His legs and arms were numb, and he felt cold, so cold! This is what it's like to die, he knew. Aegon was holding his hand, his head bowed as he prayed to his Southron gods in a soft voice, asking the Mother to shield and protect him on his journey.

You should ask the Father to judge me justly, he thought. Ned did not believe in the Seven, but whenever he saw the stern god's statue in a Sept, the scales of justice in his hands, he could not help but turn his eyes.

"Aegon..." His voice was no more than a whisper. His nephew raised his head, a smile on his face as he bent over him, gently caressing the wrinkles on his face. I have to tell you something, Ned wanted to say. So that you will know and judge me for who I am, the good and the bad. But no words would come out of his mouth. The memories were his burden to carry, and his alone.

He remembered riding the way down to King's Square on horseback, Howland Reed by his side, grim determination written on his face, and worry on his friend's.

The wood on the platform was slippery with blood and waste. And the body, the body was swollen beyond recognition, cut, burned, mutilated. Like your distant ancestor Ser Tyland at the end of the Dance of the Dragons, Ned thought. Only dead. And my work.

Howland tried to stop him when he raised Ice and took aim at the head he should have taken the day before. He'd struck again and again and again, but he couldn't get the angle right, and the damned head just wouldn't come off the shoulders.

He couldn't remember how long he hacked away at the neck, but finally, Howland grabbed a hold of his arm. "Let me," he said, taking the sword from Ned's hands. Ice was taller than the Crannogman himself, but he'd taken the head off clean in a single strike.

The blood gushing from the neck gave proof that the man had not, in fact, been dead.

To live or die at the mercy of the people of this city, was all Ned could think as he rode back to the Red Keep, the head in his lap. In the end, you did not even get the sentence I promised you.

There was a rap at the door, and even though he could not see the man who entered, he knew it was the Septon. I should have asked to be taken to the Godswood, he thought. To die under a weirwood tree, where I belong. He tried to push himself up, his eyes searching for Aegon.

It was then that he noticed the woman in the corner, dark copper hair tumbling over her shoulders, her eyes a radiant brown that looked almost golden. He'd imagined her many times over in his head. And though he'd never seen her in his lifetime, couldn't have seen her, he instinctively knew who she was.

He felt terror at her presence, yet somehow, his fear mixed with an odd sense of relief that all these years of denial, of lies and more lies, of people closing their eyes to what he had done were finally over, for she knew what he had done.

"So you've come for me at last," he said.