Chapter Forty-Nine: Terrible Times and Terrible Deeds
Arry's Chambers
Gendry
Since the battle, Gendry must have slept for only a few sparing hours. Between watching over Arry, licking his wounds, and answering the questions of a thousand lords and knights, there hadn't been time. Most times he'd slept, it had been at her side, his hand in hers and his head in her lap.
He hadn't heard her speak since the battle, when she'd been begging for Jon, asking after Nymeria and hardly looking to him at all. Before that, since before the battle began, when they had been together at the Mud Gate. He'd told her to stay safe, and she'd called him stupid. She'd been spinning that staff of hers. The one he'd made for her out of the few scraps of dragonglass he'd carried with them. The one that failed her.
She died because of that staff. She hadn't said, but he knew it. If he'd just made it a bit stronger…
The black scars had faded to a deep blue, like the waters between Dragonstone and the main shoreline. He'd been surrounded by it once for days undying, and now he saw it whenever he looked to her face. Whenever he looked to the grasping fingers on her throat, the bruises stretching up to her eyes, the scarring on her right arm. Whenever she tried to speak, and all that came was chokes and coughs.
But worst of all wasn't the marks, or the staring, or the throat that must have hurt like all the seven hells. No, the worst was her. The way she refused to move, unless someone came to move her. The way she never even tried responding, ever since she'd gone for the damned sword. The way she wouldn't look him in the eyes anymore.
He'd seen her in many different states. He'd seen her hungry, and mourning, and afraid, and he'd seen her angry, and vengeful, and strong as anyone could be. He'd never seen her lost. Never. That, more than anything, was what scared him.
And with Lord Mormont's death, it had only gotten worse. She was even twitchier than she'd been before, and, whenever Jon and the Queen came by, she wouldn't look to them at all. She hardly even looked to Gendry now, no matter how he tried to help her. Only the maester. She only ever looked to him, and it was never with pleasure.
The next time the maester came to offer her a drink, she took it. Drank it down without complaint. Never in his life had Gendry been more relieved, and never in his life had he been more suspicious. Arry was as stubborn as they came, and for her to drink down milk of the poppy when it had been offered to her a thousand times already? Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
Maybe she was tired. That would be the easy explanation, he knew. For as long as he'd been with her – only ever trading places with Jon and Lord Edmure because she got nervous when there were too many of them around – she had never slept once. Now, with no more than a quick smile from the maester, and a few careful words, she was slipping into sleep, as if nothing at all was the matter. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe he was just paranoid.
He might have been relieved to see her eyes slide shut, if she hadn't been grimacing as she'd done it. If they'd not found her an hour past, staring at the corpse of Lord Mormont, his eyes sightless and staring.
Jon had questioned her a thousand times, but Arya only stared and shrugged.
And so, they had taken her back to her chambers, and now she sucked down milk of the poppy the way she'd done the ale before the battle. He'd laughed then, so much that he hadn't even punched the Codd when he'd said her ears were too large. And, when she'd returned from the queen's side, he'd held her so close, even as the men watched, that she'd mocked him for hours. Even when they'd spent the night in her bed again, and again, and again.
Good memories. Happy memories. Memories from before the battle, before she'd died. Memories that were gone now.
He wanted to help, but he wasn't sure he knew how. He wanted to do a lot of things, but he wasn't sure he knew how.
He wanted to go back before the battle, and he wanted to keep her as far away from the beach and the Sept as he could. He wanted to stab the Night King himself, a thousand times over. More. For all that he'd done to her, to Gendry, to the world. He wanted to kill the one who'd given her the scars on her stomach, and he wanted to kill their wight too! He wanted to her smile again, the way she had on Dragonstone, the way she had when he took her to bed, and showed her all the ways she was beautiful.
But, as Arry's head settled on the pillow, Gendry could do nothing more than stare. He felt for her hand, just to reassure himself that she was there, even if she was sleeping, and-
#
Stars. Crimson stars on a blank black sky, while a bleeding sword soared overhead.
Lights of all sizes and shapes and colors spun above, some in circles and some in squares, and some just danced everywhere.
"Arry," he whispered to the dancing stars. He turned his head to the side, searching for her steel grey eyes, but there was nothing there but floor. Floor, shattered shards of clay, and an empty bed. Empty. Empty. Was it supposed to be empty? He forced himself to roll, half his head shrieking with his every move. And, as he settled on his forearms, he looked up, doing his best to ignore the thump, thump, thump like hammers on a helm. There was still naught but food and gifts and nothing at all. "Arry!"
Seven hells, why did his head hurt so much?
