Cerelle's breath fogs in front of her, and dawn has not yet broken. Her breath is labored. Blood drips from her sword. At her feet, a man is chocking in his own blood. She knows if she looks up, the field will be littered with bodies.
"Gods, you're never more alive than when you kill someone."
When she turns around, Father is there, wearing black and gold. He has his warhammer with him, and rubies litter his feet.
"Don't you love the way your heart beats? Don't you feel invincible?" Father takes a step forward, and she takes a step back.
She stumbles.
She looks down.
Robb is looking at the sky, and his hair is red with blood, and his hands are around his neck, trying to keep the blood in, and when he looks at her—
She wakes.
The world spins as she does so.
Cerelle stays where she is, hopes it will pass. She is alone in the tent, Robb most likely already training. She breathes deeply, wills the nausea in the back of her throat down.
It does not pass, and she has to rush to the chamber pot in the corner of the tent to be sick. Her throat burns and her eyes water, and when she finishes, she feels exhausted.
She hears the armor before his voice. She knows he will say the same he did yesterday.
"Your Grace," Ser Aedan says. "I beg of you."
"No." She wipes her mouth, leaning back from the mess she has made. Ser Aedan offers her water, and she accepts it to wash her mouth.
"It is the third day you have been sick."
"It is the nightmares, Ser." Cerelle shakes her head, rises to her feet.
She dismisses Ser Aedan and begins dressing, and pointedly does not think about it.
Lady Catelyn comes into their tent in near tears two days after, at night. Cerelle and Robb are sharing meat and bread, exhausted from a day full of meetings to decide what comes next, quite ready to call it a day and go to bed. Robb has just made a quip about something Olyvar, his squire, did at training, and she's laughing about it, just about raising her cup to her mouth, when Lady Catelyn enters.
"I would speak with my son, alone," Lady Catelyn announces, letting the flap close behind her. It was clearly a mistake not to tell the guards not to let anyone bother them. They could have been in a much more embarrassing position.
Cerelle shares a look with Robb, lowering her cup and clearing her throat.
"Mother. It's late. Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of both of us."
"It would not be wise." Lady Catelyn shakes her head, one hand gripping the other.
Cerelle sighs, pushing her chair back to get up. Robb puts his hand in front of her to stop her.
"No," he says to her, and then turns to face his mother. "She is my queen. Anything that concerns me, concerns her."
"If that is what you want. I come from the Kingslayer's cell." Lady Catelyn takes a seat in the other end of the table, reaching for a cup and pouring herself wine.
"Why would you—?!" Robb starts, but Lady Catelyn interrupts him before he can say more.
"He pushed Bran from that tower, Robb. He told me so himself!" She slams both the cup and the jar into the table, and wine spills over the rim of her cup.
Cerelle stares. And stares. And stares. A little puddle forms around the cup. Robb is shaking his head, his hand going to his mouth and chin.
"Did he tell you why?" she asks when it seems neither one of them will speak first.
"He wanted the fall to kill him. He would not tell me why, what Bran saw."
She cannot speak. She closes her eyes so she does not have to see their faces.
It had never been Tyrion, after all, but Jaime. Either way, Lady Catelyn had been right, it had been a Lannister.
She wonders if at some point, she will become detached from the pain. To the things her blood family have done to the Starks.
They keep marching. That's what an army does. March.
First, to liberate Raventree Hall, then the plan is to liberate Stone Hedge, and then further into the Westerlands, to attack everyone and everything until the Iron Throne surrenders.
Because right now, the Iron Throne is only the Crownlands and the Westerlands. The Vale remains neutral, as does Dorne. The Stormlands and the Reach are backing Renly, and the Riverlands and the North are theirs.
However, things are not as easy as they plan them to be. In their efforts to liberate Raventree, Cerelle is kicked hard enough to break some ribs. The fight was, luckily, already dying out, but it makes finishing all that harder.
The master tends to her, afterwards, and forbids her from fighting and training for at least a month and gives her a sour tasting tea that dulls the pain, and it means she cannot fight in Stone Hedge and is in the strategy tent with Lady Catelyn when Stannis' letter reaches them, in the morning just after training. She's sick on the grass just outside the tent after the words are read out loud. In the same letter he had named her trueborn and her brothers and sister bastards, he had named himself rightful King.
They are grave accusations.
So she cleans her lips with the back of her hand and marches herself through camp. She walks with her head held high, and while her steps are determined, she has to go slow. The tea helps with her broken ribs, but still certain movements make the pain flair. It is dangerous, going alone, but her fury does not allow her to call for guards or even Ser Aedan.
She reaches the cells, if they can be called that, and the guards move aside without her even having to ask. She is half drunk on this power she has found herself with now thanks to her new title, and half terrified of what it could bring out of her.
"I come to see the Kingslayer," she says, and one of them nods and opens his cage.
Her uncle is a sad sight. He's skinny and dirty, slumped against his post. She wonders if he has sores from leaning so much. She wonders if he still has all his toes. It is not comforting, even if she hates him right now.
