Chapter 28

She was in Winterfell.

The castle was covered in snow, more than she'd ever seen, and the sun's light was filtered through thick grey clouds. Crystals of winter's frost fell from the sky like tiny diamonds, twinkling in the dim brightness of the day. Laughter caught her attention, and she turned her head around, noticing a flash of deep brown locks. Fully spinning around, she saw four children. There were three boys, all gathered in bundles of fur and holding small wooden swords in their gloved hands. The only girl was sitting on a bench of whitewood, book in her hands though her eyes were not on the pages.

The small girl watched the three boys intently, making a study of them. The eldest looked to be at the most thirteen years of age, though they played around and practiced like those older than their time. "Come on, Benjen, you're too slow!" The tallest of the boys cried out as he whacked away at the lesser child.

Benjen huffed and clutched his little wood sword tighter before swinging at his elder brother. "He's not practiced as much as you, Brandon, and he's younger," said the little girl, who raised her chin high as she raised a dark brow at her brothers. "You can't believe he'll beat you?" Wise beyond her years was the girl, who shut her book and rose, folding her arms. "Why not practice with Eddard?"

"Yes, why not?" The middle boy crossed his arms and his stony face held.

"If Benjen doesn't practice then he'll never be as good as I am," defended Brandon. "I'm only trying to teach him, Lya." Benjen fell to the snow with a final knock from his brother.

The girl stared her male counterpart with a stern eye. She couldn't have been more than six, but she had a force of iron underneath her already budding beauty, curls of brown falling to her lower waist and grey eyes calculating. Her youngest brother sat there with his own eyes of blue, dark hair ruffled from play, looking at his sister like a doe.

When she nodded to the boy, he stood once more, wiping snow from his trousers, and handed her the sword of wood- but she did not charge after her elder brother, she ran towards Lyla.

Stuck in fear, she could only feel her hot breath as it slapped her cheeks with each exhale and suddenly she could feel it, the sword slicing into her skin. When she looked down, she noticed the sword was no longer of wood, but metal, blood pouring around it. When she looked back up, it was not a six year old Lyanna Stark wielding it, but a woman well into her age with golden hair and bright green eyes.

"I told you she was just an ugly, dirty northerner," said the queen, looking towards a man that was equal to her in every way. "Do you see, Jaime? She is cut so easily." With another stab into her belly, the woman let her drop to her knees and Lyla felt hot tears rolling down her neck as she touched her stomach and whimpered.

My baby.

Awaking in a cold sweat, Lyla shot up, body roiling as she leaned off the side of the bed and emptied her belly. "Ca... Carinya!" She screamed out, coughing and falling hands and knees into the vile mess that she'd just vomited up, hair wetting in the liquid. "Carinya!" She called again. Her hand went to her stomach, holding it. Through her thin shift she could feel the spot that had grown harder with her pregnancy, now nearing its second month of progress.

Sitting back and caressing her belly, she felt the water slide down her face. The dreams had been coming more frequently now, the ones where she would lose the babe that grew within her or where she was home again- but she was not herself in those. Throwing her head back against the furs that hung low on the side of the bed, she let the sobs shake her body without resentment, sitting in her throw up, She hadn't time to worry about it, when she was already worrying about her babe. Was it a sign that in every dream she lost it? Was she going to lose it?

The door swung open and in came a rush of boots and soft slippers. Addam Marbrand knelt at her side and sighed, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her while Carinya fluttered at his side, mussing with her hair and pulling it back, drying the tears from under her eyes. It was not the first time that this had happened in the past two weeks that Jaime had been gone. Her ladymaid ensured her that it was normal for a woman with child to have strange dreams, but Lyla knew there was something more to her night terrors- there was something true in them.

Carinya quickly left to fetch hot water for a bath and Ser Addam lay Lyla in the tub. "I'm sorry," she whispered to the man who so reminded her of her brother, Robb. "I... could have walked in myself..."

"Nonsense," he said. "I'm here to help, my lady. Truly, I enjoy serving you." Ser Addam was a handsome man, with creamy skin and copper hair, and his sincerity was so comforting. She wondered how heenjoyed serving a tired, sick, pregnant woman all hours of the night, when he could and should be out romancing some pretty tavern maid.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, leaning into the giant tub. "Has there been any word of Jaime yet?" She asked, looking to him from the corner of her eye. The answer would be the same as it was every day, but asking made her feel better for some reason. He should not be gone for so long, and especially without word.

