Thanks to everyone who reviewed – those who liked the story and the one who found it interesting without liking my OC.
A Snake in the Mists
Clouds Gathering, Clouds Going
With time, Lyanna get to know the people who served them – the grim flaxen-haired men who brought over their meals and the water for their wooden tubs, the laundress who once a week came for their clothes and once every two weeks – for their linens and most of all, the middle-aged woman who came every day to keep their chambers clean. Sidara, she was called, and she didn't mind talking to Lyanna from time to time. It was about small things – the peddlers who had come to the castle, small ailments and which one of the kitchen girls would soon be in trouble if she didn't stop seeing this groom… She was always ready to bring fresh flowers for Lyanna's bathwater, cut her hair when it became too long and always took care to ask if they needed anything specific and brought new books over regularly without being reminded.
"Perhaps you should have become a master," Rhaegar said one day, early in their time here, and she smiled, although it stung a little to think that he considered her too wild, or too… womanly to be interested in books.
As time passed, he would not dare tell her such a thing. They kept each other company but at the same time, they were so tired of never going away from each other's company. Sometimes, Lyanna didn't leave her room in days, just because she couldn't bear to see the woman, Rhaegar and Oswell Whent, and no one else. Those were the days she closed the door of her bedchamber to Rhaegar, would have bolted it if they had bolts. Thankfully, he never insisted. He was not a violent man.
On the outside, it looked as if like Lyanna had become reconciled with her fate to never leave this place, this tower at Salt Shore, in a patch of land where no one seemed to go by and whose location she couldn't say. But nothing could be further away from the truth. She was constantly looking for signs in the faces, voices, even gaits of the very few people they were allowed to meet. She was getting out of here, no matter what Rhaegar's embittered wife wanted to do with them. Lately, she had started to suspect that it was just leaving them to spend their lives here.
Grave would be a mercy.
With keenness she had never suspected that she possessed, Lyanna tried to figure the servants out. Instincts and timbre of voice told her that the middle-aged woman, the handmaiden, pitied her and as much as that enraged her, Lyanna was determined to make the most of it.
"Do you have any children, Sinara?" she asked one day as the woman cut her wild dark-brown hair.
"I do, my lady," the woman replied and smoothed a curl out to check the length. "Two daughters and a son."
"What do they do for living?" Lyanna asked.
"My daughters work in the castle and my son is on Lord Carral's ships."
"So he loves freedom," Lyanna said. "Like me, yet he's free while I am…"
"Don't," the woman said and narrowed her eyes. "Are you asking me to betray Lady Alynna by helping you escape? You might as well ask the sea to stop coming and going."
Her voice was as soft as ever, yet her expression was determined. Lyanna had made a mistake and while it threw her into anger and despair, there was very little fear involved. What could happen to her from now on? What worse than the fate she was currently facing?
And then, one night, three years after she first took to the way with someone who had promised her freedom, another promise like that came, brought by no other than Alor Gargalen himself. And this time, Lyanna knew better than trust it.
"I hear that you have tried to make my wetnurse betray me."
Her wetnurse! Somehow, in all their conversations, this aspect of Sinara's life had never come out in their conversations. But of course, Alynna would grant access only to people whom she fully trusted. Lyanna ground her teeth, realizing that the other woman had won a small victory again. She was glad that she had refused to curtsey when she had been brought over to the chamber Rhaegar's wife waited in. Now, she looked at the woman and had to admit that Alynna Gargalen looked far better than she had four years ago. At least she wasn't as big as a house anymore. And she looked quite indifferent to Lyanna's answer and Lyanna herself. Lyanna didn't know if she should feel relieved or insulted. Perhaps if the other woman was indifferent, she would grant her freedom.
"I was told you were going to let me go."
"I am. Take a seat."
Warily, Lyanna did so and Alynna's smile told her that the other woman knew her little fear – that the chair would turn out to be broken and she'd collapse in the most humiliating fashion.
"I was told that your moon blood has come."
How dared this woman stick her nose into Lyanna's linens! She didn't say anything, fighting the impulse to jump at Alynna's throat. "Is this all you can think about?"
"When the stability of the Seven Kingdoms is threatened, yes, it is."
"The stability of the Seven Kingdom, or your son's position and your own power?"
