The North had never felt further away than when Lyanna tried to find plants to poison her captors with. She recognised none of the herbs or roots she glimpsed when out on her rides, nothing that even looked remotely similar to the flowers or well hidden tubers that would set a man’s belly to cramping or have him shitting blood when prepared in just the wrong way. The knowledge that her mother had passed to her, received in turn from her own mother, Arya Flint, was useless in that red and rocky land. But that did not mean she gave up.
After a week of good behaviour, her riding privileges had been expanded, and she made use of them to explore goat trails and old paths, roaming further than she had been previously permitted. But the freedom of the ride was a distant thing, and she spent more time watching for plants that the local animals avoided, or only ate certain parts of, than she did enjoying herself. Cheer in her situation was akin to a flayed man offered water.
Days went by, the ninth month of the year marching on, and for all her efforts, Lyanna had but two finds, finds that she could only hope would be useful. One was a half chewed root that she had found next to a dead rodent of some kind - its nose strangely long and its rear legs more like a dog’s than a rat - and the other the heads of a tiny desert flower that she had never seen attended by the scant bees she had glimpsed.
It was easy to smuggle them back to the caves. None of her captors suspected that the naive little girl that they’d been watching over for most of a year had any reason to hate them, and Lyanna continued to tease and complain at them the same as she always had, just another noblewoman bored witless at her isolation. She watched them play games of dice, talk of distant sweethearts, or of their family back home, and she thought about how similar they were to her own guards, the men they had murdered on Rhaegar’s orders.
Sometimes, when she spoke with the man who had put his sword through Charlotte’s belly and kicked her from her horse, she felt like she was wearing a mask of dead flesh that made all the right faces and noises, while her heart turned into an unbeating thing of cold and ice.
She thought about the knife hidden in her skirts a lot.
It was suffocating, the knowledge that she was surrounded by those who had slaughtered her people, and the never truly gone weight of the queer weirwood did not help. Plotting revenge was her only respite from the pressure of it all, and as she hid the hopefully poisonous ingredients beneath her bed, she felt a moment of relief. It passed swiftly, buried under the slow weight of everything. Getting the root and flowers back to the caves was the easy part. She still had to think of a way to get it into the food of her captors, and she knew that while she could simply walk into the kitchen cave, any sudden interest where there had been none would be a clarion call when her captors started - hopefully - suffering. But there were more ways than the obvious to get her poison to them, she just had to be smart about it. She tried not to think about how long Rhaegar had lied to her for, keeping her duped and compliant and stupid, what was he thinking, what could his plan have possibly been-
The time spent planning was not wasted. Simply putting the root or flowers into the cooking pot would do little or nothing, and rendering down ingredients for their poison was a delicate task even at the best of times. Repurposing a process meant to produce a poison from winter roots to aid in the hunting of giant bears, with unknown herbs and no tools and keeping it secret all the while, was something else entirely.
She managed. A misplaced clay bowl, a spoon that wouldn’t be used again for food, and the fading embers of the sentry’s fire saw the root rendered into a powdery paste over several days. It was far moister than the powder the winter root would have yielded with proper tools and familiar processes, and dark thoughts kept telling her that the root likely lacked any poison to it at all, but if she did not try her only option was the knife.
She knew she would use the knife on Derron first, but sometimes she didn’t know who she would use it on next.
It felt like Alys was watching her more closely than ever, and Lyanna was reminded of her hatred for the practices of southern handmaidens as she was waited on near every waking moment. The woman had started trying to keep her away from the weirwood chamber entirely, and it was getting harder to let it sip of her blood, small as her offerings were. She thanked all the gods that their shared chamber held two beds.
For all her plotting, when opportunity came it was not one that she made for herself.
“-duty roster for the past week!” Derron was thundering, his voice, usually quiet, ringing through the tunnels. “What if we had been found and besieged!? Water duty is done daily for a reason!”
