part xviii

295 AC

My son is no more of a threat than that incestuous little bastard you brother-fucking whore call a son ever was!

The cruel words — their impossible implications — echo endlessly in Elyanna's head. There is no denial and no escape. Elyanna doesn't ask. Can't bring herself to say the words "Is it really true?" out loud. She doesn't have to.

It's right there, written all over her mother's usually inscrutable face. Elyanna has never seen her so open, laid bared so completely, and right now she wishes with all her heart she never had. This isn't the kind of secret that is precious or useful. It's the worst kind, the one that only hurts, whether it's revealed or hidden in the dark.

She's staring, Elyanna realizes and averts her eyes from Mother. Instead she meets Ser Jaime's startled gaze, reads something that isn't quite shame but closer to horror in his wide eyes. Green eyes so much like her and the possibility of where that thought could so easily lead flashes unbidden through her mind before rationality catches up with her.

[She hopes he cannot read the horrifying — if short-lived — suspicion in her expression as easily as she can his own fear of her reaction. But Uncle Jaime knows her well, has been a shadow accompanying her for as long as she can remember, so Elyanna doesn't hold out much hope. She doesn't know how to apologize for the thought either. Maybe she doesn't even want to.]

"You—"

It feels like she's choking on it. As though the revelation Lyanna has thrown out into the open with such casual cruelty is physically weighing on her, slowly but surely crushing her, splintering her bones, grinding her internal organs into dust.

"Elyanna—" her mother starts, one of these rare instants where she uses her real name, and Elyanna can't. She can't deal with this right now.

She won't.

"Leave."

It's nothing less than an order, issued in a tone of voice Elyanna has never before used when addressing her family, never mind her mother.

Lyanna Stark's ghost dissipates without another word, though whether it's the order or Elyanna's fading focus that's to blame for this development is another question she doesn't care to think about. Ser Jaime, too, knows better than to argue with her — is probably relieved to escape this situation for the moment, if only to gather his wits again — while Mother remains standing, one hand pressed against the wall, eyes fixed on the spot Lyanna's figure occupied a second ago.

Then she exchanges a glance with Ser Jaime over her shoulder that Elyanna couldn't hope to interpret — and genuinely doesn't want to, in light of recent events — before Uncle Jaime closes the door behind him. Softly, as though to somehow counter the shouts of the last few minutes. If only he could quieten the screams inside Elyanna's mind as easily.

"Elyanna," her mother repeats and when she turns around to face her, her expression could be carved out of stone. Elyanna has seen statues look more alive. Though in all fairness, she probably looks the same.

"Mother, I— I can't do this right now."

There's too many things Elyanna needs to think about, to work out for herself before she's ready for this confrontation. Before she can decide how she feels about this, what it will mean for her.

And perhaps Mother understands that, reads the beginnings of panic in Elyanna's eyes, because she sighs and her shoulders slump in what may just be defeat. It should satisfy Elyanna, maybe, but the painful pang echoing through her at the sight of her ever strong mother folding into herself is so far removed from satisfaction, it's not even funny.

"Well, you have to." For all that Mother looks smaller, more afraid than Elyanna has ever seen her, her voice is hard and cold enough to give Lyanna's fury a run for its money. "Elyanna, I need you to give me your word that you will not repeat those foul accusations to anyone and especially not to your father."

Still stuck in a mental maelstrom of How could you's, it takes Elyanna a couple of moments to parse through what exactly her mother is asking. Her first, knee-jerk reaction is to reject her demand outright. It's one thing to cheat on Father — not that Father doesn't do more than enough of that himself, he could probably use a taste of his own medicine — it's an entirely different thing to have Elyanna keep that same secret for her.

If you can't deal with the consequences, you shouldn't have done it, Elyanna wants to sneer, only just manages to swallow the words down before they turn into something she can never take back.

[At least you have the decency not to call them lies to my face.]

Forces herself to push aside her angerdisappointmenthurtconfusion and think. Because Mother has done more than discreetly entertained a lover — though that deed alone is a crime of untold consequences. She's slept with her brother. [Elyanna tries very, very hard not to picture the two of them, not to link Uncle Jaime and Mother to the word sex. Not on their own and most certainly not together. It doesn't work as well as she'd like.] More than that, she's born him a child. A son.

"Robert would kill Joffrey if he so much as caught wind of an unfounded suspicion," Mother snaps when Elyanna remains silent for too long. "He might even go after the girls."

Elyanna's had snaps up — she hadn't even noticed she'd averted her eyes again. "They're not— are they?"

She can't bring herself to say it.

"No!" Mother takes a deep breath. Lowers her voice, but loses none of her intensity. "No. But that might not save them. Robert is not the most reasonable man at the best of times— and those have long passed."

