HORN HILL – THE REACH
Heartsbane was laid against Horn Hill's ghostly wall where it overlooked swathes of smouldering fields lapping at the fortifications – their brilliant green all turned to ash. Bone and steel. Flesh and leather. A hell of indiscernible terror sufficient to make the most devout Sparrow blush.
The lush heart of Westeros was now a dragon's hunting ground. Short hours of fire made a misery of the First Men's ancestral cradle. Life and flame were praised in the same breath by Eastern priestesses but their sweet promises came at a cost. If the marauding pirates of the Sunset Sea paid pounds of iron for their thrones, Targaryens surely took their keep in vats of blood. It bled heavy in The Reach, drowning those that did not perish in the flame.
Sam averted his watch from the storm of embers dying among the grass and the thick clouds of smoke which withered into nothing. Instead his world possessed a single focus – a solitary drop of blood working its way through the design inlaid on the handle of his father's sword. There, a pair of bronze hunters were locked in battle with a golden serpent impaled by their spears. The reptile's mouth hung agape, fangs curved and a forked-tongue thrust into the air. Soot marbled through the steel below like smoke pressed into a mirror. It reminded Sam of the sodden fog that slithered down the Mander riding the edge of Winter. Beginnings of its deathly mask gathered near dusk. Wisps lay in shallow dips of land. A faint haze on the air. In the coming months it would overtake all the low lying land between Horn Hill and the river until the monstrous building became a city suspended above false clouds, staring across The Reach to its more beautiful twin.
Sam considered the sword. Valyrian steel was cursed – how else could its edge hold sharp through the centuries? Magic the lords whispered. Obsidian, Sam's maesters snarled, drearily lifting their shrivelled heads. He hated those men, suffocating in houses built upon shuffling scrolls – the air thick with dust, spores and all the hideous truth of history filed out of sight. The only blades those old buggers had seen were kept beneath sheets of filthy glass. They were no better than the Faith, meticulously repeating daily rituals without a thought for the future. Fiddling while their cities crumbled. The disappointment of the great library's prison bit Sam hard. Truth guarded by privilege and yet privilege had no interest in truth. What good were relics if they were never allowed to bloody themselves in battle? No better than this sword. Its pale edge gorged itself on his father's blood. Soon it would look again. Swords had wills as strong as men and dreams, far more bitter.
Whatever the steel's secrets, they were lost with The Doom. Man would never build cities like Valyria again. Those stone giants were lost. Summer days that died in the sea replaced by restless storms. Beyond their temper, darkness. The same pitch he'd seen dwell in Jon's eyes. Death clung to the Northern bastard and festered in his cold flesh. Sam touched his chest, if only for the comfort of his own steadily beating heart. At The Wall he'd been too full of fear to consider death. Now, amid the ruin of his home, with ice on the edge of the horizon, Sam understood that he would die – a fool with his father's sword. He imagined himself rising from the marsh with sapphire eyes staring into nothing. Filth sodden in his ragged clothes. Bone snapped and glinting in the sun. Then, he whispered, then he'd long for the fires of R'hllor. Succumb, Sam lifted his head to the sky, to the other shadow god. Choose a demon, demanded the priests. Sun or moon? Day or night? The long Summer or the veils of endless Winter…
...for a moment Sam realised that he'd step into the snow before trespassing upon a flame.
He lost that helpless thought as a dragon swooped across the sky, carrying the Queen along the horizon. She fled before the dead began to stink. Utterly ruthless. A Khaleesi. They were famously callous and Daenerys was proving as hard as any true-born horselord. His father would have admired her if he'd not been so stubborn in his valour.
Water from the Mander was diverted by the Tyrell forces and channelled into terraced ponds, then dumped onto the remaining fires which marauded across The Reach. Scores of farmers fought their way from field to field, attempting to save what was left of their crops. They thrashed the flames with wide barn shovels and damp hessain bags. Soldiers threw down weapons to carry water. Horses charged in panic, kicking down yards as smoke smothered them from view. After the last flame was snuffed, the men lay on the dirt surrounded by black scars that scratched across the ground like the gnarled fingers of an ancient Sealord.
It was near sunset when a guard approached.
"Tarly, my Lord, a thousand men as requested." The Tyrell soldier Sam had spoken with earlier now dipped his head low in a reverent bow, presenting a force of weary troops. Just like that, power manifested. A breath from the Queen had inflated Sam's name to something that carried meaning. Entirely unearned.
Sam's eyes were dry. His father's body lay behind him in the courtyard draped in an emerald cloth with a gold-thread huntsman embroidered across the centre and finely woven tassels dangling from each corner to stop the breeze picking it off. The only mourners game enough to gather consisted of the household staff. Sam suspected their muted suffering was on account of his mother and brother for which there were no bodies found.
"Secure Horne Hill," Sam ordered, his voice cold and steady. "Her Grace, the Queen says that we are to expect survivors from the recent battle at King's Landing. They will be here within the week, enough to fill these palace walls. We shall be prepared to receive them."
"Yes, my Lord. When the fields have cooled I'll have more workers sent to help. It is not too late to replant and hope for a late harvest. Sounds as though we'll be needing it with unskilled hands swelling our walls."
"And have the soldiers pile every body onto a pyre – including my father. Make certain it is known that we no longer hoard our dead. They will not be allowed to slumber in the earth. If these twin castles are to be a safe port in the storm we have a great deal of work to do." He gripped the stone and leaned into the wind. The lazy hills and low-lying marshes had never looked so vulnerable. "You have no idea what comes from over that land… I fear it shall make swift work of us."
