Lenna LXV
She felt a fool for not seeing it before. Petyr Baelish. Of course it was Petyr Baelish. He'd always sniffed around court, puffing himself up like some great lord when he was a little one, his slimy voice slithering into conversations where he didn't belong. No one stopped him, out of politeness or forbearance she didn't know. She only knew that their ignoring Littlefinger might have well proved fatal.
Footsteps faded from their hearing, but the terrible grating of dragon's claws against the stone of the Red Keep's parapet was nearly palpable. All of those gathered in the room swarmed to the open-work windows, not at all concerned with being seen. Lenna would wager that Daenerys Targaryen wanted them peering down at her in that mixture of horror and awe. Little as she was, she looked to Lenna like something out of the legends, drawn in grim black and white, her massive mount no longer beautiful in her eyes but monstrous. It was, of course, the beast's massive wings that had caused the strange shadows, the eerie breaths of wind, and the grinding, scraping noise that was setting the Keep itself to trembling. She was half convinced it was a dream of a dark tale, and Lenna could not help herself, craning her neck up and out of the open window to watch as it spread leathery wings and went gliding toward Dragonstone, so close by that it also served as a reminder of how dire things really were.
"You must leave here," came a voice at her elbow. Her aunt was bracing herself on her knuckles against the tabletop, her wimple nearly vibrating with anxiety. Lenna had never seen her so. Olenna Tyrell had vacillated easily between sardonic mocking, anger, and good humor, but Lenna had never seen her afraid.
"I cannot," she replied levelly, her jaw so tight her teeth slid against each other. "You know that I cannot."
"Your children," Olenna breathed, "where are they?"
"They? How-" Lenna bit her tongue and took a step backward.
"You are not the only one with friends," Olenna barked, eyes blazing and spitting like a flame. "Doran has been my correspondent these many years. He would naturally inform me of the birth of my kin, even if my own niece didn't see fit to do so herself." There was hurt and there was poison in her voice and Lenna balked.
"I felt it too dangerous," she protested quietly, swallowing her discomfort. You wanted him to know first.
"Whatever your reasoning doesn't matter," Olenna continued, coming so close that Lenna could feel the old woman's hot breath on her cheeks. "Where are they?"
"On the ship," she replied stiffly, almost sullenly. "I had thought to prevail upon you for accommodation while we are in the city."
"Whose ship?" Olenna barked. "Your father's?"
"Oberyn's," she answered like a child. She wondered that Doran hadn't mentioned it.
"He's here?" her aunt prodded.
"Aye," Lenna replied, looking at her hands, her throat dry.
Olenna nodded like the affirmation had made a decision for her. "I am leaving. I suggest you come with me. This will not end well, and I will not -"
"I cannot leave," Lenna said quietly, "but I beg you to take my children with you."
Olenna looked into her face, rheumy eyes searching for something. "You have so much of my sister about you. I never understood her, that foolhardy loyalty of hers. She bore it for too many people, you see, and I was convinced that it would bring her misery."
"It didn't," Lenna replied quietly. "The only thing that made her unhappy was-"
"Me," Olenna supplied. "Yes. I know. Because I didn't understand. Seven hells, I still don't. And you bear it, too. Only instead of your dear ones, you've taken on the whole, haven't you? What good can come of it, I ask? But I am old, and I won't try to change your mind. I know better than to try. I do not know why you feel you must stay, but I will not ask you again to go." Lenna could not bear to look at her anymore and she blinked, fat drops falling from her lashes though there were not more to follow. Her aunt's hand tightened on hers. "There is a wet-nurse in my household. I will bring her with us. Your children will be safe with me in Highgarden." Lenna suppressed the sob and smiled tightly and reached out to take her aunt's hand. Her skin was dry and papery, but the tendons were still strong. "Oberyn will understand the requisitioning of his ship," she continued. "Best we not sail under the Tyrell rose. We are being watched, make no mistake." Lenna nodded, and then Olenna leaned forward and brushed her lips against Lenna's cheek. "You are more than I ever thought to be, though you wanted it so little. I'm not much for prayer, dear girl, but I will pray that we meet again."
