Chapter 89
DAENERYS TARGARYEN
Daenerys had accepted the King's offer to regain control over her life. To regain some semblance of agency and security, and yet that feeling had been ripped from her in an instant when the King had asked his men to arrest her just to save his wife.
It was not an entirely surprising thing, for she was but a fugitive to him. A stranger, whose life held no meaning. Still, the actions had pained her.
She was his guest. She was under his protection.
She saw it for the ploy that it was, but still she had thought that the men would grab her and pass her onto the God's Eye, and former lord of Griffin Roost, and yet in that moment of absolute hopelessness, he had stepped forward.
Robb Stark had stepped forward.
He had stood against his own king. Against his own brother. Against his own king.
It was a ploy as well. Yet no one else had ever done that for her, yet tragedy had struck nonetheless, and though King had moved as if a blur, Euron's Hand had been faster, and the blade had cut the neck.
Blood had come, but in the end, the King and his men had managed to subdue the two enemies. However, the damage was done, and the Queen had fallen to the ground in a pool of her own blood.
That had been two days ago.
She had been locked inside her room ever since, as the castle turned into a den of whispers and murmurs. The maids and the servants all walked around with clear nervousness; the guards had all become pale, for each and every one knew that their fates were now connected with that of the Queen.
They feared for a scream of anguish. A scream that did not come in two days, after which she finally gathered enough courage to ask her only friend within these Halls.
"I want to see her," she spoke to Nym, who had been her only companion in these troubled and perilous times, and the Sand Snakes' lips thinned.
"I will see what I can do," and in the end, a day later, she was led through those silent Halls once more, the servants and the guards as nervous as the days before, until she came upon the doors to the Queen's chambers.
"You can go in," and so, a knock later, she found herself hearing the familiar voice of the King.
"Come in," Cregan Stark spoke, as she pushed open the doors, and it was the smell that hit her first. The smell of cleanliness, one that she had often found lingering in her room after the maids would clean it up.
That and blood.
The Queen lay on her bed, pale and lifeless, and it was only the faint movement of her chest that still hinted that she was still alive. She was surrounded by stands, with strange bags and bottles attached to them.
She saw him sitting beside her, his hand intertwined with the Queen's hand. His eyes did not leave his wife as she slowly walked up to the bed.
In all the time that she had been here, she had never seen the Queen like this. She would always greet her with a smile, or a polite greeting, and yet now those lips were dry, and lifeless as Daenerys found her breath hitched as the question left her mouth without much thought.
"Will she live?" she asked, and the King did not answer at first.
"I pray so," the King whispered, and it was the first time that she noticed the burning on his hands and how the scars reached up to his arm and his palm. It was glowing still, with a faint hue of redness.
"What of Euron and Griff?" and the air thickened with tension at the mention of those two men.
"They live," and she was surprised by those words, and yet as her eyes turned towards the King, she felt herself gasp, as she saw his monstrous expression as he added coldly.
"I will make sure of that," he whispered, and she realized that they did not have much to say to one another.
"I won't apologise," he added, as her head snapped towards him once more.
"What?" she asked, and the King had finally turned to face her.
"I won't apologise for the choice I made that day," and she nodded, realizing his intentions.
"You broke your vow," and he shrugged.
"Maybe I did. Maybe I didn't," and she gulped down.
"If Thoros had not climbed on from behind, would you have handed me over?" she asked, and the answer came in an instant.
"Yes," he did not lie to her.
"For her, yes. Even if I had to fight Robb myself for that," and so she scoffed, but she had expected that.
"You are a cruel man," she whispered, and he did not deny it, for that was the truth.
"Where is your brother?" she asked, and she had not seen Robb Stark ever since that day.
"He has gone to the North with the armies," and it took her a second to register the words.
"Armies?" she asked.
"Yes, armies. It should have been me," he whispered as those eyes turned towards the blonde on the bed once more.
"But I cannot leave her. Not like this, and now all my preparations have been unravelled, all because of those damned bastards."
"Preparations for what?" she asked. She felt herself unaware of the plot, and she was reminded again of Robb's and Queen's words, and how they would often speak of burdens and war.
"War, Princess. The war for all of humanity itself…." Yet suddenly, before she could ask anything else, she saw his eyes snap towards his wife as he whispered.
"Myrcella! Myrcella," he gasped, as he jumped out of his chair, and Daenerys saw those eyes flutter weakly, until she heard a faint whisper.
"Crega….
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QYBURN
Qyburn was not a man of faith. He was a man of science. Or at least he had been until he had met his current employer. Ever since he had met the Stark boy, Qyburn had felt his word shift.
In that singular person, he had found so much knowledge and information that he had begun to doubt his own beliefs. That young mind hid in it the secrets of the universe. Secrets whose amalgamation was the miracle in front of him.
The God's Eye was as dangerous and cunning a man as could be. He had feigned his own death just to attack the Queen, and his plan had been nearly perfect. He was the first person to bring Cregan Stark to his knees, and yet even he was not enough.
His knife had been laced with poison, and though the King had moved at a blistering speed, he could not get to him in time to prevent him from striking at his wife's neck. The cut had been shallow, and had the King been a blink too late, the Queen's life would have ended then and there.
But the King had cut off that hand at once, and the rest was done by the guards as they subdued Greyjoy and his accomplice. Still, the cut had come at the neck of the Queen, and the blood had gushed out by the liter.
Qyburn and his men had moved quickly, as they put years of work to use. Over the years, the King had taught them much of the ways of medicine and healing, and had given them wealth and materials to experiment. Live materials, which had helped Qyburn advance the knowledge and teachings of his men by centuries.
The equipment and the principles being applied in this room to save the Queen were nearly half a century ahead of any other region on the planet, and all of the ideas for them had come from the mind of the King, who still sat there holding his Queen's hand.
