AUTHOR'S NOTE

This story is a continuation of A Song of Ice and Fire after A Dance with Dragons, and my interpretation of how the series will end. The series left off on a fascinating cliffhanger, and I could not stop myself from thinking about the possibilities after.

A knowledge of all the published novels in the main series is recommended, as well as the Winds of Winter sample chapters. This is going to be based strictly off the ASoIaF books, since it is a continuation of the novels.

This is only a hobby I undertook in my spare time, to relax in the sandbox GRRM created. The ideas just kept on coming after I started writing, and I decided to make this a project I wanted to finish. Westeros is one of my favourite literary worlds, and I had always wanted to explore it.

I hope you enjoy!

PROLOGUE

Afraid.

That was the word she feared to say.

A rock on the road sent a jolt through her saddle, bucking her into the air. Another shiver crawled down her spine. She hated it, hated every instant of it.

Afraid, afraid, afraid. It was something that was forbidden her. As was sleep. She had forgotten the tastes of featherbeds and hearths. Her bones screamed at her to give to the darkness, yet she could not close her eyes for more than a fleeting moment.

She opened her eyes, knowing that slumber was far from her, a tremor echoing through her belly. Her hands tightened about the reins, hugging herself closer to the horse's furry mane.

Afraid, the voice inside her echoed, and all she felt was cold.

The shades of autumn sped slowly past her, but the red and gold were fading as winter took the lands, as her road led ever north.

You mustn't be afraid.

Everywhere she had known those words. Her sister, her mother, gentle Maester Vyman, the two maids that attended to her service, and even stern Lord Brynden. She despised those words, much as she despised the cold. She never wanted this. She wanted the gentle cushions of her hall. She wanted to go home, to the sweet hills of the Crag where all was better, forgetting everything that everyone wanted of her.

She wanted to scream that she was not her sister. It had always been so simple for her sister to know what to do. It was simple for her to be the queen, to know how to act and grace and be the lady of all their realm. Her sister had told her the same, that it would be simple and sweet to bed the king.

The memory of her first flowering came to her, recalling the wet warmth beneath her blanket. She saw again her sister's face, awash with delight.

She remembered the night. Her sister had ordered the torches to be extinguished, so only moonlight shone on their bed.

"Jeyne," the king had murmured,"Jeyne," and she felt a finger of ice twist it all the giddiness away. She knew it was not her place to be there, and her hand had begun to tremble.

She had not known it then, but fear took her. It was only the beginning that night, lingering with her for all the days to come.

Yet the king did not notice. He continued to confide in her, in what she was not supposed to know.

"Should I have sent that letter?" his voice was a half whisper,"Would it have saved us? Had Lord Tywin enough of this war to forgive?"

She heard from her sister that the king had spent the morning pouring his heart onto a letter, seeing no one, only to burn his efforts into ash. She knew not of what to answer, even less of how to advise him as her sister would have so wisely done,"Your Grace. I…"

"Your Grace," the king had chuckled weakly,"Your Grace, your Grace, your Grace . All these titles are so tiring. King in the North. King of the Trident. King upon the Iron Throne, as some would have it. But I had burned all their hopes away, just as that traitor burned Winterfell. I was no man's king, yet nothing will allow me to say so. In the end, I had to burn that letter as well. I could not make any peace. How many lives did I burn that way?"

"I want to show you Winterfell," his voice was almost wishful," It will be beautiful once we rebuild it, after all the wars are over."

"Mother mustn't know," her sister had chided when she returned and took her away,"Nor Lady Catelyn. Not Maester Vyman, not Lord Edmure, and certainly not your maids who will spread the tales before the night even wanes. No one. Not yet."

"Robb needs heirs," her sister's eyes had wandered to the slumbering king,"Karstark deserted him yestermorn. Robb shielded his own rule with his justice, but more will follow eventually if Robb has not an heir to seal his claim. I try, but I cannot give him one. Even Mother's potions are no help. But you can."

"Stay away from Mother and her potions," the queen had warned before Eleyna left the chamber,"I do not want her to wonder why her younger daughter would want one. She will know... in time, but not yet."

It was only days later that the king left for the Twins, never to return. Lannisters and Freys soon surrounded the castle, their banners blazing day and night over the rivers.

Eleyna was already sick with nausea when she received the dreadful tidings from the wedding, and when her moonblood never came, some in the castle began to take notice. Maester Vyman was the first to know that she had a babe in her belly when she came to him feeling ill. Her sister soon found out, and from what she told the maester, they came to realize that the child was the king's.

Their mother had screamed at her sister then, and her sister had screamed back. When Lord Brynden found out, however, a light began to dawn in his eyes.

Only they had known for those first months, but with the castle surrounded and His Grace's vassals bending the knee to King Joffrey, they had no plan. Four months passed, and still no notion came to them. Her child grew, and it could not be hidden anymore. She saw no one, and it was fortunate that no one thought to ask of Lord Westerling's younger daughter. It was only when Lord Edmure arrived at the castle and learned of it did their thoughts simmer into something they could do.

Whatever they had plotted was not to Eleyna's knowledge.

She knew that she had only been her sister's spare, to give a child that the queen could pass as her own. Eleyna had certainly felt that place, as they spoke not a word of their plans with her. She only knew that Lord Brynden would bring her with him as he fled Riverrun, leaving her sister and Lord Edmure to deal with the Lannisters and the oathbreaker.

They were set upon by what she thought were bandits no three miles from the castle. Her breath would sometimes quicken as she remembered their ragged forms emerging from the underbrush, though that fright had long passed. They were the Brotherhood, outlaws that killed His Grace's men.

