Yup, it's taken a while. But here's the next chapter, complete and unabridged.

Thanks to Raiseth (on SV) for beta-reading it for me. As usual, much obliged!

A Feeble Hope

That night, Katarina was in so much pain from her burns and bee stings that she found it difficult to sleep. She'd been given ointment to smear on the worst-affected areas, but it seemed to have had little effect. For that reason, she was still awake in the early hours of the morning to hear Sienna moaning and thrashing about in the throes of a high fever.

'Oh no,' Katarina thought to herself. 'What's happened?'

She remembered that she'd pushed Sienna into the pond in an attempt to save her from the angry swarm of bees – and Jeord's misaimed blasts of fire – and then she had nearly drowned!

'Is this my fault?' she wondered. 'Has she taken ill because of what I did? I was trying to save her!'

Frightened, she jumped out of bed and went to rouse Anne from where she was sleeping in an adjoining room.

"What should we do?" she asked, after she had explained the situation.

Anne blearily rubbed her eyes and said, "We'll do what we can for her."

By this time, Sienna's struggles had subsided, so Anne was able to approach her without fear of being hit by a wildly flailing limb. She pressed the back of her hand against the sleeping girl's forehead, gave a sharp intake of breath, and said, "She's burning up."

"Uh-uhhh," Sienna murmured, as if in agreement.

With swift, urgent movements, Anne peeled off the bedcovers one by one, until Sienna was clad only in a flimsy nightdress. Then, she hesitated, as if unsure of how to proceed.

Katarina, who was watching, tried not to think about how small and fragile her best friend looked at that moment. She shivered – and, for a few moments, she couldn't stop shivering.

When she saw that, Anne decided to replace one of the sheets she'd removed from Sienna: a single, thin layer of fabric. "I want to give her a chance to cool down, but not to get too cold," she explained.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" asked Katarina.

Anne gave this due consideration. "She needs a doctor. Do you want to fetch Maester Pycelle or shall I?"

"I'll do it!" cried Katarina.

"Good for you, milady," said Anne, giving her a nod. "I'm sure he'll listen to you."

As she scampered away down the corridor, Katarina wondered why her faithful maidservant had said that: did she think there was a possibility that Pycelle wouldn't listen to her? She knew the maester was an unpleasant old man, who often came across as creepy with his simpering attempts to ingratiate himself with powerful and wealthy people such as her father, but was there a chance that he would outright ignore being summoned to a medical emergency in the middle of the night? Perhaps that was one of the reasons why Anne had suggested that she should go to him, other than to give her something useful to do and keep her from fretting too much: Pycelle might be inclined to rudely disregard one of the servants, but he would be wary of doing the same to the Duke's daughter, which should ensure that he would hurry to Sienna's bedside as soon as possible instead of making excuses to delay.

And so, having convinced herself of Anne's cleverness and forward-thinking – and marveling at how lucky she was to have such a woman working for her – Katarina rapped her knuckles against Pycelle's bedroom door and called to him, "Maester, we need you! Sienna is very ill!"

There was a brief period of silence. She knocked again and then Pycelle replied, somewhat testily, "Yes, yes… I heard you."

'Well, why didn't you answer?' was what Katarina wanted to ask, but she refrained from doing so; she suspected it wouldn't be diplomatic.

A few moments later, Pycelle opened his bedroom door and shuffled out into the corridor to join her. His thinning hair was in disarray and his eyes were crusty with sleep, but he'd taken the time to put on his usual robe and chain. "So, your little friend is unwell," he mused. "What exactly has happened to her? I need details."

"I'll tell you on the way," Katarina offered, anxiously hopping from foot to foot. "Please hurry."

He nodded and she proceeded to lead him to the bedroom she shared with Sienna. Although he was a frail old man, she suspected that he wasn't as decrepit and doddering as he pretended to be; he could move surprisingly quickly when he felt the situation warranted it.

While they walked, Katarina told him, "Sienna was thrashing about in her sleep. Anne touched her forehead and said she was burning up. I think she has a fever."

