Chapter 5: Ignite
A/N: Thank you for the wonderful comments and continuing to support our story.
Disclaimer: I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire and its adaptation, Game of Thrones.
Never had Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen had reason to fear fire. Her brother had always boasted of how it ran in their veins, of how they were dragons, long before he ever went mad. She feared his outbursts, yes, but that was not fire. It was the madness she had heard others whisper about behind their backs, thinking they would not notice. She wouldn't blame them, for servants always thought themselves beneath the gaze of nobles and royals.
So when her brother had spoken of dragon eggs and of the need for 'fire and blood', she had not been afraid. Daenerys understood it was their fate, as Targaryens and as dragons.
As she stared upon Illyrio Mopatis, the Cheesemonger, the man who took her and her brother in, who helped Viserys plot a political marriage between her and a Dothraki Khal, she almost wanted to smile at the fear that lingered in his beady .
"Your—your majesty!" Illyrio cried as oil was poured over him. He spluttered when some got into his mouth. His hands were restrained by chains, which had been wrapped around his arms at the pit and elbow. "Please! Mercy! Mercy!" he begged, pulling against them.
Her brother stared down at the magister, his lilac eyes unreadable. He stepped back as masked men in leather armor returned to the small chamber. They were lithe, one taller than the other, and moved with sureness despite their betrayal.
The Unsullied had been silent as they went about their duty. They had been quick to chain Illyrio to the wall, the chest of dragon eggs set beside him. There were several bundles of firewood around him, sprinkled with rich tapestries of yellows and greens, blues, and violets, and even a few with plenty of red and black.
"Life for life, Illyrio," her brother declared as the Unsullied stepped away. The large ceramic jugs they held appeared light in their hands. When he gestured with his head, silvery hair fluttering, they tossed the jugs onto the pile around their former master. "Life for life. If dragons are to rule the skies again, they must be awoken from stone."
A few seconds passed as the magister stared at Viserys; and then the moment realization struck came. Daenerys saw it in his eyes, heard it in his sobs, and smelled it in the putrid scent of urine that underlined the cloying pressure of oil.
"Brother," she whispered, turning to him. "If he wishes for mercy, then give it to him." She peered at the man, the one who had convinced her brother of approaching Khal Drogo.
Viserys glanced at her, and Daenerys hated that she flinched from him. It wasn't as severe as it might have been a few days ago, but it happened despite her desire otherwise. Something dark twisted in her brother's gaze as his lips pruned into a wilted rosebud. His gaze swiveled back to Illyrio, a fire burning in those terrible lilacs.
"My sister is generous, magister. She would have you die quickly, instead of being in pain and terror; a mercy, indeed."
"Mer—mercy?" the magister babbled. "You call this mercy?"
Her brother was silent for a time. The shouting and screaming from elsewhere within the manse had died down, though Daenerys heard a few cries, here and there. They were weak, fading, and she had to stop herself from wondering if the Dothraki might be drawing near to where they were.
"This is a king's mercy," Viserys eventually said. "You will die for a greater purpose. One day your name will adorn the histories of this world."
"You say that as if you'll retake your throne!"
"Doubt not a man with three dragons."
And with that, he took a torch from one of the Unsullied and threw it upon the Cheesemonger, coated in oil and bedded on wood. He bellowed, but chains restrained his hands and arms too tightly for any of his flailing to risk the spreading flames. By the time they reached him, red and hungry, it would be too late.
Viserys continued to watch, pensive and tight-lipped. Daenerys could only watch him for so long before her gaze wandered. She was quick to look away from Illyrio; it had been difficult enough to ignore his screams when the flames had reached him. Staring would make it all too real and learning that cooked human flesh smelled of rancid pork left her feeling right queasy.
Her gaze settled upon the two Unsullied, who remained with them. She was still surprised they had chosen her brother over their master, yet their steadfast presence in this smoky, broiling room proved their valor.
"May I ask your names?" she asked, knowing they knew the same High Valyrian she had grown up speaking.
The taller man nodded before saying, "This one is Grey Worm, and that one is White Rat." The way he gestured to his fellow and how he spoke left her with a strange bereft feeling in her heart, as if she had witnessed something truly wrong.
"Go and be free, then," she said, struggling to find something that might make the world a little better, more right. "Do not linger if you value your lives. I cannot promise your safety if you remain."
The Unsullied glanced at each other. With their masks still in place, all they could communicate with was their eyes. It appeared to be enough, for when they turned back to Daenerys, she could see in their dark eyes that they already had an answer for her.
