Chapter X: King's Landing III
Gendry
The tunnels smelled as though the worst parts of King's Landing had been concentrated into one foul stench. It made sense, in a way, considering they were filled with the run off of most of the Capital's dumped waste. Gendry tried not to think about what the water pooling along the edges might have once been and continued forward.
They had left Podrick at the tunnel's opening to keep the dinghy and entrance safe from any passersby. Gendry would be the next to break off from the group, where he would guard the exit of the tunnel so they might sprint back once the deed had been done.
Arya walked in front of him with her shoulders held stiffly and kept forcing her fists to relax - she was nervous. Gendry gently clasped his hand around her small wrist and lightly tugged for her to hang back for a moment. A series of tunnels unfolded on both sides of the main passageway; he chose the one less likely to be where the Keep dumped the contents of their garderobe. Surprisingly, she followed.
"You alright?" Gendry asked her when they had gotten out of sight. It was a ludicrous question - nothing was alright, not the plan, not her being nervous, not the fact that they hadn't spoken in days. She nodded despite the absurdity and looked back to where the others waited past the wall. "You don't seem it." Arya bit the inside of her lip just enough for it to shrink slightly on the left side, then met his eyes.
"I'm fine." He placed a hand on her right shoulder and was pleased that she didn't seem to mind. "I just… don't know him - I don't know what his voice sounds like, or whether he fights leading with his hips or shoulders, or -"
He didn't let her finish. "You just need to be him enough to get in and out. You'll be alright." Her grey eyes faltered to something behind hm as she went back to chewing her lip. "Arya," Gendry said softly. He risked cupping her cheek, "You're a trained faceless assassin - this will be easy for you." Though he tried to smile to reassure her, his lips only twitched.
Gendry interrupted her sigh with a light kiss. Remarkably, she kissed him back - that seemed like a decent sign. It was brief, but seemed to work well enough to calm her a little. She nodded and they returned back to Yuisaraq and Palomai. The man scoffed but the woman gave a knowing smile.
A thin iron gate blocked the tunnel opening. Palomai slammed it once with his club to destroy it; Arya grabbed his arm before he could swing a second time. "Are you mad?! Too loud."
Gendry approached the gate and looked it over. The pieces had been connected by drawing and welding, but they had been rushed. He grabbed two of the more poorly made pieces and pulled the thinnest ones towards him; they bent easily, and he got a enough of a grip on the rough metal to wedge the frame out in one solid heave.
Arya tried to go first, but Gendry held her back firmly by the arm - the plan was for Palomai to check the surroundings before the exited. She shot him a steely glare, clearly unhappy to be stopped, and shrugged out of his grasp as she waited for Palomai to climb up the opening.
A few minutes passed - too long - and the man stuck his head down into the tunnel. "We're fine," he said before disappearing again. They emerged under a bridge abutment, dark trees and shrubbery hiding the entryway to the tunnel. An armour-clad body had been roughly tucked under a grove of bushes a few feet to the north. Gendry looked with contempt from the corpse to Palomai - this was going to be his issue now that they had reached his sunderpoint.
Arya wore her focused expression again, the same one she had worn long ago when she practiced her water dancing or studied their stolen map as a child on the kingsroad. She glanced Gendry over briefly and he felt his brows raise in a sort of half-smile; it dropped the moment they headed towards the Keep. He knew the plan well enough by now - Palomai would go with them as far as he could without notice, then the two women would enter the castle, find Brienne's recommended soldier, and Arya would enter the Keep with his face. From there it would all be improvisation. There was no sense in Arya's disquiet; she had killed the fucking Night King after all, Bronn should be easy by comparison.
Still, that same sense of unease began growing in Gendry's chest as soon as he watched them disappear beyond a hill. There was no method of learning what was happening, no way to know if he should run to the castle to help or back to Podrick to send word to the Stormlands' troops waiting on the city outskirts. No, there was no use in thinking about that - Arya would be fine. She'd go in, cut Bronn's throat, and get out. It was a easy as smithing a nail.
A few smallfolk crested the hill they had descended, but no soldiers appeared and no one seemed aware of that a man's body lay shrouded under the dark, shiny-leafed bushes. Gendry leaned against the jutting stone and took a deep breath.
Arya was still angry with him, rightfully so. He really ought to have apologized before they left the ship, but she had avoided him too well for him to attempt that. If anything happened to her before he had a chance to fix things… She'll be fine, he reminded himself.
Gendry had never known himself to be cruel, not even in the aftermath of the Red Woman, when every redheaded stranger who smiled at him made his stomach turn and chills prick his skin. He had a temper at times, mayhap, but he never acted to injure anyone's feelings.
The drink was not to blame - his usual drunken tendency was the opposite of whatever he was that night, especially where Arya was concerned. Until then, being in his cups just meant he slurred accolades of her beauty and how much it intrigued him that she could probably kill him in the time it took for him to blink.
