章 2417: 52
52.
Restored
Dragonstone
It made a dreadful weather on the island. Strong, whistling winds were battering the shore, tossing angry waves against the rocky outcrop beneath the castle. The War council reunited in the chamber of the painted table. The relief engraved with Aegon the Conqueror's map of the Seven Kingdoms glowed with the light of a thousand candles.
Dany circled the table and lowered one of the figures that marked the position of King's Landing, her face stone-masked.
"If anyone objects to attacking the city, you shall better speak up now," she warned in a low voice.
For a long moment no one dared say a word, until tentatively Ser Davos spoke, "Your Grace...we will be risking the armies by walking into a deadly trap. That's exactly what happened when Stannis' fleet tried to take the city."
Daenerys looked at the table and then back at Ser Davos. "I can take the city on my own with Drogon—"
"And Rhaegal," Jon added quickly, placing another wooden figurine on top of the one she had moved. This was all or nothing.
Ser Jorah looked between the monarchs with a grim expression.
"We're talking about the adversary not fearing an attack. If taking the city was the right angle to approach this conflict, Your Grace would not require the forces of an army..."
Daenerys closed her eyes and scratched her forehead. Exhausted. She released a deep breath.
"I shall surrender as I am in exchange of Missandei and Lady Sansa. Their terms were such."
The gathered people around the table gasped audibly, their eyes widening in disbelief at her words.
Jon and Jorah, both men cried out their opposition.
"It will be the end of you," the old knight warned dropping his voice.
"You will not do such thing," Jon stated at the same time.
"What choice do I have, to sit idly by while my people are put in chains again?" Daenerys' voice wavered. "What harm can they do to me? Jon will still be with the armies, Rhaegal in his command."
Jon stepped forward, his unwavering look fixed on her with a clear intent.
"All it takes is—" Jon didn't finished that sentence.
All it takes is a knife to the heart, Dany knew.
"If anything happens to you, the city will burn. The whole of Westeros will burn," he warned, silencing the room with his statement that heard more like a threat.
Ser Davos cleared his throat.
"I believe, there's still a way to breach the city. I can still smuggle my way into it," he said, eyes darting between the monarchs. "...With a small entourage. The armies outside can create a distraction in the meantime."
"Let this one be your soldier, my Queen," Grey Worm spoke from a shadowy corner. His face reflected the conflict, the desperate emotion that also washed over him for all the concern for his love. "I lead the entourage into the city. Take back the throne for my queen...to bring Missandei back alive."
Those present observed with a bated breath, expectant at the Queen's response. She nodded quietly as if placated and the war council started to laid out the plan for the siege.
***
The might of the wind threatened to blow them away when they trudged across the beach. Daenerys knew he was following her, but she had no desire to delay a confrontation any longer.
She turned around to find him.
"Was it vengeance all this time?"
First she looked at him in confusion. Then it dawned on her.
"No," she answered, "If I had wanted that, I would have got it as soon as I came back the first time."
Jon took two steps forward. His face scrunched into a pained expression.
"What do you want from me then?" he asked, edging on despair. "Why it must be us, torn apart?"
She felt guilt coiling around her throat, preventing her an answer.
"You need to stay behind, to be a King, Jon," she finally said. "You don't belong in the far north, away from everything and everyone. You are the heir—"
"Piss off with that, Daenerys," he furiously cut her off, almost a scolding fashion. "You always have to gain the higher ground. Run away so as not to face the damage you leave behind."
"I'm standing up to it," she replied through gritted teeth. "Who else will do it? I have to do it," she dropped her voice almost pleadingly.
Jon gave her one last resented look and left without another word. Meanwhile she turned to face the raging waves crashing against the shore. It would be sweet and easy to just drown, she thought.
***
King's Landing
Drogon descended from the skies covered in sunlight and took off several ships of Aurane Water's fleet with its fire. Daenerys then went for the city and flew over the terrorized citizens. When her soldiers in the city became aware, it was too late. They opposed, but they didn't have the time to make much of it.
Aurane walked through the gates of the Gods to meet her.
Littlefinger stood on the ramparts, Missandei and Sansa strategically placed on either side of him. None of them had their hands chained, but the guards had theirs on their weapons, ready for any false move.
The winged shadow loomed over Aurane and his entourage, landing with a crashing thud in front of them, roaring ferociously as the wrath of its rider rumbled within him. Daenerys came down, bringing no one with her, not even a suit of armor or a weapon to defend herself. Her protection relied exclusively on the dragon, but dragons were not invincible.
While they didn't have scorpions to bring them down from the sky, a well-aimed arrow at the rider was enough to unsettle the mount.
Daenerys looked up at the ramparts and saw Missandei, distinguishable even in the distance. Her heart throbbed, each steady beat almost painful.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't turn you and your men to ashes this very instant," she threatened, though on edge, easily restrained.
Aurane folded his hands behind him.
"If you had wanted to make this quick, you would have done so already, Your Grace," he replied.
"Your Grace?" Daenerys laughed. "What? Is this a show of respect? Who are you, Aurane Waters? Where do you come from?"
Aurane stood firm and walked cautiously close to her. His eyes intent on the rumbling beast.
"From the same forgotten Valyria from whence the Targaryens sprang. I may not have the name, but I have the blood. And I've seen what the magic within our blood is still capable of."
Daenerys frowned in disbelief.
"What does that have to do with allying yourself with Petyr Baelish? Taking my throne? Having Missandei hostage?" she asked, furious.
