The tower chamber fell into contemplative silence as the weight of their situation settled over them like a burial shroud. Outside, the afternoon sun painted the western peaks in shades of amber and crimson—a beautiful sight that none of them could properly appreciate, knowing what approached with the dying light. Robert would arrive soon, bringing with him an army, expectations, and a rage that could not be satisfied without catastrophic consequences for everyone they held dear.
Ashara Dayne stood by the narrow window like a statue carved from moonlight and steel, her violet eyes reflecting the dying light as she watched the horizon with the calculating gaze of someone born to anticipate trouble. Her dark hair caught the last rays of sun, creating an almost ethereal halo around features that could have launched a thousand ships—or in this case, might help save a kingdom. When she finally spoke, her voice carried that crisp authority that marked her as both Arthur's sister and a woman who had learned to make impossible decisions with deadly precision.
"We need a story," she said, turning from the window to face the room with fluid grace. Her lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile—too sharp, too calculating. "Something that explains what happened here, what Ned found, and why certain people are dead while others have simply... disappeared into the mists of convenient fiction."
*A story,* Ned thought grimly, his weathered face settling into the familiar lines of a man bearing an unwelcome burden. The years of war had carved themselves into his features, turning a young lord into someone who looked like he'd seen too much and carried too many secrets. *A lie, in other words. But perhaps a necessary one.* The prospect of adding deliberate deception to his already heavy conscience sat about as well as week-old porridge.
"What kind of story?" he asked, though something in Ashara's expression—that particular gleam in those violet eyes—told him he wasn't going to like the answer. There was something predatory about her intelligence when it was fully engaged, like a cat that had cornered something interesting and was deciding whether to play with it first.
"The kind that keeps everyone we care about alive," Ashara replied with the brutal honesty that had always been her most dangerous weapon. She moved away from the window with that particular grace that marked all the Daynes—fluid, controlled, deadly. "The kind that gives Robert the closure he needs while protecting the people who can't protect themselves." She paused, letting her gaze sweep over Lyanna and the child in her arms with something that might have been maternal protectiveness filtered through tactical assessment. "The kind that ensures innocent blood isn't spilled to satisfy political necessity and masculine wounded pride."
Arthur shifted from where he'd been leaning against the stone wall like some sort of impossibly tall guardian angel, his frame unfolding with that predatory grace that had made him legendary with a sword. At six and a half feet, he dominated any room he entered, but it was the casual way he wore that dominance that made him truly intimidating. "My sister has always had a talent for... creative solutions to impossible problems," he said dryly, his voice carrying that particular mixture of affection and exasperation that only came from decades of sibling warfare. "Usually involving other people making sacrifices they'd rather not make while she orchestrates from a safe distance."
"Oh, do shut up, Arthur," Ashara shot back with the easy exasperation of someone who'd been managing her older brother's commentary for decades. She turned to face him fully, hands settling on her hips in a gesture that somehow managed to be both elegant and threatening. "You're hardly in a position to criticize anyone's creative approach to honor and duty, given your recent career choices. What was it you called it? 'Following my heart instead of my vows'? Terribly romantic, but not exactly traditional Kingsguard behavior."
"I prefer to think of it as evolving my understanding of true service," Arthur replied with that infuriating smile that had gotten him out of trouble since childhood. "Besides, someone had to keep you from doing something truly reckless. We both know your idea of a subtle plan usually involves at least three explosions and a dramatic sword fight."
"That was *one time*, and it worked brilliantly," Ashara protested, though her lips twitched with suppressed amusement. "And there were only two explosions, thank you very much. The third was purely coincidental."
Lyanna looked up from where she'd been quietly nursing baby Aemon, her grey Stark eyes bright with something that might have been amusement despite their desperate circumstances. Even exhausted and recently delivered, she possessed that particular combination of steel and warmth that had made her legendary in the North. "I do enjoy watching siblings bicker," she said with the ghost of her old spirit, her voice carrying that slight rasp that came from too many tears and too little sleep. "It's remarkably comforting, actually. Makes everything feel almost... normal. Like we're just visiting friends instead of plotting elaborate deceptions to prevent infanticide."
