Chapter Three
Jon was here!
"I shall take you to him now," Kinvara said and Sansa felt her heart pummel against her rib cage.
Sansa had dreamed of seeing him again, thinking how sweet it would be to see him again. But this wasn't how or where she imagined it might happen.
"Please," Sansa urged, grateful and excited now to keep moving.
She was on Kinvara's tail, barely more than two steps behind her as they cut through the smaller building which seemed to be a guest wing of some sort perhaps, then in and across a courtyard with half its walls gone, going under a half crumbled arch and finally onto a cracked and chipped marble path outside that seemed to be a road.
Sansa realized from down on the ground, the city was not all black stone, there were gold, cream, and white bricks and stones that shimmered and caught the dying light in the distance beyond. High-rise castles with topless spindly towers. She looked behind her to see the castle in which she had been in before and it was smaller than she thought. But what it lacked it depth it made up for in the sheer height of some of the towers. No wonder the one staircase felt like an eternity to descend.
The outside walls were made of the same, black stone as the interior that shimmered silver and purple as if tiny diamonds were crushed into the stones. It was eerie but quite beautiful in its own, dark way. It was hard to describe further the castle, the architecture so foreign, its design so unique and sharply angled in places. She wondered briefly if Dragonstone looked anything like it. The Red Keep certainly had not a hint of the same architectural design as this castle.
"This way, princess," Sansa spun on her heels and caught up with the priestess, cheeks flushed.
She needed to focus. She was going to see Jon.
Why was Jon here, in Old Valyria? Had he been kidnapped by the dragons too?
"How is it that my brother came to be here?" She asked the other woman's back. Jon had joined the Night Watch when she had left Winterfell with her father and sister for Kings Landings. She had assumed he took his vows and had been serving honorably there with their uncle Benjen. "Was he taken by a dragon too? I see two of them."
The dragons she spoke were flying overhead, and it seemed as if they were either leading the way or following them. Sansa was not sure which.
"He was," spoke the woman, her tone holding a passionate excitement as she continued to speak. "Jon Snow is the prince who was promised and he was brought to us so that here he shall be reborn among smoke and salt as prophesied."
The word reborn stuck out to Sansa and made her feel very uneasy. There was a terrible sense of dread that was biting at the back of her neck. Like a warning.
"We have been trying to resurrect him for two days since the Dragon brought him to us, but our efforts were showing no results. Then, on the morning of noon of the third day you were delivered to us and it is clear why the dragon had taken you. Why our efforts had failed before. You are the Nissa Nissa to our Azor Ahai." she spoke with such fervor and belief that it startled Sansa and frightened her as well. She did not know or understand what it was that Kinvara was speaking of. Had never heard of Nissa Nissa. But there was something else, a word she had used in particular that made Sansa's blood go cold, that had her skidding to a halt.
"Resurrect him?" she licked her lips, her mouth suddenly feeling dry. She didn't use the word 'awake', the other woman said 'resurrect' as in to bring something that is dead back to life. A person specifically.
"Jon is dead?" the thought made her knees start to go weak and her headlight as if she were too faint. It was the strong, but slender hands of Kinvara gripping her shoulders, helping her stay steady and present that prevented her from falling over. "You said-"
"I said he is here," Kinvara repeated, her dark eyes burning again like coals in a fire. A secret knowledge in their depths. "His body was brought to us from the Wall, where he was murdered during a mutiny. The dragon came shortly after, claiming his body from my fellow priestess,"
Sansa felt her head spin and felt sick. She closed her eyes, swallowing back her bile that had risen up her throat from the disgusting shock of what she was hearing. All of her brothers seemed to be fated to be betrayed. Theon and Rickon and Bran, Robb and Roose Bolton and the Freys, now Jon and the Men of the Night Watch. What happened to loyalty? What had her brothers done to have men turn their back to them and murder them?
She wanted to weep. To scream.
"Do not cry, Princess." the other woman pressed her forehead to hers, looking deep into her eyes and Sansa thought she could see the flicker of flames in her pupils, and in those flames, she saw Jon, she saw dragons big and small flying in the sky, she saw laughing, dancing children and herself. She saw herself on a dragon's back. Kinvara blinked, and it was gone.
"Come, there is work to be done to bring Azor Ahai back, and we need your help." her hand was taken and she was lead down the path until they reached what appeared to be a temple of some kind with men and women in red standing outside it, like guards but they held no shields or swords, instead they held upright banners of a flaming heart. Their attire was the same silky, airy fabric but we're all the same dark, blood-red color as Kinvara's tunica.
"I have brought Nissa Nissa," she announced to them, stepping slightly to the side for them to better see Sansa.
"Praise the Lord of Light, who brings her to us. Praise the Lord of Light and his champion, Azor Ahai!" the men and women outside cheered before standing in a line on either side, making a path for them.
The doors of the temple were shaped like connecting dragon wings, a red priest on either side then pulled the doors apart and Sansa was awed that they weren't on hinges, but the doors were set in a kind of rail or track. Sansa could see broken and burnt benches. Singed sheer curtains that hung from the ceiling, billowing and dancing in the breeze. Flowers grew up between the benches.
There was a stone, white alter in which a body laid and just behind it a hulking statue of a dragon, its mouth open to the sky that worked like a sconce, holding a burning flame that reached toward the open roof. Its large wings were fully extended, making up the back wall. Its front legs, arms, held the alter up off the ground.
