Chapter 24:
Needle was by clicking against her side, as it should be. Arya scaled the walls, her toes barely touching the mossy stones as she leapt along the tops. Far below her she could hear the bustling and noises and shouts of busy people, builders, smiths, cooks. It sounded like Winterfell before King Robert came. Back then it would have been Bran up here instead of her, and she would have been sat trapped down in one of the chambers with her crooked stitches and insufferable Septa. The thought of how far things had gone from those days nearly made her dizzy. The tap of Needle brought her back to her senses, and she jumped down onto her balcony without making a single sound.
Light as a feather. Smooth as summer silk.
She wondered if Sansa knew what Queen Daenerys had asked her to do. She had seen Sansa and the Hound going outside to talk to her after they had looked at the bodies. The sight of them had not reviled her as they had Brienne. She was glad them were all barely even corpses. One gust of wind would have turned them all to ash and a feast for flies. She had shut her eyes, taken in the smell and suddenly the body belonging to every name on her list had been in the pile. The moment had been sweet until she remembered the creature who had turned them to this instead of her.
Arya had asked to speak with the Queen, who was overseeing some final matters of travel in the Great Hall.
"Are you looking for something, Lady Arya?" Daenerys had asked, turning to face her.
"I'm not a lady." I say that as much as the names on my list, thought Arya. Be polite, if you can. She's got Dragons. "I wanted to ask you something. Do you have a Kingsguard?"
"No, for I have no King. My Queensguard serves me better than any."
"Are any of them Knights?"
"Ser Barristan was the Commander of the Kingsguard before being swept aside by the Usurper's son…"
"Could I be a Knight in your Queensguard?"
Daenerys Targaryen had raised her eyebrows in surprise.
"You?"
"I'm a good fighter. I was taught how by a Braavosi named Syrio Forel."
"I lived in Bravos once. The man whose house it was once said a similar name…"
"He was the first sword of Braavos. He taught me how to move like a Water Dancer."
The look of surprise vanished from those eyes. Now it was more considerate, more respectful, as if she saw Arya as more than a young girl who knew little of the ways of combat with a scabbard full of dreams.
"How old are you, Arya?"
"Ten. I've killed."
"You wear the look of a killer in your eyes. I can't quite imagine you in a gown sewing tapestries like Lady Sansa. Perhaps we should talk somewhere more private."
They left the Hall and Arya led the way to her room. This was her home and the Queen respected that entirely, she noticed, and allowed her to go wherever she deemed safe, instead of the other way round. When the door was bolted against the castle, Daenerys took a seat.
"You are a girl of ten yet you wear a sword and you have already made your first kill," She mused.
"And second," Said Arya, "And third, and fourth."
"Do you speak any languages other than the common tongue?"
"No," Arya had to admit. She had heard a few brief Braavosi words from Syrio every now and then, but nothing she could form an understandable conversation with. When she was younger she had managed to pick up some form of Valyrian in her studies, but with no one in Winterfell eloquent in the tongue, she had lost it. She was certain she could pick it up again, if she tried.
"No matter. A girl who has killed before her first flowering will have no trouble with such things. You seem like you were made for other countries and cities, other smells and ways of life, not some lofty castle."
"I want to fight."
"I want you to fight. Not with lance and steel, like a man of my Queensguard. A unique killer such as yourself would serve a much better purpose."
Daenerys leaned forward. Her eyes were so entrancing Arya had to move closer.
"I have enemies in the East still, across the Narrow Sea. Foes I left behind to breed and conspire against me when I finally took my Unsullied West. At the moment they are mere swaggering drunkards of overweight Lords, drinking and bedding their fortunes away. But where they lose money they make more in the Slave Trade. It is still very fragile after I ended it when I took Meereen, and one crack should break it completely. But that crack will be hard to find, and it rests with the right Master. Kill one, and you will free his slaves. Kill two, and two houses will be ruled by slaves. Kill all of these Masters at their source in Braavos, and the Slave Trade will cease to exist. All this will have to be done without any innocent blood having been spilt."
The very thought of travelling across the Sea and seeing the Free Cities made Arya's heart quicken.
"If I do this…"
"You will have proven your worth to me, and I shall bestow on you a place in my Queensguard, should you still want it."
Arya nearly said yes right there, but the warmth from the fire suddenly made her pause. This was Winterfell. They had won it back, and already she was thinking of leaving it once more. After all that had happened, did she really want to risk losing it forever again?
That's stupid. Sansa will be here. We have the Greyjoys and Daenerys as allies. We can never lose Winterfell again.
"I want to prove myself," She began, "But what about Sansa and Brienne? I know Sansa will want to stay here, so that's not so much of a problem, but Brienne has sworn her sword to me. She will never allow me to go East and start killing Master's from the shadows."
"She swore to you, yes? Then you order her to remain here whilst you carry out my request upon the Masters. Or I could make her a member of the Queesnguard as well, if you like. From what I hear she is very talented with her own sword."
"She is," Arya said, eager to show Brienne's qualities, for she truly was an experience warrior, "And I know she would join the Queensguard if I asked her."
"Perhaps to calm her mind, as well as your sister's, we could tell them you are going East for me to act as a speaker in my name? At the Iron Bank, perhaps?"
"That sounds good." Arya smiled. She could still feel the warmth from the fire's glow, and it reassured her that no matter where she went, the flames of the North would always be with her, as would Winterfell and the Direwolves.
"I will brief you fully on each of the Masters and where you can find them in more detail when we reach King's Landing," Daenerys rose with more effortless grace than Arya had ever seen any person move, "There are about a dozen of them to be dealt with. It will need to be done quickly and quietly. A light touch, one by one and gradually so as not to cause panic. Easy for a water dancer, I should imagine." The Dragon Queen smiled. Arya smiled back. She reached out a hand in comradeship and Daenerys took it. Needle would get to sew once more.
Arya Stark, assassin to the Dragon Queen, it whispered.
"Valar Morghulis." She whispered.