Redemption of the Dragon

Act 2 – Prophesy or Conspiracy · Chapter 12: Stolen Magesty

Tom came out of the keep carrying Vissenya.

The sunlight struck him like a blow.

For several breaths he saw nothing but white heat and broken shapes. His eyes had grown used to the dim halls of Oros, to lamplight on old stone, to the red-dark room where blood had been gathered like a tax. Now the courtyard burned around him in flashes: black stone, pale faces, lifted blades, a wall of sky too bright to be trusted.

Vissenya's weight lay against his chest.

Too light.

That was the thought he could not shake. She had always seemed made of speed and balance, of sharp laughter and sharper knives, of a kind of beauty that did not ask permission to be dangerous. In his arms she felt breakable in a way that made something low in him want to tear the world apart again.

"Cleyton!" he shouted.

His own voice came back from the walls.

Men turned.

Then the courtyard went still.

Tom blinked against the sun until the world returned piece by piece.

The battle was over.

Or near enough that men had remembered fear. Aemon's followers held the yard, bloodied and exhausted, weapons still ready but no longer moving in the hard rhythm of combat. Maegor's surviving men had been dragged together near the cracked fountain, wrists bound, ankles tied, some shackled with their own chains from the stores. Ghiscari helms lay scattered across the stones. Sellswords knelt or sat where they had been shoved, heads lowered, eyes too wide.

And near the center of the courtyard lay a crater.

Not large enough to swallow a tower.

Large enough to silence a war.

The black stones had broken inward around it in a rough circle, edges lifted and cracked like a frozen pond struck by a hammer. Dust still drifted above the impact. At the bottom, half buried in shattered masonry and smoking grit, sat a stone the size of a shield, dark and glassy, veined with dull red lines as if it had cooled from fire only moments before.

No catapult stood on the walls.

No siege engine waited beyond the gate.

The sky above was empty.

Tom stared at it while Vissenya's fingers curled weakly in his cloak.

"Tom."

Cleyton came running from near the gate, robes hitched up, chain swinging wildly across his chest. He nearly slipped on blood and caught himself against a fallen shield with a curse that would have shamed several septons Tom had known. Behind him came two of Aemon's healers with bandages, boiled linen, and a leather satchel.

"Set her down," Cleyton said. "There. In the shade."

Tom carried Vissenya to the broken base of an arcade where a strip of shadow cut across the stones. He lowered her carefully, too carefully, and hated every flinch she tried to hide.

"I am not made of spun glass," she whispered.

"You are bleeding like it."

Her mouth moved toward a smile. It failed halfway.

Cleyton knelt beside her and went still for half a heartbeat at the sight of the cuts. Then the healer in him took command of the man.

"Water," he snapped. "Clean cloth. Needle ready but not yet. I want pressure there, there, and there. Not on the throat. Tom, move your hand."

Tom looked down and realized he was still gripping her shoulder.

He let go.

Vissenya's eyes found his. "Stay."

"I am here."

"Good."

Cleyton glanced up. "If you stay, stay useful. Hold this."

He pushed folded linen into Tom's hand and guided it to the worst cut along Vissenya's side. Tom pressed where he was told. Vissenya sucked in a breath through her teeth, and Tom nearly pulled back.

"Do not," Cleyton said.

Tom did not.

The courtyard watched.

That was when he noticed.

Men were standing.

Not all. Some were wounded. Some were bound. Some had not found the strength. But among Aemon's followers, among Maegor's newly shackled survivors, among the men who had been killing one another minutes before, heads had turned toward Tom. Toward Vissenya in his arms. Toward the crater in the yard. Toward the keep from which he had emerged after defeating the man who had called himself heir to old blood.

One of Maegor's sellswords dropped to a knee.

At first Tom thought the man had simply failed to stand.

Then another knelt.

Then three more.

Across the courtyard, one of Aemon's riders lowered himself slowly, face pale beneath blood and dust. A Ghiscari legionary followed, still bound at the wrists, bronze helm gone, dark curls plastered to his forehead. A woman archer from Elyria knelt with her bow across both palms. More went down after her.

Not all at once.

That would have been easier to reject.

This spread like a decision none of them had spoken.

Tom stared at them.

"What are they doing?" he asked.

Cleyton did not look up. "Being fools at an inconvenient time."