"Normal," Howland Reed repeated with a dry chuckle, his sharp features creasing into something that might have been a smile. The Lord of Greywater Watch was a small man, barely coming up to Arthur's chest, but there was something about his presence that commanded attention—perhaps the way his eyes missed nothing, or the sense that still waters ran very deep indeed. "Aye, because there's nothing more normal than plotting elaborate deceptions while hiding a Targaryen prince in a ruined tower. Just another typical afternoon in the Seven Kingdoms. I should write to my wife—'Dearest Jyana, spent the day committing treason and falsifying history. Hope the children are well.'"
"Your wife already knows you're committing treason," Ashara pointed out with amusement. "She married a crannogman—she had to expect a certain amount of morally flexible behavior."
"Morally flexible," Howland repeated with appreciation. "I like that. So much more dignified than 'lying through our teeth to prevent regicide.'"
Ashara began to pace the chamber with that fluid grace that marked her as Arthur's sister—the same unconscious elegance, but where Arthur's movement spoke of controlled violence, hers suggested controlled intelligence. Her tactical mind was clearly working through possibilities and complications with the speed of long practice, violet eyes distant with calculation.
"Here's what we tell the world," she said, her voice taking on the cadence of someone dictating official history. She moved like a general planning a campaign, gesturing as she spoke. "Ned Stark and his six companions arrived at the Tower of Joy to find three Kingsguard knights—Arthur, Ser Gerold, and Ser Oswell—defending the tower as per Prince Rhaegar's final orders."
*That much is true,* Ned thought, his grey eyes following her movement. *Or close enough to truth for it to work.* He looked older than his twenty-odd years, the weight of command and loss aging him beyond his time.
"A battle ensued," Ashara continued, her violet eyes growing distant as she constructed their necessary fiction with the same care a maester might use when copying an important text. "A terrible battle between Northern lords seeking their sister and Kingsguard knights sworn to defend their post until death. In the fighting, five good men died—Ser Gerold Hightower, Ser Oswell Whent, Martyn Cassel, Theo Wull, and Ser Mark Ryswell."
The names hit the chamber like physical blows. These were real men, honorable men, friends and companions who had followed Ned through war and bloodshed. Men who would have to disappear from history to serve the greater good, leaving behind families and identities as surely as if they had actually died.
"My lady," Howland Reed said quietly, his voice carrying that particular tone he used when he was about to say something important. His weathered hands folded in his lap, but his sharp eyes never left her face. "Those are my friends you're talking about. Good men who've followed Lord Stark through war and winter, through battles that would have broken lesser souls. You're asking them to give up their names, their identities, their very existence—to become nothing more than entries in a book of the dead." He paused, studying her face with those sharp crannogman eyes that seemed to see through flesh and bone to the truth beneath. "That's no small thing to ask of anyone, no matter how noble the cause."
"I'm asking them to save innocent lives," Ashara replied without flinching, meeting his gaze directly. Her chin lifted slightly, a gesture that somehow managed to be both defiant and pleading. "To make a sacrifice that will protect children from being murdered for the circumstances of their birth. Would they consider that a worthy cause, do you think? Or should we simply hand baby Aemon over to Robert's tender mercies and hope for the best?"
Arthur made a low sound that might have been approval, pushing off from the wall with casual grace. "You know, Howland, my sister has this remarkable talent for making the impossible sound perfectly reasonable. It's quite unsettling, really. She could probably convince you that black was white if she put her mind to it."
"I wouldn't need to convince him of anything so obvious," Ashara said dismissively, though her eyes sparkled with affection for her brother. "I'd simply point out that black and white are merely different ways of describing the same fundamental absence or presence of light. Much more sophisticated than simple contradiction."
"My warrior's brain," Arthur replied with amusement, moving to stand beside her with that particular protective stance that marked him as her brother, "understands that you're asking good men to become ghosts. That's not complexity, sister—that's sacrifice of the highest order. The kind of sacrifice that songs are written about, assuming anyone ever learns the truth to write the songs."
"The best songs are about sacrifices no one knows about," Lyanna said softly, her voice carrying the wisdom of someone who'd learned too much about love and loss in too short a time. "The ones where heroes give up everything and no one ever knows their names."
Howland was quiet for a long moment, his weathered face thoughtful as he considered the implications. When he finally spoke, his voice carried the weight of absolute certainty. "Aye," he said with simple dignity. "They would. Those lads have never backed down from doing what's right, no matter the cost. Martyn Cassel especially—he'd give up his name in a heartbeat if it meant protecting Lord Stark's family. The man practically raised Lord Stark, and he'd walk into the seven hells if it meant keeping harm from coming to those he's sworn to protect."