When Olenna Tyrell left her, she felt almost as bereaved as she had the morning she took in hand the black-banded scroll that bore the news of her mother's death. Empty, she thought, just a vessel, an implement. Sandor had always understood this, how they were not their own people, rather they were tools or puppets depending on the day. She struggled with the very idea of letting her children go from her. Wendel was at the breast, barely two months old, and she had never before been parted from Addy.
What kind of mother-
And then she thought of her own. The morning of her fifteenth nameday, the arrival of Cersei Lannister's summons, and the look of gray resignation on her own mother's face. Lenna had never even thought to be angry with her for sending her away. It had never crossed her mind that her mother was choosing to let her go into the lion's den, and even on the darkest days in court, Lenna had never blamed her mother, never blamed her father. She had missed them, to be sure, felt their absence so keenly it was like there was a knife protruding from her back, but she'd understood that there had been no choice. The evenness in Adalyn Manderly's voice when she had informed Lenna of the invitation, her cool courtier's face a startling counterpoint to Wyman Manderly's red-faced spluttering, it had been something of a vision, a premonition, as Lenna felt that same stillness that she had read there in her mother's face so many years before.
Stand up straight, stack the spine, chin up, and eyes open, she thought to herself, and the prickle behind her eyes faded. She would not cry. Not yet.
She stood in the middle of the room, her hands folded against the fullness of her skirts, feeling very small. So many decisions made in such a little space of time, and she had no idea what the consequences would be. There wasn't time to think, simply to bear up, do her duty, and hope that when it was over, she would see her children again, see their father again, even if the possibility seemed so very bleak.
"Go to them." Margaery was still sitting in her chair, knuckles white against the dark wood of the arms. "You must at least say goodbye."
"There is too much to do-"
"The realm will wait," Margaery insisted. "The tide will not. Go."
So she did. The journey from the Red Keep to the harbor should have been remarkable. The was a trill of uneasy activity in the streets. The smallfolk knew, of course, that the Seven Kingdoms had been aided by the Daenerys and her dragons, but the appearance of such a beast unexpectedly on the Red Keep's walls would not have gone unnoticed or be found particularly comforting. Daenerys wanted the people to see her, wanted them to be afraid, and Lenna was convinced by the time she finally reached the quay that the little queen's objective had been met.
Gilly's face was stark white.
"There was a dragon," she said dumbly, swallowing hard as she bounced Wendel in her arms.
"Yes," Lenna replied without any further explanation, and Gilly's eyes welled.
"Are we to leave?"
"You are, but I will remain." She looped her arm through Gilly's and set the two of them on a slow course around the deck of the ship, careful to maintain the calm, soothing tone as she explained exactly what was happening and what the girl was to do despite the icy morass that had taken residence in her own gut.
"You will not leave this ship, and you will sail again before nightfall," Lenna said, taking Gilly's hand in hers. "My aunt will come to you directly. I will remain here in the capital. I need you to look after Addy and Wendel. Your journey will be quite lengthy, several weeks, but you will be safe. I will join you as soon as I am able, but it may not be for a long time."
"What is happening?"
Lenna bit the sides of her tongue to keep the panic down. "That is yet to be seen. But it is not safe here for you. You must go."
"If it isn't safe for us, then it isn't safe for you," Gilly said urgently.
"No," Lenna agreed, dropping the other woman's hands. "It isn't. But here I must remain."
"You cannot just send them away," Gilly said harshly, looking over to where Addy and Sam were playing on the deck. "You're a mother, Lenna, your first duty-"
"Is to them," Lenna supplied. "Aye, it is. And it is for them that I have to stay. For them, and for little Sam. And for you and my aunt. I have to stay to keep them safe, to try and keep their land safe. If I don't, they will wake up somewhere new and dangerous. They still might, but at least I will have tried."
