JEYNE
Ser Brynden Tully died that evening. Jeyne had stayed with him until the end, wiping his brow and holding his hand and praying for a miracle, but he'd been only half conscious when they carried him into Greywater Watch, and never woke fully again. Lady Jyana Reed had exhausted every one of her medicines and potions trying to save him, but she warned Jeyne that there were vipers in the depths of the swamps that even the crannogmen feared. To judge from the mottled fury of Ser Brynden's leg – the veins black, the fang holes livid crimson, altogether so hideous that it barely resembled a human limb – she thought he had been bitten by one. After that, all that was left was the unholy waiting.
When it became apparent that the Blackfish was gone, Jeyne choked on a sob, and pressed her knuckles hard to her mouth. When she'd reached Greywater, when she fell onto Howland's doorstep in utter disarray, she'd felt sure that it wouldn't end like this. She had been unable to do anything besides stammer out her name and pray that he'd think there was no way she could be lying about this. Howland Reed was not much taller than her, with threads of silver in his brown hair and beard and startlingly green eyes. He had listened with an expression of polite, guarded skepticism, then turned and raised a hand. A tall northern lord – Galbart Glover – and a short stout woman in a green-and-black tabard – Maege Mormont – came forward. They looked down at Jeyne, looked at each other, and nodded once.
"That's her, sure enough," Glover said.
"The Young Wolf's queen," Lady Maege confirmed.
"We thought you were in Riverrun, my lady." Glover eyed her curiously. "How on earth is it that you come to be here?"
Jeyne had managed to gasp that it did not matter, that they had to go back at once and save Ser Brynden. It was astonishing that she'd made any sense at all, but a period of great confusion resulted, culminating in Brynden being located and carried in, and Jeyne being taken to the main keep for a restorative drink and hours of frowning interrogation. She'd told them everything thrice over, struggling for the details, until she nearly went face-first into the table and Lady Maege insisted that she be sent to bed. So she collapsed into it and slept for two days straight.
That had been three days ago. According to the Reeds, Ser Brynden had already demonstrated astounding fortitude for holding out for almost a week, but not even the Blackfish's legendary stubbornness could best this foe. Jeyne knew that she had been unforgivably naïve by even hoping for his recovery in the first place. Had she not learned over and over that in this world, evil prospered and good perished? Ser Brynden had done what he was charged, by seeing her safe to Greywater, but somehow she had been audacious enough to believe that that should merit some reward apart from a gruesome, painful, lingering death.
Jeyne was so distraught that she did not even want to move, to look up, to think or breathe or be. If it wouldn't be such a dishonor to Ser Brynden's memory and the sacrifice he had made for her, she might have walked out into the swamps this very moment and waited for the same serpent to bite her. She desperately envied him. He was at rest now, his watch ended.
Lost in the wilderness of her grief, Jeyne jumped a foot when a hand touched her shoulder. "Your Grace," Lady Maege said. "Howland will send someone to keep the vigil for Ser Brynden. Come, have a bite to eat."
After so long with the Blackfish, who had called her nothing but "girl" or "child," or occasionally "my lady," Jeyne could not readjust to being addressed as a queen. It made her even more uncomfortable now than it had when Robb was alive. But she was too weary and sick at heart to quibble, and she was hungry; she had been eating as ravenously as a horse, as if to make up for all she had been deprived of during the escape. So she drew the sheet over Ser Brynden's face with hands that somehow did not shake, and followed the Lady of Bear Island out into the night.
Greywater Watch was indeed the queerest place she'd ever been in her life. It was an intricate spiderweb of domed huts and longhouses, rope bridges, narrow piers, tied-up skinboats – a castle without walls or stables or bailey, that could be ported from place to place merely by pulling up the stilts on which it was built. It did have all the moat that could be desired; even by day the air was dank and dim, the sunlight fighting through trailing veils of moss and vines, huge old trees of hard black wood. It was no wonder that Ser Brynden had said that they lived so close to the land, that they could see the future in the sward. Howland's own son was said to possess a particularly strong incarnation of the gift, but Jojen and his sister Meera had been gone for gods' years now.