"It has to do with everything. Littlefinger is a glory-seeking rat. He doesn't know his only reign is in darkness and shadows."
"So what do you want?"
Finally the right question, Aurane thought.
Approaching, Aurane spoke close to her face. "Some things don't make much sense, do they? Like a single family escaping the Doom. Dreams that anticipate tragedy. Women who jump between times, appearing in one moment and then again twenty years later, looking exactly the same."
His eyes searched in Dany's.
She let out a soft gasp.
How it was possible that he knew?
"I don't know what you're talking about..."
"Don't bother trying, Your Grace. I know what my eyes saw that night with Queen Rhaella Targaryen, though your good mother also tried to tell me that my eyes had seen wrong. I believed it for a while. Until that same woman stood before me and knew I was never wrong."
Dany took a deep breath. She remembered her encounter with her mother on that occasion, her own slip of the tongue condemning her to the fate she finally met. For if there was one thing she had learned, it was that there were some things that simply could not be changed.
"Show me," he said, clear and concise. "Take me to the source of that power, and that alone you will know of me."
Bran, Daenerys thought. Could anybody just do what they've done? It's been hard enough for her.
Daenerys stepped back, her expression taking on a resolute shadow.
"You've taken my friend, not once. Twice," Daenerys answered. "You've betrayed me. I won't let that go. You can't do this and pretend to live to tell."
The man raised his face in defiance. "I have nothing to lose, Your Grace. One false move and the city will burn to the ground. Missandei of Naath with her."
Drogon thrust his talons to the ground and roared, throwing every soldier to the ground, including Aurane Waters.
***
When dawn broke, a fishing boat brought her close to shore to a fault in the walls of King's Landing. It was the same place where Arya found herself once when she was a girl, only this time they had sealed the way into the castle. It didn't matter, she just needed access to the city.
Through the Iron Gate and into Flea Bottom, on her way she found a city in desolation trying to escape what seemed an uncertain fate. Rounding a corner, Aurane Waters' soldiers recognized her and Arya had to flee through alleyways and up the ramshackle, overcrowded buildings of Flea Bottom.
Arya looked helplessly to the east, to Red Keep, so far away. She bit her lip and cursed. The heavy pressure in her chest consumed her with desperation for her sister trapped there, she should have never had left her alone in this. Just as when they were just girls. She abandoned Sansa. She couldn't do that again. She wouldn't do that again.
Hurrying down an alleyway, Arya grabbed the rags hanging on a wall and covered herself with it. Her hooded figure ran through the crowd in the opposite direction. The only thing that stopped her in her frenzy to reach the heart of the city was hearing her name coming from a familiar voice.
Arya turned around. Behind her, being pushed almost into the rushing crowd, was Gendry's friend Hale.
***
Littlefinger took Sansa with him in his carriage as his caravan was heavy surrounded by guards through the narrower but less crowded King's Landing road back to Red Keep. But it seemed an great effort. As Sansa struggled against the violent rocking, holding onto the walls of the box, she caught the look of bewilderment on Littlefinger's face. She immediately knew what thought was haunting him.
"It's the first time you've seen it," Sansa pointed out, "That kind of power."
She felt the same way seeing the dragons for the first time.
"Do you know how many dragons the angry mob of King's Landing slaughtered at the end of Rhaenyra's reign?" Littlefinger retorted, almost trying to hard to hid his obvious dread.
"Dragons in chains in Dragonpit, If I remember well," Sansa rebutted.
The carriage hit a deep pothole and the sudden movement sent Sansa into Littefinger's body. The man held her there enjoying the contact, but she pushed herself back into her seat with a displeased expression.
Her hand had closed tightly around something cold and sharp.
***
Jon watched Daenerys say something to Grey Worm, his gaze lingering on the soldier's reactions as he seemed at first tense and then as stiff and undemonstrative as ever.
"It seems so vain. To return to the same pettiness of man's warring after fighting the most important war of our age," Ser Davos said, snapping him out of it.
Jon nodded reluctantly.
"You will fight their wars forever," he repeated those words, but the Onion Knight barely heard him and gave him a curious look.
Davos, Grey Worm and a small retinue marched on a mission to smuggled into the city.
Daenerys and Jon stayed behind, watching them grow small as they walked away.
"He knows," Dany said, almost in a whispering voice.
"Who knows what?" Jon asked.
And Dany proceeded to tell him all about Aurane Waters. Of his intentions and how it came to pass that he knew Daenerys and Bran were altering their world.
The confession that she had met her mother was bittersweet. That she had to go through that must not have been easy and the tremendous choice she had to make.
"Would you have done the same? For your mother?" Dany asked.
Jon did not hesitate in his affirmation.
Things were not good between them, but in that they could find common ground.
***
Arya and Hale took shelter in a crumbling building near the ruins of the Sept. Arya saw that the sun was at its brightest through the crack in the roof.
"We don't have much time," she thought aloud. "The city will not get past this day, in some form or another."
Hale looked at her in dismay.
"Will she...burn us? The Dragon Queen?" the girl asked in distress.
"I don't think that's what she wants," Arya replied, peering outside. "Littlefinger took Red Keep, and they're holding Daenerys' people hostage. And my sister..."
Arya swallowed hard. She felt again like a little girl in a riotous city watching her kin being put to the sword.
Arya looked at the ruins of the Sept. That's it, she thought. She might not be able to get to Red Keep, but she had a chance to stop the danger surrounding her.
