The Warrior cannot be without the Sword,
And the Sword cannot be without the Wife.
Songs of the Faceless, XXXI (Lost leaf)
"They held each other close and turned their backs upon the end.
The hills that split asunder and the black that ate the skies;
The flames that shot so high and hot that even dragons burned;
Would never be the final sights that fell upon their eyes."
A Song of Ice and Fire
It was a great collapse.
He was dead, yet undead.
Who are you?
The Valyrian had passed away, yet blessed continuance seemed to have found him. When he opened his eyes, there was only a blinding flash of white light, but the source of the light is a pellucid being, her translucence absorbing all forms of warmth. There he was, hanging reversed in that windlass in front of the god of death, and he was then a subject of dark poetry, the verses of which are written in blood and recited by lips frozen and perishing.
There were spirits and forlorn images and unsparing agony and pall, and all these elements converged in an act of worship to one whose name men do not speak of.
You wish to kill me, Warrior?
Her lips were lurid blue, her form pale and glassy; and if ever she wept, her tears would most likely be in the form of crystal ice. But the god of death never weeps, for she is the source of emotions and entanglements that impel the very act—she had to be outside of that which she had 'created'; and it is not that she does not have the capacity to weep, she is a god after all, and gods can do almost anything.
The death god never weeps because she has no notion of mirth, and for one to understand sorrow, one must know what it is not. She does not and will never possess the reason either, to be compelled to shed tears. The deity understands but a few phrases in their fullest sense: mortality, downfall, annihilation.
All others, to her, were inconsequential.
Who are you?
Her feet were not rooted upon the ground of glassy ice. She glissaded around him, ensphered his feeble frame, suspended herself upside down in front of him so she could observe his handsome face. The same query from her rang in his ears like persistent hisses and murmurs. She spoke in a language he does not know, but a language all men understand.
The Old Tongue. The tongue of Death.
He answered weakly.
"Jaqen H'ghar."
She replied, soft laughter upon her lips.
Jaqen is dead.
But does he know what it truly means to die?
The one called Jaqen H'ghar gazed at the god's face—facelessness rather. She is Winter, and her heart was the source of vile coldness that brings forth cessation of life—a contrast to the heart of fire that warms and preserves all those that have breath. Her entire mien, the wholeness of her appeared to be mirrors of infinite faces, some true and some false, her core a perpetual visual tunnel of all men that had accepted quietus and had become a part of her.
She is Death, without commencements and completions. She is a cycle, for men were long dead before they are born and will die after they are born.
"When life ends, death begins," he replied hoarsely. "I died in the hands of my kin, I know what it means to die."
Beginnings and endings, said the god. You speak of time, and time confines you.
What if Death is outside of time?
What if immortality is not perpetual existence in time, but a state beyond time itself?
Riddles. They say that the god of death hides her true intentions in her facelessness and her many faces. The most possessive of all gods, the wise would say, as if breath and warmth of life are blasphemies in her name. Men must be fallen sparks and fragments of shattered vessels, men must not be here at all.
"Time is not an illusion," Jaqen said. "It cannot be. What of the past, and my memories of it? Reality had to happen for past to exist and in turn, for memories to be created. Time is the core element."
Ah, the past, the deity said. The now, the forthcoming. No wonder why you men cannot be gods. You measure your realities against the arrow of time.
What if the only reality that exists is the 'Now'? An infinitude of it?
What if those other gods, as they have created you men, have created memories in you as well?
Memories of time that never actually happened?
Jaqen shook his head, spoke once more though his lips were quivering. "Memories could not have been planted within us by the gods. I felt those lashes against my body, tasted the blood and the dust, saw dragonfire that consumed me, heard my kin screaming for my execution—no…" Arya cannot be just a created memory. "My realities are not false ones."
The deity smiled. And how do you measure falsehood?
You wish to kill me, Warrior?
She continued ensphering him, hissing angrily and with unthinkable hatred, her movements blowing gusts of winter's wind that sent shudders in his wholeness. Her formless form had coiled around him, like frozen strong silk that suffocates. The Valyrian renamed felt fear coursing through every part of him.
She was then mist transformed, invading his body by entering through his mouth, possessing him, tormenting his inner person, then departing from his frame by breaking through his every orifice, like a million spirits in a single host.
"Aaaaaaaarghhhh!" Jaqen howled in excruciation. Where is true death that allows escape from pain?
Black blood trickled from his nose, eyes, mouth, ears, pores…
You wish to kill what is already dead? That is nothing but paradox.
Then, she was gone. Her voice filled his ears, and it was coming from all and every direction and space.
You may kill me, for gods can die just as they can be reborn.
Apparition…she materialized…waned…emerged and faded…a whole evanescence…a beautiful, horrifying one.
He felt her lips so close to his own.
It was the Great Other's seduction of the Warrior of Light.
You can kill me, but not before you kill your Nissa. That is the precondition set in the prophecies.
He had seen it—the darkness that is the Heart of Winter, the wights that feed on the flesh of living men, the act of prolonging suffering by creating the undead out of the dead, holocaust through winter's breath.
See those Undead? They have perished but they are alive.
Death is a cycle. Nothing more.
Why do men fear repetitions? Why do men fear Death?
The prophecy was arranged by the Elder Mage for a purpose perchance that is all-good, yet the great sacrifice was beyond the comprehensions of his mind that reasons and his heart that loves.
Kill her, kill me.
Save me, save her.
"I'm not a hero, to do the saving," Jaqen murmured feebly. There was but a single thing he understood about the Warrior of Light—it is a lore riddled with plots of unnecessary sacrifice. A whole lunacy. As for Jaqen H'ghar, one thing and one thing only mattered and made sense. "But I want her—Nymeria, Arya, Nissa—whoever she is. I want her back."
It was the response the god of death desired more than any.
The Nissa is her obverse—life versus death, virtue versus vile. And though the gods cannot be reduced to such twofoldness, the concept of twofoldness is still a fraction of the infinite spectrum of essences and eruditions the gods possess.
The Warrior cannot be without the Sword, and the Sword cannot be without the Wife.
What would you give for another life and death with her? A whole other cycle?
The deity's question was wrong though, for there was absolutely nothing Jaqen H'ghar would not give for another life with Arya of the Rhoyne. He cast aside all thoughts and visions of blight, of the long winter that will ravage the realms of men. Let another Warrior emerge from another age, the Valyrian renamed was uncompromising in his obsession. I am far from a hero, I am nothing without her.
"What would you have me give?"
The deity smiled once more, bent over to kiss him on the lips. The contact was painful, sweltering.
Breaker of chains, freer of slaves.
One thing.
You.
Your life will be mine, and so shall your death be.
The bargain was too simple—one man's devil may be another man's god. This god of death may host in her all manners and forms of darkness, but who is to decide if she is evil or good? The Mage and his Asshaii lore? The endless versions of the Warrior's saga? And don't gods create men as men create gods—destroy each other even, albeit in different ways? All these are senseless queries, Jaqen thought as his heart broke, even in his supposed death. The one thing more important to me than all gods and men combined is Arya.
The death god continued with her demands.
Breaker of Chains, freer of slaves.
A god needs you.
A chained god. A slave god.
Time will come and you must free him,
The same way that you have freed your Nissa's riverkin.
"How do you free a chained god?" the Valyrian asked.
