Hi,

A lot happens in this chapter. We even have a return to King's Landing!

Chapter 94: The Seven Hells

A few minutes later …

Hall of Heroes, Inner Castle, near Ringfort (Highest level), Casterly Rock, Westerlands, Westeros

Jorah helped Cersei out of the opened painting that was the entrance to the secret tunnel down to the vaults. Her eyes swept the Hall of Heroes with the flaming torch in her hand guiding her line of vision as Jorah firmly clicked the painting back into place.

The Hall was full of tombs containing the past Lannisters that had died with honour or achieved glory in their lifetime. Her eyes drifted past the old tombs of the Kings of the Rock at the back of the Hall that was shrouded in shadows to the newer tombs closer to the entrance where her torchlight shone. There was her Great grandfather Lord Gerold 'the Golden' Lannister, her grandfather Ser Jason Lannister, and her Uncle Tygrett.

The inscription of the latest one caught her attention the most.

Kevan Lannister. Her Uncle. He had always been kind to her as a girl and loyal to her father. It had been that loyalty that had gotten him killed. Cersei didn't regret her involvement in Kevan's death, in fact, she had encouraged Varys to go after Kevan knowing how much her father relied on his calming influence.

Cersei turned back to the painting and noted how Jorah gazed at the brush strokes that depicted the sun rising over the Sunset Sea, drenching the image of Casterly Rock in painted white light. He was probably wishing that was the current reality.

"It looks clear."

Despite Cersei's words Jorah still drew his blackened blade, "Can we reach the docks from here?"

"No, but just outside this Hall there is a corridor lined with lifts that reach down to the street level of Casterly Rock and from there it is relatively easy to reach the Southern Gate."

"That will work if the vaults are breached. Show me the way."

Cersei was already stepping towards the open doors when a rustling sound came from behind them.

Ser Jorah placed a finger to his lips and beckoned for her to follow him. Cersei shook her head but Ser Jorah advanced down the Hall with tombs on either side of him with his sword ready and she decided she would rather stay with him than be left alone.

Cersei's torch illuminated their surroundings as they creped down the hall. Jorah held his hand up then knelt beside a decrepit looking tomb, placing his head near the stone slab.

Cersei moved the torch and read the inscription; Here rests King Loren 'the last' Lannister.

Ser Jorah took his head away but furrowed his eyebrows, "I think they are all wights now … I think the Night King just raised the dead."

"What do you mean," but as soon as the words left her lips she understood.

All her dead family members were no longer at rest. They were banging and scratching against their enclosures. It was a terrible realization.

Ser Jorah grabbed Cersei's arm, "We need to get back to the vaults now!"

But they were too late. A crowd of wights had entered the Hall, attracted by the sounds of their trapped comrades.

Cersei felt Jorah pull her back, "What are you doing? We can reach the painting!"

"If we take the tunnel, we'll just be leading them all to those in the vaults," Jorah said sadly.

"No!" Cersei exclaimed as the reality of the situation hit her.

Her world was rocked again as she looked to the crowd of wights starting to run at them. It couldn't be but it was. Jaime. It was her twin.

Ser Jorah engaged the dozen or so wights and sliced through a few and shouted for Cersei to run but she was transfixed as the wight of her brother reached her.

Its cold hands wrapped around her neck and sent them tumbling to the ground with its momentum. Cersei's back slammed into the tomb behind her and it was this that shocked her out of her daze.

"Jaime stop!" she pleaded, trying to push the wight off her.

But the glowing blue-eyed copy of her brother didn't relent. His cold fingers dug into her flesh as it sought to tear out her throat. Cersei heard Jorah's screams of pain and assumed the wights rushing in from the corridor had overwhelmed him.

The pain in her neck brought her mind back to her own predicament as the face of her beloved brother inched closer and closer to hers. She could do nothing but scream as teeth raked her neck and harshly bit into her soft skin. Her last moments were filled with fury, disbelief and crippling regret until there was one moment of excruciating pain, then nothing.