***
"For all hells!" Littlefinger cursed as the carriage jerked wildly making him slam his face against one of the walls.
Sansa's heart skipped a beat as she nearly lost her grip on the object she had clutched in her hand. The pin of a small silver bird she had plucked from the hem of Littlefinger's cloak.
The guards were overwhelmed by the mob. And although they diverted the road down another alley, it was simply impossible to return to Red Keep if not on horseback.
She and Littlefinger got out of the carriage and into the streets. The nauseating smell flooded her senses making her scrunch up her face in disgust. Sansa saw that not too far away they were also bringing Lady Missandei.
Sansa and Missandei looked at each other briefly.
"This is not going to work," Sansa warned Baelish as he was engaged in an argument with the guards.
"This is our only option," Littlefinger insisted.
Sansa walked over to him until she almost loomed over him.
"The angry mob is going to kill you before even Daenerys Targaryen lays eyes on you," she warned him in a serious voice, making sure to make eye contact, "Her. Put her between a rock and a hard place," Sansa looks up at Missandei, who has her mouth half-open in bewilderment. She turns her gaze to Littlefinger, who seems to understand what she meant.
Baelish looked at her in that perverse fashion, as if I was watching a dream come true.
Sansa took the opportunity and moved on to Missandei.
She placed a hand on her arm.
"She should never have crossed the sea with you. That was always going to leave her in a difficult position." She stepped back. Missandei's eyes look hard, with a hint of confusion. "Now she has to choose between you and the people of this city."
Sansa turned around and climbed back in the carriage.
Littlefinger ordered Missandei to be taken another way and be handed over to the mob.
***
With only time on their hands, Daenerys and Jon waited for the moment when they have to take part in the action. All around them, there was only sounds and breeze: birdsong, the far away murmur of the Blackwater Rush and beyond them the barely audible presence of men.
"I have never wanted to hurt you," Dany said first. An urge inside her, she wanted to embrace him, however, she restrained herself for both their sakes.
"I know," Jon answered but there was a certain aloofness about him.
Only now did she realized that they were facing their situation head on. She came from another time, she was a different person. And in that other life, he didn't have the chance to move on.
Perhaps that was the point, Dany thought. Not to start over but to accept what could not be restored and move on.
"I don't care what they say, about who you are and what you are meant to be. I know you better than all of them. I always will," Dany says, tears flooding her eyes, "I'll know."
Jon can't bear to see her, because he will want to hate her for loving her. He will want to take her in his arms and shake reason into her, but he was exhausted. Exhausted from being the one who fought, and now he just gave up.
"You'll have what you want, Dany," he only said.
***
Missandei never felt a violent impulse, probably because that was simply not her nature. Her escorts push her around and try to touch as much of her as possible as they lead her stumbling along winding paths. Her hand closes tightly around the object with a sharp end that Sansa Stark has slyly placed in her hands.
She didn't know how to do it. She was afraid that if she just tried, she'd lose her only chance to free herself. A memory came to her mind, of a conversation with Grey Worm about killing. He has said it's not something he enjoys or doesn't enjoy, it's just something he has to do.
Maybe it's that or maybe it's just the memory of her love but as she hears the growing voices of the mob nearby, she builds up courage in her chest and in one clumsy but swift and effective movement drives the object into the neck of one of her captors.
A choking sound was all she heard, as she slipped out of the other guard's grip and ran as hard as she has ever.
***
"Are you sure?" Arya asked Hale as if she had time to question the knowledge of someone who has lived in this city all her life. The other girl only nodded, hurrying her down the stairs into a tunnel that collapsed after the explosion of the Sept of Baelor.
"If the fire doesn't kill us, this ruins will!" Hale complained ruefully.
Indeed, Arya thought as they descended further and further into the darkness. They could easily have been crypts, after all that is where the Targaryens buried some of their dead.
"If this is where Cersei's caches for the Sept were stocked, the rest can't be far behind," Arya deduced. And if the other caches were nearby, they must be guarded.
Arya and Hale went down an increasingly dark and cold path, but the strong heat led them to its source.
And then there was an incandescent glow.
They found it.
***
Sansa hurried out of the carriage as they entered the outer courtyard of Red Keep. She was certain in her mind what to do but did not know if her resolve was there. She looked over her shoulder and met Bealish's gaze. His eyes, full of possession and desire, made her the more angry that he could've hurt her so greatly.
What good is love to me if it can't protect me? she thought.
Sansa continued up the steps and crossed the corridors unimpeded. The first time she had been there she had been dazzled by its grandeur, but now she could only imagine her father, walking these same corridors, going to his ruin for being too honorable.
She won't be honorable.
She wanted to be brave.
Sansa pushed open the great doors of the Throne Room and found herself face to face with the infamous iron throne.
Littlefinger followed after her.
"You told me once that when you closed your eyes you saw this horrible chair, you sitting in it," Sansa said, looking at the Iron Throne with contempt for all the harm it caused, creating greed in the hearts of those around it.
"I also said I saw you by my side," Baelish added, dropping his voice.
Sansa turned around, her brow furrowed. "So greatly you desired me that you handed me over to Ramsey to do with me what he pleased?"
Memories flashed through her mind bringing tears to her eyes.
Conflict finally appeared on Littlefinger's face.
"I didn't know what he really was. I thought that after your first failed marriage, you would know how to stand up to Ramsey. I committed a mistake. I own it." He approached, a pleading expression on his face.