The worst part is that, now that Elyanna thinks about it, she can't even refute her claim. Mother is absolutely right. Father would never suffer a bastard child he hasn't sired himself. Especially not as his primary heir and one day successor to the Iron Throne. And especially not if he can hurt Mother — get rid off Mother — by killing it.

Once again, Elyanna finds herself speechless as an all-encompassing How could you do this to us? reverberates in her very bones. To me? To Joffrey? Stares at the woman she's loved and admired all her life and finds a stranger looking back at her.

A stranger who's sentenced her brother to death for the crime of his existence. Who's ruined his life before it ever started. Forget Father, what would the Seven Kingdoms do if the truth came out? Who would follow a bastard, one born out of incest no less? Who is supposed to rule in Joffrey's stead and what is Joffrey supposed to do with his life— no. No. No one but the people involved, her and the dead know. There's no reason — no time — to panic. Yet.

Unable to look at her mother any longer, Elyanna turns around and walks in stiff but determined motions towards her window. Stares outside at the city that looks the same as always because that, at least, is a sight she can still recognize.

"I will keep your secret," Elyanna says because there is no other option. Even if she cared not for Mother's and Ser Jaime's fate, she could never put her brother — half-brother, isn't it, and that bites more than it has any right to — at risk like that. Could never hurt him like that. Then, because she has been raised among liars and vipers by a mother who might well be the worst of them: "And you, in turn, will keep Lyanna Stark's."

"What?"

She chances a glance at her mother over her shoulder, who looks as startled as she sounds. Elyanna doesn't care. She won't be able to call Lyanna Stark again, she knows that now. Won't be able to take the risk that she shouts Joffrey's origins from the top of her lungs. It would only take one seed planted in the wrong pair of ears. Because screams can be silenced but whispers carry.

Mother likes children in general — or at least, hates them far less than any other person alive — but she's called Jon Snow a threat and neither Baratheons nor Lannisters tolerate threats. Elyanna owes it to Lyanna Stark to ensure that her son will be free to live his life up North, far away from the capital and its so dearly coveted throne. She owes it to the shadow of a girl that kept her company and answered her questions when no other ghost has bothered to so much as show.

[She's so, so tired of children paying the price for their parents' crimes.]

"You wouldn't risk Joffrey," Mother calls her bluff, arms crossed in front of her chest, eyebrows raised in disbelief. "You love him almost as much as he loves you."

Elyanna doesn't bother denying it. She doesn't bother with the accusations and insults brewing in her. Instead she does what her mother taught her to do. Keeps her face blank, her voice deadpan, stares straight into Mother's eyes, level and confident.

"I would risk myself."

Mother starts, takes a half-aborted step towards her before she freezes again. "You—"

"The day you go after Jon Snow is the day I throw myself of the Tower of the Hand of the King."

It's easy to say those words and mean them. So very, very easy. Mother is looking at her like she's never seen Elyanna before — which makes two of them, really. Apparently, this is just a day filled with revelations.

"You would throw away your life for some bastard boy you've never met?"

"I don't know. Would I?"

Elyanna doesn't know if she would. Doesn't know if she could do that to Joffrey, Myrcella and Gwyneth. What she knows is that her mother values the lives of her children more than anything — even revenge. If she can no longer trust in that, she can trust in nothing. And then what's the point of this family?

None of those thoughts show on her face. Elyanna doesn't allow them to. Only lets the stubbornness sicker through that she is so well known for.

Mother licks her lips and finally nods. "Very well. As long as the boy sets no foot into this city, I will pretend he doesn't exist."

"And I'll pretend you haven't destroyed Joffrey's life before it ever began." The words are too hard, but they're out before Elyanna can think better of it.

Mother flinches like she's been slapped and Elyanna should apologize, except the words refuse to come. It's wrong. Everything about this situation is.

"Sweetling-" Mother says the nickname like a question and the last strands of Elyanna's tenuous self-control snap.

"You should leave now, Your Grace."

Even as she speaks, Elyanna knows that she will regret these words. That doesn't stop her from saying them because right now? Right now, she wants her mother to feel at least a fraction of the hurt, the anger, the betrayal Elyanna is drowning in right now. And because she can't throw those emotions at her, can't leave her behind in a brewing storm that may destroy everything it touches, a cheap shot at her mother's weak spot will have to do.

The words do what they are supposed to. Mother turns around. Reaches for the door, finally, only to pause again. Elyanna turns her gaze back towards the window before their eyes can meet and forces herself to remain unmoved in the face of her mother's audible pain.

"Elyanna."

Closes her eyes.

"Just go," she says and only when the door shuts softly behind her mother does she open them again. Stares down at King's Landing without seeing anything at all.