"There are rumours, my Lord..." The soldier stepped closer. "Stories – travelling along the King's Road. They say there's a foreign army landed at Eastwatch and cracks forming in The Wall. You were there, so the men have heard, at Castle Black. That you – slew – something – beyond in the North. Is there any truth?"
Sam's breath shuddered. The ash in the air fell as snow. "We are going to face the worst things man has dreamed sooner than you think. I have read the scrolls in the citadel. Farewell, they say, to the sun. Gone is the moon and stars that comfort her. In Winter there is only darkness, cold and death. Dawn slain by Western dusk."
His words chilled the Tyrell man. "I thought the war was in the North…"
"The war is everywhere."
The soldier stared blankly at the open fields for some time before he remembered the leather satchel around his shoulder. He slipped it over his head and passed it to the new lord of Horn Hill. "There was one more thing."
Sam peeked under the flap. "Thank you, my friend."
The soldier nodded respectfully.
"I shall be in the ravenry," Sam added. "We must confirm our position to the Capital."
As the soldier took his leave, Sam hugged the bag containing the old book closer. There is no coming back from this… Queen Daenerys had set every breathing soul on a path. At least now he had enough power to force the maesters in the citadel to unlock the ancient texts and whatever secrets were left to bare.
KING'S LANDING – WESTEROS
Blood everywhere. It leaked from Marwyn's neck in an endless stream like the knife-marks in the eyes of the Weirwood. Varys' golden robes were soaked right through. The Spider remained on the floor, rocking back and forth in silence with the corpse embraced.
The world beyond the window had come alive. The brush of a moth's wing against the stone thundered in Varys' ear. Individual flecks of ash wafted about, spiralling on the sea air with a tumultuous roar. The immense pyre rising from the Dragonpit crackled ruthlessly while the last structures in Fleabottom crumbled into the mud with a steady thud-thud-thud as their clay bones gave out. Ships rang brass bells, creeping through the smoke and somewhere, far above on the turret of the Red Keep, a pair of leathery wings dragged against the rock.
Marwyn's weight dragged him down into inevitable abyss. Varys was in the clasp of it. There – at the bottom of the pit – voices called from the flames. He was a boy again, terrified and sobbing. Bleeding. Begging the sorcerer as his severed pieces disintegrated. They're coming… They're coming… A breath of ice touched his neck. The dead and all their secrets. Then a name. A word promised to that same faceless voice.
He should not have killed Marwyn. He had not meant to. Regret and sorrow made bedfellows of his heart. Varys was not a religious man but he lifted his head and silently begged the stars to forget what he had done. Only the waves of the Blackwater replied, hissing with Illyrio's shrivelled tongue as they reared up to the Keep.
Tywin's old office door slammed open against the wall, smashing its wooden motif to bits. A shriek of laughter followed then a bottle of wine which dashed itself over the slate, adding a tide of sticky deluge to the horror. Tyrion fought for his breath. It escaped as he choked on his own drunkenness. He fell to the wall, slid down and lurched in gasping cackles.
Varys snapped from his reverie to find a grotesque lion set to life, mocking his misery on its own woeful perch. A moment later he realised it was merely Tyrion Lannister who'd lost his wits and tripped over himself. Varys attempted to recover his, extracting himself from Marwyn's corpse with renewed calm.
"For heaven's sake," Varys stormed over to Tyrion, grabbed him by the collar and dragged him through the wine, away from the door. His collar ripped as Varys pushed him aside. "Hush!" The Spider advised darkly, as he closed the door. "Stop. Stop..." He insisted. "You must be quiet. Tyrion. For gods' sake."
Tyrion batted Varys' hands away. He couldn't manage anything more coherent than, "My my my."
Panic wasn't a comfortable state of being for Varys. Too often it led to a fatal error and he was treading the edge of the blade. He bent over, took Tyrion by his shoulders and shook him violently this time. "Stop it. Stop it!" He raged, but the laughter merely heightened. "Useless fool..." Varys dropped Tyrion and swore. "W-what are you doing here, Tyrion?" He stalked away angrily, pacing a line of blood between the imp and Marwyn's body. The moon had moved and the corpse lay in shadow. Only the dark pool spread into the light.
Tyrion dragged his hand mournfully through the spilled wine, pushing large shards of glass around with his fingertips. "Followed that – old – maester character." He replied, between sudden, vulgar hiccups. "Raced on up those – stairs like – like..." His attention wandered momentarily. "Might be interesting."
Varys was furious. "And is this interesting?"
"Oh yes. Yes. I mean – it's not good but it's certainly – certainly interesting. L-lighten up, Varys." Tyrion shuffled backwards, propping himself against the wall. He immediately teetered forward, squinting at the body in the darkness. There was something very peculiar about a corpse. Especially when they had their sightless eyes open to the world. "This is not the first time we've been here. Old times. You – me – a corpse you'd rather keep quiet. I haven't forgotten."
Varys' hands trembled. He paced. "Laugh carefully," he warned, "the Archmaester's blood will not wash off so easy as a whore's. What am I going to do?"
Tyrion choked on a sudden bitter taste. He had left pieces of his heart in this room. "Roll him out the window?"
Varys crossed the room at once and leaned over the low stone rise, surveying the drop to the rocks below. The tide was out, exposing the mud flats around the base of the city's outer wall. That wouldn't work. He'd only be found by a passing guard. "No that won't-" but he didn't bother finishing because the dwarf had an air of amusement about him. "You weren't serious… Tyrion, if I can't get rid of this body we are both for the axe."
