章 2416: 51
51.
Burn Away
King's Landing
Days dragged on but they became into a flurry as Sansa was kept a hostage of Littlefinger in Red Keep. She would demand to hear from her people, but he elusively answered that "they'll be fine for the time being".
Sansa was forced in his company when she was taken to his rooms every morning. The skin inside her hands was red and burned from all the scratching and picking she'll do all the way there, but Baelish knew better than to try anything with her. What he wanted was to convince her that he was right.
"What if they have failed to stop the dead? What if the Night King's army is coming?" she asked him. In her mind, not that bad a prospect given the present circumstances.
"We'll get in a boat and I'll let the dead be swallowed up by the flames of the wildfire," he replied quietly, almost reassured. As if this had not been a possibility discussed before.
It would be a much greater army if they were to get to King's Landing, that she didn't tell him. Let him see it himself.
She didn't miss the way he included her in his plans as a sickening feeling coiling in her guts.
"Enough," she said, through tight lips. "Let this alone. Be smart. You cannot win against the Dragon Queen."
Littlefinger snorted, eyeing Sansa with a amusing glint to his eyes. "Haven't I taught you that strength doesn't match knowledge? I remember that you were greatly displeased with your brother deciding to go and ask for help to the Dragon Queen." He brought himself closer and she recoiled. "Remember Sansa, we might look breakable on the outside, easy to sway...but that's a shield of sorts to our true advantage: we know that power is unpredictable. We've treaded between lions, wolves, thorns and dragons and surged unscathed."
"I am not like you," she stated, much irked at the notion that she resembled her tormentors. Yes, she had learned a great deal from them but that didn't mean she was like them.
Now she was alone, finding herself a prisoner again. Far from her family and her home lost. Just like when everything started to go shit for her. And it most likely looked for those from afar that she was part of it, as suspicion of treason always hung heavy on her.
The Starks don't do well in the South, she thought.
Meanwhile she was unaware of how Littlefinger operated to keep the palace and the city his. But it would not be long before news reached the North, and given her association with Littlefinger, she was once again called a traitor, allied with her family's enemies.
***
"This development is most interesting," observed Littlefinger, circling the figure of Missandei in the center of the Throne Room.
Aurane and Varys to one side, the first stood with a evident disinterest and the second with concern etched on his features.
Baelish eyes watched the scribe as if assessing her worth in gold, as if she were an apprentice coming to his brothel for the opportunity to lend her services.
His cold and calculating mind already imagined that he could make a lot of money out with one of this kind: eastern. Educated. Healthy teeth. Soft skin.
But she was not for profit, but to move pieces on a board. The young advisor to Queen Daenerys was worth a thousand times her weight in gold, if not more: from what Varys claimed, when she knew they had her trapped in their power, the city would burn and they with it.
"Is this your first time at war, my Lord? Have you already forgotten the importance of a hostage like our guest here?" Littlefinger raised a hand to stroke the former slave's curly hair but she pulled away with a sneer.
Her reaction made him smile.
His eyes moved to the eunuch. "As long as she lives and breathes, and is with us, Daenerys Targaryen would not dare risk an assault that would result in the loss of her beloved friend. At this moment, we pull the strings that move the dragon."
***
Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion were flying steadily so as not to strain the latter, who was still recovering from his wound. Yet at some point, Daenerys made a drastic turn and lifted Drogon above them before disappearing into the clouds. Jon attested that she was a far better dragon rider than he would ever be, but at this point it was neither a race nor a game. She was running against time, desperate that it wouldn't caught up with her in the same circumstances of the past.
While behind them the armies regrouped and marched at Ser Jorah's command back south, he and Dany went ahead to meet Yara Greyjoy at Gulltown.
Her misery was evident in her erratic behavior, and she was not to listen to reason. Jon more than understood her, but feared that any drastic action would put her in danger.
Not only had Missandei been captured, but they had sent Sansa as regent to the city. And with no clear explanation on how Baelish seized power in the city, a cloud of mistrust once again shrouded Daenerys' judgement against her. After all, the closeness between them was well known. Jon did not miss the way Daenerys' eyes darkened at the mention of Sansa.
Before they left, Arya had grabbed his arm and muttered very sternly, "You know she wouldn't do that." And Jon, although still resentful of Sansa's actions, didn't give credit to that version of things either.
Bran gave them the answer to that, but Daenerys didn't seem to believe him, who she said had led her path here, either. Her distress was a great one, her state so riotous that his comfort now, when it had not been before, made little difference.
For Jon it felt like sand running from his fingers.