Lyanna saw the subjects of his ire as she and Alys rounded a bend in the tunnel; a pair of poor guardsmen standing ramrod straight, backs to the wall, four barrels set upright on the stone a touch further down. One was fool enough to try to explain himself.
“The drinking kegs are full up, it’s only the cooking wat-”
“I DID NOT ASK YOUR OPINION!” Derron roared. “Do you think a siege suddenly means we won’t need water to cook?”
The clamour of the dressing down echoed down the tunnel, and Lyanna and Alys clapped their hands to their ears at the sudden noise of it. The movement drew the eye of the men.
“Don’t look at the ladies, you look at me!” Derron barked at the hapless guards. He stepped closer to them, giving the women space to walk past without getting caught in the crossfire, and continued to unload.
Alys gave her a look, brows raised and lips pursed. Lyanna returned the amused look with plastered on amusement of her own, and then Alys was hurrying past the scene, leading the way. Lyanna couldn’t help but glance at Derron’s exposed neck. It had been a week since she had realised the truth, a week of grasping tight her emotions, tight enough to bleed, a week of waiting and preparing with nothing to show for it. She was tempted, and damn the consequences.
But then she saw the open barrel, and she breathed. One of the lids had been removed, revealing their contents to Derron, perhaps, and she saw her chance. Not even a heartbeat had passed, and she was reaching into her skirts to retrieve not the knife, but a handkerchief with a thimbleful of paste. Between one step and another she shook it out into the barrel. The plop of it into water seemed loud even against the continued dressing down, sounding between one word and the next, but not a person in the tunnel beside her seemed to notice it.
Lyanna continued on, catching up to Alys’ side as they made for the sun of the outdoors. She had done it, done something, and no one was the wiser. All she had to do was wait and pray.
The evening meal came and went, the men eating their soup and coarse bread, while Lyanna and Alys partook of some kind of roast bird that had been shot for them. The next morning came and went much the same, and Lyanna tried not to look eager as she sat amongst the roots of the heart tree after flicking another drop of blood at it, listening in on the talk of the men who were not on duty.
Nothing. No sickness, no pain, not so much as an upset stomach. Maybe the rodent had died of something else, not the root it had nibbled at, or maybe it was poisonous to the rodent and not to men, or there was simply not enough. The cause didn’t matter. The result was the same.
Grimly, Lyanna turned her attention to the flower heads she had found. Their small orange petals had long gone to wilting, but the stigma and its pollen were still there, carefully preserved between the pages of a book the Prince had brought for her. By the light of a candle, in stolen moments on rides outside, whenever opportunity arose, Lyanna took from the flower heads what she needed, following a recipe meant to produce a dangerous mix that mothers taught their daughters to remove stains from dyed clothing, or husbands from unhappy marriages. It was no winter rose, and she could only hope that the Dornish flower that no bee would touch would have a similar effect.
Another opportunity was found, another happy coincidence this time involving seasoning for the men’s meal put out in the sun to cure. Lyanna added her touch to it as Alys and her guards were distracted with their horse, and tried not to hope as they rode out. She spent the afternoon fending off questions from Alys about things that just did not matter, and could only be thankful that she had fallen quiet by the time they returned.
The next morning, there was great upset. Men were woken by the sudden weakening of their bowels, latrines were filled to overflowing, and many fled beyond the tunnels to take refuge in the stream. The stench of shit was unavoidable, and Lyanna and Alys fled to the western exit while the men did their best to persevere and put the tunnels to rights. It was not until late that same afternoon that it was fit to return, and Lyanna struggled to hide her satisfaction. There were no deaths, and the worst had already passed for her victims, but her plan had worked. She was no helpless maiden, not the demure lady that she had been playing at for Rhaegar, and she would have her revenge. Grief, so heavy and ever present, was eased, and the first cinders of red fury were starting to rise.