"She fell into a pond yesterday, didn't she?" asked the elderly maester. "I remember hearing about that at dinner last night."

"Um, yes," said Katarina, with a guilty nod. "I pushed her in. I was trying to save her from a swarm of bees!"

"Of course you were," said Pycelle, in an oily tone of voice that was probably meant to be soothing. "I'm sure you never meant for your childish games to have this effect. And you'll never do it again, will you?"

'I'm thirteen years old, nearly fourteen! I'm not a child anymore!' Katarina wanted to yell at him. And, remembering the arranged marriage that Anne had rejected, she would have gone on to say, 'Walder Frey has been married to noble ladies who were much younger than I am now!' However, she realized that, by shouting at him, she would be proving that her self-control was no better than that of the little girl she no longer wanted to be, so she had better not say anything.

"Fever. Thrashing about. A seizure, perhaps, brought on by the fever?" Pycelle muttered to himself. "Difficult to say. Of course, I'll have to examine her myself. If she wakes up, I'll have a few questions for her. If she's still capable of answering them." He gave a snort of laughter. "Too many ifs."

Katarina took a deep breath and tried to ignore him. She kept walking until she reached her bedroom, where she saw that Anne was applying a damp cloth to Sienna's unconscious forehead.

"Hmm. I suppose it can't do any harm," said Pycelle, dubiously, when he saw that. "Not that it will do any good either."

"There's no reason why she shouldn't be made comfortable, is there?" asked Anne, with a raised eyebrow.

"Fevers are the body's natural response to infection, enabling it to burn off toxins and morbid humors. One of the founders of the medical profession once boasted that, if he were allowed to create or provoke a fever, he could cure any disease. Therefore, it is likely that, before Miss Sienna can fight off this illness, she must endure a little discomfort."

"Must she?" Anne wearily shook her head. "A few years ago, I remember one of the other servants told me about her brother, who had a bad fever when he was just a child. He was never the same afterwards, apparently. It damaged him."

"A tragic anecdote," Pycelle replied. "It is a harsh world we live in. But, of course, you know that already: it can hardly have escaped your notice that nearly half of all peasant children die before the age of ten."

"Yes, it would be entirely normal and natural for Sienna to die of this illness, just as if she'd been torn apart by wild dogs, or stung to death by a swarm of bees, or died in any of the accidents that have come close to killing her," said Anne, bitterly. "She has endured so much! She deserves better! I just wish there was something I could do to help her."

"I'm touched that you care for her with such tenderness, as if she were your own daughter," said Pycelle, putting on a simpering smile that seemed rather too much like a sneer. "Do you treat Lady Katarina the same way?"

"It's my job."

"And I'm sure you do it well. Now, kindly step aside and allow me to do mine."

Anne acquiesced. Pycelle stepped past her and examined Sienna's sleeping form with a clinical eye. "Definitely a fever. It will be necessary to keep her well-hydrated. When she awakes, she should have plenty to drink. And…" He paused, frowning. "What's this?" He reached for Sienna's pebble necklace, the one that Archmaester Marwyn had given her. It seemed to have acquired a fine coating of grey dust and was leaving grimy streaks wherever it touched: around her throat, the neckline of her nightdress, and on her pillow. "Why would she be wearing such a dirty piece of jewelry? And overnight as well?"

"It's blessed by the gods," Katarina explained. "It's supposed to keep her safe."

Giving Anne an ironic glance, Pycelle asked, "Wouldn't she be more comfortable if she'd removed it before going to bed? That way, it wouldn't have left red welts in her delicate flesh. Or you could have removed it since then: when you were ministering to her just a few moments ago, for example."

Very much discomforted, gripping the pebble necklace she habitually wore around her own neck, Katarina croaked, "I'm sure she did what she thought was best."

