the queen flung into the table, and the Grand Maester collapses, rubble falling down on top of him ensuring that he will not get up again. Only Ser Barristan and Ser Loras keep their feet, Ser Barristan setting his stance and riding the tremor out, and Ser Loras curving his body around his nephew to protect him.
"What the bloody hell was that?!" Robert demands from the floor. "Have these wights brought siege engines?"
The Master of Whispers stands and goes to the door, nonchalantly stepping over the dead Grand Maester to do so, signaling someone on the other side. "I will know in a moment, your grace."
In the minutes they wait the keep shakes again, and this time there is a horrible grinding sound and a howl of wind. The sounds of fighting finally penetrate the stone of the castle, people screaming and dying, metal clashing, and, outweighing all the other sounds, a hundred thousand voices raised in terror.
A small boy runs to the door and the Master of Whispers bends to let the child speak into his ear. Then he goes pale. Pale as snow, as white as milk.
Turning, the eunuch - Varace? No, Varys, that is his name - wets his lips, but when he opens his mouth no sound emerges.
"Get on with it man!" demands the king, who seems to have decided to simply stay on the floor until everything stops shaking.
Varys clears his throat and tries again. "The shaking, your grace, it is… The dragon bones, the dragon skulls you had removed from the throne room at the end of the Targaryen reign and stored in the catacombs. They have come to life and are in the process of assembling themselves into a massive undead dragon."
"I knew it!" Robert spits before Varys can say more. "Targaryen treachery! Can't have the throne, so they're taking out the whole Seven damned continent!"
The queen and Varys make eye contact and it is clear, to Jon at least, that they don't believe the Targaryens have anything to do with the dead coming back to life, but they aren't going to say that to the king.
"We must get you and the royal family to safety, your grace," Ser Barristan says quietly.
Robert turns to stare at him, his mouth already open. But then Bran steps up beside Robert and touches him on the temple with one finger. And Robert's face clears.
"No," Robert says in an even tone. He stands, and for the first time in Jon's memory he looks like a king. It as if the years of drinking and feasting and unreasonable temper melt away at Bran's touch, and before Jon stands the man who was the beloved friend of Ned Stark. "No," Robert repeats. "It is me the fiends have come for. Usurper, they call me. If I leave, they will follow." He steps forward and lays his hand on Ser Barristan's shoulder. "You have served me long and well, even when I did not deserve your loyalty. And so I am going to ask for one last service, if you will give it."
"My sword is yours, your grace." Barristan pledges, his light blue eyes as bright as any White Walker's.
Robert smiles, and it transforms his face, makes him young and handsome and valiant. "Take my queen and my son and get them somewhere safe. You and Ser Loras. Keep them alive."
"What of you, my king?" the queen asks, her eyes flicking between the king and Ser Barristan, and Ser Loras who still holds her son.
"They will come for the Iron Throne. I will be there waiting."
"But, your grace-" The king moves to embrace the queen, shocking her into silence.
"I am not a good man," Robert says into her hair. "I have not been a good husband, or father, and I dare say not a good king." He tilts the queen's chin up, meeting her eyes. "Raise our son to be better. Make sure he lives a good life so he doesn't end up like me - hoping that a good death can make up for it."
"Your grace, I swore a vow. I am to protect you," Barristan protests.
Robert laughs a jolly, joyful laugh, and then he pins Barristan with a stare that could stop a dragon. Reaching up, Robert plucks off his crown of golden antlers and holds it out for Ser Loras to take. The younger Kingsguard looks to his sister for permission and does so, holding the swaddling prince in the crook of one arm and the crown in the other. Robert nods in satisfaction, and then solemnly says, "The king is dead. Long live the king."
With that, Robert Baratheon the Usurper, Robert Baratheon the Whoremonger, the man who beggared a nation and spent his life in mourning for a woman he never really knew, takes his final walk to meet his glorious death, a true king at last.
They all remain frozen in a tableau, staring at the door Robert just passed through for the last time. Then the keep shakes again, and there is what is unmistakably a dragon's roar.
-l-
"We must make haste," Varys says. "I can get us out through the secret passages."
That snaps everyone into action.
Varys opens one of the chamber walls by pulling on a sconce, and ushers the rest of them through. Ser Barristan leads the way, a torch in one hand and his sword in the other. Varys goes next, giving Ser Barristan directions in hissed whispers. The queen follows, the prince and crown in her arms, and Ser Loras brings up the rear, his sword at the ready.
They move quickly through the tunnels, Jon amazed at how sure Varys is in his whispered directions. Jon already feels lost from the dizzying amount of twists and turns, but feels lead in his gut as the latest tunnel empties out into the catacombs beneath the Red Keep and the bones of nobles past begin to assemble themselves into skeletal warriors.