"But," Ned said heavily, understanding the full scope of what they were proposing, the words coming out like stones dropping into still water, "it means they can never go home again. Never see their families, never reclaim their names, never return to the lives they've built. Their wives will mourn them, their children will grow up fatherless, their graves will be empty." The thought sat in his stomach like a stone. These men had followed him in good faith, and now he was asking them to sacrifice everything for a lie.
"Unless Aegon reclaims his throne someday," Ashara pointed out with characteristic pragmatism, though her voice was gentler now. "Then they could be restored, honored as heroes who sacrificed everything to protect the rightful king. Imagine the songs then—the loyal men who died to live again."
*If Prince Aegon lives long enough to reclaim anything,* Ned thought grimly. *If any of us live long enough to see that day. If the realm doesn't tear itself apart before he comes of age.*
Lyanna shifted the baby to her shoulder, her movements gentle and practiced despite everything she'd endured. Even exhausted and heartsore, she moved with that particular Stark grace—economical, purposeful, strong. "You're all talking about this as if it's some grand political strategy," she said softly, her grey eyes serious as she looked at each of them in turn. "But these are real people with real lives, real families who love them and depend on them. Are we certain we have the right to ask such a thing of them? To make that choice on their behalf?"
"The right?" Arthur's laugh held no humor, though his expression remained fond as he looked at her. "My lady, we're well past questions of right and wrong. We're in the realm of necessary and catastrophic now, dancing on the edge of a knife with innocent blood in the balance. The question isn't whether we have the right—it's whether we have the courage to do what needs doing when honor and necessity collide."
"Courage," Ned repeated, the word tasting bitter on his tongue. "Is that what we're calling it? Because it feels more like cowardice to me—hiding behind lies instead of facing the truth."
"What would you call it then?" Ashara asked, rounding on him with that particular intensity that had always made her formidable in any debate. Her violet eyes flashed with something dangerous, and for a moment she looked every inch the sister of the Sword of the Morning. "Cowardice? Would it be braver to let Robert's rage consume innocent children? Would it be more honorable to stand by while babes are murdered in their beds because we were too proud to compromise our precious principles?"
"Ash," Arthur said quietly, recognizing the dangerous edge in his sister's voice. He moved slightly closer, not restraining but ready to restrain if necessary.
"No," she snapped, her voice sharp as Valyrian steel. "I won't be diplomatic about this. We all know what Robert he would have done to Prince Aegon and Princess Rhaenys. We all know what he'll do to this child if he learns the truth. So forgive me if I'm not overly concerned with the philosophical niceties of our deception when there's innocent blood at stake."
The chamber fell silent except for the soft sounds of baby Aemon feeding and the distant whisper of wind through stone. It was Lyanna who finally broke the tension, her voice carrying that particular mixture of steel and warmth that had always defined her.
"Ashara's right," she said simply, her grey eyes steady as she met each of their gazes in turn. "I've seen what war does to children. I've heard the stories from King's Landing, seen the look in men's eyes when they talk about what was done to Rhaegar's other children. If protecting my son means asking good men to disappear into legend, then that's what we ask. They're honorable enough to understand the necessity, and we're desperate enough to accept their sacrifice."
"And if they refuse?" Ned asked, though his voice suggested he already knew the answer.
Howland Reed made a sound that might have been a snort. "Lord Stark, with all due respect, you don't know your own men very well if you think they'd refuse. Martyn Cassel watched you grow up—he'd die before he let harm come to your family. Theo Wull followed you through the worst fighting of the war, never once stepping back when things got bloody—he's not going to balk at a different kind of battle now. And Mark Ryswell..." He shrugged, a slight smile playing at his lips. "Mark's always been a bit of a romantic. The idea of disappearing to protect a hidden prince? He'll probably think it's the most interesting thing that's ever happened to him."
Arthur laughed, the sound genuine despite the circumstances. "A romantic sacrifice. How perfectly fitting. I'm almost jealous—their story will be far more interesting than mine."
"Your story involves surrendering to Ned Stark," Ashara pointed out with sisterly cruelty. "I'm sure we can make it appropriately dramatic. Perhaps you could weep a little? Really sell the tragedy of it all?"
"I do not weep," Arthur replied with dignity. "I might shed a single, perfectly formed tear that catches the light just so. Very different thing entirely."
"Of course it is," Ashara said with fond exasperation. "How could I forget about your perfectly formed tears? They're almost as famous as your perfectly formed sword work."