There was nothing but a labyrinth of mysteries in the death god's pronouncements. The verses of her poesy were both vague and evil:
Infinite realm-forms, seven facets of the Self.
Body, soul, will, memories, realities, purpose…
Substance.
Live, die, live, die.
In the end—your mortal shell.
In the end—you and that god.
In the end—a coming together.
Who are you?
"Jaqen H'ghar."
The death god hissed angrily, encircled him once more.
Jaqen is dead!
She ceased moving and drifted in front of him, pressed her face against his.
Who are you?
He understood nothing of the death god's demands. His response came with certitude, nonetheless.
"No One."
The dragonlords of Valyria who still lived half a millennium after the Second Spice War and those ten thousand ships branded Aenar Targaryen the greatest of all cowards. It was roughly a century before the blood of dragon conquerors when the Targaryen lord sold all of his holdings in the Long Summer and in the Freehold. "A cockless exile, that's who Aenar is," the members of the Conclave had said. "To flee from the Mother's bosoms because of a maiden's dragon dream? Targaryens are damn superstitious. Let them go—we have enough firebeasts than we would ever need; and it's the year of slave-breeding anyway, no conquests for the next twelve moons."
Hence, the Conclave did not object. A citadel had been established west of the Narrow Sea in Dragonstone, as the lords of Blackwater Bay had finally stopped resisting. Aenar Targaryen took with him five dragons, one being Balerion which would later be called the Black Dread, though imperial dragons dwarfed it in size in fact, and in abilities in flight and combat. With him were Daenys the Dreamer and Gaemon the Glorious. Three days after Aenar had set sail, the Velaryons and the Celtigars rowed their ships from Valyria to Dragonmont.
Valar Morghulis was how they said it in Old Valyria—all men must die. And thus, it was proven true twelve years after the maiden had revealed her dragon dreams to her Targaryen lord-father. From the topmost cloisters of their castle in Dragonstone, they saw how that string of fourteen volcanoes west of Tyria had devoured the Freehold from lands to remote straits, sending molten rocks a thousand feet up in the air, causing great tides to engulf the east and the Isle of Cedars that lay close. Lords and slaves, even dragons were said to have perished during that Doom.
Still, the causes of it were unknown. Did the lords perchance dig too deep such that they have touched upon the seventh hell? Was it the curse of Garin of Chroyane who was conquered yet unconquered during the Second Spice? Or the wrath of R'hllor because of the lords' unsanctioned genocidal acts using firebeasts?
Was it spurred by a phalanx of fire mages assassinating slaves and lords alike with the promise of death as gift, so Valyria may fall—its material existence, its memories?
"A present from the Elder mage before we departed, father," Gaemon had told Aenar three nights after the Doom. He unsheathed the Valyrian steel from its scabbard. "A firesword—Blackfyre, he calls it. He said it was forged originally for the Archon-heir from the greathouse Esdraelon, but the heir refused to wield it. It came with another sword for Daenys—the one with the slender blade."
"Akhrast L'ris?" Aenar paused from his usual musings and sat upright asudden. He placed both of his hands on the Painted Table that contained the carved map of Westeros. "The same mage who told me about those dragon dreams, yes?"
"That is he, father."
"He spoke of a throne," Aenar replied, pensive. He may drown himself underneath the convolutions of his own thoughts, yet he knew that the cataclysm he just witnessed, that one which took the lives of his kin, would haunt him till the last of his days. "A throne forged by dragon's breath."
Gaemon chuckled, then examined the patterns of the sword obsessively. The crossguard contained two dragonheads on both sides, and the tip of its handle held a glistening ruby, very much alike those Quellers worn by Archons and their heirs. "The Elder spoke of a lot of things, father, and bless him for doing so. I have persuaded him to sail with us here, yet he rejected my offer. I thought he planned to return to the Shadowlands, yet he remained in the Freehold and now…" the Targaryen lad shook his head, and slowly darted his eyes east where the Doom still ruled through flame and ash over the ruins. "And now, he may have perished with the rest of them."
"Show me the sword," Aenar ordered, and Gaemon promptly handed it to him. With his long fingers, he assayed the steel, the abstract patterns upon the blade, the resilience of it, the magic within. "This is not just any sword." He concluded. "This sword was forged and tempered for over a hundred days."
"Infused with rune, perhaps?" the lad asked.
"For sure, it is." He attempted to balance the sword on his palm through its crossguard and grip. "I see fire in this sword, blood—"
"A Warrior's sword, he named it," Gaemon cut him. "Why do you think would he give it to us, Targaryens? If this was created for the heir, then it should have been passed on to whoever the ruling clan in the Freehold is, and that was House Archestrad."
Aenar Targaryen heaved a sigh, eyes still fixated upon Blackfyre's glistening fuller. He ran his forefinger across its quillons of dragonheads. "Only the gods know what that Elder mage was thinking."
Five full years since he had been in that memory last, but Bran Stark could still smell the moistness of near-winter drizzle and the soft kiss of cold he had known all his young life. The weirwood's blood-red leaves and sap have their distinct scent, though a little subtle in that autumn's season. He had just departed from Maester Luwin's turret—cluttered as in its usual state, with parchments and writing implements on this oaken table and that. Done he was with sums and letters for the day under the maester's instructions. His feet…he remembered his feet itching that day, and so he took off his boots to scratch his bare soles, but the scratching did not help one bit.
Eddard was then on his mount, with Robb and Uncle Benjen behind. The Baratheon king needed to be accompanied in his usual sport, as if beasts were plentiful and the North was the most prime place for hunting. Ned saw him, smiled. He recalled grinning back before his direwolf began tugging at the low of his breeches, snarling a little impatiently. "Come on, then," he had told the pup—he still hasn't named him yet, none of the name he tried to give it seemed to fit.
The crows, he thought. Might be that they are starving now. His father had caught him sleeping on the tallest tree by the grove many days back, and was amused that he had managed to climb that high. "Like a raven roosting up on hidden branches," Ned had remarked. "Never let your mother know."
To King's Landing in a few days, he spoke to himself with excitation. On a real horse. Face to face with Ser Barristan the Bold, nigh him whilst he wields and hammers his steel.
He shouldn't climb. Catelyn and the Maester had warned him about climbing. "See this clay, boy?" Maester Luwin had told him before hurling the clay with force against the wall. It smashed to ugly pieces. "Falling can do that to you. You will never fall; unless you insist on climbing and acting as if you could fly." I'm not a clay boy though, he countered. And I never fall. Old Nan had told him about one child who was struck by lightning at the highest turret, and his eyes eaten by crows. Crows don't seem to be interested in eating my eyes, he had told the old woman.
The direwolf was howling, but it was still too young and its voice so soft-pitched that Bran was sure that no soul would hear its protestations. The crows always awaited him by the Broken Tower close to the parapets, and it was easier to scale that part because of the jutted stones upon the walls for the feet and the hands. The stones were slippery, and there was moss too, but he had wiped his palms against the fabric of his tunic.
He remembered being so close to the First Keep.
The pup continued to howl.
Voices.
'…and Robert treats him like a brother. A Stark as hand?'
'Better than Robert's brothers or the Littlefinger, love…'
'…and Lysa Arryn might know.'
'She might, but where's the proof?'
The events that had transpired were far from merciful. He was young then, but he had seen them—the queen and his brother, wrestling, nude. They saw him, and so they paused awhile with their lewd acts. The queen's words were a blur, clashing its sonances against the yelps of the direwolf below the keep. The brother had queried him of his age. "Seven," Bran had told him.