"The Queen in the North," her uncle intones, sardonic in his taunting. Right in the middle of all the mud on his face, his eyes still shine when he rises them to look at her. Her own mother's eyes staring back at her. Joffrey's eyes. Myrcella's eyes. Tommen's eyes.
"Did you push Bran from the tower?" she asks before she can stop herself, the question falling from her mouth without her permission.
"I see Lady Catelyn is not one for secrets," he says, and seals his fate with it.
"They are saying I am my father's trueborn child," she says, rolling her shoulders, trying to find a way to put to words what has been a true punch to the gut. The walk has not been enough time to think.
"Well, who else would be your father? Renly?" Jaime snorts.
"My father's only trueborn child. They are saying my brothers and sister are bastards, not true Baratheons at all."
"Which would make Stannis the true King, wouldn't it? Or you, the true Queen? Rhaenyra Targaryen come again, I'm sure. Robert with teats."
"They are saying they are your children," she spats out, fists shaking, and Jaime falls silent at that, his smile falling. "And I thought. Surely not. Surely it is impossible. But you pushed Bran from a window and admitted to it. And that day—that day was the hunt. I myself rode to the Wolfswood to bring the news. And you—you stayed behind. I thought. Well. A Kingsguard had to be assigned to the children and the Queen. But you weren't there when I went to see them. So you were with Mother. So Bran saw something between the both of you that made you push him—" she cuts herself off with a shaky breath, on the verge of tears. "Say something."
"I did not think you would believe things like that. And about your mother." He almost sounds mocking. If what she says has shaken him, he does not show it.
She marches into the cell and slaps him across the face. He lets his face hang. He could kick her, make her fall and bash her head in, if he wanted. He doesn't.
"Deny it," she says through her clenched teeth. "Say it is a vile lie made up to discredit Joffrey's claim to the throne."
Jaime locks his eyes with her. Even his neck is chained to the post.
"It is a vile lie, made up to discredit Joffrey's claim to the throne," he says, slowly and clearly, like she is a child again and he is repeating himself for the third time when he said her father was busy.
She almost believes him. She wants to believe him.
But she can't.
She screams herself hoarse just past the tree line, and punches a tree and kicks at it. The throb of her ribs is a welcome pain, just like the pain of her hands on her hair, tugging and tugging and tugging until that is the only thing she can think about, that and her scream and the burning on her chest that has nothing to do with what she has found out.
When she composes herself, after emptying her stomach and drying her tears, she comes back to the tent. All the Lords are now there, and all fall silent when she enters.
"What do you think, Your Grace?" the Greatjon is the first to dare to speak, after she halts herself at the entrance.
"I…" She looks around the table of Lords, catches the eyes of Lady Catelyn, looking at her with pity. Honorable, dutiful Catelyn Stark, what will she think of Cerelle now?
Be a lioness, her mother's voice says in the back of her mind, distant and maybe just the ghost of it, and she can taste bile in the back of her throat. When was it that her mother had given up that idea? Had it before or after Myrcella had been born?
"Your Grace?" someone asks, and she shakes her head, making her way to her seat.
Once she has positioned herself, she takes a fortifying breath, and starts speaking what she has been trying to piece together in the last hour.
There is uproar when she announces Jaime Lannister to have confessed pushing Brandon Stark from a tower. There are shouts of 'Ned's own son!' and 'In Winterfell!' and 'boy of ten'. She raises a hand, and slowly, silence comes back. Robb stays silent by her side, his hand on the table, reaching, like he wants to hold her hand but won't in front of everyone.
She follows up with knowing the Kingsguards assigned to the Queen and children were Jaime Lannister and Arys Oakheart, but that only the latter had been there when she visited. Her mother had been absent. She closes her eyes to compose herself, but it is a mistake, for all she sees is Bran's broken body in the ground, and all she can remember are her fervent prayers, clutching his little hand on hers, and the way her heart had echoed on her ears and in her throat. She has to breathe slowly again so she does not do something foolish like cry or be sick.
Over and over, her family has broken her heart. The perfection her mother had set on her, with her perfect blonde hair and her spine of steel, her younger children as beautiful as her. Too far from reach for Cerelle, with her raven hair and her Baratheon temperament. Her mother loved her, and her mother only saw her father in her and hated her for it.
Then Jon Arryn—Gods, Jon, she had almost forgotten it—Bran, Lord Stark, this war. They had started it, and here Cerelle was, all of ten and seven and with a crown not hers by right nor hers by choice.
So she looks ahead, squared her shoulders, and breaks her heart for the last time.
"I believe it could be true."
When they are finally alone, Cerelle collapses on Robb's arms, exhaustion deep in her bones.
"I am so tired," she sobs, pulling him even closer by fistfuls of his cape. "I don't want to be hurt by them, over and over again. By their lies, by the things they've done. If the gods could give me one gift, it would be not to be a Lannister."
"Life is not that way," Robb says, rubbing her back. "We cannot choose our family, nor our blood."