"With two companions dead and severely outnumbered," Ashara continued, returning to their narrative construction, "Arthur Dayne finally surrendered. In the course of that surrender, he revealed to Ned Stark that he has a nephew—the trueborn son of Brandon Stark and Ashara Dayne."
"Ah yes," Arthur said with sardonic amusement, settling back against the wall with theatrical grace. "My fictional surrender. Do try to make it sound appropriately dramatic when you tell the tale, won't you? I do have a reputation to maintain. Perhaps something about my sword arm failing me at the crucial moment? Very poetic."
"Your reputation," Ashara replied tartly, "is about to become significantly more complicated. Try not to let it go to your head—assuming you can fit anything else in there alongside your existing ego."
"My ego is perfectly proportioned, thank you very much," Arthur shot back. "Unlike some people's plans, which tend toward the unnecessarily elaborate."
"And then?" Lyanna asked with gentle amusement, shifting baby Aemon as she followed the construction of their necessary lies. "What happens after Arthur's perfectly dramatic surrender?"
"Then Ned entered the tower to find his sister dying of fever," Ashara said, her voice softening with genuine sympathy as she looked at Lyanna. "Lyanna Stark, who had indeed been held at the Tower of Joy, but who had succumbed to illness in the final days of her captivity. She died in her brother's arms, whispering final words about promises and protection—very touching, very tragic, very final."
*Dying of fever.* The lie sat uneasily in Ned's mind, but he could see the tactical necessity. A dead Lyanna couldn't be forced into marriage with Robert, couldn't be questioned about her choices, couldn't be punished for loving the wrong man.
"How poetic," Lyanna said dryly, though her voice carried a note of sadness. "Death by fever rather than childbirth. Much more tragic and mysterious, and it completely avoids any awkward questions about heirs or legitimacy. Robert will probably compose dreadful songs about it—tragic ballads about his lost love."
"Robert's songs are already dreadful," Ned pointed out with the first hint of humor he'd shown all day. "At least this way he'll have proper inspiration for his awfulness. Perhaps he'll finally achieve true artistic mediocrity."
"One can only hope," Howland added with dry humor. "Though I fear we may have doomed the realm to decades of melancholy ballads about doomed love and tragic loss."
"A small price to pay for peace," Ashara said pragmatically. "Let Robert sing his heart out—sad songs never started wars."
"And the child?" Ned asked more seriously, his grey eyes fixing on baby Aemon with something that might have been desperate hope. "What happens to Aemon in this story?"
"There is no child in this story," Ashara said firmly, her voice brooking no argument. "Lyanna died childless, her captivity having been exactly what everyone assumed—a kidnapping, a political hostage situation, a tragedy that ended with her death from illness rather than rescue. Clean, simple, heartbreaking, and completely believable."
*Aemon becomes a ghost,* Ned realized, the weight of it settling over him like a shroud. *A person who never existed, a secret that will have to be carried by everyone who knows the truth until the day we die.*
"A ghost child," Arthur mused, his expression growing contemplative. "How remarkably fitting. The son of a dragon prince and a wolf maid, hidden away like something out of the old songs. The secret prince, the hidden heir—very romantic."
"The old songs usually end badly," Howland observed with characteristic pragmatism, his sharp eyes never leaving the baby in Lyanna's arms.
"Yes, well," Ashara said crisply, moving to the window to check the light again, "we're going to have to write our own ending, aren't we? Something with rather more happy families and rather less tragic death."
"Where do they go?" Ned asked, the practical part of his mind already working through logistics. "Lyanna and the baby, if they're supposed to be dead? They can't simply vanish into thin air."
It was Howland Reed who answered, his voice carrying the quiet confidence of a man who'd spent his life in places other people couldn't find. "Greywater Watch," he said simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "My holdfast in the Neck. There's no better place in the Seven Kingdoms to hide people who need to disappear. The paths change with the tides, the land itself shifts like a living thing, and my people know how to keep secrets that need keeping."
"Greywater Watch," Lyanna repeated, testing the words like wine on her tongue. "The moving castle. I used to think that was just a story when Old Nan told it. A fairy tale about a castle that could never be found unless it wanted to be."
"The best hiding places usually are just stories," Howland replied with a slight smile that transformed his weathered features. "Stories that people tell but don't quite believe, legends that are dismissed as impossible right up until you're standing in the middle of them. My holdfast exists precisely where it needs to be and nowhere else—perfect for housing the officially dead."
