Stannis
"They say I'm as merciful as my brother," Stannis said, chewing his lips at the sight of the three lords prostrate before him. "I don't see mercy as a virtue. I see mercy as a tool. You all raised banners against me, first with my brother Renly, then with the usurper Joffrey. I can take your heads, and your lands, but creating new lords takes time and energy, neither of which I wish to waste."
"Your Grace," Mace Tyrell said, raising his head even has his knee remained bent, "whatever my actions the lords of the Reach did, they did in my name, following my lead. If you must take our heads, I ask you spare theirs for the sake of mine."
He had no wish to do so, having already met the Ladies Olenna and Margaery at Robb Stark's wedding, seeing the truth to the whispers that it was the women of House Tyrell who truly pulled its strings. Whatever Mace Tyrell said before him now, he did not doubt it was done at his mother's approval.
"Lords Paxter Redwyne, Leyton Hightower, your liege lord asks mercy your for houses. Do you swear loyalty to the crown and its true King?"
"We do, Your Grace," both lords answered in tandem.
"And you swear on your honor, on your blood, on the graves of your ancestors your fealty to my daughter Shireen, the true and rightful heir to the Iron Throne, just as you swear your fealty to me?"
"We do, Your Grace."
"Rise," he said, looking back at Lady Melisandre, standing wordlessly behind the proceedings as was her wont. "Your word is your bond, cursed be your houses and those who come after you if you break it."
"Your Grace," Leyton Hightower approached him even as Paxter and his own liege lord departed, and Stannis sighed, sensing what was about to come. The Old Man of the Hightower rarely left his manse, so for him to venture to the capital rather than send his son as an envoy portended more to him than just another profession of loyalty, sincere or not.
"Speak then."
"House Hightower has always been close to the Faith."
"House Hightower can keep the Faith close to House Hightower," Stannis rebutted, aware of Melisandre's eyes upon him more sternly as their words spoke of the gods she disapproved of. "Appoint your new High Septon in Oldtown, in the Starry Sept, whomever you wish, so long as they don't speak against the Crown, I won't interfere, but the King will keep whom he wishes to counsel him."
"Certainly, Your Grace," Leyton stammered, clearly not finished, and Stannis sensed that the Lady Melisandre had not been his area of concern. "I will add, Your Grace, you married before the Seven. Considering the matter of your heir...were the new High Septon amenable to a dissolution..."
"Selyse is my wife and your Queen," he replied violently. He'd expected protests about religion, but broaching such a subject was revealed far too much arrogance and presumption from the man, no matter how old or powerful his name. "Whatever gods I made them before, vows are vows, and I take my vows seriously."
Except the one time he did break his vows, before Renly's death.
"My King," Melisandre finally addressed him, though he imagined her eyes staring fire at the Lord of the Hightower even as she smiled at them both, "there are other matters that require your attention this afternoon."
He groaned in his mind, yet another confrontation he looked not forward to. Glaring at Leyton, he spoke as sternly as he could. "You're dismissed, Lord Leyton. Speak no more, to me, nor anyone, except your loyalty to your rightful Queen and her daughter, the rightful heir."
He bowed, and exited the throne room even as Roose Bolton entered, and Stannis imagined that Melisandre stared hungrily at the northerner. Dropping to his knees, Roose paid his respects but rose quickly to mount his dissension.
"Your Grace, I must protest, this seems an overreaction."
In the brief time he had known the man, this was the first time Stannis had seen his composure break, if slightly. As it should, radical as his pronouncement was.
"The decision is final. Your bastard burns."
"My son's actions," Roose hesitated, "I cannot defend. But the girl serves a traitor queen who tried usurping your own throne. Surely an agreement could be made."
"I need the Lannisters," Stannis muttered grimly. "The Lannisters hold the girl Bernadette in high regard, and her uncle Lord Gawen Westerling is one of the most powerful men in the west."