"Our lives are not the only ones which matter, but if you wish for this one to be safe…" Grey Worm turned to his fellow Unsullied. "We shall wait for you two elsewhere."
Daenerys frowned as they went, wondering exactly what they meant. Would they be right outside the door? Down the hall? Perhaps they would retreat all the way to outside of the manse, to patrol the boundary for Dothraki. It would be too late on that front, for she could hear them rampaging through the upper levels of the manse.
Regardless, that would not be the last they would see of Grey Worm and White Rat. She hoped they would accept her offer and go, filled with a desire to be free.
She turned back to the fire. It had risen, consuming half of the room. There were narrow shafts along the top of the chamber, set at intervals just enough to draw most of the smoke out of the room. Daenerys glanced at the door, left half ajar as smoke billowed out into the hallway. For a moment, she considered closing the door. It would hide their presence longer. Yet would the shafts be enough to clear the smoke from the room? She didn't know, and she wasn't willing to take that chance.
Smoke was still a danger to dragons.
Her brother suddenly stepped forward, entering the hungry flames licking out toward them. Daenerys nearly reached out to grab his sleeve and pull him back. She hesitated, afraid his anger might come down upon her. She pushed away that fear, watching out the flames licked around Viserys. They caught on his clothes and his hair, but his skin was left untouched. Not even a hint of black soot caught upon the sharp angles of his face and shoulders.
He turned back to her, lilac eyes glowing as the flames coalesced around him. Whatever screams Illyrio had been releasing were gone now, as dead as him. Viserys raised a hand toward her; it was a kind, offering gesture, one she had forgotten he was capable of. She stepped forward and took his hand.
'Dragons do not burn,' whispered a voice. It was thick, layered, as if the generations of Targaryens who had come before her were all speaking. 'Dragons do not burn, Daenerys Targaryen. Come, Stormborn. Come and be the Mother of Dragons.'
Daenerys glided as her brother drew her into the flames. They burned away her dress and her shift, and even the thick strands of silver hair upon her head. It all burned away, yet her ivory skin remained unburned.
They were drawn into an ethereal state while in the heart of the fiery maelstrom. And then it was interrupted by a loud, terrible crack! The chest had burned away, the iron bonds and brackets melted to bright orange slag. A second crack came, and their gazes fell upon the eggs. They glowed, situated among soot and ash. Dark stains coated them; most she assumed was the blood of their enemies, yet when Daenerys glanced at her brother and saw his bleeding hand, she realized other stains was the blood of dragons. A last few drops of blood trickled from his right hand, and then she spotted a silvery line on the palm, as if the cut had already closed and scarred.
A third crack sounded; it was more terrible than the past two, and was followed by a chorus of screams and screeches. The fire had spread away, through the door the Unsullied had left opened; Daenerys had the feeling of being in the heart of an oven, and she was the blackened bread ready to emerge.
Viserys kneeled beside the eggs as they broke and opened. Daenerys gasped as she witnessed the first dragons to be born in almost two hundred years. The first was black as the night, with hints of red in his flimsy wings; the second was pale as milk with golden, blinking eyes; the third was bronze, with green eyes and a murky, almost bluish hue to her wings.
"Balerion, Meraxes, Vhagar," intoned Viserys. "Once they conquered the Seven Kingdoms. So they shall again."
Daenerys could only stare upon the dragons as her heart was filled with a warmth she could only call love.
Khal Drogo could not remember the last time his heart had been struck by fear. With how long and thick his braid was, the multitude of bells that rang from it, any could see how fierce he was. Yet from the moment he reached the sprawling Pentoshi manse, that fat man not in wait with his bride, he had known something was amiss. A trace of doubt slid into his mind, and that trace of doubt was enough to awaken old, childish emotions.
A servant had emerged, overburdened with silks, and tried to plead their master's case. With how poor the khal and his riders knew the Valyrian tongues of the Free Cities, the attempt at negotiations went sour immediately. The servant should consider himself lucky all that happened was the removal of his head from his shoulders.
The masked, cockless men from the east, the ones who had driven back another khalassar at the walls of Qohor, had tried to stop his warriors from fighting their way into the building. They had given way after several charges, most led not by the khal but by a ko. The commanders had grimaced and muttered about the men with their masked faces and tight formations; Khal Drogo had watched on and wondered if perhaps he could speed the process.
"Bring that man and my bride to me," he demanded to his bloodriders once the way was cleared. "Hurry!"