She wants to cry. To sob. To scream. To smile, bitter and brittle, at the tears she's heard in Mother's voice. But she doesn't feel any satisfaction or accomplishment or even regret. All Elyanna feels is empty.

Over the next few days, Elyanna welcomes Joffrey's continued avoidance of her. The less they see of each other, the less likely Joffrey is to notice something. What exactly he might notice, Elyanna isn't so sure. It's not like anything's changed. [Has it?]

It's not like their relationship is conditional on a freaking blood tie. It's not like Elyanna blames him. [She blames Mother, she blames Ser Jaime, she blames Father and this entire messed-up society, but that's another story altogether.] But right now she can't look at him without thinking of her mother's cold expression that didn't quite mask the desperation underneath and she's not sure what Joffrey would read in her eyes if he were to return her gaze, but there's no doubt that there would be something there.

Something she can't explain. Not without shattering his world. Joffrey deserves better than that. He's putting himself under enough pressure as it is. The last thing he needs is yet another reason to doubt his ability to become a great king one day.

[And when did it stop being good and turned into great? When did she stop caring about that difference?]

That first evening, when Elyanna catches sight of Joffrey — taller, broader, more haggard-looking than she remembers — her first instinct is to pull him into a hug that promises she'll never let go of him and tell him that she loves him, always and no matter what. That instinct is ruthlessly squashed by practicality. Not only would such a scene confuse him and draw undue attention, Joffrey would probably take it as some sort of deathbed goodbye and flip out again.

So Elyanna spends dinner and all the following meals for the next few weeks in silence. She doesn't have anything to say to her mother, can't say anything to her father for fear of what else she might add out of spite and won't talk to her brother until she's gotten her head on straight.

[Cause that turned out so well the last time, didn't it?]

It doesn't help that Joffrey doesn't look so hot either. When he isn't in lessons with his advisors, sitting in on council meetings or attending court, he spends every free minute in the training yard. A warrior king, like his father, the servants murmur and Elyanna chokes on her blueberry cake when she realizes that yes, like his father indeed. But the shadows under Joffrey's eyes grow ever darker and really, she thought her brother is over that phase where he strives to be whatever his big sister is. There's no reason for both of them to look like they're already standing on Death's door.

Meals are an awkward affair these days, though not as tense as they ought to be. It's clear that Mother is more affected by recent events than she'd like to admit, for she has a much, much shorter fuse when it comes to Father's antics. Thus resulting in plenty of arguments that allow Joffrey, Myrcella and Elyanna to keep their heads down and eat as quickly as possible. It's a good thing Gwyneth doesn't regularly join them yet at least. Small mercies.

Unlike Joffrey, Mother attempts to reach out all the time. Elyanna knows she can't avoid the woman forever — doesn't even want to — but her constant pushing is grating on her last nerve. Right now, she can barely look her in the eyes. How does her mother expect them to have a good, productive talk that doesn't end with them screaming insults and carefully chosen barbs at each other that cut them down to their bones?

At least Ser Jaime makes the situation somewhat easier. He's been avoiding her almost as much as Elyanna's been avoiding him. Considering he's technically her sworn sword, that's quite the accomplishment — and yet another fracture Joffrey will undoubtedly pick up on once he graces her with his presence again.

Luckily, it doesn't look like that's going to happen any time soon.

"What do you want, Mother?"

Elyanna doesn't mean to sound so abrupt, but it's almost a reflex by now. If only her mother would give her the time to fucking breathe, maybe she could figure out how to move past this. As things stand, though…

Mother laughs, though not as lightly as usual. "That's the first time you've called me Mother since."

"Well, you are." Elyanna shrugs. "No point in denying that."

"You no longer wish to pretend otherwise?"

I suppose I deserve that.

"I never did." Elyanna sighs and finally turns to look at her mother. She looks older, somehow, though not as terrible as Joffrey does lately, and still hauntingly beautiful. "You're my mother and I love you," she says simply. It's the truth, after all, even if she rarely says it out loud. She's just always assumed that her mother knows that, like she seems to know everything else.

Maybe she shouldn't have though because her mother relaxes as though a great weight has been lifted off her shoulders. Elyanna wants to reach out and hug her, but.

"I love you," she repeats. "Nothing changes that. But I can't forgive you. Not now. Not with this."

[Your mistake puts my brother at risk.]

It needs to be said. Enough things have gone unspoken as it is.

"Elyanna? Elyanna!"