Sansa squinted at the alter, or more so, the body which laid atop it. Dark hair, pale skin, a recognizable nose. Jon, it was Jon. She ran inside, down the aisle until she was standing in front of the altar, and her eyes drank in the cold corpse that had at least a dozen, large, colorful eggs framing it. From the waist down he was covered in fine silks, red, black, silver, and white, layered over each other. There would terrible, gaping but dried-up wounds on his chest. Sansa went up to his body, hands shaking as they hovered over him, wanting to touch him, to feel that he was real but so scared. His face was gaunt with death, eyes slightly sunken and Sansa almost smiled when she noticed the slight turn down of his lips and little furrow in his brow as if in death he was still brooding.
"Oh, Jon!" Sansa let out a sob and she gathered the courage to touch him. First his cheek, then his hair. She put another hand over one of his wounds, just over his heart.
"Oh, Jon!" she repeated, falling forward, halfway onto his still body as her legs gave out. She felt one of the stony, dragon eggs dig into her ribs. But she ignored the pressure and pain as it compared little to the anguish she was feeling seeing her brother, the last brother living to her, dead before her. This was not right. It should not be like this.
She felt a hand on her back and Sansa looked through watery vision at Kinvara and a group of red priests and priestess with her, circling and surrounding the alter. Soft chanting was on their lips, torches in their hands.
"His soul remains, princess," she said in a soft voice. "But we need your help to call it back to his body,"
Sansa was so lonely, so desperate and frightened she didn't question her further, she did not hesitate but nodded. "What can I do."
Kinvara took Sansa's hand and turned it palm up. She produced a blade in the other hand and put it in Sansa's grip. "Cut your arm and drip your blood over the eggs and into his wounds."
Sansa looked at the knife and then at her empty hand, spreading out her fingers to look at her palm, smooth and milky. She had endured the pain of being beaten by the Kings Guard, throne down and hit by starving men, assaulted by her own aunt. Cutting herself would be no great sacrifice to endure. She wasn't sure how it would help, but she did as she told. She bit her lip and pressed the knife down into the inside of her forearm, just above the wrist, deep enough to draw a good amount of blood but not so much that she would find herself in the horrible predicament of bleeding out to death from a sliced open artery.
The chanting was getting louder, the priests praying loudly to their god. Sansa didn't focus on the words much, her concentration on her own task. Would this really be enough to help bring Jon back?
To make sure the blood kept flowing, Sansa used her other hand and pressed her thumb around the cut. She held it over the eggs and watched as it coated the tops of them before she brought her arm over Jon's chest, bringing it down to more carefully let the ruby stream drip into the knife wounds.
"I'm done. Is that enough?" Sansa turned back to Kinvara, looking for more instruction. She did not see the sword that had been handed to Kinvara, did not see it in her hand
"Almost," and then there was a sharp, agonizing burn as a long sword was thrust through her breast and into her heart. She screamed in horrible pain and the strangest ecstasy she had ever experienced. She stumbled until the back of her thighs had hit the alter. She saw fire burst from her chest where the sword entered and Kinvara looking through the flames at her with revelry.
"Yes!" She cried as the fire licked up the blade all the way to the handle where she saw the ruby eyes of a white wolf's head gazing at her.
Blood had come up Sansa's throat, pooling in her mouth and out over her lips, dribbling down her chin. She was dying. She should never have trusted this woman. After all this time, all her many lessons, Sansa was still a trusting, little fool with a head full of dreams and songs. There was a roar in her ears, and she realized the fire of the sword was now consuming her body. It crawled up her chest and neck, kissing her face and igniting her hair. But it did not sear her skin, did not burn her.
The dragons were flying overhead, singing as they flew in a perfect circle over the temple.
Kinvara was on her knees before her now, hands clasped and lips moving in the same prayer like the others. Sansa's vision was starting to go dark, shadows creeping in the corner of her eyes, stealing her vision as she swallowed the blood in her throat, drowning. Her spine was bowing back, her own weight and the sword in her chest too much for her. She was falling, bending backward over Jon's body. The sheets caught on her ignited body, setting on fire and burning, so was Jon now. The fire stuck to him, eating at them both now. Finally, Sansa could not withstand it anymore, the life was leaving her, the world went dark and like a fragile flicker of a candle, she was snuffed out.
Or so she thought.
Very short chapter, I know. But doesn't it get your anticipation going, doesn't the cliffhanger have you hooked? What do you think is going to happen next? Also, keep in mind this story is rated M. That is for a reason, there is sex, violence and such in this story to a graphic degree that I don't believe would be appropriate to rate below M.
Also, I've read some of the latest comments and I feel I need to make something clear to avoid disappointment in the future.
This is not a harem fic, Jon will have a completely monogamous relationship with Sansa.
A BIG THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HAS LEFT A REVIEW SO FAR! PLEASE REMBER THAT AS FIC WRITERS, FEEDBACK IS SO IMPORTANT, IT IS INCENTIVE, INSPIRATION AND ENCOURAGEMENT THAT IS NEEDED. THIS MAY SEEM LIKE JUST A HOBBY, BUT IT TAKES PRECIOUS TIME OUT OF OUR PERSONAL LIVES TO WRITE FOR BOTH OURSELVES AND STRANGERS ON THE INTERNET.
THAT SAID, IF YOU LIKE IT, LEAVE A REVIEW. NO MATTER HOW SHORT, EVEN IF IT'S JUST A 'THIS IS GOOD' LET ME KNOW. IT MEANS THE WORLD TO ME.