They did as commanded, dismounting and heading inside. There were only five of them, but he trusted them with his life. They would do as he commanded or would die in the attempt.
The day crawled along, morning turning to noon turning to afternoon, as Khal Drogo waited. He grew weary with the sun beating down upon him without the rush of wind as he crossed the plains of the Great Grass Sea. He could feel the sea breeze with its salty taste, and it left him uncomfortable. For the first time in his life, being in the saddle brought him no relief. He glanced to the leather-bound hilt of his arakh and considered dismounting and following his bloodriders into the manse. From what he could hear from within, others from his khalassar had found their way inside; they would listen to the bloodriders, but that assumed those five reached his bride and the fat man first.
Just before he could go forward with that impulse to enter the manse, three bloodriders stumbled through the wide, columned entry, bloodied and wounded. Khal Drogo watched them approach, jaw clenched as fury and outrage burned in his chest. He would ruin this fat man with his false promises, and he would ruin the rest of Pentos as well. It was high time the Free Cities were reminded they should live in fear of the Dothraki. By the time he was finished, Pentos would be a silent city of ashes and bones, her people wailing as they crossed the Great Grass Sea.
Rakharo was the one to come forward. He held his head low as he said, "That fat man has escaped, and I failed to find your bride. We killed many, but even more are hiding within." He exposed his neck to Khal Drogo, yet his bloodrider would not die. Not yet, for he still breathed and there remained strength in his arms.
"Then make slaves of them all," Khal Drogo commanded. He drew his arakh, dismounting with a grim expression. "After that, we shall feast and drink upon the sorrow of Pentos!" He turned to two of hiskos, lingering at hand. "Go, take your warriors into the city. Kill any who fight back and make slaves of the rest."
With a grim look and his hair twinkling with bells, Khal Drogo marched into the manse, even as great billowing pillars of black smoke rose into the wide blue sky.
A sickly feeling bubbled in Ser Jorah's veins as he stared at the engorged flames continuing to rise from Illyrio Mopatis' manse. He swallowed, wrapping his hands around his drawn greatsword as he turned to Kinvara. Their trip across the city had been slowed because of her; it hadn't all been for naught, for she had drawn them out of the path of the Dothraki several times, and away from magister guards a few more. They he had seen kill Dothraki and Pentoshi alike, fighting to put the city to rights, as their masters would see it.
Ser Jorah would have tried to slay them all, had Kinvara not held his hand and shook her head. "There are things more important than vows," she had said, her dark eyes boring into his. "You cannot save everyone, Bear of the North."
He grimaced, thinking of that title. The first time she uttered it, Ser Jorah had shrugged it off. Kinvara was an odd woman with odder habits; it mattered little to him, if she was granting some strange title as they risked their lives to reach the Targaryen children. But she had continued to use it for him, and it was increasingly making him feel off. He had lost all right to consider himself of the North, and he was barely a bear. He might be hairy enough for a mockery of the fearsome beast, yet all he retained that tied him to home was a name he refused to abandon. He had not even taken Longclaw, the family Valyrian steel sword. That was a crime he could not force himself to commit.
"We should still hurry," he murmured.
"Indeed."
Kinvara led the remainder of their journey, holding them to a languid pace. Several times Ser Jorah had almost gone on without her, and several times her dark eyes turned to him with accusations burning within. It was enough to stop him, even if he disliked the fact she acted like they were within one of her fire god's temples and not on the streets of a city engulfed in violence and death.
When they came to the iron-wrought gates, they found no guards waiting, nor any sign of living Dothraki. Several horses were hitched to a post, too busy grazing on the weeds poking out from the stone garden to bother the two newcomers. Ser Jorah tightened his grip upon his sword, even as Kinvara led the way up the path and through the gates.
"Kinvara—"
"Fear not, Ser Jorah. Your faith shall be rewarded soon enough."
He glanced at her, then to the burning manse. "I hope you are right."
As they approached the manse's wide, colonnade entry, two human forms appeared, almost bathed in flame. Shifting shadows fluttering around the human forms gave Ser Jorah pause; soon enough he spotted a strange, small snout and wings, the thin membranes glowing with the firelight behind them. The shapes came forward, becoming clearer and clearer with every step.
Kinvara held out a hand before Ser Jorah and they stopped before the five shallow steps up to the entry. Her hand trembled, and when Ser Jorah gazed upon her face, and he saw something almost terrifying in her gaze: zealous worship.
