Eddard?

  The scar across his neck was an ugly thing, red and raw. It took an effort to refrain from scratching at it, only helped slightly by the bedamned poppy. Sunspear's maester had begun weaning him off it, but it had only left him irritable.

  The rest of him had the look of a corpse freshly fished from a river.

  He stirred from the mirror with a tiresome sigh. What was it even worth? A shaky peace with the Dornish that might collapse 'fore winter even fell on the Seven Kingdoms?

  It was all folly. He should be in the Vale, not watching a thousand leagues away as…

  A knock on the door drew his eyes. "My lord. Prince Doran is here."

  Ned forced the bitterness from him as the Prince of Dorne entered the gloom of his rooms, leaning on his pale cane. "You are set on your course?"

  "Aye," he rasped, sounding half a stranger.

  "I understand. Maester Caleotte has convinced me that the younger of our maesters should accompany you to King's Landing. In case there are complications."

  He nodded cooly. The same maester had named it a miracle of the Seven that he could speak at all.

  The Dornish prince left after a sad smile.

  The strength in his legs swiftly fled him, leaving him to collapse into his seat. Not only did he sound a stranger, but he felt a stranger in his own skin.

  He could not even say what awaited him in King's Landing. All he had heard was that Robb and all the banners of the north had crossed the Neck, marching hard for Darry…

  The hours of the day passed until the maester returned in the evening with watered wine and a thimble of milk of the poppy. He drank it swiftly before sending him away, his thoughts already growing cloudy again.

  He only stirred when he heard heated whispers outside his door. He spied a slight man 'neath a hood when he opened it.

  "If we might speak, Lord Stark." The voice tickled at his memories. He had heard it before, in King's Landing. Ser Davos Seaworth.

  "Aye," he rasped again.

  Jory watched the queer knight as a hawk as they sat. "I had almost thought to return to Dragonstone when I had heard the fair news."

  His fingers twitched to scratch at his neck again. "And why has Lord Stannis sent one of his knights to…" He watered his throat. "…to his brother's Hand."

  The salt-stained knight produced a letter from the wool that swaddled him. "My lord thought you should know the viper's pit Lord Renly has sent you to."

  A miserable laugh threatened to escape him. Instead he broke the seal and raked his eyes across the parchment, every word curling his already poor humors further.

  "You have my thanks, Ser Davos." The courtesy left his lips on their own.

  The knight hesitated, but in the end took his leave after a bow.

  Ned fed it to a lonely candle, the smoke tickling his throat, though he hardly noticed it for the poison his thoughts had become.

  His jaw clenched. He had felt not unlike a leaf in the wind these past moons. Now he felt a fool in motley.

  "Fetch me Ice."

  Jory sent him an uncertain look but did as he was bid. The weight of the greatsword in his hand spurred him through Sunspear's halls. He wondered if this was how Brandon felt in the throes of his wolf blood. Even the weakness in his limbs hardly slowed him.

  It was the door, already ajar, that gave him pause. Solomon beckoned him inside with a smile carved across his lips, the yellow silks that bedecked him stretching across the stones as if it were sap. "I would offer refreshment, but I fear the servants would sooner walk into the desert than my rooms."

  The parchment that smothered every surface was scrawled with some queer script and illustration that seemed to move in the corners of his vision.

  He stirred himself from the sight, his anger returning to him as he stared into Solomon's dark eyes. "Lord Stannis has accused you of spiriting Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen to Dorne."

  The man did not at all seem bothered by the accusation. "You have already met the princess, my lord. She couldn't help her curiosity."

  A frown took him. He had seen a score girls in the Valyrian coloring this past sennight. It stirred an older memory, before he had drunk a cup of poison, of a girl with silver-gold curls and violet eyes.

  "You had never seen her mother, and her father was more beast than man. How could you have known?"

  He gripped Ice tight enough that his bones creaked. "I would understand what game you are playing at. Who would you see on the Iron Throne?" Ned had thought it was Renly and his crown of lies.

  Solomon stalked deeper into his quarters for the question. "This war was already set. If there is a war you could put on my conscience, it is across the narrow sea in the Free Cities. If not for his stolen bride, Khal Drogo would not have sacked Pentos."

  It did not seem to weigh on his conscience near as heavy as his words implied.

  "Yet it spared a girl of three-and-ten from his tender mercies, and all those he would have set his khalasar upon."

  All the turns only left him more uncertain. He pushed it aside to strike at the heart of it. "The realm was at peace when you arrived." His throat burned as if he had swallowed coals.

  "You do not even believe your own words, my lord of Stark." He took a step back in surprise as Solomon's head yawned open. The eye that stared back at him now turned the blood in his veins to ice. "Should I show you what would have become of your Seven Kingdoms in my absence?"

  Jory stirred behind him also as he tried to master his horror. He had seen wildfire strip flesh from bone. This was no worse…

  "Though you might not like what you find."