His feet were unsteady, but he climbed onto them all the same and stumbled over to the other side of her bed. Nothing. To the wall. Nothing. It was only when he looked down that he saw it. Blood. Blood on carpet and dripping off of the shattered bits of clay that had been scattered around him.
"Arry!" He screamed it, this time. The door was wide open, but the guards – the guards, the guards, where were the bleeding guards? – did not answer. Nobody answered.
With the wall as his only support, he staggered through the door and out into the long, winding halls. There were supposed to be guards at every door in this wing, and guards at every corner. So where in all the seven hells were they?
Each time he took a step, bile swelled in his throat, but it didn't matter. None of it mattered now. He'd just gotten Arry back! He couldn't lose her. Not again! Not now! Not while she still needed him, not while she was still hurt, not while she couldn't defend herself…
He fell back against the wall, head in his hands. A sharp pain danced wherever his fingers touched, but that didn't matter either.
"Where are you?" he whispered.
She'd been on the bed, last he'd seen her. The maester had given her poppy milk, and Gendry was beside them both, and then nothing. Stars on the ceiling.
He pulled his hands back and caught a glimpse of red as they crossed over his chest. Blood. On his fingers and in his hair. All over. Was he bleeding? Was she?
What had happened between the milk and the stars? Where could she have gone, why was he hurt, and where was the-
The maester.
He grit his teeth and forced himself back onto his feet. The bastard must have taken the guards with him. Tricked them somehow, or killed them. That could explain why the hall was empty. But why? Why take Arry? Why take the guards? Why hit him?
He forced himself back onto his feet and set off down the winding hall. It was a difficult walk. One foot in front of the other, only every step had him swaying and stumbling. He was shaking with fury and pain alike, and it only made things harder.
This all went back to Arry, and he knew it well. The maester hadn't wanted him anymore than Melisandre had. Their sort – the bad sort, the evil sort, the bloody noble sort – wanted power, blood, magic. Was there magic in the blood of the undead? Would he put leeches all over her and bid her to her death?
Back then, Gendry had Davos. Arry had no one.
He picked up his pace. It didn't matter if his head would kill him for it later. He needed to find her like he needed to breathe.
The last time he'd lost her, she died. The time before that, she'd disappeared for five years, and he'd thought her dead then too.
Not again. Not again.
He stumbled down the hall the same way he'd stumbled through the Eyrie on his way to Lady Stark. Unbalanced, uncoordinated, unprepared. There was less smoke this time through, and fewer fires. That helped, some, when he wasn't toppling into walls and watching the world spin before his eyes.
The last time he'd been this uncoordinated had been after he'd finished rowing. His legs had been liquid, he couldn't move his arms, and he'd been so desperate for water that he'd thrown himself into a river and drank until the sun rose. When morning came 'round, he'd stumbled into a blacksmith shop and promised to work for a cool sip of ale. He'd worked through the day and night, and he'd drunken more than his share. He felt just as sick back now as he did back then.
Only, there was one tiny important detail. Back then, he hadn't a goal in the world.
Now, he did.
He stopped against a wall, took a long, shaken breath and reached for the sword on his hip. And then, he set off. To find Arry. To make it right.
#
He was halfway to the maester's turret when he heard the scream. A loud, shrill cry that might have driven him mad, if he hadn't known that Arry could hardly even whisper. Even so, he picked up his pace as soon as he heard it. In his experience, screams seemed to follow where bad things went, and both followed him everywhere.
At least this time it would help. It never had before.
His head had cleared some in the time he'd been walking. The black spots were gone from his eyes, and his vision wasn't swimming as much. It made it easier to move. It made it easier to run.
So run, he did. He ran towards the screaming, bouncing off the walls and tripping over his feet, but none of it mattered, because Arry needed him. Arry had saved the lot of them, and she needed him now.
Milk of the poppy, he thought, as he bounded through a corner. I shouldn't have let her drink it. I shouldn't have done a lot of things.
But should-haves were nots, and Gendry had failed her. Gendry had failed them all. He was supposed to protect her, while Jon was tending to whatever it was he tended to, and while King Tully was gathering the Riverlords to march. The man had been more than friendly, for a king in the company of a bastard, but he hadn't been much for protecting. His arms were skinnier than Arry's had been when she was a girl, and he hadn't been much smarter. But he'd trusted Gendry with the watch, and it had been Gendry that let the maester in, hadn't protested the way he should have. He should have at least watched him. Should have at least checked the poppy milk. But he hadn't. Why hadn't he?
