Sorry for the lack of updates. I was planning on writing more, but then Christmas was effectively cancelled - no trip to see my elderly parents. Probably a good thing as they are at risk and as Dad said we are now having Christmas in February instead. He had the vaccine last week and Mum gets it this week, so there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Stay safe everyone.

Jon Arryn

He sat at his desk and then ran a hand over his face before looking at the Grand Maester with a certain amount of weary confusion. "So, my wife has recovered from the fever that she had after her trip from the Foxhold, but you are still not sure if I should confront her?"

Pycelle sat there for a long moment, his shoulders slumped in what looked like genuine concern.

"Lord Arryn, your wife – or former wife after all she has done – was grievously wounded and has barely recovered from that wound. There was also a certain amount of… mental disarrangement, if I might be permitted to describe it as that. Her actions surrounding your son and getting him addicted to his 'medicine' speaks of… well, it says that she was not well, mentally speaking, at the very least. Sending your son to Winterfell and then executing the traitor Baelish seems to have accelerated that decline, which lead to her vicious attack on you. Your wife veers between being stable and being unstable. I cannot predict how she will therefore react when she lays eyes on you. My Lord… she might attack you again."

He sat there for a long moment. "Grand Maester, that is a risk that I must be willing to take." He paused again, thinking of the times that he and Lysa had gone through. And then: "She tried to kill me after I killed the man that she had betrayed me with. Baelish was a traitor, he committed crimes that I still cannot understand. And yet she was obsessed with him. And tried to kill me as a result. But, as she is the mother of my son and heir, I must question her."

Pycelle absorbed this with a worried frown – and then closed his eyes and nodded slowly. "I understand, my Lord. In which case I suggest that you go in with a trusted man, just in case." And with that he stood, bowed, and shuffled out.

He sat there for a while, thinking about his past wives. Was he cursed? Jeyne had died birthing a stillborn daughter. Rowena had died of a chill without giving him any children. Lysa had had many miscarriages before delivering him a son – whom she had cossetted, kept close to her and poisoned to make sure that he depended on her.

Enough. Enough. He stood up. "Quill?"

His faithful servant stepped forwards. "My Lord?"

"It's time to see my wife." He gripped the dagger at his hip and then smiled a mirthless smile. "Be mindful of her… instability."

"Aye, My Lord."

They pattered down the steps of the Tower of the Hand and then made their way across the courtyard to the Red Keep. The palace was quieter than it was normally due to the absence of the King and the actual Hand, making it rather more pleasant to be around. That said, as he climbed several flights of stairs and approached the room in which Lysa was being kept a ball of vague dread formed in his stomach. He was not looking forward to this.

As the door opened he could see that Lysa was sitting in a chair by the fire, looking at it with a hopeless, dead-eyed stare. He stepped into the room, Quill behind him, and as the door closed Lysa finally turned to see who had entered the room. The moment she laid eyes on him she froze with shock, her eyes widening almost comically.

He eyed her wearily, before walking over to the nearest chair and sitting down, conscious that Quill was glaring at Lysa the entire time. Only then did he look at her. "Lysa."

She looked at him with eyes that were filled with horror, before her mouth opened and then shut several times as if she had no idea what to say to him.

The best response was a sardonic look and then a slight smile. "Yes, you failed to kill me." He leant back, feeling weary of this already. "I want to know why."

Confusion filled her face. "Why?"

"Why you betrayed me. Why Baelish? I knew that you knew him as a child, but given his crimes… why listen to that snake? And why poison our son Robert?"

She shook her head. "SweetRobin! That's his name! He… he needs me!"

He sighed and then looked back at Quill, who was a stone-faced and hard-eyed presence at the door. "This might take some time."

It did. Lysa was afraid of him, shaking with fear, but whenever he mentioned the hated name of Petyr Baelish the words bubbled – perhaps that should have been babbled – out of her. Dear Petyr this and dear Petyr that. She'd pressed Jon to give him position after position because she knew how good he was – whilst not knowing how he was achieving that success, the corruption that spread around him, the secret loans, the theft, the bribery, the lies and of course the murders. Oh and the poisonings.

Baelish had had quite the collection of poisons in those places that he doubtless fondly thought were secret. The one that still gave him chills was the one marked Tears of Lys, along with a note that "Lysa can be prevailed upon to use this if Arryn starts asking awkward questions".