Gilly shook her head, but she said no more and accepted Lenna's embrace when she reached for her.
Saying goodbye to the children was harder, so she didn't. She simply sat with Addy and Sam for a time and joined in their game, Wendel resting in her lap. They were building with blocks, a little village, and Lenna made herself smile and laugh until the sun slipped lower in the sky. Activity on the wharf increased and Lenna easily spotted her aunt's household scurrying about with trunks and crates, the lady herself overseeing it all in a fresh gown and a starched wimple more suited to a day at court than fleeing the capital under threat of dragonfire.
Lenna's heart set to beating faster. Making a fuss would not do Addy any good, so she drew the little girl to her and tipped her face up so that they were looking at each other. Sandor's eyes looked back at hers.
"You have to go now, dear girl," she said softly, stroking the dark curls and swallowing the thick, sharp lump in her throat. "You will be gone a long time, and I will stay here. But you will have Gilly to look after you. And I need you to look after Wendel for me. Can you be a good big sister?"
"Yes," the little girl replied solemnly. "Who that?"
Olenna Tyrell had boarded, and she waited silently behind Lenna on the decking looking imperious and stately, but there was a softness in her face that almost cracked Lenna's resolve to not cry in front of her children.
"Your Auntie Olenna," she replied, taking Addy's hand and leading her over to the old woman. "You're going to stay with her in her castle. Highgarden."
"You'll be the only little girl in the whole place," Olenna said in a conspiratorial tone, leaning down to look into Addy's open little face. Her ease with the child took Lenna aback. One gnarled finger tapped the tip of Addy's nose, making her giggle. "And we shall have such fun, you and I."
"And Wendel?" Addy asked eagerly, "and Sam?"
"And Wendel and Sam," Olenna replied, reaching out her wizened old hand. Addy took it without a pause, eyes utterly trusting. "Now, say farewell to your mother. We have to go now, before it gets dark. And when you wake up tomorrow, we shall be on an adventure."
Lenna had crouched down beside her daughter and the little girl turned to her.
"'N 'venture," Addy said with hushed excitement in her voice and a sheen of wonder in her eyes. Lenna pulled her close to keep her from seeing the tears in her own, blotting them on her sleeve furtively so that only Olenna saw. She rose quickly, squeezing Addy's hand, then took Wendel from Gilly, humming to him for a moment and burying her nose in the spot between his neck and shoulder where he smelled the sweetest, before pushing him back into the other woman's arms. Gilly, to her credit, kept her smile bright and her eyes clear, and when she beckoned to the children it was with ordinariness that did not betray the possibility that this was the last goodbye.
Lenna blessed her for it, watching with her hands clasped tight in front of her as the little figures dipped below and Gilly threw one more tremulous smile over her shoulder that created a terrible thump in Lenna's breast.
"You have my word that no harm shall come to them," Olenna said at her side. Her voice was quiet though not exactly comforting. Perfunctory. Lenna's lip twitched, wondering if she was more like her aunt than she had previously thought. The old woman's hand slipped into hers, warm and dry, the skin papery like worn parchment. "No matter the outcome, Lenna." It was the most guileless speech she'd ever heard from the Queen of Thorns, and it made Lenna look at her in surprise. "We never believe it will come to such as this," Olenna continued. "It is natural for fathers to take leave of their families, to fight in the wars and leave their children and wives behind in prayed-for safety. A story as old as our race, it seems. And here we have mothers taking leave of their children, but instead of satisfying a lust for blood, it is the attempt and halt such partings altogether. I hope, very fervently, that this will be the only time it will be necessary."
She squeezed Lenna's hand and went below, gesturing to her men and lobbing commands. When she disappeared down the stairs, she did not turn back to look at her neice, and Lenna was grateful. There was no stopping the tears that were streaming silently down her cheeks, and she did not even try to wipe them away, letting the wind do her work for her as she turned heel and proceeded down the gangplank and back through the thronging, apprehensive city.