Lord Brynden, however, had struck an agreement with their leaders, a pot-faced knight called Merrit O'Moontown and a tall archer named Anguy.

They treated Eleyna well enough, and she found herself especially fond of their healer Tart, a kind-faced greybeard who took care of her in their stay. More so of the silver-haired youth who helped the healer. The Brotherhood said that he was the Lord Edric Dayne, and she thought he looked a bit like the king. She wondered how a lord like him would wander so far north.

She did not know whether to trust the Brotherhood, but they seemed pleasant. Lord Brynden, however, had warned her against trusting any man, and as her child grew, she held those words closer.

Yet it seemed that Lord Brynden trusted them quicker than she did, for he told her that planned to stay with the Brotherhood in order to rescue Eleyna's family and Lord Edmure from the Lannisters. When she asked who would protect her, Lord Brynden had only turned his head to another man walking towards them.

Fortune seemed to turn against her when Lord Brynden said he would leave, but her laughter rekindled when she saw her brother Raynald. Her brother had gone with the king to the Twins, and was said to have drowned in the Green Fork.

As he spoke with her, Raynald had told her that by rights he should have died in the river. It was the wolf, the king's wolf, that dragged him onto the shore, leaving his exhausted body in the shelter of a bush before bounding back to join the battle. The Brotherhood found her brother, healed him, and took him in.

As Lord Brynden stayed with the Brotherhood, he urged that she ride north, for any place in the Riverlands was crawling with their foes. The Brotherhood was not safe, either, for they lived at the edge of a sword and he did not know where most of their loyalties lied. They had also warned her of their brethren, of Mother Merciless and the Brotherhood that lost their way.

He told her now where he meant for her to go when they escaped Riverrun, to the only lords that he suspected were still loyal to the king. Yet to go there, they had to pass the Twins, the bastion of all their foes. The Neck had seemed half a world away.

They rode the next day at daybreak, her company a group of three. Her, the healer Tart, and her brother. Lord Brynden had left her, staying with the Brotherhood to save Lord Edmure and her sister.

"The babe would be nothing without the queen," Lord Brynden had told her.

Her heart had remained in her throat all the time they crossed the bridge. It was simple to come under the guise of an old herbmaster and his family travelling the lands to make coin now that the wars were over, blending in with all the others who thought to cross the bridge. It was not so simple to walk under those towers where the king had died, knowing they would slay her in a heartbeat.

The Warden of the Way that day was a man Raynald recognized as Edwyn, a Frey that had not accompanied the king into the Westerlands. He was not there to know the Westerlings at the Crag, and the Frey only knew Raynald as one knight amongst the king's many. Raynald had forsook his armour and helm. He still carried his sword, but so did many of the remaining travellers on the road. He had let his beard grow into a golden mane. Raynald had played the part of the herbmaster's son and apprentice, and she his pregnant wife, and the Frey had not questioned them at length so long as they paid the toll to cross.

Once past the bridge, she had dared to breathe for the first time she left Riverrun.

But she was still afraid. It was never safe to carry a king.

The winds howled at their heels, crunching gravel on the crumbling Kingsroad, and she never dared to smile. She should feel comforted, and rest her mind from all the worries.

Her sicknesses only grew, until they could only spend half a day on the road. They were already slow from having to walk her steed, and this only made the journey longer, and ever more perilous.

But they were only two days from neck, as her brother had promised.

Eleyna looked at him. She never knew what he thought of her now. He never spoke to her for long, but she heard him sometimes in his dreams, cursing the name of the king.

She wanted to soothe all her worries, yet another wave of nausea came upon her, and she prayed that the crannogmen lived in a warm castle with soft beds.

Eleyna scarcely remembered the following days, only the dwindling spots of grass. It was near dusk the next day when her eyes found… white.

The snows fell, and she lowered her hood, catching some with her hands. Some flutters landed on her swollen belly, melting as more flew down from the heavens. She looked up in wonder. A coat of white glistened on her horse's mane.

The fear melted in her for a moment, as the snows had in her palm.

The king's babe kicked inside her, warming her despite the chill. She closed her eyes to the gentle kisses of the flurries, and prayed for an end to all the wars and slaughter, for the child she bore the king to come to an earth that sees only peace and joy. As Eleyna lost herself in the beauty about her, she prayed that it would be answered. As the pretty snows covered the earth, she thought she lived in the songs she heard, and in her heart of hearts, she prayed that she was truly in one.

Her dream was broken by Raynald shaking her, pointing at a lone rider in the distance. For a moment, a wave of fear swept across her again. Raynald was surely regretting that they had let their guard down at this last stretch and rode the Kingsroad.

The sounds of foreign hooves approaching their own, and the jingle and clank of mail as a rider drew up his reins.

She heard Raynald draw his sword, "Who are you?"

But the rider was already dismounting, his armour clanking noisily as he knelt before them.

Before her, she soon realized.

She then saw his surcoat. A lizard-lion on a field of grey-green.

The king's men, she knew now, and she felt terror again. This was not her place.

"You are no crannogman," she heard Raynald hiss, light glimmering off his steel.

"Aye," the man answered,"I sire from the Wolfswood, from the farthest lands in the North. I marched with the Young Wolf under Lord Glover, and had the honour of meeting Her Grace at Riverrun."

No, she wanted to say, It was my sister to whom you have sworn your swords. Not me.

Afraid, she thought again. The fear came again upon her as the snows had curled about her. It was not her place. It was never her place. She was tired of all they wanted her to be.

But her sister was a thousand leagues away, in the hands of the Lannisters. She knew that she carried the king's babe.

Eleyna listened to all the vows he made to her, and heard his echoes of "Your Grace."

As the snows fell and the cold winds blew, she tried to steel herself, and be the queen she never was.