Seconds later, he felt himself descending…and he recalled praying for wings, or for the wind to break his fall.
Those words rang over and over and over in his ears.
Things…I…do…for…love…
The fall had crippled him.
It wasn't Jaime Lannister's doing.
There was a warning—a message that had invaded his consciousness even as he closed it from outside significances. The source of the message was Bran Stark, suspended in the notion of time, and though he understood not a thing of the mechanisms of it for he was then young, he had to act based on the wisdom of his own self.
He had warged into Jaime Lannister, urged him subliminally to push him out of the keep's window.
And now Bran Stark recalled the repercussions of acting upon the forewarnings and presages of his own self located somewhere in the past or the future. The last greenseer knew all along the cataclysms that will be born out of conspiracies of gods and men alike.
Had I not warged into the queen's brother, had I not been pushed out of the window, I would have been able to walk still. I would have gone with Arya and Sansa to the capital. I would have met Ser Barristan and the kingsguard. I would have been trained in swordfight; I would have ridden horses and become a knight and courted the ladies.
Had I not been crippled by that fall though, I would not have reached the Weirwood.
You will never walk again, the Bloodraven had told him. But you will fly.
There were dragon dreams for those with the blood of dragons—Daenys the dreamer had them, and Daemon, and Daeron. As dreams are, the visions are riddled with complexities and endless metaphors, but most of them do transpire in time forthcoming. Only after the dreams have permeated the realm of the real do men believe.
Bran possessed the blood of the old gods, and he was wiser. Dreams are a whole realm. A dream is a glimpse of other hidden realms West of Westeros. Moons ago, the Bloodraven had asked him to look beyond the curtains of light. It was a terrified cry that came from his lips. Heart of Winter and Darkness. Some realms have already been wiped out by the reemergence of the Long Night. Mistakes cannot be repeated in realms still surviving, even with the notion of cycles, even as the god of death is slowly wiping out the turfs she could get her hands on. Bran had lived for eight thousand years, had witnessed it all as it came and went—the breathing undead and the horrid conspiracy, the genocide of men, a new race that will be created—creatures of the night.
And so, he had built the Wall. And so, he had built Winterfell.
The Great Other's aim is to rule all existing realms. The prophecies were twisted—this is not the red god's battle against the unnamed. The war is between men and preternatural forces, between mortals and those they perceive to be immortal. The last greenseer looked into all the realms through the heart of the weirwood, and saw him in all names and states—Azor Ahai, Neferion, the Shadowchaser, the Champion, the Warrior, failing to preserve the realms in the reemergence of the second winter. In these spheres, all men had died as they must.
Men must not keep on dying.
Time past and time forthcoming are places, and the Bloodraven had told him that one cannot change the former. However, if time is in a state of disarray then the best course is to change the past of the future, and that is the now.
'For men, time is a river. We are trapped in its flow, hurtling from past to present, always in the same direction. The lives of trees are different. They root and grow and die in one place, and that river does not move them. The oak is the acorn, the acorn is the oak. And the weirwood … a thousand human years are a moment to a weirwood, and through such gates you and I may gaze into the past.'
And so, he had to be pushed and be crippled by that fall; all things had to happen as they did—the enmity between the Starks and the Lannisters that went beyond Jon Arryn's death, Eddard's execution, the War of the Five Kings.
Catelyn's death, Robb's.
Jon's.
The burning of Winterfell by the invading Ironborns, the 'death' of the northern greathouse Stark.
I could only set the precursor, I cannot control the paths the antecedents would take though I knew it would come to those, and I told no one. Even the wisest cannot see all ends.
Arya.
The subject of all these is Arya Stark. She had to be separated from the rest of the Wolves for a time, draft a path of her own. There may be some virtue existing somewhere in the minds of those other gods who are allies to men, because the subject of one hero prophecy a thousand years ago—the one she had renamed Iāqaen—had spanned the limitations of turfs and chronologies, chose to situate himself in that particular realm so he could find one soul lost to him in eons forgotten. The Doom had obliterated all traces of him and of his dragonkin, and so he had lived the life of false identities and annihilated selves.
The Nissa is the Mother, through her the universe is created.
Jaqen H'ghar—repudiator of the prophecy of the Warrior of Light during the days of Valyria and Rhoyne. He chose to spare his Nissa Nissa, and to find her too, by slaughtering what was left of his human self over and again, re-entering the cycles of rebirth and infinite deaths.
But she is not mere prophecy, no man can create a Nissa out of a woman, just as no one can create the Moon out of dust, or the River Rhoyne out of tears. The Nissa is independent of any prophecy, independent of the existence of the Azor Ahai, or whatever damnable name the Ashaii, the Yi Tish, or the Patrimony of Hyrkoon may give him. She cannot be led to the process of 'becoming'; she already 'is'.
As she had birthed dragons from her womb, it is the Nissa that creates the Warrior of Light, not the other way around.
The capacity to create life from within her womb is what sets the Nissa apart from the goddess of death.
Āria Stārke, Nȳhmēria hen Rhoyne, Nissa.
She is who she is.
Bran Stark slowly released his tight grip of the roots of the weirwood. Consciousness had returned to its lucid state, and Valyria had disappeared from the convoluted spans of his mindwork. The heart of the weirwood was a place of warmth and assurance, even with its grotesque guise of protrusions and asymmetry. Murky smell pervaded the place, and many a thing had happened here though not in actuality—visions of the past and the forthcoming, some with grace and most with woe.
"Where is she in your third sight, greenseer?" the Bloodraven asked him.
Bran looked at him and smiled.
"Sailing home."
Her lips and tongue were still against his, even at the completion of that sweet remembrance of their days a millennium past. Arya sat astride Jaqen, and he was still inside her; she never allowed him to leave her womb, for that is his place—within her and through her. Her movements were in slow waltzes coinciding with gentle showers of rain, and she felt the wholeness of him against her quivering walls, sensed the warmth of his man-seed still pouring out within the core of her. Seed never runs dry, Arya thought. Jaqen's seed, even after his dissolution within me, he still has so much left to give.
"Oh, Jaqen H'ghar," Arya said in between kisses. Her movements were now in ripples and vacillations both, one with him, one; and no mortal and immortal soul can put them asunder now, she was convinced. The powers of the universe and the realms within its membranes are simply not strong enough. "You should have just told me, when your dragon dreams came back after the sacred confluence and the fray of realms, in the Sweetwater River where we fell—you gave me the Queller and spoke to me about the origins of Essoan, the tongue; and our lore, too! How could I have been so narrow as to have missed it?" She carried on with her movements like mad, forced him in and out of her though she was still bleeding a little. Jaqen's sex was still in arousal, even as he had climaxed inside her once or twice. She reveled at the sound of his sharp gasps as she tensed her inner walls around for him on purpose, just so the smallest of space that separated them within could cease to exist. "The goddess pool, my preparation for womanhood. Your witnessing of the ritual like one lover god—all those pointed to me, to us," She kissed him on the side of the lips and paused with her movements for she suddenly felt pity for him. Jaqen was shuddering under her, as if unable to contain who she is, as if she was a majestic amassment of powers and rune that threatened to consume him to the last iota of his being; though she was just Arya—his Arya.
