Young Ned

Trystane's brother looked nothing like the boy he met at Highgarden. His face was wider, his frame pudgier, but it wasn't just his physical appearance which struck upon Ned, but the slouch, Quentyn's awkwardness, his completely ill assured mannerisms not befit for a Prince of Dorne, particularly as the eldest son to Doran Martell. He'd heard whispers of course, of Doran's eldest child, a girl by Arianne who'd been said to be a rather overbearing woman before she'd had her heart broken by Robb Stark, so maybe Quentyn had been browbeaten as a child by his sister, as a henpecked husband would be by a shrew of a wife. Maybe Arianne had been too much older to affect Trystane the same way, seeing how Queen Sansa's devoted whitecloak possessed in his demeanor all the confidence of a man who'd been appointed to the Kingsguard at six and ten, then taken his Queen's heart, and whatever else, soon afterwards.

"Lord Edric."

The ruling Prince of Dorne was thin like his younger son, but looked to be quiet and pensive like his elder one. He seemed a stern man, possessing none of Trystane's light eagerness and even joviality, at least from what Ned could recall of their brief encounter.

"Prince Doran," Ned bowed, while Quentyn stepped obediently out of the solar in the middle of their greetings. "I apologize that this would be the first time I've paid fealty to you here in Sunspear."

"Yes," Doran replied, "there's many treasons we can discuss, can't we? Between House Dayne and Dorne..."

"And between House Martell and many of the houses upon the Iron Throne," Ned retorted, he had no intentions in being intimidated by the older man. "But that's not why I'm here, am I, to discuss the past, treasons and other matters as such."

Beric had told him to speak boldly, that men like Doran Martell did not suffer well towards either fools or cowards, and Ned could only hope that his mentor knew what he was talking about. Fortunately the old man looked expectantly towards his lumbering guard, who seemed reluctant to grant them their privacy, though he'd had no choice in the matter in the end.

"I gave Quentyn my sword," Ned said, forcing a smile upon his face, forcing his tone to appear more relaxed than he felt. "It's not Dawn, but he can keep it nonetheless, if my words displease our mutual Prince."

The Norvoshi man grunted and left to join the younger prince. Doran spoke again, Ned aware of how his eyes seemed to pierce his soul as he gazed upon him.

Or is this a practiced mannerism, meant to convey more wisdom towards his own person than he does possess?

"You bring word of my son in King's Landing?"

"By way of Highgarden," Ned affirmed. "Trystane loves Queen Sansa. Queen Sansa loves Trystane. Queen Sansa believes that the future of the Iron Throne lies between the two of them."

With all the falsities he'd practiced already with Talla at Highgarden, Ned had little patience at this point for further pretense. The message had to be conveyed one way or another, and either it would be successful, or it wouldn't be, regardless of how he might dance around with his words. The Prince's eyes betrayed no reaction, though Ned thought he saw a break in the rhythm of the golden robes covering his hollow chest.

"They told you this? My son, Trystane?" He replied him with all the banality of a man ordering his servant to clean at his boots.

"Aye. I did not speak to Queen Sansa. But I'd trust a son of Doran Martell not to lie about such serious matters."

And his eyes made no secret of it, when he spoke of his Queen, though his words were more warier than mine.

"I see," Doran said. "Anything further?"

"I believe you understand well the delicate position the Queen finds herself in. Make war upon her cause, and she'd be the first one Rhaegar would seek to punish. Then her brothers. Then Lady Cersei and the Stark children in Horn Hill."

"That's what she wants? For me to declare war, then break into the very Red Keep itself to rescue her family along with my son?"

Said out loud, it was a preposterous breed of treason, but credit to the old man, Ned could not tell whether he voiced out loud the ideas seriously or out of ridicule.

"Anything's a possibility," Ned returned. "There are thoughts already, concerning the state of Benjen Stark's family. Their plight has not been ignored. As to the Queen, her family, and your son, King's Landing is surrounded by lands hostile to her. But I've heard word that the Dornish fleet was not entirely destroyed the last war. A ship, provided discretely..."

He trailed off on purpose. Fortunately, it was Doran's turn not to mince words, and the Prince did not let him down with his bluntness.

"Then Dorne rises in revolt against King's Landing, with Tully and Stark banners moving in from the north?"

"Arryn, perhaps, if Lady Lysa is moved by her niece's plight. Other kingdoms as well, though I see little purpose in forming plans too distant from us today."