He half expected Roose Bolton to protest that he was one of the most powerful men in the North, but his Master of Coin knew better than to threaten a king. In all honesty, the man was more than competent, and Stannis wouldn't have minded his continued presence on the council as an adviser for years to come. But the girl had been right about the bastard, showing his sadistic tendencies not long after his arrival at the capital, which meant she was likely right about the father's treasonous heart also. Perhaps if he cultivated Roose Bolton with honors and titles, he'd never feel the need to betray him, but he'd made Robb Stark a promise.
"Your Grace, I'm most grateful your men arrived at the scene before...actions could have gotten worse. I'd have hoped it would allow my son a chance at a reprieve. The Great War is North, as you say, Your Grace, and the Wall would be..."
"I'll have no more of this," Stannis interrupted, because everything Roose was saying was correct. Traitor's servant or not, the beating, assault, and attempted rape of a lady was a severe crime, but men have been spared to the Wall for far worse. "He dishonors the Crown with his actions, and you dishonor your King with your protests."
"Your Grace," Roose said, bowing away, eyes hardened, and Stannis knew he'd made yet another enemy. But a deeper part of him understood this to be the price of his crown, no more or less than what happened with Renly, that his promise to Robb Stark was in truth a pledge to his sister, and it was to Sansa Stark whom he owed his uncontested crown to.
"You're betrothed to a Frey girl, aren't you?" How long would he have to wait, before Roose Bolton stuck a knife into his back? "You'll have new sons, trueborn ones at that."
He ought to keep consoling Roose, but that would require even more acting, and contrived words and facial expressions he did not mean. At a certain point, the problem would no longer be his own inability to act sincerely, but Roose's to see through his lies and sense the danger coming ahead for him.
"Then I'm thankful the King himself blesses our union," the Lord of the Dreadfort replied, thankfully giving way. Stannis wondered what his next move would be. Would he send ravens to the Freys? What threat could two lesser houses pose, now that the Kingdoms were united?
"When's he going to betray me," he asked Melisandre, "have the flames shown you that, or are they as useless as you are?"
He knew he ought not further antagonize the priestess, lest he tempt whatever gods or demons driving her, but what use was she, now that he held his throne and she less helpful than even the Spider in discerning these threats.
"I see treachery in his eyes," Melisandre replied, "yet patience. But you are a King, you may do with him as you please."
"I can't burn my Master of Coin with no cause," he replied wearily, wondering if her reasoning were magic or merely a street conjurer's trick. "Not even a crime of his own to hold a trial for. Look at the Mad King, look at the good that did him."
"My King," she said, walking up to him, floating her fingers over his shoulders, causing him to shudder even as he cursed his own lack of restraint, "you must remain strong, until the Long Night. Lords here and there promise you their loyalty, promise your daughter their loyalty, even as they seek to use you and the Princess for their own ends. How can you know they'll stand behind you, against the greatest enemy to man, unless you can be certain of their intents?"
"You think the realm will follow a tyrant, no matter the threat?" He wondered what lords and princes she had once advised in Essos. Weren't most of the cities in her own home continent ruled by councils and magisters? Why did she suddenly think that an Iron Throne here gave him leave from the need to politic or negotiate, unless she didn't know herself of such matters?
"Then lead the realm, my king. That is your destiny, is it not? Why else would the Lord of Light bestow the crown upon you, except to lead where others follow?"
"Sansa Stark gave me the crown," he forced himself to say, the first time his own voice ever admitted the shameful secret. "Call her here, ask her what I'm to do now."
Sansa
"Have you ever seen a man burn?"
"I haven't," Sansa admitted. Not in this life anyway, or even the last. She'd see thousands of dead burn, she'd burned thousands of the dead after the great battle, she'd heard word that her own sister burned, she'd then burned herself...but no, she'd never seen a living man burn before her eyes.