Tyrion raised his hands defensibly. "Both? Both… I had n-nothing to do with this. No. This is all your show. Your – your room – body – corpse. I only came for the wine – and a bit o' company. These days you're my only fucking friend."
"Careful."
Tyrion stood and dripped like a fountain in a gaudy mural. "All my secrets are have flown. I have – have only yours to keep. Or are you going to kill me too? I warn you – dwarves are heavier than they look. The weight of my nightmares may very well crush you before you can roll me out that window."
"If I were going to kill you, it would be somewhere with a crowd," Varys made it clear that he did not speak in jest. "You are always to greatest advantage in front of an audience."
Tyrion did not doubt Varys for one moment. "I don't like this room..." He changed the subject. "Shae's eyes are here. I can see them – over there..." He pointed toward the bed where his lover had breathed her last. "This whole bloody castle. Full of ghosts."
"More your ghosts than mine..."
"The Queen has more ghosts than both of us."
The door opened again.
"Fook's sake!" Davos immediately slipped on the wine, lunged for the doorway – missed and landed on Tyrion. The pair smashed to the ground together in a hail of profanity until Varys slammed the door with a furious crash and brought them both to silence.
Tyrion helped Ser Davos to his feet with a slurred, "Sh – sh…"
Varys took a threatening hold of Davos' robes. He pulled the sea captain roughly from Tyrion and held him dangerously against the door. Blood glistened, wet on Varys' clothes – as red as his eyes which held lingering tears. His shell hardened with every named that met the gods by his hand.
Soberly, Ser Davos took in the violent scene. He immediately lowered his hand to rest on the pommel of his sword. "That is the Queen's man..." Davos began carefully, the air heavy with suspicion as he nodded to Marwyn's corpse. "Archmaester from the Citadel – scoundrel by all accounts." The letter opener protruded crudely from his neck. Passion not precision. It took a certain kind of brutality to slay a person as you looked them in the eye. Varys' reputation as, 'dangerous' suddenly rang true. "Am I to assume that something fell afoul between the three of you?"
"This has nothing to do with the Queen," Varys insisted, his fingers wet with blood and tears.
"Or me..." Tyrion insisted.
"And for that I 'ave only your word." Davos unsheathed his sword slowly then held it down, tip hovering over the stone. It was a move that caused Varys to unhook his fingers and release Davos. He put a few steps between them. Varys' eyes dropped to the sword but Davos kept his firmly on the Spider.
"That will not be necessary," Varys assured the sea captain. "I have no spirit for fighting."
"I am not so sure the Archmaester would agree – with the state of 'is neck being what it is. Tell me, Varys – what happened 'ere that I shouldn't inform my king as well as your queen?"
That was not something Varys could answer truthfully so he offered no explanation. "Ser," he pleaded instead, "consider..." Varys stepped forward, palms faced to Davos in submission yet his manner remained menacing. "Tens of thousands died at the Queen's hand today – we breathe them in the evening air and crush them under our feet. Soon they will be the dirt that taints the palace walls pink. Do you believe that our Queen would trouble herself with one more name?"
Davos lifted the tip of his sword, keeping distance between himself and the Spymaster. "In my experience, kings and queens like ter decide who lives and dies. You know that – I think. That's close enough now." He added, as Varys leaned forward.
Ser Jorah knelt beside Marwyns corpse. He pulled on the man's arm, rolling the Archmaester unceremoniously onto his back with a wet thud. As large as the man was in life, death had diminished him. Tyrion and Varys were held against the window at the tip of Ser Davos' sword while Jorah yanked the letter opener from Marwyn's neck. It came free with a fresh surge of blood. Next, he went through the dead man's robes, unhooking various purses he had strapped to himself including one made of snakeskin containing an eyebrow raising collection of emeralds. Jorah's fingers worked deftly in and out of the fabric – not the first time the Mormont had raided a corpse…
When he was finished, Jorah rocked back onto his haunches. Nobody said a word.
Jorah's eyes caught the moonlight. They were pale as morning stars when they settled on Varys. He flipped the letter opener over the back of his hand, spinning the stained blade. Around and around it went. With each rotation Jorah changed his mind on what to do. A knife edge – that's all Varys' life hung by. A single, silver thread strung across a window with a gale on the way.
Then the knife stopped.
"All these long years," Jorah began, his voice cracking from all the smoke he'd inhaled, "you have been a sailor." An accusation that might confuse Tyrion and Ser Davos but Varys was smart enough to know that the knight was fond of metaphor. Northerners… The only way they could say what they meant was to talk at length about something else. "On a ship you fashioned yourself with whatever you could scrounge together. No doubt, you are an avid sailor, Varys – a true master of keeping the hull above water but I'm sure a weathered man like Ser Davos could tell you that if the bones of the boat are rotten there is nothing that will save her from the waves. Is that what happened tonight? Did Marwyn pry free one too many rotten boards?"
Fresh drops of sweat grew on Varys' bare head. The enormous domes rolled down onto his silk, darkening it. "We – all of us – have our fortunes." The Spider murmured beneath his breath. "It was not so long ago I placed our Queen's name in your hand."
"The arrow but not the blade..." Jorah replied. "I warn you, I am not my father. In recent months I have come to learn that you knew Jeor beyond passing." Jorah touched the tip of the letter opener to his forehead. "I see you in my dreams, Varys… You, my father, Marwyn, others… I can guess what you hatched together beneath the Mad King's nose. It takes more than one person to dismantle an empire. A cabal of dangerous minds. I cannot help but notice that all your friends are blowing away with the mountains. I wonder, when you stand alone, will you remember what it is that you stand for?"