Aemon approached from the courtyard's center with caution in every line of him. His sword had been cleaned enough to be sheathed, but blood still marked one sleeve and his cheek. Behind him, Kemal stood over Maegor's corpse near the fountain with two guards holding spear points toward the dead man's throat as if neither quite trusted death to keep him still. Jory crossed the yard from the gate, limping slightly, eyes fixed on Tom as if expecting him to vanish.

"Why are they kneeling?" Tom asked.

Aemon's gaze moved from Tom to the crater, then to the men on their knees.

He did not answer quickly enough.

Jory reached him first.

"A stone fell from the sky," he said.

Tom looked at him. "What?"

"After you went inside. A stone. Fire around it. It struck the yard where Maegor's men had been gathering for another push." Jory glanced toward the crater. "Killed four. Broke the line. Everyone saw it."

"Stones do not fall from the sky."

"This one did."

Cleyton muttered, "The heavens are notoriously inconsiderate of what men believe stones should do."

Tom looked across the courtyard again.

More men had knelt.

A few whispered. He could not hear the words clearly at first. Then one carried.

"Sign."

Another answered in a language Tom did not know.

A third, in rough Common, said, "The gods cast judgment."

Something sour rose in Tom's throat.

He looked at the crater, then at Maegor dead in the dirt, then at the bound men staring at him as if the world had just named him.

"No," Tom said.

Jory's mouth tightened.

Tom stepped back from Vissenya only because Cleyton had taken over pressure with a healer's hand and one of the women had moved into his place. Blood smeared Tom's fingers. He did not wipe it off.

"No," he said again, louder.

The whispering thinned.

"Get up."

No one moved.

Tom's anger came back, but not wild. Not clawing. Cold and clean.

"Get up," he said. "If the gods sent a stone, then the gods can answer for every child burned, every man chained, every woman bled in a room like the one behind me. They can answer for the Red Wedding. For slave ships. For priests who saw flames and called murder holy. For every prophecy men use like a knife. Their intentions are cruel or careless, and I have no interest in either."

The courtyard held its breath.

Tom pointed toward the crater.

"A stone fell. That is all. If you need it to mean something, make it mean you are still alive and have work to do."

Jory looked at him with something unreadable in his face.

Boro, from near the gate, said, "You heard him. Up. The sky has not hired you to kneel."

Mera cuffed the back of his arm. "Do not help."

"I was helping."

"You were being you."

"Same thing on good days."

The tension cracked enough for men to breathe again. Slowly, awkwardly, the kneeling men rose. Some looked ashamed. Some frightened. Some more convinced than before, which bothered Tom most.

Aemon noticed that too.

Of course he did.

"You may refuse signs," Aemon said quietly, coming to stand beside him, "but men often prefer them to orders."

"Then give orders."

Aemon studied him.

"Gladly."

The next hour belonged to aftermath.

Cleyton took Vissenya inside again, not to the ritual room but to a chamber with clean air and an unbroken window where the wounded could be laid on blankets. Tom followed until Cleyton turned in the doorway and blocked him with a hand to the chest.

"I need room."

"I can help."

"You can bleed somewhere else."

"I am fine."

Cleyton looked at the cut beneath Tom's ribs, the blood on his forearm, the bruise swelling along his cheek, the limp he had not managed to hide, and the dried blood matting one side of his tunic.

"That sentence is an insult to language."

Vissenya, already half conscious on the bed, whispered, "He lies badly."

Tom looked past Cleyton. "You should not be talking."

"Then stop saying foolish things."

Cleyton pointed down the hall. "Out."

Tom held Vissenya's gaze for one heartbeat longer.

"I will come back."

"I know."

That answer steadied him more than it should have.

He left.

Outside, Aemon had regained the castle by becoming motion itself. Prisoners separated. Wounded counted. Weapons gathered. Walls secured. Maegor's body taken under guard to a cellar room with no window and four men at the door, because no one trusted the dead pretender enough to leave him in the open. The crater roped off because Cleyton had shouted that no one was to touch a smoking sky-stone until he had decided whether it killed men slowly.

Kemal organized the yard with brutal efficiency. Men who had been kneeling ten minutes earlier now hauled bodies, carried shields, and dragged broken beams away from the gate. Boro helped by giving orders no one had requested. Mera helped by making those orders better. Salla took three archers to the walls. Darro found a bucket, then another, then somehow became responsible for every bucket in the outer court.

Tom let himself be stitched because Jory stood over him until he did.

Then he joined the search.

Oros opened beneath them like a throat.