"I haven't either," Cersei admitted, slumped in her bed, head heavy with wine. With the maesters still caring for Bernadette, it would seem the former Queen needed her to take her handmaiden's place, humoring all her most savage and banal thoughts. "I'll look forward to it though. I imagine it's the closest I'll get to seeing the mysteries of the east, through the hymns of that red bitch."
Despite her slights against her once, Sansa felt sorry for Bernadette. No woman, nor man, deserved the full brunt of Ramsay's torments, though Sansa reasoned that the woman had suffered far less than she had, or Theon for the matter, the king's men keeping a close watch upon him and catching him before he could truly violate her in the worst way. She imagined without his hounds, he would have merely slit her throat after, and thrown her into the bay, thinking few would care for the disappearance of a traitor's servant.
"It's not something I'd wish upon most," Sansa said truthfully. "But the king's priestess needs to satisfy her red god. Better we find deserving kindling for her, so as to keep her satisfied."
"The entire realm, held hostage by a witch," the dowager Queen muttered, looking sharply at Sansa, eyes suddenly more sober than before. "Tell me, little bird, would you cry if I burned?"
Did you burn last time, when she destroyed the Red Keep? Or did you fall, or were you crushed?
"No child deserves to see his mother burnt," she answered, again somehow remaining honest.
She sneered at her response, but Cersei was not wrong. Sansa had wanted Stannis, she'd crowned Stannis, now she had to sit helplessly as the realm felt every whim of their new king, good and bad.
"I envy Tyrion," Cersei said grudgingly, anticipating her look of surprise. "He's a free man, free to drink and whore and roam about the Free Cities as he pleases."
And how soon would he find himself captive to his own fire demon? She remembered his tortured, terrified existence those last days. Even as the Half Man cursed his sister, testified how he feared and hated her, Sansa wondered how much he was unknowingly speaking of his own Queen he served. A thought occurred to her, that in this known world she was the only living human to have seen fully grown dragons. What made her so special or unique, to be the one burdened to devise their destruction?
"Lady Sansa." Both women jumped at the voice of Tywin Lannister, who did not even deign to acknowledge his own daughter. "The King seeks our counsel."
"Stannis?" Cersei asked, half rising from her bed. "You bring the wolf bitch and not your daughter?"
"Can you walk to the throne room without assistance?"
Without a word Cersei got up onto her feet, only to then stumble until she could hold on to a nearby chair for support. Feeling the shame of judgment, she fell back into her bed and curled up under her blankets, as if she were a truculent child sent to bed without her supper.
"My daughter," Tywin mumbled as they walked, "the golden lioness of Casterly Rock, the fairest princess in the land."
"She was a queen," Sansa said. "Now she's practically a hostage." Even as Tywin expressed to her his disdain of his own blood, she wondered how much of this was a test, a ploy for her to reveal her true feelings for the woman.
"So were you. Seems some do better in captivity than others."
I don't see what the Kingslayer sees in her.
Yet had she been much better than Cersei the first time, except she was far too young to take full solace in wine? Rather than reply, they walked uncomfortably in silence to the Throne Room, where Stannis awaited with the Red Woman and Davos, Sansa reckoning the council composed of now the only ones from her own Great Council who still remained in King's Landing, privy to the two great secrets.
"I've good news, Lady Stark, from Winterfell." Stannis began, after she and Tywin both were seated. As he addressed her directly, Sansa realized this was her first true and formal audience before the king she'd help crown since the council, the man barely bothering to speak to her afterwards, even during Robb's wedding.
"My brother's taken the castle," she asked.
The King nodded. "And he doesn't have to waste his sword on that Greyjoy whelp..."
Her jaw dropped, panic seizing her heart within half a breath. "Theon...what happened to him? Did he die? Did he give battle?"
You stupid boy!
Stannis regarded her with puzzlement. "His own men turned on him before the siege, to try and escape the Young Wolf's wrath."
As he continued to speak to the fate of Theon's murderers, Sansa felt the world collapsing down upon her. She'd planned for everything, thought everything out...but how could she have predicted something that never happened in the first place? Was there anything she could have even done to prevent this, except let her own mother and brother die as before?