It takes Elyanna a moment to realize that she's not dreaming. That someone is in fact calling her name. She blinks herself awake in her darkened room, candles long extinguished, to find a shadow bowed over her bedside. Her hand closes reflexively around the tilt of her favorite dagger — a gift from Ser Jaime, accompanied by a wink that said he knows all too well what she and Joffrey had been getting up to when no one else was watching back then — before her brain processes the intruder's identity.

"Joffrey?!" Dagger forgotten, Elyanna jerks up — only narrowly avoids smashing her forehead against her brother's in the process. "What's going on? Is something wrong?"

"Shhh."

A habit ingrained from all sorts of questionable childhood adventures, Elyanna obeys without protest. Several moments pass in silence, with both of them listening for approaching footsteps, the mutters of a guard, any sign that they're about to be discovered. Eventually, Joffrey sighs. Shrinks into himself as he does so.

"You're really here." Elyanna feels much more awake now, bust she's still half-convinced that she's dreaming. There's just no other way to explain how Joffrey's currently in her chambers, sitting crosslegged on the middle of her bed, within touching distance, like he used to do all the time.

Of course, if this was a time like all the others, she would reach out and lay her hand on his upper arm. Wordlessly assure him that he's not alone while he gathers his thoughts. Elyanna could do that — her brother's close enough — but she's not nearly as confident as she used to be that Joffrey will accept her touch. Or not dissolve into nothingness for that matter.

[If it's a dream, I'll kill anyone who wakes me up.]

Joffrey shifts, the motion more felt than seen. "Naturally. Where else would I be?"

If it's meant to be funny, the joke falls flat.

Elyanna narrows her eyes at him, even though she knows perfectly well that he won't see it. "I don't know. You tell me."

"Oh, come on, El. You know I couldn't visit you."

"Oh yeah? Why's that?" Elyanna can't help her colder tone, although she bites back the you abandoned me just in time. It wouldn't be fair or true. Rationally speaking, she knows that.

Joffrey sighs — bit like he's trying to copy Ser Barristan and not yet managing it, a bit like he's far, far older than his fourteen years would suggest. "You know why," he says quietly. "You'd have taken it as confirmation that you were in the right all along — which you're not, if you're wondering — and I'm just too proud to admit it out loud."

And well. He's probably not wrong. Still.

"You're here now."

At those words, Joffrey uncrosses his legs, leans back onto his elbows and stretches his legs out in front of him. He's lying parallel to Elyanna now and isn't looking at her — not that it makes much of a difference in the shadowed room.

"I got tired of waiting for you to finally admit you fucked up." The words themselves are harsh, but Joffrey says them lightly, companionably knocks their shoulders together. For some utterly inexplicable reason, it's that gesture and not the words themselves that make Elyanna's eyes burn. Gods, but she's missed this.

"I fucked up."

It's easier to admit that here, in the darkness, with no one but Joffrey for a witness. [He's never counted the way other people have.] She still almost chokes on the words — if she'd just stopped when Joffrey'd asked her to, if she hadn't summoned Lyanna again, her mother would've never walked in on the two of them. She wouldn't have spent the past weeks hounding Elyanna, wouldn't continuously question her on Lyanna's ghost, wouldn't watch over her shoulder as though the dead may appear behind her at any given moment.

[There would've been no argument, no ugly revelations, and she still wouldn't know. Most days, Elyanna yearns for that ignorance, the precious blindness that would help her, her mother's and even Ser Jaime's peace of mind. But some nights, she lies awake, stares at her ceiling and pictures all the other ways in which her brother's origins could've come to light. Could still come to light.

Terrible, bloody pictures those are, and Elyanna takes perverse pleasure in knowing that at least some of them can't come to pass anymore. When she doesn't have nightmares from a thousand scenarios that could still come to true, that is.]

Then, because she might as well do this properly: "I'm sorry, Joff. You were right. I knew the magic was killing me and I kept using it anyways because it made me feel better about myself. I was selfish and a bitch about it."

There's other things she wants to say as well, things Elyanna has to bite her lip hard enough to bleed to keep inside. She should probably tell Joffrey the truth now. Like this, with her face hidden in shadows, listening to her little brother's even breaths, is about the only way she can imagine telling him. Mother may have sworn her to secrecy, but Joffrey? He deserves to know, perhaps more than anyone else in this castle. This is a secret that may one day cost him his life. The least she can do is help him prepare for the eventuality, ensure that the worst case scenarios she's been contemplating never get the chance to turn into reality.

But.

How do you start a confession such as this? How do you say You're not my brother without saying You're not my brother? Is it even her place to start this conversation? Shouldn't it be Mother, maybe even Ser Jaime? Shouldn't he hear it from those who did it, those whose apologies might mean something once the first stage of shock and horror faded? Was now even the right moment? What with their fairly shaky reconciliation?

[Would there ever be a right moment for a conversation like this?]