"But Sansa, I love you. I loved your mother and I love you. So much has been my love that I have not wanted to..." he paused, hesitating.
Sansa nodded.
"You have not wanted to be the one to stain me," she said, converging only spite in her voice. He needed someone else to make her less of a child and more a woman for him to finally have her. Sansa clenched her fists at her sides. "You were a stupid, little man. For what he did, I'll only ever see you as an extension of that perpetual damage."
A single tear ran down his cheek and she wondered if this was finally victory.
Sansa stepped aside.
"Take a seat on your throne, Lord Baelish."
***
It was hard to get lost in the crowd of people when she stood out so easily among them. Missandei found herself crossing and ramming into the citizens of King's Landing, who called her names and tried to seize her to return her to her captors. Not all of them, as there were some who simply watched in confusion.
She wished she had kept the pin she stuck in the neck of one of the guards. But removing it would have been much more harder than thrusting it. The dried blood on her hands made her sick with the sensation that she had killed somebody. It didn't feel well even if they deserved it.
Her dismay turned to despair. Her weariness into agony. The maps in her head told her to follow a certain path but reason that she would never get out of the city alive. Then arms were grabbing her and she began to scream, to shake and fight for her life as she had never done before.
"I got you, I got you!"
In her frenzy the words sounded distant, she recognized their meaning but not their sound. It was not the grip of strangers that subdued her.
Grey Worm, covered in a cloak, stood in front of her.
He was with her.
***
"Oh gods," Hale whispered as both she and Arya crouched and sat in their awe, behind them the glow of wildfire brighter than ever.
Indeed, Arya thought. We are screwed.
There were no soldiers guarding the caches but someone would be close by, she did not doubt.
If she came out of hiding now, she would be found out and everything would go to shit. If she went to warn the others of her location, they might come in the meantime and blow everything up.
They were all pretty much screwed.
Except there was a standing option, and she looked over at her companion with a clear thought in her mind.
"Hale," she called her just above a whisper. "You go back, go to the nearest tower and ring the bells. Then wait for the Dragon Queen to find you."
"I can't do that!" she cried out.
"There's no other way," Arya insisted, almost pleadingly.
Hale hesitated before nodding reluctantly.
Before she left, Arya took her hand in a firm grip.
Her eyes glowed in the darkness.
"If I don't make it and you see Gendry again, tell him I love him," she said.
***
He first gazed reverently at the longed-for object of his desires and then turned slowly, dropping down and settling into the throne.
What an unremarkable sight, Sansa concluded, looking from the foot of the steps.
"When you get her to destroy herself, when she's gone, then what?" Sansa questioned, climbing one step.
"When we have her gone," corrected Littlefinger, enthralled in his delusional haze, "...she'll be gone. I'll be the only one with the resources to help save the Realm. I will reap from all the favors I have seeded over the years."
Sansa took another step up. "What about the North?"
"What about the North?"
Another step. "We have vowed not to bow to a Southern ruler any more."
Littlefinger looked at her questioningly.
"Believe it or not, the North owes me too. Without me they'd be nothing but Ramsey's plaything."
Another step and she was at his eye level.
"And you owe me. You will give me the North," Sansa was not asking. It was a fact.
Littlefinger leaned back, stretching his arms over the throne's armrests.
Sansa's icy eyes rested on the icy blade beneath. So dangerously close.
"And what will you give to me, Sansa?"
Her expression turned sour. "You will want me now. Broken and marked by another."
"You're not—"
"Don't even try, Lord Baelish," she cut him off. Now that she loomed over him, she extended her hand and waited until he returned the gesture. "Do you see how we are not the same? I'll repay your protection giving you what you wanted." Sansa laced her fingers together. She watched him swallow hard as his eyes lowered to her mouth.
He wanted her.
Love made men do stupid things.
Like kissing them.
Like let their guard down.
Like trust them not to drop their hand when they least expect it.
The truth is that love is the most compromising position of all.
Sansa takes a deep breath with her lips over his and forces Baelish's wrist straight onto the protruding blade on the armrest of the throne.
***
Amid the chaos of people scattered in a frenzied panic, Grey Worm and Missandei stood at the center of it all, locked in an embrace that defied the chaos around them.
"You came!" she cried out, as if she needed to say it out loud to believe it.
"You're bleeding..." he pointed out, inspecting with his touch where the wound was coming from.
Missandei's curls bounced as she shook her head.
"It's not mine," she said.
In the raving of sensations she found herself relieved to be accompanied, to be by his side. A part of her had been devastated at the certainty that she might die alone, no one familiar by her side to hold her hand.
The most terrible outcome.
"There is no time. We have to move!"
Missandei eyed an older man clad in old rags. She had not realized that he was with them until he made that statement. And he didn't sound like a peasant at all. This was a Lord, she noticed.
His big blue eyes set on Missandei.
"The Lady Sansa?" he asked her.
"She helped me. But she went back with Lord Baelish," Missandei explained, chagrined.
"Back? Where?"
"Red Keep."
Grey Worm caught her attention again.
"This is Ser Davos. Ally of Jon Snow, and of the Queen," he explained, only to Missandei to hear and understand.
There was no time for proper introductions.
The pursuing soldiers gave chase and alerted their peers, so that they soon found themselves surrounded. Grey Worm brought with him a comparatively small number of men.
The confrontation that ensued began and ended as soon as they realized that they would not overpower their opponents, not without help.