The upper castle held barracks, storerooms, half-repaired halls, and Maegor's private chamber, where old maps lay beside newer ledgers and a brazier still held grey ash. Lower down, the air warmed. The steps sweated. Old Valyrian stone gave way to rougher tunnels cut through black rock. Some passages had been sealed by rubble; others reopened with new timber supports. The deeper they went, the more the castle seemed to breathe heat from hidden lungs.

The dungeons beneath Oros had not been built for mercy.

They found the first prison behind a rusted gate.

Inside were twelve men.

Not Maegor's sellswords.

Aemon's garrison.

They were thin, bruised, and filthy, but alive. Two had broken arms. One had a bandaged stump where his hand had been. Another had a wound gone sour at the edge of his hip and had to be carried out. When Aemon stepped into the torchlight, several tried to rise and failed.

"My lord," one rasped.

Aemon went to one knee beside him. "Who did this?"

The man looked at him as if the question itself hurt.

"Baelys."

Aemon closed his eyes for a breath.

"How many joined him?" Kemal asked.

"Some," the prisoner said. "Not many at first. More when the sellswords came. More when he showed them the gold."

"Gold from where?" Tom asked.

The prisoner's eyes shifted to him.

Recognition came slowly, then fear, then something like the kneeling in the yard trying to be born again.

Tom hated that look.

"Answer him," Aemon said.

The prisoner swallowed. "From the dragon."

The tunnel seemed to grow hotter.

Cleyton, who had insisted on coming down once Vissenya was stable enough to curse him for hovering, stepped closer.

"What dragon?"

The prisoner looked at the floor. "One of the wild ones. Young, mayhaps. Not a hatchling. Big as a wagon, near enough. Red-brown scales. Scar above one eye. It came too close to the old cistern vents. Baelys had men set chains in the stone and baited it with goats and blood. Lost six men taking it."

"Taking it," Tom said.

His voice was flat.

"Alive," the prisoner said quickly. "He wanted it alive."

Aemon's face had gone white with controlled fury. "He sold it."

"Aye."

"To whom?"

"Men from the east. Exiles, I heard. Not Qartheen. Not YiTish proper, though some spoke that way. Their leader's men paid in gold, jade, and three chests of worked steel. Enough to hire the sellswords before anyone at the outposts knew what had happened."

Cleyton gripped the bars of the cell hard enough that his knuckles paled.

"Where did they take it?" Tom asked.

"South and east by the broken road first. Then I do not know. One guard said they were bound for a town past the ash hills, built by yellow men exiled from Yi Ti. Another said the town had no king but obeyed one."

"Name," Aemon said.

"I heard only the buyer's name."

The prisoner looked at Tom again.

"Lo Feng."

Cleyton went very still.

Tom saw it. "You know him."

"Of him."

"That means yes."

"It means enough to dislike this greatly."

They found the scroll in Maegor's chamber.

It had been hidden poorly for a man who believed himself chosen and well for a man who expected his enemies to be dead before searching. Aemon found it in a compartment beneath a writing table, wrapped in black cloth and sealed with red wax. The mark pressed into the wax was not Valyrian.

A coiled river.

A broken crown.

Three narrow strokes like falling blades.

Cleyton recognized it before he touched the scroll.

"Lo Feng," he said.

Aemon broke the seal.

The writing inside was in a formal hand Tom could not read. Cleyton could. His mouth tightened as his eyes moved down the page.

"Purchase confirmed," he said. "Living specimen. Wing membrane damaged but viable. Temperament violent. Delivery accepted by the House of the Exiled Dawn."

"That sounds pleasant," Boro said from the doorway.

"It is not."

"Never is."

Cleyton kept reading. "Payment delivered in full. Further consideration promised upon successful binding demonstration."

The last words left the room colder than stone.

"Binding demonstration," Tom repeated.

Cleyton folded the scroll with too much care. "They bought a dragon to learn how to enslave it."

No one spoke.

Tom thought of the crater in the yard. Of the kneeling. Of men whispering about gods and signs while a living creature, free until men with chains decided otherwise, had been dragged from its nest and sold like meat.

His hands curled.

Not wild.

Not shaking.

Task.

"Where is Vissenya resting?" he asked.

Cleyton looked at him sharply.

"No."

"I asked where."

"And I said no."

"You do not know what I am going to say."

"I know the shape of you well enough to make a guess."

Aemon looked from one to the other. "Tom."

"We need a brief council. Small. Now."

"You need stitches reopened and sleep."

"After."

Cleyton's laugh had no humor. "There is always an after with young men until there isn't."

Tom looked at him, then at the scroll in his hand.

