The mind is capable of any manner of deception, Stannis thought. To convince ourselves of the rightness of our cause, to rationalize and reason away our decisions. He wondered if that was what Ned Stark was doing, at this very moment, locked up in that dark, desolate dungeon.

But what of Robert's own possible self-deception? He claims now he would never have touched the children, would have spared their lives the way he would not have spared Cersei and Jaime. Yet how much of that is the truth, and how much is merely righteous indignation at Ned's accusation?

Not merely righteous indignation, Stannis amended. Disappointment and sorrow, he was sure those were in the mix too.

"It matters what you say to him, what you say to other people about him, and what you think of him, because you matter to him." Stannis had overheard their mother telling Robert that, after the debacle with Proudwing. After Robert had tried defending himself for laughing and calling the bird Weakwing with, "Stannis doesn't care what I say about him. Or what I think about him."

Robert might be willing to forgive you the betrayal, Ned. But not your lack of faith in him.

Because you mattered to him. No, you still matter to him, even now. Especially now.

Stannis could not imagine the conversation that would take place between Robert and Ned. Robert had not seen him yet, according to the guard. Stannis had tried to see Ned before Robert did, to warn him of Robert coming, but was told by the guard that the King had expressly forbidden anyone from visiting Lord Stark. "Including the Hand," the guard had said, but his expression clearly stating, "Especially the Hand."

"My lord?" Devan's voice interrupted his train of thought. He turned from the window to face the boy.

"What is it, Devan?"

"Her ladyship wants to know if you are having dinner here tonight. Or with His Grace at the castle."

Robert had not said anything about that.

Stannis had not sat down to dinner with his family since they moved to Tower of the Hand. Robert, and the possibility of war, had the primary claim of his time and his thoughts. But he wondered now how Selyse and Shireen were handling the move. And the girls. Ned Stark's daughters. How they were coping with all the changes. With their father being imprisoned, all their household staff removed, and other people moving in.

Devan was waiting patiently for his answer.

"I will be eating here."

"Yes, my lord."

"Devan."

"My lord?"

It was unfair to ask the boy how things were, in his own household. I should know. And if I don't, he's not the person I should be asking. And yet the thought of asking his wife …

"Go on, tell her ladyship I will be having dinner with them."

Devan nodded and left his study. Selyse walked in a few minutes later.

Why did she not ask me herself? He wondered. But then again, he always used the squires himself to pass messages to her, instead of talking to her directly.

Perhaps we are more alike than we thought possible.

"How was the council meeting? Has anything been decided?"

He did not understand the question. "About what?"

Selyse raised her eyebrows. "The girls, of course. Lord Stark's daughters. When are they to be sent home to Winterfell?"

This is what comes of never discussing matters properly with your wife, Stannis realized. Selyse must have thought it was a temporary state of affair, Sansa and Arya Stark staying at Tower of the Hand with them, until their journey home could be arranged.

"They're not going back to Winterfell. Not for now, at least."

She did not seem surprised hearing his answer, however. "So it is true. Your brother wants to keep them here as hostages?"

"Hardly as hostages," he snapped. "Ned Stark will be released soon. Even Robert cannot be this foolish and foolhardy for long."

"What will happen then?"

"What do you mean?"

"Will your brother reappoint Lord Stark as Hand of the King? Will Robert set you aside for Lord Stark once more?

The thought had not even occurred to him, it was the last thing on his mind. He was crossed with Selyse for bringing up the subject, for even thinking about it.

"Why should that matter? When we could be at war at any moment. Is my position all that matters to you?" He asked irritably.

"It matters to me what my lord husband deserves, what should have been his. By rights, and by virtue of everything he has done for his brother."

So this was about Storm's End, as well as the position of Hand.

She held out her hands to him, imploring. "You should fight harder for what should be yours."

He ignored the gesture and turned away from his wife. The silence stretched out far longer than he expected, he presumed she would have continued talking by now. Turning his head slightly, he spotted her through the corner of his eyes, her expression weary. After all, this was an argument they have had plenty of times in the past.

I did fight. Ask Robert, he would tell you how much I annoyed him, irritated him, pestered him. About Storm's End. About being Hand.

And yet how could she have known, if he had not shared any of that with her? A voice argued in his head. Had told her nothing, would not even admit to his own wife how much losing Storm's End had mattered.