"I love you, gods," he spoke in the midst of quivers that sent him to near-fatality. "I…I could not tell you a thing. We had to find ourselves, who we are and where we are in time. And the creation of the Nissa—my specific memory of that was wiped out of my system entirely. We…ah!" Arya had started moving again, pushing him to the edge of cruel surrender. His body was failing him—she was too strong, too compelling. "…had to recapture the intricacies of that thousand-year plot. The Elder is working on his ploys again…Arya, please…gods!" Wind had abandoned him, and under her ministrations he had been reduced to nothing but a collection of abstractions—rapture and weakness, love and awe.
Jaqen held her hips firmly, ordered her though in the absence of words to cease with her movements; but she was too willful, too rebellious, she would not be Arya if she wasn't all of those things. Jaqen's otherworldly moans stirred the petals of the Zefarisse. His woman, his wife was possessing him completely and was leaving not the tiniest speck of his own self to him. He climaxed, again and again and she was laughing softly at his powerlessness, not out of mockery but out of delight and fascination. She loves him…she wanted to be his source of mirth every second.
Arya tilted her head to look at Jaqen, pressed both palms on his naked, rain-soaked chest. His wild breathing had calmed, but soft shudders continued to enslave him still. "I can recall it all now, Jaqen. A hundred ships sank in the first sea storm, some went back out of fear of the waters. They were distrustful of Mother Rhoyne even after she had fed them all from her bosoms for countless moons. It was the Basilisk Isles which we found first; the rulers attacked us, sent forty ships on fire; said they will allow us to settle in one of the isles in exchange for thirty virgin girls and boys every twelfth moon."
"Merciless, Valyrian-spawned minds," Jaqen said. He buried his face in between her bosoms. "You sailed away from Basilisk Point, did you find any dwelling before Dorne?"
"Zamettar and Yeen," she replied, stroking his hairlocks. "Abandoned colonies, with fruits and pelt and gold. The Rhoynar couldn't handle the sweltering heat and the flies—they have toiled in the mines and had suffered for it, you cannot expect them to suffer more. Illnesses too, green fever, blood boils; waters were infested. It was a whole year, but we had to leave," she held Jaqen's face, led his mouth to her right breast. He licked and suckled, obedient. Arya gripped his hairlocks tight, drew strength from the act. "Three years—there was the Isle of Butterflies, the…the Isle of Women, poor conditions in the Summer Isles. The soil would not bless us with crops. We had to try again, there was no other way. Until we landed near the River Greenblood, what remained of us did, at least. Ah…you're so good, Jaqen…"
Jaqen paused with his suckles and sighed, embittered. "Thus, the romance with Mors Martell," he shook his head. "There was a part in you that somehow whispered of my death? And true it was, I was slaughtered. But a Martell then, and a Martell now—only that the Martell now is half-Targaryen."
"You know that I did what I had to do for the Rhoynar, some choices are forced upon us. And I cannot marry Aegon the Sixth, Jaqen," Arya declared. "I cannot and I do not wish to. I am married to you, and you never died. How can I abandon the blood of my blood? How can I betray you when you have given up so much for my sake?" She kissed him, smiled. "I gave birth to Damien during the first year at sea, Jaqen. You should have seen him, his hair of silver. Of course, he looked quite like you."
The Lorathi smirked. "My son looked damned good then?"
She ignored his arrogance, ran her fingers through his hair, kissed him deep. "Oh, he was the loveliest thing in the world. All the while I thought I've reached completion because of you, I just…I never thought I still had that empty part until Damien came along. I used to look at him in slumbers and laughters, I witnessed him walk his first steps on the shipdecks cradled here and there, and he would never fall, Jaqen. It's almost as if..." she gazed at the heavens, and drops of rain and soft petals fell upon her face. "Almost as if he can fly."
"His father was a dragonrider and his mother, a skinchanger. How can he not know how to fly?"
"Iāqaen, adar, jorrāelagon," Arya said, grinning. "His first words." Jaqen, father, love.
The Lorathi laughed richly. "I should have been there with you both! There are just lots of things I could have taught him—High Valyrian, the lore, dragons," he stroked Arya's cheeks. "Us."
"We are in a loop, Jaqen H'ghar," Arya whispered in a manner seductive. "A time paradox where everything is a cycle unless we choose to break away from its shackles. Bran and that three-eyed raven made me understand time, or at least some mechanics of it—no one could fully grasp it after all. Remember during the Unmasking, when you told me about your Lorathi descent?"
"What about it?" Jaqen asked, her tone enkindling his passions once more. He reached for her left breast and cupped it, stroked and squeezed it gently. "I told you truth and truth only, Arya. Though I could not understand it, I am a descendant of Damien's blood, as Damien is a descendant of my blood. But…"
"How?" Arya supplied the query for him. Her breathing had changed with his fondling, like desultory gusts of wind. She looked down to their then uncoupled selves and saw his seed mingled with her maiden's blood, like art devoid of figure but full of purpose, nonetheless. "I had to conceal our son's identity as a dragonrider's bastard—very well, a dragonrider's legitimate son. He's heir to Valyria, because you were heir to to it through your Esdraelon lineage. To protect him, I had to dye his hair scarlet, you ransomed him through your own blood after all; and I had to leave some of his ivory locks un-hued so a trace of you could still be present in him. He carried the name H'ghar, and in the event of my death as was writ, he left Dorne and settled in Lorath. Thus, began his genealogy, of you being born in Damien's blood after a thousand years—cyclic existence, love. Over and over you have killed yourself in various realms, so you had to start over as well. It traces back to Damien, and Damien traces back to me, Nymeria, and to you, Haresh renamed. I am your Nissa, Jaqen. Your wife, yet you came from my womb. I am the Moon, and I kissed you, the Sun. I cracked from your heat and so from my vessel poured forth the blood of dragons."
The Lorathi smiled.
The Woman is the beginning, everything that breathes, even those that do not—woven by and interwoven in her body, her divine rune.
Maiden, Mother, Crone.
Feminine force behind all nature and life.
A mortal goddess, creator.
"So that goes to say," Jaqen teased. "That Aegon the Sixth came from your womb as well, a thousand years or so before?"
Arya giggled. "Through Nymeria and Mors Martell, yes."
"Time is mad."
"Madness is the most appropriate response at times. I pity those who do not go mad—over a canticle, or a beloved, or a child. What wretched lives they must have."
"Then, as what the Elder used to say—let me go mad, be mad," Jaqen kissed her, then gazed at her face with fondness. "The Songs, Arya. The lost leaves of the Songs spoke of the Nissa two hundred years after the Doom. She will aid the Warrior but she has to…" he shook his head vehemently, cupped her cheeks. "Sacrifice means nothing, men should not be prisoners to prophecies. The death god granted me life so I may save you from all these—you are the inverse of the goddess who calls herself the Great Other, albeit her parallel. You live, she lives; you die, she dies. The deity is a most rapacious deceiver. She desires that the Nissa dies not in the Warrior's hands, but in hers," Jaqen's voice broke a little. "I…should not have bargained with her, I know. But how in this universe and in another could I ever find you again had I not accepted her offer? Still, it's all a riddle to me, I recall nothing of what the bargain is."