"A dragon was stolen."

Cleyton's face changed at the word.

Stolen.

Not captured. Not bought. Not specimen.

Stolen.

"Vissenya is in the west chamber above the lower hall," he said at last. "If she throws something at you, I will not intervene."

"Fair."

The room chosen for Vissenya had once belonged to some minor officer or steward. It held a narrow bed, a table, two chairs, and a window looking toward the sea. Someone had scrubbed old dust from the floor. Someone else had hung a clean cloth over a crack in the wall where a draft came through. Vissenya lay propped on pillows, pale but awake, with linen wrapped around her arms and beneath one collarbone. Her hair had been cleaned as much as pain allowed and braided loosely over one shoulder.

She looked at Tom when he entered.

Then at Aemon, Jory, Kemal, and Cleyton behind him.

"This seems ominous," she said.

"It is," Cleyton replied.

"Then I dislike it."

Boro tried to follow them in with Mera behind him.

Tom held up a hand. "Small council."

Boro looked offended. "I am small in spirit."

Mera caught him by the back of his collar. "You are many things. Quiet is not one."

"I have counsel."

"You have volume."

She dragged him away despite his protests.

Tom closed the door.

For a moment, everyone stood in the tired silence of people who had spent too much blood to enjoy making decisions.

Then Tom spoke.

"I am going after the dragon."

Vissenya tried to sit straighter and immediately regretted it.

Cleyton pointed at her. "That is what reopening a wound feels like. Remember it."

"I am coming," she said.

"No," Tom said.

Her eyes narrowed.

Aemon's did too, though for different reasons.

Tom kept going before either could cut him open with words.

"I will take Jory and the former slaves from Myr. Boro, Mera, Salla, Darro, the others who choose it. People used to moving without banners. People who know what it means to be chained and sold. This is not an army's work yet."

"You do not know where Lo Feng is," Aemon said.

"Cleyton will find out."

Cleyton lifted both brows. "Will I?"

"You said you knew of him."

"Knowing of a man and preparing a route through ash country to whatever fortified nest of exiles he commands are different labors."

"Then begin with the first and work toward the second."

Jory looked at Tom with quiet approval and a little worry.

Kemal folded his arms. "Who holds Oros?"

"You," Tom said.

Kemal's expression did not move, but something sharpened behind his eyes.

"Aemon's men know the castle."

"Some do. Many are dead, wounded, or just freed from cells. The rest are shaken. Maegor's prisoners are tied in the yard. There may be men hiding in tunnels. There may be dragons beneath us deciding whether the stone falling from the sky was the beginning or the end of their troubles. You hold Oros."

"By whose authority?" Aemon asked.

The room went very still.

Tom turned to him.

Aemon did not look angry exactly.

That would have been simpler. He looked exhausted, grieved, and noble enough to make the question feel like law even when it was only a question.

Tom answered carefully.

"By the authority of need."

"Need is not a title."

"Good. Titles are making a poor showing."

Vissenya made a small sound that might have become a laugh if it had not hurt.

Aemon did not smile.

Tom stepped closer to the bed, not to Vissenya, but to the space between everyone. "You need to return to Elyria."

"No."

"Yes."

"Oros is my responsibility."

"The Tears are your responsibility."

Aemon's jaw tightened.

Tom pressed on, because stopping now would be easier and wrong.

"You have already lost one leader. Baelys betrayed you, took your castle, imprisoned your men, sold a dragon, and tried to bleed Vissenya for whatever madness he had dressed as purpose. The rest of the Tears need to know. They need direction before fear and rumor choose it for them."

"You presume much," Aemon said.

"Aye."

"You have been with us for months."

"And in those months I have seen slavers buy men, priests order murder, secret orders hide dragons, and a trusted leader call himself by a dead dragonlord's name. If I wait until I understand everything, I will never move."

Cleyton looked down, hiding something that might have been approval.

Tom faced Aemon fully. "Go back to Elyria. Send word to every branch. Tell them the truth before Maegor's version reaches them. Prepare for Volantis, red priests, Slaver's Bay, and anyone else who hears Oros is weak. Prepare for those who will think the Tears should become what Baelys wanted. Prepare for those who will panic because the first sovereign holding nearly became a dragonlord's throne in a day."

Aemon said nothing.

"You are one of the few men they will listen to," Tom said. "So make them listen."

The silence stretched.

At last, Aemon looked at Kemal. "And you would hold the castle?"