She swiped under her eyes as she made her way back through the Red Keep, only marginally worried that the kohl under her eyes had smudged. She found she didn't much care if they knew she had been crying. She doubted she was alone in it. The small council chamber was aglow when she returned, and though almost every seat was occupied, the room was cast in sullen silence. Petyr Baelish's spot had been filled, it seemed, and Oberyn Martell looked up at her from that place with dark eyes brimming with anger, Trystane standing behind him braced against the wall.
"Lady Olenna has left for Highgarden," Lenna said quietly as she adjusted her sleeves, "on your ship." She did not look at him.
"And I am confused as to why you are not on it as well," Oberyn replied lowly. The strain in his voice made her want to weep anew.
"My place is here," Lenna replied tiredly, her voice nearly breaking as she made herself look at him. The hooded eyes were dubious but gentle as he regarded her, and she almost wavered. Here. My place is here. How many times had she said that since dawn? The more she thought it, the more she spoke it, the more she doubted it.
Oberyn pressed his lips together tightly and looked away, his fist balanced on the edge of the table at the wrist and his fingers curling in with self-restraint. For his excess, he was a master of discipline, something that had thoroughly fascinated Lenna during her time in Dorne. She'd known him from court, at least known he was and of his reputation, but the Oberyn Martell who had sat at Prince Doran's table in Sunspear, debating philosophy and providing remarkably sound and astute counsel was at odds with the excessive philander. They had formed a friendship, Lenna thought, and his anger at her and for her was flattering, but there was far too much to do to indulge it.
"What is our plan, then?" he demanded, spreading his hand flat out on the table. Tommen looked at him askance and Margaery simply stared at the table top, mouth slightly open. She was pale and drawn, the skin across her delicate cheekbones pulled taut, confirmation indeed that Lenna had not been the only one weeping that afternoon.
"There isn't much of one," Tommen said quietly, looking very much like a boy trying to fit into an oversized crown. "We will evacuate as many as we can in the next day. After sunset day after tomorrow, we will bar the gates and stay in place."
"My men," Oberyn said, leaning forward, "where do you want them?"
"Out of sight," Lenna replied when Tommen floundered. "We are being closely watched. We must do the best we can with the forces that we already have in place. The rest will come to us as quickly as they may, but not before the deadline. We cannot allow in reinforcements while we are being watched. We must get as many of the smallfolk out of the city as possible."
"Where will they go?" Margaery asked, her brow furrowed. "There is nowhere for them to go and it is winter."
"Ravens to the Reach in the morning. To Dorne. Nowhere more Northward. There are no resources there to support refugees. Men and boys over the age of fourteen will need to stay and help defend the city."
"So we put the women and the children on the road unprotected-" Margaery said coolly.
"We are at peace," Lenna said. "It isn't ideal, but what other options do we have?"
There were none.
In the end, the evacuation did not happen at all. Lenna woke before sunrise to the sound of beating wings. Making her way out into the colonnade that overlooked the city, it did not take her long to spy the reeling shapes of the three black dragons spiralling over the roofs of King's Landing, casting their great shadows darkly in the streets. Even from her tower window, she could hear the shouting in the sheets, could see the people pouring out from the houses in a combination of terror and curiosity.
It seized her, too, and she stood, eyes turned upward almost as if in prayer, with her shawl pulled tight around her as she watched them, more graceful than anything she had seen in her life, their enormous bodies coursing through the air like dolphins in the deep, the sun rolling off their scales like a school of fish in a wave.