Perhaps it was the thought of his brother's marriage, and all the troubles it was about to unleash on the kingdom. Or perhaps it was that look of intense weariness on Selyse's face, the look that bordered on utter resignation and hopelessness. Whatever it was, he was finally moved to ask the question he had been wondering about for years.

"Was it a disappointment for you? Marrying someone you thought would have certain … things, would achieve certain position, and yet ending up stuck in some barren island?"

"Is that what you think? That those are the reasons I am disappointed?" She did not deny the disappointment. He was actually relieved to hear her admitting it.

"Your uncle Alester was certainly disappointed, he never tried to hide it. Other members of your family too."

She stared at him for a long while, her expression stubborn and unyielding, almost scornful. He knew that his own expression mirrored hers. We are strangers to each other, he had always believed, but the thought occurred to him for the first time since their marriage, that perhaps it was more accurate to say that they were both strangers to other people. In the awkwardness of her dealings with others, in the abruptness and the lack of tact his wife often displayed, in her suspicious and scornful nature, she reminded him of … himself.

When he had thought of their marriage at all, which was very rarely, he had summed it up simply as an unbridgeable divide between two very different people. They were too different from each other, in everything that mattered. But he wondered now if the problem was not only that they were too different in their outward priorities, but also compounded by the fact that deep down, they were too similar.

We see ourselves when we look at one another, and don't much care for it.

We? A voice scoffed in his head. You mean, you? How do you know what your wife really thinks? You have never asked her.

But it was a bridge too far for him, asking her this too. And she had not answered his previous question.

"Is it impossible for you to believe that those things are important to me because … never mind. It doesn't matter now." Selyse finally spoke.

Why not? He wanted to ask, should have asked, but did not.

"Robert should release Ned Stark and send him home to Winterfell with his daughters," she continued.

"Are the Stark girls giving you trouble?"

"Of course not. They're smart girls, they know how to survive. With courtesy and wit. The weapon of the weaponless. But I'm sure they would much rather be home with their own family. And I would rather Ned Stark not be here, either as a prisoner or as Robert's Hand."

He finally understood what Selyse meant by surviving with courtesy and wit, when Sansa and Arya Stark requested to speak with him after dinner. It was the older girl who did all the talking. Arya was quiet, quieter than she had been even at dinner. He had assumed that they were going to ask to be allowed to go home, but that was not the case.

Sansa was all soft words and courteous gestures, asking permission to see the king.

"For what?"

"To plead our father's case, my lord."

"Many people have done that, Ser Barristan Selmy for one. Your father still has plenty of friends at court."

"But perhaps coming from us, his own daughters …"

Stannis was not really convinced, but who knew? Robert had been reminiscing about Myrcella at dinner yesterday, talking of how happy she was when Sansa and Arya arrived. How much she had liked playing with them, listening to their stories about Winterfell and the North.

"They're so different in many ways, but so alike in others. They just don't know it," Myrcella had told Robert.

"A smart girl, Myrcella. Why isn't she mine? My daughter. Sweet Myrcella," Robert had lamented, putting his head on the table, before raising it and launching into another swear-laden tirade about Cersei and Jaime.

"I will ask the king," Stannis replied stiffly now to the Stark girls. "But if the king does allow you to make your plea, be careful what you say in front of him. You don't want to make things worse for your father by raising his ire."

"Father has done a great wrong, we understand that. We only wish to ask for His Grace's mercy on father's behalf. His Grace is known for his mercy," Sansa Stark replied.

He watched her carefully. Did she really believe that? Courtesy. Weapon of the weaponless, Selyse had said.

And what of the other girl, who had been silent the whole time? Unlike her sister, who was meeting Stannis' gaze as she was speaking, Arya Stark would not look at him. Had not looked at him since she entered the room.

"Anything else?"

"No, my lord. Thank you, my lord," the girls said in unison, as if it was something they had practiced beforehand.

Stannis stared at the map of the Seven Kingdoms after they left, contemplating the possible routes for a Lannister attack. He traced the map with his fingers, mentally recalling the lords in power at each possible route, how many men they had, and if their loyalty to Robert could be counted on. He was interrupted by a knock on the door. He thought he knew who it was. And sure enough, he was right.

"I suppose you're here to tell me that you disagree with your sister, about your father having done a great wrong?" He considered the matter for a moment, before continuing. "Perhaps it is better if your sister sees the king on her own."