X
Lyanna found her success to be a blessing and a curse. A blessing for how it eased the ever building weight of her confinement, and a curse for how it let her take a breath and think for the first time since discovering the truth. As she looked out over the peaks and valleys of the Red Mountains, searching for comfort in the closest she could get to solitude on another afternoon excursion, she found herself looking back at her every moment with the Prince, seeing them in a new light - how foolish he must have thought her, how easily led. She couldn’t imagine what he thought to gain. She didn’t want to think about the obvious answer. Had he whisked her north to her family, he would have gained boon allies against his father, the Starks none the wiser to the truth as they aided the man who had slaughtered their people. But instead he had brought her south, and plied her with attention.
She shuddered as the memories of what could only be courtship crossed her mind. She had dismissed it as beyond the pale for a married prince and the betrothed of a Lord Paramount, and still thought it so, but no longer did she think the Prince to know better. She wondered why he hadn’t simply forced her, and she shuddered again.
Nearby, Alys looked to her with concern. She had been doing that a lot as the month marched on, and Lyanna steeled her thoughts. The Prince had not forced her, and if he tried, she had her knife. She would make a gift of his heart and her own to the weirwood before submitting quietly.
She tried not to let his parting words from his last visit haunt her, the truth casting them in a new light.
That day, she returned to the tunnels with only two new flowers, not nearly enough for her purposes. The orange petals were difficult to glimpse against the red dirt of the Dornish Mountains, and harder still to gather unnoticed. She would need more than a handful if she wanted to see her captors shit themselves to death.
Time moved on, the relief and joy of her success starting to fade, a repeat seeming further and further away with each day she failed to find more flowers. She emerged for a ride one warm day to find that Vhagar had stomped a viper to death in the night, but Alys’ shriek and the attention of the guards put paid to any thoughts of using its venom. Another chance missed, made more bitter by the complete lack of any more flowers. The ninth month ended, and she was no closer to being free.
Routine found her by the weirwood one morning, bright rays of the morning sun falling through the holes in the ceiling to illuminate the chamber. Some few of the men were there too, but she made sure to hide her actions from them. Again she pricked at her hand, again she flicked a drop of blood onto the stonelike tree, and again it felt like the presence of the heart tree eased. Of late she had almost thought that its eyes seemed to follow her, but then she would look and it would be as dead and still as ever.
Alys joined her as she took her customary seat on a sweeping dead root, two bowls of porridge and honey in her hands. There were even bits of fruit chopped up in one, something Dornish, and it was that one that she handed over to her.
“None for you today, Alys?” Lyanna asked, taking up her spoon.
“This was the last,” Alys said, taking a perch of her own.
Lyanna paused with her food halfway to her mouth. “Already?” The older woman had been almost mothering her those past weeks, but it had been simple to ignore. Either Alys knew nothing of the Prince’s plans, and she was in danger just as Lyanna was, or she knew full well, and she would die.
“Derron rid the supplies of any he thought might be ruined after the incident, and the next drop off isn’t for another week,” Alys said. She saw Lyanna glancing between their bowls, and gave her a smile. “I don’t mind a plain porridge now and then, and you need the extra, anyway. I hear Stormlords like their women with a bit of strength to them.” If her cheek wasn’t clear enough in its intent to tease, the tongue she poked out was.
Lyanna busied herself with her bowl, pretending that she was hiding a giggle. She couldn’t muster one in truth, feeling too thin and worn, and she ate stiffly, hardly tasting the meal. When she was done, Alys was quick to rise, taking it from her and saying something about coming back with tea. She made a noise of agreement, and let her mind drift as she stared at nothing in particular.
Movement caught her eye, and she returned to herself, after how long she didn’t know, and she froze. There was something more pressing demanding her attention - by her bare ankle, near where it rested on a small stone root, there was an insect. It was not just any insect. It was the same curious creature with pincers like a crab and a stinging tail whose venom the Prince had said would kill a man after driving him insane. It was a mottled grey, big enough to fit in the palm of her hand, and very, very close to her ankle.