But it was the poison that she had been giving their son that he wanted to know more about. Again – why?

She didn't make a lot of sense at first – he was her precious child, the miracle child, the child that she loved and who had to stay close to her, had to stay safe, had be safe, had to stay small and on her lap and drink her milk and be mothered and if he was given the right medicine then he'd need her forever and ever and ever. And then she said the words that lightened his heart just a fraction, despite the hateful way that she hissed them: "He shouldn't have been your son! He should have been Petyr's son! It wasn't right! Petyr should have been his father!"

He'd been sure that Robert was his son – he looked like an Arryn. But it was good to have that final piece of proof. He looked over at Quill after she spat the words and the other man nodded as if to say that he'd heard the words and could swear witness that he'd heard them.

And then Lysa let out a torrent of hatred against him for killing 'Dear Petyr', who should have been her husband. All she had to do was kill him (why was he not dead after she had stabbed him?) and Petyr would come back and save her and love her and be her husband and give her more children because she deserved them and Catelyn did not, not with her Northern savage of a husband. She became quite animated in her madness, until he finally tired of it all and stood up abruptly, making her flinch and fall silent.

"We have 'Dear Petyr's books and his writings," he said heavily. "He seems to have seen you as a useful idiot. A clingy useful idiot. If he was in love with anyone – if such a man could love anything – then it was your sister, Catelyn Stark. Never mind. You are here and you have confessed to trying to kill me, to betraying me with Baelish, who was a traitor, and to poisoning my son and heir – the heir to the Lord Paramountcy of the Vale. If we were at the Eyrie then I'd now have ordered you dragged to the Moon Door by now and flung through. Instead I will execute you myself at dawn tomorrow. I should use the same means that Baelish died by, but you are or were my wife and as the mother of our child you deserve a quick death. So I'll take your head myself. Your father by the way has denounced you as being no Tully, just a disgrace. We will meet again tomorrow, one last time. Prepare yourself."

And with that he turned and walked out of the door, passing Quill who was glaring at Lysa before following him out of the door. It was only after the door slammed closed and was locked firmly by Quill that they both heard the screams and the wails from Lysa.

"I will sharpen my sword myself, Quill," he said quietly as they walked down the corridor. "And have my armour polished and a clean surcoat made ready. She has shamed House Arryn and by all the Gods House Arryn, so the head of House Arryn will execute her. Don't give me that look Quill, I have enough strength for this."

Quill bowed his head reluctantly and then strode off, leaving Jon with the dark thought that at some point he would have to tell his son that he had personally executed his mother.

But it had to be done. "As High as Honour." He could do no less.

Daenerys

Her dragons were trying to learn how to fly. It was instinctive, or so the books said. She wondered about the books at times. Dry words on dry pages, with many theories across them. There were times when she looked at the range of books and wanted to droop, to lower her head against the table and cry.

She was so alone.

Oh, the servants were friendly and the food they produced was excellent. She walked twice a day in the hills around Bolthole, knowing that there would always be an Unsullied guard somewhere in sight watching for threats, but she knew that despite the others she was as alone as she had been in Pentos after the fire.

There were times when she almost wished that Viserys was still alive. Yes, in his last days he must have been as mad as she now knew that Father had been, but he had still been family and above all he had been a Valyrian.

Valyria. It haunted her dreams at times. A great empire reduced to ashes by… what? What had the Doom been? There were a lot more theories in the books about the Doom. Some said that it had been a fireball from the sky. Others that it had been a fireball from the sea. Some said that it had been from the ground itself, that the Valyrians had twisted the land, misused its magic until eventually something had broken and warped in a terrible way.

Whatever the cause – Valyria was now gone. Anyone who went there never came back.

The Valyrians had known everything about dragons though and she wished that even just one of them could be there with her, to teach her dragons. She had finally named them. The little black one was Balerion, because why not? It was an illustrious name. The green one was Rhaegal, after her brother. She was a bit confused about that one, but in the books it seemed to make sense. And the white one she had named after her great-great and then something Aemon – Aemaerion.

She really hoped that she had gotten the Valyrian names right.

And now she was watching as her dragons tried to fly. They were fumbling. They were falling and she had to rush in several times to pick them up and stroke them and reassure them and then place them back on the bench on which they were perched.