Alynna didn't recoil at the accusation. "They are one and the same. Fortunately, it looks like you aren't carrying a child."
"Fortunately for you?" Lyanna challenged.
"And you, unless being released isn't what you wish?"
Lyanna's breath caught. She had never thought that the stated intention could be a real one.
"Why would you do this?"
Alynna shrugged. "It was never my intention to keep you forever. Just until things start going the way they should. It took three years but I can finally say we achieved it."
Lyanna hesitated. She was smart enough to know that killing them would have been Alynna's only sensible option, yet she hadn't chosen it.
"I'll tell my father."
Alynna smiled a little. "Of course you will." She didn't look too disturbed. "Lord Stark is a smart man. He wouldn't lose time and efforts in a losing game to avenge something that could have been much worse had I so chosen." She paused, thoughtful. "And I daresay he'd be as angry with you as he would with me if not more. After all, I only kept you safe from the bigger troubles you could have inflicted upon yourself. With the way you went about things, you dishonoured him, broke the friendship between the Starks, Tullys, and Arryns that he has been cultivating so carefully, made him lose face with his own bannermen – let alone the fact that the lives of many of them were lost – and deprived him of the chance to see a grandson on the Iron Throne."
Lyanna supposed she should have protested, said that such a thought had never crossed her mind. But it would be a lie. In all those years Alynna had stolen from her life, she had imagined all kinds of scenarios, all shades of vengeance.
Some noise from the outside drew her to the window. Her eyes widened and watered at the sight of two men tending the garden below the solar. She had even been deprived of such a simple joy – watch someone doing their everyday duties.
"What about Rhaegar?" she finally asked.
"They'll leave for Essos soon," Alynna replied. "You can go with him if you want."
"I don't! I only want to go home!"
Alynna looked at the younger woman with interest. So, it's true, she thought. She wanted freedom more than she wanted Rhaegar. For a moment, she felt a pang of conscience. Killing a wolf was one thing but imprisoning it, quite another. Had she really expected that Lyanna Stark would be transformed into a meek puppy? She hadn't given the girl much of a thought because was it the girl she should be thinking about when she had spiders to evict, ties to create, and ironborn to repulse?
"Then you will," she said. "But I think before that, you should go to the Tor. Your youngest brother wants to see you." She smiled wryly. "Perhaps by the time I visit, he'd have overcome his wish to throttle me."
And Lyanna realized that Alynna must have created many ties indeed if she was sure that she'd be allowed to go away unpunished even when Lyanna told the truth.
"I wish you a safe journey, Lady Lyanna," Alynna said and once the girl was led away, she looked at Alor who had not uttered a sound once. "I'm glad she's in good state. Even her pride has survived. I wonder, how does one deal without it?"
"I suggest that you ask Errol," Alor replied drily. "Since you seem to think that he has none."
Alynna looked away and tried to tell herself that she'd sort this out.
"When I die, I want a fish funeral."
Gillerd Gargalen looked at his brother and then looked at him again. And then laughed. "A fish funeral? This is even a thing?"
"Of course it is," Errol said nonchalantly. "It's easy. You take my cold dead body, you pack it off into a boat, you transport it some distance away in the sea – let's say, where we are now – and then you lower it into the water. I only find it fair that fishes eat me off after all the fish I have eaten in my life…"
Gillerd shook his head, his eyes twinkling. "I knew you were a fair man but I had no idea just how far this dangerous ailment has spread…"
"Shut up and row."
"Yes, my lord," Gillerd agreed.
For a while, they only rowed, coming back from the Gauntlet, the small island inhibited only by birds, wild animals, and people who wanted to take a break. They had spent the last week there, eating only what they could catch and talking only when they really wanted to. They had really quarreled but since they were as different in temper as they were in looks, Errol with the silver hair and the silk wrapping his steel, and the dark Gillerd, as easy to inflame as the sun of Dorne, they could hardly spend this much time together without getting cross and it happened when Errol realized that his brother was deliberately slowing his rowing to match it to his own, more tortured rhythm.
"Don't do this," he snapped. "Never do such a thing again. If you think I am too slow, you can just say so. But don't try to hide it from me."
Gillerd shook his head. Their clash with the ironborn had left Errol with a terribly torn arm that would take many months to fully restore its strength. For a while, they had even feared that he might lose it.