"Hmmm." He was really studying him now, Ned realized. What could the old man possibly see in him? That he was a soldier? That he knew how to kill, and it bothered him less and less that fact? That he'd spent so many of his years away from Dorne and Starfall, and that he didn't quite care about it, that he seemed to hold with each waking day a troubling lack of nostalgia for his home, a childhood he barely remembered, with loving mother and father long passed? That he wished to only finish this journey to Sunspear, so that he could continue on that dreaded ride towards Horn Hill, where the heart of Lady Talla awaited him...that her heart was his to break, out of duty to his Queen?

"How old are you boy," the Prince asked in a low voice.

"Almost five and ten."

"You speak of inciting new wars," Doran continued, his voice almost guttural, "perhaps the greatest war this realm may see since the Stark Rebellion, or even the Dance of Dragons, as if it were some game for a child. I assure you..."

"Have you ever fought in a war, Your Grace," Ned heard himself taunting the man, addressing him condescendingly like the petty king Doran posed as. "You haven't, haven't you? I have. I've killed men, men who flew their banners for you, when most boys are still sucking on their wetnurses. I've killed boys younger than me too...I've saved the lives of smallfolk in the Rainwood by ridding it of bandits, while you sent your armies to their deaths in a losing cause, while you sit in your cozy little chair here in Sunspear."

He could not help himself, for some reason, there was just something about this man that grated against his heart in the worst way, the same desires as the ones flowing through his veins in the throes of battle. Did he just ruin his mission? That was bad, but in this moment Ned did not actually care.

"Are you threatening me, boy?"

"Boy," Ned laughed, feeling his heart pumping, as if still engaged in a duel. "I'm the second most powerful man in Dorne, Your Grace. The banners of Starfall, High Hermitage, and Yronwood answer to me without question. And others..." Calming himself, he stared the old man in his beady little eyes. "But I'm not your enemy, Your Grace. I serve your son, so long as he serves Queen Sansa, which I know he will until his dying day. You've made many enemies throughout all seven kingdoms, Prince Doran, for your family, for your kingdom. I'm trying to change that, but don't think for one second it'd be in your interest to make an enemy out of me."

You idiot, what came over you just now?

He was bluffing to a certain degree, Ned realized, as his blood began cooling. It was true, with the help of marcher lords, he could rally together a great army and take Dorne for himself, were that his wish. He'd send his Yronwood banners south towards Godsgrace, he and Thoros had agreed upon that. Brienne had suggested one combined push all the way to Lemonwood, forcing the Martells towards a vulnerable crossing of the Greenblood, but both he and Beric thought the best strategy was a two pronged invasion on either side of the river, the Yronwood banners luring a battle by the Shandystone, while a southern army starting at Starfall risked a more dangerous crossing to trap the Martells and cut them off from Sunspear.

They'd been nothing more than child's play of course, their words a game for soldiers. Ned had obviously no wish to take up some useless title of Prince, but the patrols along the marches were tedious, and they needed empty talk and games of war, of maneuvers and sieges...something, at least, to liven each night's air at camp. Maps spread out, fingers would trace lines down roads and across rivers, whether it'd be Dorne, or hells, even a war between Beric in Winterfell, and he attacking from the Riverlands. Voices raucous and wine flowing through his blood, Ned sometimes felt, studying the map for his next go around against Brienne, that he could hold all seven kingdoms at his fingertips.

But here, standing alone in Sunspear, they could do whatever Doran wished with him. Fortunately, the Prince did not seem inclined to such a tact now, despite his most impolitic outburst.

"You're nothing like your uncle," the man said cryptically, though Ned could not tell whether he meant it as a compliment or insult. "Forgive me, Lord Edric, but you're right, my dealings with others have been lacking these late years. The Queen's late Hand, I'd thought a friend, and I'd thought wrongly. Perhaps I'm too rash now, in seeing enemies where they do not lie."

He'd be less forgiving of me, Ned thought, except he knows he needs me. And I need him...well, the Queen needs him.

There wasn't much further to be said, except to ask permission to see the Queen's sister, which Doran granted, so long as his son accompanied him to her chambers.

"Are you still to be betrothed to the Princess," Ned asked, thinking that it was a message he needed to pass along to the Queen or her Trystane, before realizing that he'd probably not see them again, unless their impossible and yet still unmade plans somehow ended up succeeding.

"No," Quentyn replied with a nervous laugh. "They're to betroth me to a Wyl girl, father says it will be announced before the year is done."

The Wyls, Ned wondered. Not the greatest of families by any means, not one usually worthy of marriage to a Martell...except they're situated by both the Boneway and the marches. More pieces of whatever war Doran had already been planning, Ned figured, except that all his plans ought be altered now with this new news.