The wight that had just snapped Cersei's neck drew back from her and her body fell to the stone floor beside Kevan Lannister's tomb. With the last life in the room having been snuffed out the movements of the wrights as a whole slowed and they started to amble around the tombs aimlessly, many shuffling past the closed painting none the wiser, waiting for their next order or victims to reveal themselves.

Ten minutes later …

Inner Castle, near Ringfort (Highest level), Casterly Rock, Westerlands, Westeros

Trident's Vengeance smashed through another wight as Grey Wind dragged a skeleton across the ground. Robb gracefully pivoted into another attacking stance to clear the area just under the gate to the inner castle of Casterly Rock. Jon's calls got his attention and he saw his cousin pointing back down the street they had just fought up.

What Robb saw made his stomach turn cold. The Lannister and Arryn forces were retreating from the walls and making their way towards the remaining Dornish and Northern men holding halfway up the main street. That meant only one thing. The entire army of the dead was closing in on Casterly Rock. The Night King had got to Bran and killed him.

Robb shook his head in pure frustration. How was this fair? He had lost so much already. Sacrificed so much only for it to end because of decisions and actions made thousands of years ago. It felt like a bad joke and he refused to accept it.

"Jon," he said finding his cousin slicing through two wights at once. "We need to get to the Night King now."

"We don't know where he is!" Jon said, dodging a clunky swing of an axe before lopping off the head of the wight that had swung at him.

Robb looked back at the inner castle's courtyard and he saw the Night King walking deeper into the castle grounds with an assortment of wights and white walkers following him.

It was as if the Gods were giving them one final chance. One last slither of hope.

Robb looked to Jon and it was clear from the expression on his face that he had seen the same thing.

"We need to get to him or everything is lost," Jon said, dispatching a wight that had run straight at him.

Both Starks stepped through the gate and started to chop through the back end of the wights following the Night King.

It was a few sword slashes later they realised that all the wights that had been following the Night King had turned around. There must have been fifty or more.

"Shit," Robb muttered, knowing that was too many for them to handle on their own.

The Night King and the dozen white walkers disappeared from view into the opening of an old looking mineshaft.

Same time …

Red Keep, King's Landing, Seat of power of House Baratheon (Lannister/Tyrell/Arryn) in the Crownlands, Capital of the Seven Kingdoms, Westeros

"I wonder how the battle for the Dawn is going?"

Kenna flinched at the unexpected sound; her eyes darted to her two uncuffed hidden blades that rested on the table beside the candle and the heavy book she had been reading.

She flicked her eyes around the still bookshelves and dusty tables that were illuminated by multiple candles that had been placed around the library, "Tyrion … I thought I was alone."

"Evidently, or your blades would be on your wrists."

"I want to read-" Kenna flipped over the books cover, "A History of the Great Sieges of Westeros. Not stab it to death as I turn the pages."

"Shame when I read it, I wanted to stab it to death. Archmaester Ch'Vyalthan's writing leaves much to be desired."

"Tyrion," Kenna said, massaging her temples, "I came here to be alone and to contemplate King's Landing's defensive options if Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons survive the Night King."

"Well, I came here to get away from Myrcella's birthing screams and I was here first."

"No, you weren't," Kenna stated, moving her head to try to find her good-brother but quickly gave up when she couldn't spot him amongst the piles of books and rows of shelves.

She hadn't heard the library's doors open once since she had settled into her seat near an hour ago and doubted Tyrion could keep quiet for that long.

"I didn't come through the front door."

Kenna shook her head, hearing the grin in Tyrion's words. The Red Keep was full of secret passageways, she had spent a great chunk of her childhood exploring them all but clearly, she hadn't found them all.

"You really think that the Night King will be defeated?" came Tyrion's voice from somewhere in front of her.

"I don't know," Kenna said, bring her hands together underneath her chin. "But it is the only option that I can actively prepare for and I think my children are tired of seeing me pacing around their cot muttering about long since forgotten battles."

"Fine, I will leave you to your reading. Just know I have a full pouch of wine and I'd prefer conversing with you over reading Grand Maester Munkun's The Dance of the Dragons, A True Telling."