Incredibly, she was near tears. "Was it the book?" Arya asked abruptly. "It was the book, wasn't it? The book I gave my father, that's what got him in trouble. The book I got from Grand Maester Pycelle."

It was and it wasn't, but it was definitely not this girl's fault. "No, it's not about the book," he replied.

"Then what is it about?"

A lot of things. Faith. Trust. Love. Disappointment. None of which he could truly explain to this child. Or to anyone else for that matter.

"It is a misunderstanding that will be resolved. Your father will be released soon."

"Can you promise that?" She didn't wait for his answer. "You can't, can you?"

He recalled his own promise to Ned.

"Your father will not come to any harm."

"Not from you, maybe. But from the king, you can't make any promise about what your brother might do. I told you about the stag killing the mother direwolf. I was wrong about which brother is the enemy. I thought it was you, my lord."

"It's only a superstitious story. Surely you don't believe in that kind of thing?" He scoffed.

She did not reply.

He asked her another question. "Why did you ask Grand Maester Pycelle for the book? Were you spying on us?"

"I wasn't spying! I can't help it if I overheard things, when I was practicing my dancing. Father wanted to ask Grand Maester Pycelle for the book. You said that would be dangerous. That's why I asked him for it, because I thought he would not suspect anything if it was me. But maybe he did suspect and that's why the queen and her brother and the children are gone and Father is in trouble and Sansa and I can't go home." She spoke too fast and without any pause.

Hadn't anyone explained to this girl what her father actually did? Her sister seemed to know all about it, why didn't this girl?

"That's not why your father is in trouble."

"I know. All the servants and the squires were talking about it. He warned her, the queen, so she could run before the king finds out. About … about Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella not being his."

"Then it has nothing to do with you."

"But if I had not given Father the book-"

"We would have found another way to get it."

She was silent for a while, considering his words. "I choose family," she suddenly said. "Family, duty, honor, you asked me once, which comes first. I choose family." She looked like a much younger child suddenly, terrified and vulnerable.

"That's a fine choice," he replied carefully.

"It's a fine choice for children, you mean. And women. But not something a man would choose. Not something you would choose." She was defiant now.

"No, it's not about being a child or not a child. A man or a woman. It's … who you are."

"But you will always choose duty. And father will always choose honor."

Once he would have agreed with that sentiment. He was not so certain now.

"People can change. For better or for worse. We are not set in stone, a creature of duty or honor or anything else, at all times."

"We can't go home, can we? Sansa and me?"

"Not yet, no."

She left the room, without asking him to promise anything.

Shireen had been subdued too during dinner, he recalled. In fact, it had been a very uncomfortable meal, with everyone trying to avoid each other's gaze. It must be strange for his daughter too, the girls she had been playing with since she arrived at King's Landing, suddenly for all intents and purposes were virtual prisoners in her new home. Did they speak of it, the three of them?

He stopped by his daughter's room on the way to his own bedchamber. She was asleep, but restless, her head moving from side to side, her hand grasping the mattress tightly. Dreaming about the stone dragons coming to life and chasing her again?

Should he wake her? Or would the dream pass on its own?

What would her mother do?

Perhaps he should call for his wife.

He could not recall the last time he had felt so helpless. No, in fact he did, it was the time Shireen was ill with greyscale, and almost died. Selyse had sat beside her bed the whole time. He had stayed in the room for a while, but had felt so useless he ended up waiting in the Chamber of the Painted Table instead, staring at the peaks and valleys, rivers and lands of the Seven Kingdoms.

Ned Stark would not have done that. If one of his children was ill, he would have stayed in the room with his wife and child, Stannis thought.

Ned left Winterfell after his son Bran had his fall, he countered himself.

Yes, but he left at the command of a king, he had little choice in the matter. He did not leave his wife nursing their child alone merely because he felt useless and uncomfortable, the argument continued in his head.

Even Robert, Robert would probably have stayed. Yes, he remembered that Robert went hunting every time Cersei was giving birth, but when Tommen was gravely ill with the fever sweeping the city, Robert had stayed in the room with Cersei.

But not Jaime Lannister. He was waiting outside the door, a Kingsguard doing his duty, guarding the king, while his son's life was in peril inside the room. Stannis wondered now how Jaime had felt about it.