"Damn her," Arya replied calmly, stroking Jaqen's hair so he may possess in him some quietude as well. "When I murdered Sabine with my own hands, she had veiled me from Death. It is beneath me now, thanks to her and to you. Only the death god can force demise upon me should she wish, but I will not go down without a grand fight, Jaqen." She ravaged his lips with so much love and want. "The Warrior of Light from the days of Valyria and Rhoyne may have been beguiled by the Great Other, and so he chose to submit to her; but that is because he was too possessed by his Nissa, yes? She never owned you, Jaqen. You have been mine—in various turfs and time, love."
The Lorathi planted feathery kisses upon the side of her mouth, her nose, her temple. Naked brilliance, he thought. Stars die and become dwarves in the midnight, yet she will live on and on and on. All of a sudden, his countenance of sweet reverie was replaced with a severe one. "And you have been mine, Arya. I have lost you in various realms and countless of times I have died because of it. I am done with killing myself; now I will call death on anyone who wishes to undo everything."
"No one will steal me away—"
"The Elder, Arya," Jaqen replied. "The Masters, and whoever their Promised is."
And it is the mortal goddess that gave form to the story of the Man, the hero.
In Aegon the Sixth's dreams were perpetual statics of celestial catastrophes.
It had been countless of days since those visions had started besieging him, and they pursued him still relentlessly; they all seemed to be portrayals of a magical fallout of comets and suns and moons. There were scattered fragments of those visions even during hours of his wakefulness, but in the recesses of his mind, he knew that those blights had heavily embedded significances and that they spoke of one thing: origin of dragons and wights.
"Dragon is the time," he recalled Arianne Martell's words. "It has no beginning and ending—it chases its tail, so what happens in time goes around again."
If so, the Targaryen conquest must triumph like in the age of Aegon I and his sister wives; and it will. Now is the time of dragons. All sigils must bend the knee to fire and blood, to the firebeast thrice-headed, red on black.
Fire and blood, indeed—the shierak qiya, the dragonbinder, the firesword, the Valyrian queller's rune.
Still, there was more to this. In his dreams, Aegon the Sixth had seen himself in Arya Stark's bedside, and she was giving birth to their child. The Moon was full that night, but its light was waning significantly every time Arya breathes, as if its light was dependent upon the Wolf-girl's inner workings. There was the voice of the maester urging her to take strength and birth the babe into the world. She suffered and toiled and screamed, until the sound of the babe's cry rang like a thousand carillons in that chamber.
Aegon the Sixth saw himself cradling the babe—his cause of happiness. He beheld it with eyes welling up and saw that the babe's face was aglow; and that auroral mien overwhelmed him with awe. With his fingertips, he touched the babe's skin that was wrapped in layers of its own fur and silver scales. Blood of my blood, he heard himself saying. My song of ice and fire.
It was a million fragments that flew in all spaces and directions when Aegon looked down upon Arya. Her body had exploded, and so had her soul, but not before her cry of anguish had left a rift on the full moon's face. He watched as smithereens of her ebbed away, evanesced into unseen realms.
Aegon the Sixth's eyes cruised to the babe in his arms, and realized that it was not a child he was holding at all.
It was a flaming sword.
Blackfyre.
He shook his head to rid himself of those unwanted phantasms, ran his fingers through his locks of silver.
He was back in Illyrio's manse, in one of the upper balconies, with morning's repast served, and had some talks with the eunuch and the emissary named Daario Naharis regarding the proceedings of the conquest during the breaking of fast. It is common knowledge now that Jon Connington is infected with greyscale—wise too, to warn men about such condition of the Hand lest they find themselves rubbing elbows with him and inflicting themselves with the disease. Though Aegeus Ioanannu's wife had managed to cook up some healing potion that would slow down the plague's effect, the infected part still remained cracked and flaking. Sabine had promised the Prince a more efficacious cure, and had given the halfmaester a list of elements she would need for the concoction. Half of the integrants in the list can either be retrieved from the Great Moraq or the Marahi—a whole moon of travel to obtain those ingredients is time they do not have in their hands at the moment.
The Lannister envoy had sent a message from Daenerys Targaryen as well—conquest will proceed from Bronze Gate to Stone Dance close to the Blackwater in two moons. The condition: Aegon must bring with him his ships and soldiery, his drafted battleplans and those of his legion commanders, and genuine relics that would prove his legitimacy as Targaryen; though he was aware that the latter was intended for mere formalities. The Targaryen Queen had apparently admitted to the fact that she possessed shared ownership of those three dragons with Aegon the Sixth Targaryen, dragonkin of hers, son of Rhaegar.
Stannis Baratheon is now close to Raventree Hall. It is a battle tactic too, Aegon thought, to take advantage of the enemy's harvested victories, sackings, and waylayings, then proceed when opposing forces have weakened themselves significantly. He is a prideful man, this heir of the Usurper, and he would rather see himself slaughtered by Lannister forces than bend the knee to the Targaryen conquerors and rightfuls. The Baratheon sent a message to Tyrion Lannister—a response to the latter's claims and demands: 'Let those dragons come to me so I could stab their eyes with my own sword; and I am not speaking merely of the beasts.'
Rightful heirship to the throne is still a matter Daenerys and Aegon the Sixth must discuss with each other.
The conquest seemed all-inconsequential for him at that moment, however. He needed to see Arya and tell her about all those frightful nights of his, about how he's been losing against those fitful, disquieting nightmares, how he's been losing her too. She was last seen last night with the Lorathi by the hill, he recalled, and the thought lessened his worries. He trusted Jaqen H'ghar, curiously.
Perchance, half of the success of his conquest of lands close to Cape Wrath may be attributed to the halfmaester's seemingly accurate interpretations of his dreams; he had always been precise with his readings. "Dark fantasies, your grace," the halfmaester had told him earlier that morning. "A reflection of your deepest wants. Quite apparent—you wish for your heir to be birthed by that direwolf. Prior to the spawning of your scion needless to say, you desire for the coupling of your dragon's blood with hers."
He remembered himself blushing at Haldon's words. Sex? The Prince thought. With Arya?
Don't be a fool. You cannot have heirs without having sex.
He did not wish to disclose the other dimensions of his dreamscapes to anyone—they were his vulnerabilities, and nay he cannot be vulnerable in the face of conquest. Not a manly or kingly thing too, to speak of deep-seated affections and obsessions. Yes, he had dreamed of taking Arya Stark's body over and again till the first blush of dawn, and staying with her on the featherbed the entire day even after countless raptures caused by her unorthodox charm the night prior. Yes, he desired even in his hours of restlessness, even in his brief moments with her, to run his tongue across every inch of her Northern princess-body, discover those dunes and caverns and taste her skin of snow. And yes, in his sleepless peaks of eventide he would always succumb to those dark fantasies the halfmaester had spoken of—darker fantasies even, of burying himself deep within her and ramming himself forcefully against her till he hears nothing but the sounds of her enraptured moans. Yes, Aegon the Sixth had prayed to the gods for him to be blessed with at least a nightfall of enchantments with Arya Stark, so he could fill and bathe her with his Targaryen seed.
An insistent fear would beleaguer him in the midst of those delusions, and that frightfulness was born out of guilt.
In every capsheaf of their sweet exchange, he would always see himself plunging his ancestral sword deep into her heart, purest of pure.
The halfmaester's next words had hammered him. "And for some reason, you wish for her to…die in your hands; though of course, I may be wrong about all these. Layers of context and semantics, a single allusion of a dream may speak of ten thousand meanings. Might be that it merely signifies the direwolf's sigil surrendering to the dragon's reign, nothing more."