Kenna moved the candle closer to the pages of the book and returned her tiring gaze to the dull account of the Siege of Rook's Rest.

A few pages later her concentration was disturbed by the sound of scrapping behind her.

Kenna exhaled while letting both hands drop to the table, "Tyrion."

In the next instant, a thick leather belt looped over her head and snapped back on her throat, dragging her backwards in the chair away from the table.

"What–" Kenna gasped as her fingers tried to pry away the suffocating pressure on her adam's apple.

"You're going to die as my sisters did," a rich feminine voice hissed behind her ear.

Kenna didn't know the voice but the accent was unmistakably Dornish.

The Sand Snakes escaped the Black Cells? How!?

Two young Dornish girls entered her vision. The older one, that couldn't have even flowered yet held a small dagger in her shaking hand while the youngest one's eyes were fixed on the Queen's struggling form. Kenna knew the third Sand Snake that was strangling her with the belt had to be the oldest one, Obella.

The Sand Snake wielding the dagger stepped towards Kenna but Obella rebuffed her sister, "No, she is mine Dorea. She is going to die slowly and painfully by my hand. The same way she killed our sisters."

Kenna looked helplessly at the table behind the two girls, where her two uncuffed hidden blades rested in the light of the single candle. She got a hand under Obella chin and tried to push her away but it only resulted in her fingers getting bitten by the fierce Dornish woman behind her. Kenna retracted her fingers quickly and tried to lift the woman over her head but she was either overestimating her own strength of underestimating Obella's weight.

The pressure at her throat was increasing and she gave up trying to dislodge the belt. Instead, she threw her weight backwards causing Obella and the chair to topple to the ground.

Kenna gulped in a breath of air before the leash around her neck tightened again. She felt Obella's body beneath her and elbowed the young woman a few times with all the force she could generate but the Sand Snake's hands didn't waver.

Kenna was beginning to feel lightheaded and her attempts at escaping Obella's hold were weakening.

"No," she croaked as images of Yohn and Jorge playing together filled her fading mind.

A hiss, followed by a high-pitched scream jolted Kenna away from the gathering darkness in her mind as Dorea collapsed to the floor with a crossbow bolt sticking out her midriff. The impaled girl looked terrified but her distress meant nothing to Kenna who again tried to roll out of Obella's deathly grip.

"Loreza, the knife! Stab her! Stab her n–" Obella shouted as the back of Kenna's head collided with her face.

Loreza's attention was stuck on her dying sister's moaning form before she panickily looked around the room for the assailant.

"Loreza!" Obella spat, through a broken nose.

The girl jumped at her sister's strained shout and picked up the knife. The youngest Sand Snake, who would barely surpass Kenna's hip in height, edged toward the two women wresting on the floor and raised her hand to deal a killing blow.

Kenna saw the strike coming and attempted to grab the girl's wrist but her spotty vision failed her. The tip of the knife slid through her open left palm instead. The pain was intense and gave her the second wind she needed to kick out at the small girl above her.

Loreza flew backwards at the impact of Kenna's boot on her chest and a sickening crack echoed around the library as her head smacked against the edge of the table and she crumbled to the floor beside her sister's body.

"No!" Obella screamed.

Ty ..ion…" Kenna gurgled.

But there was no response, only the faint sounds of a string being pulled pack.

With only one hand now fighting back against Obella's stranglehold, she had no chance to overpower her assailant with brute strength anymore. She decided to not even try. Her uninjured hand darted from the belt at her neck to the knife stuck in her hand. She didn't have the time to hesitate or the breath to scream, she pulled the knife out. The white-hot pain blocked out her senses but she blindly stabbed at the space behind her neck with a weak thrust.

A cry erupted from Obella's mouth and the pressure at her throat receded. Kenna released her hold on the knife and pushed away from her assailant, crawling away as quickly as her burning lungs would allow.

Obella stumbled after her with one hand covering the bleeding cut at her throat and the other gripping the knife.

Kenna willed her body to move faster but a series of spluttering coughs hampered her progress. She felt Obella's presence right behind her and anticipated the knifepoint in her back any second.