Ser Barristan fights, but his sword is neither dragonglass nor Valyrian steel. Every wight he puts down reassembles itself and gets back up again, their empty eye sockets glowing like sinister stars in the darkness. "Go!" Barristan shouts once he realizes the hopelessness of the battle. He tosses his torch to Loras, who catches it. "I'll cover your retreat."
"Lord Commander," Loras protests, only for Selmy to cut him off.
"I swore a vow, as did you! Go! Protect the king!"
Loras tightens his jaw and nods, his face pale and grim, and begins ushering his charges around the edges of Barristan's never ending battle to get to the tunnel across the room. The path that will lead them out of the catacombs. The queen hesitates, her eyes wet and her lips pressed in a tight white line. "Seven bless you, Ser Barristan," she calls, just as Loras herds her away.
With the torch gone, the room goes black save for the eyes of the wights.
"I will protect the king from harm or threat," comes Barristan's voice in the darkness, drawing the wights' attention. "I will take no wife, and father no children." There is a shattering of bone and two spots of eldritch blue light go out. "I will obey the king and keep his secrets," and another falls to the ground. More lights come, signaling more skeletons assembling themselves. They surround Barristan in a circle.
"The king's honor shall be my honor."
Ser Barristan fights, boldly, bravely.
"And in the end…"
Ser Barristan falls.
"Give your life for his." Jon finishes the Vow of the Kingsguard for the man who breathes no more.
Then he leaves, not wanting to see this once great man rise as one of the creatures who killed him.
-l-
When Jon catches up with Ser Loras and the queen, they are outside the keep's walls and heading for the docks. Varys is nowhere to be seen, either killed or fled. It could be either with the spymaster. In the distance, the monstrous form of the misshapen bone dragon can be seen pulling down buildings and trampling the populace. Lacking flesh, it can neither fly nor breath fire, yet it is still somehow capable of thunderous roars.
Loras all but drags the queen through the streets, her cloak flung over her shoulder to hide the prince in her arms. Loras gives no quarter to either the living or the dead, simply striking out at anyone who gets too close, heading as fast as he can for a small vessel moored at the docks called The Royal Rose. A pleasure ship for the queen, perhaps? It is a good choice on Loras' part, as far as Jon can tell from his limited knowledge of sailing. It's large enough to weather storms, but not so large that it will be impossible to get underway without a full crew.
They are almost to the gangway when a wight leaps out in front of them, his black and gold doublet stained with blood that shows he was stabbed through the heart.
Loras looks at the bloodless face and glowing eyes and cries, "Lord Renly! Please! You were my knight master! My friend!"
But the wight shows no recognition. It just lunges, sword outstretched.
Loras pushes the queen away and moves to engage, catching the wight's clumsy stroke on his blade. "Get on the ship!" he barks at his sister.
The queen obeys him, the wight of Renly Baratheon unable to get to her with Loras dancing around it, distracting it. Once she is safe on the vessel, Loras turns his attention to trying to incapacitate the wight, or at least disengage long enough to get onto the ship without the wight following.
But it is not to be. No matter how clumsy the wight's swordplay is, the fact of the matter is that Ser Loras is tiring and the wight is not. The wight does not feel pain. It does not struggle for breath. It is not blinded by blood or sweat.
Loras makes a mistake, does not parry in time, and the wight catches him in a gap in his armor, cutting into his thigh and rendering his leg near useless. With a desperate cry that is echoed by the bone dragon methodically tearing down King's Landing, Loras shoves the wight away and off the pier, gaining some time as the reanimated corpse splashes into the water.
"Loras!" the queen screams over the wailing cries of the infant prince.
Loras tumbles forward, but catches himself by digging the point of his sword into the wood of the dock. Blood streaming down his armor, he staggers and then hops toward The Royal Rose, his right leg dangling uselessly.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Loras gets himself onto the ship. Then he splints his leg with his ruined sword and bandages the wound with his cape. The queen puts the prince in a crate she lines with blankets inside the captain's quarters, and then helps Loras hobble around, following his instructions to get the ship underway.
It is only once they are away from the dock, out in the bay that Loras seems to relax, pulling himself up to sit on one of the ship's railings. Between the shock of events and the blood loss of his wound, he is so pale as to be nearly translucent.
"We made it," the queen smiles at her brother, though it doesn't reach her eyes.
"Yes." Loras doesn't try to smile, merely looking at his sister with an intensity that is unusual for him. "There are navigation tools in the captain's cabin. You're smart, you'll be able to figure out how to use them. You've always been so smart, Margaery."
The queen frowns. "Loras?"
"Try for the West or the Vale," Loras continues. "You can get to both by sea. The Vale is closer. If you invoke my name, the Lannisters will help you out of Gerion's love for me."
"What do you mean, 'invoke your name'?" the queen demands, her voice sterner than Jon has ever heard it. "You'll be with me."