"I'm sorry, my lady, but no. There has been no word."

"Of course not." She turned her head up to see Carinya enter the bathing chamber with a few buckets of hot water, the other three guards carrying more. Once the tub was filled the men all left, to fetch maids to clean the mess by the bed, and Carinya undressed Lyla, beginning to gently scrub at her skin. The woman that Jaime had appointed to her as a handmaid had always been so kind- it was a constant relief.

She could hear the scraping of rough brushes against the stone floor as little maids worked to clean the vomit. "I ought to sleep with my head in a chamberpot," she jested to Carinya, but her handmaid did not laugh.

"You're just not used to the babe yet is all," insisted the pretty young maid, whose braid fell frizzy down her side, fuzzed from sleep. "You must get some rest today, my lady. You're not well. Perhaps I shall bring in Maester Pycelle? I've heard from other handmaids that bedrest works wonders on an exhausted body."

"I'll not go on bedrest." Her voice was firmer than need be, but she cared not anymore. It had been the fourth time at least that her maid had suggested it, and though she knew it was meant in the best intentions, she couldn't help but feel like it was an easy way to keep her out of trouble, out of the way of her father and the king and her husband. Not that she needed to be kept from Jaime's troubles- he had run away from her and the baby.

I should have known he was faking it, she thought bitterly. I should have known he would end up leaving me and making his way home now that he's been taken from the Kingsguard. He probably will just annul the marriage now that he's had his way and wed some pretty southerner. But he had said he loved her, and the babe. He had offered to take her and her family far away where they could be safe- not that Casterly Rock was safe with it housing Tywin Lannister. He would probably have her father and sisters put to death, wait until she had birthed her babe by Jaime, and then kill her too.

Carinya had begun to help her from the tub and dry her off when she heard an odd commotion outside her bedchamber and pulled on a thick velvet robe of silver, lined in white. "What is going on?" She demanded of her guards, all blocking her door. She stood on her tiptoes and watched as two men carried a stretcher across the hall. A man, tall and black haired, stared at her for a moment before returning to the other man's side, who was dripping blood on the cobble floors.

"Renly," she called. "Renly!"

Shoved her guards aside and running through them, she reached the king's brother, tugging on his arm. "You should go back to your chamber," he said with eyes as large as moons. "Please, Lyla, return to your bed. Or see to your sisters. Please."

Looking to the man on the stretcher, Lyla gasped and tears filled her eyes. The smell of corruption finally reached her nose and she covered her mouth to hide a choked sob as she saw Robert Baratheon lain straight on the sheet of ivory. There was a tusk stuck in his chest, and blood spilled all over. By first glance she could see. She knew.

"Oh gods, no," she whispered, grabbing at Robert's hand. It was a struggle to keep up with the men that ran His Grace down the halls, spiriting him away to where the royal apartments were. "Oh hells."

They gently placed Robert on his giant bed and the king grunted, looking around. "Where is my damned brother," he screamed, wincing at the pain from the tusk in his chest moving with each word.

"I am here, Robert," said Renly, making his way to Robert's side, laying a hand on Lyla's shoulder. "What do you need?"

"I need my damn Hand," cursed the king. "Ned, I need Ned."

"Your Grace, I wish for my father to come as well, but we need the maester here first." Lyla smoothed his hair back and pursed her lips. "You must be treated."

Robert eyed her and nodded. "As you will," he said. It was the same thing he'd said to Cersei about the direwolves. But Jaime saved them.

Pycelle arrived quickly and removed the tusk with a hurry, pouring various vials of ointment onto the wound and rubbing lotions around the gash as if to alleviate the skin around it before he doused it with boiling wine and tried his best to stitch the flabs together. After he'd finished, Lyla placed a heavy blanket over Robert's belly. "Drink, Your Grace, please drink." The old man held a bottle of milk of the poppy to Robert's lips and at first he looked as if he would decline, but Lyla glared at him and- in a very improper fashion- reach a hand out and forced his mouth open for the maester the pour the mixture down.

"If you stay stubborn like that you'll die," she warned.

Robert snorted. "And if I don't I'll die just as fast, only I won't be able to talk."

She shook her head, holding his hand until he fell into a deep sleep. "Call for my father," she told the king's personal steward. "Bring Tomard and Cayn." The man raised a chin, like he would defy, but she stood and grabbed his doublet by the collar. "Call for my father," she repeated through ground teeth.

The man blinked back shock at the unladylike act and made his way quickly to find her father's guards and wake the Lord Stark.