"You seem relieved of it," Ned realized. "Did you not want to marry her?"

Another nervous chuckle, the older boy's grin so wide that he seemed upon the brink of tears. "She scares me a bit, honestly, you'll see. And she's a bit young for me too," he added hastily.

"I look forward to it." He did not. Nor did he like the silence which lay between them as they walked, though he could ride comfortably for hours with Beric and sometimes even with Brienne or Thoros with not a word being exchanged. It was odd, this aversion he had towards these two Martells, when he'd very much liked what he'd met before in Ser Trystane. "I'm sorry about Lord Cletus," Ned ventured. "I know you and he were close."

He has none of his father's deviousness or ambition, nor his brother's ease. It makes him a decent man, a normal one, yet it leaves him unsure of himself because of the fact.

"Aye," Quentyn replied solemnly without much additional comment. The Prince had fostered with the Yronwoods for much of his youth. It had not escaped Ned's notice, how Doran had not challenged his claim to Yronwood, the castle having been bequeathed him by Queen Sansa after the failed rebellion along with most of their lands. "I hear he's a sellsword now, out in Slaver's Bay," the Prince said, in a way that made Ned wonder whether he envied his friend's fate.

"Seems like he was a bit too impatient in his exile," Ned remarked, enjoying what for once felt like a natural conversation, a first since his arrival in Sunspear. "He'd probably be Rhaegar's Master of Ships now, had he stuck with Connington."

"Maybe I'll sail one day to see him," Quentyn mused, his voice distant. "Father wants to send me with the fleet to the Stepstones, I'd rather keep sailing east after."

I hope you know the blame lies with your father, if you miss your friend Cletus.

"The Stepstones," Ned asked, unable to hide his interest. Was Doran seeking to expand his currently independent kingdom? If so, how could this affect any war or reunion he'd make with the Iron Throne?

"Some Greyjoy princes have made it their seat after getting exiled from the Iron Islands," Quentyn replied, his voice disinterested. "They're disrupting the trade with the Free Cities, father says."

"They're a plague, I don't doubt. But wouldn't your father need you back in Dorne afterwards?"

"Arianne will inherit the kingdom," the young man replied with no bitterness in his voice, "as is her right."

They arrived at yet another garden, all looking the same to Ned. Quentyn shirked behind nervously, and Ned stepped forward to meet the younger sister of Queen Sansa's.


Sansa

"Oh, I so envy the Lady Tarly..."

"Oh, Lady Margaery, you have the most wonderful of brothers..."

"Is Lord Willas shy, he did not speak much during the tourney..."

On and on the prattle went. The Queen and the Rose of Highgarden sat side by side, but it was the latter who drew all the attention, not that Sansa minded, knitting absentmindedly a shirt for her brother Rickon. Jonos Bracken had seen fit to bring three of his five daughters to court, and naturally they sought out the beautiful Tyrell girl, fast becoming the bright new shining star of the Red Keep given the sullen nature of her Queen. Which was why Sansa had finally decided to join their small circle, to her own distaste. She'd made the effort at attending court when Rhaegar held it, as was her right, but the King's forays into the Throne Room were rarer these days, preferring to confer, if at all, with only his closest advisors in his private chambers, and Sansa knew well enough that Tarly would be most unfriendly to her presence when he presided in Rhaegar's absence.

There was little else for her to do then, besides roaming the gardens or sitting in her chambers plotting vengeance, all the while pining of the next time she and Trystane could be alone together. But little bubbles of treason did not arrive by themselves into the arms of an absentee Queen, so Margaery and her ladies could at least inform her of the going-ons of the realm, limited as their chatter were to the latest betrothal announcements, or rumors of, subjects Sansa would have gladly indulged in herself when she'd been younger.

"What of your prospects," she asked the Lady Barbara, Jonos's eldest, an admittedly pretty girl with hair tinged between shades of strawberry and gold.

The woman squinted her face up in distaste. "Father wants one of us to marry a Frey," Barbara replied, looking cruelly at her younger sister Bess, a girl close to Sansa's age.

"More than one," Bess added, appearing equally disgusted by the prospect, "if old Walder has his way."

"Have you ever met Lord Walder, Your Grace," Barbara asked, still possessing some sense of natural deference to her proper Queen.

"I have not," Sansa answered, trying to sound as friendly as she could to the girl.

"He's an ugly man," Bess chimed in.

"And he's just taken his eighth wife," Barbara added with a whisper, "a girl younger than Alysanne," referring to their youngest sister.