A loud hiss filled the room and the thud of Obella's body hitting the wooden floor echoed around the stacks of books.

Kenna, after a deep inhale, rolled over onto her back and saw the crossbow bolt lodged in Obella's chest.

"What … took … you … so long!" she panted out, clutching her bleeding hand to her stomach.

"It isn't easy handling one of these things, especially if they are half your size," Tyrion said, tossing the used crossbow to the floor as he hurried to Kenna's location.

"Why did you have a crossbow?" she wheezed.

"These days I hardly go anywhere without one. And considering our evening I think the question should be why don't you," said Tyrion, casting his eyes over the bodies of the three Sand Snakes.

Kenna closed her eyes and listened to the thundering of her heartbeat. "I'm still alive."

"It seems the Gods aren't finished with you and neither am I. We've got a city to rule over and my father would haunt you through the Seven Hells if you left Yohn and Jorge in my care."

Kenna laughed at the thought but the joyous rumblings stuck in her bruised throat, causing her to cough instead. She heard the ripping of fabric then the feeling of her injured hand being wrapped.

"Thank you, Tyrion," she rasped.

"You're welcome," Tyrion replied, knowing her word extended beyond tending to her hand.

Once her breathing returned to normal, she opened her eyes to see Tyrion sitting beside her. He was staring into the bookshelves behind where Kenna's chair lay.

"What are you thinking?"

"They must have used the same secret passageway that I used. It's the only one I know of that leads to the library."

"How did they get out of the Black Cells? And how did they know where I was and which secret passageway to use to get to me?" Kenna said, her mind working over the scenario as her eyes fixed on the ceiling above.

"A puzzle we can solve together."

Suddenly the two doors to the library sprang open to reveal Genna. The stocky blond woman took a few steps into the room and opened her mouth but her forward movement halted as she took in the scene before her. Kenna bleeding on the ground with a darkening bruise on her neck. The crossbow discarded behind Tyrion. The three bodies scattered around the room.

"Yes?" Tyrion inquired up at his gapping Aunt.

Genna's eyes continued to flick around the library, "Myrcella has given birth to a healthy young girl, Myriah."

"Fantastic. I guess Qyburn is free now to tend to others that might need his assistance?"

Genna eyes settled on Kenna who was just sucking in breath after breath on the floor, "Yes."

"I suggest we get Queen Kenna to him immediately then."

Genna nodded at her nephew's words and helped Kenna to her feet, confused at the situation she had walked into but not fazed by it.

The Lannister lady hooked her arm through Kenna's uninjured one, "Are you going to tell me what happened here?"

"Of course," Tyrion answered from Kenna's other side, "but best we do that on the move."

Author's Notes:

So, the Valonqar prophecy came true in a way ;) Dany and those in the vault are riding their luck I'd say. If that tunnel is discovered they are all goners.

Where did the Night King go?

Dynamic duo Kenna and Tyrion make a good team xD Who let the dogs … I mean Sand Snakes out? Or did they seduce their way out on their own? Can Oberyn hate Kenna and the Lannisters even more? I think he is already on max hatred.

I included the scene from King's Landing because I wanted to check in on the characters there and I imagined the library scene to take place on the Long Night as well.

RIP (I'm going through these characters like they are fodder but their deaths feel natural to me … ;P)

Ser Jorah Mormont (Overwhelmed by wights and stabbed to death)

He just wasn't going to survive the Long Night, sadly. I think his death in canon was good (minus him surviving the pointless Dothraki charge as it should never have occurred). I think dying searching for an escape route for Danny and not revealing the secret tunnel to the vaults was a noble way for Jorah to go. Protecting his Queen till the last breath.

Lady Cersei Lannister (Strangled to death/neck torn out by wight Jaime)

So, I had actually planned for Cersei to die from Ellaria's poisoning in Chapter 54. But then I revaluated and thought of this death for her which I think is much more appropriate and fits with the Valonqar prophecy nicely (not that I'm aiming to fulfill all the prophecies, because I'm not!)

Dorea Sand (Shot by Tyrion with a crossbow bolt)

If my maths is correct, she was thirteen years old so still a child really but Tyrion didn't have a choice. She was about to butcher Kenna. All hail Tyrion's crossbow!

