The Iron Thorn | Theon Greyjoy

62.

Massey

The awkward air seemed to keep around Theon and I like some impenetrable bubble of tension. Speaking very little if at all, we often sat or walked with one another when I was not in the mines or with Jon. It was not for lack of trying, but rather some difficulty neither of us could seem to surmount. We didn't know how to speak, how to act, how to trust each other. I couldn't bring myself to share his bed while he remained on Dragonstone, which I assured him had nothing to do with the impossibility of sex, but things seemed even more tense after I spoke that truth aloud.

   As the days passed with such uncertainty, Jon received word from Winterfell. Word that perked me up far more than it had him, due to the poor news that accompanied the good.

   Doesn't it always?

   Bran was alive. Arya was alive. Both had returned to Winterfell in the time we'd spent here under the watchful eye of the new Queen's people. It was happy news to hear that they'd returned home finally, but according to Sansa, Bran had had some prophetic...moment of sorts in which he saw the Night King's army marching toward Eastwatch. Jon wished to return home immediately, telling the room that he worried more for the dead breaching the Wall than he worried for gathering more men. Lord Tyrion, however, had a bolder plan.

   And so, to my horror, it was set in motion that Jon was to take a team of men beyond the Wall and actually retrieve one of the Walkers to parade around King's Landing the way a merchant may peddle his wares. Perhaps not exactly, but that is how I had envisioned it. It was theorized that the sight of one of the dead would strike such fear in Cersei that she would agree to a temporary truce of sorts and willingly offer up fighting men. It felt plain enough to me to not put so much trust in her, but I had little influence in a room with both King and Queen finally seeing eye to eye.

   And perhaps even more foolishly, Lord Tyrion devised a plan to sneak in to the Red Keep to have a secret meeting of sorts with his brother in an attempt to soften their sister's heart to our cause.

After that meeting, I left the hall and went outside into the much calmer air. I sat near, but not too near, the edge of the many cliffs covered in long, plush grass. I was taking a moment from it all, hiding from Theon and Jon and the dead and dragons and brothers. As I fought to clear my head, yet another distraction approached, albeit a less stressful one.

"Lord Tyrion," I greeted him as he walked to stand beside where I was sitting. "You're well, I presume, after such a revelation?"

"Well enough, my lady."

   "You're a madman, you know. And Davos for joining in."

   He gave a chuckle, taking a moment to gather a diplomatic answer that would befit the Hand of the Queen. "It is what must be done."

   "Whole lot of that going around lately, wouldn't you say? Lot of necessary unpleasantries."

He let out another scoff and didn't sit, standing rather uncomfortably as if he meant to start a conversation he had no knowledge of how to breach. I could tell what it was and thought it best to give him a way into what he wished to discuss.

"What can you tell me of my brother?" I asked tentatively, my fingers fidgeting, coiling around one another in my lap like tiny, nervous snakes.

"I did not see him fall," Lord Tyrion replied quickly. He seemed relieved I'd formatted the question so simply. "I'd only seen his body once the fighting came to an end, and our Queen had gathered the survivors. A few of his remaining men identified him. An arrow to the chest seemed to be what brought him down."