She kneeled, hands smoothing out her robe so nothing would get caught as she lowered. He glanced between the human shapes and her several times. Eventually Kinvara glanced up at him. Swallowing what meager pride he held onto, Ser Jorah drew his sword and set it down before him as he too kneeled.
The shadowy forms finally moved forward enough he could see their faces. Whatever hair they had possessed was burned away, and the clothes had been consumed as well. Soot lined most of their form; across their limbs and torsos, atop their heads, and where there should be eyebrows. Had he not been witnessing two humans emerge from a fiery torrent, he may have thought the sight amusing. Instead, his blood chilled as he realized who they were.
"Hail to Their Graces!" Kinvara declared, her voice clearer than any bell in the night. "Hail to the R'hllor's Chosen! Hail to Viserys III Targaryen, Rightful King of the Western Lands! Hail to his sister, Daenerys Stormborn, Mother of Dragons!"
"Hail!" Ser Jorah responded, the words like ash in his mouth. The Targaryens emerged completely from the fire, and he gazed not only upon them, but upon three hatchling dragons affixed to their naked, sooty forms.
Rhaegar stared down upon the kneeling pair. He had a thought, springing from the back of his mind, from that place which remembered the cold grasp of death, that the hairy, older man upon his left was unsurprising. He recognized the black bear on green the man wore upon his tabard; Lyanna had told him all about those houses sworn to House Stark, and great among them by her reckoning had been the Mormonts of Bear Island. They, she had told him, allowed their women to learn how to fight. It was necessary to defend oneself when raiders came, for the men were the ones who took to fishing, and fewer times were better for the Ironborn to raid than when the men were away.
The other, however, alarmed him. He had known of R'hllor, the Red God of the East; a priest of that order had come to his father's court, hoping to convert Aerys II. All that man had found was horror and drink, and precisely in that order. To have another of that strange religion prostrated before him—
His focus was drawn away from the kneeling pair by Balerion Reborn, crawling over his shoulder to try and wrap around the backside of his neck. The black dragon had taken to him instantly, chirruping as he clawed and climbed over his body, and huffing thick streams of smoke toward his face as if playing a game.
Balerion had delayed their climb from the lower levels, drawing them to a storeroom filled to the brim with burnt meats. They had quickly learned that newborn dragons were incapable of flame, and so needed their meat seared by other means. The other dragons, Meraxes and Vhagar, had been quick to feast as well.
Meraxes had taken to Daenerys; her silvery scales a similar ivory to his sister's unmarred skin. She smiled fondly upon the dragon, and the dragon thus loved her companion. That was the best word Rhaegar could scavenge to describe the relationship. The great folly of House Targaryen had been the belief they mastered their dragons; it had never been that way, he had learned reading through journals and accounts of the Dance. They were as much at the mercy of dragons as others were.
Vhagar, already a menace of green and copper, suffered them the way a child suffered distant relatives. She stuck closest to Daenerys, though Rhaegar could already tell she was searching for another to claim as her future rider; he was certain of that. They were bonded to them, just as the Targaryens of old had been to their dragons.
Rhaegar looked away from the dragon upon him and to the two kneeling before him. "Name yourselves," he commanded, "and then state your purpose."
The Northman blinked, while the red priestess was unfazed by his commands. She said, "I am Kinvara, a priestess of the Lord R'hllor, the Lord of Light. He has foreseen a great destiny for you, Viserys Targaryen. You shall sit your father's throne and help fight back the coming darkness. My companion is Ser Jorah Mormont, a knight in exile."
Rhaegar's gaze shifted to Ser Jorah. He flinched upon meeting piercing lilac. "I have made many errors, Your Grace. I only seek to absolve myself of my crimes, and to do so in your service."
"Why not serve the Usurper?" he asked, knowing there was a game that had to be played. His brother hated those of the North and the Riverlands, the Westerlands and the Stormlands in particular. "You're one of that dog Stark's men."
"I have been banished, as Kinvara said." Ser Jorah dropped his head, revealing a balding spot. "I sold men into slavery, a crime in the eyes of the old gods and the new."
"Why should I take a slaver into my service, then?"
"Because of what I know, of the North and the other realms that should be yours, Your Grace," Ser Jorah said, struggling with every word. "I earned my knighthood, fighting the Ironborn on Pyke. And… And I have received messages from the Spider. Messages that could be used against him and King—against the Usurper. He… He knows where you are, and has offered royal pardon for your head, and that of your royal sister's."