Tyrion and Davos shared a nervous glance as Ser Jorah stood up and closed in on Varys, edging him perilously close to the low window ledge.
"Before you answer, Varys, understand that the Queen has no love for you. She fears swords in the darkness more than open rebellion. Regardless of your reasons, however just or unjust for the corpse at your feet, if Daenerys ever found out that you killed a member of her court without consent she would string your limbs from the city walls. Me – I am reluctant to silence the last man alive who knows the truth of those distant times." Another step and the blade threatened to sever Varys' neck. "One chance, Varys. I'll have a truth from your lips or the heart from your chest."
"Al-alright..." The word choked out.
"Was it you that whispered mad words in the king's ear?"
Tyrion gasped, Ser Davos tensed and Varys fidgeted against the blade in confusion.
"I-I was Aerys' advisor, his informant. I only repeated what I-" Varys grimaced as the blade nicked into his skin. "Your quarrel is misplaced, Mormont. It was the gods that sent the king mad. He spent his days choking on perfumed smoke and his nights drinking Shade of the Evening. His reality was a warped chaos of paranoia and tyranny. Aerys needed no such encouragement from me – or any other. Whispers and songs were wasted on him."
Jorah pressed harder on the blade. When Varys swallowed, a bead of blood formed along the edge. "The rest, Spider."
"Fine..."
The letter opener lowered a fraction so that he could speak.
"When Ser Barristan Selmy found Aerys in the wretched cells of the Dun Fort there was a woman with him – well, the corpse of a woman shackled to the wall. Selmy told Lord Tywin in the strictest of confidence that it was a Red Priestess from Tolos and though she had been dead but a few hours her skin had withered into leather and her hair bleached white as though she had been chained to Lord Denys' wall for a thousand years."
"Aye – heard of somethin' like that," Davos interjected. "Pirate friend o' mine came across a small temple been raided recently in The Summer Isles."
"Or raided it themselves..." Tyrion added, sobering.
"Either way," Davos continued, "the flesh fell from their bones like a scroll tossed into the fire."
"So… Aerys had a bad experience with a body-"
"No," Varys interrupted Jorah, "it was what the woman did before she died that mattered. The priestess taught the king to listen to the voices speaking through the flames of her glass candle – smashed in the cell, its pieces still alight. When he was freed, Aerys took Selmy by his hood and rambled about the dead eyes in the fire. That, Mormont, is the source of the king's madness. You should tell the Queen to take care keeping company with practitioners of magic."
"And so you did her a favour, killing Marwyn…"
"I saw the king's madness as an opportunity to end his tyranny – just like your father, Mormont. You and I are on the same side in this war and the next."
Jorah lowered the letter opener, flipped it over in his hand and offered Varys the blunt handle. "Marwyn was our side too. Do you know how I know? He was breathing. Get rid of the body, Varys. Tyrion can help… There are fires burning in the South-West – the Queen will return soon."
"Was that wise?" Davos asked, falling in step beside Ser Jorah as they descended the Red Keep, headed for the main hall.
"And what would you have me do? Dangerous as they are, we need both Tyrion and Varys alive. Archmaester Marwyn was a man with a reputation for secrets. Varys will never tell us the true reason why he killed his old friend and in the scale of things to come, it might not matter. I suspect you intend to share these events with Eddard's boy – do not."
"I cannot be lying ter my king..."
"And your king has no talent for lies and therefore we must keep the truth from him lest he repeat it..."
Ser Davos flinched because he knew that the Mormont spoke the truth. "Yer 'ave a point. He may not be Ned's true born boy but he 'as his honesty."
"Ser – far as I can understand, you are a decent creature. Your crimes were born of kindness and for that your previous Lord Stannis repaid those good deeds with a knife to the hand. You and I are old enough to remember the world as it was – when blood ran in the streets and kingdoms went to war over a slight in honour. Proxy battles littered the poor villages and ruthless men hoarded their misery and turned it into gold. Men like Tywin. Those were days of knights and valour. The Winter that creeps upon us will be devoid of glory."
"Why do yer care what sent the Mad King mad? Yer could 'ave asked that cunt anything back there – why that? Is it 'cause your queen-"
"-our Queen-"
"-is a dragon?"
Jorah stopped in the middle of the collapsed hall. He unsheathed Snowflake and held it across his palms for Davos to inspect. Davos was momentarily dazzled by the unholy relic from the North. "We are playing with the gods on this stage." Jorah murmured beneath his breath, turning the blade over. A breath of mist lifted off its frozen surface. "I wanted to know if those gods had already laid a hand on events or if they remain in slumber."
Davos touched the blade and felt the ice bite.
"I worry, Ser," Jorah lowered his voice to a hush, "that the blood magic beneath my skin blinds me to the gods' will."
"Do yer hear the gods speak?"
Jorah shook his head. "No. All I see are glimpses of what awaits us."
"Then maybe that sorceress made yer a spy for the living. If it is any help ter you," Davos added, "I shall keep me eyes open."
"Got his feet? Right. Now..."
Tyrion and Varys rolled Marwyn's corpse into the deep channel. The water caught it immediately and dragged the body along the stone drain that coursed inside the Red Keep. Varys collapsed at the edge of the water, face in his hands as he watched Marwyn vanish into the darkness. Tyrion laid against the wall nearby, breathing hard, his brow soaked with sweat. They'd dragged the dead Archmaester through half the bloody building and it had damn near killed him.