The elderly maester motioned as if to take off Sienna's necklace, but then flinched as if at a sudden spasm of pain. He withdrew his hand, put on a strained smile, and said, "I suppose it's none of my business what fashion trends are popular among youngsters these days. Even if I think it's superstitious rubbish, it hardly seems relevant to the matter at hand, so…" His voice trailed off and he quickly changed the subject: "There is little that I can do for Miss Sienna that you haven't already done. As I've said, you should make sure that she has plenty to drink when next she wakes. Other than that, her survival is in the lap of the gods."

Katarina thought that Pycelle was being rather hypocritical, in a number of different ways, but suspected that there was nothing to be gained from saying so. "What if she doesn't wake?" she asked. "What then?"

"Then she will die, of course. Dehydration will kill her even if the disease doesn't," said Pycelle, matter-of-factly. "She could survive for as long as a week, but it's more likely she will die within three or four days. Unless…" He stroked his beard and looked thoughtful. "Swallowing is a reflex action, so it may be possible to spoon small amounts of water into her mouth and have her swallow it. Risky, though. If anything goes wrong, she may choke and die all the faster."

"That won't happen," Anne insisted, in a tone that brooked no argument. "She is going to wake up and she's not going to die!"

"Uh, yes. Of course," said Pycelle. "Keep an eye on her and let me know if her condition changes. Good night – or good morning – to both of you."

He turned and shuffled away.

Anne must have seen that Katarina was shivering and on the verge of tears: she wrapped her arms around her and hugged her close. "Pycelle is a cruel man. Don't listen to him."

"Do you think that… even if she wakes up, Sienna will never be the same again, like the boy in the story you told?" asked Katarina, in a small voice.

"I wish you hadn't been listening to me when I said that," said Anne, with a rueful grimace. "To be honest, I've never met the young man in question. I only mentioned him because I thought Pycelle was being entirely too casual about how dangerous a fever can be."

Katarina worried at her lower lip. "So, maybe the same thing won't happen to Sienna?"

"I've done my best to make sure it won't," Anne assured her.

"And… do you really see the two of us as if we were your own daughters?"

Anne flushed with embarrassment, released Katarina from the hug, and said, "It's not my place to have such thoughts. I'm sorry if I've been overly… um, informal."

"I like it," said Katarina, with a soft smile. "I like to think of you as if you were my older sister."

"Well, that's… um…" Searching around for a distraction, Anne's eyes alighted on Sienna's necklace. "What happened to this?" she asked, reaching for it. "How did it get so dusty? Wasn't she wearing it when she fell into the pond yesterday? And when she had her bath afterwards?"

"I'm not sure," Katarina admitted. "I pushed her out of the way of Jeord's flames, but…" Wincing, she rubbed the burned patch on her arm where she'd been hit instead. "At the time, I wasn't really paying attention to what she was wearing."

"That's understandable," said Anne, threading the beads through her fingers, brushing off the dust and examining each of them in turn. "Um… it wasn't like this when Archmaester Marwyn gave it to her, was it?"

"What do you mean?" asked Katarina, joining her by the side of her bed and lowering her head so that she could peer closely at the necklace. She wrinkled her nose: up close, it had a musty odor, like the pages of a long-forgotten book. In appearance, it was no longer a match for the pebble necklaces she and Anne had been given: it looked strangely weathered, as if by the passage of many years, and the symbols that had been etched into its surface were so eroded as to be indecipherable. All except one: there was a single bead, larger than the others and less well-worn; the symbol on it was so clear and sharp that it might have been etched yesterday. However, that didn't make it any easier to tell what it was supposed to represent. It could have been a mask, or a skull, or an indistinct abstract shape; she couldn't be sure which.

"Maybe… maybe one of the gods has taken notice of her," she suggested, indicating the unusual bead. "Just like Marwyn wanted."

"Let's hope that's a good thing," said Anne, looking uneasy. "I don't recognise the symbol. It doesn't belong to any of the gods I'm familiar with."

"We should ask Sienna about it when she wakes up," said Katarina. "I've heard that the gods send messages to people in their dreams. Maybe that's what she's dreaming about right now!"

"Maybe." Anne sighed. "I'm sure we'll find out later, when she wakes up."