The main keep was really more of a long low hall. It sat at the center of the web, branching out bridges like the veins of a heart, in the shadow of a tree so large that ten people could have stood abreast behind its trunk and still be amply hidden. Inside, it was divided with woven screens and hanging tapestries, partitioning it into Howland and Jyana's private rooms, a solar, a hall for dining, and more. Light spilled out of the windows, dancing eerily on the dark water. Crannogmen were a tight-knit, social, and fiercely loyal people, as Jeyne had discovered, and upon hearing that Ser Brynden's death was imminent, many of them had come paddling up to share in the vigil and wake. He would be honored in the old way, sent to his rest as he would have wished. More tears burned her eyes.
Sensing her anguish, Lady Maege laid a hand on her arm, and Jeyne clutched it hard. Here We Stand, the Mormont words said, and indeed they did. She had rarely known a family more suited to its motto and sigil.
They stepped off the swinging bridge and into the hall. The men and women gathered around the carved table rose to their feet, inclining their heads; it was a respectful gesture, but Jeyne did not want to be looked at, could scarcely stand it. Did they think she had come to give a speech, some rousing words, some call to arms? She was just a girl, and she had never asked for any of this.
Howland Reed clapped his hands. At once, as if this had been understood perfectly beforehand, the crannogmen began to leave. In just a few moments the room was empty, save for Howland, Jyana, Lord Galbart, and Maege and Jeyne themselves.
"Sit, my lady," Howland said, indicating a stool. As always, the Lord of Greywater Watch spoke in a soft voice, and that, combined with his unassuming physical presence, made it easy to dismiss him – until you realized how closely he paid attention to everything, enmeshed himself in the fabric of every moment, learning and filing away any scrap of information. "It was not meet to do this while you were preoccupied with Ser Brynden, and I pray you will not think me horribly unmannerly by asking you to do it now. But there is no time to waste. Everything is changed."
Jeyne nodded. From what she had gleaned from Lady Maege and Lord Galbart, they had arrived at Greywater a week after the Red Wedding, and been forced to hide in fear of their lives as the Stark cause disintegrated overnight. With the Boltons backed by the Lannisters, and no way of knowing which of Robb's other bannermen were alive, dead, imprisoned, or traitors, they had in their possession the decree which named his successor, but no way to even begin to go about enacting it. The ironmen had still been squatting in Moat Cailin and Deepwood Motte, so there was no way for them to get north to their own lands; Motte was the Glovers' own holdfast, after all. They had foreseen nothing but a very long visit with Lord Howland – not until Jeyne had fallen from the sky into their laps. Now they had a reason. Now they had a cause.
I am still Robb's queen, she reminded herself. They called her "Grace" and stood at her arrival and paid their respects because of that. She must use it for strength, must pull herself together, could not drown forever in self-pity. She took a seat and accepted the warm goblet that Lady Jyana handed her.
"My lady." Howland and the others sat as well. "I know you carried a copy of your lord husband's will, but in all the upsets, you may not have had a chance to read it."
"I have not." It was still stashed unopened in her cloak pocket. In the trauma of losing Ser Brynden, she did not think she would have been able to bear seeing Robb's seal and signature, his words left as a ghost upon the page.
"Very well." Lord Galbart took over the conversation. "We will make it simple. With his brothers Bran and Rickon murdered by Theon Greyjoy, his sister Sansa a prisoner of the Iron Throne and forcibly wed to a second Kingslayer in a family that already had one, and his sister Arya missing and almost undoubtedly dead, His Grace's wishes were very clear. In the event that you bore him no trueborn son, my lady, he wished that the title of King in the North, the lordship of Winterfell, the Stark name, and the inheritance of himself and all his forefathers to pass to his bastard half-brother, Jon Snow."