But they were starting to fly. To glide at least, with a few flaps of the wing. She was willing them to fly. She wanted them to fly.

They would fly. It would happen in the next few days. And it both encouraged her and terrified her. They had to fly. The last dragon that her family had possessed had been a stunted thing that had never really flown. Why had it not? Had it been a plot against her family? So her dragons had to fly, had to keep growing, had to become big and strong. But what if they flew away somewhere and never came back?

They were her children. And she didn't want to be alone.

She'd written another letter to her great-grand uncle on the Wall, begging him for any wisdom he could give her. She didn't know when or even if he would respond to her, but… she hoped he would. She hoped.

Varys had at least sent her a letter. It had made her feel ill, because it had confirmed the news that her father had been truly mad, that there had indeed been wildfire under the Red Keep and so many other places. And he had added a postscript, telling of what Prince Oberyn's daughter had seen at the Wall. Of wights and actual Others out of legend.

The thought of those things – dead people walking and creatures that looked as if they were carved from ice – made her shiver, even though she was perfectly warm here in deserted Andalos.

So – what to do? Varys had made it very clear that the Targaryen cause in Westeros was at a low ebb, lower than it had ever been, at the moment. But there were creatures from her blackest nightmares marching on the Wall and she felt… an odd pull West. She had not heard the Call, but perhaps she sensed it thanks to the trickle of Blackwood blood in her?

If there was no support in Westeros then why go there? But if she felt that pull then surely she had to?

It was all enough to give her a headache at times. Varys had it right – she had been pushed out of the nest and now she had to learn to fly, just as much as her dragons. Because the ground was rushing up before her.

She heard the sound of boots and then looked over to see one of the Unsullied standing before her. He nodded sharply and then removed his helmet. Ah. It was Grey Slime and once again she cursed the men who had named the individual Unsullied.

"Lady Targaryen."

She didn't correct him. She didn't know if she was a Princess still or not. "May I help you?" She would not call him by that name.

"Word from Pentos has come. The Braavosi are looking for you. Hunting you perhaps. We should be safe here, but we will still set guards."

She froze for a moment and then sighed and nodded. "Very well. I will write to Lord Varys." The Unsullied replaced his helmet, nodded formally and then walked off, but then she raised her voice again: "Unsullied?"

He turned and looked back at her.

"You and your brothers need new names. Free names. I will write as such to Lord Varys."

For the first time she saw genuine shock in the eyes of one of the Unsullied. He nodded again, more briskly and then left quickly, leaving her to watch the antics of her dragons, with little Balerion finally taking to the skies with a great flapping of wings.

She hoped that she'd get a response from the Wall.

Asha

She loved the sea. Being back on a ship had made her sigh with relief, but they'd been on a river at first and rivers were not the sea. Rivers limited your course, rivers had too many shallows, rivers hemmed you in.

The sea was different. The smell of the spray, the sound of the gulls, the sight of the dolphins gambolling alongside the ship as they cut through the waves… it felt like she could, wind willing, steer her ship anywhere in the world on a whim.

She looked ahead from her current perch at the crow's nest on the mainmast. She felt as if she had been away from Harlaw for a year instead of the months that it had been. No further news of battles or skirmishes had come from the Iron Islands and she'd been both encouraged and made nervous by that. She knew that the peace would only last for a short time, until Nuncle Rodrik met Father – and she had no idea what Father was planning.

It still made her uneasy, that she could not trust Father anymore, but there was no other way to view the matter. Father had thrown his lot in with Damphair, who was just insane, and after all her time in the North – what she had not just heard of but actually seen in front of her eyes – she knew that that was madness.

Barrowtown had left a mark on her. Seeing those… those things in the mist had chilled her very blood.

She shivered a little and then looked down. Ygritte was at the prow, looking out at the waves with a look of awe on her face. The Wildling girl had stopped throwing up all over the place, which was a mercy, and was watching the sea with a look of wonder.

Jon bloody Stark had better treat that girl well.

Something tickled in her nose for a moment and she looked ahead again, narrowing her eyes a little, before taking a look at where the sun was in the sky. Given the wind, how long they'd been sailing… could it be Harlaw already on the far horizon?

It was. The island loomed before them after a while and she descended down to the deck and took the helm herself, peering ahead at the landmarks and then setting a course for Ten Towers.