‘Be still,’ Lyanna willed it. She did not want to die. Staring at the deadly insect, the scorpion, she became aware to her very heart that she very much wanted to live. The fog of despair and lethargy that had been slowly dragging her down was cast aside in the face of mortal danger. She wanted to live, to take justice for Charlotte and Torrhen and all the others, to tear out Derron’s throat and then do the same to Rhaegar, but she could not do that if she died an agonising death to the scorpion and so she willed it to be still.
The scorpion was still.
A quiet, harsh breath escaped her throat, and she became very aware of the strain she could feel in her leg, keeping it still. If only the thing would skitter away so she could shift, and -
The scorpion skittered away.
Lyanna froze further, something she had thought to be impossible. She could still see it, the scorpion still close, but it had backed away from her ankle almost exactly as she had wished. Old stories tried to rise up in her mind, but she pushed them aside, focusing on more pressing matters. Surely she could move her foot away, perhaps even squash it flat - but that would be a waste, wouldn’t it. She had missed her chance to use the poison of the viper, but here was something perhaps even deadlier, if only she was foolish enough to try. Foolish enough to believe in something out of Nan’s tales. Doubting herself, castigating herself for a fool, she willed the scorpion to step to its right.
The scorpion took a scurrying step to its right.
Lyanna’s eyes bulged from their sockets. The way the colour of the scorpion shifted to better match the colour of the sand it now stood on rather than the grey stone of the weirwood roots was hardly worth her notice, not in the face of what else she had witnessed.
“Here you go, Lyanna,” Alys said, returning with tea and close enough to see the scorpion and scream if only she looked.
In a blur, the scorpion skittered forward onto her ankle, racing along her leg and then up her torso, scurrying around until it stopped on her neck under her untidy hair. She couldn’t help the full body flinch, and she unbalanced from her perch, throwing an arm back to catch herself. She did so right where the root met the tree, and -
-hiding, concealed by countless threads, recently fed but knowing not to sting-
-Lyanna came back to herself. Alys was kneeling before her, teacups set aside as she watched her with concern.
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“Lyanna? Are you well?” Alys asked in a low voice, brown eyes shaded with concern. “Lyanna?”
She was slow to respond, still half hidden in the crook of her neck, hidden by her hair. She blinked the foreign perspective away. “Yes, I…my mind was elsewhere. What did you say?”
Alys took a moment to reply, eyes darting over to the other occupants of the chamber. None of them seemed to be paying attention, and she relaxed. “Here, your tea.”
Lyanna accepted the offered cup, letting it warm her hands. “Thank you,” she said, still distracted. Usually, the tea would only be another reminder of how far she was from home, but in that moment she hardly noticed it. The taste of tea was nothing in the face of Nan’s tales come to life, of warging and the horrifically deadly scorpion that she could guide with her thoughts.
The face on the weirwood watched as she hid a smile in her tea.
X
Scorpions couldn’t see for shit. Lyanna had never considered how other animals might see the world, but now that she was catching bewildering glimpses of bizarre landscapes and unearthly colours, it was something she spent more and more time thinking about. How did Vhagar see things, she wondered. It was surely better than her still unnamed scorpion companion. It was a pity she couldn't guide her mount in the same way; maybe then Derron would be dead instead of two of his men.
Where her gambit with the flower had caused great upset, and later friendly taunting, the agonising deaths of two of her captors had led to an altogether different response. The first man, stung in his sleep and dead only after hours of agony, had seemed to be terrible luck, and seen much commiseration between his friends, but such was Dorne. They had been lucky to avoid such things over their long stay in the Red Mountains, in truth.
When another man was stung the very next day, he was given mercy within the hour, and a purge began. Men searched the tunnels for any remotely threatening critter they could find, stomping spiders and burning out nests. Derron led the search of the ladies’ chamber, removing the beds and furniture entirely to peer into every nook and cranny of the stone walls, looking suspiciously up at the holes in the ceiling, utterly oblivious to the scorpion that hid under Lyanna’s hair on the back of her neck. It was a struggle to keep a mix of vindication and derision from her face; for all their efforts she thought they had achieved nothing even had it truly been an accident. Any insects they killed would be replaced within the week as more moved in, but she supposed the men needed to feel like they had done something, anything to feel like they would not be next.