"Snow is of an age with Robb," Lady Maege put in. "He is a Sworn Brother of the Night's Watch, and last we heard, had been elevated to the rank of Lord Commander after my brother Jeor's death. He will have to be absolved from his vows, but what man would refuse, when he is offered at a stroke everything he has desired all his life but never been allowed to have? And he is Eddard Stark's last living son, even if born on the wrong side of the blanket. He knows the lessons of duty."
Howland Reed moved as if to say something, then subsided.
Jeyne shot him a curious look, but she was the only one who seemed to have noticed his reaction. "I. . . understand, my lord, my lady," she said at last. "What part is it you wish me to play in this?"
Lord Galbart and Lady Maege exchanged glances again. It was the latter who answered. "Myself and Glover have thought this over, and agree it is the best. Aside from Jon, you yourself are the continuation of His Grace's claim, the queen he chose and crowned – "
The queen who cost him everything, Jeyne thought –
" – and so," Lady Maege concluded, "you too must do your duty. When Jon Snow is made Jon Stark, when he takes the crown of bronze and iron, you will marry him."
Jeyne opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, and closed it. She should have expected this. It only made sense. It was Robb's duty to marry a Frey, and failing that was literally the death of him. She was no longer a girl, with a head full of giddy dreams and desperate first loves. Queen in the North. It might mean something more than mere words. It might be true vengeance.
"I. . . my lady, I am. . . flattered," she said faintly. "Is. . . Jon Snow of. . . a good character? Robb must have thought. . . most highly of him. . ."
"No brothers were ever closer," said Lady Maege. "Robb loved him very much and always spoke well of him. I do not doubt you would do the same."
"He is said to be a solemn and honorable young man," Lord Glover added. "He would not mistreat you, and this match would, it is worth noting, thumb the Freys thoroughly in the eye once more. Any resentment any true northman might have had against you – not that I thought they did, mind you – vanished in the abomination of their crime. And if you were got with child quickly, many would gladly believe it to be Robb's."
Jeyne put a hand to her stomach. She hadn't yet confessed her suspicions to them, could not confess them to anyone. But it took her aback that they could be sitting there so matter-of-factly discussing her potential pregnancy as an affair of state, even though she knew full well that it was.
"I. . . I will do as my lord and lady think wisest." The words caught in her throat. "I will wed Jon Snow and accept my place as queen."
"Good," said Lady Maege, "but there's still the problem of getting you to the Wall, and raising an army to boot. Offering a crown to the lad won't do us a bit of good if we don't have swords to fight for it, and the only way to rally the north is to reveal your identity at a loyalist stronghold. We had hoped for White Harbor, but. . ."
"Lord Manderly has betrayed us," Lord Galbart said bitterly. "Fawning on the Freys and gulping down whatever nonsense they fed him about the Red Wedding – and he lost his own son there, as my lady of Mormont lost her daughter Dacey! I always knew he would be the weakest link. A true northman is as hard as bone and stone and steel, not that jiggling sack of pudding. I am told he went to Winterfell to attend Ramsay Bolton's wedding. Gods be good, he'll get a taste of that Frey hospitality he seemed so to crave."
"Wedding?" Jeyne flinched at the word. "To who?"
"To a girl who is said to be Arya Stark," Lady Maege supplied. "But forgive us if we all doubt it. For Arya to be completely unaccounted for and then turn up just in time to wed the Lannisters' handpicked lord. . . it reeks of convenience, to say the least. And even if it was so, you are still the queen, Robb's wife, and Jon is still Robb's brother. Your combined claim will supersede hers."
Jeyne nodded. She was shrewd enough to know that they would be singing a song of a very different key if Robb's younger, trueborn brothers were still alive. Then she would be only the westerlands whore, the downfall of House Stark, worthy to be pitied and packed into dignified retirement in a motherhouse, but no more. Yet Lord Galbart and Lady Maege, like most of Robb's bannermen, had given everything for the Young Wolf. Northerners did not do things by half measures, and she was all they had. They needed to know that it had not been utterly in vain.