No, that night had shown a side of himself he didn't really know existed, a side of insecurity twisted up with doubts and deception and heartbreak. He hadn't meant it, really, and he certainly never expected her to actually care what he said. Palomai's casual mention of the fact that she was planing to go West again just burned at his mind - did she even plan to say goodbye to him? Was she just going to leave in the night, like she had after his idiotic proposal in Winterfell?
Gendry had confronted her the second he boarded the ship. She had the audacity to smile lightly at him when she saw him approach. All part of the ploy. Arya followed him after stormed past her into their cabin, shutting the door too hard even though he knew she was behind him. When she opened it, her smile was replaced by a fury that rivaled his house words and she demanded to know what was going on.
"Shouldn't you be able to figure that out? Fancy assassin training and all?" That was another thing she hadn't told him. Davos explained the Faceless Men to him one day on the ride to White Harbor - men who could change their face like he might change clothes or tools. And he hadn't even asked her about it, hadn't wanted to pry. A fucking fool through and through.
"Either tell me or shut up and get over it."
"You think you're so different," he sneered. "But you use people just like every other highborn. Were you even going to tell me?"
Anger poured out of her glare. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Just going to sail west when you need something new?" Her lips closed together, eyes still deadly. The words boiled up then like molten resentment, "For fuck's sake, Arya. You knew how I felt - you knew I love you, and you still just did what you wanted without any care for how I'd wind up."
"I did what I wanted?" She was stalling, repeating his words back to him to give herself more time. "I told you it was a bad idea - I told you Dorne wouldn't like it, your lords would take issue, it was stupid." She never said a damn one of those things. She had just shown up in his forge without any notice, looking all perfect and asking about his wife like she knew he had already forgotten about his half-negotiated betrothal. Then, once he tried to do his damn lordly duties, she'd stared at him and caressed his shirt until his brain stopped working entirely and kissed him - and that was before she played that stupid game and talked about the other people she had fucked not being him. She never even tried to stop a damn thing. And now she was telling him it was stupid?
"Stupid? That's really all you can say? 'Stupid' is for children - we might have started a war."
"Don't flatter yourself," she scoffed. "Dorne allied with Bronn for independence, they didn't care about you and your precious Lady Dayne. None of this has to do with us or your inability to control yourself." Inability to control yourself, like she hadn't almost fucked him in that tavern in Pebble two days prior. Fucking hypocrite.
"Control myself? That's rich. Have you ever thought something through before you did it? Ever faced a consequence in your entire life?" She scoffed at his question and he thought of how her sister, the damn Queen in the North, even had to try to get him to make sure Arya didn't disgrace their house. "What if something had gone wrong? What if you showed up in Storm's End and I actually was married? What if your moon tea didn't work?"
For just a fraction of a second, her face dropped. "That would be as much your fault as mine."
"Yeah, sure," he fired back sarcastically, unsure which point she was responding to. "And what would you have done? Stabbed my wife? Shown up and watched from the shadows until you remembered I didn't matter? Gone and sailed off and threw our child to the first woman you saw in the West?" She didn't answer him, just glowered with all the icy wrath of the North. "I don't know what I was thinking would happen - you'll never care about anyone but yourself."
He knew he went too far the second her face shifted. Betrayal washed over the angry scowl, her eyes softened then sank deep as tears rose around them, and her lips opened to inhale an unsteady breath. He stared at her, half wanting to pull her into his arms but still too angry to move - she stared back until her lids finally closed for one heartbeat. When they opened again they were sharper than any sword to ever come from his foundry.
"Go," she said, her voice soft but firm.
He did not move. It was just as much his cabin as hers and he wasn't done with whatever they were doing.
"Fucking go." She repeated, angrier this time.
She went for her still-packed satchel when he stood still, so he launched himself towards the door to leave first.
"You do know we're on a ship, right? You're going to have to see me again." His heart felt raw though the words still came out bitter.
She glared at him - he ignored the pain shimmering beneath her rage. "I'm sure we'll manage." Sarcasm dripped from each word like venom from a snake's fangs.
And then fucking Podrick had tried to commiserate, like whatever "women" he referred to had anything to do with the infuriating, terrifying, awe-inspiring, addictive qualities that made him furious with Arya.
Yuisaraq was on first watch when he arrived and offered to take her place.
"You're drunk," she observed. He didn't bother denying it. "Can you see straight?" Gendry felt his eyes roll, an obnoxious habit he had picked up from Arya. Yuisaraq shrugged.
"Wait," Gendry called as she started towards the stairs. He still had Arya's stupid hand pie and one of those awful-smelling Braavosi crab things wrapped up in his bag. "Forgot to give these to her."
Her mouth curled softly while she took them from him. "She'll come around," she said over her shoulder before heading below deck.
The first watch went fine, Davos steered from the helm while Gendry fumed at the prow, grateful that Palomai didn't say a word to him and left when he realized he really was there to watch for ships and not just to sleep or fight.
Arya had second watch, but she must have seen him and decided he ought to take her shift too.