Rhaegar stared down upon Ser Jorah, wondering how much of what he had been told was true. He didn't doubt that the Spider knew where he was—and oh, did it burn him that Varys remained upon the Small Council—yet how could they have remained alive? Had Viserys and Daenerys been truly running from incompetent assassins, or were the Targaryen siblings little more than unseen pawns for the Spider? Regardless of which it might be, he would not allow that man to dictate his path any further. Rhaegar suspected Varys had ruined his plans with Lyanna and Elia.
One day the Spider would pay for his treachery. Until then, he would remain just beyond Rhaegar's grasp.
Kinvara reached back carefully to the leather satchel strung over her back and shoulder. She moved it slowly, to be at her side, and flipped over the top covering. Rhaegar spotted red robes within the satchel, silks akin to those she wore.
"These are for you two," she announced, drawing them out. The first was handed to Daenerys, and the second to Rhaegar. "The Lord of Light revealed to me through the flames that you two would be here, and that you would need these." Her dark eyes went to Balerion, then to Meraxes and Vhagar. "I am relieved my faith has been rewarded, that I am seeing fire made flesh on this sacred night."
Hearing her call this a 'sacred night' should have alarmed Rhaegar. He was wary of zealous minds after all that befell him in his first life. Yet he merely nodded, accepting her proclamation. Something about his response must have been right to her, for she beamed; it was a joyous expression that chilled him to the marrow.
"I must ask, Your Grace. Do you know who the prince that was promised is?"
Rhaegar nearly swallowed his tongue at the utterance of that prophetic title, even as Daenerys turned to him with a confused frown. Viserys would have never told their sister about the madness that had destroyed their elder brother and brought down the family dynasty. His parents had been married because of it; he had pursued Lyanna Stark because of it; it had long sealed the fate of House Targaryen, a name that echoed through the eons of time and history.
"I…" he began, struggling for the appropriate words. Viserys might have thought himself the prince who was promised, but that was not exactly true. He fit none of the omens, the signs of his coming. "I…" Rhaegar's throat suddenly constricted. "I… I…"
He collapsed to a knee. They cried his false name, a sister dropping to support him while Kinvara scrambled to her feet. Ser Jorah rose as well, though he remained at a distance, his greatsword held in hand. Rhaegar blinked, his vision blurring as something appeared.
A vision.
Before Rhaegar's third eye was a young man with a drawn face and dark, northern colors. He drew a cloak around his body, fighting against the cold and the snow, with a familiar face following behind him. For a moment he thought it was Lyanna; but she was dead, blood to pay the price of his transgressions.
Daeron, he thought with grim realization. That is Daeron, with a Stark cousin of his.
Rhaegar would not remember it when he next woke, but he let slip one final word before succumbing to unconsciousness: "Lyanna."
Arya had never cared as much for Old Nan's tales as Bran did; yet she had done her best to learn them all. None knew the North and her histories and tales like Old Nan did. Her father couldn't say how old the woman was; Arya would bet she had been young during the time of She-wolves, when women dominated House Stark and Winterfell. That would have been when Ser Duncan the Tall traveled the land, accompanied by a squire called Egg. She liked to wonder what became of him, since neither Old Nan nor Maester Luwin knew.
The stories that had been coming to mind in recent weeks, time and again, were those of wargs, skinchangers, of beastly men whose minds could slip into the bodies of animals. Once Arya had thought they were merely stories, fascinating ones of magic and violence; the kind of story she would love to live.
That was before she awoke within Nymeria, able to see and to hear and to smell all that Nymeria experienced. They may have begun as wolf dreams, and had come infrequently at first, but now she could roll back her conscious mind and find herself within Nymeria whenever she wished. It was amazing. It was wonderful. It was awful.
And if anyone knew, her life would be forfeit. The northern lords would care not that she was a daughter of House Stark; wargs were to be put to death wherever they emerged.
Right now, however, she would not worry about the future. Her present was dominated by her wolf dream; the boundary between Arya Stark and Nymeria was all but gone.
Nymeria snaked her way around the oaks and ironwoods of the godswood, pursuing Grey Wind's faint scent. Ghost was up with Daeron, while Lady, Shaggydog, and Bran's unnamed pup took a well-earned rest in the kennels.