Sienna didn't wake up that day. By mid-morning, Katarina was frantic with worry. She barely noticed when Jeord made his excuses to leave; automatically, as she had been trained to do, she curtseyed and said how much she would miss him, but her mind was elsewhere; he and his entourage gave a few perfunctory farewells, but they were no sooner gone than she had forgotten them.

Her mother encouraged her to immerse herself in her usual routine, to focus her attention on something other than her best friend's ill health, and not to fret. However, that morning, Katarina was so listless and distracted that both Pycelle and Septa Selyse lost patience with her and sent her away from their lessons early – which she didn't mind because it meant that she could spend additional time haunting Sienna's bedside, breathlessly waiting for the moment when she would open her eyes. She was kept waiting for a long time.

Keith came to see her, to let her know that lunch was ready, and tried to comfort her by saying, "It's likely that she needs time to rest and recover. She's not feverish anymore, is she?"

Tentatively, Katarina laid a hand on Sienna's forehead; she was relieved to find it pleasantly warm and not boiling hot. "I suppose not," she murmured. "But that doesn't mean it won't come back."

"And if it doesn't?" he asked.

"Maester Pycelle said she'd die if she didn't wake up within three days."

"It's only been a few hours," he pointed out. "Don't give up hope yet."

"Um… all right," she said, allowing him to lead her downstairs to the dining room. Once there, she ate little and sat in miserable silence, in spite of anyone's attempts to engage her in conversation.

That evening, Katarina didn't know why she burst into tears. Perhaps it was because she hadn't slept at all the previous night and was extremely tired, or because her burns and bee stings were still painful and itchy, or because she was terrified by what could happen to Sienna.

Earlier in the day, her father had decided that Sienna should be allowed to sleep in peace and privacy for the duration of her illness; her unconscious body had been carried to a different room, where she had been laid to rest in a different bed, and Katarina had been left to face the prospect of sleeping alone for the first time in years. Without her best friend's comforting presence, her bedroom felt empty.

All these woes combined to make her situation unendurable. She broke down and began to sob. Her vision blurred. A fast-flowing river of tears and snot streamed down her face.

"What on earth is the matter with you?" asked Anne, sounding alarmed.

"She's gone!" Katarina wailed. "I miss her so much!"

Anne gave her an incredulous glance. "It's been less than a day!"

"I might never see her alive again!" In between heaving sobs, Katarina tried to explain, "I want to… I want to hear her voice… hold her hand… tell her how much she means to me!"

While she was thinking of what else she would like to do to Sienna when she saw her again, she had a few new ideas, some of which she found confusing, disquieting, and intriguing, in almost equal measure. It seemed prudent not to mention any of these to Anne, whom she didn't want to think any less of her.

"Here," said Anne, offering her a handkerchief, which she gratefully accepted and used to mop her face. "You need to be strong, for her sake. Do you think she would want you to fall apart like this?"

"No. She wouldn't," Katarina mumbled. Her words felt thick and heavy even as she struggled to form them in her clumsy mouth. "She'd want me… to live. To be happy. She was such a good friend to me."

"She will be again," Anne promised her.

Fresh tears spilled down Katarina's face. She threw her arms around the maidservant who had become one of her closest friends, wept into her shoulder, and had to be restrained from wiping her nose on her uniform.

"You should go to bed, milady," said Anne, with an exasperated sigh. "Get some sleep."

"I'll try," said Katarina, in a tremulous voice.

"Everything will seem better in the morning, when you've rested. Who knows? Perhaps Sienna will be up and waiting for you when you wake."

With renewed hope, Katarina hurried to the bathroom to wash her face and make her preparations for bed.

She lay awake for what seemed like hours, but sleep remained elusive. Restlessly turning over in bed, she thought of Sienna and wished that there was something she could do to save her.