It was just after dawn when Davos came up to him and firmly suggested he get some rest rather than jump into three watches in a row; "You're no good dead on your feet," he said gruffly. When Gendry returned to his empty cabin, he found his bed had grown too large and somehow now felt both hard as stone and soft as loose sand. The waves of anger had dissipated somewhere between his shifts, drifted off to sea like he had tossed them into the waves below, but they left his chest feeling cloven in twain. It was pathetic, just lying there with his eyes open, hoping the open window might blow her scent away from the sheets and pillows long enough for him to fall asleep. It didn't.
He saw her only thrice more on the remainder of the journey, once when she emerged from Yuisaraq's room that evening at the same time that he was returning from the galley. He avoided her gaze and kept his face hard as she passed him, but the redness in her eyes seemed brighter than steel mid-forge. It wasn't about him, he told himself. She was probably just reacting to the sea air or upset about the possibility of their plan failing - Arya Stark didn't cry about a few words shouted by a bastard smith. Still, when he finally managed to sleep that night his dreams were filled with tears and light sobs lost amongst quick arrows and slicing swords.
The second time, they stood as far apart as possible while everyone discussed the contingency plan should Arya fail. She wouldn't - she always got what she wanted - so Gendry didn't bother paying attention. Their eyes never met throughout the entire meeting.
Later that night, he returned to the cabin exhausted from inventorying their weapon stock and going over the maps of recently dug tunnels in King's Landing. Interestingly, Arya was there, digging through the contents of her bags when he arrived. She snapped her head up in surprise. Impossible - she would have heard him coming, must have heard him pause at Yuisaraq's door to swallow down the guilt rising like hot bile before opening his own instead.
"Thought you were with them," he said stiffly to the air before turning back again to exit.
"What's the count?" He hadn't realized she knew what he'd been doing.
"Fourscore arrows to split between you, Palomai, and Podrick; three bows; three daggers; a dozen throwing knives; six shields, but a few of them are too bent - I think four are salvageable; and three broadswords."
She nodded and the air between them began to feel less stale.
"I know you want them all, but maybe stick to just twice your own weight." She chuckled quietly and his heart rose back almost to where it should have been. He turned to face her then, already picturing the small smile etched into his mind.
That smile drifted from her face like the last rays of the sun, all the warmth and light of the world fading with it.
"What will you use?" He just wanted Arya to speak again.
Gendry stepped closer and she stopped to look at him. She appeared contemplative, like she couldn't figure out if she should embrace him or slit his throat.
"Don't know yet… Probably the dagger. I'll need to get close. I don't think I can bring the patalpeq or Needle - too recognizable when I wear a face." He nodded as if he had any idea what wearing a face was like at all.
"I'd like to bring a bow and a sword too, maybe a staff."
"That's all?" She was listing a damn armory.
A small, second laugh hid within her exhalation. It sounded almost accidental, but Gendry's breathing came easily for the first time since their fight. She looked him over again.
Arya could end his life if she wanted, he had made his own choice. He crossed the three steps to where she stood and kissed her, relieved to feel her return it instantly. It was all fire and need - no words, no apologies, no tears.
Her teeth bit his lip as she immediately shoved her hands under his jerkin. The wall wasn't far from them. He backed her against it and slid his hands to her full backside to push her closer; she instantly locked him into place by lifting herself up and wrapping her legs around him. His mouth moved to her soft neck, but he realized wanted her lips again and went back after just a graze. Then, before it had even properly begun, she pushed him away from her, slid both feet down to the ground, and clenched her fists. There wasn't time to ask what was happening - she had already walked to the door.
"No." It sounded more like she needed to stop herself than him. "You're not just fucking your way out of this"
She didn't speak to him again until he pulled her aside in the tunnel. She had returned his kiss then, at least, but he had a sneaking suspicion that was more out of instinct than any actual affection.
Gendry shook his head and tried again to focus on the situation before him but his fight with Arya was like the exposed grains of a poorly forged blade, a weakness built into the thing's very being. They'd leave this place and handle it later - either Arya would sail west or she wouldn't. There was no sense in imagining anything specific, good or bad, until he knew what she wanted, and he couldn't know what she wanted until she was safely back on the ship.
.
.
.
Arya
This was the third time Arya had been to the King's Landing since its reconstruction, and still it somehow felt both entirely foreign and eerily reminiscent of the time it had nearly swallowed her whole. She and Yuisaraq were nearing the castle, having just had left Palomai at a gate to the east. He'd meet them again at a point Podrick had helped designate with the assumption that they couldn't go back the way they had entered. Arya just hoped they'd get the timing right. She was still almost as mad at Palomai as she was at Gendry, but he was fast and swung his ironwood nizid without question - he'd get to their position quickly enough.
She had nearly strangled him when he mentioned what he had told Gendry in Gulltown. It was true she had promised him that she would bring him back to Mandoosatook, but she had certainly never specified when. Then again, Gendry's ridiculous reaction was enough to make her consider sailing west anyways, or at least going as far away as she could until he found his senses again. His reaction was more than uncalled for, it was self-centered and desperate - could this be a minacious glimpse of how he would always react when he felt hurt?