She sat back down in the chair by Robert's bed and sighed, looking over to Renly. "What in the seven hells happened, Renly?" She asked. Robert's crown lay on the table beside him and he looked to be sweating a storm. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't. Robert couldn't be dying. They were thoughts that kept creeping through her mind, but when she looked at him, laying there with bloody bandages hastily wrapped over his chest seeping with blood and his skin so colorless, she knew it would be true. No man could survive such a powerful blow. It was a miracle he was still alive.

"The boar... Robert was so drunk and he wouldn't leave it. He waited until the last moment but he was too slow."

"Why did you not help him? Why not go after the boar or shoot at it with arrows? I should have gone with you all. Or sent Addam." She shook her head, freshly dried curls bouncing furiously around her. "How could you be so simple as to let this happen to Robert? Where is Her Grace?" It wasn't that Lyla wanted to see the queen, not after her dream, but she should be with Robert.

"I am here." The voice was tired and croaked, and both Lyla and Renly turned to see Cersei standing in the doorway, though she did not stay there for long. Gathering her skirts, she rushed to Robert, all sleep leaving her eyes. "It is true then," she murmured, taking his hand and sitting at the end of the bed, pursing her lips. Queen Cersei wore no lavish gown or jewels or tiara, only a simple sleep-shift of crimson with tousled hair of gold falling down her shoulder. The woman looked beautiful, even for her age and the children she'd had, and for a moment, Lyla saw a touch of sadness in the monarch's emerald eyes.

"Shall I bring the children, your Highness?" Asked Jocelyn Swyft, the queen's lady-in-waiting.

Cersei turned her head slightly, considering it. "No," she decided in the end. "No, let them sleep. Better they have sweet dreams than see..."

"Yes, my queen." The lady bowed her head and folded her hands together.

"How?" Cersei looked up to Renly with a raised brow. "How did this happen?"

"It was a boar, Your Grace," Lyla said softly, looking at Robert as he began to wake, slowly. He looked from Renly to Lyla to Cersei, and grimaced, laying his head back and pursing his lips.

Maester Pycelle was standing on the other side of Robert's bed, Renly paced in front of the window, and Cersei sat at his bed, with Lyla at his side. Servants ran all over the rooms, feeding the dual fireplaces and boiling more wine. Suddenly the door burst open. It was the steward. "Lord Eddard Stark, Hand of the King," he announced.

"Bring him here," Robert called in his dream-milk slick voice.

The room was red from the fire, and as her father entered, his white skin burned ruby. He looked around, and she followed his stare. To where Robert's boots were still on his feet, caked in mud and grass, and where the green doublet he was wearing had been slashed open and discarded on the ground, crusty with brown blood. When his nose wrinkled she knew it was because of the smells; smoke and blood and death.

"Ned," the king whispered when blue eyes caught grey. "Come... closer."

Her father went to the side of the bed, holding the bedpost for support. He still leaned heavily on his walking-stick, and his plaster-sheathed leg was loud on the ground as he walked. When her father finally noticed her, she reached a hand to his and squeezed, hoping he would understand that explanations for her presence were not of importance. He looked back to Robert. "What...?"

"A boar," Lyla said. Across the room Lord Renly grunted his agreement. He was still dressed in his hunter greens, all blood-spattered and slick.

"A devil," Robert corrected. "My own fault. Too much wine, damn me to hell. Missed my thrust."

"And where were the rest of you?" Ned glared at Renly, eyes demanding. "Where was Ser Barristan and the Kingsguard?"

Renly's mouth twitched darkly. "My brother commanded us to stand aside and let him take the boar alone."

Her father lifted the blanket.

She stared at Robert's deformed body with eyes grown misty from the stench. He had been ripped from groin to nipple, and though they'd done what they could to close him, it wasn't enough. The wine-soaked bandages that Pycelle had wrapped over him had already gone black with blood, and the would smelled horrendous. When he dropped the blanket, it fluidly fell back in place, covering the wound and masking some of the scent. Where the royal apartments had once smelled of perfumes and lavender, they now smelled of rat poison and gore.

"Stinks," Robert said. "The stink of death, don't think I can't smell it. Bastard did me good, eh? But I... I paid him back in kind, Ned." Robert's smile made Lyla cringe- it was almost as awful as his gash, bloody and clotted as it was. "Drove a knife right through his eye. Ask them if I didn't. Ask them."