"Why do I get the feeling," rasped Tyrion, his lungs burning, "that Mormont's forgiveness will come with terms?"
"Because he is a king without a crown," Varys replied, dabbing his forehead with the base of his sleeve. "He'll bide his time before bringing this up again."
"Mormont? He might share a royal bed but he has no real power. No title. No wealth of his own."
"My dear friend, you are quite mistaken. That man has crawled back from the filth of obscurity into the heart of a Queen he was paid to kill. Many have tried to take his head – lords and kings alike, go look for them now. They're all on spikes. From here to the wiles of Essos. Only a fool would cross the Northern bear." Varys shook his head. "That corpse is going to bloat and wash up on the shore come morning. Nothing in the sea will feast on Marwyn's poisoned flesh."
Tyrion scoffed. "You give Jorah Mormont too much credit. I spent weeks as his captive. His endurance is nearly entirely luck."
"And what a fair god that is to have beneath your wing. I know nothing of luck. Nor do you. We were spat on as we were born." All Varys had were scars. "What is it?"
"I was thinking about the Mad King. There are plenty of frightened souls in the city who remember his reign but I never met him."
"Your father was too smart to allow his children anywhere near Aerys. The king had taken a fondness for religious sacrifice as his illness progressed. Some say he took a certain fondness for your mother, too."
"Varys..." Tyrion held his hand, quite seriously. "Daenerys is not going to build an empire of peace, you must have realised that by now."
"Targaryens are fire," the Spider whispered. "They scorch the fields clean."
Usually Tyrion found Varys' words had an honest persuasion about them, even if they sounded cruel. Now, however, he sensed an alarming undercurrent. A black will that lacked empathy. What, Tyrion wondered, did Varys expect to crawl out of the soot?
Much later, when Tyrion found himself alone in the passages, he deliberately lost his drunken gait. The wine on his breath was a tease for barely any of it had passed his lips. Not all his lessons were learned on the end of his father's belt. His young wife taught him what all women learned. People, no matter how clever, were careless around weakness. Sansa painted herself as an ornament so that she could listen to privy information. Recently Tyrion had placated his presence with a former vice and been nothing short of amazed at how loose other people's senses were. He could only imagine the wealth of secrets he'd lost possession of in his decades of genuine debauchery.
He paused to unroll his map against the nearest wall and squint at its markings.
The depths of the Red Keep held more secrets than the Black Cells. Under the rubble lay crypts of forgotten kings, sprawled into the bedrock, connected by narrow tunnels which threatened to crumble on Tyrion's head. He navigated them warily with a torch in one hand and the map he'd taken from his father's office in the other. He'd lifted it from under Varys' nose while he was busy with Marwyn's corpse. If nothing else, the old maester had proven a worthy distraction in death.
Originally on display for devoted mourners, the tombs had eventually become buried by ever more fearful rulers to deter looting. Grave robbers from the East had it in their heads that dragon bones could summon gods – failing that, a Targaryen king or queen would do just as well. Dozens of Targaryens were stolen in the night, their throats slit, limbs butchered and bones boiled clean. They were a rarity, like dwarf cock. Who could say how many were slaughtered by the warlocks...
These days the priest tunnels were forgotten by looters and kings alike. Each tomb hung open with chambers barely wide enough for their coffins. The featureless boxes sat in the centre. Some had mummified offerings laid against the walls. A few were home to twin coffins where rulers died together or the temple priests ran short of room. Tyrion entered them all to read the marble plaque affixed to each lid.
"There you are..." He whispered at last, as he came across a hold packed with five coffins. One was marked, Aegor Rivers which could not possibly be true. Bittersteel's remains were famously kept on display in the East.
Shifting the heavy lid nearly killed Tyrion.
"Fuck!" He smashed his fist against the rock. "Bastard."
Inside the coffin sat a desiccated sea-star – and nothing else. Certainly no sword. Tyrion crushed the map in his hand and tossed it angrily into the darkness.
THE SKIES ABOVE SHIPBREAKER BAY – WESTEROS
Drogon gravitated towards the water. His enormous shadow rippled over the waves which had been tossed into white foam before they lashed at the shallow rocks. Wrecked ships slept in clusters, pulled to pieces by the sea. They'd been left where they sank – impossible to salvage in the rough waters. Occasionally a mast broke the surface to mark the tomb of its sailors. One bore the tattered remnants of a dragon banner, lost in an unnamed battle a hundred years past.
The island of Tarth rose majestically from the sapphire expanse. Fishing boats clustered at its rough port where the cliffs opened. Those that could not fit inside the narrow harbour were tethered with heavy rope and left to knock back and forth against each other in the current.
Beyond, smoke rose from the Narrow Sea. Black lumps of fresh rock appeared, thrust from the depths as tiny islands, smouldering in infancy. They grew in a cluster, like mushrooms after the rain. Around them, the water bubbled furiously. Occasionally a lick of flame gasped out.
'Lower...' Daenerys purred in Valyrian. Drogon fell in playful circles, levelling out a few feet above the surface where his wings grazed the water. The air was foul and the water around the emerging islands was littered with fish bobbing lifeless on the surface. It reminded her of the poisoned river that divided Asshai and the deformed creatures beneath its surface.
Eventually Drogon returned to the skies, turned West and soared by the mountains draped around Storm's End. Their jagged hearts boiled. Red eyes watched from the darkness. The fires under the ground were restless, as they had been in Valyria. Something had woken them, cleared their throats and coaxed them to the surface.