As Nymeria drew close to the dark steaming pool before the heart tree, a long, golden shadow crossed her path. She froze and turned, to find a cloaked figure stepping out from behind the dark trunk of an ironwood. The figure shimmered; their cloaked weaved of many colors. Gold was most prominent, but Nymeria also spotted greens and blacks, reds and silvers, and many other colors the she-wolf could only know thanks to her bond with Arya.
"Fear not, daughter of ice, though I have come with dire tidings." The spectre bore a feminine voice, though it was more than one. Arya had never given great credence to the old gods being uncountable, but perhaps that was true.
"A time approaches when the living shall be faced with a choice: join under a single banner or suffer complete destruction?" Arya stiffened; Nymeria stiffened. In the godswood, a direwolf stood as stone before the shimmering spectre. "The former event is the only of hope of survival, and even that is merely a hope."
Arya tilted her head, and thus Nymeria tilted her head.
The spectre giggled. "Forgive me, Arya Stark. I know you cannot communicate by beast yet. Perhaps in time you will learn all you must know to completely blur the line between you and noble Nymeria."
Arya frowned, or at least tried to. Nymeria's face shifted in the approximation of a frown as she whined.
"Perhaps this is not the most ideal way to speak," declared the spectre.
A heart beat later, Arya was floating above a grey castle blanketed in white. It was so small compared to her that she almost thought it a toy. Almost, for something familiar reached out for her. She stared down upon it, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. There was a tower with a broken top, and a place filled with weathered, ancient tombstones; elsewhere she spotted a great forest encased in walls, and at its center was a tree with blood-red leaves.
"Welcome, little wargling," came the spectre's voice. Arya spotted a shimmering light to her left. When she turned her head in that direction, the shimmering was suddenly to her right. Several times she attempted to turn and spin, to gaze upon the spectre's form; it was all for naught. "You cannot see me, for I am barely within the world."
"Who are you?" Arya demanded. "Why can't I see you?"
"Those who once believed are dead. All that remains of me are myths and a dragon, struck down by a common man with great luck."
Meraxes, answered Arya, yet she did not speak. She couldn't say the name aloud despite her desire to do so. She opened her mouth, yet the word did not come. Instead, she said, "Why do you call me a wargling?"
Meraxes giggled. "It is what you are, Arya Stark. You have made strides to master your ability, yet I fear time works against you. A terrible threat looms; my kin have already interfered where they should not, and so I come to you now. A teacher can be found in a place where many things began, and where many things ended."
"Where—?"
The world twisted. Arya heard the screams and smelled smoke before her grey eyes took in the sight of a burning palace. She watched as a tired, bloody woman screamed and wailed, a newborn babe in her arms, as a man with silver hair held her; his lilac eyes gazed upon the burning palace with wonder and horror, witnessing greatness and madness blended into a single night of terrible tragedy.
"Summerhall," whispered Arya, for she knew of this terrible night. A great knight had perished, and the man who sired her favorite brother had been born. In the ruins of Summerhall, a crownless Robert Baratheon made foe into friend. In the ruins of Summerhall, she suspected, Daeron had been sired.
"Bring him with you." It was Meraxes's voice, yet the spectre—the goddess, Arya realized with cold dread—did not appear. "Bring the prince, so he may take up his right."
His right? His birthright?
There was no chance for Arya to ask that question, for she startled awake, panting and sweating. It was barely the hour of the wolf, or so she assumed. Nymeria was there along the edge of her conscious; Arya was tempted to reach out to her direwolf, yet she knew deep down it would fail. Meraxes had proposed a teacher with good cause: she was not ready yet.
Running a hand through her damp hair, Arya made her decision. It was rank, foolish even, but it had to be done. Meraxes had commanded her to head for Summerhall, and she had to take Daeron with her. He would likely be against going with her. Once he knew she would go regardless, he would come along if only to keep her safe on the road.
Arya dressed and packed every satchel, pack, and bag she could find in her chamber. She set them beside her door as she sat at the small desk she had begged her father to install when she moved out of the nursery. Under the flicker of candlelight, she penned three letters: one to her parents, one to Robb, and one to Sansa. Each only said she was leaving, that she was taking Daeron with her, and that she loved them. At the end, before she signed her name, she promised on her honor as a Stark to come home, alive and safe, one day.
She heated white wax and dripped some onto each letter. She sealed them with a special signet she had been gifted on her name day and blew out the candles. Under the cover of dark, Arya slung her bags and satchels onto her back and snuck toward her cousin's room.
Daeron was methodical about his packing, considering each garment, relic, and knickknack that he possessed while selecting what would come on the journey to Summerhall. He could feel Arya watching him and how she slowly grew more and more impatient. The darkness beyond his window had greyed some, though not enough to warn of the coming dawn.