"You're quiet," Elyanna says. To fill the silence. To keep herself from filling it with something else.

Joffrey snorts. "Did you expect me to disagree?"

Joining his laughter should be harder, maybe. Then again, she might be overthinking things, as per usual. "No, I most certainly didn't. We both know the only reason you mastered Sister Barba's lessons on manners is because you had me help you cheat."

"Hey! I did no such thing as cheat and you can't prove otherwise!"

"Neither could Sister Barba." Elyanna grins, recalling the suspicious look on the old woman's face all too well.

The fabric rustles to her left as Joffrey takes her hand into his. "Thanks. For the apology."

"You deserved one," she murmurs and squeezes his hand tightly. They haven't done this in too long— Joffrey will just have to stick around for some time. Until she stops sounding so ridiculously choked up every time he reaches out at least. That's gonna get embarrassing fast.

Luckily, Joffrey doesn't seem to mind. If anything, he holds onto her just as tight.

It seems like an eternity passes like this, the two of them lying next to each other, hands closely entwined, listening to each other's steady breaths. Elyanna may have fallen asleep for a moment there, but if she has, it's still dark when she reopens her eyes.

"Elyanna?" Joffrey whispers at some point, voice rumbling with exhaustion and something softer than uncertainty.

"Hmm?"

"Do you love me?"

Elyanna blinks. Does it again. Slowly turns her head. She can't make out Joffrey's features, but his eyes glint in the weak light and that'll have to do.

[This, at least, is an easy question, compared to everything they have and will have to talk about. That does not make it in any way, shape or form acceptable that her brother even feels the need to pose such an uncharacteristically insecure question.]

"Of course I love you."

Joffrey huffs, but whatever it is he wants to say, Elyanna interrupts him immediately.

"No, Joff. I mean it. You're my family, my little brother, and I love you. No matter what happens or what you'll do, I'll always love you," Elyanna says intently.

"Promise?"

She might have shrugged it off, if Joffrey didn't sound so utterly unlike himself — so childlike, so young — just then. Might have. But Elyanna's had Joffrey's back from the moment her mother first placed the tiny babe in her very uncoordinated arms. This is something she can do.

"I promise."

It's the easiest truth she's told in weeks.

["I love you too, El," Joffrey mumbles and presses a soft kiss against her forehead before he slips from her room, hours before daylight breaks.

Elyanna knows she's going to regret her lack of sleep dearly in the morning, but it's hard to remember that when her lips refuse to stop smiling and her heart feels several pounds of solid iron lighter.]

Despite her reconciliation with Joffrey, it only takes one more confrontation with her mother to make Elyanna snap.

["Fine," she hisses — quietly, there's no need to attract curious ears, not for this — and drags her mother through the door, slams it shut behind her. "You want talk? Let's talk."]

Elyanna is so sick of it. Of the Red Keep with its lies and deadly secret and all its inhabitants who are utterly incapable of not cutting off their own thumbs because of their blindness, selfishness and sheer idiocy. Of putting on all these endless masks. Of this rotten system that turns even the kindest heart inside out.

She's tired of lying to everyone she cares about. Be it about other people's secrets or her own.

["Don't talk to me like that! You have a right to be angry with me, but I'm still your mother."

"Alright, Mother. Let's hear it then. What's your excuse for ruining Joffrey's life and sentencing him to death?"]

Most of all, Elyanna is so fucking tired of dying. She's at a point where she can honestly say she wishes whatever is sucking the life straight out of her would hurry up and get it over with. This — spending all day in her chambers, having to listen to septas and maesters and, worst of all, Grand Maester Pycelle ramble on about how they really have no clue but they're gonna spend the next hour talking anyways — has to be worse than whatever the afterlife holds for her.

She can't even sneak off and spend her evenings in Joffrey's rooms or go visit Eon. She physically isn't strong enough. Getting to the dining hall trice a day is pretty much all that Elyanna can do without fainting or worse. Which just figures. She finally works things out with Joffrey — has completely sworn off magic, even — and now she's stuck completely useless. All she gets to see is the pain in her family's eyes every time they visit her.

Except for Gwyneth, whose too young to understand what's wrong with her, and to a lesser extend Myrcella, who doesn't fully grasp the meaning of 'dying'. She keeps asking how long Elyanna will be gone and if she'll bring them a present from where she's going. Joffrey actually turned on his heels and headed straight back to the training yard, the one time he caught that particular inquiry. From what Ser Jaime told her later — whilst still avoiding unnecessary eye contact — he utterly destroyed his opponent there.