Cerelle kept crying. How could Robb understand? With his parent who loved each other, a father that had been there for them, that had died for the lies her mother had kept, for the treason she had committed. Robb would never know what it was like to hate someone you loved your whole life. It tore you apart. It was tearing her apart that very moment, even if she wanted nothing more than to stop feeling.
Her sobs have barely subsided when, from outside, a guard calls for them. She pulls herself together the best she can before the man is called to enter. After him, a familiar boy comes in.
"Your Graces," the boy bows in front of them.
"Wyl," Robb says, nodding for the guard to leave. "More news?"
"Another letter, Your Grace. For Queen Cerelle."
He offers her a letter. Another sigil-less orange seal. She beckons Robb closer and allows him to read from her side. The letter is not long.
Dearest friend. My ship is in need of a captain. I cannot tell when the winds will be right for such a long journey. I shall return to you the wolf pelt you asked me to look after if you send me a captain that can protect it.
"What is your trade route?" Cerelle asks, folding the letter and tucking it in one of the pockets of her sleeve as Robb hurries to fetch a map of Westeros.
"Between King's Landing and Braavos, Your Grace. We stop at Gulltown and other ports in between."
"Thank you, Wyl." The guard is called back inside and ordered to find Wyl a place to stay and food to eat while Robb rolls out the map on their little table. It's smaller than the one in the tent where they hold meetings, but it will do its job.
She takes her place at Robb's side and uses her finger to trace a path along the coast, from King's Landing and further and further North until it stops being the Crownlands.
"Maidenpool?"
"Too close to the Lannister's army." Robb shakes his head, his eyes searching and searching, his mind running miles and miles a second.
She keeps tracing her path, up and up, past Saltpans, too close to Harrenhall as well. She skips the Vale and goes straight to the nearest place to home.
"We could pay them to take her to White Harbor, send her straight to Winterfell."
Robb shakes his head again, his lips a pale line across his face.
"That is what they would expect we would do."
Cerelle sighs.
"They will cover most of their bases. If Maidenpool is too close to them, and White Harbor too obvious..." She let her finger wander down, stopping at Gulltown. No suspicion would arise for a boat that already had planned the stop and..."The Vale is neutral. Maybe people would be less inclined to give her away. Sansa is their Lord's cousin. That has to mean something."
Robb keeps looking at the Vale, suddenly shaking his head and turning to search for others maps they have.
"I don't think that matters much to my Aunt," he says as he finds the Vale's map, laying it on top of Westeros'. "But it might mean something to their bannermen. My father was a ward at the Eyrie, he knew plenty of them. The Vale is honorable, and they might want to shield Ned Stark's daughter. Now we need someone to take her from Gulltown to the North."
"I would suggest someone from the Vale itself. Ser Aedan—" The name has barely left her lips before Robb is interrupting him.
"I will not have you without your sword when you cannot fight. No."
"Soon my rest will be lifted. I am nearly healed. Ser Aedan hails from near Ironoaks, I believe. He may be able to take her from port to Riverrun." But Robb is already shaking his head.
"You just supported the claim of bastardy of your brothers and sister. We don't know what they might want to do to you. No. There must be someone else. "
"We'll need someone Sansa knows. Someone she can trust, otherwise she might not take the chance."
They share a look. There might be someone Sansa has known nearly her whole life, who she could know was who he said he was. He might not be the knight of the songs Sansa might expect, but he would most likely get her back home safe.
"There is another reason I want Ser Aedan by your side." Robb leans away from the table and turns her to him, taking one of her hands in his. "I need you to go negotiate with one of your Uncles."
"Stannis?"
"Renly," Robb says, looking at her hands on his.
"Renly has no rightful claim to the throne." She frowns, searching for his eyes, but Robb will not look at her.
"He has 100,000 men, and by what you have told me, might be more willing to talk."
"Renly is no king. He barely knows anything about ruling. He spent more time at masquerades and balls at court than ever ruling Storm's End. His position as Master of Law was a joke! We can't just back any man willing to provide men, Robb."
"I don't care who sits on the Iron Throne!"
"I do! I care! Six kingdoms, one king! We are at war, Robb, and winter is coming. We need a good king, or we'll doom the rest of the continent and ourselves with it."
"I care about my people. I care about finding Arya, and getting Sansa back, and the North remaining independent. And for all of that, we need men, someone willing to negotiate. And the Reach for winter."
"And if Renly won't give you independence?"
"Then we try Stannis."
Cerelle sighs, allows Robb to tug her close, to place a kiss on her hair, on her nose, on her lips. She puts her hands on his shoulders, allows them a few seconds—then she pushes him away and gets back to business.
"I need to know what you are willing to give up."
So they sit and discuss things until deep into the night. What Robb is willing to compromise, and what he is not. Who he is willing to give up.
Marriages for Bran, Arya, Sansa. Anything under Moat Cailin's lands, for he is not their King, never crowned a King of the Riverlands. Only of the North.
Joffrey and Cersei's heads, as long as they do not stay on their shoulders.