There were people surrounding him. Women, children, and a few scattered survivors of the war. Men still wearing bloody armor, though the battle had been done for over a sennight. His was just as bloody, and his sword too. Beside them, the lords dressed in their fanciest cloaks, posturing like birds in the spring, posing themselves for their kings and their queens.
They were screaming. All of them were. Shouting about a wight, about a monster the guards were sheltering. A rotting corpse, he heard one man say, as Gendry pushed him back into a wall. Gendry was gone before he could say another word.
More than one tried to stop him. Some with hands, some with words, some by reaching for their swords. Gendry didn't see them, hear them, or even think to stop of them. He charged past. If they were in the way, the smarter ones got out of it. He didn't have time to wait.
As he pushed down the hall, he wondered if he shouldn't have told them what he was doing. They would have helped Arry, wouldn't they? She'd saved their lives as much as his.
It's different, he thought, but for the life of him, he didn't know why.
So he ran, and he ran, and he ran. In truth, he needn't have bothered. For, he found them after three more corners.
Arry.
Arry, and the maester, and the stupid bastards they'd set to guard her. Oh, thank the gods. The old gods, and the Seven gods, and even Arry's death god! They hadn't taken her! They hadn't gone!
She was lying limp off of the shoulder of one of them. He had her by the waist, and the rest of her was slung against his back, her head dangerously close to smashing into the wall.
Her face was bare – devoid of even the bandages – and so too was the blue burned skin of her arm, and suddenly Gendry realized exactly what the smallfolk meant, when they screamed of a corpse in the hall. It made him want to turn back and beat the beards off their faces. He might have, if Arry hadn't still needed him.
She didn't look hurt. At least, no more than she'd been since the war. She just looked like she was sleeping. Just like she'd been the night they laid together in her bed. Only then she'd started kicking and howling midway through the night, and Gendry had woken with bite marks on his arm. Now, she was limp as heated steel.
When he was sure that she was alright, he looked to the maester and let the fury claim him like the stupid bull she'd always known him to be. A wrinkled face stared back at him, so nervous and careful, it might have made Gendry sick. He looked small in his robes, like a skinny child, but it was a front. There were knives hidden beneath those robes, and poisons, and treasons. There had to be.
As fury dripped from Gendry's tongue in tiny little sounds that barely even counted as words, the man backed into the wall, fingers fumbling on stone.
If he could kill him, she'd be safe. The guards were fools, but Gendry could catch them. This man was the threat. This was the one that had taken her.
This one needed to taste a sword.
Gendry started for him, but he was not quick enough, and only then did he notice that they were not alone in the hall. Instead, the King in the North and the King of the Riverlands stood before them, both eyeing Gendry as if the boy had sprouted a second head sometime during his run. Jon, in particular, had seemed frazzled enough before he'd seen him, but now, the confusion was all across Jon's face.
"Gendry?" the once-king asked, cocking his head some. It stopped Gendry midway through a step, if only by distracting him. "Are you bleeding?"
The blood still stuck to his fingers answered that enough, and all the blood that still clung to the side of his head.
No, he wanted to say, I punched a tomato. It fought back.
"Arry," he said, instead, reaching for the heavy sword hanging from his hip. "The maester, Jon-"
The man in question stumbled back, feinting surprise at the sight of him. "My Lord Snow, this is what I was warning you for. I found him working to poison-"
"Bullshit!" Gendry roared, charging forward like a bull on the hunt. He might have cut the man in half, if one of the guards hadn't drawn his own blade. He was halfway through a swing, when the man's own came from below. And, while Gendry could wield a hammer with the best of them, he wasn't quite so good with the things he made from them. The sword flew from his grip, and the guard had a sword at his throat before another word could be said.
Gendry froze. Swallowed. The sword bobbed where it sat above the bulge in his throat. Through the thin slit in the man's helm, Gendry saw two dark eyes narrow. His foot shifted, wrist pushed forward, and-
"Enough." As soon as the word left Jon Snow's mouth, the guard was drawing back, and Jon was stepping forward. In that moment, he looked like all the things a king should be. Strong, brave, determined, honest, honorable to a damned fault. And, as he looked at the maester, so too did he look furious. "Whatever your game is, maester, I am not here to play." He drew the sword from his belt with a sickening shieeeeek, and valyrian steel lit the hall. "I don't know what Gendry has with my sister. I don't think I want to know. But I do know this-"
He stepped forward, and the maester stepped back. He might have turned to run, but his motion had put him right in King Tully's path, and the man had drawn his sword when Jon did. There was nowhere for him to go.
Serves him right.
As the guard stepped back, Gendry scrambled for his fallen sword. "He poisoned her," he hissed. "Poppy! Milk!"