"Come on, Daeron," begged Arya, grabbing at his sleeve. "You already know what to take! Pack, and let's go!"
"Jon," he muttered. "You need to return to calling me Jon. It'll be safer than calling me Daeron, especially with Robert Baratheon on the Iron Throne."
His mouth went dry after that. Daeron had his suspicions about the apparently magical summons to Summerhall, the compulsion that lingered just under his skin. It was a faint thing, unwilling to drive him with how weak it was. Chances were that as long as he followed it, he should be safe. However, he feared the crown and the throne existed in his future, and he was terrified of the idea being king.
"I'll call you Jon around others, and Daeron in private," Arya decided. "Now hurry up! The sooner we leave, the more leagues we can cross before they read my letters."
Daeron sighed, running a hand through his dark curls. "Must we leave tonight? Would it not be better to speak with Lord Stark, to have his support for our journey?"
Arya frowned thoughtfully, or so it appeared to Daeron. He was thankful she didn't have that sly, cunning look she got before suggesting some manner of mischief. After a few seconds, she said, "We just need to leave. The sooner we get there, the better."
"Arya—"
"I have letters!" she said quickly, waving three folded and sealed sheaves of parchment. "They'll understand!"
"Did you tell them where we are going?"
Arya faltered for a few seconds, and eventually she shook her head. Daeron sighed, the hand in his hair coming down to rub his face. He should have closed his door in her face and returned to bed. But he had been worried she might leave anyways, and so he convinced himself he should make some effort to go along with her plan, even if he thought it foolish.
He set aside his pack and turned to face her fully. "Arya. I understand you're excited to leave and go on this adventure, but have you considered what might happen? Neither of us are of age, and the moment anyone finds out I'm the Bastard of Winterfell and you're Lord Stark's daughter, we will be sent back."
"That won't happen," Arya said mulishly, arms crossed. "You should finish packing."
"What do you mean 'that won't happen'?"
It took a while before Arya responded, and at first it was mostly grumbles under her breath. Daeron cleared his throat, staring at her pointedly. She huffed, then said, "I think we'll be led there. A god is on our side."
"A god," Daeron repeated doubtfully. "The old? The new?"
She looked away, and Daeron had a feeling that she wouldn't tell him. He was tempted to cuff Arya behind the ear, but only tempted. The thought of striking her sent a wave of disgust, of self-hatred through him so hot and swift he nearly apologized for something he had only thought of and not something he had done.
"…you wouldn't believe me," whispered Arya. "I'd sound mad."
"Mad, huh?"
Arya flinched at what Daeron had meant to be a joke. Yes, he knew the danger of going mad hung over his head. He was as much a child of House Targaryen as he was of House Stark. He may have been raised in Winterfell with his mother's kin, but his heroes as a boy had always been dragons, the Dragonknight and the Young Dragon chief among them. Perhaps that hero worship had been his blood in action, upholding his long-dead kin as symbols to strive for.
"I'm not mad with you, Arya. Just…" He shook his head, at a loss as how to respond. "Out into the hall. I said I would go with you, and you won't be convinced otherwise."
She glanced at his bags, then back to him, and finally nodded with a simple bob. Shortly after, he stepped out of his room, a group of bags and satchels slung over his shoulders. Arya grinned and scurried out before him. Daeron followed at a measured pace, his heart hammering with every step. He wanted to believe he was making the right choice, even as he doubted himself.
He caught up with Arya outside the lord's chamber. She was slotting the last letter into place, half under the door and half visible beyond the threshold. Some of her bags were set aside, while the rest weighed her down as she did her familial duty without abandoning their plan to depart for Summerhall.
They found the stables disturbingly quiet and were it not for the horses sleeping in their stalls, Daeron might have thought it abandoned. He helped Arya saddle her mare before turning to his own black dun. Once saddles and tack were in place, they loaded up their bags and trotted out into the courtyard and headed for the nearby South Gate, their direwolves following closely behind.
The guards there raised the gate for them, and as they passed through the first gate in the eighty-foot tall wall, Daeron saw their eyes were glazed over, as if a god was guiding the way. They continued along, crossing the bridge spanning the moat, and through the second gate in the sixty-foot wall. They followed the trampled snow for several dozen paces, and then started southward. Whether they would make for the Neck or for White Harbor, he did not know.
Only whichever god guiding their way would know.