His words would have been duller had she not been thinking the same just before he returned to the ship. She was selfish, she did choose herself too often - she had left her brother vulnerable in the Capital and her sister alone in the North so she might adventure in the West like she was free of any obligation or duty.
Arya flexed her hands to keep them at her sides as she thought of what Niiotha had tried to convince her of in Winterfell… It wasn't true - it couldn't be - but if it was, she wasn't sure when she'd be able to return her friend to his home at all.
Yuisaraq interrupted her thoughts with a hand across their path.
"Is that him?" She pointed her lips towards a short, stocky man with a head of sparse black curls and a week's worth of stubble. He matched the description of Ser Nyles Cockshaw from Ser Brienne's raven, a knight brought from the Reach by Bronn's command. It seemed safe to wager that he would not be questioned wherever he went. The connection who had sent the information regarding the knight would also make sure the whitecloaks avoided the beaches and tunnels while they waited. Arya nodded - it was him.
Davos and Podrick had decided a bow and quiver would be too suspicious for her later disguise, but she wished she had ignored them. It would be easy to dispatch him with one shot. Instead, they were crouched below an exposed walkway with no plan for how to isolate the man whose face she needed.
Yuisaraq was many things - a sailor, a strategist, a fighter, to name a few - but she knew how to use her beauty as a weapon just as effectively as she threw her knives. She climbed up and approached the man sweetly, as though he were a long lost lover or childhood friend. She spoke in Baqabataral, her native tongue, to add a layer of confusion. The man hardly seemed to notice that she wasn't speaking the Common Tongue, he just nodded and smiled blankly until she cocked her head towards the door. He looked around to be sure no one noticed, then left his post to show her inside. Arya snuck behind them quickly and slit his throat as soon as she got behind him.
Wearing a face was more difficult than people realized - there were dozens of steps, any of which could cause the illusion to fall apart; wearing a face hastily sliced away amidst enemy territory was even more difficult. Arya hadn't done this since Walder Frey, and there was no room to devote to the full detail of the process. She did the best she could given the circumstances.
There were many secrets to being a Faceless Man, some of which involved magic, but truly it was mostly a trick. Much of the act was simple mummery and observation. People gave up so many details that it often seemed as though they wanted to be impersonated - they spoke of their fears and their memories and wore their emotions on their face for all to see. Unfortunately, Ser Nyles had done none of these, so she would need to be especially cautious.
Yuisaraq seemed to believe the illusion well enough - her narrow eyes rounded at the sight of the man she had just seen killed now walking the corridor before her. They wandered aimlessly for a bit, trying to think of where Bronn might be. Arya was sure he'd be in his chambers - his love of brothels was nearly as well known as King Robert's, and the former king always had his working women brought to him - but they were empty. Although occasional soldiers wearing armour of the Reach and Dorne shuffled by, there did not seem to be many meetings taking place.
Arya wondered what had happened with Lord Wylmar Dondarrion, mayhap he was meeting with Bronn as suggested back in Winterfell. Davos had mentioned on the Evenstar that Lord Wylmar was set to be in position, ready to send in a few thousand men if they needed. She hoped they wouldn't - not only because of the obvious fact that would mean they failed, but also because that would mean Gendry would not return to Winterfell with them. As angry and wounded as she felt, she wasn't quite ready for him to disappear entirely.
The cabinets on the first two floors were empty, as was the throne room. Finally they came across two soldiers guarding a door.
"Bronn in there?" Arya asked gruffly. Surely a man of Cockshaw's level would ask without any superfluous information or greeting.
The guard to the right looked at them strangely, focusing on Yuisaraq then back to Cockshaw.
"Bringin' her to him," she extemporized. The guards exchanged a shrug and informed them that Bronn was meeting with some lords in the North Wing.
There were four cabinets and three chambers in the North Wing. The cabinets were all empty, as was the first solar. Finally Arya recognized the sound of raucous laughter coming from a room on the far side of the corridor. Cockshaw's face was starting to feel wrong, it slipped around the corners and made everything too hot. She grimaced and approached the door.
There were four men in the room - one whose voice she couldn't place but knew was familiar, two who sounded Dornish by their accents, and one she was fairly certain was Bronn. The thick oaken door was lighter than she expected, and the secrecy was immediately lost. The men all turned to look at the door as it flew open. She looked to Yuisaraq in a panic.
"Find another way in." Her friend looked at her like she had just told her to make snow fall in a desert. "Lord Wylde is there - he'll recognize you."
"Cockshaw?" Bronn called. Arya tore her eyes from Yuisaraq's and entered slowly to buy them time. To her horror, Yuisaraq followed.
"This one said you sent for her," she muttered. Her command of his voice was slipping - why hadn't she taken a day to follow him and learn his habits?
"Didn't send for no one." Yuisaraq unlaced her vest slightly and stepped into the light. The distraction was a welcome chance to analyze the men before them - Lord Wylde looked just as he had in Storm's End, older than he was and much less comely than his younger brother; the two Dornish lords were near opposites of one another, one dark with thick black waves and eyes as dark as night, the other towheaded with eyes of violet - a Dayne.