Nonetheless, Robb's brothers were dead, and it was in large part due to that that he'd married her. And by imagining Jon Snow as some lesser version of Robb, she could even work up a faint desire to marry him in turn. There was just one small thing to consider.
"My family was pardoned by King Tommen," she said timidly. "Once they find out that Elenya is not me, that we deceived Ser Jaime at Riverrun. . ."
"That is a point," said Lady Maege, "but not a problem. It will only demonstrate how resoundingly Lannister power has been brought down. As for your father, he knew nothing the entire time, so his ignorance will excuse him again – he's a highborn lord, after all, and with the noted exception of Ned Stark, such creatures are generally immune from the sufferings of us lesser mortals. Your brother Rollam may be kept as a hostage, if the Lannisters can sort heads from arses long enough to even do that, and Elenya will be married off to the first hedge knight who will take her. No, Your Grace. The only member of your family who will truly suffer for this is your mother. And from what you've told us, you have hard feelings against her to say the least."
Jeyne was quiet. No matter the number of angry fantasies she'd cherished against her mother since the Red Wedding, it was true that it was Lady Sybell who had, at considerable personal risk, chosen to change the Westerlings' wager to the northmen after watching the Lannisters crumble. It was Lady Sybell who'd arranged for Jeyne to be smuggled out of Riverrun, Lady Sybell who'd forced Elenya to pretend to be her sister. She cleared the way for this to happen. It did not outweigh the heinousness of her mother's previous behavior, but it had to be considered.
At last, Jeyne opened her mouth – though to say what, she had no idea. But then Lady Jyana Reed, who had been sitting quietly beside her husband, leaned forward. Like all the crannogmen she was small and slender, her long brown braid well streaked with grey, but she too had a natural, intrinsic authority. "Excuse me, Lord Glover, Lady Mormont," she said. "While you lay your plans, there is the one other matter I fear you have overlooked."
Lord Galbart looked half curious, half annoyed. "Aye, my lady?"
Jyana Reed shot a brief glance at Jeyne. "I am sorry. I thought you knew. The queen is pregnant."
Silence. Utter, absolute, unyielding silence. Galbart and Maege both looked as if they were about to fall off their stools, for which they could not well be faulted. Even Jeyne's head went rather light, though she at least had had the preparation of suspecting it beforehand. How can Jyana know for sure? She wanted to believe, but it had been so remorselessly beaten out of her.
"Pregnant?" It was Lady Maege who recovered first. "How is that possible? Her Grace confessed to us that her mother gave her teas intended to stop her from conceiving. Yet now – "
"I did," Jeyne blurted out. "But I did not tell you all of it. I. . . I have not had my moon blood since the Red Wedding, and that. . . that was why my mother chose to send me with the Blackfish." The words came hard to her. "The herbs are effective, but not. . . entirely. Sometimes I forgot to drink them in the morning. And Robb and I, we. . ." She was blushing crimson as a maid. It was none of their business how often she and her husband had lain together, how they had taken such shy delight in discovering the other's body, a marriage made by duty but forged by passion. "It is. . . not unthinkable."
"More than that," said Lady Jyana, "it has happened. But Your Grace, a word of caution. It is true that the draughts were not sufficient to stop you from conceiving altogether. Yet with the herbs your mother likely used, and how much of them you unwittingly consumed. . . my lady, the child might well not be born alive."
"No." Jeyne flinched. "He has to be. He must be." How else could Robb truly avenge himself, but by the sword of his son and hers? Briefly damped down, her hatred for her mother came rushing back up again.
Lady Maege Mormont, meanwhile, was still blinking like an owl. Finally she said, "If this is so, then King Robb's will – the proposed marriage – "
"I see no reason to call it off," Lord Glover insisted. "Queen Jeyne cannot rule on her own or with only an infant prince, and lest we forget, the child could be a girl. Jon Snow is a man grown, and His Grace's chosen heir. What better solution than to have him rule now, then pass the crown to Robb's trueborn son when he should come of age?"
