[Look To The Stars] Chapter 68: A Lesson in the Ashes (Patreon)

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and all rights for character, plots and settings belong to GRRM and George Lucas/Disney. I have no ownership.

A/N: Planning this entire arc and re-planning the arc too a bit. But without further ado, hope you enjoy the chapter!

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Year 299 AC/8 ABY

Kings Landing, The Crownlands

The King's Gate was a dark mouth cut into pale stone, and beyond it King's Landing crawled across its hills like a thing that had outgrown its skin. Jon felt Rhaegal's neck flex between his thighs as the dragon banked, riding a column of warm air that rose off the road.

Not far from his left, Morghaes carried Daenerys through a slow arc, her silver hair streaming against the black scales. Viserion paced the larger dragon, wings tilted to ride the same column of warm air, and the city below had pulled every face on the parapet upward to watch. Below, the parley delegation moved in a slow column: Olenna's wheelhouse rocking on its axles, the cascade of an army on the march, and Margaery on her grey mare, having decided she would rather ride than stay inside the wheelhouse any longer.

Master Luke held his mount easy, the lightsaber at his belt catching the sun. Jon thought of his master at his uncle's table — arguing that even Joffrey deserved the chance to step down before the city burned for keeping him. We are offering them every chance to make this easy. *I hope it works.

Ghost was somewhere in the wolfswood east of the road, running parallel. Jon could feel the wolf's nose working at old ash, at a foul tang rising from a city even a direwolf could smell from this distance. The wolf found nothing he trusted in the scent, and Rhaegal's nostrils flared every few wingbeats with the same wariness, tasting smoke on the air that had nothing to do with his own fire.

Behind the column, hidden in the treeline of the Kingswood three furlongs back, the Falcon waited grounded. Robb was inside it with Oberyn, Barristan, Chewbacca, Han, Loras, and the two Northern lords who had wanted to ride with him, Smalljon Umber and Harrion Karstark. The strike team would show itself to King’s Landing only at the moment it was needed.

Jon heard a click in his ear, signaling an open line. Above, Daenerys's voice carried through with unusual clarity.

"Daemon. Is this thing working?"

Han's voice from the Falcon, dry. "It has been since dawn, Your Grace."

A pause. "Daemon, are you sure you wish me to just stay in the air and not join the parley?"

"Yes. I want whoever shows up at the parley to always know that there are dragons above."

Robb spoke up, a chuckle in his voice. "Jon, I'll wager 5 silvers that Joffrey sends his mother to the parley instead of facing us himself."

Jon shifted his weight on Rhaegal. "I do not take losing bets."

Daenerys, more curious than not. "You have met him, Lord Robb?"

"Aye. He came to Winterfell when his father rode north for my father's Hand. Let us just say, the little shit doesn't know what the word 'no' means." Robb's voice flattened. "He is a prick, Your Grace... Master, do you sense that?"

Master Luke, his voice steady. "Aye, I feel it too. The city's anger, it's like a dark wave crashing against the gates, all of it pointed at that Joffrey."

The channel fell silent.

Jon swept wide on the turn, coming back over the road at fifty feet. Margaery looked up as he passed and raised a hand.

He brought Rhaegal down at the road's verge. Claws dug into the packed earth, and the column slowed behind him. Margaery dismounted, handed her reins to the nearest Tyrell guard, and walked the last ten paces on her own. Rhaegal folded his wings and lowered his neck on her approach.

Margaery slowed two paces short of the lowered jaw and kept her hands at her sides. The dragon remained motionless above her, teeth hidden, but the smoke from his nostrils quickened and his amber eye refused to release her face.

"Your Grace. It seems your dragon is still wary of me."

"Because he's waiting for you to run, and you're not running," Jon said. "Or it could be hunger. Hard to tell. Best of you step back."

A brief catch at the corner of her mouth smoothed away, but her stance never wavered.

"I do not think your jest was heard by your dragon." Her eyes went to Rhaegal, then back to him. "Is he ready for what we are about to ask of him?"

The question had been about the dragon. The look had been for him. Jon laid his palm against Rhaegal's lowered jaw. Through the bond the dragon's readiness traveled back, steady, waiting.

"Aye." Jon said. "He will be. He has to be."

She looked toward the gate. "I see eight scorpions, Jon. Crossbows at every merlon. They are prepared even if they are starving."

"Aye. But we have our own asnwer to them."

"Are you sure Lord Skywalker can take—?"

"He is my teacher for a reason. You have nothing to fear."

The wind stirred her cloak's hood while she considered, and when she finally spoke, the words were quiet. "Then I will pray they are men who listen."

Jon swung off Rhaegal's neck onto the road. Margaery fell in at his right, her green-and-gold cloak the only colour the wall would see beside the Stark grey and the Targaryen black. Jon fell in at Master Luke's right with her, the dragon walking beside them on all fours, head low, wings folded tight against his back. Two Stark men-at-arms came behind with the Targaryen banner unfurled — the three-headed dragon he had been given the right to bear on the council floor at Storm's End. Morghaes and Viserion kept their arc overhead. The rest of the column halted at parley distance.