["You don't understand, Sweetling. For all that you love your brother, you truly don't. How could you? Your twin was taken from you before you were old enough to realize what you'd lost. No one ever loves you the way your twin does and no one ever will. Jaime and I, we belong together. We shared a womb, came together into this world. We are one in ways people who aren't born with half a soul will never understand. A love so pure, how could it be a crime? How could it be anything but right?"

"You're married and Uncle Jaime took the oath as a Kingsguard. That's what makes it a crime!"]

What Elyanna is least prepared for, though, is how unbelievable boring being on bed arrest truly is. And it's different from previous times because this time there's nobody ordering her to stay and there's no one there to tell her it'll only be for a week. Because she couldn't do anything more even if she wanted to and it won't get better.

Useless bloody grey rats can't even put her to sleep to make it easier on her. A waste of space, that's all that sad excuse for an order really is. If only she'd been born two thousand years later with actual hospitals, not this backwards society that relies on nebulous cure-alls produced by the Faith or a bunch of uppity assholes hoarding their precious knowledge like a jealous dragon. Elyanna honestly doesn't know which wannabe sect she likes less, which is quite an accomplish—

Hold on.

Elyanna stills — not that it's noticeable, considering she's lying on her bed like always.

The maesters do hoard their knowledge like it's going out of style, don't they? In most of the Greater Houses, particularly the smaller ones, the maester handles the ravens. Hell, Pycelle handles a lot of them as well, though he would probably be hard-pressed to get truly important news passed Varys and Littlefinger, not to mention Mother.

At least now Elyanna knows what's bothering her about the grey rats so much — when has collecting important knowledge of all kinds in one group with a very strict belief system ever led to anything good? — even if it's not much of a groundbreaking realization.

Of course, she has been meaning to break into Pycelle's little office. And is fast running out of time to do so. What's the worst that could happen at this point? That she'll be discovered? Elyanna lifts her arm and stares at it until her hand begins to tremble from the strain. Which doesn't take as long as she'd like.

Yeah. Very soon, there won't be a whole lot of things that will affect her. She might as well make the most of the time she's got. At least this way she can ensure that Pycelle doesn't pose a threat to Joffrey and her sisters.

Decision made, Elyanna carefully slides out of bed. It's a good thing she'd been able to eat dinner in her rooms today, what with Mother and Father having another escalated fight during lunch. Plus, it's more than late enough for the ever so diligent Pycelle to have abandoned his chambers for the sort of pleasures his maester's chain proclaims he's sworn to forsake.

Yuck.

One hand pressed against the wall to keep her balance, Elyanna crosses the room with slow, but steady steps. Granted, her guards used to make things tricky once her health declined too far to risk sneaking out through the window, but as luck would have it, Father's been in such a mood because of Mother's insults, he's actually ordered Ser Jaime to serve as his guard tonight.

[Elyanna doesn't understand how, exactly, this is a punishment for her Mother, what with Father being unaware of the affair between them, but judging by the way Mother had pursed her lips and Ser Jaime had grimaced before he'd hidden it, it's an effective one. It certainly made Mother so angry, she hadn't thought to organize a replacement.

Not that Elyanna has reminded her.]

In other words, there is no one around to gently accompany Elyanna back into her room — or worse, tell Mother. That's where the smooth part of her plan ends though. The corridors are largely empty, but Elyanna's somehow managed to forget how endlessly long they are. She's already sweating like a pig and feeling dangerously light-headed, and she hasn't even reached Pycelle's room yet.

Then, there's the servant boy who appears out of thin air — by which Elyanna means she walks straight into him and it's only due to his quick reflexes and superior upper body strength that they both stay upright. That definitely throws a wench into her plan.

"M'lady? Are you alright?" a familiar voice squeaks, causing Elyanna's eyes to snap open — and when did she decide to close them?

"Mern?"

Elyanna stares at the grown up version of the kitchen boy who used to hide her and Joffrey when they were on the run from Sister Barba and snuck them sweets when the cooks weren't watching.

[There's advantages to befriending every servant in this keep, but Elyanna's always thought that there's a special sort of wisdom in staying on the good side of the people handling your meals.]

Recovering from her initial surprise, Elyanna begins to smile. Mern, who clearly remembers her as well as she remembers him, eyes her warily. He's always been the cautious sort. Not a bad attitude to have, when being lowborn and dealing with energetic highborn. That hasn't stopped him from lying to the gold cloaks to cover for her before though.

"Mern." Elyanna's smile widens. "Just the person I was looking for."

With Mern's help, Elyanna reaches Pycelle's quarters without any further unpleasant surprises. Sure, she also has to fend off quite a few Are you sure we shouldn't find a Kingsguard and Why do you want to sneak in the Grand Maester's chambers, but dealing with people entirely too reasonable to deserve the Red Keep always comes at a cost. Such is life.