Loras gives a ghastly smile. A gallows grin. He gestures to his leg. "I'm losing too much blood. Without a maester… I will die, and then you and Steffan will be trapped on the ship with a wight."
"Loras, no," the queen begs, tears running freely from her eyes at last, her face screwed up in an ugly mask of sorrow.
"You'll be fine," Loras says, and his smile is real now. Filled with love and truth. "You're a queen. My queen. Always."
"Don't," Margaery croaks out, reaching toward him. "I need you."
"Tell Gerion… Tell him to be happy."
And then Loras flings himself backwards over the rail of the ship, the weight of his armor dragging him below the inky depths to rest at the bottom of the bay.
Jon's eyes burn, his head and jaw aching.
-l-
Jon thinks he will wake after witnessing Loras' sacrifice, that his nightmare will be over, but it is not to be. He feels a hand on his shoulder, and in a blink and a haze of white he is standing in the throne room of the Red Keep with Bran at his side, a lump still clogging his throat.
He is disoriented for a moment, but once he realizes he's been pulled into yet another vision instead of waking in his bed, he moves to strike Bran, to rip himself away. But he merely passes through Bran, his brother-cousin apparently able to decide whether or not he's solid.
Jon gives up, chest heaving.
Bran gestures for Jon to turn around, saying only, "He has seen you. Now you must see him."
The Night King and Robert are fighting before the Iron Throne, the White Walker smirking as he plays with the overweight mortal. Jon turns just in time to see Robert's hammer break and the Night King's sword pierce into the flesh Robert's meaty shoulder.
The man's body freezes solid at the touch of the Night King's rhimefrost blade, and then a single heavy blow shatters him into a hundred pieces of icy flesh.
The Night King ascends the steps to the Iron Throne, turns, and sits. And then he looks right. at. Jon. He smiles and he is handsome, and that is somehow worse than the horror of Robert's shattered corpse. The Night King says something in his cracking, hissing language, and to Jon's horror he understands.
Soon, the Night King says, staring into Jon's eyes with his orbs of piercing blue, utterly devoid of life, of love, of anything but malice and determination. Soon.
Jon stares up at the White Walker sitting on the Iron Throne, and something snaps into place inside of him.
The Baratheons are dead, reduced to a single babe that will likely not survive the sea voyage to the Vale. Jon is the last of the Targaryens.
That is his throne.
He is the king, not just of twenty people, or two hundred, or the North. He is the Son of Ice and Fire. He is the Rider of Dragons. He is Jon Pendragon, First of His Name, Ruler of the Andals, the Rhoynish, and the First Men, King of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.
"James Barnes," Jon addresses the Night King, unsurprised that the creature shows no recognition of the name. "You are sitting in my chair."
As if the words are a spell, the apparitions Jon has come to think are Lyanna and Rhaegar appear on either side of the Iron Throne. As one, they touch it. And the Iron Throne, the throne forged by Aegon the Conqueror with dragonfire and the weapons of his enemies, erupts into a blaze of glowing orange, as if every inch of it is once more bathed in the flames of Balerion.
And the Night King screams.
-l-
Remember, the dragon must have three heads.
Jon wakes with a start and a yell to a pair of glowing eyes hovering over him. Thinking it a wight, he flings himself to the floor, scrambling for the knives he's secreted around the bed, only to find them missing. His heart pounding he shuffles backwards to put some distance between himself and the creature, only to hear a tinkling laugh that certainly comes from no wight.
That is when he registers that while the pair of eyes glow in the dark, only one is blue.
The other is green.
"Tasha?" Jon whispers, hardly daring to hope. It could be a trick of the enemy. He could still be dreaming.
"Yes, beloved, it's me," Tasha says in the secret language.
Jon's heart stops. Then it tries to climb out of his chest through his mouth while simultaneously thumping wetly in his feet and rushing in his ears. He feels dizzy. All the tension going out of his body, Jon collapses onto the stone floor.
"Tasha," is all he manages to say, something trickling over his cheeks. Sweat, from his visions mostly likely, even if it does seem to be coming from his eyes. His chest feels heavy and he can't get his jaw to work.
Warm hands - warmer than he remembers, but perhaps it is because they are now in the midst of winter - pull him up and get him tucked back into the bed. He leans into every touch, hardly able to believe he's awake. In fact, he is probably still dreaming.
"You need better guards," Tasha says. Jon can hear cloth and metal shifting, and already he is hard and ready at the mere thought of his wife undressing. "No one even knows I'm here except for the dragons, and they let me through after the big one talked inside my head."
"Dany talked to you?"
"If Dany is an enormous black and red dragon, yes."
Jon sighs, and doesn't know if it's happy or sad. "I have so much to tell you."
"And I you. But first…" Tasha slides beneath the furs and presses her body to his.
Jon knows now. His wife is back with him.
He is happy.