Lyanna felt not an ounce of pity for them. She was only saddened that she hadn’t managed to kill her true target.
When Alys had finished glaring at the men who were searching their bedding and wardrobes for any hidden dangers and sent them on their way, they went about setting their chamber to rights, arranging things just so and ensuring that none of their smallclothes had gone missing. Alys busied herself with her stitching, repairing a dress and speaking idly of the poor dead men. Lyanna did her best to answer, though her thoughts were elsewhere.
Killing the men one by one would never work, but if a single sting was enough to kill a man in scant hours…she wondered how much venom would be needed to poison a cauldron of stew.
X
As it turned out, the greater problem was getting the venom at all. Her new companion was biddable, lacking any strong drive beyond a desire for food and safety, but that meant little when it could only produce a tiny drop of venom each morning and night. Lyanna stole one of Alys’ thimbles, using it to hold the venom, but she swore that it would leak or vanish from it, each day barely seeing any rise. She grew frustrated, patience stretched as days passed, then a week. No longer did she count time by the turning of the sun, but instead how often she could milk her scorpion. It was still unnamed - she had been fond of Valyrian names and legends, but now she soured on such things. Nymeria came to mind for a namesake, but it wasn’t quite right.
Her patience failed her in the second week of gathering. With the scant dregs she had been able to gather, she walked through the tunnels with murder on her mind, but not for the kitchen, so often busy. She went instead to the cave used for storage, and found one of large ladles used for the big cooking pots that the men used for their meals. Five pathetic drops dripped out of her thimble, then one more when she shook it, settling in the ladle. She placed it down where it would be the first to reach for, and hurried away. When next she knelt by the weirwood, she prayed for death.
Death did not come. Perhaps it was her haste, or perhaps the heat of cooking had ruined the venom, but the only consequence for those who ate the tainted meal were painful cramps and the susurrus of unholy dreams amongst the men. Her efforts were for naught, and her temper threatened to break her stranglehold on it, leading her to make use of every orange flower she had to poison the men’s meal again the very next day. Even with a single drop of venom, there were no deaths, and even the knowledge that many of her captors were near broken from the runs gave her little comfort. She couldn’t even make use of their suffering to escape - Derron had commanded that the men would eat of two separately prepared stews, and there were too many still healthy for her to risk riding away.
Lyanna fell into a malaise as the tenth month slipped on, uncaring of the troubles she had caused the men, or the distrust they spoke of for their delivered supplies. In the end, her efforts were still those of a foolish, idiot girl who hadn’t even known she had been stolen away. She hardly noticed the way the men started to range out even more for supplies they could trust, no longer content to wait for what they saw as tainted food. There were only the endless days, each the same as the last, and the knowledge that no one was coming for her.
X
The first that Lyanna knew something was afoot was when one of the men sprinted through the weirwood chamber, slowing only enough to see that whoever he sought was absent, before rushing onwards. She and Alys shared a bemused look, but nothing else seemed to come of it, and they returned to their distractions, Alys to embroidery, Lyanna to staring at the tree as a mug of tea warmed her hands, only pretending to read her book.
Their distractions did not last long, as a squad of men jogged through the chamber not a dozen minutes later. They were armed and armoured, and set on their task, not slowing at all. The few other men in the chamber shared a look, and were quick to put their own distractions aside, leaving dice and cups behind as they hurried off somewhere. Something was afoot.
There was no one to question, and Lyanna’s imagination rose up unasked. Had they been found? Was it someone looking for her, or someone else by random chance? Was it her brothers, there to rescue her, or had Varys found them and told Aerys, the king setting his Kingsguard to hunt her down? Her knuckles grew white as she held her cup, fear warring against hope.