Lord Wylde looked at her strangely. "I know you," he said quietly. Arya tried to keep her face straight.
"I wish that were so, my lord. I've been sent as a gift for the King." His forehead creased as he ran a hand through his thinning blond locks and tried to identify how he knew her. Bronn needed no convincing. He stood immediately and walked towards a door in the back of the room. The Dornishman Arya could not identify poured two glasses of wine, one for Cockshaw and one for Yuisaraq, and offered them without a word. She took them and used it as an excuse to go into the bedchambers.
"Your Grace," Lord Wylde started.
Bronn shot him a glare and looked back to Yuisaraq. "I'll be in in a moment - you'll be ready." Arya did her best to keep her eyes from rolling.
"Yes, my king," Yuisaraq purred. Arya realized that she didn't know the proper title was 'Your Grace.' If the other lords cared they gave no indication.
The two women had entered the chambers and the goblets found their place on a worn bedside table.
"Why did you come in? Did you not hear me about Lord Wylde?" Yuisaraq's head tilted in confusion. "He sat right beside Davos in the Stormlands. We dined with him and his brother twice."
"All the men here look the same to me." She shrugged. Arya opened her mouth to ask if she included Gendry in that statement - he had certainly never looked ordinary to her - but she didn't get the chance to ask. "Yes, even yours. His hair is darker than the rest, but they all look sickly and in need of soap."
Arya didn't have time to argue with her. "I told you to find another way." If Lord Wylde was telling his king where he had first met Yuisaraq, their deception would be lost.
"We can't all climb walls and windows," she said while shaking her head. The thought of climbing walls made her think of her younger brother, and that made her feel worse. If they failed now...
"You Dornish?" Bronn asked as he entered the door and slowly strutted towards Yuisaraq. He sat on the bed with a light groan and picked up the metal chalice of wine with a hand of swollen knuckles.
Yuisaraq smiled and rose her brows in mystery. The King began unlacing his pants to push them down and access his breeches. Arya could wait no longer.
She grabbed her dagger from her belt and unsheathed it in one twist of her wrist, then dove towards Bronn. Her movements were clumsy as Cockshaw and she only served to knock him off balance rather than stab him. He leapt to his feet and swung the dagger back at her. Even with this slower impersonation, it was easy enough to block his arm with a hook of her elbow and a smash of her palm. He stumbled down to grab his discarded belt for his sword. Arya kicked it from him but the strands caught on her foot. Bronn tugged the leather ends and twisted them with a solid jerk, sending her crashing into the ground in the knight's heavy armour. He grabbed his sword as she pressed herself up, then swung with all his might.
For a man of his age, he fought with surprising speed. Still, he made the same mistakes as any Westerosi knight, swinging too heavily from the joints and making too broad a target. Arya avoided his next two swings and watched how he pivoted slightly to the side with each slash; on the third, she met his blade with Cockshaw's broadsword and used the power of Bronn's own thrust to knock him backwards. She kicked an armour-plated boot to his chest until he flailed back onto the bed, then disarmed him and kept pressing with her foot. It was almost done.
Just like with Walder Frey and Meryn Trant, she wanted him to know his killer's identity; she grabbed her dagger with her left hand and peeled back Cockshaw's face with her right. Bronn's face drained of any remaining colour.
"You tried to hurt my family, so now I hurt you." The word sounded jumbled as she spoke them, not nearly as clever as her line at the Twins - leave one wolf alive and the sheep are never safe.
Bronn looked at her with shock, then something resembling approval. "You're that Stark girl, the one Jaime Lannister said killed the Night King." Arya said nothing; she had never known that Bronn knew what had happened during the Battle for Winterfell. "Dorne says you and the Fuckless Lord got a little too close for House Dayne." The Fuckless Lord? The nickname was especially ironic given the way that lord had spent most of their journey to the Capital.
"Does his cock work?" She could feel her eyes narrowing with each word from his mouth. "I heard it does good when it needs to - Lady Lucynda enjoyed it well enough."
He was trying to get a rise out of her. She figured out that had Gendry laid with Lucynda Dayne the moment his hand twitched when Davos mentioned the betrothal - it was hardly news to her. Still, a strange jolt of jealousy twinged in her lower gut at the thought.
"A man who doesn't like whores can't know that much. Bet you could use lesson in what it should be like." Disgusting, Arya thought. Hot spit flooded her mouth and her stomach lurched - he had made her physically ill.
Before she could force her insides calm, a red knife flew from behind her into Bronn's throat. A moment later another hit his groin. "For good measure," Yuisaraq said in Baqabataral. Arya took deep breaths until her stomach settled, then grabbed the first knife and ripped it from the wound, twisting it to the side to slice and hurry the bleeding. The blood gurgled in his shallow throat as it poured out; he crumpled back onto the mattress with a light choke and breathed no more.
"He tried to kill my brother, this was my kill."
"You took too long." That was true. She smiled in victory and handed Arya the clothing she had carried for her in her satchel. Arya removed the stifling armour and donned her normal leathers. There was no sense in retaining her disguise - if anyone discovered what happened to Bronn they would be looking for Cockshaw.