Her heart stumbled. Valyria's smoking waters lurked closer – Asshai's dead shores, closer still…
Gilly startled. A flock of colourful forest birds took fright, scrambling from their places on bowing limbs into a storm of gold. They vanished into the Kingswood. She could not see the sky through the canopy above the road but everyone heard the ominous swoop of the Queen's dragon nearby.
Darkstar cantered his horse until it pulled into step beside the wagon where Gilly sat with her child. "It is done," he said to the Wildling. "The Queen returns to King's Landing."
Gilly drew Little Sam closer to her breast.
"You fear for him..." He spoke of Tarly. "There is no need. The Queen will have kept him from the battle. He is no good to her dead." Then, he added with a resentful hiss. "Politics..."
"Are contrived wars common in the South?" Gilly asked softly. "When Wildlings go to war, it is for food or land or women."
"That is because, until recently, the Wildlings did not have a king. These old lands are used to death. Even the road beneath us was built to hasten the flow of blood."
"My father spoke of such things when he'd had too much wine. He left his post at the Wall for fear of dying by a Brother's sword. The Crows that came ter stay spoke of us like we were some brave outpost, enduring against monsters that roamed the forest but my father was a deeply fearful man who could only tolerate the company of his own blood. He was a coward who raped his daughters and fed his sons to the blue-eyed demons to keep his skin in place. That's not bravery."
"I do not doubt that Craster was a coward," Darkstar replied, "but there is power in blood. Valyrians kept hold of their magic by nourishing purity in their lineage. Even so, time left them with but a fragment of their former sorcery. Generations brought forth children withered into scaled monsters, deformed and hideous in their mother's womb."
Gilly paled. "I have seen such children. They are born dead."
"Ask yourself," his voice lowered so that the others travelling with them in convoy could not overhear, "why would a frightened man make offerings of his own blood to the Whitewalkers? Surely he'd rather steal away to the South? There are plenty of abandoned castles on the Wall through which he could sneak. Instead he chose to stay."
The answer, Gilly realised, was obvious. "A pact – with the Whitewalkers..."
"Protection," Darkstar agreed. "For they are forged of Craster's blood – as are you – as is your child. Your father may have given you a gift after all."
"I am not a fool," Gilly replied, watching Darkstar shift from side to side astride his horse. "My brothers walk with Death and are dead themselves." Then she asked, "Do you intend to stay at Horn Hill, with Sam and I?"
"It is not for me to say," Darkstar replied. "In this, I am the Queen's creature."
Empty.
Daenerys placed her ruined hands upon the stones that held the outside of the Red Keep together. The screams and violence had died away in the night. Even the fires had died and left behind the unnerving creak of charred wood struggling to hold stone walls in place. She listened to it breathe.
"They are screaming, Jorah..." Daenerys whispered, as her knight emerged from the Keep.
Jorah stepped over the rubble that blocked every doorway in the city, hesitant of his Queen's bloodied appearance. She was fresh from the fields of war. The glow of Horn Hill lurked in the distance.
"Can you hear them?" She asked, closing her eyes, her cheek now on the stone. "The city… It is as the horses were in the Red Waste, wailing for a merciful blade, kicking and thrashing in the sand."
The Queen visibly trembled but Jorah knew better than to reach for her. "Walls are only things, Khaleesi, they can be rebuilt," he assured her softly. "Our cities are created from nothing. They will rise again, more glorious than before and you will rule from their heart." Perhaps that might be her standard – a heart amidst flame.
Daenerys never dreamed of building. All her nightmares were of crumbling walls. "How can anything rise from where we stand?" Her eyes paled as she pushed off the wall and picked her way through the broken door, brushing by her knight. Jorah's head dipped slightly as her hand trespassed on his chest for a moment. Then it was gone and so was she, sunken into the ruined Keep.
He found her again.
It was night. The torches had all burned out and the hall was abandoned. Its jewelled motifs picked bare. Painted murals peeled in sat swathes of oil, shed as leaves. Shadows played in the starlight where columns created prison bars on the granite floors and the Iron Throne lorded above the whole sad mess. Barefoot, Daenerys crossed the floor and approached her father's throne. Her throne. No. That wasn't right. This was Aegon's throne. She may as well stand before his tomb.
In the darkness, her eyes were as full and black as any dragon. She took her place – a slip of moonlight on a nightmare. The blades of smelted swords rose above her head in a morbid halo. Jorah approached. He stopped at the first shallow step in front of the throne. With his gaze affixed to the dragon queen, he bent down onto one knee.
"Is it the throne you bow to, Ser?"
He did not reply to her absent question. Jorah had bowed when Daenerys' dominion was made of sand. "What happened in The Reach? We saw the smoke on the horizon but there have been no ravens."
Her hands curled around the arms of the throne. They, too, were made of blades softened in flame and plaited together. Their edges were sharp enough to cut flesh. When they sliced her palm, she saw a drop of blood crash onto the granite beneath Ser Jorah. "Nothing that I may later blame on madness," she confessed.
There was a distance opening between them. Jorah could feel her drifting. It only grew as she spoke again.
"We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of infinity's black seas. It was not meant that we should voyage so far..."
"The Book of The Stranger… It is not like you to quote scripture, Khaleesi."