As predicted, Pycelle's room is empty and as sparsely decorated as the last time Elyanna visited it. This time, she has the advantage of not having to stay undetected though. With that in mind, Elyanna goes straight for the desk — and sinks into the not particularly comfortable chair in front of it.

[Even with Mern acting as a crutch, her legs are only going to hold her up for so long.]

"What are you looking for?" Mern asks as Elyanna pulls open the closest drawer.

As much of a mess as the desk appears to be, the paper in Pycelle's drawers is carefully sorted and labelled. Elyanna takes a few moments to familiarize herself with the system and only has to reprimand Mern twice for almost spilling wax all over a parchment. Most of it, she would love to look at in detail, but there's really only one section that draws her immediate interests. Health records.

"A'right you smarmy bastard, let's see how much you know," she murmurs and flips through the parchment. There's records for every person Pycelle has ever treated, so it's a damn good thing he's ordered them by name, not date. And alphabetically at that. Really, it's like he's trying to make this as easy as possible for her.

Even more interesting, unlike his predecessor, Pycelle hasn't just kept notes of his own observations, he's also included copies of letters he must have sent the Citadel about Elyanna's conditions. Upon that discovery, Elyanna switches from skimming entries to reading the much more interesting correspondence. The first few letters mostly describe her general health issues, as well as information he must have gleaned from Mother in an attempt to gain a more accurate overall picture. However, it appears that unlike what Pycelle has told the court for years, he's narrowed in on a suspected cause very early on in his employment.

—the symptoms are unlike any poison I have ever seen, studied or heard of—

—its nefarious effects appear to be slow, almost sluggish, in ways even Manticore venom couldn't achieve, leading me to believe the culprit seeks to mimic a natural death—

—is perhaps, much as it disheartens me to admit, the perfect murder, for there continues to be no evidence of foul play to be found—

—am no closer at discovering the source than I was at the beginning, though I do continue to hold with my initial suspicion of a man-made cause. Best as I can explain the observed results, the princess appears to develop a resistance to the poison, leading to a constant increase of its dose and potency. It would be nigh impossible for such a process to occur without a rational mind guiding it—

If that isn't interesting enough, the responses Pycelle's suspicions have received from Grand Maester Sayn are telling in their own right.

—have sought advice from Maester Redwyne, whose unorthodox theories and research methodology has proven helpful in the past. He has been hesitant to share his suspicions at first and upon hearing it, I cannot help but agree. I dare not put more into this letter, save for that he has drawn startling parallels with the developments largely described by Grand Maester Munkun. I would ask you to remember our most fierce argument to date and reconsider your position in light of your recent findings—

—cannot interfere—

—may be best to let nature come to its inevitable conclusion, as it has already done over a century and a half ago—

Elyanna stares at the parchments in her clenched hands until the letters swim in front of her eyes. True, there is no clear diagnosis and nowhere is there talk of a cure but. This is the most she has ever heard about her condition. This is more than the people in charge of healing her have ever known. This. This is treason. More importantly, it's murder. Her murder that these old geezers are rambling about. Pages upon pages of discussing her decay and their entire conclusion can be summed up with best to let her die off quietly?!

[How many people have told her over and over again that she's always been a sickly child? That her birth was a hard one, her survival nothing short of a miracle? How many of them have insisted that it's no wonder she's so much weaker and less active than Joffrey? How many have told her that her body had never been quite ready to live, that it's really not surprising that it's failing her now?

When has she started believing them?]

"M'lady?" Mern sounds uncharacteristically impatient. It's probably not the first time he's tried to draw her attention then. "We should really go."

Elyanna slowly releases the air between her teeth with a hissing sound. If only she could get rid off her pent-up rage as easily.

"You're right."

With that, she throws the parchments carelessly on the ground.

"M'lady!" Mern exclaims, already crouching down to pick them up.

"Leave them."

"But— Shouldn't we put everything back where it was so the Grand Maester doesn't know we were here?"

"I want him to know we were here," Elyanna growls. Forcefully pushes her anger down and reminds herself to think logically. "I simply don't want him to know what, exactly, we were looking for."

And with that she reaches towards another stack of carefully ordered parchments and throws them over her shoulders. And other. And the next. She pulls open the drawers and empties them, even makes Mern pull off the thin mattress from the bed and turn it around.

"The more chaos there is, the less they know about what we were looking for. Or if we found it," she explains when Mern looks at her like she lost her mind.

"Did we find it?" Mern asks

"I'm not su—"

It's when Elyanna rises up from her chair that she hears it. Actually, it's more like she feels it. The slightest impression of something. With one hand clenched tightly around the surface of the desk, she lowers herself onto the floor next to the chair. Roughly pushes a few papers aside and reaches underneath the chair. There's nothing stuck to its underside, but when she trails her fingers along the seams, there's a small part, just wide enough for her hand to slip in, where the seams have been cut.

