Renly's story had ended with the she-wolf and the stag celebrating the birth of their child. A stag he-wolf, Renly had called the baby. As fierce as a wolf, but as swift as a stag. "Wolves are swift too," Lyanna had said, pretending to be affronted.

"But wolves are fatter than stags, so they can't run as fast," Renly had replied solemnly.

Lyanna laughed. "Am I fatter than Stannis?"

"You are now," Renly said, touching her belly. He laughed, and then whispered. "It's only a jest, Lya. Are you angry?"

She kissed the top of his head. His hair smelled of the grass outside; Renly spent a lot of time daydreaming and staring at the sky. And making up stories about all the things he saw, Lyanna suspected. "No," she assured him. "I am not angry."

"When the baby comes, will you … will you still love me?" His voice was near tears suddenly. Lyanna was shocked. Where was this coming from?

"Of course I will," she said firmly. "And I'm counting on you to help me with the baby," Lyanna continued, smiling. "You are going to be an uncle."

"Uncle Renly," Renly said, his voice full of wonder. He started recounting all the things he would be teaching the baby, all the games they would be playing together, and the sound of his own voice finally carried him off to sleep. Lyanna adjusted the blanket covering Renly, and tried to fall asleep herself. But she was not as lucky as Renly.

Everyone was quite subdued at breakfast the next morning, even Renly, who was playing with his food instead of eating it, and who kept asking if Stannis had arrived in King's Landing yet. Lord Estermont had finally left, riding off before dawn. Lyanna knew it was improper for her to be relieved at his leaving, but relief was what she felt. It was not only Lord Estermont's whispered and hushed conversations with Lyanna's father that bothered her, it was also the fact that Lord Estermont clearly favored Robert over Stannis. His conversations were often peppered with fond reminiscences of how things were when Robert was the lord of Storm's End. It was one thing for outsiders to do it, Lyanna thought, but a grandfather should not show his preference so visibly, so clearly. She felt aggrieved on her husband's behalf.

Ned was the first to leave the table, to train with the men and knights. They were training every day now, instead of every other day; Stannis had left them with that instruction. Then Maester Cressen came to fetch Renly for his lesson, and Lyanna and her father were left alone at the table. She glanced at him a few times, but he was seemingly absorbed with the food.

"Have you heard anything from Stannis yet?" Her father was the one who broke the silence, to Lyanna's chagrin. What happened to her resolve to confront her father? She steeled herself, she must not lose her courage, when so much was at stake.

"No, he would not have written from the road. He would have waited until he reached the city," Lyanna replied.

"Is he planning to accept the appointment? As Hand of the King."

Lyanna shook her head. "I'm not sure."

Rickard Stark looked extremely skeptical, watching his daughter with raised eyebrows. "But surely he told you what his plans were. His own wife. When it comes to a matter of such importance as this, surely he shared his deliberation and decision with you."

Lyanna deflected the question. "Did you always tell Mother everything?"

Her father closed his eyes. Lyanna regretted her question already. "Forgive me, Father. I -"

Her father waved away her apology. "Not always. And not everything, certainly," he replied. "But I wish your mother is here right now. I could use her counsel right now," he continued softly.

Mother would have told you not to do anything that could endanger lives and risk a war, Lyanna wanted to tell her father. But was that really true? Lyanna was very young when he mother died, she had no idea what her mother really thought of anything.

She was a daughter, a sister, a wife. She was the Lady of Winterfell. And she was a woman and a person in her own right. But Lyanna knew nothing of those things.

I knew her only as my mother. And even then, only for such a short time.

She missed her mother so acutely at that moment, felt the loss so deeply it took her breath away. Lyanna raged at the opportunity robbed from her; to know her mother not just as a mother, but as a woman, as a person with fears and insecurities, doubts and uncertainties.

Mother, have you ever felt so anxious for someone, you woke up in the middle of the night screaming his name silently?

"Lya?" Her father had not called her Lya for a long time, not since he started talking about her betrothal and marriage. "You are Lady Lyanna of House Stark, and I will find a good match for you," he had told her, on her fourteenth nameday. The unspoken message clearly was – do not upset the plan by being your stubborn self. By being Lya the wild child.

The wild child who had delighted her father when she was younger, by always managing to keep up with her three brothers in everything. Riding, fighting, even cursing. But everything changed the day her moon-blood finally came. "You are a woman now, and you must act like a woman," her father had said.

She had loved her childhood and the freedom that she had, and would not have traded it for anything. Yet at times Lyanna wondered if it was more cruel to allow her a glimpse of that freedom, and then to have it snatched away so suddenly, all because "you are a woman now." Maybe if she had been raised like other girls, she would not have felt the loss of freedom so deeply or resented it so acutely.

But perhaps she would have resented her father all the more, for never allowing her that freedom, even as a child. She stared at her father across the table. He was carefully brushing off crumbs from his doublet. Lyanna smiled. Her father, so fastidious, so particular about everything. In some ways, just like her husband. The thought of Stannis wiped the smile off her face.

"What if Stannis accepts the appointment? To be King Aerys' Hand." Lyanna asked her father abruptly.

"I counseled him not to do that, before he left. I think it would be a mistake," her father said cautiously.

"Why? Why would it be a mistake?"

"Heavens child, you know why. The king is mad, off his head. It is only a matter of time before he does something truly terrible. Not that he hasn't already, but so far he's somehow been … wise enough to burn only the common folks," Rickard Stark's voice curdled with contempt saying the word 'wise'. "Most of the highborn lords are keen to close their eyes – well, it's not one of us he's burning. But it will be, soon enough. It will be. Mark my word."

"Did you tell Stannis this?"

"Yes, all that and more. But that husband of yours is a stubborn man. Rumors, he said. Whispers and rumors, never been proven. I suppose he would not believe it until he sees Aerys burning someone with his own eyes."

A horrifying thought struck her suddenly, something she cursed herself for not considering much sooner. And what if Stannis refuses the appointment and the king … the king …

Lyanna dared not finish the thought. Was it too late to write to Stannis now, to implore him to accept? How far was he from King's Landing at the moment? How would a raven even find him before he reached the city?

But then what would happen if her father threw his support behind Rhaegar against the king? Her husband, at war with her father and her brothers? How was she supposed to live with that?

I should have told him not to go. I should have begged him, pleaded with him. I should have coerced him not to leave his family, his pregnant wife, if begging and pleading do not work. Why should it matter if it will make him think a lot less of me? As long as he lives. As long as he does not come to harm.

But would it? Ensure that he lived? The king would have taken Stannis' refusal to come to King's Landing as a graver offense, Lyanna thought. As proof of treason, perhaps. Proof that Stannis was in league with Rhaegar.

How do you choose, when there are no good choices left? When all routes lead to danger and ruin?