"Truly," affirmed Lord Renly. "We brought the carcass back with us, at my brother's command." He seemed to say that everything had been at Robert's command, but who had been there to command Robert? He may have been a king, but even kings needed to be told no every once in a while.

"For the feast," Robert whispered. "Now leave us. The lot of you. I need to speak with Ned."

Cersei's lip quivered, however slightly. "Robert, my sweet lord..."

"I said leave," Robert insisted with some of his old ferocity. "What part of that don't you understand, woman?" Rising, Cersei gathered her skirts and left with the rest of her dignity, Renly and the others behind her. Lyla went to follow, but Robert caught her hand. "Not you... you stay."

She looked to her father, who nodded, before sitting back down. "Please, father, take the weight from your leg and sit," she urged, patting the chair beside her. He looked at it and then sighed, taking a seat.

Grand Maester Pycelle came over with his shaky hands, vial of thick white liquid in his grasp. It was the dream-milk that he'd given the king earlier. "The milk of the poppy, You Grace," he said. "Drink. For your pain."

But Robert knocked the cup away with the back of his hand and grunted. "Away with you. I'll sleep soon enough, old fool. Get out."

The Grand Maester looked at her father, stricken, before he shuffled from the room.

"Damn you, Robert," said her father once it was just they three. She could tell he was in pain from his leg, but she could also tell he was feeling grief, as it clouded his eyes like rain clouds. "Why do you always have to be so headstrong?" The question seemed to pain him.

"Ah, fuck you, Ned." The king sounded hoarse. "I killed the bastard, didn't I?" A curl of matted hair fell into Robert's eyes as he glared at her father, and Lyla wiped it away, cupping his cheek lightly before folding her hands together. "Ought to do you same for you. Can't leave a man to his hunt in peace. Ser Robar found me. Gregor's head. Ugly thought. Never told the Hound. Let Cersei surprise him." As soon as the king laughed he fell into a grunt, spasming with pain. "Gods have mercy," he muttered, swallowing in agony. "The girl. Daenerys. Only a child, you were right... that's why, the girl... the gods sent the boar... sent to punish me..." The king coughed up blood, and Lyla wiped some from her cheek with the back of her hand. "Wrong, it was wrong, I... only a girl... Varys, Littlefinger, even my brother... worthless... no one to tell me no but you, Ned... only you..." He feebly lifted a hand. "Paper and ink. There, on the table. Lyla, write what I tell you."

She smoothed the parchment out on her knee and took the quill. "At your command, Your Grace," she said.

"This is the will and word of Robert of House Baratheon, the First of his Name, King of the Andals and all the rest- put in the damn titles, you know how it goes. I do hereby command Eddard of House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Hand of the King, to serve as Lord Regent and Protector of the Realm upon my... upon my death... to rule in my... in my stead, until my son Joffrey does come of age."

"Robert..." Her father began, but he quieted. He looked to Lyla, staring at the paper, and under the pressure of his gaze and by the motions of his lips as he mouthed the words to write, she bent her head and stated "my heir" in place of "my son Joffrey". Her eyes flew quizzical up to him, but he had already looked away. My heir? Joffrey was the heir. But she would not defy her father's will.

"What else would you have me say?" She asked Robert.

"Say... whatever you need to. Protect and defend, gods old and new, you have the words. Write. I'll sign it. You give it to the council when I'm dead." Lyla looked up at the king with sad eyes and then looked back down, writing what needed to be said.

"Robert," her father said in a voice thick with grief. "You must not do this. don't die on me. The realm needs you."

Robert took Ned's hand, fingers squeezing. "You are such a bad liar, Ned Stark," he said through his pain. "The realm... the realm knows... what a wretched king I've been. Bad as Aerys, the gods spare me."

"No," Lyla said to the dying man, placing the paper and quill down on the bedside table. "Not so bad as Aerys, Your Grace. Not near so bad as Aerys."

Robert managed a red smile and his eyes went from Ned to Lyla and back to Ned. "At the least, they will say... this last thing... this I did right. You won't fail me. You'll rule now. You'll hate it, worse than I did... but you'll do well. Are you done with the scribbling, girl?"

"Yes, Your Grace," Lyla said as she offered the paper to Robert. The king scrawled his signature blindly, leaving a smear of blood across the letter. "The seal should be witnessed."

"Serve the boar at my funeral feast," rasped the king. "Apple in its mouth, skin seared crisp. Eat the bastard. Don't care if you choke on him. Promise me, Ned."