"We should go." Bronn's death had been quick and quiet, but it would take only one mistake to alert those outside the door of their presence. Yuisaraq nodded and tore her knife from Bronn's crotch before wiping it on his oil-stained breeches and following Arya. "We need to get to another part of the castle - it's too easy to find us here." An east-facing window seemed to lead to a battlement or exposed walkway. Arya wedged it open and shoved herself to the sill. The jump was close, but the sun had set and it would be easy to leap too far. She took a breath and hopped off, landing on the structure with ease.
Yuisaraq looked more skeptical. Her mouth twisted to the right as she calculated the distance in her mind.
"Just jump," Arya urged, "Don't think about it." Yuisaraq nodded and closed her eyes. "Look where you're going!" She opened them slightly and jumped, landing on the edge too hard with a groan. Arya pulled her shoulder towards her and helped her hobble to the nearest entryway.
"When were you going to tell me?" Her friend asked as she pushed her hand against her ankle to stretch it. Arya had no idea what she was talking about. "You're pregnant."
She stopped moving and stared. There was no doubt in Yuisaraq's eyes. "I knew Niiotha couldn't keep her mouth shut. I'm not."
"She didn't tell me anything. And you are."
Arya sighed - this was not a conversation she wanted to have. "I think I would know." Yuisaraq looked at her with pity.
"I've never seen you wait to kill someone before. You're distracted." She grinned.
"I was just trying to figure out what he was talking about." That wasn't even a decent lie.
"You threw up on the ship. And in your home!"
"I drank enough to drown a horse that night, and Gendry was just as sick as I in Winterfell - when do you think he's due?"
Yuisaraq smirked. "He ate after three days, you couldn't keep anything down for ages." Niiotha had said the same, only she had the added insult of being an expert. "And your chest is as big as mine now." Arya couldn't explain that. She sighed and ran a hand over her loosening braid; the escaped ends were irritating her as they stuck to her neck.
"If you're going to accuse me, can you at least fix this?" Yuisaraq moved behind her and untied the strands, then plaited them tightly.
"How did it happen?" Arya turned to stare at her in disbelief - everyone knew how pregnancy happened. Yuisaraq yanked her head back to face forward so she could finish braiding. "I know how. I just thought Niiotha gave you her moon tea."
She sighed, "I left it in Storm's End." Now it was Yuisaraq's turn to stare. "I thought it was a nice gesture or something - I don't know."
"And you just let him -"
"No, I'm not an idiot. He's been… spilling outside." Yuisaraq raised a thin brow; Arya could hear her voice chiming 'Obviously not.' "There was one night… When we left King's Landing."
The other brow raised to match the first. "You were bleeding when we left."
She sighed again and stepped away once the braid had been closed off with a scrap of leather. "It was almost done, practically just water." Dark eyes met Arya's with a judgmental smirk. "I thought he died, Yuisaraq."
"Even Niiotha doesn't do that." Arya looked over to the entryway. No one seemed to be following them yet.
"Can you walk?" She twisted it in a circle and shrugged, so they started down the brightly lit hall.
Each empty hallway seemed to narrow a little more. Niiotha and Yuisaraq both were convinced that she really had some beginning of life inside of her.
It was true that she hadn't bled, but years of limited meals and strenuous activities meant her moonblood had never kept a normal schedule. There were infinite excuses for each of the signs Niiotha had pointed out to her angrily in the halls of Winterfell - her vomiting was from whatever illness she and Gendry had both picked up on the road, the blemishes on her normally clear skin were from the same, she couldn't sleep because Bran was in danger. But other things were harder to excuse. Her breasts hurt and seemed nearly twice the size they had been before; she could hardly get her jerkin to lace properly these days, even after she bound her chest tightly with linens. And her moods were ridiculous - she had always been quick to anger, but now she was just as fast to tear up or feel atop the world. And then there were the random, almost unbearable flashes of need. She had woken Gendry up most nights on the ship, partially out of restless boredom but mostly out of inordinate desire. They had lain together twice a day on the sail south, often thrice, and when he kissed her in the cabin after she finished putting away her freshly sharpened knives, it didn't even matter that she was mad and hurt, the yearning she experienced then was stronger than any she had felt before. Fuck. Arya wondered if the halls were closing in on Yuisaraq as they were for her.
"Is this why you're fighting? He doesn't seem the sort to not want a child." Arya shook her head. No, Gendry was certainly not that type of man.
"I haven't told him," she said so quietly she could hardly hear herself. A small hand wrapped around her right forearm in reassurance. "I really didn't think it was possible. They say you can't conceive on your moon."
"And yet here you are."
"Niiotha said she's seen it before."
Yuisaraq nodded and pulled out a throwing knife before turning the corner. Still clear. "I'm glad, you know. Now you can't run away." She turned to face Arya once they were both on the same side of the wall.
"I don't run away from anything." Yes you do. "And if I wanted to I still could."