***
Gulltown
Without making a stop or minding the ceremonial entrance, Daenerys met Yara Greyjoy and Grey Worm in the Great Hall of the Gull tower, and when she saw them she didn't wait a moment's second before lashing out in fury at them, "I order you to take her away! I commanded you to return her to safety!"
She pointed a finger at a badly wounded Yara Greyjoy, who ducked her face as if mortified but still maintained a firm expression.
"I abided by my Queen's orders," she spoke firmly, "I transported Missandei of Naath across the Narrow Sea. But stubborn creature as your friend is, she was to return on her volition to Westeros the moment I pack her out. I chose to keep her in my care. I didn't think that fucking Aurane Waters was going to-"
Her enraged gaze jumped to the former Unsullied commander.
Dany strode toward him, beating his chest.
"And you, you were supposed to keep her safe! What's your excuse?" she berated and reproached him.
Daenerys' mind was in a storm of undirected fears and rage. What she wanted most of all was for it all to end, for everyone she loved to be safe even if she had to tear out her heart and give her life for it. All her fire was rising in her body, and Drogon reverberated the wild thrill in thunder in the sky.
Grey Worm's serious eyes shone with something similar to what she was filling. "You sent her away against her will, and she's not to obey simply because." He frowned as he looked down at her. "You made her free. She chose freely."
Dany shook her head in denial.
"You don't understand the extent of what you've done. If something happens to Missandei, I'll see all of you dead!" she sentenced.
Daenerys did not stay a moment longer in their presence, not even when Yara tried to explain what happened there in the waters of Blackwater. An ambush. Dragonstone taken by Aurane soldiers, soldiers she didn't even know where they had come from and how she'd missed that before.
Her anger and desperation needed an outlet. When Cersei Lannister captured Missandei she didn't give them a day's chance to negotiate before beheading her in front of their unfazed eyes.
I should have burn King's Landing then and there, she thought. Missandei had asked for it and even that Daenerys could not give her. Shattered as her heart and spirit were, they were still holding tightly to a lifeline that ended up deserting her.
She was stopped in her tracks by an abrupt force holding her arm. Jon wrapped a hand her forearm and pinned her in place with his strength. When she looked at him the raw expression in his face almost was too much for her to handle at that moment.
"Don't try to suppress my rightful place in your life, Dany. I know you're hurting but I'm still your husband. Do you understand that? Not your soldier. Not your subject."
Jon shook her a bit, stressing each word.
What have I done? she wondered in bewilderment as the reality of his words completely crashed her. This was madness, this was weakness. Viserys was right and she was stupid and no dragon. She'd come with a very specific mission and had it all wrong again because she couldn't move past her past with Jon Snow.
And for what? She'd always known she had to leave and live the rest of her life away from the people she loved. That was her lot, her burden to carry, but she had wanted one last taste of it, of the comfort disguised as freedom that was choosing.
"Don't!" Dany warned but he didn't let her wriggle out.
"I have no blame on this. I'm on your side, Dany," he reiterated as if it was monumental and necessary.
"And if I have to burn King's Landing to the ground again. Then what side will you be at, Jon?" she challenged him. She wanted him to answer he would not let her, that she'd pay in blood again if she do so. But he wouldn't do it, she knew deep down, in the almost now touched by light recesses of her troubled mind.
Jon did not answer out of outrage and not because he meant something else.
He loosened his grip on her.
"I imagine," Dany said, finding victory in the pettiness of it all. "Stay away from me," she growled before taking off.
***
King's Landing
"Take these chains off," Missandei requested. Not. She ordered it.
Captain Waters turned and looked at her curiously.
"I may be a prisoner or a hostage, and maybe I will die, but I will die as I am. As a free woman," Missandei said loud and clear.
Her statement drew scornful laughter from the captain's soldiers, but the captain himself was challenged by her words. Westeros may have been a land free of slavery, but the chains were worn by defeated enemies. But Missandei was not a party to this conflict, so she would not allow herself to be used as a mere artifact in the hands of others with more power than her, even if it ultimately cost her his life.
Valar Morghulis.
All men must die.
We are not men, Daenerys had said.
The Captain lacked the malice that emanated freely from the other man, Patyr Baelish, Missandei noted as he removed the heavy chains from her wrist.
When she was dropped in a chamber under the watchful eye of guards, she rubbed her wrists where the chains had marked her.
When she moved into the inner room and closed the doors she was luckily not followed, and Missandei found herself searching for a way to escape, looking around every corner for an opening, seeing that the window only looked out onto the cliffs.