Theon Greyjoy was a grown man. His choices were his own.
It was still a kinder fate, she fervently told herself, for him to die quickly, rather than suffer through years of Ramsay. Yet he died a scoundrel, a traitor, to be forever remembered as such, and not the good man she knew, not the good man he would know himself to be. Were the Gods of the south true, what cruel fate had she condemned him to, dying before he could truly repent of his sins?
"You're upset," Stannis asked.
"Forgive me, Your Grace," she said, marveling at how her voice barely wavered even as her heart revolted. "Theon betrayed my family, but he still grew up with us. Even with what he did, I still can't help but think of him as a brother."
"You're too merciful for your own good," Stannis said as he looked down at his own hands, uncomfortable in his seat at the sight of a girl suddenly in open mourning.
"A child's mercy saved the seven kingdoms from a horrible war," Davos said. "More of us ought to follow the Lady Sansa's example."
Looking up at her sullenly, Stannis spoke to her awkwardly. "My Hand is right. I won't mourn a traitor, but I'm sorry for your sorrow, for what it's worth." His mouth twitched as he set aside one scroll and picked up another. "You were right about the bastard. I'll burn the boy, as I promised your brother, leaving myself with an angry lord with a traitor's heart. If you were to speak of mercy for him, I don't know..."
"Did Lord Bolton protest your sentence," she interrupted, realizing only after she spoke her rudeness in interrupting the king. But at the mention of the Boltons, her heart swayed easily from sorrow to rage.
"He did," Stannis answered. "I'd expect any father to do the same."
"Call it treason, and burn father and son together," Sansa said coldly. The room looked at her in shock, understandably so, after she'd nearly cried at the news of Theon's death.
"She's a girl, a woman," Stannis said to Davos, who'd thought her gentle and merciful seconds earlier, only to suddenly see her crueler than Melisandre. "Their hearts are not...as measured as ours."
Even Tywin blinked at her remark, as Davos moved forward in his chair, in that sweet grandfatherly way, to speak to her as a child.
"My Lady Sansa, I'm afraid that's not how treason works. The King can't execute his lords on a whim, without cause."
"Roose Bolton's a traitor," Sansa spat, thinking of what his son had done to Theon, how unfair it was that both still lived while Theon lay already rotting in a grave. Would they even give him a proper burial, or burning?
"He hasn't committed treason yet," Davos said, his face pained.
"He has a traitor's heart."
"You'll judge and sentence an innocent man for the contents of his guilty heart?" Fittingly enough, the words came from Tywin Lannister.
That's exactly what I was sent back to do.
Theon's dead.
She had little room in her heart to contemplate the philosophic or legal definitions of innocence. An idea appeared to her.
"Lord Tywin, you've a traitor's heart too, have you not? Did you not already conspire with Roose Bolton and Walder Frey to murder my family?"
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Girl as she was, unable to control a future as she was, having shown her supposed powers to all in the room, few would have reasons to doubt her, especially when she spoke the truth.
"It's the duty of a lord to maintain...diplomatic niceties with other great lords of the realm," Tywin answered, and Sansa knew this was as much of an admission of guilt as she'd ever receive from the man.
Smirking as she addressed the old lion, she wondered if she reminded him of his own daughter at this moment. "So if Roose Bolton sought you out for treason before, why not now? Why wouldn't he, spurned by the King, seeking revenge, seek out the loser of the last war and plot against the throne?"
"The girl's right," Stannis said, still speaking of her as if she were a girl. He turned to Tywin, his words an implicit threat. "Roose will approach you, sooner or later. I trust you'll relay to me whatever he says to you."