"It is a fine plan, on parchment," Lady Maege allowed gruffly, "but very risky. . . though no more than the entire endeavor, it is true. Yet that is to presume that the child will be a boy, and survive his birth and youth, and that the sons Her Grace will have by Jon Snow shall take kindly to being deprived of their inheritance. We all know the histories of the Blackfyre Rebellions. If we mean to go ahead with the marriage, it may be wiser to hope the child does not live."
"No," Jeyne said, panicked. "This is my baby, my child, Robb's child, I won't let you take him, I won't let you kill him, I'll die myself first! I won't marry Jon Snow if that's what you mean to do, I won't – " She was verging on the brink of hysteria, but Jyana Reed put a hand on her arm.
"As for that," the Lady of Greywater Watch said, "I have had disturbing dreams about a young man with the head of a wolf. Daggers in the dark, blood on the snow, a red sword and a shattering wall of ice. I cannot see his true face, but he wears the black of the Night's Watch, and the word whispered to me is snow. A fire rages in the near distance, an inferno to melt all ice and end all days. The horn that wakes the sleepers. He draws very close to it now."
Both the stolid northerners frowned at the slight crannogwoman. "Beg pardon, m'lady," said Galbart Glover, "but you're not making a lick of sense."
"She is." Howland Reed's voice startled everyone even more than had his wife's. By the flickering rushlights, his face was hollowed in shadow, eyes washed into two black pits. "I apologize for springing another monstrous shock on you so soon after the first, but. . . I must know. Is this talk of wedding Queen Jeyne to Lord Snow, and rebuilding the Kingdom of the North, mere wind? Or is it a vow?"
"By earth and iron." Galbart Glover drew his dagger and laid it on the table.
"By ice and fire," Lady Maege added, and drew her own.
"Very well." Howland Reed seemed to have aged a dozen years in the span of moments. "I meant to take this secret to my grave, but. . . Ned will forgive me, I pray. We were the only two men who knew, and now Ned. . ."
"Is dead," Lord Glover said, somewhat shortly. "What is it, man?"
Howland took a long breath, then exhaled. "Jon Snow is not Ned Stark's son."
If Jeyne had thought that the silence was tremendous following the announcement of her pregnancy, it was nothing compared to this. Both Glover and Maege were making small choked noises, and even Jyana Reed looked blindsided; evidently her husband had not confided this to her. Jeyne herself was stunned, didn't understand how such a secret could be kept for a decade and a half, and immediately felt outraged on Robb's behalf, that he should have known Jon as a trusted and loved brother, and instead he was – who on earth was he?
Lady Maege and Lord Galbart clearly shared this question, and had somewhat more concrete methods of expressing their disbelief. "Bloody. . ." Glover started, but couldn't get the rest of the oath out. "What are you talking about? Of course he's Ned's son, he looks more like a Stark than His Grace did – may the gods assoil him," he added hastily, as if afraid of being caught speaking some blasphemy about his late liege lord. "By the wet nurse Wylla, or by Ashara Dayne – "
"Ashara Dayne's child was a girl, and stillborn." Howland was having trouble meeting their eyes. "And it was never Ned's, but Brandon Stark's. Ned was infatuated with her, it is true – and he was far from the only one, my lady of Dayne was as beautiful as the dawn after which her brother named his sword. The brother that I. . . that I killed."
Galbart and Maege goggled in unison. "The Sword of the Morning? Ser Arthur? You killed him?"
"I do not look like a villain, I know." Howland Reed gave a terse, agonized smile. "But if the world had any justice, I would have been pilloried for it the same way Ser Jaime was for killing King Aerys – and Aerys truly was a monster, whereas Ser Arthur was truly the finest knight the realm has known. But aye. It was Ned's elder brother who seduced Lady Ashara, took her maidenhead, and got her with child."