Yuisaraq shook her head. "It's a powerful thing, you know. It'll go fast. Mine felt like it was over in a week." Arya was sure she had mistranslated. She swallowed hard and looked behind them before continuing, "Wait until it moves. Even you'll cry."
"You have a child?"
A heavy gaze met hers sadly. "Almost," she whispered. Arya went to speak, to say anything at all, but no words came out. How had she never known? "He would have been beautiful. He was so full of life… until he just wasn't. Qaobana's mother had already sewn him enough clothing for his first five years." It was the first time she had heard her mention her husband's name since his death in Greenstone. "He used to move so much I couldn't sleep, always flipping and kicking and punching. I half thought he'd sprint out of me. And then one day he simply stopped. There was no pain, no incident, nothing I ate, no hit or fall. He just… stopped." Her eyes were dry but cold as they stared at nothing in particular on the floor before her. "I still had to birth him, still had to push and scream and bleed just like I would have for a healthy babe. But he was stiff and had to be pulled from me - when he emerged he was like old winter berries, purple and wrinkled. He never took one breath.
"That was just a few moons before you came to Baqabatar. Qoabana and I thought maybe the East would be different, maybe we would have another." Arya felt her own tears come, though Yuisaraq's eyes did not well. She wondered if the fact this was the fist she heard of the child was because she had been selfish. Maybe Gendry was right. "It won't be like that for you." She smiled lightly at Arya and then started back down the hall. "I don't want one of my own anymore, but I hope you know I'm going to steal this one as much as I can."
On her home island, every woman interacting with a child called herself an arifiruq, a role that Arya never noticed them distinguish from blood relatives. She said it aloud and Yuisaraq grinned with a nod. "Let's get back so you can get over your fight and I can get my room to myself again," her friend said. Arya refused to admit that she wanted that just as much as Yuisaraq did - she certainly wasn't weak enough to think sleeping beside someone was somehow any better than sleeping alone.
A man in armour distinctive to the Reach stood guard by a heavy door. Yuisaraq tilted her head towards him and Arya moved her dagger to his throat in swift silence before he knew they were there. They were no more than ten minutes from the entryway where Palomai was supposed to wait.
The room he guarded was empty. Strange. Two tables sat littered with empty plates and tankards - maybe it was paranoia, but Arya felt something resembling dread creep up through her gut and into her lungs like a shallow fog. No, it wasn't unreasonable, a normal meal would have been cleared by serving staff before they exited the room. These people had left unexpectedly - someone had found Bronn.
Yuisaraq knew it too. They made eye contact slowly.
The room had two doors other than the one through which they had entered - the occupants had to have left through one of those. Arya had no idea where either door led nor how many people might be waiting for them if they knew the two women were there. There were seven plates on the table, and most had been scraped fully clean` of their meal. Not lords, she realized. The chairs were left scraped back as though someone had pushed them heavily. Armour - soldiers or guards, most likely.
Yuisaraq pushed air through her teeth by the window. "You think we can climb this?" Arya looked. There were a few exposed bricks that she could balance herself on, though she wasn't convinced that they both had the same level of climbing skill. A ledge was a short drop from the last brick - even if Yuisaraq fell, she could just push against it and slide down safely. She nodded.
Arya went first and was surprised to find her balance slightly off. She pushed the thought of a child affecting her weight distribution from her mind and jumped from the ledge to the fragrant sweetferns below.
Yuisaraq seemed to regret her decision immediately upon looking down at the drop. She turned unsurely to squat on the window ledge and slowly toed her way down brick by brick. They didn't have time for this. After what felt like a damn lifetime, she carefully jumped from the ledge and landed with a surprising softness.
"Seas over heights," she muttered as Arya started forward again.
Fast, metal-clad feet were coming around the corner. Arya grabbed Yuisaraq and shoved her down back into the ferns. A column of soldiers, maybe ten, trotted West. Good. The wrong way. She waited until their feet faded like a departing storm's thunder, then peered out from the leaves. It was a small group to send when their usurper king had been found dead - could it be a distraction? She crawled out from under the flora to check the other side. No soldiers were in sight. Mayhap Bronn just had a poor military defense strategy. Or he was just cocky enough to think he didn't need much in the way of castle defense - that seemed more likely.
Yuisaraq rose slowly and wiped the dirt from her knees. Arya knew this part by heart - they'd just need to get around the northern corner, run no more than a minute, and go through a wide drainage ditch right of the third archway before they got to where Palomai was to wait for them. She nodded at her friend.
Each step felt loud on the rough cobblestones. Arya could feel where her saddle's stirrups had worn down her boots slightly from those weeks of riding north; it made her strangely sad. She had worn these boots in the West, and now - for fuck's sake… was she really getting sentimental about leather? Yuisaraq and Niiotha might really have been right, no healthy, normal person would have any feelings about something so trivial.
Two men guarded the archway before the one they needed. Arya tapped Yuisaraq's shoulder to have her distract them yet again. She loosened her woven flax vest slightly and shoved her chest up with her hands to make cleavage visible just as she had for Bronn and his lords, then pinched her cheeks for colour. The guards were simple men, easily distracted by even a flash of ankle, never mind mostly-exposed breasts. Arya ran behind them as her friend produced an nauseating giggle. She found the ditch - really it was more of a tunnel through the dirt - and wriggled into it with baited breath. Yuisaraq was behind her soon after.