"I don't envy that poor girl then," Margaery replied with an easy laugh, her scarlet lips lightly stained by wine. "But better she than one of you."

It was something to remember, Sansa noted in her mind. House Frey had gotten the best marriage they could wish to achieve with her uncle Edmure, the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands. House Blackwood was amongst her uncle's staunchest supporters, having ridden to Sow's Horn with Edmure to confront Rhaegar, so why would the Freys now seek ties to their worst rivals in the Brackens?

"How many unmarried Freys are out there anyway," Sansa wondered innocently.

"More than a hundred, I dare say," Bess answered, giggling.

"I don't envy old Walder," Sansa said, looking back down at her needle, "that's a lot of marriages to arrange. I imagine your family isn't the only one he's seeking for marriages."

"No, Gods no," Barbara said, laughing as the wine dribbled down her chin. "I've heard father speak of the Butterwells, the Rootes, there's the Darry boys, I think Jayne has a thing for their eldest, a Lefford girl perhaps, for one of his sons...I've even heard word of across into the Vale, a Redfort for one of his daughters, or even the Hardyng boy..."

She'd remember the names, well enough to write them down at night. Her uncle would be well served to know which houses to be wary of, when the time came for her war to resume. Sipping at her own glass of wine, Sansa gave thanks that this day did not prove entirely fruitless for her.

She'd finished several glasses by nightfall, where she awaited patiently for a soft knock upon her door. Trystane entered without awaiting her answer, and Sansa rose, letting her body fall into his waiting arms as he greeted her with a light kiss upon her forehead, then her lips.

"Busy day," she asked.

"I sparred with uncle Lewyn," Trystane answered, always a smile upon his face, when they were together.

"Did you win?"

"I did." Sansa squeezed his hands in excitement. "I think he lets me win though."

"You underestimate yourself, Trystane." She pressed her hand against his chest, feeling the soft beating of his heart thump against her palm. "I know your heart, love. I know what you're capable of. One day you'll be the greatest knight in all the land, you'll be remembered the same way as the likes of Arthur Dayne. We'll win Seven Kingdoms together, you and I."

First he kissed her again. Then he laughed. "Easier said than done, is it?" Their lips met once more, and when he spoke, his voice was more hushed. "Do you think we can do it? Truly, just the two of us?"

"It seems impossible, doesn't it?"

It was impossible. Deep in her heart, Sansa could feel this. Half a fortnight ago she'd lain with Rhaegar, half a fortnight from now she'd have to do so again. Several minutes of awfulness twice a moon, brief yet impossibly long. And with each night together his eyes grey more lecherous, Sansa saw, the moment she entered his chambers, and when she departed immediately after, avoiding her gaze in his direction.

The last time he'd tried to touch her, placing a cold hand against her breast, and like reflex she'd slapped his arm away. Sansa had expected him to strike at her then and there, but his withered body lay where it was, neither of them acknowledged the incident, and Rhaegar didn't say another word after, but who knew what the next night with him would bring?

It would be easier, a voice yelled inside her chest, to relent, to give up the moon tea, give Rhaegar everything he wanted, and end her suffering. But this was her battle, her body, her womb the only army she had to wield at this moment, and Sansa did not mean to lose, though she did not know what victory even meant. Would Rhaegar give up, concede that one of them was barren though neither were the year before? Then what? Annul the marriage, send her away? Or have her killed discretely before she would ever have the chance to avenge her family, and herself?

The only thing Sansa knew for sure was Trystane. How he'd be waiting to comfort her, however long she had to wait. How his hands and his fingers and his body and his tongue made her completely forget her hated husband, one wonderful night at a time. How he'd stand by her side, how she'd give him the satisfaction of slaying her enemies for her one day.

Starting with Rhaegar.

"We have no other choice," Sansa whispered, sliding her hands underneath his vest, giving herself entirely to him, and taking him entirely for herself in turn.


Lewyn

He'd spent nearly half a lifetime getting his prince back into this castle. His quest completed, it dawned upon Lewyn that the keep they'd been rewarded with had become his prison, and his own prince and king his captor. Dread filled his nights, unsteady sleep, dreams of loved ones lost, and loved ones he could lose any day forward. He woke sweating in the morning, carried himself through the motions of the day as if he were a dreaded wight from the Age of Heroes, and went to sleep knowing that further slumber would provide little comfort for his soul.