Missandei stood narrowly as Aurane Waters arrived from the opposite street, an almost histrionic expression on her Valyrian-featured face.
Their gazes met for a moment, until the bustle was cut off by the sound of bells ringing.
***
A deep, rumbling sound of bells had her heart jumping as Daenerys' eyes looked wildly at the city, a hundred times worse than hearing the horns blasting three times. She saw the past become present in images of memories she would have preferred to suppress — of a state of abandonment and grief that consumed her to the very bones of her body.
Jon felt the same deep in his gut, a twist of anguish, his body trembling with dread. For the first time, he felt it was all happening again and instead of anxiety about what was about to happen, that dread was more about what they sought would not happen again.
Dany didn't waste a second.
As if she were deep in a transe she mounted Drogon and took off for King's Landing.
Jon beckoned to Ser Jorah, at the head of the armies, and then followed suit, feeling beneath his bare hands a bubbling energy coming from Rhaegal that felt like nothing he had ever felt before.
Dany had Drogon land not on the city walls but a short distance before the gates and with the lunge of his body he brought them down. The panic-stricken citizenry scurried from place to place, impeded by the terrible figure of the dragon at the only exit from the city. She nevertheless soared again with Drogon, a haunted shadow over the unsuspected structure beneath them.
***
The bells rang out and Arya heard them muffled by a thick layer of rocks from beneath the city where she kept watch for the arrival of any suspicious figures. The only clear sound was the shriek of a winged beast or perhaps two, and the despair of the terrified crowd in the background.
She leaned back against the wall and sighed, closing her eyes. Somewhere in the shadows she heard a tinkling sound, coming out clearer as someone step forward and found her.
Arya unsheathed Needle from its scabbard.
The man before her made a mocking growl and prepared his weapon to fight her.
***
Jon noticed that in addition to the tension in the air there was something else going wrong. Daenerys looked in his direction as if his presence there annoyed her. He did not believe it was in itself a nuisance, and the hidden intentions had nothing to do with any harm that she could not avoid given the circumstances. Jon was not there to be a shadow looming over her.
They found Ser Davos, Grey Worm and Missandei, surrounded by Aurane Waters' remaining army. And Jon's first instinct was to finish them off, but that endangered the lives of their loved ones too.
Rhaegal and Drogon landed one after the other on the rising buildings.
***
His soldiers hesitated at the sight of the fire-breathing beasts, but held their weapons aloft. Dany framed a lethal glare on Aurane Waters who stared at her with total solemnity.
"Lower your weapons now and you will die quickly and painlessly," she promised with no intention of following through.
Some of them lowered their weapons but most of them remained the same, to which Drogon let out a fearsome roar.
"This is where all roads end, Your Highness. And if you agree, your people and my people leave here unharmed and you give me what I ask," Aurane exclaimed.
Rhaegal was the one who came down in a threatening stance.
Dany's head whipped around to see Jon with concern.
"We are not going to compromise with a vile criminal," Jon warned.
"I am sorry, my Lord. You may be on top of your dragon but one command from me at this time and we will all go down in flames to the seven hells," Aurane responded, watching among the dragons with a strange fascination. "Have you ever seen dragons burn?"
"Daughter of death..."
"Bride of fire..."
Dany looked to where Missandei was defensively covered by Grey Worm and met her eyes.
I had only wanted to save you.
She had wanted to save them all.
She shook her head helplessly.
Drogon let out a spiteful groan, but Dany got off anyway. Jon soon followed suit, alerted, as she looked back with a tortured expression.
Dany stopped him by placing her hands on his armored chest.
"Take them out of the city—"
A protest was about to come out of his mouth when she cut him off.
"You owe me this. This is the one thing I won't let you take from me. She has to live. The city has to be saved," Dany declared firmly. "He wants something and I'm going to give it to him."
She could see how much her words hurt him, but there was no recrimination in them, only a simple truth: if Missandei died, if the city burned or he himself died, it would all be for nothing. She couldn't afford going through that again.
***
Sansa panicked as the squelching sound indicated that the steel had pierced the flesh. Baelish grabbed her neck in a tight grip, and their eyes met for a fleeting moment. It was enough for her to see in his green eyes her own startled reflection. Then she stole the dagger he always carried from his belt and plunged it bluntly into his neck.
Stick'em with the pointy end, Arya would say.
A high-pitched moan escaped her throat as his grip loosened and he went to try to feel his own bleeding wound.
Sansa stepped back, down the steps to the ground, as Baelish with his last efforts stood up, wrenching his wrist from the throne. He tried to do the same but ended up stumbling and falling. Already on his knees, he choked on his own blood to death.
His forever fixed on Sansa as the glint of his eyes faded.
***
The cunt pushed Arya against the wall and her head hit the rock with a thud. He put up a good fight, but she persisted. He had the physical advantage but Arya kept slipping away from him, like a slippery cockroach, until he managed to capture her and was now trying to squeeze her to death.
Arya desperately slapped his wrist but soon ran out of strength. When she stopped writhing, her boots thumping the air, smugly he guffawed. Then Arya pushed herself into the air and wrapped her whole body around his arm, forcing him to give in.
He let go of her and she fell to the ground.
Quick as a shadow Arya scrambled up to her feet and reach for Needle. When she turned around, the man was gone.
With a heart pounding, she ran to the wildfire caches and found him back there, trying to light a trace of lamp oil ready for the explosion with an almost wasted candle on top of it.