  "How?" he rasped. He would sooner see a thousand horrors than return to Renly in motley.

  "My lord," Jory protested.

  "You need only greet me with an open mind. Though if it would soothe your worries, I would give you my word that I would do no more than I have said." Another smile passed the sorcerer's lips. "I daresay I am no less honorable than yourself, my lord."

  What it even meant to greet him with an open mind he did not know, but that horror of an eye reminded him of a weirwood's eyes. The next breath found him beneath the Iron Throne. It was not Renly that sat it, but Joffrey.

  There was naught he could do but watch as Littlefinger betrayed him.

  Another breath found him kneeling on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor. He spied Arya in the crowd as Ice cleaved through his neck.

  Robb marched south to avenge him, smashing Lannister hosts. Until it all came to an end with a wedding 'neath the banners of House Frey. He watched the slaughter as Lord Walder laughed and laughed.

  He could bear to look no more when they despoiled Robb's corpse, a wolf's head where his head should have been.

  The sights came quicker now. He felt a sick vindication when the wildfire devoured King's Landing.

  The last he saw was the Boltons holding court in the ruins of Winterfell. At least until the Wall broke and it all vanished under the snows.

  He wept as he found himself back in the gloom of the room, leaning on Ice as what strength he had escaped him. "That thread of prophecy is broken," he heard a world away.

  "All of it?" he asked in a whisper wet with blood.

  "Not all. I fear you can no more stop the Long Night than you can stop the turning of the heavens."

  "The Builder built the Wall to…" He coughed specks of blood into his hand as Jory moved to help him. "To put an end to it."

  "To delay it. To give you more time."

  Time they have all squandered…

  "I could put you to rights if you would let me." The way those three eyes watched him still put his hairs on edge. Two of them had even turned an uncanny green. "I did not want to impose until you could speak for yourself."

  "How?" he rasped again.

  The sorcerer in front of him did not bleed red as a man might, but yellow. It smeared across hands that soon touched his neck.

  "A year ago a drop of sorcery would have cost me ten drops of blood. Today it is closer to seven." Ned breathed a sigh of relief as the aches and pains fled him. "What will it cost in another year's time?" Solomon's hands fell away. "Try now."

  "I…" His throat did not protest as he took a rumbling breath. "I notice that you still have not told me what you plan."

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  It struck him that he sounded more alike Brandon than himself.

  "What is a new Age of Heroes without heroes?" A yellow tear spilled from Solomon's red eye for the queer question. "You will reach King's Landing safe and sound, my lord. It is what finds you there that you might not like."

  He watched as Solomon returned to scratching ink into parchment. He suspected there wasn't any answer sorcerer cared to give him that would satisfy him.

  He spied Jory's worries as they returned. "The First Men made peace with the children of the forest and their greenseers," he voiced.

  "I could hardly protect you from poison, Lord Stark. I suspect sorcery would make an even grander fool of me."

  It was not hard to see the helplessness in his almost Stark-grey eyes.

  Ned touched a hand to his shoulder. "We shan't stay in King's Landing a breath more than we must. The Others take Renly and his fool's cause if he won't see sense. Mance Rayder and worse marches on the Wall."

  The thought of Sansa had him gripping Ice harder.

  "And so shall we."

  The Grand Maester?

  His old bones creaked as much as the heavy chain around his neck as he made for the small council chambers. He would soon see three-and-eighty namedays, an achievement by any measure.

  It amused him to know that he had outlived many of his would-be successors at the Citadel. The gods be good if he could outlive a few more.

  He ducked his head as he spied Lady Olenna already in her seat. He had never met more wretched a woman.

  "Ah, Pycelle. We wondered if you had taken a fall and rid us of your tardiness. Pity."

  He cursed her in his thoughts as he sat. "I have put to memory every step from here to the rookery…"

  "Is that the reason for it?"

  He would not rise to her barbs. Her nephew and grandchildren watched him also, a court of flowers with a puppet for a king that smiled at them all.

  "You must excuse her, Grand Maester. The news from the Reach has not been as kind as we hoped."

  "Ha! They're as poor as I expected they would be with the proud fools we have leading the way. Garlan would not have lost his head."

  Renly's smile hardly dimmed for the old crone's nagging words. "I can only hope he shows a cool head in the Vale also. Lord Tywin is not half as treacherous as our erstwhile master of coin."

  The puppet of a king hummed a moment as he continued, his eyes on something far away.

  "Robb Stark will arrive at Darry before the new moon. What is my brother up to now, I wonder?"

  "Grinding his teeth to dust on his miserable rocks. What else?"

  Her grandson followed with a swish of his rainbow cloak. "He guards what holdings he has in the crownlands closely. He dares us to storm them."