A chance for answers entered the chamber, Derron leading another squad of men. He saw the two of them and stopped, turning to his men and issuing curt, quiet instructions. They hustled on without him, heading west just as the others had, and he turned back to leave the chamber.
Alys spoke before he could leave, half rising from her seat amongst the roots. “What is happening, captain?” Alys asked of him. “Have we been found out?”
“Likely not,” Derron told her, turning back. “There was a group of what might be bandits sighted approaching the western entrance. I am merely being cautious.”
“Oh,” Alys said, easing back down. Then she frowned, worried. “How many?”
“Less than ten,” Derron told her. “Not nearly enough to be a match for my men, even if they were to find the tunnel entrance.”
“Oh, of course,” Alys said. “No need to worry at all then,” she said, looking to Lyanna with an encouraging nod.
Derron gave a bow of his head to them, then turned to hurry on his way. Lyanna’s gaze followed him, pinned to his back. There was already a squad of men stationed at the western exit. Another dozen men wouldn’t have been sent if there wasn’t cause to worry.
Time inched by, the sun pouring in from above turning from golden to orange as the day slipped by. Alys came close to ruining her embroidery three times, and Lyanna wasn’t even pretending to read her book. Nothing seemed to be happening, but the two men who had rejoined them in the chamber lacked the casual boredom they had carried before, and men on their own time did not wear daggers and gambesons. For the first time, Lyanna wished that another companion had come to her, something with eyes and ears she could actually use. Immediately she chastised herself; even if she had yet to settle on a name for her scorpion, she still cared for her.
Derron passed through the weirwood chamber twice, not going far beyond it, and each time appearing calm and at ease, but Lyanna marked him. He had looked just as carefree when he had started the slaughter of her people. Lyanna shared a look with Alys the second time he passed through, and both held still, straining to hear something, anything. There was nothing - but then a raised voice, panicked and out of breath, details unintelligible.
Quickly, Derron returned from the tunnel, still as calm as ever, but with undeniable haste in his step.
“Captain…?” Alys started to ask, but she was given only a shake of the head and a slight smile as the man hurried on. “Oh dear,” the woman said. “I think we should go to our chamber.”
“No,” Lyanna said, gaze fixed on Derron’s neck. She should have explained herself, said something about staying where Derron knew they were or that it was better not to hide somewhere with only one exit, but those were distant concerns.
“Oh dear,” Alys said again. She set her embroidery down, and busied herself with boiling water for tea on a small fire across the chamber.
Lyanna watched as Derron returned, speaking with the two men watching over them. One man left down the east path, but the other stayed with them, buckling on the sword that Derron had handed him. She accepted the tea that Alys handed for her, but she did not drink it. She only watched as Derron gave orders, throat tight and mouth dry. She didn’t dare to hope, but nor could she help it.
Men were sent. They didn’t come back.
More men were sent. They didn’t come back either.
Lyanna drank her tea when it grew lukewarm, and accepted another fresh cup from Alys as the woman started to stress brew, but there was no time to nurse it. Derron returned, and the calm was finally gone from his face.
“Come,” he commanded. “We must flee.”
“What? Why?” Alys asked. She was already rising, her fabric and needles abandoned.
“We have been found, and my men cannot stop them,” Derron said. He looked to Lyanna. “Quickly, my lady.”
Lyanna set her tea down amongst the white roots of the weirwood and stood. “Who is it?” Derron stilled for a moment, and Lyanna realised her mistake. “Are they bandits, or knights?” she demanded, as if she had always meant to.
“From their progress, I fear it is the Kingsguard,” Derron said. He stepped forward, putting a hand on Lyanna’s shoulder to guide her, pushing her to start moving. “We must not be here when they arrive.”
Lyanna let herself be guided, but only because the hand on her shoulder would be a perfect bridge for her scorpion to skitter over from under her hair.