The king rarely spoke, that was good. Connington's voice he'd long learned to drown out, Tarly was Tarly, typical like all the hard men he'd known in his life, but it was the Spider's gaze, an eunuch who'd never wielded a weapon so far as Lewyn knew, which he dreaded the most. Usually it remained that, just the occasional creeping and expectant stare when no one else was paying attention, vanished the moment his eyes returned to King and Hand to describe the latest quarrels between lions and roses and sparrows and all the useless junk.

So the night he found the Spider awaiting him in his chambers wasn't unexpected, and if anything Lewyn breathed a sigh of relief in the man's inevitable denouement. He ignored him at first, setting slowly his sword upon the table, then hanging his cloak against the wall, the same he'd worn since the day Aerys had appointed him several lifetimes before. Seeing that the Master of Whispers had brought a jug of wine unpoured, Lewyn helped himself to a glass, swallowing the liquid in one gulp, before pouring himself another.

"I know," the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard confessed. "I haven't spoken to him."

"I understand your hesitation, Ser Lewyn. But the fate of the kingdoms hang in the balance." The Spider's eyes looked sympathetic. Then, he'd been a mummer in his youth, hadn't he, wasn't that why he posed so well at such veneers?

"He's a good boy," Lewyn choked out. Was he sobbing? When was the last time he'd cried? When he'd heard of Elia and her children, upon arriving at Dragonstone, carrying the wounded Prince from the Trident in his arms? "He's too stupid to know better!"

"He's practically a child still," Varys agreed. "They both are, really."

"I wasn't a child," Lewyn said, feeling the wine already flowing through his veins, drawing forth memories long dead. "Far from it, I was a grown man and older than Rhaegar. I said my vows." With one gulp he finished his second glass of wine, and poured himself a third, all under the Spider's unmoved eyes. "Her name was Nat. She was a bastard, the daughter of a Brune, whom Aerys had working in the kitchens. They said she'd lain with the King too, for but a moon or two, before he tired of her, like all the others. I can't say I loved her, but..."

"She died when Tywin Lannister sacked the city," the Spider said sympathetically, "didn't she?"

How did he know, when he'd never spoken of her name to another, ever? But of course, the Spider knew all, didn't he? He probably knew about Nat even long before the rebellion.

"I don't mourn her," Lewyn protested more loudly than he would have wished, burying his other thoughts of the moment. "I don't deserve to, I never should have touched her in the first place. Who am I to lecture Trystane about such things?"

When the Spider placed his chubby hands over his own, Lewyn was surprised by the warmth emanating from the man's skin. "You're not the first Kingsguard to break your vows, Ser Lewyn. I don't imagine you'll be the last. But it was a serving girl you lay with. Not a Queen who was not yours to take."

"I know," Lewyn said. "He can't continue this much further. This endangers Ser Balon too, it threatens the entire reputation of our order. I'll speak to him first thing in the morning."

Varys sighed, relief, Lewyn thought, though it was easy for him to bid others do the dirty work.

"The Queen gets her moon tea from Lady Jeyne," the Spider confided, his voice more careful than before. It was not a terrible surprise, the fact that she remained barren having lain with both his grandnephew and Rhaegar over the last few moons. "And Lady Jeyne from...well, a serving girl in the kitchens, whose sister works in one of the brothels along the Hook."

"Rhaegar won't like to hear that," Lewyn said, the two men sharing a laugh at the irony of his statement, moon tea from whores being the least of their concerns, they both knew.

"The King needs his second child," Varys said, serious once more. "We both know this, his...mindset, is fragile, yet his will is determined. Secure his destiny, so he'd believe, and all the realm may breath their sighs of relief."

"But she needs to cease this affair with Trystane," Lewyn agreed, finishing his third glass and looking to pour his fourth. The pitcher looked almost empty.

"The Queen's continued presence in King's Landing is unhealthy, disruptive," Varys continued carefully. "She's no friend to the Crown."

"No," Lewyn nearly choked out the words, "she definitely isn't."

"I'll arrange to have the moon tea switched, next time it's passed to the Poole girl. Then the King will agree to send Sansa away, once he has his last child in hand. Not to Winterfell, that would be too dangerous. But Riverrun? We have allies in the Riverlands, they have no natural defenses, should she be foolish enough to seek one day the restoration of the dynasty of her father."

"Then you and Tarly and Lannister can rule all the kingdoms without a bump in the road, hmmm?" This was what the Spider truly wanted, wasn't it? Not to help him, or Trystane, but power, like all of them in the end, hanging balls or not.

"Given time," Varys whispered with a smirk, "perhaps we can convince the King to release the young Trystane of his vows. After all, like Jaime Lannister, he was far too young to pledge himself thus, and I'm sure Rhaegar isn't keen to repeat the mistakes of his father."