Kemal glanced at Tom, then at Vissenya, then toward the floor as if listening to the stones.

"Yes."

"Against remnants, sellswords, frightened dragons, and whatever else Baelys woke below?"

"Yes."

"You sound certain."

"I am not. I am suitable."

Jory muttered, "High praise."

Tom almost smiled.

Aemon heard and, despite himself, looked briefly amused. Then the weight returned.

"And Cleyton?" he asked.

"Stays here," Tom said. "He gathers everything he knows on Lo Feng, the exiles from Yi Ti, their town, roads, allies, enemies, customs, poisons, gods, weapons, and anything else that might keep us breathing. He gives me maps. Then he stays to care for Vissenya."

"I do not require a keeper," Vissenya said.

"You require blood."

"I have some left."

"Less than you should."

"I can ride."

"You nearly fainted shifting against pillows."

Her mouth tightened.

Tom softened his voice because anger would be easier and worse.

"Vissenya."

That stopped her more than the argument had.

He had not said her name like that before others. Not gently. Not with the room watching.

"Stay," he said. "Heal. Help Kemal hold the castle with what you know when you can stand without lying about it. If you will not listen, I will leave Jory to make certain you do."

"No," she said at once.

Jory said, also at once, "No."

Tom looked between them.

Vissenya pointed weakly at Jory. "He goes with you."

Jory pointed at Tom. "I go with him."

"You are both very quick to agree when it is against me."

"Good," Vissenya said. "Then we have found common ground."

Cleyton rubbed both hands over his face. "I am surrounded by wounded children with weapons."

"I am older than you think," Vissenya said.

"Not acting it."

She ignored him and looked at Tom. "I will stay if Jory goes with you."

"That is not bargaining from strength."

"No. It is bargaining from a bed, which means you should be ashamed if you refuse."

Tom looked at Jory.

Jory looked back with the calm of a man who had already decided.

"Fine," Tom said.

Vissenya settled back with a small breath of pain she tried to hide. Tom pretended not to notice because she would prefer that.

Aemon turned toward the window.

Outside, the sea lay dull and bright beyond the broken walls. Smoke drifted from the courtyard. Somewhere below, men shouted over bodies, prisoners, and gates that needed securing before night.

"You speak as if command has already found you," Aemon said.

Tom followed his gaze. "I did not ask it to."

"It rarely waits to be invited."

"Then it has poor manners."

Aemon's mouth moved almost into a smile.

Almost.

He faced Tom again. "If I return to Elyria, it is not because you ordered it."

"Good."

"It is because the order needs a center before it tears itself apart."

"Better."

"And because Oros must hold."

"Aye."

"And because if this Lo Feng has bought a dragon, the danger may move faster than any raven."

"Then we leave at dawn."

"You leave at dawn," Cleyton said. "If, after I stitch you properly, feed you, and possibly strike you with a cup, you remain foolish enough to stand."

"At dawn," Tom repeated.

The former maester glared at him.

Tom turned to the others.

"Thank you," he said.

No one seemed to know what to do with that.

So he made it plainer.

"For fighting beside me. At the gate. In the yard. On the road. Before that." His eyes moved from Aemon to Kemal, Cleyton, Jory, and finally Vissenya. "I know I did not make this easier."

"No," Cleyton said.

Vissenya gave him a look.

"What?" Cleyton asked. "He asked for truth with his face."

Tom huffed a tired laugh. "Get what rest you can. All of you. Aemon's people and mine move at dawn. There is too much to do before then."

Jory nodded.

Kemal nodded once.

Aemon gave a slower nod, one man acknowledging another without yet deciding what that acknowledgment meant.

Cleyton muttered something about impossible boys and infection.

Vissenya only watched Tom.

He left before that look undid more of him than the battle had.

The room he found had no owner left.

That was clear from the dust on the table and the half-empty chest against one wall. It was small, high in the keep, with a narrow bed, a cracked basin, and a window that looked down into the outer courtyard. The crater was visible from there, roped and guarded. Men still gave it more space than rope required.

Tom shut the door.

For the first time since leaving Elyria, no one needed him in that exact breath.

He did not know what to do with it.

His body chose for him.

He sat on the edge of the bed and nearly failed to stay upright.

The room spun. Pain arrived from places that had been polite enough to wait while he was busy. Ribs. Calf. Forearm. Shoulder. Cheek. A headache bloomed behind his eyes where Maegor's world had struck his skull more than once. He loosened his belt, pulled off one boot, gave up on the second, and lay back badly.