No. The halfmaester had never been wrong in his deciphering. But why in the world would he even desire to kill the woman he had learned to love?
Truly, I must speak with her. Those dreams, they might be someone else's invading mine. We both have become hosts of souls. This cannot carry on.
Aegon the Sixth was now fully aware of Arya's inclinations towards the Lorathi, and though it did so much as shatter his heart, he still kept his marriage proposal on the table—her choices may change, her emotions too. One thing he had learned: no one can force the Lady Arya to a course of action unless the Starks and the North are at stake, and this filial devotion is both her strength and weakness. Aegon the Sixth is far from being merciless and a fool; and right now, he cared not about Tyrion Lannister's forthcoming criticisms, for the Prince was not one to waste away the connection he had labored to form with that Stark girl. Should he force Arya to a marriage for the damned sake of securing the seat of the North, then he may truly gain the North and its sworn houses, but lose her. Most of the time, their friendship felt so much akin to running in aimless circles and falling over cliffs and drowning in sands and seas but these had never mattered to him, as long as their fingertips would touch in their wayfaring; just…as long as she's there.
Better all these aimless drifting than none of Arya at all.
He was roused asudden from his musings by a wrathful voice from below the manse.
"Aegon!"
He sighed, as he stood to survey the courtyard though he knew the source of the call.
"Aegon!"
It was Jaqen H'ghar.
The Lorathi was pacing, raging eyes directed towards the pillared mezzanine where Aegon the Sixth was. The Prince looked at him calmly, albeit he clicked his tongue with resentment at the Lorathi's display that would no doubt turn itself into another holy mess.
"Come down and let's talk, Aegon the Sixth," the Lorathi called to him in between his teeth.
All of a sudden, eight guards had gathered around Jaqen H'ghar, with some unsheathing their swords from their scabbards, and some flexing their limbs for what may be an unpleasant encounter. "What would you have us do with the pretty redhead, your grace?" a hulk of a man, Ser Franklyn Flowers asked Aegon, in the middle of his assessment of his broadsword. "Get you some laurels by cutting some of them wavy locks, or a memento of his head on one of Mopatis's crystal platters?"
The Prince raised his right hand to signal that they lowered their weapons. All of them obeyed the unspoken command except for Flowers. "You too, Ser," Aegon the Sixth spoke to the sworn knight directly. "Nothing but colloquy, this one; I can assure you." He struggled to pacify himself as he descended from the balcony to the tiled courtyard. "Jaqen H'ghar," came his greetings. "To the function chambers if you please—proper venue for all and every discussion."
"We will speak here," the Lorathi demanded. "We might need witnesses to your damnable treachery, your secret dealings with the House of Black and White."
With his usual august mannerisms, he tilted his head to the side, confusion apparent in his visage. "Treachery? What accursed child's sport is this again, Jaqen H'ghar? Brawls do seem to amuse you a whole damned lot," Aegon's tone had turned malicious, provoking. "It's almost as if you will die without a good day's dogfight. Ah! But what can anyone expect from Valyrian slavers?"
Disorientation settled in the brows of those eight gathered.
The Lorathi's lip tipped up in a sardonic smile, though he still regarded the Prince with pure antipathy. "Valyrian slaver's blood runs in your princely veins, may I just remind you of that truth? You can scour yourself clean till your pores bleed black and dye your hair with roses and violets but you're Valyrian, Aegon. You are no better than those lords of Old, as am I. Dare you not act righteous in front of your kingsguards now. Spill the truth of your perfidy."
"Jaqen! Aegon!" It was Arya. She was running furiously towards them. These damnable men! When the hell are they going to stop with all their nonsense?! She spoke in a stern tone upon reaching them. "Inside the manse, right now. This is no place for your disputations!"
The commotion may have caught the attention of others, for more people gathered by the courtyard—three servants, and Sabine who was shaking her head in both alarm and utter frustration.
"I have made that sensible suggestion earlier, Lady Arya," Aegon the Sixth said, as he kept his eyes locked on the Lorathi's face. "But the Valyrian here refused. He might have plans beyond the usual conversation, it seems. The function room is carpeted and heavily-draped—it is hardly the perfect place for a bloody skirmish."
"Aegon! Oh, gods!" Arya screamed at him. "I'm going to kill you both!"
The Lorathi scoffed. "Might be wise, Arya Stark, before Aegon the Sixth here draws his ancestral sword and slay you before you could unsheathe your own poisoned skeans."
"Jaqen! He wasn't himself, I have told you about this!" Arya looked around frantically for any signs of Aegeus or Daario. Sabine came rushing to her aid.
"Your grace," Ser Franklyn called to the Prince, as if asking for permission to deal demise on the Lorathi. "This is clear treason, matters not if he is Essosi or…otherwise. The Free Cities have pledged fealty to House Targaryen and its rightful claim to the Crownlands and its tributary kingdoms. Unless the alliance is effaced, these acts and words are downright unacceptable."
"No, Ser," Aegon folded his arms across his chest, allowed his eyes to cruise from north to south of the Lorathi. "Let him speak—this man is most excellent with conspiracy theories and senseless paranoia. Please, Jaqen H'ghar," he gestured for the Lorathi to continue. "What of this treachery, if you will?
Jaqen walked closer to Aegon, his face a few inches away from the Prince's. "That you have spoken with Nestoris and the House Elder of the Order, that you have planned all along to propose marriage to the Lady Arya not merely to obtain the North's seat and have her birth you some heirs," the Lorathi's next words were delivered in a softer, albeit more enraged, more derisive tone. "But to forge through her your legendary sword and act like one damnable crazy-savior to your crumbling seven kingdoms. You bastard."
It was as if boulders had pummeled his chest at the Lorathi's pronouncements. How could Jaqen H'ghar have known about those dreams? Explications would be futile now as it appears, for no one would believe his helplessness in the face of those dreams that seemed to have been implanted deep into his subconscious by forces unknown. They have unlocked the secrecy of his midnight-hallucinations even before he could understand a thing of it.
Aegon kept his mouth shut and ignored Ser Franklyn's prompts. He needed to speak with Arya.
"Jaqen," Sabine walked to them both, stayed within a safe distance. "These are assumptions. We must deal with all these in objective light; internal matters as far as the House of Black and White is concerned." Her eyes cruised to the eight swords that were then preparing themselves should riot arise, and spoke in Rhoynar. "The forces in the Order might be behind all these and you know it."
Jaqen ignored Sabine's implorations. "In your honor as Targaryen and as king; swear that this isn't true," he urged Aegon in a whisper. It is simple to put the blame on the Elder and the Masters, but it is improbable that Aegon knew nothing about the schemes. He was in Braavos during the Unmasking, this could have been a product of his Targaryen-based obsession towards prophecies—a trait he had inherited from his father, the great fool.
On the other hand, how can the Prince admit to or disavow the truth of something he does not have full knowledge about?
"I have mentioned before that I am far from being great, Jaqen H'ghar," the Prince replied. He nodded to one of the swords who threw him one Dorne-forged Martell sunspear. Dexterously, he caught it with his right hand, ignored the aggravated protests from both Arya and Sabine. One of the servants had the better sense to call for the two other emissaries. "I took these words from Tyrion Lannister: to govern the self is to govern others. However, at this precise moment, I have no wish to be a gracious king—not when you are accusing me of treachery against the Lady Arya when it is you who's been receiving late night visits from one Valyrian dragonrider by the east bay of Pentos."