"I always loved dragons as a boy." She stiffened at the sound of his voice. Tyrion came to stand beside her, his hands flat on the stone beside hers, stubby and blunt-tipped. He was wearing his Lannister ring again, she noted, the lion winking from the little finger of his left hand in the dawn. He was cloaked, but Lenna did not miss the absence of the Hand at his shoulder. "I loved what I should have feared, thinking I never would see one again, wishing that I could. Now that I have seen them, I wish they'd stayed extinct."
"They are beautiful," Lenna allowed, wondering what he wanted her to say. "But not beautiful enough to be worth the cost."
"No," he agreed, lightly pounding a fist against the stone. "I see that now. I have been so blind."
She wanted to scoff at him, to mock him and rail at him, but that tenderness for him, for them, she'd never been able to kill.
"You have been human," Lenna replied kindly, though it hurt her to say it. "You wanted to believe in something."
"I thought I did," he rejoined with a puff of icy laughter. "But I was mistaken in what I thought she was." Lenna closed her eyes, unwilling for him to unburden himself to her but unable to walk away from him. "You should have seen her in Essos, the way she freed the people of Meereen, how she ended slavery, reunited families-" he struck his fist against the stone again, "but her own people, her own people she would enslave."
"She is a Targaryen," Lenna replied, "she has been told her whole life that she is special. she has been wronged. Her own people betrayed her. How could she rule them justly while hating them?"
"She was told that they toasted to her, prayed for her return," he replied, but Lenna could hear his lack of conviction in his own voice.
"Pretty lies. Would you have believed it?" Lenna asked, looking down at him. "Do you believe flatterers, Tyrion? Surely you have encountered your fair share."
He smiled tightly. "You have grown more savage, Lenna."
"I have grown tired," she responded, and Tyrion sighed.
"She's intelligent," he said continued quietly, "but she's naive. She doesn't understand what she is doing. The scope of her goal is rather too limited, just as we spoke of months ago. I have tried-"
"And we do not know when she stopped listening to you," Lenna said tersely. It weighed on her. She had gone over her every interaction with the Targaryen girl like picking nits from her memories. She could find no evidence of guile, of deceit, and Lenna was quite sure that the girl was too unschooled to be adept at such a game to begin with. The examination left her with no answers, only questions. "When did Petyr Baelish ever enter into this situation? How long has he been feeding her information mixed with lies?"
"Lies?" Tyrion asked.
"Plotting her death," Lenna replied coldly. "Surely that isn't true."
"What other course could there be?" Tyrion said, looking up at her impassively. She could no longer stomach looking at him, turning and bracing her hands against the wall. "There will be no peace while she lives." Lenna pinched the bridge of her nose. "If she is defeated, she will simply go back to Essos and lick her wounds, rebuild her army. She will find people like Littlefinger who will help her while smiling in our courts. She will be charmed by soft-voice snakes who promise her what she wants most."
"The Iron Throne," Lenna said dully, "why does everyone want that frightful thing?"
"It is hard," he said quietly, "to not want more power once you have tasted some of it. Especially if you haven't had what you feel is your share."
Lenna glanced down at him, but there was a dark expression on his face as he stared out over the city, one that made her wonder if he was not talking more of himself than the Dragon Queen.
"It is a false seducer," he continued, "an incubus. It promises vengeance, wealth, love...everything."
"She will be a queen of bones," Lenna said quietly.
"Not if we have anything to say about it," Tyrion replied with a sardonic twist of the lip. "Prince Oberyn is more than capable. I wish I had known that about him earlier."
"You might have if any of you bothered to speak with the Martells."
"Bad blood," he said quietly. "Another one of our sins that has left a lasting legacy."
"Aye," she replied, thinking of poor Elia Martell and her children. She supposed it was only her own husband's loathing for his brother and the tale of his death that spared her their censure. After all, they had sheltered the niece and nephew of the man who had raped and killed their beloved sister without a word. "We are still reaping that harvest of blood."