Finally when she was rummaging through the books for a key or something, she unleashed a mechanism that had the piece of furniture shifted to one side. Swallowing hard, ahe didn't hesitate to peek over to see what was on the other side.
It was just another chamber.
Missandei walked into the other room and heard a muffled sigh that alerted her.
Behind her, there was an infant.
"Who are you?" asked the girl, walking slowly backwards with a face pale with fright.
"I'm not going to hurt you," Missandei tried to calm her down before she ran off and alerted the guards.
"Are you of the Lord Baelish?"
"No," she answered, not knowing what else she could say that would suffice as an explanation rather than a affirmation that she was escaping. "Is there a door? I lost my way," Missandei tried.
"My Lady will be here any minute and she doesn't like to be disturbed," the girl said, taking a defensive stance.
My lady?
Missandei blinked curiously. "Who is your Lady?"
She reassured the girl enough for her to reveal that she was as much, if not more, a prisoner than she Missandei and that Petyr Baelish was holding the castle blind to his presence, making many of the people inside hostages like her. The girl's trust in her became fluid, so much so that when her Lady walked through the door, Missandei was sitting on the seettee comfortably waiting.
***
Sansa looked curiously at the woman presented in front of her; somehow similar to Shae but different. Her voice, for example, was soft where Shae had a thick accent. Her name was Missandei, and though Sansa had never heard of her, she had assured her that she was a friend of Daenerys.
"Your name, I had heard it when we were told your brother was made King..." Missandei explained.
My brother who was my cousin, Sansa thought, thinking about all that this woman did not yet know about her queen. For the time being she kept her abreast of two important developments: that Daenerys was in the North fighting the army of the dead and that the said army was a ruthless enemy.
"I would rather fight mortal enemies than sit with my hands tied and not know what to do," Missandei opined, and though her words stung Sansa a little, she knew it was not directed at her but at her own situation.
"Has my Lady seen the Unsullied? Have you noticed the presence of any soldiers from Queen Daenerys' army?"
Sansa nodded. Littlefinger had sent them to patrol the city and keep away from this wing of the castle.
Unlike Missandei, Sansa had far more freedom within her own confinement.
"You must do something for me, My Lady. Something very brave."
And Missandei stood up, searching through the things in the room until she came upon ink and paper.
She returned to sit beside Sansa.
"A message?" Sansa snorted in disbelief. "Littlefinger and his guards won't take their eyes off me. I have no way of getting near an Unsullied..."
Sansa's heart skipped a beat at the thought, but Missandei took her hand and the gesture, though unexpected, reassured her.
"Let's help each other, shall we? My Lady and I have come a long way to have small men decide for us," Missandei said and her voice was firm as she said it.
***
Gulltown
Dany heard him shuffling in but she didn't flinch. She knew she had made a mistake, but at that moment her thoughts were a thick fog that did not allow light filter through.
And in her chest her heart was beating painfully.
She lay in the corner, embraced by the shadows that huddled in the darkened room. Her knees pulled in, and face streaked with tears. Surely she made quite the image, the mad queen.
Jon sat on the edge of the bed, on the side where he could talk to her.
"Sometimes I think you wish I was the man who betrayed you. You really want that," he said.
Daenerys slowly opened her eyes, and Jon's gaze could have destroyed her.
"Would it be easier for you?" he continued.
If only he knew... Dany sighed. She wished she would not hurt him. Never, in twelve years after his betrayal did she do anything to hurt him.
"Do you want to exchange my life for Missandei's? I would do it even if you didn't ask me and it was an option. If it were by my choice, I would have died the first time we faced the dead if that meant all your loved ones will be safe, Dany. That you will live and be happy."
She could not have it.
This torture had to end.
If love was accompanied by so much pain, what was the point?
"None of this is your fault, Jon. Nothing," Dany spoke. "Bran and I have a responsibility. We have to answer for the decisions we make..."
Jon let out an involuntary gasp. "What do you mean?"
Daenerys gathered her courage to finally admit, "Things have to take their course. Twelve years from now. The moment it all began for us."
Jon stood up. Daenerys did too, and they stood on either side of the room.
"I had a vision. A vision that involved you and a life beyond me and this time...imagine my surprise when Bran came to me telling me that you had died of the most common of deaths."
Jon shifted uncomfortably, going back in his memories to that event, which he never gave much thought to anyway.
"I thought I would just restore it, our time. Mend our mistakes. That's why I sent Missandei away. That's why...I shouldn't have let us get involved again."