"Breach of faith!" exclaimed one of the swords, gaining agreement of the others. An ugly interfusion of hoots and jeers pervaded the whole courtyard. Even the wintry air smelled of metallic sangria, of bad omens and keening ravens.
"All will stay where they are, this fight is ours," was Aegon's stern command. His once purple eyes were now bloodshot, his almost-bursting fury was nothing but palpable.
"Damn you both! You senseless twats! Is this the alliance you were so keen on building?!" Arya screamed frantically, and started drawing her own skeans in a throwing stance. Sabine signaled for Arya to put them down. "You might hurt them both in a fatal way, Arya. There's no stopping them," the woman said. "Where the hell are Aegeus and Daario?!" Sabine ran asudden to the manse to summon the two others.
Reveling at the looming fray, the Lorathi smirked and unsheathed the longsword attached to his hip. He threw the scabbard to the ground. "You are truly witless to pray for you own downfall this early, Aegon the Sixth."
Aegon shrugged, as they began encircling each other. "Maybe I am," he said, wielding the sunspear in graceful, gyrating motions. In his mind, he recalled what Oberyn Martell used to say about duels between spears and swords: 'Dance around the foe till your dynamics exhaust him, then thrust the spear on his back. There are no real rules in a fight, saved for winning.' Yes, he will remain with that piece of advice, carry it with him. One thing though, he reminded himself. I will keep my mouth shut in the middle of the fight if I want to keep my eyes and skull intact.
Arya gasped at the sudden darkness within Aegon's thoughts. He is intent on killing Jaqen…he would only kill himself. "Aegon, I order you to stop! Jaqen, please!" she marched resolutely to the two imbeciles, but strong hands of Ser Franklyn held her arms firmly. "Let me go, Ser," Arya commanded him.
"Pardon, my Lady of Stark," he replied. "Merely pulling you away from danger, following orders, too. These men will have it to death, you would not want to be in the middle of it."
The hulk-man's hands were unyielding. "If you do not allow me to go and stop them, your silver-haired king will die!"
"I beg to differ. It's the pretty redhead who will."
Both eyes of them darted to the two combatants at the first sound of clashing metals.
The Prince advanced smoothly towards the Assassin, jabbed him with his spear's pointed tip after a series of spiral wields. The Lorathi blocked the assault with the edge of his longsword—flashing with the rays, as he performed some labyrinthine twists in order to disarm the Prince in the first three seconds of the fight.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
The sunspear flew to the air.
Aegon slid past the Lorathi, spun and retrieved the spear by its longhandle as it plummeted back from its highest point. With precise velocity, he hurled the spear towards Jaqen in a straight horizontal.
It sliced through space towards its target, rotating, increasing its momentum.
With controlled downward rhythm, Jaqen's sword hacked the sunspear into two parts, sending one half to the ground and the other half flying in helixes to the fount.
One of the swords threw Aegon a second sunspear. The two men walked around each other, intimidating the other one of their adroitness, their artistry. The Prince carried on with his elaborate mazes of motion with his sunspear, while Jaqen wielded his longsword in pirouettes east to west.
"Yield now and confess," Jaqen's tone was grim, yet a provoking sneer was upon his visage. "I do not wish to soil my hands with dragon's blood today."
Aegon chuckled. "Are we going to talk or fight, Jaqen H'ghar? Mind you, I prefer deeds over words."
"Then do," Jaqen hissed, sarcastic. "Your fighting style is boring me to death. Had you made it clear at the start that all you wanted was child's play, I could have allowed you to keep your first spear quite a bit longer."
"Forget the first spear," Aegon said, a tinge of arrogance already evident in his speech. "I was merely testing your defenses. I found them…very flawed."
At this, the Prince began performing a series of thrusts and darts. The Lorathi evaded them, slashed at the metal tip with his sword, sending the spear in rotating stirs. Jaqen's sword lanced in just above the Prince's shoulder, cutting a few inches of his silken shift. Aegon was quick and parried a second attack, wielded the sunspear like dragon's tongue flickering in and out, attempting to pierce through the Lorathi's sides, limbs, chest. Aegon's spear never landed on skin and flesh, but neither did Jaqen's sword.
It was a caterwaul of metal against metal.
From pillar to post they moved across the expanse of that courtyard, and their feet seemed to both be gifted with wings as they fleeted and breezed past each other. Jaqen's lunges were in various angles—precise, calculated advances and strikes, almost absolute and algorithmic. Aegon's assaults were well-cadenced and balletic, as if regal elegance is a thing necessary even in combat. Scintillations were created by colliding steels, as stannic sonances inundated that once still garden of cherries.
Scheming, demonic Prince, the Lorathi spoke to himself as he proceeded with his attacks. Marriage and murder go hand in hand for you. No honor; no honor at all.
I should not have brought Arya here; should have voiced out my firm disapproval to the Elder right from the beginning.
The Lorathi's next blows had become twice as solid and forceful, intensified by his prior thoughts about the Prince's hidden intents, as his suspicions would dictate.
Iron-sounding clangs, frictions, statics, velocious forces. Assails and evasions had become imperceptible at the rate of hammers and thrusts the Prince and the Assassin were dealing each other. The almost endless episodes of strikes and charges had served as amusement for the men, and the combatants had no intentions of yielding.
How could I have succumbed to his mad provocations? Aegon cursed himself. I should have acted according to better judgment. This fight will yield naught—will only add insult to the dissension we already have.
How to practice restraint? If I did not challenge him to a duel, he would be convinced of his wrong assumptions.
I do not want Arya killed.
I…love her.
A whole blitzkrieg of sword attacks came from Jaqen, but Aegon eluded these through quick movements and counters. It was all rush and raid, and the witnesses feasted on the sight.
Suddenly, Aegon hissed—Jaqen's sword had lanced through his right arm. Blood trickled from his skin in small amounts, but he carried on with his charges, ignoring the Lorathi's smirking face.
Arya clenched her teeth, for she knew better than what the visuals of the combat were presenting her. Jaqen, you arrogant beast. You're merely toying with Aegon the Sixth! Lorathi bastard!
They proceeded with their duel, oblivious of the cheers and roars from the sworn swords, of Arya's frantic screams of "Stop!", of the drops of rich scarlet that had bathed the tiled courtyard, of the shouts coming from three others who had rushed to end their mindless tussle.
Jaqen had wounded Aegon, but they carried on with their onslaught. As if the act itself of proving who the better man is was the only honorable thing.
Jarring, ear-splitting sounds of sword against sword and sword against metal spearhead placed that clash of steels in an abrupt change of course. Two other men had joined the melee, hell-bent on driving the two combatants away from one another.
Aegeus locked Aegon the Sixth's spearhead on the ground with the tips of his two longswords, as Daario delivered counterblows to Jaqen's still enraged assails. "Enough, Jaqen! Enough!" the Stormcrow bellowed, before delivering a sequence of sword blasts head on with the Lorathi's weapon in order to disarm him. The Lorathi was as good as he is in swordwork—the steel remained with him, as Daario struggled to deal him with controlled attacks.
Jaqen's stares at the Stormcrow were murderous. "Step away, Daario! Stop being a babysitter to your Targaryen lover's nephew!"
