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Silver Tears of the Moon

Dark Wings Spreading

Some were lucky enough to lose consciousness with the very first whitening of face, the first labored breath coming from their chests. This way, they didn't feel the terrible progression, the sickness, the dying. Others knew everything, from the first bead of sweat through the icy chills to the blood-choked gurgles that were the last attempts of their bodies to cling to life. Perhaps they felt the brief hours between the first symptoms and the last convulsions like an eternity. It was probably so. But no one was lucid enough to say.

Baelor saw both of them – the long, painful, doomed battle for Valarr's life and the blissful oblivion that was a blessing Matarys was unaware about and could only bring Baelor the tiniest bit of comfort because his son was still dead, dead and how could the world keep being when his boys were both dead? He felt as if he had been sitting at Matarys' bedside for years but when the Silent Sisters finally took over and he was led out of the room, the sun burned his eyes. It had only been a few hours if this many.

"Is he..." his mother asked, appearing all of a sudden. She held her breath and Baelor was suddenly angry with her for not knowing, for not being there, for leaving so many times during those hours. He only nodded and her eyes welled up.

"Where have you been?" he demanded.

She didn't answer immediately. The muscle on her jaw tightened. Only when she regained control did she answer. "I was with your father." She paused and curtsied. "Your Grace."

Baelor just stared and stared, then started to go to her but she made a step backwards and raised her hand in panic. "Don't come near!"

It made sense. She had personally attended Matarys such a short time ago. She must have been doing the same for Baelor's father as well. Right now, Baelor didn't care if he'd catch the sickness but he didn't want to cause her any additional worry.

A great clamber made them both look at the doors of the courtyard. Baelor had only heard such noise a few times in his life and it had been a cheering before but once having heard the unrest of the entire King's Landing, he could never forget it. "What's going on?" he asked as the roars, threats and pleas for the gates of King's Landing to be opened, lest people broke the gates of the Red Keep became louder. A little later, the sound of a grating hastily slammed down made everyone in the court jump. Maekar entered the courtyard, still in full gallop, and drew the chestnut to a halt only when he was close to them already.

"What?" he asked as soon as he dismounted. "Whom?"

"Matarys," Baelor replied. "Father."

Maekar's face went white which made the strange streak on his cheek stand out more. Baelor shielded his eyes against the sun and squinted at it. Blood. Only when his hand came down wet did he realize that there were tears cascading down his cheeks.

"No!" Mariah said sharply when, after the first bow Maekar did to Baelor in his life, he made it to go to them. "We shouldn't get close to each other. What happened?"

"The city is fearful," Maekar answered simply and his eyes narrowed. Baelor and Mariah followed his eyes in the direction of the small figure that emerged from the main building right now.

"Father?"

"Stay there!" Maekar snapped and she froze. "I told you that you weren't to leave your chambers, Rhae. Can you not obey commands?"

"But I couldn't stay there any longer," the little girl explained. "They're all dead. Septa Aglan died last night and when I went into the antechamber to call the others, they were all dead and going numb. I stayed the night like you told me, Father, but I was so scared…"

The horror finally made its way through Baelor's own shock and grief. At the thought of his niece staying all night along with the corpses shook him as much as anything could now; with some delay, he realized that the corpses were not only dead but likely highly contagious as well. The disease was still worming its way through the heart of his family.

"And you spent the night alone with the bodies?" Maekar asked dully.

"I wasn't alone," Rhae explained. "Mama was with me."

Mariah groaned; for a moment, Baelor could imagine that Dyanna had indeed come to take her youngest with her. It was certainly a better way to meet the Stranger than the agony his boys had gone through. But then, he saw that terrible sweat and the unnaturally bright eyes. Like most children, she just wanted her mother in her time of greatest fear and the first ruthless symptoms. The fact that she had never seen Dyanna didn't matter.

"Come on," Mariah said, taking her granddaughter by the hand. "Let's go to my chambers, shall we?"

Rhae agreed immediately, leaving her hand in Mariah's trustingly. Maekar stared after them but before he could follow, a new fevered pitch in the roaring beyond the walls of the Red Keep made him stop. Brynden Rivers appeared and he looked to have fared among the crowd worse than even Maekar. He was bleeding heavily.

"They're trying to break the gates," he said without preamble and with a quick look at Baelor and a muttered curse, Maekar headed to give orders for the repelling of their father's own… Baelor's own subjects who demanded that their King either find a cure or let them run from the infested city seeking hope and health elsewhere.

Later – much later – he'd demand a full account of the lords and ladies who had bribed their way out of King's Landing once the gates had been closed and the quarantine enforced. Later – much later – he'd hold each of them accountable for every string of death and sickness they had spread in the course of their running. Those who had held an office and say in governing any affair of the Seven Kingdoms and deserted it would be punished and made ineligible for an office within King's Landing ever again. But right now, Baelor could only sit in his cold dark chambers – former chambers, - listen to the horror of his subjects coming in great waves and only think about his own losses, about the gaping holes in his heart that would not close, think and not be able to even pray that he'd be next because that would mean Aerys on the Iron Throne and with his brother being as he was, that was not something Baelor should allow if he had the power to prevent it.