"I promise." Her father's eyes grew cold as the king spoke those last three words, and it was like he was staring into the eyes of a ghost for a moment before the king spoke and dragged him from whatever fantasy he was having.

"The girl," the king said. "Daenerys. Let her live. If you can, if it... not too late... talk to them... Varys, Littlefinger... don't let them kill her. And help my son, Ned. Make him be... better than me." He winced. "Gods have mercy."

"They will my friend," Ned said. "They will."

Robert closed his blue eyes, visibly relaxing. "Killed by a pig. Ought to laugh but it hurts too much."

Neither she nor her father laughed. "Shall I call them back?" Eddard asked of his friend.

"As you will." The king nodded, then shivered. "Gods, why is it so cold in here?"

Servants rushed in like water, feeding the fires at Lyla's command. The queen had gone and Robert seemed to miss her naught. Renly, the Grand Maester, and Lyla all stood watch as Robert pressed the seal onto the letter, stamping a black stag into the hot yellow wax that her father had dripped onto the paper. "Now give me something for the pain and let me die," Robert ordered.

The maester worked quickly to mix another drought of the milk of the poppy, and Robert drank until his beard was beaded with white droplets. "Will I dream?"

"You will, my lord," Lyla said. She'd had the poppy's milk enough at Winterfell when she'd broken all sorts of her bones, and she'd dreamed each time.

He smiled once more. "Good. I will give Lyanna your love, Ned. Lyla, take care of the little ones for me."

She nodded and ran a finger across his brow. "Of course."

Her father also spoke. "I shall... guard your children as if they were my own," he said slowly. She caught him staring at her belly, where she and Jaime's child grew, and she raised a brow- but he would not meet her eyes.

She stayed by his side until he fell back asleep, not snoring but deep and restful. He looked so young there in his bed, hands at his sides and black beard covering his extra chins. He might have even seemed handsome in a certain light as he lay there, but not particularly. Rising, she placed kisses to his cheeks and smiled sadly at him in his sleep, taking her father's hand and allowing him to escort her from the royal chambers.

Maester Pycelle found them as soon as they'd gotten to the main entrance of the apartments. "I will do all in my power, my lord, but the wound has mortified. It took them two days to get him back. By the time I saw him, it was too late. I can lessen His Grace's suffering, but only the gods can heal him now."

"How long?" Lyla asked.

"By rights, he should be dead already. I have never seen a man cling to life to fiercely."

"My brother was always strong," Renly commented. "Not wise, perhaps, but strong." The chamber was so hot she felt as though her skin would boil, and Lyla released her father's arm, making her way into the hall and breathing the cool air- not that it was cold in the hallways, for the South was as hot as it would be, but it was still a relief. She could still hear Renly speak. "He slew the boar. His entrails were sliding from his belly, yet somehow he slew the boar."

Her father met her out in the hall and held a hand to her belly for a moment, raising a brow as though questioning if the babe was okay. She nodded and he turned back to Renly. "Robert was never a man to leave the battleground so long as the foe remained standing," Ned told him.

Looking to Ser Barristan Selmy, who stood guard at the door, her father spoke. "Maester Pycelle has given Robert the milk of the poppy," he said. "See that no one disturbs his rest without leave from me."

"It shall be as you command, my lord." Ser Barristan looked older than his years at that moment, frowning. "I have failed my sacred trust."

"Even the truest knight cannot protect a king against himself," Lyla told the man, giving him a small smile of reassurance.

Ned nodded. "Robert loved to hunt boar. I have seen him take a thousand of them." Her father fell reminiscent and she rubbed his arm to bring him back to the present. "No one could know this one would be his death," he finished.

"You are kind to say so, Lord Eddard and Lady Lyla," Ser Barristan said.

"The king himself said as much. He blamed the wine."

The old knight gave a weary nod. "His Grace was reeling in his saddle by the time we flushed the boar from his lair, yet he commanded us all to stand aside."

"I wonder, Ser Barristan," asked the spider of the capitol, so quietly, "who gave the king this wine?" Lyla steeled herself so she wouldn't jump. She's not heard the eunuch approach, but she turned and there he was. He was dressed in a black robe of velvet that brushed the floor, and his face was freshly powdered.

"The wine was from the king's own skin," Ser Barristan said.

"Only one skin? Hunting is such thirsty work."

"I did not keep count. More than one, for a certainty. His squire would fetch him a fresh skin whenever he required it."