"Viserys recited it when we were children. He mistakenly thought it was written for his plight in exile. That's what we do, isn't it? We spend all our time piecing together the world," she continued, her eyes now on the stars peering through the gaping holes in the ceiling. "Maesters with their armies of leather and wax. I think the truth, should we ever find it, shall send us quite mad. If we ever looked upon the world raw and saw the gods naked. Quaithe told me that The Deep Ones lived closest to the gods. Their stories are written on the walls in the Temple of the Pale Lion. Devotion corrupted them into aquatic things that lived between two worlds. The more I hear the more I wonder if these are all the same stories, the same gods, around and around as the moon dances with the sun."
"I know you, Daenerys," Jorah implored his Queen. "It is not the madness of the gods you fear. It is that of your father. That is the curse of everyone." Strange. She looked exactly as she had that day he'd found her in the coals of her husband's funeral pyre. Were all her crowns to be made of ash? "There is a saying on Bear Island," he offered instead, "that the realm is a tapestry. Pull one thread here and another puckers, somewhere else."
"I have heard those words before," she replied, her voice as soft as the wind picking through the bare rafters above. "From your father's lips in Braavos – although he warned of spiders and their trembling webs. His lectures are of no help or comfort to me tonight." Daenerys clutched at her morbid perch until her palms bled afresh. She stared through her loyal knight to the corpse of the Red Keep with its roof opened like ribs. "I see what ruling is," she continued, coaxing Jorah from his knees to risk ascending a step. His pearl-white cloak swirled around his ankles. He looked like a peak on in the Frost Fangs. "All my life I have listened to people talk about the swords that make up this seat but if we could look upon the skulls that wielded them they would pave the oceans – a bridge from East to West."
"Like the fields of Asshai..." He breathed, remembering the bones that sat beneath the flooded wasteland.
"What did we find there but Death?" She replied. "Go," Daenerys added, waving her knight away. "Leave me with the darkness. I'll wait out the morning. Gods' know, I need the peace."
Jorah remained at the foot of her throne. "I will not leave you alone with ghosts, Khaleesi."
There was nothing that she could say to make him leave so instead Daenerys asked him to tell her of his mother. He rarely spoke of her. It was a piece of her knight she did not have.
"I cannot say much about my mother," Jorah admitted, "as it was not in my father's nature to speak of the dead. When her spirit was sent into The Bay of Seals, so too was her memory. The people of Bear Island are terrified of spirits gathering in the forest, that is why they send them away – loved and feared alike. We cope with grief by forgetting what we have lost. The living, that is what we treasure." Now, more than ever, Jorah realised how these beliefs had been given breath. Only a people haunted by restless dead could fear their return. Sending bodies of loved ones into the sea was as much a protection as it was love. "Old Dorin was not so quiet as my father. He used to take me and my cousin hunting late in Summer when most of the ice had melted on the valley floor and the rivers rushed through the gaps in the mountains, fast and full with salmon. Even then," he shook his head, as if feeling the cold in his skin, "I remember some of the thickest blocks of ice survived, tucked away in the shadows of the rock." They peered out from the darkness like sightless eyes, filthy with sticks and leaves. "The walls of the valleys are high, your Grace, and that makes the pines grow twice that of the Kingswood. Some of the oldest are monsters – mountains themselves. When they finally fall it is as if the gods are warring with the sky. My mother, Dorin said, climbed one of these beasts and felled it with her axe. The pine was still there. Girth as wide as Dorin's cabin. Part of it laid in the river, collecting strings of lichen and plumes of orange fungi. Most of it rested against the opposing cliff, wedged between the sides of the valley. We climbed right up its skeleton to the rock face for a clutch of eagle eggs. That is where I imagine my mother – blowing around with the mist where it presses against the stone."
"Tomorrow I wish to visit Dragonstone," she breathed faintly, after his story had settled with the rest of the dead. "That is where I remember my mother."
DRAGONSTONE – BLACKWATER BAY
Wind echoed through the jaws of the sea cave with every rush of water as though it were a serpent, mouth agape, breathing as it lay in wait. Its ceiling was ribbed, forged with obsidian except for violent streaks of pink and white quartz chasing each other like flares of lightning. Their pale bodies took hold of her torchlight as she inched, alone, deeper into the cave.
Behind, dawn fell over Dragonstone like milk. Here, in the rougher water, it was salt and mist that choked the air. These were the winds her mother felt wash against her face as she sat on the ledge, overlooking the Blackwater while Stannis set his ships upon the castle. Daenerys could almost taste the wine on her lips which her mother used to drown her crushing fear. To her bare feet, the sand was warm despite never basking in the sunlight. Untouched. The virgin shore of a fire god with its breath hot upon her face.
Daenerys wore fresh crimson robes that died into black with the firelight. Ahead lay a mound of grey stones and a pile of rotting armour left against the cave wall. The old Targaryen sigil stole her nerve and stilled her progress leaving the new queen mute before the grave.
The stones were pumice, smoothed by the shallow river flowing nearby. Their surfaces mottled by air bubbles frozen as the fire hit the sea and turned to stone. She'd seen the same washed against the banks of the Ash. Dragon eggs – traders lied, passing the worthless rocks off as treasure.
The torch slipped from her hand and fell onto the wet sand. It dimmed but refused to die entirely as its flames licked the damp surface.
Only then, as her knees crumbled and her body fell to the ground, did Daenerys feel her tears. Each one rolled down her flesh, piling atop one another long before her first gasp. Of all the thoughts to enter her mind, she did not expect her brother's dead eyes to haunt her soul. Except they did. They clung at her. His pleas and screams echoing around her mother's bones. All Rhaella's children dead except the last to hatch.
Daario gripped Jorah's wrist and held him back from the lips of the cave. "Leave her be, Ser..." The pirate warned.