Jon went on, as if he had not heard. "I trust Gendry with my life. I've done it before. I'd do it again." Jon smiled, a cold little thing. "But, from what I've seen, Arya trusts him more, and I've never known my sister to judge a man wrong. Guards," he said. "The maester."
For their part, the guards showed no hint of doubting him. If anything, they looked no less furious than Gendry felt, which was a difficult thing to match. The one holding Arry even set her down. He took care not to let her head hit the wall, before he turned and drew his sword. He faced the maester, and hissed the fool's name with as much hate as a man could muster. Gendry did not know his name, but someday he would, he swore to himself. And he would thank him.
Gendry made to move to Arry, but he was far across the room. Already, his head spun the way it did when the Tickler had him in that damned bastard chair. This was too much. Too much.
It might have ended there, if the maester hadn't been a fool. He might have had the chance to escape this without losing his head. They could have sent him to the Wall – if there even was a Wall – or at least made his death a bit less painful. But instead of all that, he drew the tiniest of knives from his belt, and fell to his knees over Arry. His hand went to her hair, and his knife to her throat.
As one, they froze. Gendry, with his sword out in front of him. Jon, with his own swinging. King Tully was stood too close to Arry to have moved at all, but the guards dropped their swords as soon as the blade touched her.
"This has been more difficult than I expected," the maester observed, as casually as a man dwelling on a dying plant, and as sinister as Cersei Baratheon slaughtering the children of King's Landing. The steel bit deeper against Arry's scars. The only thing it did was make Gendry bear his teeth and growl. "I truly did only ever mean to run further study."
"Further study?" Jon hissed, his knuckles white around the bastard sword's hilt.
"Further study," he agreed. "Now, I think I'll have to be taking my leave. I assure you, the girl will be quite-"
Whatever the maester intended to say would never be heard. For no words left his wrinkled mouth that day. Only a shower of blood burst that through his throat. With it came the sharp end of a thin steel blade.
And, as the maester crumbled like a stone, King Tully stood behind him. Bloody, shaken, and wild-eyed, but wielding his sword before him. Panting like he'd run from the lake to the Wall.
Later, when the tension settled some, Gendry would thank him a thousand times over. He'd tell him about how Arry always wanted to get to Riverrun, that she'd trusted the Tullys with her life. He'd tell him that she would appreciate it, when she woke, and he'd tell him that he'd done what Gendry couldn't. And then, he'd scream at him for a day and a night for stabbing a man with a knife at her throat, when the maester could've slit it in a half second's draw.
But all that would come later. For now, there was little more to do but push past the maester's body, and check Arry for wounds. To take her back to her chambers. To burn the maester's corpse, and search the turret for any hint of his plan. And then, to sit beside her and wait for her to wake.
Wait, he scoffed. I can wait. Been waiting since I left, haven't I? Waiting for a purpose, waiting for a duty, waiting for Arry to come home.
Aye, he'd done his waiting. There was nothing wrong with waiting some more.
He found no wounds, as he, Jon, and King Tully returned her to her bed. The guards Jon had sent for had found no clues, either, though they spent the whole of the day of searching. All the while, Gendry sat and waited. It was all he ever seemed to do anymore. He wouldn't have wanted to do anything else. Even if he did, he couldn't. There was no maester to tend to his wounds. Only Sansa Stark, who had come as soon as she heard the shouts. She wiped the blood from his head, sewed his wound shut, and took the seat beside his own as the four of them lingered around her.
And only then, as the hours passed with them settled beside the bed, and as silence crept over the chamber, leaving him with nothing more to do but think as he stared at the floor where he had lain not a few hours prior, did Gendry let the fear swallow him.
They needed to leave. Before anyone else could strike, they needed to find somewhere safe. Somewhere where Arry could be alright, and where no one would ever harm her.
That night, when it was just the five of them – Gendry and Arry and Lady Sansa and Jon and King Tully – he picked his head up from his bloodied hands, and said, "Winterfell."
Only Jon answered him, while the other three nodded. "Winterfell," he said.
And so it was.
A/N- Quick one, but supremely important in pushing us towards the end game. Qyburn's made his move, as I think everyone under the sun knew he would, and it was a bad one. The first violent Azor Ahai kidnapping has been attempted, and our heroes are going to need to figure out a way to deal with future incidents.
Good news is, my finals are over, so I'll have more time to focus on Prince! Which could mean a potential return to a biweekly schedule :D
Anyway, time for Jon to figure out what to do now that the Bringer of Dawn worship has gone from "let's give her some food" to violent murder attempts. Also, time to start planning the expedition back home.