"Such a dutiful boy," said Varys, "to make certain His Grace did not lack for refreshment."

Her father gripped her hand. "Tyrek," he murmured. Lancel had gone west with Jaime in tow. Her heart twisted when she thought of him. She knew her earlier allegations were ridiculous, but how could he have been gone for so long? It had been two weeks when the search should have taken only a few days. She leaned into her father and he laid his arm around her shoulder, kissing the crown of her head.

"I know the lad well," said Varys. "A stalwart boy, Ser Tygett Lannister's son, nephew to Lord Tywin and cousin to the queen. I hope the dear sweet lad does not blame himself. Children are so vulnerable in the innocence of their youth, how well do I remember." The spider's eyes lingered on Lyla for particularly long.

"You mention children," she said. "Robert had a change of heart concerning Daenerys Targaryen. Whatever arrangements you made, I want them unmade. At once."

"Alas," Varys said. "At once may be too late. I fear those birds have flown. But I shall do what I can, my lady. With your lord father's leave." Ned nodded and the spider bowed before disappearing down the hall, soft-soled slippers whispering against the stone as he went.

Cayn and Tomard went to them, but Lyla waved them off and helped her father across the bridge herself. She couldn't believe that Robert was dead. Joffrey would be king and Sansa would be his queen. The time to save her family was walking on a frail line and if she crossed it, by the smallest of hairs, she would fall into the black pits below.

There was the clamoring of boots and Lyla turned to see Lord Renly emerging from Maegor's Holdfast. "Lord Eddard, Lady Lyla," he called. "A moment if you would be so kind."

Her father stopped. "As you wish."

Renly walked to face them. "Send your men away," he told Lyla. She looked over her shoulder to see Addam Marbrand and her other three guards eying the king's brother with curiosity.

She waved them back, and they responded quickly. Lord Renly glanced warily at Ser Boros on the far end of the span, and at Ser Preston in the doorway behind them. "That letter." He leaned in close. "What is the regency? Has my brother named you Protector?" He didn't bother waiting for a reply. "My lord, I have thirty men in my personal guard and other friends beside, knights and lords. Give me an hour and I can put a hundred swords in your hand."

"And what should he do with a hundred swords, my lord?" Lyla asked for her father.

"Strike! Now, while the castle sleeps." He looked over his shoulder, back at Ser Boros, and dropped his voice to a low whisper. "We must get Joffrey away from his mother and take him in hand. Protector or no, the man who holds the king holds the kingdom. We should seize Myrcella and Tommen as well. Once we have her children, Cersei will not dare oppose us. The council will confirm you as Lord Protector and make Joffrey your ward."

Her father regarded the man with cold grey eyes, sharp like ice. "Robert is not dead yet. The gods may spare him. If not, I shall convene the council to hear his final words and consider the matter of the succession, but I will not dishonor his last hours on the earth by shedding blood in his halls and dragging frightened children from their beds."

Lord Renly stepped back, taut as a bowstring. Was this the kind and loving Renly that Loras had gossiped to her about when she was just a girl in Highgarden? Surely not. "Every moment you delay gives Cersei another moment to prepare. By the time Robert dies, it may be too late... for both of us. For your daughters."

"Then we shall pray that Robert does not die," said Lyla.

"Small chance of that," Renly retorted.

"Sometimes the gods are merciful," her father replied.

"The Lannisters are not." He looked to Lyla and her belly- did everyone know of her pregnancy now?- and turned away, heading back across the moat to the tower where his brother lay dying.

Lyla looked up at her father. "Perhaps we should listen to Renly..." she said softly. "What if the queen does plot? I'll not have you in trouble or being hurt, father."

"I'll not be hurt, sweet girl. Should Robert die and the gods reap his soul, then I shall be the Hand still- only of a different king."

"King Joffrey." The name was bitter on her tongue. The beast did not deserve a crown or the throne.

"A different king," repeated Ned. His eyes fell to her stomach once more but he looked away again and they resumed their walk back to his chamber.

She kissed his cheek when they arrived and begged him to rethink on Renly's offer. She knew enough of Cersei and had dealt enough with her to know that behind her pretty gold hair and light green eyes she was a fierce lioness, and no good could come of a war between lions and wolves- neither could win. He promised he would think on it, and then she went back to her chamber in the Red Keep, where she would lay in her and Jaime's bed, without a wink of sleep to come, and wait for the bells to ring.

The bells for Robert Baratheon, the king that was slain by a pig.