Another shallow wave came about their boots carrying white sea-froth which stuck to the rocks like a strange, bubbling snow. "Will you go North, then, across The Narrow Sea as she asks?"
Daario lowered his hand and returned it to its perch upon Brightroar's pommel. The sword remained a garish addition to Daario's mix of rags and jewels. "The Queen asks that I return the Braavosi banker and news of her conquest to his masters – so I shall. You and I do as we are told, Ser Jorah."
"Yes, but I do not have a hoard of pirates to control. If you leave their lesser virtues may entice them into pillage – or worse."
"Ordinarily I would agree but the pirates do not obey my orders because I slew their last master. It's the dragons they fear and the Queen most of all. They've started building pyres on the sand of a night. Hundreds of them gather around the flames. They watched the city burn and cheered for their violent god. I fear they are moving on from the worship of lords."
Dragonstone peeked over the sea cliffs. "I hope you are right," Jorah replied. "No one has the patience to bring them to heel."
They both fell quiet. Even over the restless waves of The Blackwater they could hear the sorrow of King's Landing. Its people scavenged their way along the desolate shores and fled inland.
"What aren't you saying, Mormont? Sometimes when I look at you," Daario continued, subdued by the war, "I think I hear words you've not yet said."
"It's only the sea, pirate. Nothing but the waves and the rock."
He nodded. "I'm taking the boy with me."
Jorah exhaled sharply like a horse scoffing at its reins. "So the rumours are true."
"And yet you've not told the Queen what you suspect..."
"I find as the years drag on that I have no stomach for murdering children. Neither, it seems, did my father."
"Tommen's got that bloody dragon with him. The small red one with a frightful temper."
This genuinely surprised Jorah. "That demon hates all the world. Who knows where Marwyn found that egg. Hell, probably."
"Except he has taken a liking to our stateless king – for all the good it will do him. I shall leave them both in Braavos. Best for everyone."
Jorah nodded in reply. Above, the front of the sea caves looked as if the gods had taken a chisel to the world. Monstrous. The entire island. A filthy black blight upon an equally grotesque bay. He longed for the crisp edges of Bear Island and the waters dusted with ice. Jorah knew that it could not be long before he set eyes upon them again.
Daenerys did not see the old man at first. Blind, he emerged from the depths of the cave with both his hands on the sharp wall. She startled and stumbled to her feet, rubbing her palms together but the wet sand refused to be dislodged. At first she thought he was the old Sealord from Braavos but this creature was paler – made almost entirely of bone. His threads of white hair trailed past his knees. Pieces of seaweed matted through it where he'd laid upon the shore too long.
"A small thing then – like your mother..." Ser Willem Darry hissed, his voice made harsh by years of salt. "You sound like 'er when you walk over the sand. She liked the caves. They whispered to 'er. Promised things that could not be given. Teasing gods with cruel hearts."
Daenerys found herself unable to move as the creature drew closer. "Who are you? How do you claim to know of my mother if you do not know me?"
"I might be blind, your Grace, but even I can tell when a dragon is near. You smell of smoke and blood. Your father, the King, was never far from either vice."
"I command again, who are you?"
He stopped beside the old armour. It had been in the sand so long its rust had left a stain. "Poor Rhaegar, he was never much of a dragon in the end. I tried – I did – but… Had I done better maybe he'd be more than a whispered song."
She wiped fresh tears from her face. Ah… The man of whom Barristan Selmy spoke most fondly. "I – I know exactly who you are, Ser Darry of the Riverlands. Accounts of your actions have reached me. Tell me, is this truly my mother?"
"Laid her here myself, your Grace, before the bastard Stag could find her. He sent a hundred ships to rape this castle and found nothing except empty caverns and poisoned smoke." Idly, his fingers grazed the degraded links of his chain-mail. They were all but dust. "The Queen asked that I keep something safe, should you return. So I have." He knelt carefully and moved the old shield from its place. Blindly, he pressed his bare hands into the sand and began to dig. A little way beneath lay a box. Darry freed the case from its tomb and held it out in the direction of the young girl.
Daenerys stepped around the torch where it lay on the sand. She took the box from Ser Darry and pried open the ruined hinges. Inside, on a bed of purple velvet, sat a tiara made of diamond and amethyst, entwined like the rambling blossoms of a Winter Rose.
"Darkness," Darry struggled for the words, "comes before the dawn. She-she wanted me to tell you. Her dreams were – so dark..."
That was the last from his throat. A moment later his heart stilled and he fell into the water to join his queen.
HORN HILL – THE REACH
All the ravens were dead. Slaughtered. Their frail bodies bludgeoned, thrown from the cages and left to rot on the bare stone of the ravenry. Loose feathers tumbled about as Sam opened the door. A few even took flight, breaching the window where they wafted off into nowhere.
"You old bastard..." Sam whispered, of his father. He must have killed the ravens to prevent him sending word to the Capital – or to frighten off any birds returning with news from his friends.
He found a similar scene in the offices where piles of ash had been left instead of scrolls. It was all gone. Every scrap of information that might assist the new Queen. Picked clean.
Eventually Sam plucked the nerve to return to his old room. It was a draft-prone nook that rarely felt the sun except in the longest hours of Summer when the sun reached around the tower to his window. Nothing had been touched. His things left behind when he'd left for The Wall lay as he remembered save for a layer of dust and cobweb.
Was it his mother or father that preserved a part of him inside Horn Hill? He'd never know that it was his brother who sometimes stood at the window and looked silently toward the North in wonder.