Arya rushed to throw herself at him. Needle aimed for his gut. The sword was thrust accurately into its target but with overpowering force, the soldier rose up with Arya, the sword sticking like nothing in his abdomen.
Arya watched helplessly as the flame made its descent into the glowing barrels. With a resolution in her mind, she mustered her last strength and pushed both bodies away from the oil trace.
Sprawled on the ground, Arya crawled toward the candle, her fingertips brushing against it. The man tried to crawl after her, but she kicked him away. With a desperate lunge, Arya managed to grasp the candle just before it could ignite, fingertips closing around it as she held it aloft, away from the oil-soaked ground.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
***
Jon's eyes never left Dany's, as she stood on Aurane Waters' side. Behind him two raging beasts trembled in anger with the echoes of his own impotence.
"Now your people and beasts leave, your Grace," Aurane demanded.
Ser Davos halted him by a putting a hand on his chest when he instinctively tried to cross over.
She nevertheless wore a calm countenance.
"Surrender the city now. This is between you and me," Dany replied.
Aurane seemed enthused that she was challenging him.
"The city not burning will depend on you giving me what I ask," he redoubled, eyes flickering in Red Keep's direction, "Armies will leave the city if I'm satisfied enough."
Jon rushed at him, but both Ser Davos and Grey Worm intervened, seizing him by the arms.
Aurane grabbed Dany's forearm and pushed her down the city.
Drogon then took flight, as if to shadow his mother and captor, but flew on past the castle.
Jon pulled away from the grip of the knight and the Unsullied commander and cursed them. Rhaegal shrieked at the remaining soldiers and for a moment it looked as if she would breath fire on them.
"Son, you have to get out of the city. You may return for her, but Lady Missandei must be taken to safety," Ser Davos tried to reason.
"I had no wanted this my Lord Snow, I'm so sorry," Missandei said, as she became a real presence when Jon raised his eyes.
He felt himself drifting in and out of stupor; as if he could not discern between the real and the memory. The crowded streets. The soldiers stunned, confronted, not knowing where to go. His mind was a misty landscape.
Ser Davos saw Jon's fists clench and unclench and a ill feeling came over him.
Jon was one moment too stunned and then he snapped in madness, unsheathing Longclaw toward the unexpected soldiers.
Rhaegal opened his muzzle and a flare ignited in the back of her throat.
***
Dany first felt the tightness in her chest, which sent her into a coughing fit immediately after. Dust and the soaking heat hung heavy in the air. She could see nothing but dust rising in the sky, her gaze fixed as she tried to lift her head and look around.
She had turned to look behind, Rhaegal's shriek had startled her. She closed her eyes and waited for them to fall of an all-powerful blast but it never came; it was not the wildfire — it was dragonfire.
Aurane Waters pushed her to keep them going, making sure to take Dany on the most crowded path, so that even if Drogon wanted to come down at her command, a human shield would always impede her.
"So much for keeping the city safe from your enemies, and you brought fire upon them," Aurane scoffed.
Dany tried unsuccessfully to get away.
Aurane pushed her into tunnels and the last thing she saw in the sky was the shape of a winged shadow.
***
"Run, run, to the gates!" Ser Davos commanded as they ran away from the blaze that was beginning to devour the buildings with its wild passage.
He turned to look up at the sky, at the three dragons joining in a loose flight over the city, searching for their mother.
At the gates, all of them mustered their strength to lift the heavy barriers. Citizens, soldiers, allies — all desperate to get out of the city.
On the other side, the sound of the army's cavalcade could be heard.
This is madness.
This is fire and blood.
***
From so high up in the sky it was impossible to follow a trace. He knew that Dany would not be hurt by the fire and all he wanted was to reduce Aurane Waters' chances to escape. A small voice in his head tried to quell the surge but he could hear another thread of thought combined with his own: everything below was insignificant. He couldn't even see beyond the rooftops.
Drogon and Viserion hover over Red Keep like birds of pray. Fire might not hurt Dany but stone will. Wherever Aurane Waters took her, she could a dagger, a little shove or inordinate force would be enough to hurt her. The thought seeped into him like poison. Poison in his mind he could feel thicken in the form of madness.
He wanted to burn everything down.
Jon didn't see Drogon heading their way until he slammed a blow into Rhaegal's side, aggressively but not savagely. The larger beast shrieked plaintively as it hovered above them.
He glared at the black dragon but his eyes were closed in on Jon too. It was not just Drogon there.
This was Dany.
***
Arya emerged from the ruins of Baelor into a hell she had thought she had avoided. She looked up at the sky but caught no sight of the dragons, but heard their roars. Whether it was her brother or Daenerys, she had no way of knowing, but her heart pounded with the thought that the dragons' fire would ignite the caches beneath the city after all.
I must get Sansa, she thought.
But a frenzied crowd now thronged the main street, desperately heading for the city gates.
One man struggled with the reins of a bucking horse that refused to follow him, until he gave up and followed the crowd toward the walls.
Arya rushed at the animal and hopped on it.
***
A tremor shook the foundations of the castle, causing Sansa to stumble. The unmistakable sound of dragons echoed in the sky and through the window in the wall behind the throne a shadow impeded the light, darkening the throne room.
Sansa rose to her feet and left the throne room in a near-run, passing the now-alarmed soldiers who were scurrying about in search of an escape. A couple of them saw Littlefinger's body, then her, and concluded what had happened. None of them stopped her as she continued on her way back to the outer courtyard.