"I won't," Gillerd said simply and the third member of their crew stared out into the sea again. The two men looked at the five-year-old they both loved dearly and then at each other, with the same thought: Laval was clearly expecting that they'd start quarreling again. Errol shook his head, displeased with himself. It was him who started the tensions usually and he didn't like the turn he had taken those last few months.
"Laval, your father and I, we aren't arguing," he said and the boy nodded. Errol felt guilty because his nephew had expected this trip so much – and he had spoiled everything at the very end.
"Aren't we?" Gillerd murmured but softly.
This day, there was not a single cloud in the sky. It shone dark blue, as dark as the velvet of the sea around them, and the air was so hot that even the current their boat produced died before it reached their faces. The only stirring came from the movements of their rows. Gillerd and Laval, as olive-skinned as his father, had turned even darker while Errol's eyes shone brighter on his newly tanned face. Life at King's Landing had washed away what he considered his natural complexion, replacing it with milky whiteness that might be his true skin colour but was not him at all, and neither was this foul mood.
"We're home!" Laval yelled excitedly and jumped from the boat before any of the two men could catch him. With their heart in their mouth, they waited until he was a little away from the dangerous hull and then grinned and waved as he stared moving alongside. He swam as easily as a fish and soon they were in competition, boat against boy, and Gillerd shook his head when Errol tried to slow his movements so that Laval could win.
"I don't want to give him victories as a gift," he said. "He must learn that he won't be able to win every time."
The very fact that Laval, the firstborn of a second son, would inherit Salt Shore one day, was a victory in Errol's mind but he wasn't going to say so. Gillerd didn't like to talk about this future.
"Is this a dolphin that we have here?" Gillerd yelled and his son grinned in reply.
The two men kept rowing but their focus on Laval grew although they didn't show it. Real dolphins had come near the boat, curious, and one never knew.
"I am sorry," Errol suddenly said.
"Don't be," Gillerd replied. "Just have some more time here with us and then go back and make things right with your sorceress, our cousin."
"Do not talk about her," Errol warned. "Don't even think about her."
"I don't want her," his brother said with unruffled calm. "I have one of my own. She's the one you need."
"No," Errol said angrily, although they both knew it was a lie. Even Laval looked up, as if he had heard and disapproved of the denial. Even if he had – and their family wasn't exactly discreet with each other regarding Alynna and Errol's relationship – he couldn't say that Errol was lying, could he? But then, what did Errol know about children? It wasn't as if he'd ever have one of his own.
When Alynna looked through the window for like a hundred and third time in the last hour, even her cousin Loreza Sand lost her famous self-possession.
"Would you please sit down?" she scolded. "I am getting tired just by watching you pace. Errol will come when he comes and not a moment earlier."
Alynna glared at her but Loreza's bulging belly saved her from the angry reply Alynna would have otherwise delivered without thinking twice.
"They're already here," Loreza went on. "By now, Errol knows you have arrived. He cannot avoid you forever."
Can't he, Alynna wondered. Lately, it had struck her just how similar her relationship to Errol was to that of Loreza and Gillerd. One reasonable partner and one fiery one. One as warmly radiant as the sun and one burning as hot as a midnight fire. And because of this, Loreza was able to hold her distance from her husband without angry outbursts but longer than he did with her.
Loreza sighed. "What now?" she asked. "Come on, then. Let's go and find them."
Alynna shook her head. "You go," she said, knowing that Loreza was impatient to see her husband and son. "I'll stay here."
"Hiding in my solar again?" Loreza asked and this time, Alynna grabbed a pillow and showed it to her cousin in a threatening fashion at which Loreza showed her common sense and stopped her encouragements.
This night, she didn't join the rest of them for supper. Always one of a hearty appetite, she didn't feel like eating, so it wasn't only avoidance of certain people. Instead, she stood at the highest terrace of the castle, one that overlooked all the courts, every garden and as much from the sea as possible and listened to the songs and laughs erupting from the great hall. She no longer belonged to this castle where she had been born and lived happily and that pained her. Her place was at King's Landing with her son, the king who was so young.