It was too confined for them to crawl on their knees, so they shoved themselves forward with their forearms, their stomachs and thighs dragging against the ground beneath them.
Palomai waited exactly where he was meant to be. He gripped his club tightly as they slithered out from the drainage shaft. "Is it done?" Arya nodded. There were no guards around them, but they sprinted anyways. The tunnels were closer than Arya realized; she saw Gendry and his stupid relieved countenance when they rounded the corner.
Yuisaraq's run was slow with her injured ankle, so Arya moved back to help her. She grabbed her by the waist and tugged her forward - they were just a few minutes from the ship. An odd expression washed over Gendry's face as he looked at her again. She ignored it.
Something heavy smacked against her shoulder and she and Yuisaraq tumbled down to the dirt. Arya's right hand slammed into the ground and a sharp pain shot through her wrist; her left hand instinctively protected her stomach as though it cared more for any potential babe than for itself. Someone shouted her name - probably Gendry, but she wasn't entirely sure.
A stream of arrows whizzed overhead and struck someone she hadn't heard behind her. She craned her neck and saw two men in Dornish armour collapsed on the ground, feathered fletching sticking from their necks.
Yuisaraq must have twisted something else in the fall; she laid heavily atop Arya and emitted a strange sob mingled with a moan as she twitched. Arya writhed out from underneath her friend, ignoring the pain from where her left shoulder had taken much of their combined impact, and went to help her stand.
She hadn't twisted something at all - she had been skewered by a spear. Yuisaraq laid face-down in a growing pool of blood. No. It was the only word she could conjure.
"Arya!" Gendry was by her side, turning her to face him as his hands felt her shoulder and back for any signs of damage. "You're alright?" If she could think clearly, she might have realized how terrifying their fall must have looked - a spear going towards two women falling in a heap together. But her brain could still only think that one word.
"Help her!" she barked. She didn't know how they could remove the spear to turn her over - why hadn't she let Niiotha come with them?
Gendry took her dagger from its useless scabbard on her hip and hacked at the back of the spear while her body refused to work. He broke it the rest of the way with his hands. Yuisaraq gave a feeble groan at the pain of the shifting weapon.
Palomai joined them and propped her shoulders on his knee to face the sky.
It was a brutal sight - the spear had passed fully through her gut and poked through her torso, blood pouring out from around it and a peek of some shiny soft innard cushioning the head of its blade.
Yuisaraq's eyes were already dimming. Arya had no words for her; she simply held her face in her hands and repeated "No" as though it were the only word she knew. She couldn't even think to translate it into the dying woman's native tongue. Her hands smeared crimson across perfectly symmetrical cheeks and a sharp jaw like bright blood splattered against snow on a winter hunt.
Finally Yuisaraq's voice stopped its rasping and her throat stilled; her dark eyes loosened their gaze and faded from bright onyx to dull coal. Arya pressed her forehead to Yuisaraq's and choked back a sob.
"More will come," Palomai uttered, his voice thickl. He poked his lips out at the stairwell where the Dornish soldiers' corpses laid.
"We can't leave her." Palomai nodded and Gendry looked full of pity. He helped as best he could, grabbing Yuisaraq's corpse in one scoop and tossing her over his shoulder before running to the tunnel. Palomai grabbed the splintered end of the spear from the ground and coated it in Yuisaraq's blood, then smeared some down his face, neck, and chest in one depressing swipe.
Tears blinded Arya as she ran, but the tunnels were a straight line to the sea. Gendry pushed her in front of him and kept his hand on her as they ran, sliding it from her back to her arm to her hand depending on how far in front of him she got. Finally Podrick Payne's distinctive red armour appeared above them. He extended a hand to help lift Palomai out, then did the same for Arya. A breath passed in silence when he saw what lay draped over Gendry's broad shoulders. There was no time for him to try to help once he realized what was going on; Gendry had already wedged his foot into the wall and gotten himself out.
The oars rowed smoothly, barely making a sound as they cut through small waves and got them out to the Evenstar. The occupants were just as silent.
Palomai bolted up the rope ladder to the ship first, followed by Arya. Her face felt like stone as Davos looked to the man's blood-covered body and then to her. Gendry was behind her, as always, surprisingly fast for someone carrying a corpse; his palm pressed lightly into her mid-back as soon as he got over the taffrail.
"Why are you here?" Davos croaked out after his face fell at the sight of Yuisaraq's body."What?"
"The plan if something went wrong - Lord Wylmar has twelve thousand men ready not a league from the gates." He might as well have been speaking Ghiscari. Gendry said something back to Davos, but Arya's mind still couldn't process a word.
Mellyndon or Bryndemere or Davos or Palomai winched up the anchor as Podrick climbed aboard after securing the dinghy. They were sailing North, technically victorious, but all Arya could think was "No."