Once there she made out the shape of the golden dragon, which was perched on top of one of the towers and with its magnitude and weight was sending the structure crashing down.
Hubris and stones fell right next to her, sending her to the ground with a thud. Covering herself with just her arms, she thought she would die right there, crushed by tons of rock. It didn't seem like a bad death after all.
However, the squeal of a horse made her look up, just as the animal appeared through the archway of Red Keep's walled curtains. Just at the bottom of the steps, the animal announced itself with its front legs raised in the air.
"Sansa!"
Her heart gave a flutter.
Through the rising dust, there was Arya on top of the horse.
Her sister came to save her.
Her family came to save her.
Sansa picked herself up off the ground and stumbled down to reach out and take her sister's outstretched hand.
"You came for me," she said, letting her more erratic thoughts simply go then.
"Of course I came for you, you stupid," Arya screamed out.
Sansa hugged her sister as if she were a lifeline.
Arya meanwhile turned the white horse toward the path out of there, just as the golden dragon landed in the open courtyard, facing them in a threatening stance.
"Whoaa!" Arya warned, as the horse bucked up.
Beast and sisters looked at each other for a long moment.
Finally Viserion stepped aside and let them go.
***
For what seemed like hours Daenerys found herself traveling through the labyrinthine corridors beneath the city and Red Keep, almost shuffled forward all thr time by her captor when she tried to put up a fight against his manhandle. It took Dany a while to find out where they were going.
A soldier reached him when they were in the tunnels under Red Keep. The man had a conflicted expression on his face.
"What happened?" Aurane barked.
"He's dead. Baelish. The Stark girl killed him," he announced.
The soldier's eyes fell on Dany, his eyes injected with dread.
"My Captain, the men think it's time to leave the city, the beasts—"
Dany tried to get away again, taking advantage of Aurane's distraction as his soldier told him of his men's defection. The bastard only hardened his grip, making her squeal with hurt.
They left the soldier behind, and plunged into the more unstable paths of the tunnels. Dany remembered Lord Varys' warning, about the danger of collapse in the structure.
"This won't work for you," Dany told him, as they moved on, "You're lost. Even if you kill me, you won't get what you want."
Aurane gave her a deadly look.
He said nothing, his eyes fixed on the way where he was taking her.
Dany felt her chest close around a groan as she felt herself running out of strength.
"There's not enough air in here," she said as she felt everything around her spinning.
What was going on?
***
Pentos,
present time.
"My King..."
Bran notices that her eyelids are twitching as if she might wake up at any moment.
Somewhere in the room, his loyal sworn sword calls out to him.
"She can't wake up yet, it isn't over. Something's off," Bran responds.
Ser Podrick hears a strange sound, like thunder, and goes to the window to look out at the night sky. It is not a stormy night, but everything is darker than usual.
There is not a single star in the sky.
But no clouds either.
Everything is black.
"Something...an alien object is trying to interfere," Bran keeps muttering to himself, "If she wakes up now without having finished her journey, the very foundation of our world will be torn apart."
The fingers of one of Daenerys' hands flex.
Her face, which has remained serene and solemn at all times till now, began to pucker.
***
Her eyes opened to a disturbing light.
She had vanished on the way and now lay on her back on something hard.
"No time for dreams, Your Grace," said the sharp voice of Aurane Waters.
She would have liked to remain in a dream, never to see him again, never to hear him again.
They were in a strangely familiar place. One of the caves lead to an opening, the same one that Rhaegal had breached to rescue Jon months ago.
Aurane was sitting opposite her on a rock.
"It's time to give me what I want," he said, looking at her with a menacing glint to his eyes.
He now looked really beaten up about his dire situation. He had gone to the last consequences, and Dany was sure that if he did not get from her what he demanded, he would do something mad and take her with him.
And if she died, what would happen?
How would she meet to Bran, twelve years hence?
If she was certain that everyone she loved would be all right, she wouldn't care.
"You have to...you have to close your eyes...search your memory...where you want to go...no...where you have to go," Dany tried to explain, feeling a throbbing pain in her head.
How would she do this? Was she even capable?
"No, no, NO!" Aurane leapt on her, pushing her small form against the wall, wrapping his hand around her throat. "When you and Queen Rhaella met here, you simply disappeared! You did! Use that magic!"
"It doesn't work like that," Dany spoke in a choked voice.
"It worked for you, it will work for me too," he declared, raising a knife to her face. Dany realized how much he reminded her of Viserys in that moment, eyes wild and glowing with madness. "You Targaryen are not the only blood with magic. You couldn't even stay on your damn throne long enough. You know what they used to tell me when I was a boy? That you brought on the Doom. A family resentful of their low status in the Valyrian freehold, wishing they were the only ones with that power. It runs thick in the blood, you realize?"
"Dragons," Dany whispers, her heart and mind sheathing in that powerful tether, nearing close.
"Yes, dragons," Aurane repeated.
Her hands closing over his wrists, she again indicated, "Close...your...fucking...eyes."
Trembling with anger, he finally gave in.
Nothing but the whistling of the wind passed between them for a long moment until a earthquake threw them off.
***
His eyes jumped in panic as Drogon slammed his body into the exposed rock. Jon saw with horror that there they were, in some sort of opening, the fucking Aurane trampled over Dany, as she could barely be seen.
If Drogon was under his mother's command, she must have known what she was doing. But a surge of dread washed over Jon as the bedrock began to give way, leaving them both barely standing on its edge. Below them rose the peaks of sharp rock formations.