Her eyes went to the west, in the direction her husband was being kept. Soon, that, too, would change. She firmly suppressed all twinges of guilt. What should she have done, let him run away to Essos leaving her and the children to pay the price? Force him to return to King's Landing, thus prompting him to coerce her into joining the Faith and disinheriting Aegon as Lord Stark would have no doubt insisted? Or execute her move in his name? The very idea made her laugh.
No, Rhaegar was not her main concern. The situation was finally stable and she was stealing this month for herself, to make things right in her own life. Or try to.
"Are you still angry with me?" she asked as soon as Errol entered her chambers. It was late at night and she had been thinking of getting ready for bed, convinced that he wouldn't come.
He stepped away from the shadow, so she could fully see him. "No," he said quietly.
Alynna noticed that he had lost much weight, saw the stiff way he held his arm. Tears welled up in her eyes. She felt like she was fighting a lost battle. Why had she come here? What could she offer him? A lifetime of hiding and nothing else. His mother was right in her disdain about their relationship.
"Were you hiding?" he asked. "From my mother?"
She startled. Had he read her thoughts?
"Kind of," she admitted. "We haven't really had much to talk about since I came here. I mean, what can I tell her? How are you, Aunt Isanne? I must tell you that I have a great time fucking your son when not hiding him under my bed or something."
He looked at her with a smile in his eyes. They both knew that Loreza had told the lady something in this vein before announcing that she'd wed Gillerd. Isanne, of course, had been terrified. "Were you hiding from me?" he asked.
She blushed. She couldn't tell him that she was scared of facing his anger over her decision to deprive him of his place in the more dangerous sea battles against the ironborn – not that it had done him much good – as much of finding out that he might have chosen to go the traditional way, find a wife and sire an heir. That was so selfish of her, wanting to keep him all to herself depriving him of the joy of having a child of his own. But she didn't want him in half. She'd never lay down with another woman's husband, even if it was Errol! She'd never be able to see him with another woman, a wife, even if it was her, Alynna, that he loved.
"Perhaps," Alynna admitted with a rueful smile, not sure what to make of his behavior. She had expected having to placate him. He had not returned to her after their defeat of the ironborn. He had not come to her till very late in the night either. But now, he looked as collected and loving as ever. Would she ever understand this man she had grown up with? "Aren't you angry?"
"Over your choice of keeping me out of the most dangerous spot? Yes, I am."
She looked at his arm meaningfully. "I cannot say it was so safe for you. I heard that you might need to have it amputated."
He went very still, cursing his pride. He had never stopped to consider that not returning to King's Landing meant that she'd get the news about the changes in his state with delays. "No," he said softly. "At the end, it turned out that it'll recover. Fully, perhaps." He paused. "So much for your grand plans concerning my person and dangers."
Alynna swallowed. It looked like he wouldn't let her off the hook this easily. She had hurt more than his pride. "Fine! I admit it was more dangerous at sea. It was bad enough that my father had to be one of the leaders there. I wanted to keep you safe. Am I this terrible a person for this?" She made a step towards him, looked him straight in the eye. "You've told me that the last few years have been squeezing warmth out of me, pushing me against darkness even more – and I've always been closer to dark than you are. When I'm with you, it's like the sun chases it away. I'll do anything to keep you alive and at my side. That's why I came… and why I was hiding from you."
He sighed and reached out to touch her cheek. His fingers were warm as ever, perhaps even warmer, turned golden by the sun of their own land. "You were afraid that I'd reject you? I committed this folly once and it didn't make me happier than it did you. But just as you have your limits – like not sharing me with another woman – I have my own. Do not try such a thing again, Alynna. Ever. Because it'll be the end as surely as my taking a wife would. What's this?"
Alynna blinked, surprised by his quick change of topic. He was staring through the window at the small group of riders that were now leaving the inner yard. "They're going for the Stark girl. Escorting her home."
"Yes," he said thoughtfully. "I heard that's what she chose. And I suppose you'll now release him as well? Send him away in exile?"
Alynna blushed. She realized just how stupid she was being. She didn't need any reminders of that. Getting rid of the two of them would have been the most prudent choice… but Errol was smiling.
"You are closer to the light than you think, my heart," he said gently, raising her hands to his lips for a kiss; lightheaded with relief, Alynna pressed her head against his shoulder and felt that everything in her world would be fine again.