The Dragon of Duskendale -- A Song of Ice and Fire Fanfic

Chapter 30

The Tower of Joy was an ill-fitting name for a sad stack of stone.

A single round tower of sandstone, it had been raised atop a peak in the backbone of the Red Mountains, offering a lofty vantage of the Prince's Pass and any armies approaching it from the north. When not manned—it often wasn't, these days—it had become a known hideaway for Dornish paramours, a place to meet one's secret or forbidden love.

Or to stash the woman you abducted. Or didn't abduct, as it may turn out.

The view was quite stunning, miles and miles of mountains and sand and sun, but all Eddard Stark saw as he and his companions rode up the narrow trail was his sister's face. She'll be a year older now. Has this last year been as hard on he as it has me? I hope not, considering. Eddard wondered if it would be the same or an entirely different Lyanna to greet him—or if she'd even greet him at all. Or if he even wanted her to.

Aelor Targaryen had told him a truth, and not the truth Eddard had fought and killed for. If it was the truth, as he would soon determine, it filled the new Stark of Winterfell with a bitter stew of anger and mourning. If Aelor had told him true, Brandon had ridden into King's Landing demanding vengeance for an abduction that hadn't been an abduction, eventually losing not only his life but the life of their father as well. Eddard had ridden to war and married a stranger to save a woman who hadn't needed or wanted saving. Half of his family had died, all over a misunderstanding Lyanna had not corrected.

She should have told us. Something, anything.

Ned couldn't fathom why she hadn't. He glanced over his shoulder, to the first of three men in Citadel gray and the trail of women following them. No, he couldn't understand at all.

He heard the creak of hinges as the door to the tower opened, and Ned returned his attention to it. Two men in white armor stepped out, strides confident despite having forty men fanning out in a half circle before them. It was quiet in the mountains, only the clop of hooves and rattle of armor audible as the two men studied those in front of him.

Ser Arthur Dayne's presence would have made this much simpler, but Aelor had kept the Sword of the Morning with the new king, alongside Barristan the Bold and Prince Lewyn. Eddard could understand why—one assassin had already struck at the heart of Targaryen power, and while Tywin Lannister lived there was always the threat of another. In his place, Aelor had commanded a specific man to accompany Ned.

Lord Walter Whent, oh-so-recently a vassal of the Riverlands, trotted forward until his horse was a spear's length away. "Oswell."

Oswell Whent, distinctive helmet bearing a black bat with spread wings under one arm, nodded at his brother. "Walter."

"I suppose you are aware the war is over."

Gerold Hightower, known as the White Bull and the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, answered him. The aging, broad-shouldered man had reportedly been there when Aerys burned Eddard's father, having been sent to find Rhaegar shortly afterwards. Rhaegar had returned months later while the White Bull had not, the reasons for it now clear. "We hear it is only beginning."

"You hear wrong," put in Lord Cleyton Byrch, vassal of Duskendale and Aelor's chosen representative. The man had lost both of his brothers during the war, and Ned hadn't heard him say more than a dozen words the entire journey. "The prince will have things in hand long before we make it back to King's Landing."

Eddard nodded his agreement. "Lannister will fall sooner rather than later, Sers."

Lord Walter dismounted to stand in front of his kin. "Whatever this is, whyever you are here, Prince Aelor has promised leniency. I believe him good for it."