"But. . ." Glover was blinking like a concussed ox. "Lord Brandon was betrothed to Catelyn Tully, he. . ."
"Betrothal vows are not marriage vows, and Brandon Stark would never have considered himself unduly bound by either. He had the wolf's blood in him, and he scorned Ned's obstinate refusal to bed the woman he clearly wanted – Ned insisted it would not be honorable. Brandon told him that he would demonstrate where to stick his honor, and did. The relationship between the brothers was. . . never the same thereafter."
"So it was not Ashara Dayne who birthed Jon," Glover said, "but surely. . ."
Howland Reed sighed. "The story of how I killed Ser Arthur is the story of who Jon Snow is. I. . . my lord and lady have heard the tale, I do not doubt. Of how we were seven against three, and met below the eaves of the Tower of Joy, in the Red Mountains of Dorne?"
"The seven. . ." Lady Maege's mouth hung open. "Let me see if I recall them. It was you, Eddard Stark, Ethan Glover, Willam Dustin, Martyn Cassel, Theo Wull, and. . ."
"Mark Ryswell," Howland finished. "Loyal men all. Good men all. We had ridden for days on end to reach the Tower, when we heard the rumor that Lyanna Stark was hidden there. The Trident had already been fought, King's Landing had been sacked, Rhaegar was dead, Aerys was dead, Robert's Rebellion was for all intents and purposes both concluded and successful. But Ser Arthur, Ser Oswell Whent, and Lord Commander Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, were waiting for us there. Ned begged them to bend the knee, told them that they were good men and true, said that they need not die. But he must have known that he was wasting his breath. And so. . . we fought."
"I still do not understand," Lord Galbart complained.
"You will." Howland passed a hand over his eyes. "Well. . . Whent and Dayne and Hightower were some of the best there have ever been. Even outnumbering them by four, we were hard pressed. Mark Ryswell was the first to die, and Theo Wull followed next. Sword to sword we danced there in the dust and sun and wind, and from the tower window above us we could hear Lyanna screaming."
The memory clearly pained him even now, and his wife put a hand over his. He squeezed it, then forced himself to continue. "Yet Cassel and Glover took on the White Bull together, and he was not quite as fast as he had been, or as agile. They killed him quickly, at least. Still Lyanna screamed. I have never seen a man as possessed as Ned was, then. He fought as if nothing else in the world mattered to him. Whent killed Martyn, Martyn who had been Ned's dear friend and compatriot, and even that could not throw him aside. That left him and me and Willam and Ethan, against Ser Oswell and Ser Arthur. Four against two, now, and the blood. . . I dream of the blood."
Jeyne bit her lip. So do I.
"Ser Oswell died next," Howland continued. "Ned and Willam killed him. But Ser Arthur stepped up from behind and killed Willam, and killed Ethan as well when he tried to make a break for it. That left only myself and Ned against Ser Arthur, and the two of them crashed together like titans. I suspect Ser Arthur knew all about what Lord Brandon had done to his sister, the tales that were already being spread. . . truly, their fight was like something from a legend. Yet Dayne was not accounted the Sword of the Morning for nothing, and he soon had Ned bloodied and reeling. I knew I would never stand against him alone, so like a craven, I. . . I used a crannogman's oldest trick. I unslung my blowpipe, and shot a poisoned dart into the back of his neck."
"And he. . ."
"He staggered," Howland said dreamily. "Dawn dropped from his fingers. And Ned raised his own sword in both hands, and made an end of it."
Silence hung over the room, palpable as a shroud. Then Lady Maege said, "Lyanna?"
"Lyanna." Howland sighed. "Her screams were already fading by the time Ned broke down the door, crazed in his grief, and the two of us bolted up the steps to the chamber at the top. We found her in a bed of blood, with the blue roses she had so loved scattered about her. . . her hair and the curtains blowing in the breeze, and. . . the baby. . . the boy. . ."