The gate grew closer with every step. Closer, and busier. At the foot of the King's Gate, where the road narrowed into the killing ground beneath the murder-holes, half a dozen men in green-tinted robes moved between clay jars stacked on a low cart. The jars they were arranging looked like wine vessels for a feast.

Whoever they were, Rhaegal's nostrils flared at the foul tang rising from them, and the dragon's growl rolled through his chest into Jon's teeth. Jon laid a hand against the green flank to hold him steady. The growl quieted but did not stop.

The sally port opened to release a single bent figure, shuffling forward under the weight of a heavy cloak that partially obscured his maester's chain. In his hands, he cradled a scroll with the trembling care one might give a dying bird.

A maester who had learned to outlive his masters. Pycelle.

"They think his life cheap," a dry voice drifted from the wheelhouse. "Sent to bargain, or sent to die where his kings can watch."

Pycelle stopped fifteen paces short of them and inclined his head, the chain at his throat clinking with the gesture. His voice, when it came, was the practised cadence of a maester reading the rolls.

"Grand Maester Pycelle, of the Citadel and the Small Council, here to speak the words of His Grace King Joffrey of the House Baratheon, First of His Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm."

Master Luke inclined his head in return, no deeper than the maester had bowed.

"Grand Maester. You stand on the road before Daemon of House Targaryen, son of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and Lady Lyanna Stark, named the legitimate heir to the Iron Throne by blood and by law, witnessed by the lords of the North, the Riverlands, the Reach, and Dorne." Master Luke's eyes did not leave Pycelle's.

Pycelle's eyes finally went to Jon and for a long moment, the old maester did not speak. He looked at Jon in dark Northern wool and Targaryen colours, at the three-headed dragon on the banner snapping behind him and then at the green dragon's amber eye fixed on him from the road. Jon saw the part of Pycelle that had served Aerys quail beneath the part that had outlived them.

Then Pycelle's eyes moved on.

They went to the treeline behind the column, past the wheelhouse, along the column's rear, hunting something as a man hunts what he has been told to find. The dragons were already in view above him. Whatever else he was looking for, it was not them.

Master Luke saw it and pitched his voice for the maester alone. "Searching for something, Maester?"

A single clink came from the chain at the old man's throat as his head jerked.

"My lord — I — I was told —" Pycelle steadied himself."There has been an absurd rumour in the city—a flying vessel, a ship of metal in the air, the smallfolk in their cups, no doubt." He looked up then, his gaze jumping from Morghaes to Viserion and finally to Rhaegal, and the scroll trembled as the dragon fixed him with a single amber eye. "Forgive me. The dragons are sufficient. I will not look further."

Pycelle then unrolled the scroll. "His Grace... the truu King, demands the surrender of the rebellious houses now camped at his gate. Lay down your arms. Open your column to inspection. Send your highborn under guard into the city, where you will swear obedience to the throne, and His Grace will be merciful."

Pycelle’s eyes shifted. He looked past Luke, searching for Jon, and the fear in his face changed. He had his orders, but he discarded them then to find words of his own.

"His Grace will not surrender the throne. No matt-- no matter the cost."

Jon searched the stones for the gold-gleam of a crown, but Joffrey was not there to meet his eyes. The boy had stayed in his Red Keep, hiding behind walls he trusted to hold and sulking on a throne he believed was his.

Jon gave his answer.

"Hear my terms, Grand Maester. The throne is surrendered, but the boy keeps his name and his life," Jon said, his voice carrying across the parley ground. "He and his mother will ride west under Stark guard to Casterly Rock. They will be received as Lannisters in good standing. It is more mercy than his grandfather’s men showed Princess Elia and my siblings when this city fell."

Pycelle cringed at Jon's terms but Jon continued.

"You have until midday to open the gates and stand the boy down. The smallfolk and the gold cloaks who have not drawn blood today will be untouched. If your king refuses, the prince comes through the gate. Tell him the offer will not be made a second time."

The quiet that fell was the kind that came before the first arrow.

"I cannot ac—" Pycelle began, but a groan from the battlements behind him cut the words short.

Behind the parapet, a wall of catapults groaned at once. Rope dragged across catches and wood strained as half a dozen engines released together.

Jon saw the jars before he could name the threat. They were dark against the morning sky, six wax-sealed clay vessels launched from the wall in lazy arcs, falling toward the parley delegation. Joffrey had prepared the parley as a killing ground, every catapult on the wall launching in a single salvo.

Master Luke reacted first as he reached out with a single hand.

And with a flick, Master Luke sent the jars veering off course, three drifting east and three west, ensuring the parley delegation was left unscathed.

They struck the ground almost simultaneously. Six green fires bloomed at once, the wet western grass igniting in emerald flames while the dry eastern fields caught faster and spread. The fire crept low and voracious across the ground in a color no natural flame had a right to possess, as brilliant as emeralds in a crown and twice as menacing. In the span of a breath, six clay jars became six wildfire pyres.