Lyanna knew, as the Lord Stark, that it was inappropriate for her to pour a mug of mead for Howland. She should be sat behind the Lord's desk, a servant pouring cups as she exchanged pleasantries about their families, the state of the Neck, and his bannermen, the other crannog clans. However, with the servants asleep and the two of them alone, she could get away with pouring mead. She was thankful for the friendship between Ned and Howland, for else he may have questioned her handling their drinks.
She set Howland's mug before him before sitting down, the rim already to her lips. Lyanna drank slow and deep, savoring the honey taste. Ned might have preferred frothy ale to honeyed mead, but she recalled Howland trending toward sweeter drinks back during the Tourney of Harrenhal. Perhaps if there were a cask of Arbor gold she would have offered that instead.
"I should inform you, my friend," Howland said quite suddenly, "that two of your children have taken leave of Winterfell. They make for Summerhall and have left a letter behind."
Lyanna choked on her mead, coughing heavily as she spat up some of the drink in her mouth. She wiped her mouth with a sleeve, already setting down her mug as she went to rise. However, before her chair could even scrape back against the ground, Howland had raised a hand, a knowing look in his eyes.
She paused, leaning against a hand placed upon the desk. "What do you know, Howland? Why would you stop me?"
"What they do is the will of the gods," he began. She was thankful there was a worried look upon his face. Had he continued to smile kindly, she might have shouted at him, and thus woken the servants and Ned's children. "I do not know which gods they are, but they have a reason to aid the living, with what is to come."
"With what is to come?" Lyanna shivered, uttering Howland's words back to him. "What do you know?"
Howland frowned, staring into his mug of mead. "I have seen visions some days I wish I could forget: a palace of ashes where winter roses bloom; lion biting wolf biting stag biting lion, a circle of pain and misery; men with star-bright eyes and deathly hands, wandering some great wood; and most strange, I have seen two men whose faces hide a pair long dead."
Lyanna shivered. She could guess what the first meant, though she did not yet know whom the roses represented. The others though… They all troubled her. A war between Stark and Lannister and Baratheon was something she had hoped to avoid, for that had been the world Eddard's death upon the steps of the Sept of Baelor had spawned. And that last one…
"I cannot fault you for wishing to forget those," she whispered, drumming fingers upon the lacquered wood surface. Howland watched that hand, a slight furrow to his brows all that revealed his thoughts. "I assume you have come here to explain these visions for me?"
Howland nodded. "The first I believe to be Arya and Daeron. That they have left for Summerhall is confirmation of my theory. A palace of ashes."
Lyanna huffed, wondering how he could so easily determine that was what his vision meant, even when she did not disagree with his reading of the prophecy. "And the others? I suspect there is a war upon the horizon with the Lannisters and the Baratheons."
"Indeed, but then this does not come as a surprise to you, Lyanna."
Her blood went cold. For a moment, she considered arguing against his claim; yet as she stared into his gaze, she knew there would be no changing Howland's mind. He knew she was Lyanna instead of Eddard and would use that against her to accomplish whatever he had come to Winterfell for.
She collapsed back into her seat, rubbing her right brow with two fingers and a thumb. "That last vision… That's how you know."
Howland nodded.
"The other man?"
"I am not certain who it is yet," he admitted, as if disappointed by his failure. "I only realized it was you and Ned when I reached Winterfell. It was other visions that drove me north to speak with the Lord Stark."
"Which one?" she asked before remembering one of the tales Old Nan had told her. "No… Anything but them."
"So you understand already. The Long Night… The Others…"
"If you could remind me of them…."
Howland smiled. "Well, I think I should start with the prince who was promised—"
Lyanna groaned, rolling her eyes. "Ugh. I'd rather not hear about Rhaegar's prophecy right now. Best we start with what we should expect to face in the years to come."
For a moment, she thought Howland might press on about the prophecy he mentioned. Something in his gaze told her it was important, and with Rhaegar Targaryen dead, only her son, Daeron, could fulfill the role. Lyanna didn't want to think of Daeron having some fixed, fated destiny beyond perhaps taking up his family's throne, as he would in the wake of his brother's death. Her heart went out to Elia and her family; it would be some time before Arya would arrive in Sunspear, now.
"If that is your request, Lord Stark," said Howland.
They spoke and spoke. By the time the grey of dawn settled completely upon the snowy forests around Winterfell, Lyanna was completely and utterly exhausted.
And yet, there was some hope for the future.
TBC