It was as if poisoned darts plunged themselves deep in the Stormcrow's chest at his brother's derisive words. He roared with whelming fury, hammered his steel against the Lorathi with all the might he could muster. "I said ENOUGH!" Daario yelled. A few more lunges, and strength had escaped from the Stormcrow asudden. Weakly, he dropped his longsword to the tiled ground and pulled Jaqen's nape, rested his temple against the Lorathi's, recited the vows of the Order's unbreakable brotherhood in Ancient Rhoynar. "Enough, Jaqen," Daario whispered. "Brother mine…"
Unless in the face of irrevocable betrayal, the connection amongst Faceless Men must not falter.
It must not remain a poet's dream—true brotherhood that would transcend the dictates of the Order, of the House of Black and White where they were raised and fed and clothed. Men may scour the realms and still they will not find a perfect family, for fathers and mothers will have their fools and sages, saints and sinners. No shared connection between and amongst men—faceless or not—must be rendered too faultless to not be shaken by the throes of cruel life.
It is in the imperfection that the essence of needing someone becomes an unequivocal truth.
Most of the time, covenants are never honored. There was no blood that would bind them with each other, only memories and dreams—mutual ones: sad, hopeful, true.
"Brother…brother…" Daario's whispers continued, akin to desperate beseeching. "Brother…"
"The Order, brother," Jaqen whispered back in Rhoynar, his eyes shut, his voice broken and despairing. "The Masters, the Elder. All of them…they want Arya killed. The matter with Braavos—the Order needed her against the lords, but the whole treacherous plan of those Masters go beyond that. Tell me, brother…had it been Daenerys, would you not have listened to your instinct to protect her? Forget the codes, would you not forsake everything, take up the gauntlets and wage war for her sake? What greater love is there but that? Daario…"
For Daario Naharis, the answer is simple.
I will do whatever is humanly possible to protect the ones I love.
The Stormcrow nodded against the Lorathi's forehead, stroked his hairlocks gently in order to still him. "I will do more. I will burn that damnable temple and everyone in it," Daario declared. "But Jaqen, Aegon is not the enemy here. Those dragonlords, those undead—they are the true foes. If this be the game of thrones of those who are higher and we are the pawns, this is exactly what they would wish to happen—that we turn against each other and forget why the hell we are here in this particular realm."
Aegeus and Ser Franklyn assisted the bleeding Prince inside the manse, with Sabine behind them to tend to his lacerations. Arya stayed with Jaqen and Daario, her heart breaking at their attempts to keep even a shred of what they have believed to be true in the tenets of the Faceless Men alive. She blamed herself, the accursed prophecies in the Songs of the Faceless that spoke of its Chosen Child. She cursed the death god and all other gods for having brought this upon them. Brotherhood of men under the parenthood of the gods? Arya thought to herself. There are gods that care and gods that do not. We must be one another's keeper—all men must serve each other.
"Arya…"
"I know, brother," Daario said. "We will all proceed inside the manse, and work out the game plan before we proceed to Westeros—the conquest, Valyria, Winter, Stygai. We are not gods, Jaqen. Still, unless old age or unforeseen catastrophe would claim us in this realm, then I daresay no man must die."
"Dreams."
"And what are the contents of these dreams?"
They were all settled around the grand table in Illyrio's function hall. Sabine was sitting on Aegon's right, asking questions so she may access the Prince's repressed recollections and those planted perhaps by someone with whom he had spent much time for three moons.
Aegon the Sixth left nothing hidden. In all honesty he answered Sabine's questions, and the master did not even have to use a single drop of truth potion on the Prince. Of course, they could tell if he was lying—a mere twitch of the lip or a flicker of the eye would sell one out. They were assassins, and the game of pretense is their craft.
"There was no way to stop those dreams, and many times I have tried and failed to evade sleep just so those dreams would not come," he told Sabine while rubbing both hands across his face. "The subjects of the earlier ones were Rhaegar and Lyanna, yet they were in our forms—Arya's and mine. I…I could not quite understand how their remembrances could enter ours, how they could even communicate through us."
"Memory manipulation," Aegeus spoke to Sabine in Rhoynar. The latter nodded. "Soul hosting, too. The Elder could have sent Hud for the task," he turned to Arya. "Your plague-faced master is one of the gifted ones, Stark."
"He could have worn the face of your half-maester, for all we know," Daario offered. "Or the face of one of your most trusted."
Jaqen was clenching his fist and teeth, and if not for Arya's hand that held and calmed him, he could have once more unsheathed his longsword and carried on with hacking Aegon the Sixth into pieces. He knew he was acting irrationally; the more Sabine queried, the more the Lorathi realized that the Prince was a victim like Arya is, like the rest of them are.
It could have been simpler for the Lorathi had Aegon known about the conspiracy from the very beginning. Without remorse, Jaqen H'ghar could exact sweet revenge and excise him from the whole picture. Despite Arya's resolute declaration that he cannot marry the Prince, the Lorathi assassin was aware of how strong her link is with Aegon—Nymeria's blood is inevitably in him; and in her false memories, they were married in the Isle of Faces and even had a child.
"Memories are malleable, Aegon," Sabine said. "They can be written and rewritten. There are potions that do the work, of course—and you may not notice it in what you eat of take in, in what you smell. In your deepest level of dream state, someone may have been with you in the dream realm—there are gifted men that could traverse turfs after all. He may have invaded your subconscious, conditioned you to forget certain memories and retain others. In your case and Arya's, it may have been Rhaegar and Lyanna's recollections that were seeded within you both."
Aegon shook his head, scoffed bitterly. "Why would they even do such a thing to us? To what end, pray tell?"
"That is what we are trying to discover," Jaqen replied. "Apparently, you have some important role to play in the prophetic mindset of one twisted order of priests."
Sabine threw Jaqen a murderous stare, the latter merely shrugged his shoulders. They could not tell what they do know: that Aegon the Sixth from the blood of dragon conquerors that survived in the Doom fit the Elder's framework of the Prince that was Promised. It was a condition arranged and rearranged even before the cataclysm, and how very fortuitous that Arya Stark re-entered her cycles in the same era—the Elder may be more persuaded now than ever that the Warrior and the Nissa were indeed destined to meet in this age.
"Can the memories be ablated?" Aegon the Sixth asked Sabine, but his eyes were upon Arya Stark. He knew that erasing Rhaegar's recollections of Lyanna would affect his connection with Arya Stark significantly; the link between them may disintegrate even, in such process. However, he cannot continue being a threat to her.
"Yes," was Sabine's thrifty answer.
"Then, please do it," Aegon sighed, turning his attention to the woman. "And after all these are done, set sail and bring Arya to Westeros. I…" he exhaled once more. "I want her safe from those conspirators. I want her safe from me."
Arya smiled as she beheld the Prince. "You are no peril to me, Aegon the Sixth. Do not think of yourself that way, please. This was something that had happened beyond our control."
The Prince's lip tipped up, his expression was melancholic. "Forgive me, Princess." For falling for you this hard and this deep, he thought, then brushed the persistent voice aside. "In moons forthcoming, I promise, we will meet again. Not as hosts to departed souls, I can assure you—but as you and me." He smiled and took every feature of her in, locked them in the depths of his cherished remembrances. "For now, you must leave. Go, Arya Stark. Rebuild the North, retake your ancestral seat, deal justice to those that have wronged your family. Go," he said. "My loyalty is still yours, and I will come when you call."