Drogon continued to try to reach his mother, and Jon shouted for him to stop.
Fire.
Fire would kill him.
Jon grabbed the horns on Rhaegal's back and commanded "Dracarys," waiting for the blast of dragonfire.
Drogon lashed his tail against the rock again and the opening structure collapsed, causing Jon to take a last second warning and deflect Rhaegal.
The fire still reached one of the bodies that fell into the void.
"DANY!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.
***
Her grip on the edge wobbled, she felt the skin on her fingertips burn from the friction on the hard surface. She would not have endured so much had not her son put his snout under her and pushed her up.
Dany turned and crawled over the bridge of Drogon's nuzzle, who looked up at her with relief in his amber eyes.
You saved me, she thanked him through their tether and something akin to melancholy passed through their bond.
You saved me always.
***
As the dragons landed them back on firm land, they ran to each other, and when Dany was in his arms she realized that the pain would be worth as many times as it took, just for a moment like this.
Jon wrapped his arms around her and pulled her even tighter against his chest, burying his nose in her neck, breathing her in. His eyes squeezed shut into an expression that combined overflowing love and inescapable hurt.
They hurt one another but the worst of pain was the life they couldn't quite embrace.
And yet, they loved one another without a doubt.
***
Viserion took care not to let Aurane's men get too far away. Ser Jorah and the armies entered the city, but instead of the sacking that characterized the end of a war, Daenerys' loyal bear saw to it that every inhabitant in danger made it safely out of the city.
Jon had no intention of hurting anyone, but circumstances had forced him. He repented of this and knelt before her begging for forgiveness, but Dany lifted him up and comforted him, telling him that one mistake did not undo all the good he had brought to the Realm.
The city did burn but did not bleed this time.
Worse fates had been avoided.
Sansa and Arya were reunited with the armies outside the city, and the elder Stark was celebrated for ending Littlefinger.
"You avanged him," Arya muttered softly, as they were alone, "Father."
Both sisters hugged each other. Sansa whimpered into her shoulder, letting the pain just be for the first time since she was a child.
***
"There is something I must tell you," Dany said to Missandei, several days after the battle.
She told her all.
The painful parts, the good parts and the parts that she still found herself ashamed to share about. All in hopes that her friend would find in her heart the strength to forgive, something that herself didn't seem to find.
"If you had told me this before—"
"You wouldn't have agreed with my decision," Dany cut her off, looking at her with a pained smile. "I took your will out of all of this. For that, I ask you to forgive me. But I will always protect you."
Missandei took her hand in a firm grip.
"Who will protect you?"
***
There was a gathering to discuss the situation in the Kingdoms. It was the only real opportunity to have so many people from all over Westeros reunited in the same place at the time.
"I'm sorry I killed him without getting the information about where he shipped all the gold to," Sansa said, speaking from across the table, where she and other Northern lords sat.
"Never apologize for killing an evil man," Daenerys replied, without looking up.
Baelish took it upon himself to leave a Realm without resources, to do to her what the greens had done to Rhaenyra Targaryen.
Winter was upon them, and most still knew not what hard times lay ahead.
Dany held a crumpled piece of paper in her hands. A missive from Meereen signed by Daario Naharis, warning of the growing uprisings. This had happened before, too, only that Lord Varys, while he still needed her in Westeros, had kept her blind to it.
Meereen needed the braker of chains.
Westeros needed the rightful king.
Across the room she met her still-husband's gaze, hidden in the shadows, still utterly refusing to accept the inevitable outcome.
Kings and queens seldom belong to themselves.
***
It was strange for the Lords of Oldtown and the Maesters to hear a queen request an annulment because she was simply incapable of producing children. Her argument was fiercely contested but she finally got the document signed. After all, Rhaegal had annulled a consummated marriage; why should she not undo a union doomed from the start?
This is not self-sacrifice, she thought, but the closer and closer she got to the rooms she had shared with Jon, the worse that decision felt.
He stopped trying to fight her, and she knew that was for the best.
Dany found him standing near at a window, his gaze vacant.
"I don't want it," he had protested so greatly before and she had told him that didn't matter because others would see to it that he took it anyway.
It was to reassure it as much as to make it clear to himself, but Dany wondered which parts of him obeyed his wishes and which parts obeyed the mandates he had grown up with, of the man ever devoted to duty and self-denial.
If she had mulled it over before, they might have had a real opportunity—
Stop, she said to herself.
They had something real. Very real.
It didn't last but when something good, really good, ever lasts?
She left the document on a table, and advanced toward him, knowing that he would probably push her away.
He didn't.
Instead he cradled her in his arms as she hid her face in his chest, wanting to stay there forever.
***
Her body lying on top of his, her ear listening to his heartbeat, Dany's face was marked by dry tears. If she raised her eyes to see his face with the same stains, she would die right there.
He took a deep breath and held her even tighter.
"I will wait for you," he promised, kissing the crown of her head.
She shook her head.
"Don't," she asked him. She pleaded with him. Her eyes welled up with tears again.
"You don't get to choose," he answered.
She dreamed that night, that dream, and she guessed it was the first time she had done so in this time. Both then and now, it had not embittered her — the certainty that he would have what she couldn't.
Instead it had brought her peace.
The happiness of someone you love is always a light feeling, she thought as she closed her eyes and lost herself in a distant memory.
Notes:
You didn't think I was going to leave it here, did you?
The epilogue tomorrow.
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