The Queen of the Ashes ◼️ Game Of Thrones

iv | The Shadows & The Monsters

Green flames... A rose withering and dying... Snow blanketing a bloody battlefield...a river bursting its bank...the screech of a beast and its silhouette flying over rooftops, a dragon... A snake slithers in the sand before it is washed away by the waves of the ocean... A wolf howls in the night...A lone wolf 

Images race across my mind and my eyes can't seem to count them all.

An old man with a crown resting upon sickly white hair jumps on the Iron Throne. Burn them all! It can only be the Mad King...the scene cuts to a man bleeding his blood like rubies are droplets in a stream, not those are real rubies. 

In a fraction of a second, my eyes blink painfully as the sight of corpses litter a battlefield around me. Blood pools around my feet and the dead frantically try to grab at my legs...
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Crickets chirp outside the stony window, the only sound pervading through the castle's silence. My body is slick with a cold sweat. My breath escapes and shapes raggedly in the icy thin air.

I throw off the furs from my bed and fasten my nightgown grabbing the candle on my nightstand as I hurry out of my chamber.

What by the Gods was that? A nightmare? A premonition? Is this my call to leave before whatever battle there is to come...Wait what battle? We have had peace for so long... why is a war about to come?

Before I know it, I am full out sprinting through the corridor my breath condensing as I speed past. The moonlight eerily illuminates the courtyard so much so the practising dummies look menacingly lifelike. The pebbles crunch beneath my feet the only sound piercing through the night, at least I am alone. I pick up one of the tourney swords balanced next to a crate.

I steady my mind, feeling the weight of the blade, picturing the albeit dull edges. I focus on the dummy picturing a hulky dark haired man as if he were lunging for me. I thrust, parry and pretend to dodge, my footsteps a frenzied mess in the inches of snow below.

A snap breaks my concentration, my sword swings first before I can register my actions. The dulled blade stops sharp at his neck.

"You really shouldn't sneak up on people."

"You really should work on your downswing," he chirps although I already know it is perfect.

"My downswing just managed to save your pretty hair Jon" and his hair really does look glorious amidst all this snow and wind. Curses, why must men always have better hair than me.    
"Some people might say it is improper for a lady to be alone at night, amongst all the dangers that lurk in the shadows with only a thin nightgown as protection." 

"Some might say it is improper for a baseborn boy to speak to a highborn lady but here we are. Damning others and their expectations plus I have you to protect me from all those shadow monsters. Don't I?" I tease him and slowly and finally I get him to smile...yes sweet victory and gods he has a nice face when he does that.

"No Aelly, at this rate you scare the monsters yourself and don't need me." I cock a brow at what seems to be his nickname, very sweet in contrary to his nature. I can't help but chuckle a bit a snort escapes in my abandon. Crap! My eyes grow wide at the sound, I fear that he is truly terrified of me now. Instead, we lock gazes at one another and we burst to the brim with laughter, the interrupt spreading dangerously through the night.

I frantically move to cover his mouth, his breath warm against my skin and the feel of his freshly shaved face still prickles my fingertips but it is his eyes that bore into me, the pools of black that draw me in. His breath hitches as he stops and his arm draws around me pulling me into him, an action that could surely have his hand cut off. He leans in ever so slowly as if the air was uncharted waters that he was crossing between us... His face is barely an inch from mine this alien proximity causes me to look away to try to loosen his focus on me. However, the diversion is shortly ended as it began when Jon raises his free hand to grasp my chin with a bewildering delicateness as he lifts my face to meet his. One in that instance is so wrought with emotion that he is shaking from what he is about to do next - He tilts his head down and before I can blink, he -

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The thoughts of what transpired that night at the feast keep Robb tossing and turning in his sheets. He can't seem to shake off the images of her. Her intelligent dark eyes, the way her body betrays her distaste for music, the sound of her giggle so musical that it seems to overpower any song he has ever heard or would want to again.

Robb can't stand the heaviness that crushes against him, like a hand that has its fist clenched inside his chest. Thud, thud... He clutches his hand close to his body, thinking that his mind is playing tricks but what could it be at this late hour. Slowly he cracks open his door, it creaks as it reveals the silvery light bathed corridor. No one is outside but this only sets the red haired Stark on edge.

He throws on his pants and draw the strings tight as his nerves at that moment. The candle flickers in his hand as the wind whips around him. Thud thud - that noise again but it comes from his left as he looks down. A figure moves like lightning as he watches them attack the dummies in the courtyard. If it weren't for the noise of a sword one would be deceived that it was more dance than combat, it was simply and lethally beautiful.

The figure stops abruptly and Robb thinks he is discovered from his hiding spot. The person now still is finally taking form...Aelane, no doubt about it. But the boy can't wrap his mind around what he has seen. She stands heavily breathing with her sword at the neck of a silhouette that Robb knows too well.

His brother at the mercy of her sword. What is the idiot thinking? But he doesn't make a sound as he watches the scene unfold. The two relax into each other's company to the bewilderment of Robb. They know each other but how? His befuddlement is cut short from the sound of their laughter below. His brother along with this girl, this woman that has bewitched him and all he can do is watch as she is pulled into his embrace.

The bitter reality hits Robb at that unplaceable second. In all his life he has never been envious of his brother, he loved him with all a sibling could, never wishing him ill. But in that moment all that changed, he never has and never will hate his brother but he will hate that he now has the one thing that while now unclear but is the only person Robb ever wanted. Her.

He can't look at them anymore, the guilt of his feelings suffocating him. He hurries back to his room before he can find another reason to blame Jon.

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The lonely souls throughout that night all felt the same feeling like pangs in their heart as numerous as the stars above. Guilt, guilt over what they done, what they will do and what their thoughts betray. On that unextraordinary night no monsters but only those of their own making crept though the castle following them but more than three shadows were lurking in the castle...