“We can’t just ride into the night in our skirts,” Alys protested, even as she followed.
“I have had supplies from your chamber prepared for you,” Derron said, voice terse. The man who had been watching over them fell in behind them, and then they were out of the chamber and into the tunnels.
They passed squads of grim men as they hurried for the eastern exit, Derron sharing nods with them as they passed. Lyanna tried to count them, tried to remember how many had already been sent west, but such was their haste and her building nerves that she kept getting jumbled up. Another man joined them, the man who Derron had dispatched from watching them earlier, and he was carrying a pair of saddlebags.
“We have a plan for this,” Derron told them as they hurried on. He tried to keep their pace to a brisk walk, but his body betrayed him, trying to break into a jog several times. “We will ride deeper into the mountains to a secondary camp for the night, and wait for…”
Lyanna was hardly listening. There were only three guards with her. She could not take them all by surprise, but if she could get rid of even one before striking, she could cut the throat of one by surprise while her scorpion dealt with the other - but the venom would take time to take effect, and she could not defeat a man in a fight, and that wasn’t accounting for what Alys might do, what side she might take. She bit at her lip, almost hard enough to draw blood. Should she plead with Derron to send the other two men to help their fellows? Should she demand more protection than three men to draw strength from the defence? But what if it truly was Aerys’ Kingsguard, and not her brothers there to rescue her?
Her choice was taken from her as they emerged from the tunnels. The sun had set, but the moon had risen, full and bright and shining enough light to see. She heard the door to the tunnels be shut and forced closed behind her, Derron and his two men working to block the way.
“Take your mounts and two spares apiece, and then drive the rest away,” Derron ordered to the group. “Saddle and ready them, quickly now!”
Lyanna jolted into action, Vhagar coming to her. Her body went through familiar motions even as her mind worked furiously. She didn’t know what to do, which choice to make. Freedom was so close, but she was paralysed by uncertainty. Horses were saddled, gates were opened, and they were about to leave.
Something enormously heavy splintered against the door to the tunnel.
“To the sides!” Derron hissed to his men.
They wasted no time at all, darting to press themselves against the mountain on either side of the tunnel entrance, the curve and shadow of the stone letting them go unnoticed by whoever was about to emerge. An instant later the door was blown outwards with a great crash, and a figure strode through.
Lyanna watched as the man emerged from the darkness, lit from behind by torchlight. The moon fell on him, and while his face was shadowed by his helm, it cast the star on his chest into stark relief, making it gleam white and true. Her breath caught. She knew that star.
Derron moved, putting himself between them and the man, deliberately drawing the eye.
“Lyanna Stark,” Lord America said. The enormous hammer he held easily in one hand was dripping with blood, and a piece of someone’s scalp was caught on its back spike. “I’m Steve Rogers. I’m here to rescue you.”
The declaration stupefied all to hear it, but only for a moment. As the armoured giant had burst through the door, another knight had followed, this one carrying a huge polearm, and now more started to join them, spreading out as if to encircle the three of them.
Lyanna’s heart leapt into her mouth. It was not her brothers, but nor was it the Kingsguard. She didn’t know Lord America, not beyond scant meetings, even if Ned liked him and he had seemed a gallant knight at Harrenhal - but he had been knighted by one of Aerys’ Kingsguard, and she had seen the shine be worn to tarnish on men she had thought to be more gallant than he. Knighthood and gallant words meant nothing.
“Halt!” Derron commanded, holding out a hand, palm out. It was aimed as much at his own men as it was at the man before him. “If you are here to rescue Lady Stark, why would you slaughter her protectors?”
Lord America cocked his head, and he paused, before shifting his grip on his hammer and letting the head fall. He drove it down into the hard packed earth, top spike first, and let it stand there. “Protecting her for whom?” he challenged. “Not her family.” His now free hand went to his back, apparently adjusting something.
