fight like gods. asoiaf

INTERLUDE

I
THE LADY OF WENDWATER
"the interlude"

The faces of the Seven seemed to frown down at her, so cold and distant. The lady of Wendwater frowned back, for those stone statues had no reason to fault her.

Three long weeks she'd been trapped within the walls of her home, with her brother in the capital and her father confined to his solar, fretting about courtly politics. The lady might've been worried too, had they told her of anything occurring beyond the Wendwater Keep's walls.

"Lady Meridyth."

Kilyan - loyal, lovely Kilyan - appeared behind her then, dressed in the blue cloak of the Wendwater. Her colours, matching the silver-lined dress she wore.

He shifted his weight, boots scuffing the flagstones. "Your father was asking after you, my lady."

"My father asks after nothing but ravens and writs these days," Meridyth said, not taking her eyes from the Seven. "He can ask the maester if he wants company. Or the septa."

The Father's carved eyes glowered down at her; at least, that was how they seemed. She had stared at these statues since she was old enough to walk, listened to prayers murmured at their feet, watched candles sputter and wax drip like melted bone. Today the Seven felt no more holy than river stone.

Kilyan hesitated. He looked wrong in the cloak, Meridyth thought. Not wrong because it did not fit him - it did, too well - but because she remembered him without it. Bare-armed and muddy-kneed and grinning like a fool as he tumbled off a half-broken mule, promising he would be the finest rider in all the Wendwater if only she gave him another chance.

"He worries," Kilyan said at last. "With Ser Olyvar in King's Landing and the Hand... with what they say of Lord Stark..."

"What do they say?" Meridyth turned then, silver skirts whispering over the rushes. "You've heard something new."

Colour rose to his cheeks, as if he regretted speaking. "Only talk in the yard. Men returning from the Rosby road say there's been fighting in the streets of King's Landing. Gold cloaks turning their cloaks."

"Gold cloaks turning their cloaks," Meridyth repeated softly. "That seems fitting."

He shrugged one shoulder, restless beneath the blue mantle. "They say the Hand was taken captive. Some say he's dead."

Meridyth studied his face. Kilyan was only a year her elder, but steel had begun to mark him already. A pale line along his jaw from a practice blade. Roughness in his hands. A set to his shoulders she did not remember from when they used to race along the riverbanks.

"You don't know," she said.

"No, my lady."

"And neither does my father," she went on, "but he will lock himself away and drink and chew his nails and pretend the world will not change if he refuses to look at it."

"Lord Wendwater is only-"

"Being cautious. Being prudent. Being dull," Meridyth finished for him. "He forgets the world does not stop at our walls just because he wishes it."

She turned back to the statues. The Mother's stony face was softer than the Father's, but no more helpful.

"If Lord Stark is dead, the North will rise," she said quietly. "Either way, nothing stays still."

Kilyan shifted again, cloak whispering. "My lady, you should perhaps not speak so plainly where walls might listen."

"Let them listen," Meridyth muttered. But she dropped her gaze all the same. It was not that she did not believe in the Seven. On some nights, she could swear she felt their gaze as keenly as the moon on the river. But she could not bear the idea that they might be on the side of those who kept her still while others moved.