Jon scrunched up his face, as if receiving a punch in the stomach. If this was the way she chose to take revenge for what he had done, it was all just cruel and twisted.
"You should hate me..."
Giving her no time to continue, he turned and left the room with the weight of her confession in his heart.
***
King's Landing
As she glided along the corridor, Sansa watched the torches cast flickering shadows along the tapestries depicting long-forgotten battles. Evening came to a close and servants bustled about, performing the nightly rituals, breathing life into candles and stocking the brazers. The wind was blowing cool, enough to serve as an excuse to wear a long cape.
Littlefinger's guards left her in the antechamber of his rooms. He was in front of one of the large windows, looking out over the city at night, seemingly pensive.
"It's a quiet evening," he observed. "For them It's always quiet. Most of them don't know what brews within the wall of the Keep...If they could only know that tonight is the last time they'll live, do you think they'll quietly accept it?"
Her lips parted. "You brought her to my company. Daenerys' maid."
Baelish turned away, a crooked smile on his face.
"I see it didn't take her long to learn there are tricks on the walls of Red Keep," he said.
Sansa took the note Missandei had given her from her pocket and tossed it on the desk in front of Littlefinger.
"Nothing that happens in Red Keep is a coincidence. It all comes back to you, doesn't it?" Sansa confronted him.
Baelish approached and took the paper in his hands, reading the indications that were to be addressed to a guard who would alert the rest to his infiltration and Missandei's abduction. He just smiled in that sinister way.
"You're clever, Sansa. I shouldn't have underestimated you," he said.
You shouldn't, she thought. But it wasn't just a matter of underestimating her, Sansa knew. But to test her.
"Are you going to hurt her, the maid?" she asked him.
Littlefinger crumpled the paper in his hands and threw it into the fire.
"In fact, I hope not. She can be very useful to me one day, of course for other destinations," he replied. "No one will care too much about her when the Dragon Queen is gone, and her army, dissolved..."
Sansa scoffed.
"You still think you can take on three dragons and all the armies of the Realm?"
"The temporary unification of the armies was served a specific purpose. Purpose that good news informed us has already been dealt with. The army of the dead was defeated."
Sansa's breath caught as she heard.
"And I can give the Realm another reason to unite against one enemy." He rounded the desk and approached a still reluctant Sansa. "We use the weakness of our enemies against them. When Daenerys discovers that her beloved army, the one she sheltered from the dead, is at our mercy, then she will lose the little restraint she holds. Men will see that an unchecked power must submit some way. And I have the solution for that."
"It is, at the least, a very weak plan. My brother Jon rides one of the dragons. Even if you turn the whole realm against Daenerys, you'd still have to face Jon," she pointed out.
He smiled deviously. "If the good Jon Snow has to choose between his blood and his loyalty, what do you think he will choose. Isn't it something that ever crossed your mind?"
***
Gulltown
Arya followed the army's march but at some point got passed them individually. She knew Daenerys and Jon would still be in the city because the dragons were flying at a distance that made them visible as small birds in the sky.
She announced herself as quickly as she dismounted her horse and searched for her brother until she came upon him.
Jon was just as you might expect him to be: dishevelled and miserable.
Arya approached him without a warning.
"It is important that she understands that no matter what that scoundrel does, the city is full of innocent people," Arya insisted, as concerned for the innocents in the city as she was who was equally imprisoned at King's Landing. "Jon, she's there. Sansa is in Littlefinger's hands."
She expected Jon to have a reaction but instead he remained perturbed, his gaze vacant.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
But his eyes seemed to dart back and forth with a stressful thought behind them. Arya's heart was racing at that point.
"Will she attack?"
Jon hardened a glare at her. "The city will burn. No matter what. It's sitting on hundreds of wildfire caches, someone will light the fuse no matter what."
"How can you give up on this? With our sister there-"
Arya was startled when Jon grabbed her arms and shook her non-violently.
"Sansa trusted Petyr Baelish far more than she ever trusted us, and that is because there is no one she believes in more than her own righteousness!"
He released her and Arya looked at him with wild eyes.
"Nothing matters any more. Nothing," he said and whirled around leaving her there, speechless.
Arya swallowed hard, seeing him walking away. A pit formed in her stomach. If there was anyone who could still get into the city it was still her, and if she had to take that risk she would, but she would not leave her sister alone.
***
Dragonstone
Jon did not see Dany again until the next morning, when word came from Lord Varys in a scroll. His estranged wife's first instinct was to doubt its veracity, but upset as she was, she took no warning against flying to Dragonstone where the letter said he was waiting for her. Baelish and Aurane Waters left him there on purpose to deliver terms of surrender.