Septa Selyse had taught her to count her blessings and to be grateful for everything that the Seven had given her. For instance, she had been born into wealth and privilege far beyond what the smallfolk of Sorcier would dare to dream of. Because of the civil war and her grandfather's shrewd machinations, her family had thrived whereas many other noble families had been wiped out. She had parents and a brother who dearly loved her, she was betrothed to a prince, and she had a rare magical gift; even if her earth magic was so weak that she couldn't use it to make anything larger than a molehill, it was still more than most people had. And yet, despite all of this good fortune, she was unable to do anything to save herself or her best friend from the prophesied deaths that had blighted both of their lives. For that reason, she felt wretched, powerless, and despondent.

Dimly, out of the dark recesses at the back of her mind, she recalled one of Pycelle's lessons, years ago, in which he'd told her about Prince Aemon Targaryen, a light mage who'd been able to cure even the deadliest poisons and venoms.

'And diseases as well,' Katarina assumed. Although she was not as well-read as Sienna, she'd heard legends and folktales about Prince Aemon, more commonly known as 'Aemon the Dragonknight', who was widely regarded as one of the greatest and most virtuous knights who'd ever lived. In many of those stories, he used his light magic to save members of his family who were injured or ill – as well as some other poor unfortunates who were in need of aid – and it never seemed to matter what they were afflicted with: he was always able to heal them unless they were already dead by the time he'd arrived.

'I need a hero like that,' she thought, as she hovered about the borders of consciousness, teary-eyed and yawning. 'Someone gallant and kind, with the power to save me and the ones I love. But where can I find such a paragon of virtue?'

When she finally drifted off to sleep, it was as if her question was being answered: she dreamt of a group of children playing together in a wooded area near to a small farming village. One of them fell and hurt his leg. A little blonde girl knelt down beside him. From her expression, it was evident that she wanted to help but didn't know how to. Then, bright light streamed from her hands, there were cries of amazement from the other children, and the boy was instantly healed. Light magic! It must be!

Excitedly, Katarina glanced at the surrounding landscape, trying to work out where she'd have to go to find this light mage. She saw rolling hills and fields, mountains in the distance, and nothing much to distinguish this place from anywhere else in Sorcier. Then, she realized that the mountains were much closer than she'd at first assumed – and they were all around, in seemingly every direction – which suggested to her that, as it looked too green and fertile to be in Dorne or the North, it must be in either the Westerlands or the Vale of Arryn, both of which were very mountainous regions. But how could she determine which?

She peered at the nearby farmhouses, hoping that someone would have been so helpful as to hang a flag proclaiming their allegiance to the local lord, whose heraldry she could have used to identify him, but there weren't any such obvious clues.

Then, it was as if she was flying through the air, towards the mountains, where ancient groves of weirwood trees nestled in sheltered nooks. They had gnarled faces that had been carved into their bone-white bark, thousands of years ago, by worshippers of the Old Gods, and seemed to gaze down at the world with blood-red eyes that wept constantly. From this vantage point, Katarina could see the village where the young light mage lived. Far above it, on a high mountain peak, she saw a castle built out of white marble, which looked almost too elegant and fantastical to be real, almost as if it had been taken from a folktale. She recognised it as 'the Eyrie', the ancient seat of the Arryn family, which meant that this must be the Vale of Arryn!

Dotted about here and there like a child's scattered toys, there were other castles and fortifications that had been built at various strategic points, all of which were much less beautiful than the Eyrie. Katarina guessed that the fortress at the base of the mountain, stout and sturdily built out of dull gray stone, must be the 'the Gates of the Moon'. She didn't know the names of the three smaller castles on the path that led up to the Eyrie, but – there, blocking the main road through the mountains, was that 'the Bloody Gate'? – and there, by the lake, was that Ironoaks Castle? She was fairly sure she'd identified them correctly, but – more importantly – would she be able to use them as landmarks when she was trying to find the village where the light mage lived?