"Then he can ride north instead of south, in the direction of Riverrun, I suppose?"

Lewyn laughed. The Spider was good, he really was, there was something to be admired in the man, if he wasn't so damned untrustworthy.

"Only if Rhaegar never learns of the affair carried out currently," the Spider warned, sighing again. "We wronged the girl, it's true. Grievously. Were I a religious man, I'd say the Gods would not favor us, for what we did to her, to her family, that the worst of hells await us..."

"It's the least we can do for her," Lewyn interrupted nervously. He laughed again, though this time it sounded bitter, but then, who could blame his cynicism towards the Spider when he claimed his good intentions? "Is that what you're saying? Aye, whom has House Targaryen wronged the most? The Baratheons sure. The Arryns and Tully's, mayhaps you can place the blame on Littlefinger. But Houses Stark and...Martell..."

His own house. His own family, his blood, which he'd been duty bound to abandon, the moment he'd sworn himself to the Mad King.

The Spider smiled, seeing through every drop of his discomfort. "Small favors are better than nothing, won't you agree?"


Trystane

"I know about the Queen. Other people do too. Ser Balon's a good knight, yet you risk his life for this charade also. End this now, before it gets any worse."

His own father had rarely chided him, because his own father had given what little attention he'd possessed to Arianne and Quentyn. Then just Arianne, after Quentyn left for Yronwood. So Lewyn's words stung him as much as any he'd heard in his life, coming from both the eldest surviving member of his family, and his Lord Commander. It had come quick. His great-uncle had pushed him to the limit, hacking at him relentlessly in the courtyard, even kicking at his shin at one point, and striking his shoulder with his elbow, beating furiously against his body until Trystane's knees gave way. His great uncle had won that duel, then muttered out the words at swordpoint, whilst Trystane lay upon the ground. Then his fingers ordered him up, indicating that another duel was at hand, as if the most devastating secret in all the seven kingdoms hadn't just been outed by the man.

"How does he know," his Queen had asked that day, when the gloomy clouds threatened snow and the wind bit at his skin. He'd pulled her aside in a corridor afterwards, most careful not to alert any additional suspicion.

"I don't know. Mayhaps Ser Balon said something?"

"He'd never," Sansa replied furiously. "You say others know too?"

Her eyes were panicked, yet there was a wildness to them, and in her pale blue orbs Trystane thought he saw the same fierceness of the northern warriors, who'd cut so many of them down at the Bite.

"They won't say anything. For now at least. Else Rhaegar would already have our heads. But I don't think they'll stay silent forever."

Trystane had won that second duel, striking at his Lord Commander in a blind fury, so much so that he could remember little of it now. It'd been several days since, yet they both still lived, unmolested, yet tormented by each other's absence. Ser Meryn had guarded Sansa's door the next two nights, so it had been moot anyway, and Trystane was accustomed to waiting days after all. But anticipation was replaced by yearning, ever the more difficult it was for him to see glimpses of her throughout the days in the castle, glimpses which once represented hope, now transformed into despair, especially knowing that another man, the worst man, was to claim her within the fortnight.

Two nights of Ser Meryn, one night Ser Boros Blount, then it was time again for Ser Balon to guard the Queen's chambers.

Control yourself, Trystane scolded himself, lying restlessly in his bed. He'd tried drinking wine, so he'd fall asleep, and wake before temptation took him. But the sweetness tasted like ash in his mouth, and he could drink it no further. Minutes later, he found himself dressed once more, and making his usual tip-toeing walk towards the Queen's chambers, where Ser Balon nodded him in with a wink.

So Lewyn hasn't seen fit to scold him yet.

Either Ser Balon's mad. Or my great-uncle truly trusts me, more than I deserve.

The Queen lay half asleep, Trystane could tell. His eyes ran hungrily up the smooth skin of her arm, hands clutching against her wolf fur blanket, up to her bare shoulder, and his entire body shuddered knowing that she lay completely naked underneath.

Eyelashes fluttered, and a melodic yawn pierced the room.

"You came."

"To talk," Trystane forced himself to say. "Just that." Did his chest feel different, were his eyes burning? He tried ignoring it all. "We never had the chance to truly end things. I want that for you. For us. To say goodbye, properly."

Sansa sat up in her bed. The edges of her blanket dropped down upon her lap, her chest fell openly forward, a golden tinge to her pale skin cast upon by the candle's glow, and Trystane cursed her beauty. Her vulnerability. How her eyes protested so direly what he meant to say now.