Theirs.
Lord Varys stood on the beach, a desolate and plundered Dragonstone rising up behind him as they flew over the island. There was no sign of Aurane Waters' fleet.
"Your Majesties," Lord Varys bowed when they set foot back on land. His usually unreadable face now reflected concern. "Despite the circumstances, I am glad that the war with the dead is over and that you both came out of it victorious."
Varys' eyes flickered to Jon. It was more than obvious that his curiosity picked at his riding Rhaegal.
"There will be time for that later. Lord Varys, how is it possible that Lord Baelish has taken over the city?" Jon spoke.
Varys proceeded to tell them everything and deliver the message that Belish and Aurane had for them; in principle, that regardless of whether they retook the city, Littlefinger emptied the coffers so that the entire realm could spend at least a long season facing the hardships of winter.
Second, that they would deal only with Daenerys. Any outside intervention would be taken as a withdrawal from any peace deal. For every day that passed then, they would execute one Unsullied and one Dothraki warrior in the city.
Throughout Lord Varys' recounting, Dany stood still and tense beside him.
"Missandei? How is she? Did they do something to her?" she finally talked.
"Lady Missandei is safe and sound for the time being. Strengthened in the face of impotence."
But Varys's face hid the gleam of something else. Jon felt a familiar distaste for the way he looked between him and Daenerys, and flashes of an old memory came like a foreboding.
"Our enemies are holding two hostages. That's why they have left me here. I am no longer of any use to them. Instead, my queen, I'll lend you all of me as I am to advise you through this..."
Dany's eyes hardened. "Advise me to do nothing, right? To stand by with my hands tied while Baelish and Aurane keep my people prisoners."
Again, Varys looked pleadingly at Jon.
That's when it dawned upon him the realization.
He knows.
"I told you once that I would be straightforward with you. And that when I disagreed with you, I would look you in the eye and tell you so. Your Grace, don't attack the city. Have mercy on the people you came to save."
Dany stepped forward, and Jon felt the urge to pull her behind him. Not to placate her, but because he knew Lord Varys was already conjuring in his mind the determination that she must be taken out of the way no matter what. And that in her place, there must be him.
"You never cared about her life," Dany said through gritted teeth.
After a long look, she trudged away from them.
***
"I admit your presence is unexpected," Varys said after Daenerys was out of sight.
"How is Sansa?" Jon asked, through his annoyance he found it in himself to worry about his sister.
"Rest assured, my King. Lady Sansa has neither betrayed you nor allied herself with Baelish. As much as before, she is a victim of his schemes..."
Jon nodded.
"I imagine you have had time to catch up on all that has transpired in your absence, my Lord."
Varys squinted his eyes at Jon. "I feel a bit of a fool not to have guessed. That the honorable Ned Stark returned with the bones of his sister and a baby in his arms."
Jon's fists clenched at his sides.
"And now I feel dumber because I've clearly followed a false lead. You and I both know what she's going to do. Her emotions are going to get the better of her and the prospect of saving the lives of her people is minimal. That will played in Baelish's favor. Cersei would have a chance had if she'd had enough time." Varys dropped his voice and walked slowly toward Jon. "I've seen this before. The imposing urge of her most violent streak overcoming her good reason, bit by bit. But you, you are of Ned Stark's blood. You will have temperance. The welfare of innocent people on your mind always." And his eyes slid up to the sky, where the dragons were flying. "You are in the precious position, Your Grace, of being able to say that you match her in power, but you have the understanding of what a burden it is."
"Lord Varys." Jon's voice could cut clean. "Do you believe I'll be a better King?"
"I have no doubts," he answered quickly. "I know you have the strength to do what must be done."
"Yes, I do," said Jon quietly.
***
She should have guessed that something happened because she clearly heard Rhaegal roaring, but Dany could hear nothing beyond her own galloping heartbeats. She was standing in front of the Dragonstone throne, contemplating her options when she became aware of the presence of one of the other two men on the island with her.
She turned around.
It was Jon.
And his shadowy figure walked toward her, when she noticed that in his hands he was holding something.
Dany gasped.
Jon was carrying the severed head of Lord Varys.
Notes:
Although I have combined this last bit of what might be called "the King's Landing plot" with the epilogue in the last chapter, part of it is because I came to the conclusion that my long, long-planned ending just didn't feel right any more. Maybe that version will make it to the drafts work, and it will be up to you to decide which is more appropriate. In both endings, Jon and Daenerys end up together.
I'm so excited to finish this story.
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