Stannis did not go out to fetch his wife. He smoothed his daughter's forehead, whispered her name softly. "Shireen."

Or perhaps not softly enough, for she woke with a start. Shireen sat up, looking at him with an alarmed expression. "Did something happen?"

"What do you mean? Something bad?"

She nodded.

"No, nothing happened. What makes you think anything did?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. Only … why are you here, Father?"

He should have known. Of course she would be surprised, and concerned. He almost never went into her room, at Dragonstone or when she came to visit at King's Landing. They only spoke in the solar, in the dining room, or less frequently, in his study.

"You were having a bad dream."

"Was I screaming?"

"No, you were … restless."

"Then how did you know I was having a bad dream, Father? If you didn't hear me." She looked puzzled.

"I … I came to say good night."

She smiled. "Good night, Father."

"Is it the dragons again? In your dream?"

She shook her head slowly. "No." She seemed reluctant to continue, but did in the end. "I dreamed of Tommen and Myrcella, in the woods, being chased by lions. Joffrey was with them too, I suppose, but I didn't see him." She had been looking down as she was saying the words, but she looked up suddenly, her head raised high to meet his eyes. "Are they dead, Father?"

"Why would you think that they are?"

"Only, they're not here, and they're not with their grandfather, and some people are saying it's because they're dead."

"Who were saying that?"

"The servants. And the ladies who visited Mother for tea. I don't remember their names. They said everybody in the city is saying that. They're all dead. The queen, her brother, Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen."

The story had traveled fast.

"No, I don't think they're dead."

"But you don't know where they are?"

"No."

"Why did they have to go away, Father? Is it because they're not really my cousins?"

"It's because the queen and Ser Jaime … committed a crime."

"But they didn't do anything wrong, did they? Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen."

"No. No, they did not." He tried to smile, but failed miserably. "Do you think you can fall asleep again?"

"Will you stay with me until I do?" His daughter asked.

"Of course." He did manage a smile this time.

He realized now that he had not thought much of their fate, Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen. Had convinced himself that nothing would happen to them. He had listened to Robert's laments and regrets about Myrcella plenty of times since they escaped. Even Tommen, a few times. But never Joffrey. About him, Robert had only said, "I should have known he was not mine. How could I have made a son like that?"

Robert might have spared Myrcella and Tommen out of some residual feelings, but would he have really spared Joffrey?

"So you're fine with one child being killed, as long as it's not three?" Ned has asked him, that fateful day. He had never answered that question.

Was he truly convinced that Robert would not have harmed any of the children, as Ned was truly convinced that Robert would?

His mother's words rang in his head. The most dangerous lies are not the ones told to us by others. Or the ones we tell others. Or even the lies spread about us to others.

It's the lie we tell ourselves.

It didn't matter now, Ned did what he did, and the children were out of Robert's reach. But Ned's action had also complicated matters. How should that be weighed, in the balance of things?

Intentions. Consequences. Unintended consequences. Unforeseen consequences.

My own actions has unintended consequences too, he admonished himself. He realized suddenly that it was him who would not be able to sleep tonight, not his daughter. Shireen was already fast asleep, her hand clutching his. He slid his hand slowly and gently away from her grasp. There was a question he needed to ask Selyse, and if he did not ask it tonight, he knew that it would remain unasked, possibly forever. He kissed his daughter's forehead and left her room.

He knocked on his wife's door, trying to recall if he had done this before, coming to her room without prior arrangement late at night. The answer was a resounding no.

"Come in." Her voice sounded distracted. She was sitting on the bed, absorbed reading a letter. He fleetingly wondered who it was from.

Her expression turned from surprise to concern within a few seconds. "What is it? Is it Shireen?"

He did not have the time, or courage, for any long preamble. Abruptly said, "Finish your sentence earlier. When you said, is it impossible for me to believe, what did you mean? Impossible for me to believe what?"

She was watching him warily. Folded the letter she was reading slowly and carefully, stood up from the bed to put the letter in a drawer. She walked closer towards him. He realized that he was still standing very close to the door, as if preparing to bolt the moment things got too … awkward and uncomfortable.

Her voice was firm and unhesitating when she finally spoke. "That those things are important to me because they are important to my husband, of course. Even if he would never admit it to his own wife." She held out her hands to him. Minutes that felt more like days passed. Finally he reached for one of her hands, and used his other hand to close the door.