"Why wait?" When they didn't answer her, she continued. "Why let a traitor lay down his roots and plant his seeds?" She turned to Tywin. "Suppose you told the King in this very council that Roose Bolton already approached you. Perhaps...with your gold, he could hire an assassin from Braavos. In return, you take the throne, and make Roose Bolton your Hand and Warden of the North." Then to Stannis. "The word of a Great Lord such as Lord Tywin ought to be enough to condemn the man, is it not?"
The feeling came back to her, the dark, satisfying sensation of the most powerful men of the realm gawking at her in surprise, though this time, for a much different reason.
"You ask me to knowingly condemn a man based on an agreed upon lie," Stannis asked her, and she wondered if she'd crossed too far a line for the king. But it was too late now.
"Would you rather wait through years of uncertainty, Bolton knives at your back?"
To her relief, it was to Tywin the King turned to, and she hoped his decision was already made.
"Will you testify to this?"
"Your Grace," Davos protested, as she half expected him to in the back of her mind, even as the old lion gave his assent with a nod, "what kind of example do we set for the realm, what would this say about the King's justice?"
"It will say the King's justice is harsh but fair." He glared at his Hand, yet Sansa thought she saw pleading in his eyes. "None of what we discussed leaves this room. Treason will be punished, as it always has been. The Boltons will burn, the lords will see it just and reasonable, and we continue to prepare the realm against its true enemies."
"I serve the King," Tywin added. "By the standards of the girl's justice, I'm guilty too, I'd be a traitor, burning next to Roose Bolton. A lie to strengthen the realm is the least I can do, as restitution for the sins I did not commit."
She knew he'd agree, so long as Stannis did, because he needed to both prove his loyalty now to the king he meant to betray later, as well as his continued use to his new and unexpected ally. And Stannis, though he seemed a better man than she'd initially judged, she reckoned a man who'd murder his brother and burn his own daughter would be easily tempted by shortcuts to justice.
They all looked at Davos. "My Lady," he said, still softly, "I understand the visions you've seen must have been jarring indeed, and I've no doubt of your honesty. Yet, I must still protest the way we carry about the King's...but I serve His Grace at his pleasure."
Stannis looked at the Red Woman, silent yet clearly pleased with the results of the council, and Sansa wondered whether her powers had returned, whether she'd foreseen this in the fire...and if this, what else.
"You have your kingsblood then," Stannis said, "the Boltons used to be Kings in the North."
So were the Starks, she remembered. So were half the great houses of the realm once kings and queens in name and blood.
Though the maesters had yet to announce Autumn, it was a chilly night in King's Landing. The stakes were tied but empty, and Sansa observed the crowd which had gathered. At the front of the courtyard stood the Lady Melisandre, and she realized she'd never seen her eyes so light, yet dark, at the same time. As befitting her station these days, she stood with the Lannisters, Tommen to her left, Cersei to her right and past Cersei, Tywin himself, who looked no less glum than Tommen at his presence, though Sansa figured the old lion had no choice to be present at the execution of the man condemned by his word. The Kingslayer was absent however, even considering that it had been Roose Bolton's men who had taken his hand, and Sansa wondered that perhaps Jaime Lannister had less capacity for grudges personal to himself than she'd expected, certainly less than her.
The King arrived near last, followed by the two condemned men, escorted by members of Stannis's new Kingsguard. She thought she observed the same mad glint in Ramsay's eye, as if he were still the one about to do the torturing. Roose's eyes looked blank, like he was dead already, except when they walked him past the Lannister contingent. He glared angrily at Tywin first, almost as if he took his would be ally's betrayal personally, but then took note of her as well, perhaps unnerved by the raw hatred emanating at him from the young child sister of his liege lord.
"You don't have to watch this," Sansa whispered to Tommen, as they bound the two men against the wooden poles.
"He does," Cersei said contrarily from her other shoulder, "so he knows the lion still has claws."
"The boy cannot be sheltered from the horrors of the world forever," Tywin added, agreeing with his daughter, a subtle reminder to Sansa of her debt to the Lannisters, a debt grown after this day.