And then, she was high up in the sky, as if flying on the wings of a bird, gazing down at the Crownlands. She saw the Claes Manor – so far away that it was barely a speck in her mind's eye – and the route that would lead her to the Vale of Arryn. A brightly shining path, as if it had been burned into her mind. North along the Kingsroad, across the Trident, then west at the Crossroads Inn, through the Mountains of the Moon, and past the Bloody Gate. Altogether, a distance of more than a hundred miles. A veteran rider might be able to manage it in a single day, if they were able to change horses regularly. More likely, it would take several days. Then, after they'd persuaded the light mage to go with them, they'd have to go back along the same route, which would take just as long or even longer. Assuming that they had a safe journey and were unaffected by any of the various perils along the way, such as rockslides, shadowcats, and fierce wildling clans, it would take about a week. Sienna might not survive until then.

'I'll have to do it myself,' Katarina decided. 'If I tried to explain it to my parents, it would take too long and they might not believe me. Or they would insist on keeping me at home where it's safe while they send someone else. And then Sienna would die. If I were forced to stand by and do nothing while that happened, I could never forgive myself.'

Filled with renewed determination, she rehearsed the journey she must take, committing it to memory.'The gods gave me this task. They have shown me where to go and given me a path to follow. What else can I do but follow it to the end?'

Even after she awoke the next morning, she was resolute. When Anne told her that Sienna was still comatose, she was dismayed; but, on the other hand, it was exactly as she'd expected. She already knew what she'd have to do and where she'd have to go to save her best friend. Her dreams had shown her the way.

Her necklace had changed. It was no longer the one that Marwyn had given her. Instead of plain, river-washed pebbles, the beads now looked and felt as if they had been carved out of weirwood. Where each of them had been etched with the holy symbol of a different god or pantheon, it now appeared as if they had been worn smooth. All except one, which looked new and freshly cut: the symbol on it resembled a tree with a face, which must represent the Old Gods, Katarina realized. They were the nameless gods of the forests, rivers, and mountains, whom the people of Westeros – the island that would later become known as 'Sorcier' – had worshiped for countless years, until the Andal Invasion.

Katarina had no idea how long it had been since any of her ancestors had worshiped the Old Gods. Although she had been brought up to worship the Seven, and had prayed to them every night for as long as she could remember, the Old Gods had been the ones to answer her when she had been crying out for help. They had given her hope. A feeble hope, but it was better than none at all. Therefore, it seemed only fair that she should worship them instead, which she vowed to do for as long as she lived. Worship had to start somewhere, after all.

It was a new day. She had a light mage to find and a best friend to save. To do that, she would need a horse, plenty of money, and for her disappearance to go unnoticed until it was too late for anyone to stop her. She got dressed, went downstairs to have breakfast, and came up with a plan.

Briefly, she wished that she could take Sienna's comatose body along with her on this journey, and not just because it had been several years since she had gone anywhere without her lady-in-waiting by her side. It would undoubtedly be difficult to persuade the light mage to travel such a long way in such a short period of time; bringing the patient to her was the obvious solution. Another benefit was that they wouldn't have to rush back home in such a dreadful hurry after Sienna was healed; instead of braving the high road through the Mountains of the Moon, with its associated hazards, they could take a leisurely stroll down to the coast and buy passage on a ship setting sail from Gulltown.

However, after some thought, Katarina dismissed this notion as unfeasible: it would be exceedingly dangerous for Sienna to travel by horseback while she was unconscious and unable to sit upright or do anything to prevent herself from falling; besides, the horse would be exhausted by carrying both of them at once for any length of time, even if they only moved at a slow walking pace; and it would attract too much attention, making it all but impossible to sneak away from the Claes Manor without being seen. No, if she was going to do this, Katarina would have to do it alone.

Before doing anything else, she had to equip herself and get ready for the journey. Therefore, putting on an expression of childish innocence, she approached her mother and declared, "I'm sure Sienna will wake up today! I want to give her a present when she wakes up. Please may I go into town and buy something for her?"

Looking as if she was about to weep, the Duchess Miridiana said, "Y-yes, of course. I'll give you some money."

"Thank you, mother," said Katarina, smiling beatifically.

A few moments later, while she was giving her daughter a fat purse of silver coins, Miridiana rallied enough to say, "Take Anne with you. And two of the guards."

That was a problem, but not an insurmountable one. She would have to adjust her plan accordingly.