"M'lady, what?" Mern's hands are on her shoulders, steading her as Elyanna stares down at the notes Pycelle has so cleverly hidden when all this other incriminating stuff is left in plain view of everyone who cares to enter.

It only takes a few seconds for Elyanna to realize what she's looking at — she's been staring at enough medical records in Pycelle's surprisingly neat handwriting, thank you very much. It's birthing records, not of the Royal family, but a variety of other names, some familiar, others not at all.

It takes a whole lot longer for Elyanna to understand what it is she's looking at.

This— Whatever else Pycelle's been getting up to, whatever blame may be laid on his shoulders for her failing health, this is his true crime. This isn't just murder, it's not even treason. This is so much more valuable. It's proof of a conspiracy that could make or break Pycelle — and his whole cursed Order with him.

"Elyanna, are you alright?"

Mern's concerned eyes swim back into focus in front of her and Elyanna tries for a smile.

"We did. We found it," she croaks. Wishes the world would stop spinning around her already.

"Mern?" She doesn't feel his grip on her shoulders anymore, but for once Elyanna is fairly sure it's got more to do with the shock than anything else. This. This is so much more than she thought, goes so much deeper than she'd imagined. Poison indeed.

When Elyanna speaks again, it's through lips so numb, it might have been someone else for all the awareness she puts into it. "Take me to my father. Now."

There's a moment, at some point during the walk to father's chambers, where it occurs to Elyanna that Mern may be a spy. With all the powerful puppet masters the Iron Throne attracts, you'd be hard-pressed to find a single person in the Red Keep who doesn't owe an alliance to someone. It's an abstract consideration that Elyanna dismisses almost immediately — for if Mern serves the wrong person, it's already far too late and she's in no state to stop him — despite the sure steps with which he moves her through the hallways and disappears in the shadows whenever a guard walks by.

By the end of it, he's carrying Elyanna piggyback and she's lost all sense of orientation or time. Nevertheless, they make it to Father's chambers safe and unseen and Elyanna squeezes Mern's hands when he lowers her back to the ground.

"Thank you, Mern."

"Of course, m'lady." He smiles gently at her, brushes back her sweaty hair where it sticks to her forehead. "I'm glad to be of service to you."

Elyanna knocks as hard as she can, but doesn't wait for Father to respond. There's nothing he could be doing that trumps what she has to say — after all, even if he's got company, it sure as hell won't be her mother after today's fight — and this is more important than Elyanna's delicate sensibilities.

It's only when Elyanna has already pulled the doors wide open, has already taken her first step into the room, that she wonders about the lack of guards at her father's door. Only when she meets the horrified gaze of her uncle that she remembers Father had ordered Ser Jaime to guard him tonight.

But even if she had thought of it, none of that would explain why her brother is standing in the middle of her father's chambers. Upon her loud entrance, Joffrey has whirled around like he's going to lash out, face white as snow and eyes hollow.

"Joffrey? What are you doing here?" Elyanna asks reflexively.

"El—"

That's when Mern, still faithfully serving as her crutch, goes tense as a bowstring by her side. And really, Elyanna must be in a far worse state than she thought. There's simply no other explanation for how she could have missed the body. Or the sword in Ser Jaime's hand left hand, dripping blood on the outrageously expensive carpet.

"He knew," Ser Jaime — her uncle, her sworn sword, the Kingslayer — whispers, voice cracking, when Elyanna meets his glazed eyes once more. "He knew."

end of part xviii

You may now understand why I almost deviated from my usual chapter summary and called this The one in which everything shatters. [Yes, I am indeed that dramatic.]

I apologize for the second cliffhanger, but this chapter was already long enough as it is, I really couldn't add the aftermath in as well.

The Cercei&Elyanna interactions were also tricky because I really couldn't spend the entire chapter debating the merits of incest in favor of plot, but I also wanted to give the revelation some of the attention it deserved, have Elyanna react half-way realistically and still do the relationship between her and Cercei justice. So, tricky. And we finally got the Joffrey&Elyanna reconciliation, as a bit of fluff sprinkled in :) As for Robert, I did mention that this isn't a Fix-Everything-And-Make-It-All-Better kinda fic, right?

To be honest, I can't believe I'm writing a GoT fic and it took me 18 chapters to kill off my first secondary character... [I also can't believe I wrote and posted 18 chapters in under half a year, but that's another story altogether.] Anyways. Please drop me a comment with your thoughts and impressions if you've got the time!

Thank you for reading & have a great day!