The silence prevailed a final moment. Then Lady Maege said, "Jon."
"Yes." Howland paused to compose himself. "Lyanna was bleeding to death from childbirth. She had no woman companion, no midwife, no help of any sort. She managed to tell us that the babe had not been expected for another fortnight, which was why she was alone but for the Kingsguard below. She beckoned that Ned should take the lad, and he did. And begged, pleaded with everything that was left of her, that he claim it as his own, that he never reveal the boy's true identity."
"Gods," Galbart Glover whispered, as realization struck at last. "Gods. Are you saying – gods have mercy, man, are you saying – "
"Aye," Howland Reed said simply. "Jon is a Stark. But he is Ned's nephew, not his son. Lyanna knew what such a deception would cost her brother, how terribly it would wear on him to be unable to reveal this secret even to his wife, or to his best friend and new king. But can you blame her? For Robert's very throne rested on it, and Robert would never have stopped the war if he had even the barest inkling that Rhaegar Targaryen's son was still alive."
"His. . . son. . ."
"Aye. There have been more tales as well, these days. Tales of the other son, and his own miraculous survival. Aegon. You remember?"
"I thought them stuff and nonsense," said Lady Maege. Even the redoubtable warrior mistress of Bear Island sounded flattened. "If Aegon Targaryen can be alive, why not Robb Stark?"
"He may yet be a pretender, aye. But he is the son of a Targaryen and a Martell, and thus could claim the south. Jon, the son of a Targaryen and a Stark, could so claim the north. And there are stories of Aerys' daughter in Astapor and Yunkai and Meereen, of dragons and wonders and bears and sellswords and slaves with broken chains. Don't you see?"
"Even if this is true," said Lord Galbart, clearly scrambling for any semblance of normalcy in this conversation, "Jon would still be the younger, and bastard-born – that much does not change. And then – "
"Unless Rhaegar secretly wed Lyanna," Howland interrupted. "It would not be unprecedented by any means. Aegon the Conqueror himself had two wives."
"I would kill the bastard myself again now, if I could. Why did he do it? By all the gods, why?"
"I cannot explain the prince's deepest heart. But I believe, I truly believe, that he thought one of his sons, or both, would be the Prince who was Promised. The dragon has three heads. A Targaryen of Martell blood – fire. A Targaryen of Stark blood – ice. The ones who would balance the broken world and defeat the ultimate evil. Prince Rhaegar thought to a fault, you know. He was introverted and bookish and serious and above all, dutiful. He read the ancient prophecy, and he must have felt that he must do anything in his power to fulfill it."
"Even ripping apart a kingdom, destroying his marriage and Robert Baratheon's betrothal, causing a rebellion to be started that ended in his father's sacrilegious murder, the deaths of thousands of innocents, and the overthrow of his House and dynasty?" Glover sounded angrier than before. "I'd say we can do without that nonsense. Small wonder prophecies are such bloody chancy stuff."
"Rhaegar was not a monster," said Howland. "Nor evil, nor cruel. In that respect, he was never his father's son. I believe that Lyanna, for all that she was kidnapped by him, came eventually to care for him after a fashion. She begged on his behalf as well as Jon's."
"Be that so, but the Prince who was Promised is a tale we've been telling for centuries. A fable. Something to make us feel better in the worst of times. I'd like to believe there's a place somewhere where money grows on trees and beautiful maidens cavort in naught but their skins, and wine flows like water and the summer never ends, but it doesn't make it so. There's no hero come to save us now."
"The hour is late," Howland agreed. "I do not say the prophecy was true. I only attempt to fathom what drove Rhaegar to it."
"The hour is now." Yet again, Lady Jyana's voice made everyone start. She clutched the table, and tears started in her eyes. "You do not understand. The horn will sound, and the Wall will break. And now the Others come. This is it. There is no leisure for grief or manipulations or time or chance. All of mankind hangs by a thread. The Long Night has begun."