"It was too good to be true," he continued. "We were bound to have been caught sooner or later. Better Ser Lewyn than anyone else...we'd both be dead."

She rose from her bed, all the glory of the Queen fully revealed before him. Even after so many nights together, the sight left him breathless, as Sansa walked up to the chair upon which he sat, and hugged him, wrapping her body around him so that his face lay against her stomach, below and in between her breasts. Cursing to himself, Trystane gripped her soft hips, as he had so many times before, except this time he pushed her away.

"I serve you," he continued. "When the time comes, I'm on your side, I want you to know that. My father...I pray he's heard from us by now. One day, once the war is won, we'll be together..."

"Fuck the war," Sansa interrupted him. He could feel his groin aching. For some reason, his body loved it all the more when she swore. A smirk grew upon Sansa's face, as if she knew the reaction she was eliciting upon him. "Fuck Rhaegar, fuck Ser Lewyn, fuck them all."

Her hand took his, and she turned to lead him towards her bed. The soft wolfskin pelt beckoned, a far more comfortable blanket to lay under, the touch of his Queen's skin next to him through the night, than his own silks atop his lonely bed. But Trystane remained fixed upon his seat and as he expected, when her eyes turned back at him, they were ones reflecting the deepest disappointment.

He heard himself challenged by his Queen. "You're going to give in to them?"

"What choice do I have?"

Do I have another choice?

Sansa laughed, her voice dancing musically upon his ears. "Ser Lewyn is your family. He's your blood. Of course he hasn't told the King, he won't dare, because he'd be betraying his own house."

Was it so easy?

Was it right? To defy his elder, his blood, his Lord Commander?

"What about the others who know?"

Sansa laughed again. Turning fully, she took his other hand so that she held both, then knelt down before him, her knees brushing against his, Trystane's eyes inevitably falling downwards, towards the line formed by her milky thighs above the shadow her body cast, following them to where they joined together.

"If any of 'them' mean to tell Rhaegar, then we'd both be dead already." The Queen's lips met his hand for a brief second, before she pounced upon him, sitting in his lap, and Trystane had no choice but to hold one hand across her lower back, so that she did not fall. "Or Ser Lewyn's bluffing," Sansa continued, "he means to scare you, because he's the only one who knows."

"Do you really believe that?"

The way her legs wrapped around his hips, the way she positioned her body against him, as if they were already making love through his clothes, indicated to Trsytane that she believed it most sincerely.

"I need you, Trystane," Sansa pleaded to him, her eyes swelling with tears. "I'm to lie with Rhaegar again tomorrow night. I can't get through with that, not without you. I need you tonight, to get me through tomorrow. I can't do this, Trystane. Not alone. Not without knowing that it'll be all worth it in the end."

Suddenly she was no longer his seductress, but a girl, yet his Queen, her eyes, body, and soul laid bare and completely vulnerable to him, completely given to him.

"I'm yours," Trystane promised, one hand moving to grab her breast even as he held her upright with his other. "Always," he mumbled between kisses, one layer of his robes falling upon the floor after another. "Forever."


Varys

Lewyn Martell understood things. The Lord Commander was a quiet man, not a dumb one, Varys had long known of that. His face betrayed very little, which only meant the agony he hid in his heart must multiply ever worse.

"They try less to hide it these days," he grumbled unhappily to the Kingsguard sitting across from him. "My birds...they see Trystane leaving his chambers every night Ser Balon stands on guard."

"I failed," Lewyn grumbled across from him. "I'm sorry."

It was the worst failure Varys could imagine. And it was his own failure too, in that he'd trusted too much the sway Lewyn Martell could hold over the brash young boy. And the sway Sansa Stark held over the boy...Varys could understand that through his mind, if not his heart, or any other part of him.

"He disappears into her chambers, even when it's his turn to stand guard," Varys continued. The head of the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard drooped before him in shame, as if he were an impertinent child sitting guiltily before his maester. "They're just being reckless now, it's a miracle no one knows yet but us."

A strange sound emerged from the man's throat, as if he were laughing and weeping at the same time. "They're deluded. Maybe they think the child will definitely be Rhaegar's...or take after the mother. If the Gods are good for once..."

"Or maybe they know differently, but don't care anymore."

The man buried his head inside his hands. He'd given up on drink, Varys had noticed, probably because life was already too intoxicating for him by the day, in the worst way.

"Trystane hasn't looked me in the eye since the day we spoke," Lewyn bemoaned, saying his name for the first time this sitting. "I should've known then, I should've..."