"You would do that?" Lyanna asked, her grey eyes bright with hope and gratitude that made her look suddenly younger. "Take us in, protect us, keep us safe while the realm thinks we're dead? Hide us in your moving castle until it's safe to live again?"
"My lady," Howland replied with simple dignity, his voice carrying the weight of absolute commitment, "you saved my life at Harrenhal when those squires would have beaten me senseless for sport. More than that, Lord Stark is a good man trying to do right by his family in an impossible situation, and that's something my people understand. We've been protecting those who need protection since before the Conquest, since before memory itself."
He paused, his expression growing more serious, weathered hands folding carefully in his lap. "Besides, someone needs to make sure that child grows up knowing who he really is, learning about his father and his heritage without being poisoned by the hatred that surrounds it. That's not a burden that should fall on strangers."
*Thank you,* Ned thought, studying his friend's weathered face with gratitude that went bone-deep. *Thank you for being the kind of man who makes impossible things possible, who offers sanctuary without question and protection without reservation.*
"There's more," Ashara continued, her strategic mind still working through the implications of their deception like a general planning a complex campaign. "After burying the dead at the Tower of Joy, Ned tasks Howland with returning Lyanna's bones to Winterfell for proper burial in the crypts beside their ancestors."
*Her bones.* The phrase sent a chill through Ned's spine that had nothing to do with the evening air, but he could see the necessity. If Lyanna Stark was going to be officially dead, there would need to be remains to bury, ceremonies to conduct, a grave to mark her passing and give Robert's grief a focus.
"What kind of bones?" he asked, his practical mind grappling with the logistics of their deception even as his heart rebelled against the necessity.
"Does it matter?" Arthur asked with grim pragmatism, his violet eyes meeting his sister's with perfect understanding. "Any bones of the right size and age, properly prepared and placed in a sealed coffin. By the time they reach Winterfell, no one will be able to tell the difference—or if they could, they'd never dare speak of it. The important thing is that Lyanna Stark is seen to be properly buried with all the honors due to a lord's daughter."
"How wonderfully morbid," Lyanna observed with dark humor that didn't quite hide the pain in her voice. "I do hope you find appropriately dramatic bones. Something with a tragic backstory, perhaps? A doomed maiden who died of love? Very fitting."
"I'll do my best," Arthur replied with mock solemnity, though his expression was gentle as he looked at her. "Perhaps a young maiden who died of a broken heart? Very romantic, very tragic, very Robert."
"You're both absolutely dreadful," Ashara said, though there was affection in her criticism and understanding in her eyes. "This is someone's death we're discussing."
"Someone who's already dead," Arthur pointed out with that particular blend of practicality and compassion that made him dangerous. "We're just... repurposing their tragedy for a greater good. Giving their death meaning beyond simple loss."
*Lies built upon lies,* Ned thought, watching the interplay between the siblings with something that might have been admiration. *Deceptions layered like stones in a castle wall, each one supporting the others until the whole structure becomes stronger than any single truth.*
"Meanwhile," Ashara continued, ignoring her brother's commentary with the ease of long practice, "Ned returns to civilization with Arthur Dayne and the surviving members of his party. They travel to Starfall, where Ned meets his nephew Cregan for the first time and formally acknowledges his claim to Winterfell and the North."
"And then to King's Landing," Ned said, understanding where this was leading with the inevitability of a man watching storm clouds gather. "To present the rightful Lord of Winterfell to Robert and formally transfer my authority to its proper holder."
"Exactly," Ashara confirmed with satisfaction, her violet eyes bright with the pleasure of a plan coming together. "It gives us breathing room. Years, potentially, while Cregan grows old enough to rule in his own right and Aegon grows old enough to decide whether he wants to reclaim his birthright or simply live as the hidden prince of a moving castle."
"Years," Howland mused, his weathered face thoughtful. "Years for Robert's rage to cool, for the realm to stabilize, for children to grow into their destinies without the immediate threat of assassination hanging over their heads like a sword."
"Assuming," Arthur added dryly, settling back against the wall with casual grace, "that Robert doesn't find some new outrage to fuel his anger. The man does seem to have a talent for righteous fury—it's almost artistic in its consistency."