There was little precedent for defense against an attack by dragons. Lenna doubted very much that any of the advice they gave the smallfolk would do them much good if the scorpions should fail to fell the dragons in good time. Retreating into cellars, into the crypts of the Sept and the deep recesses of the Keep did not seem adequate precautions. At least Tyrion had overseen the removal of the caches of wildfire from beneath the city streets, fearful that they would catch inadvertently. Instead, he had them positioned with the trebuchets to be flung at the ships that were slowly filtering into the Bay.
Tommen and Margaery oversaw the care of those in Sept of Baelor themselves in the day before the appointed time. Lenna was with them for a time, finding places for families, making sure bedrolls and porridge were being supplied to those who needed them. By midday, the entire Sept was full to capacity, right down the crypts beneath.
Lenna and Tyrion went together back to the Keep to begin diverting the flow of refugees into the Red Keep itself. She nearly flinched and went to the ground when the shadow passed overhead, lower than it had been before. And then came the roaring.
She didn't know if it was in her ears or the sound of fire, she only knew that she was running, faster than she perhaps ever had in her life. Tyrion kept pace behind her, pushing her into the Keep and behind the minimal safety the stone walls could provide. She was out of breath, her chest heaving, but she did not stop, careening through the courtyard and as high as she could to get a better view of what was happening.
It was like Blackwater all over again, but a hundred times more terrible. There was screaming, the people still in the streets streaming like rats before a storm surge, choked between the walls.
"It isn't time," Lenna yelled, and Tyrion looked back at her dazed. "It isn't time. She said three days."
"She changed her mind," he replied, lips barely moving. One of the dragons dipped low by the city wall, and through the din Lenna heard it cry out sharply as a scorpion bolt pierced its wing. Another snap indicated the release of a second bolt, this one embedding itself in the creature's side, below the wing. The dragon fumbled in midair, still crying out, but continued on its circuit.
"Where is the king?" Cersei Lannister was striding toward them, her hair billowing out in a corona around her head, the green eyes burning and fixed on the sky. Her lips were set as if in stone, her every feature carven and seemingly ancient. When no one immediately replied, she looked at Lenna and the expression there nearly made her gasp.
"He's with the queen," Tyrion answered. "They are ministering to the smallfolk in the Great Sept."
"No," Cersei said sharply, moving like a doe frightened by a hunter inadvertently stepping on a twig. She fumbled as she ran, her skirts choking her, tangling in her legs. "Why was I not told. He cannot be there."
Lenna had never seen Cersei desperate, not like this. She dashed forward to catch her, the slow her, and Cersei stumbled.
There was then a rumbling like an earthquake and the morning air itself seemed painted green. Lenna looked at the glow of it reflected on her skin, confused and befuddled, Cersei crumpling on the ground like one broken on the racks.
"Wildfire?" Lenna said, dazedly look at Tyrion. "We moved it all."
"Not all apparently," Tyrion said, and Lenna looked to where he was facing and almost fell to her knees.
"My son." They both turned away from the spectacle of the blaze, the overwhelming sound of burning and wailing and screaming. The sounds of a siege.
Cersei was sprawled against the stones, and Lenna found herself horrified to see her like that, always so regal and composed nothing but a sputtering wreck on the ground.
She was wailing, and Lenna struggled to understand what it was she was saying.
"Why did no one tell me?" she suddenly demanded, staggering to her feet and gripping Lenna hard by the arms. "Why did you not tell me he was in the Sept?"
"Your grace," Lenna began, "he was doing his duty, he was tending to his people-"
"Why the Sept? Why did no one tell me he would go to the Sept?" She felt cold, as if she had been suddenly submerged into a cistern of snowmelt. "My boy. My boy. My fault."
"Cersei," Tyrion said, walking toward her with an outstretched hand. "Cersei, what-"
"Wildfire," Cersei said absently. "I had it put there during the business with the High Sparrow." Her face had calmed and she was looking at the sight of the blazing green ruins of the Sept as if it was an oil painting in her gallery. "I had not thought-" She turned her eyes back on Lenna and they were utterly blank, like water in the shoals, seemingly shallow and bright but with death lurking beneath.