"There's nothing you could've done," Varys replied. "She's six moons with her child as of today, Maester Cressen tells me. If the numbers add up...if my little birds aren't wrong, and they rarely are...he never heeded your words from the very beginning."

This was bad. This was difficult. He'd expected difficulties in this reign, Rhaegar was no easy master, and the Iron Throne the worst of mistresses, Varys knew that from past experience too. But this was especially bad, he had not expected events to ever deteriorate in this uniquely horrible way. The King was not at all well, they all knew, his surly crown weighing more and more a burden to his Council by the day. There always posed the possibility of poison, this road he could never voice to Lewyn, or anyone else, though Varys knew that most of the Council would be relieved in secret, were Rhaegar to suddenly pass, perhaps die of sadness or exhaustion one fine night, thus leaving the kingdoms to their ever vigilant regents for another five and ten long years.

But the Queen had to removed first, because she was a child and unpredictable at that, because she had been truly wronged, because she would wish for vengeance upon those who would govern the realm responsibly through the next regency, though vengeance she did truly deserve, Varys could not deny, except not at the expense of the realm. And because Rhaegar would never allow Sansa Stark to leave the capital without fulfilling her end of the bargain, not knowing that his last head of the dragon may emerge into the world resembling too suspiciously his first wife. The cruelest joke of the Gods, Varys thought, one which he could appreciate, were he more distanced from the awful situation.

"What now," Lewyn asked. Begged, Varys thought. "Pray for a silver haired child to come out of her damned womb?"

He wants me to make it all better, when he knows I can't. No one can, it's too late for that.

"We have to tell the King," he'd long decided. "His mind is fragile still. Perhaps there's a chance the child may not take after Trystane...but we can't risk it. The King can't be caught by surprise...we have a better chance of mitigating his...passions...were we to inform him of it in advance."

"Just us," Lewyn whispered. "No one else, no Connington, no Tarly...definitely not the Sparrows."

So he knew Rhaegar well enough too, except Lewyn needed someone else to voice the decision he very well understood needed to be made.

"And the Gods, Ser Lewyn," Varys said, rising and patting the forlorn man upon his upper arm, "whether you keep to them or not."


Daenerys

The castle was eerily still when she arrived. No one announced her, one of the guards merely left her inside the Throne room alone, babe nestled between her arms, and Daenerys stared fixated upon the throne of her father and brother until gentle footsteps interrupted her. It was Lewyn, and she'd never seen him so weary, so aged, as if he lay already astride death's door.

"Come quickly," he said urgently, grabbing her arm so violently that she almost dropped Lyonel against the floor.

"What is it," she asked, carefully clutching her child closer to her bosom, yet recognizing the sheer panic in Lewyn's eyes. Something was indeed wrong, Daenerys realized. She'd come to the capital, to present her child to her brother and Lord Kevan, and to give the young Queen her blessings towards one new niece or nephew. Now, Daenerys wondered at what viper's nest she'd unwittingly stumbled into.

"Your brother has summoned Queen Sansa." He looked away from her. "She has been consorting with one of his Kingsguard. There's a chance the child is not Rhaegar's."

"Trystane," Daenerys asked, before she realized what she'd even been saying. "The Martell boy?"

"You knew?"

"I did not."

Not until now. Then it becomes so obvious.

The poor girl.

He's good for her. Except he shouldn't and would never be allowed to be.

She'd liked the young man too. He'd seemed pleasant at Highgarden. Extremely dutiful, Daenerys had thought at the time, to a fault. Now she knew exactly why.

"How bad is it," she asked.

"Perhaps the world's not ending yet," Lewyn replied with a laugh she knew was forced. "Your brother's not an excessively cruel man. He understands the marriage was not one of love, for either of them...and that the situation is delicate, because Queen Sansa's no ordinary Queen."

"No she's not."

His hands gripped at her arm, touching upon her as he hadn't ever dared to since she'd grown from a child, and he'd come to realize what she had wanted from him at the time.

"Come," Lewyn said urgently, impatiently. "Have one of your ladies take your son."

"Are you sure?"

Lewyn nodded, his dark eyes as intensely worried as Daenerys had ever seen him.

He looks at me tonight, Daenerys thought, the way I've always wanted him to look at me.

"I fear...no," he mumbled at first, before taking in one deep and heavy breath. "You're a calming...good...influence upon Rhaegar, and w...your brother needs you."

"I'd say the Gods help me then," Daenerys said, her heart quickening as she looked about for her nearest handmaiden, "except they need them a lot more."