"Robert's fury burns hot but not necessarily long," Ned said thoughtfully, his grey eyes distant as he considered his old friend's nature. "If we can give him closure about Lyanna, satisfaction about avenging her death, a proper target for his grief... he might actually be able to move forward."
"Move forward into what?" Lyanna asked with gentle curiosity, adjusting baby Aemon with practiced ease. "Marriage with Cersei Lannister? A crown he never wanted? A throne that will bore him senseless within a year?"
"That," Ashara said firmly, her voice cutting through speculation like a sword through silk, "is not our concern. Our concern is keeping you and your son alive long enough for the political situation to stabilize and for better options to present themselves."
"Before we leave," Arthur said quietly, his voice taking on a note of finality, "we burn the tower. Destroy any evidence of what really happened here, any trace of the truth that might contradict our carefully constructed story."
*Burning the Tower of Joy.* The symbolic weight of the act was almost overwhelming—destroying the place where love had flourished, where impossible dreams had briefly become reality, where the future had been conceived in defiance of the world's expectations.
"It seems a shame," Lyanna said softly, looking around the chamber that had sheltered her happiness and her grief in equal measure. Even stripped of its former grandeur, the tower held memories that went deeper than stone and mortar. "This place has been... important. To me, to Rhaegar, to all of us. It's where I learned what love could be, where I discovered what I was willing to sacrifice for it."
"Important things often have to be sacrificed for necessary things," Ashara replied with gentle understanding, her voice softer than it had been all day. "The tower can burn, but the love that flourished here doesn't die with it. That lives on in your son, in the choices we make to protect him, in the future we're trying to build from the ashes of the old."
Arthur moved to stand beside his sister, his expression unusually serious as he looked at Lyanna with something that might have been paternal affection. "Besides," he said quietly, his voice carrying the weight of hard-won wisdom, "some places hold too much memory to survive intact. Better to let them burn cleanly than rot with neglect, better to end in fire than fade in silence."
*She's right,* Ned realized, the truth of it settling over him like dawn breaking over the horizon. *The stone doesn't matter. What matters is the life we preserve, the family we protect, the children we keep safe long enough for them to write their own stories.*
The plan was taking shape now, the necessary deceptions crystallizing into something that might actually work. It was built on lies, certainly, but lies that served a greater truth—the protection of innocent life, the preservation of family, the hope that love might triumph over politics given enough time and careful management.
"How do we sell it?" Ned asked, the practical part of his mind already working through the dozens of details that would need to be perfect. "How do we make people believe that five good men died in a battle that never happened? How do we look their families in the eye and lie about how they died?"
"By believing it ourselves," Arthur replied with the insight of someone who'd spent years managing the gap between truth and necessary fiction. "By grieving for the men who 'died,' by honoring their 'sacrifice,' by carrying ourselves like people who've suffered real loss. The best lies are the ones that contain enough truth to make them believable, and the truth is that we are losing something precious."
"And the truth is," Howland added quietly, his sharp eyes understanding more than most, "that we are losing something. These men we're asking to disappear—they're dying to their old lives as surely as if we put swords through their hearts. We'll grieve because we have cause to grieve, and that grief will make our lie believable."
"Poetic," Lyanna observed, though her voice carried a note of sadness. "And probably accurate. There's something to be said for mourning the living, for carrying the weight of their sacrifice even when the world can never know what they've given up."
*And the truth is that we are sacrificing something,* Ned thought, watching baby Aemon sleep peacefully in his mother's arms. *We're sacrificing the simple certainties of honor and duty for the complex necessities of love and protection. We're choosing to bear the weight of deception so that children can grow up free from the sins of their fathers.*
"There's one more thing," Ashara said, her voice taking on a note of finality that made everyone in the chamber look at her with sudden attention. "Once this story is told, once these lies become official history, there's no going back. We'll all be committed to maintaining this deception for the rest of our lives. Are we all prepared for that burden?"
The question hung in the air like a sword suspended over all their heads, sharp and gleaming and utterly unforgiving. This wasn't just about telling a story—this was about fundamentally altering their relationship with truth, with honor, with the principles that had governed their lives.
"Let me understand this completely," Arthur said slowly, his voice carrying that particular tone he used when he was working through something complex. "You're asking us to spend the rest of our lives lying about everything that matters most. About love, about family, about the choices we've made and the prices we've paid. About the very foundations of who we are."
"Yes," Ashara replied simply, meeting his gaze without flinching.
"And if we're caught? If someone discovers the truth despite all our careful planning?"