Lenna took a shuddering breath and realized belatedly that she was sobbing. She bit down on her fist and watched as Cersei drifted toward the stone railing, unmoored. The beating of the dragons' wings was running over them like wind, like the wall of a hurricane, and it stirred Cersei's gown and hair until it seemed she was no longer a woman, but a column of smoke and gold. Lenna had the strangest sensation of drowning, of the wind slowing to the gentle eddy of a current as Cersei walked, her hair churning like a mermaid's beneath the waves. Even with all of the wind, all of the roaring, Lenna felt unusually still.
She had always been told that drowning was either excessively painful or profoundly peaceful. There was, of course, the initial time when one would try and hold one's breath, try and kick for the surface. She still vividly recalled how much it burned to gulp the seawater as a child as her little body was brutally driven against the sand in the breakers. Rescued sailors said that when you couldn't hold your breath any more, your body made you inhale, and it burned like having molten metal poured down your throat. Then, however, one of two things happened. The ones that fought said it hurt like the seven hells, that they were completely aware that they were alive and about to die, and they forced themselves to flail, to kick, until the blue turned to black. The others, though, didn't fight. Acceptance, they said, made it peaceful, the world seeming to slow down, even underwater, as they passed incrementally from life into death. There was no sound, just the water's embrace, and when their vision dimmed, it didn't go black. It went white.
And so it was as she watched Cersei Lannister slowly walking to the edge of the parapet, her slippered feet moving as gracefully and precisely as if she were performing some slow gavotte. Lenna knew at once what she intended, but she could not move, herself frozen in abject horror as the wildfire in the distance turned Cersei's golden hair green.
The death-spell was broken, however, by a death-cry. Lenna's gaze pulled away from the dowager and to a black form in the sky that seemed suspended for a terrible moment mid-air before beginning a rapid, destructive descent.
"Cersei!" Lenna cried, reaching forward to bid her run, but the dragon's massive tail clipped the stonework even as Lenna and Tyrion retreated away from the crumbling walkway. The stone seemed to ripple like a tide, ebbing and flowing as if liquid as they watched, in horror, and time seemed to slow again. Cersei, looking perfectly calm with her scarlet robes around her and her green-gold hair fanning out about her head, slipped from their sight in less time than it took to draw a breath.
"Run," Tyrion was at her side again, grabbing Lenna by the hand and pulling her deeper into the Keep and away from the crumbling stone.
There was no time to think about what was happening, no opportunity to even say to herself Cersei is dead, Tommen is dead, Margaery is dead. Hundreds, if not thousands, of the smallfolk are dead. Only time to focus on the living.
Oberyn Martell was in the throne room, his handsome face filthy with soot. The building had sustained considerable damage. One wall was nearly entirely gone, iron work from the windows rising jagged from the ruined stone. Ash was falling heavily, so thick and white it looked like snow, settling over the floor and the throne itself in a deceptively peaceful fashion.
"Our defenses are holding," Oberyn said grimly, "but barely. We have felled two of the beasts, but there is still the big one. She's riding him."
Almost as soon as he had said it, they heard the tell-tale scraping of claws against the stonework.
"Gods," Tyrion muttered.
They waited with pounding hearts, and they weren't disappointed. The great doors to the throne room opened, and Daenerys Targaryen entered. She radiated fury, fury and absolute grief. Her lovely face as stone, her eyes of amethyst. Not a hair was out of place in the elaborate braid, her leather and fur was clean and without creases, but her face was streaked with ash.
"Have you had quite enough?" Daenerys demanded, her tone savage as she made her way toward them, drawing off her gloves. Her hands were small, childlike, and pure white.
"Three days," Lenna croaked, her throat aching from the smoke. "You said three days."