Both Boltons bound, the King walked over to the father, torch in hand, and Sansa wondered if he was going to set them alight himself.
"Any last words?" He asked this only to Roose, the bastard being below his attention seemingly.
For a moment the last Lord of the Dreadfort maintained his silent composure. When he spoke, it seemed a calculating decision, similar to every action Sansa had seen him take in each life.
"You take Tywin Lannister's word over mine. May it be your downfall."
Without any further hesitation, Stannis walked over to Melisandre, handing the torch to her, paying heed to her chanting only out of the corner of his eye as she set alight the straw beneath the feet of the condemned men. Even as she spoke to the Lannisters, her eyes never left Ramsay's, until he caught her intense stare.
This was me. I'm the one who burned you, I'm the one responsible. I want you to know that, as you burn. As you scream.
There was confusion in his eyes, mixing with hatred and glee, that somehow the hatred floating from her eyes to his fed his own ego, even on the brink of death. But whatever glee vanished quickly as the flames rose, both men screaming as she'd never heard them scream before. She savored each second of the ceremony, remembering the suffering they'd put her family through, remembering the suffering he'd put her through, and all of Theon's unspeakable pain. When her eyes found the Red Woman's, she witnessed a similar dance in her orbs, and imagined that they both felt the same pleasure, albeit for entirely different reasons.
But even as she savored the moment, she felt Tommen's apprehension beside her, and cradled one arm around his shoulders. With each scream louder than the last, she felt him clutching closer and closer against her, tempering her enjoyment of the moment, knowing how brutal this must be for the young man to witness.
"It'll be over soon," she whispered. To her right, she saw a satisfaction in Cersei's eyes similar to hers, though Tywin remained passive as usual, as if the burnings marked just another day in Casterly Rock.
Slowly, the screams waned. When they died, the Bolton name died with them.
She heard a whisper from Cersei. "Are you happy?"
"Justice was served," she replied simply, wondering if she'd reverted to her old habits of lying poorly.
"It was your justice, don't deny your part in it."
"Pardon?"
"An audience before the King, alongside my father, who'd take the Stark girl, rather than his own daughter?" Cersei motioned her head over towards Melisandre. "Do you take me for a fool? You practically run Stannis's court now, along with that witch."
Beside her, Tywin listened to them both, one eyebrow slightly raised, though he seemed more intent to study the crowd of the few lords gathered witnessing the execution.
"The Boltons are my brother's lords," she said plainly, trying to think of a way to escape Cersei's interrogations.
"I don't care about the Boltons," she spat back at her, before looking at her own father. "Just know that I know." She turned swiftly to leave, leaving even her son in the arms of the wolf.
Tyrion
He was getting sick of riding. His legs were sick of riding. His hips, his head, his chest. Next to him, Shae was no less exhausted, though she seemed happier at him, as the all the riding took away from his drink, while the sun was up at least. Even Loras Tyrell seemed worse for wear, though Tyrion figured that the young knight's excursions in Westeros were always in the fertile lands of the Reach, rather than the barren wastes of Essos.
"To think," he said to the Knight of Flowers, "you twats used to do this for fun, for sport at the tourneys. Whomever threw the tournies has never had to ride from Pentos to Yunkai."
"Better this than ship," Loras replied, his mane looking the least impressive as Tyrion had ever seen. "I threw up on the entire trip across the Narrow Sea."
"Word is, Stannis gave nearly every lord who opposed him a pardon," Tyrion said, "even my father. You could be doing a different kind of riding right now, back in Highgarden."
Loras spat off his horse. "I'll return to Westeros for one reason and one reason only."
He had to admire his resolve, something he'd never imagined out of the fairest of all Robert's knights. Loras had recalled during their journey that Catelyn Stark had once called him a summer child, or some northern slang of the sort, but whatever child Loras Tyrell was then, it was a hardened man who accompanied him, who survived with him the hazards along the road to Slaver's Bay. He himself was riding to Yunkai more out of curiosity than anything else, to meet this girl Varys found so intriguing, and Tyrion wondered whether he'd feel the same zeal as Loras Tyrell were someone he loved, such as Shae, killed by his enemies.