The ceiling above him was cracked.

Someone had carved a small dragon into one beam long ago. Its wings were uneven. Its head too large. A child's work, mayhaps. Or a bored guard's. It looked nothing like a terror from beneath the earth or a miracle across the sea. It looked like something made by a hand that had wanted a dragon to be simple.

Tom stared at it until his eyes burned.

Behind him lay the Twins, the ship, Myr, the arena, Selhorys, Elyria, Oros. Ahead lay ash roads, exiles from Yi Ti, a stolen dragon, a name Cleyton disliked, and whatever would happen when men who had once been slaves went to take back a creature sold in chains.

He should have felt fear.

He did.

He should have felt exhaustion.

That too.

What surprised him was the quiet beneath both.

Not peace.

Never that.

Purpose, mayhaps.

A dangerous word.

He distrusted it at once.

The door opened without a knock.

Tom reached for a knife that was not where it should have been because Cleyton had taken it while stitching him.

Vissenya slipped inside.

For one heartbeat, he thought blood loss had turned into dream.

She wore a loose shirt too large for her, linen bandages visible at the throat and wrists, hair unbound down her back in a pale fall. She moved slowly, one hand against the wall, face set with the kind of determination that made wise men step aside and fools try to argue.

Tom sat up too quickly and regretted it.

"You should be in bed."

"I am going to bed."

"Your bed."

"This one is closer."

"That is not true."

"It is emotionally true."

He stared at her.

"You are bleeding?"

"No."

"Are you lying?"

"Some."

"Vissenya."

"Tom."

She crossed the room before he could decide whether standing would help or end with both of them on the floor. When she reached the bed, the strength went out of her face for half a breath. He caught her by the elbow and helped her sit.

"This is foolish," he said.

"Yes."

"Cleyton will be furious."

"Cleyton is often furious. It gives his life shape."

"You should not have walked here."

"I know."

"Then why?"

She looked at him.

All the answers he expected were not there. No teasing. No clever turn. No mask sharpened for defense.

Only weariness.

And want.

Not the simple kind that had flickered between them on the road and made him forget how reins worked. This was older in feeling despite being new. Quieter. The need not to be alone after men had tried to turn her blood into a key. The need to know he was still warm and real and close enough to touch. The need, mayhaps, to choose one thing for herself after being bound.

Tom understood that better than he wished.

"All right," he said softly.

The fight went out of her shoulders.

He helped her lie down, then lay beside her with all the caution two wounded people could manage and very little grace. For a while, every adjustment hurt someone. She hissed when his elbow brushed a bandage. He apologized. She told him to stop apologizing. He shifted away. She caught his sleeve.

"Not that far."

So he stayed closer.

At last they found a shape that did not hurt too much. Her head rested against his shoulder, carefully below the worst of his bruises. His arm lay around her back without touching the bandaged cuts. Her hand settled against his chest, over his heartbeat.

Neither spoke.

There was nothing they could do beyond that.

They were too tired. Too wounded. Too surrounded by dead and duty. Desire was there, somewhere beneath pain and exhaustion, but it did not demand anything. It simply lay with them in the dark, patient for once.

Tom listened to her breathing.

It evened slowly.

"You are leaving," she murmured.

"At dawn."

"I know."

"I will come back."

"Men say that."

"Aye."

"Mean it anyway."

He turned his face enough to press his lips to her hair.

"I will come back."

Her fingers curled weakly in his tunic.

"Good."

After a while, she said, "Jory had better keep you alive."

"He is bossy enough."

"And you are difficult enough."

"Aye."

That faint smile touched her mouth again. He felt it more than saw it.

Then even that faded, and she slept.

Tom stayed awake a little longer, staring at the crooked dragon carved into the beam.

He thought of gods and stones, men kneeling, Maegor laughing through blood, a dragon dragged in chains toward strangers in the east. He thought of Aemon riding back to a wounded order, Kemal holding a castle full of secrets, Cleyton burying worry under knowledge, Jory refusing to be left behind, and Vissenya choosing this room when every sensible law of healing said she should not have crossed the hall.

He thought the road ahead would be cruel.

Then Vissenya shifted closer in her sleep, and the thought loosened.

For one night, the world narrowed to breath and warmth.

Tom slept deeply.

For the first time in recent memory, no dream found him.

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Disclaimer: Frostfyre is a non-commercial fan fiction project inspired by a Realm of Thrones campaign for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord and set in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. All rights to those original settings and characters remain with their respective owners.