"That was if you surrendered," Daenerys replied, stopping at the foot of the dais and turning to look at them both. Lenna could see the strain in the young woman's face, the terrible battle she was fighting to control herself. "Why try and evacuate the city if you were going to surrender? My people need not fear me."
"You have roasted your people alive," Lenna retorted, no longer caring to keep her temper in check. Her vision still danced with the lick of green flame.
"I had no idea there was wildfire," Daenerys said, her voice suddenly disturbingly reasonable. "No doubt leftover from my father's reign, but how was I to know it was beneath the Sept?"
"You still attacked the Sept knowing it was being used to house smallfolk," Lenna returned. "You've had your dragons circling us for the last three days. You knew exactly what we were doing. You supposedly advocate for the innocent yet-"
"I attacked the Sept because the usurper and his queen were there," Daenerys replied directly. "I regret that innocent people lost their lives in the fray."
"The fray," Tyrion said tightly, his brows upraised. "That's what you call a fray."
"You've told me yourself, my lord," she continued with an ominous tilt of her silver head, "that some casualties are to be expected. Much as we might regret them."
She took two steps up the dais stood regarding the Iron Throne for a long moment.
"I've dreamed of this day," she said, her voice wistful. "At what cost has it come to me? My children-" her voice broke and Lenna realized she was speaking of the dragons. "Two of them dead. Only three of their kind left, and two of them gone."
Tyrion looked at Daenerys and then at Lenna. "Your grace, I-"
"You would have been my Hand for as long as you liked, and Lady Helenna," she turned and looked at Lenna with eyes brimful of tears. The show of emotion left Lenna taken aback, her own throat thickening. "I always wanted a friend. I would have been yours. Most completely." Would have, Lenna thought feeling the blood drain from her face. "Everyone always wants something, don't they? If they don't want what you can give them, they want you yourself," Daenerys continued on, swallowing so hard Lenna could see the convulsions in her delicate throat. "Nothing is ever enough. It never ends."
"No, your grace," Lenna said, her voice deep with sorrowful truth, "it is never enough."
Daenerys smiled, her eyes still shining, brimming but not yet spilling down her cheeks.
"You are ready, I dare say, for this all to be over."
"Your grace," Lenna protested, not knowing exactly what she meant.
"I will not punish your children," Daenerys said. "Children are precious, innocent. They deserve more than we give them, coming into a world like ours. They will not suffer."
Cold filled Lenna's veins and gray eyes swam before her vision. She did not know if they were Sandor's or Addy's.
"It is not over," Lenna managed, resurrecting those words of Sandor's from so many years before, "until it is over."
"Oh, but my dear lady," Daenerys said, delicately lifting a pale finger at the same time that she raised a pale brow, "it is over."
Drogon's head came level with her own, and Lenna saw herself reflected in his reptilian black eyes. He might have been beautiful. She'd loved the illustrations of the dragons as a girl, found herself tracing her fingers over their scales, the arches of their wings, but face to face with one that was just waiting, waiting, for its mistress' bidding.
"Drac-"
Lenna closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable, but it did not come. Instead, she heard a sharp rapport and a gasp. When she opened her eyes, Daenerys Targaryen was sitting straight up, leaning forward on the Iron Throne, a crossbow bolt protruding from her breastbone.
Her purple eyes met Lenna's for a moment of sheer surprise, then pale lips, already frothing red, fumbled over the word she had been about to utter. The dragon's head bobbed and swayed as if it was confused, its orange eyes turned to slits and still bearing down on Lenna.
"Run."
Tyrion Lannister was standing to the side of the throne, the crossbow in his arms, his face devoid of fear. He looked at Lenna for a sliver of an instant with something like regret, then his expression contorted. "Run!"
She did, and as she fled on slippered feet, she heard the whispered command from the Targaryen girl's lips and then her ears were full of rushing fire.
A/N: Inspiration is rather hard to come by these days. Also, plans. The best laid ones don't go the way you think they will. But, I still believe in happy endings. _