"Yunkai is where they train the bed-slaves," Shae remarked as they approached the yellow gates of the city. She looked humorously at Tyrion. "Maybe you could learn some things from them."
Tyrion laughed, thankful at least for the exile rescuing her from the clutches of his sister and father.
"I wouldn't speak too favorably towards the slave masters in front of this Targaryen girl," Tyrion said, remembering the missives Varys had sent to their small group one way or the other, at least once a fortnight on their ride east. "Apparently she's very keen on freeing slaves and killing masters."
"Good," Shae said. "Sounds like my kind of Queen."
"Careful," he replied, "you might end up Daenerys's Hand. Not a fun job, of that I can promise you."
"I thought you were hoping for that position," Loras said wryly.
"You may be right," Tyrion said. He'd taken a liking towards this young man, never having thought him capable of making the hard journey to Slaver's Bay. "If I get in too deep, remind me of these words I warn myself with today. 'Tyrion, your ambition will be the death of you.'"
They gained an audience easily, thanks to whatever strings Varys managed to pull still half a world away. Walking inside golden pyramid, he saw Loras admiring the intricate walls, statuettes, and carvings.
"They say the Great Pyramid in Mereen is twice as tall," Tyrion said. They'd ridden past the outskirts of that city on their way to Yunkai. "You'll see it soon, I bet. Word is they're next on her list."
"List?" Loras looked down at him, puzzled.
"Qarth. Astapor. Yunkai. Mereen. Westeros."
"Can we skip to the last," Loras asked, half a smirk, half serious.
It was a striking sight, the last Targaryen seated upon a throne, a much grander sight than Joffrey or Robert. His sister had thought herself in love with the gallant Prince Rhaegar, and Tyrion imagined this last daughter of the Mad King the doomed Prince in female form. He recognized Barristan Selmy next to her, as well as a grizzled man he did not recognize.
"Lord Tyrion," the woman they called the Dragon Queen said as they came to a stop below the steps of her throne. "I've been expecting your arrival."
"You have," Tyrion asked, wondering just how much Varys had told her of him.
"Your family betrayed House Targaryen. I dreamt you would come east, to make amends for the sins of your father and brother." Squinting her eyes in thought, she studied him, as if he were more flawed, more misshapen, than she'd expected. "Though your arrival today seems different."
"Different," he asked. "How so?"
"I dreamt it happened not here, but the Great Pyramid of Mereen." Taking a deep breath, it seemed as her voice trembled as she spoke. "I dreamt you were accompanied by Ser Jorah, yet he stands next to me here, and a strange young boy stands next to you."
"The strange young boy next to me is Ser Loras Tyrell," Tyrion answered, "the famed Knight of Flowers, and sworn enemy of Stannis of House Baratheon, First of his Name." Blinking, he thought of the city he'd come from, and another strange young girl, with strange dreams. Despite himself, curiosity got the better of him. "I must ask, Queen Daenerys, what else have you dreamed of?"
She frowned, as if troubled by a bad memory. "Betrayal," she said, her voice a hint darker. "Treason."
"By me?"
The Dragon Queen shook her head. "A woman. A wolf, with red hair. A man...a crow...a false dragon." Her eyes lightened, though it seemed to strain her to do so. "My apologies, Lord Tyrion, I need not trouble you with my dreams, not yet. Ser Jorah, please see our guests to their quarters. We'll have much to speak of in the days to come."
As they followed Jeor Mormont's exiled son through the hallways of the Pyramid, Tyrion wondered about the Dragon Queen's remarks about a crow, or the false dragon. The wolf with red hair, however, he had a good idea whom she spoke of, and wondered if this was a particular curse of the gods, to pass him from one strange girl to another.