More men had emerged from the tunnel. Some carried torches and she did not recognise them, others half cast in darkness, but there were eight figures arrayed behind their leader all told. Lyanna could hardly take her eyes off the confrontation before her, gaze flicking from Lord America to Derron’s neck and back. There was an opportunity here before her, but she still didn’t know what to do.
“We serve Prince Rhaegar, keeping the lady safe from Aerys,” Derron answered, voice rising and strong, “from the King! And now you butcher my men, men who were already doing what you seek to do!”
Lord America stared him down, not speaking. Torchlight flickered over his face, revealing blood splatters dried and fresh. “I like to believe the best of people,” he said at length, “but something tells me you’re lying to me.”
“For months my men and I have protected the lady, prepared to give our lives for her,” Derron said, outrage and disgust mixed in his voice. “And now you make their deaths meaningless. Do not label me a liar because you cannot accept what you have done.”
Alys shifted minutely next to her. “Lyanna,” she croaked, barely audible even as close as she was. “When it starts, flee.”
The foreign lord was still watching Derron, again taking his time to reply. Whatever he saw in him had him shake his head slowly.
“If you cared about meaningless deaths, you wouldn’t have hidden Lyanna away while there was a war waged in her name.”
“A what,” someone said. A moment later Lyanna realised it had been her.
Derron twitched, like he was forcing himself not to glance back. “Easy to judge from afar, after all is said and done,” he said, and the sneer was clear in his voice. He clenched a fist, visibly restraining himself. Once he was calmer, he stepped forward. “There is something you should know.”
There was a ringing in Lyanna’s ears. She felt like she was falling from her body, the world tilting under her feet. She had heard those words before. Suddenly, she knew exactly what to do.
Alys’ fingers brushed against her wrist as she stepped forward, but they were ignored. Her knife was in her hand, and then she was behind Derron. The noise he made as she drove her knife into his back sounded just like Charlotte.
Derron staggered, trying to turn, but she twisted the knife and dragged it free, stabbing him again and again, aiming for his other kidney. The gambeson he wore might as well have been silk for all it protected him from her. There was the sound of something splattering, the clash of steel on steel, and then a wet choke, but Lyanna only had eyes for the dying man collapsing before her.
“What,” the murderer gasped, near retching and white with pain. “Where did you get…”
Lyanna knelt down next to him, leaning over to place a hand on his chest. She stabbed him again, in the stomach this time, and for all her knife was little, it was still sharp. He gave a keening cry, and she waited for it to fade. “I’m the one who poisoned your men,” she told him. She felt like a passenger in her own body, and she stabbed him again, prying another pained cry from him, weaker this time. “I killed your men for Torrhen, and for Charlotte.” She placed her knife over his chest, across from his heart. “Now I’m killing you for me.” Stark grey eyes looked down on him as she put her weight on her knife, driving it slowly into him.
Derron could do nothing but twitch and gasp and choke in pain, staring up at her in horror and denial as she took some small measure of revenge for her people.
“I told you I would act as expected of a Stark,” Lyanna told him. She fell back, leaving the knife in him. She felt cold.
“Lyanna!”
The call seemed to come from a great distance. It was a voice she knew, but she struggled to tear her eyes away from the half-corpse in front of her. She had to watch him die.
“Lyanna!” came the call again, closer now, more insistent.
She turned, the voice starting to pierce the ringing in her ears. She didn’t quite understand the face she saw. “Howland?” she asked.
Howland was kneeling next to her, one hand going to her shoulder as he looked her over like she might be hurt. “It’s me,” he said. “I owe you a lizard lion saddlebag.”
She remembered. “You do,” she said.
“All will be well, Lyanna,” Howland said, insistent, like she needed to be reassured. “You are safe now.” He looked at her searchingly, as if unsure she had heard him. “All will be well.”
“I know,” Lyanna said. If Howland was with him, then Lord America truly was there to rescue her, but that felt like a distant thing. Her gaze went back to Derron, still choking weakly. She didn’t want to miss anything. “Not yet. But soon. All will be well.”