Loreza Sand (Head smashed against the corner of the desk by momentum of Kenna's kick)

She was eleven, and the youngest Sand Snake. Sadly, she was just a casualty of her older sister's Obella's desire for revenge for the deaths of the other Sand Snakes during the Sunspear Siege in Chapter 76.

Obella Sand (Stabbed in the neck by Kenna and shot with a crossbow bolt by Tyrion)

She was tough to take down. I have her being seventeen so I imagined her as the leader and having no qualms with killing Kenna, unlike her sisters who were a little bit more hesitant. She would have been the ringleader that pursued Kenna's death over escape from the Red Keep.

BIRTH

Myriah Martell (Father Trystane Martell & Mother Myrcella nee Baratheon Martell)

So Dorne has an heir yay! I sure hope nothing bad happens to her … I imagine she takes after her father in the looks department except she has green eyes.

Reviews:

Antares Graceford – Thought you would like Arya's death lol. All those deaths felt like they had to happen to me and I think they weren't out of place in the story.

Supremus85 – Nope it couldn't :) Bran is definitely dead but the Three-eyed Raven may return. Yes, Kenna is a widow once again but does the Frey marriage even count? I guess Robb is picking up Arya's list :D I had a very specific feeling/idea on how the Night King was going to end and you will see it soon. I gave the Hound a warrior's death which I thought was sufficient considering his role in the story. Benjen's was a bit more gut wrenching (pun intended).

David Daniel B – Well what is happening was always Plan A. Bran knew that the Night King wouldn't be stopped in the Godswoods he just didn't tell any of the commanders.

Ser Dorito of Aisle 13 – I aim to surprise in a pleasant way xD Are you referring to Lord Royce or King Artys?

DannyBlack70 – Te hehehehe :P The Stranger wouldn't be denied his deaths. Me too!

NightlyRowenTree – Oh yeah, I for sure sniffle at Boromir's death too. Clegane Bowl was off the table and I didn't really like the death by brick ending in canon for Jaime.

Guest (commented on Chapter 37) – Thanks for reading! It is a bit disturbing in the modern sense and bordering on non-con but Kenna isn't a damsel in distress in the scenario but rather a player of the game and for both Tywin and Kenna – promises are promises.

Ksyushangel – This is the reaction I was looking for lol! I didn't think many people would guess/know what I was up to and probably expected the Night King to meet his end in the Godswood like canon.

Guest (commented 24/02/2021) – Thanks! Killing Arya was one of my less stressful decisions compared to some past … and future character ends I have planned for the later chapters xD

As long as I can find the appropriate 'death conditions' and I think the deaths will have the impacts I want for the plot I'm okay with saying goodbye to them even if it hurts a little for me to do so.

Guest (commented 24/02/2021) – It was intense to write and go through the editing with my beta believe me! Since the beginning of the story, I already knew the Night King would kill Bran and Arya so although the avenue of Arya vs Kenna was an interesting one, I knew it couldn't be pursued to its fullest potential but Arya has already caused significant damage to Kenna by revealing her twin's parentage to Robb.

BlackWatcher1234 – With Lancel, Jaime and now Cersei dead the Lannisters are on par with the Starks on deaths. Fighting in Casterly Rock is focused on the Night King as no one can see that the Redwyne Fleet has engaged Danny's ships due to the weather conditions surrounding the Rock. Only Royce, Tyrells and Tywin know of the betrayal and it was done because the fleets don't contribute vs Night King so it isn't hindering their efforts against him so it isn't a three-sided struggle. I do actually give numbers of troops before and after significant events, see Chapter 78, but once the Long Night is over, I will update the numbers for you.

Tohka123 – Thanks :) I try to be unpredictable with who is dying in my story xD

Next Up: Oberyn sees the opportunity for vengeance and strikes, an unlikely hero comes to Robb and Jon's aid, Fire and Ice clash for the final time.

If you are enjoying this story please *Toss a coin to your writer, Oh valley of readers* and review, follow and favorite!