  Her nephew followed after his nephew, the grapes on his surcoat bringing a thirst as he eyed them. "With the Dornish brought into the fold, he will find his attempts to strangle trade with the Free Cities much diminished."

  "And when will Prince Doran come to bend his knee?" The queen had turned to him with a lidded stare, her chin poised delicately upon her pale satin gloves.

  Pycelle stroked his beard thoughtfully. "He has promised to take a ship as soon as his sickness allows. I can attest to its mercurial nature, Your Grace. It comes and goes as it pleases."

  "Oh? Is it a sickness or a suitor?"

  He stubbornly ignored the old hag as Renly waved it away. "I see no reason to rush our good prince." He turned to their new master of laws. "How fares our fair city, my lord of Mallister?"

  The river lord sat next to Lord Selwyn. The three of them were natural allies in this court of flowers, yet neither of them had approached him.

  "With bellies fed and watered, the city is at peace, Your Grace. The stonemasons have promised that the River Gate will be rebuilt by the third moon of the new year."

  "Fair news, indeed…" Another hum. "Grand Maester, do write Prince Doran. I still find myself in need of a knight for the Rainbow Guard. I am curious as to who he would recommend."

  He pulled at his chain. "As you will, Your Grace."

  The cold winds followed his return to the rookery. Likely the Citadel would soon send out white ravens to mark the end of the long summer.

  He carefully penned a second letter for Lord Tywin's eyes after the first. He had not dared to do it often, only often enough to keep himself in the Lord of Casterly Rock's thoughts.

  Retreating to his chambers beneath the rookery, he found Tansy already waiting for him beneath his sheets. It was a shame he had not the strength to bed her tonight, though he still enjoyed her company. He paid well for her silence.

  Not that his fellows would dare chastise him even had it reached their ears. At least he had never touched the novices as many of them had.

  A queer dream would find him that night. He wandered through the Red Keep when he spied a crack in its red bricks, from which a yellow rose peeked out.

  The sight beggared belief, for roses could not thrive in brick and mortar. He gave it a pull, only to find more roses pushing through the bricks.

  The last he saw of the dream was a thousand roses reaching for the sun.

  He stirred from his bed with a wet cough. His belly ached unpleasantly, spurring him to rummage for some poppy. Pouring half a thimble into some Arbor gold to help him to a dreamless slumber, he drained the cup dry.

  He had only taken a step when his stomach rebelled, leaving him heaving up its contents across the stones. His breathing was wet and scratchy as he stared at the petals amidst the poppy-addled wine.

  Reaching for one, he turned it over under the candlelight. He knew its like. It…

  He bowled over as something in his bowels squirmed, the pain unbearable. "Tansy," he croaked, but she did not so much as stir.

  It felt as if he had a bellyful of broken glass, leaving him whimpering in pain. Soon he coughed again, more yellow petals left in his hands. Specked in blood…

  He prayed it was a nightmare, his thoughts blurring together from the pain. And why did it feel so cold?

  When he found his bearings, he was not in his chambers. There was soil underneath him, and stars above him.

  "Grand Maester," a gentle voice greeted him. "It gladdens me that you could join us."

  Through his tears, he spied the Tyrell queen. At her back was a knight with a rainbow cloak around his shoulders. Ser Morwyn. His armor gleamed a softer orange under the moonlight.

  "Grandmother was content to let you think that you had fooled us, but I rather thought it a waste."

  "Your Grace?" he wheezed in question.

  The godswood was a queer sight, choked with yellow roses. He hadn't cared to visit since the Hand departed for Dorne.

  A sigh had left her lips. "Your letters to Lord Tywin. How many has it been now? At least seven by my count."

  "N-No, Your Grace. I would never! I…"

  He spied her pale hands as she approached, bare for the first time in moons, and he understood why as she caressed his cheeks. There were petals sprouting from a hundred scars, releasing a sweet smell that left him strangely unbothered. His heart hardly even quickened.

  Something under her gown squirmed also.

  "Am I a beauty still, or a horror?" she asked, her eyes like honey smiling down at him.

  "I don't…"

  "Tansy is a sweet girl, isn't she?" she whispered to him. "Though I fear she has been feeding you seedlings as you slept. Coin alone cannot buy loyalty. Can it, Ser Morwyn?"

  "No, Your Grace."

  The words should have horrified him…

  "I shan't have you maesters poison my garden as you poisoned the last dragons. Instead I would see it bloom far and wide." A smile quirked on her lips. "Even as far as the Citadel."

  "Your Grace," he whispered in spite of the sweetness clouding his thoughts worse than any amount of poppy. But that was all he could stir himself to speak.

  She stepped back with a hum soft as rain. "The good maester seems famished, ser."

  He watched helplessly as the knight approached and pried open his jaw. As he choked down vines and thorns, he spied a yellow thing with three queer eyes hanging over the queen's delicate shoulder.

  When it noticed, it smiled.