She could tell that they were being watched from the shore and the moment that she clapped eyes on the island she had the banner of House Harlaw and her own personal standard hoisted. Nuncle Rodrik needed to know that she was back as soon as possible.

That said, she was glad to see a pair of ships ahead of them as they sailed down the coast to Ten Towers. Guardships. She used her Myrish spyglass to view them and saw a man with one looking back at her. They passed with waves of acknowledgement and something of a weight came off her shoulders.

Harlaw still stood.

By the time that they finally beat in to the harbour at Ten Towers she could see that a crowd had assembled at the wharf. And at the head of the crowd was a familiar figure. Lord Rodrik Harlaw was there. She took a deep breath. She was not looking forwards to this.

As the ship was steered towards the wharf and the sails were furled, the passengers started to assemble on the deck and as Stannis Baratheon emerged, surcoat of yellow and black on his chest and flanked by his guards, the crowd saw him and started to mutter.

This was what she had been afraid of. Iron Islanders still remembered – and resented – the battle of Fair Isle. Greenlanders weren't supposed to win sea battles against Ironborn and yet, led by Stannis Baratheon, they had smashed the Iron Fleet at Fair Isle.

But then, as she snapped the orders that brought the ship to moor at the wharf and the crowd really started to mutter, something else happened. Jon Stark and Theon both made an appearance on deck with their direwolves. Jon was wearing a Stark surcoat and Theon his Greymist one, but her brother also held a Stark banner in his hands. And the moment that the direwolves padded into view the crowd fell silent.

The moment that the mooring was complete and the railed gangplank went down Stannis Baratheon strode down it, not even touching the handrails. His guards followed him, along with Jon and Theon and their direwolves, with Asha trailing.

At first Nuncle Rodrik's white and strained face was focussed on the Baratheon on the dock and she knew that he had to be thinking of his dead sons. But then she could see his eyes take in the fist pin on the chest of the other man. "My Lord Hand." He said the words flatly but then bowed formally and she let out a sigh of almost relief as she heard him say those three words.

"Lord Harlaw." Stannis Baratheon nodded in recognition before looking about. "The Iron Throne recognises your voice here. And supports you. The Iron Throne heard the Call as well."

There was another bout of muttering that ended as Nuncle Rodrik bowed again, even more deeply. "My thanks my Lord Hand." And then he looked at Jon Stark. "You would be a Stark then? A son of Lord Stark?"

The young man who looked so much like his father nodded at that and then took a step forwards, one hand on the head of his very alert direwolf. "I am Jon Stark, the son of Eddard Stark. You can all see my direwolf, Ghost, here. And I was there, with Lord Greymist here, when the Call was sent! The Others come! The Stark calls for aid!" He took a deep breath. "YOU ARE NEEDED!"

There was a moment of stunned silence and then the crowd erupted into wild cheering. She closed her eyes and sighed deeply as she released the strain that had been on her. When she opened her eyes Nuncle Rodrik was standing in front of her.

"I hoped that you'd bring a letter of support from the King, not the Hand of the King!" He sighed and gave her a strained smile. "Stannis Baratheon is an awkward man. That said… he'll be the marlinspike to the head that your father won't expect."

"There'll be more than one marlinspike to the head," she muttered, as she jerked a thumb in the direction of Theon, who was still standing there with his bloody direwolf. "Lord Greymist? He's my brother Theon."

Nuncle Rodrik eyed Theon and his direwolf and then looked back at her. "You what?"

"He's renounced the Greyjoy name and heritage. Says that the moment that Father started to rebuild the Iron Fleet he also all but gave up on him." She paused for a long and reluctant moment. "He speaks the truth to be honest."

There was a moment of silence and then her uncle started to laugh. "So," he said eventually, "Your brother has inflicted his own form of vengeance on your father? You are now his only heir?"

"I am." She almost spat the words.

Nuncle Rodrik nodded again. "Good – you deserve to be." He looked at Stannis Baratheon and Jon and Theon. "We need to get them all up to the Towers."

"Nuncle, there's lot I need to tell you about."

"And I you. I need to ask you about what the Stonebrows said about me passing on what I know to my sons."

She cringed a little. "Nuncle, that must have been because-"

"My wife is pregnant." He said the words with a certain astonishment and wonder in his voice.

She blinked at that. "Nuncle," she said eventually. "You old dog!"

To her amusement he blushed. "Asha, I'm only human."