"Then we all die," she said with characteristic bluntness that somehow made the words more rather than less terrible. "Probably horribly, after watching our loved ones die first. That's the price of playing this particular game."
Arthur was quiet for a moment, his violet eyes distant as he considered the implications. Then, to everyone's surprise, he threw back his head and laughed—a sound of genuine amusement that seemed to surprise even him. "You know what? I find that remarkably liberating. There's something to be said for absolute commitment, for burning every bridge behind you until there's only one path forward."
"You're mad," Howland observed with what might have been admiration, his weathered face creasing into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"Probably," Arthur agreed cheerfully, his mood shifting with that quicksilver grace that had always marked the Daynes. "But I've been questioning my sanity since I decided to let Prince Rhaegar steal my sister-in-law away from her betrothal to start a war. Might as well embrace the madness properly—go completely insane instead of just halfway."
"I am," Lyanna said firmly, her arms tightening around her son with protective fierceness that would have made a direwolf proud. "Whatever the cost to myself, whatever lies I have to live, whatever names I have to abandon, it's worth it to keep him safe." She looked up at them all with those fierce grey eyes that had always been her most distinctive feature. "I've already lost everything that mattered to me except this child. I won't lose him too."
"As am I," Arthur agreed, his moment of levity fading into something more serious, more determined. "I've already broken my vows to the Kingsguard by not dying beside my king, already compromised my honor by choosing love over duty. What's one more compromise with conventional honor if it serves a higher purpose?"
"And I," Howland Reed added quietly, his voice carrying the weight of generations of hidden knowledge. "My people have been keeping secrets since the Age of Heroes, since the Children of the Forest walked among us. We know the weight of hidden truths and how to carry them without breaking, how to remember what must not be forgotten and forget what must not be remembered."
All eyes turned to Ned, the man whose concept of honor would be most challenged by their necessary deceptions. The man who would have to look his oldest friend in the eye and lie about everything that mattered most, who would have to build his life on a foundation of beautiful, necessary lies.
*Robert will never know,* he thought, the weight of it settling over him like armor—heavy but necessary. *He'll mourn Lyanna as the woman he loved and lost, never learning that she never loved him in return, never knew she chose another over him. He'll see me as the loyal friend who tried and failed to save her, not as the brother who chose her happiness over his expectations.*
*And perhaps that's kinder than the truth would be. Perhaps some truths are too sharp to be borne.*
The silence stretched until Ashara finally spoke, her voice gentler than it had been all day, violet eyes soft with understanding. "Ned," she said quietly, "no one would blame you if you chose differently. This isn't your burden to carry."
"Isn't it?" he asked, looking at his sister holding her child. "She's my blood. He's my nephew, regardless of his father. If I don't protect them, who will?"
"We will," Arthur said simply. "All of us. You don't have to carry this alone."
Ned was quiet for a long moment, wrestling with everything he'd been taught about honor and duty, about truth and lies, about the proper way to live in the world. When he finally spoke, his voice carried the weight of absolute commitment.
"Yes," he said. "I'm prepared. For their sake, for the sake of innocent children who didn't choose this war or these complications, I'm prepared to carry whatever lies are necessary."
"Then it's settled," Ashara said with satisfaction, though something in her expression suggested relief as well. "We have our story, we have our plan, and we have our commitment to see it through. All that remains is the execution."
"Execution," Howland repeated with dark humor. "An appropriate word for what we're about to do to the truth."
"The truth," Lyanna said softly, pressing a kiss to her son's dark hair, "is that sometimes love requires lying. Sometimes protecting the innocent means sacrificing everything you thought you knew about right and wrong."
Arthur moved to the window, looking out at the approaching dusk with the practiced eye of a man who'd spent years watching for enemies. "They'll be here soon," he said quietly. "Whoever Robert sent after Lord Stark. We should make our preparations."
"Our farewell to truth," Ashara observed with something that might have been regret.
"No," Ned said firmly, surprising them all with the conviction in his voice. "Not farewell. The truth doesn't die because we choose not to speak it. It lives in the children we protect and the choices we make when no one is watching."
*Let the songs say what they will,* he thought as they began to finalize the details of their necessary deception. *Let history record whatever version of events serves the realm's peace. The truth will live in the children we protect and the love we choose to honor over politics.*
The Tower of Joy would burn, but the love it had sheltered would endure.
And that, perhaps, was enough.
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