"I have examined her thoroughly," Qyburn began, as he finished his examination, often repeating the steps to make sure that he had not made a mistake. It was a mundane thing, but he was the best healer.
"The Queen will be fine," and the relief in those eyes was visible, as the King gave a deep sigh, yet the truth was that despite the equipment and techniques they had employed, the Queen's recovery was not entirely a work of science.
"See, I told you so," the Queen whispered in raspy tone, as she tightened the grip on her husband's hand, and if he was not so observant, he would miss the slight wince in those eyes.
But he had not.
And that was the other miracle behind the Queen's recovery, for though Qyburn could replenish her body with fluids and medicine, the poison in her blood was not so easy to manage. Not when she had bled as much as she had.
The poison itself was from the Black Snakes of Asshai and was so deadly that a few drops of it could kill a buffalo in minutes, and the blade had more than a few drops of it.
Yet the Queen still lived.
"Thank you, Qyburn," the King whispered, as he smiled.
"There is no need for that," not when everything that he had done had come from him and his mind.
"Wait for me, I will join you soon," and Qyburn nodded as he turned to his acolytes.
"Two of you shall stay at the Queen's side at all times. Call for me if anything changes," and though she may have recovered, it would be unwise to leave her unattended, and so he left the room and began to wait as he thought of the two other people in his care, and found himself intrigued by the workings of the world.
They were enemies of the King. They had tried to kill him, and yet they enjoyed the fruits of his mind as well, as Qyburn and his men spent hours upon hours trying to keep them alive.
Just as he was thinking of Greyjoy and his friend, the King walked out of the room limping in a way he had not done so in years, and as the door closed behind him, the smile on that face vanished in the blink of an eye as Qyburn moved quickly to support the young King.
"Your grace," he reached for the shoulder, and helped him lean against the Wall as the King began to huff deeply, as he slowly reached for the gloves on his hand, and they stuck to his skin, and the King grunted as he peeled them off, taking away a layer of skin along with the leather.
The burns were ugly to look at. And the unblemished skin had now scalded, as the King's hand shook in pain. This was the cost of the miracle that had saved the Queens' lives, and he could tell at a glance that they would never be the same again.
Qyburn may be a man of science, but he was not oblivious to the ways of magic and miracles. And magic did exist. He had dabbled in it before, but over the years, he had studied it more thoroughly than anyone else.
He understood it, or at least understood it as much as any man could. And just like science required sacrifices, magic itself came at a cost.
The King had used magic to save his wife and to cleanse her body from Eyron's poison, and that all had come at a great cost.
"I need to treat those burns, my lord," Qyburn added, and he had already waited three days and could not wait any longer.
"If we don't treat them now, the damage could very well be permanent," he warned, but the King would already know that.
"No," he denied him again, and Qyburn shook his head.
"Your grace, the Queen is fine. Weak she may be, but her body has been rid of the poison, and all she needs now is rest, and she shall make a full recovery. You need to let me treat your wounds," Qyburn insisted, as those grey eyes turned towards him.
"I need to see him. I need to see Greyjoy, after that you can treat my wounds," and he would have liked to insist otherwise, but Cregan Stark was as stubborn a man as any, and so he nodded.
"As you wish, your grace," and so, he led the King, who once more leaned heavily on his cane, and winched and grunted with every step as Qyburn led him to the dungeons underneath the Halls of Dragonstone.
They were empty for the islands were rather peaceful except for two people, and he pushed open the locks, and there stood a man, bound to the wall, with chains wrapped around his body.
His eyes were mismatched, and the bleeding from his stump had long stopped. The King walked up to the man, who now slept, and as he stood a few feet from him, he turned to the guard.
"Wake him," and the man nodded, as he picked up a bucket and threw it at the man, who shuddered from the cold water as he opened his eyes.
One blue, and the other one so dark that it blended into the darkness of the dungeon.
"Huuuuu," The Pirate gasped, as he opened his eyes and began to breathe once again, wincing as the wounds ached, and yet those winces stopped as he looked at the King standing in front of him.
"You," he whispered in a deep shudder, as he began to chuckle.
"You came," and he was laughing, and Qyburn wondered if he really was sane, yet the King was as expressionless as he ever could be.
"Are you here to kill me?" Euron Greyjoy asked, and the King shook his head.
"No," he answered, his tone devoid of any hate or malice, and yet Qyburn knew that his heart burned with rage in that moment as he stopped forward and grabbed Greyjoy by his chin.
"I won't kill you. You will live," the King answered, and the God's eye was perplexed, much like him as the King continued.
"You will live a long life. My men here," and the king pointed at him and the rest of his colleagues.
"They will keep you alive, so that you may suffer every day what you tried to inflict upon my family," and for the first time since he had been brought here, he saw the man's face still.
"You will beg for death and yet all you will experience from this moment on will be pain, and only pain," and with that, he pushed away his face and turned towards all of the people gathered in his hall.
"Greyjoy's life is as precious to me as my family's. Keep him alive. I want him to live for a century if possible," and with that, he turned away, as Greyjoy began to struggle in his chains.
"STOP! WAIT!" he screamed, and yet the King did not turn back.
"KILL ME! KILL ME!"
"HHAHAHAHAH! HAHAHAHAH!"
.
.
.
Records show that the 'God's Eye' would endure the punishment for more than ten years, by the end of which he had become a lifeless husk who could not even beg for death.
In the end, it was the very woman that he had harmed who would grant her the mercy of death, undoing the words of her lord husband. In many ways, the cave where he was held would become a symbol of both fear and devotion, and it is rumored that King Cregan Stark II proposed to his own lady wife in that very cave as he promised her the same love and devotion as his namesake had held for his own grandmother.
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