Master Luke lowered his hands. He did not look away from the burning ground.

"Grand Maester. Your king has given his answer."

Pycelle’s mouth worked like a landed fish, opening and closing in the heat, but the old man was too far gone for speech.

The coalition's eyes grew wide as they took in the vision, and Jon could sense the realization dawning on them.

The word that fell from Olenna's lips were "Wildfire," spoken in a tone devoid of emotion, as if the horror before them had robbed her of the ability to express anything but a stark, chilling fact.

Shoulder to shoulder with him still, Margaery's hand found the back of Jon's. "The fool has attacked a parley," she said by the gate, her voice cold. "The Lannister's tuely hold no honor. He even fired on his own maester."

Behind Jon, Jory took the word Olenna had spoken and made it an accusation. "Wildfire." Then, lower: "Under the truce flag." Another voice picked it up. Then a third, further down the column. A Reach knight drew the Seven across his breast and began to speak in the Mother's name, the words lost in the growing murmur.

The Tyrell guards broke first. Stark swords were already in hand. Behind them the stormland lords surged up from their saddles, hands finding belts and reins with the urgency of men who had just watched a parley turn to murder.

The column knew now what waited beneath King's Landing, and what kind of king had set it. The truce meant nothing.

On the road, Pycelle did not stay between the lines.The old maester turned the moment the second wildfire pyre took the dry grass. He ran, shuffling first, then a stumbling half-trot that was as fast as his old legs could manage. The scroll lay abandoned on the road behind him, the gold thread already smouldering. Pycelle had read the parley's death the same heartbeat Jon had. He was running for the sally port he had come out of.

Alyn's voice came from his shoulder. "Your Grace— say the word and Wyl and I will have him before he reaches the gate."

"No, Alyn. Let him run. He is not our concern at the moment."

The Northern fury Alyn wore was something the other guards shared. Every man in the army could taste the answer: cut Pycelle down.

Jon shook his head once. "He is the message Joffrey gets back. Let the boy see his maester come home with what he saw."

Pycelle reached the gate at a stumbling run.

One of the robed men at the cart looked up, his mouth opening to shout something Jon could not hear. He saw other robed figure beside him jerk a hand toward the cart yelling "Not yet, not yet!", and saw the wax seal on the topmost jar slip, perhaps because the alchemist's grip had jerked open, perhaps because the signal from the Keep had come down the wall before its hour, perhaps because wildfire is a substance that has wanted to burst since the day it was cooked.

The first jar caught fire...

... and the cart with it.

The six jars stacked on the cart caught together, and the gatehouse storeroom behind them, where the rest of the wax-sealed jars waited for Jon's army to close on the wall, caught with them.

The King's Gate vanished inside a column of green fire forty feet high, Pycelle with it before Jon could lift a hand — nothing left to see but the green flames.

The robed men who had been guarding the cache went with him.

"Gods have mercy." Daenerys's hoarse voice came through the comlink.

The silence that followed was broken by Robb, his tone strained. "That was Pycelle. He...he's gone."

Han's voice, subdued, managed a simple "Yeah."

They were supposed to wait, Jon understood. The caches at the gate were meant for the ram and the press of men. The boy had not given the word. Then his own catapult salvo thinned the alchemists' nerve, and the spilling-over from the jars cost them their grip. Pycelle's running did not earn the careful patience the substance required. By accident, his own men had taken his ambush from him, and paid him back with a dead envoy, dead alchemists, and a gate in ruin.

The signal had been given. The pyromancers at the other gates had their instructions, and the green column rising from the King's Gate was the only order they needed. Murder-holes opened along the battlements. The ruin of the King's Gate vanished behind a second curtain of green that poured from the stone in thick ropes, pooling at the threshold in a lake of emerald flame. To the south-east, the Mud Gate caught the same fire. Then the Gate of the Gods, further west. Every entrance to the city sealed in heartbeats, drowning in the wildfire the stone had been hiding all along.

Master Luke kept his gaze fixed on the emerald fire. "The idiot intends to turn the city into a pyre. He would rather rule a graveyard of ash than see you wear his crown."

Jon’s eyes had already moved past the King’s Gate to the inner walls, and then to the pale shape of the Red Keep beyond. "Then we deny him both"

Master Luke raised the comlink from his belt. "Han. Bring her up."

The reply came tin-thin through the device. "Coming."

Master Luke turned to Jon. "I will try to contain the fire. Reach the Red Keep and stop Joffery."

"Aye."

Jon heard the shout from the battlements, a herald’s cry that the wind tore into jagged pieces. The command from the Red Keep had finally reached the walls, carried by runner or drum or some pre-arranged signal Jon had no way of seeing. He could not look through the miles of stone and smoke to find the source. He only registered the command as it fell.

"Burn them! Burn — burn them all! Burn the city!"

The order was for the streets now. The gates were already ash.

On the wall, the gold cloaks had stopped pointing their crossbows. A sergeant was shouting at his men to hold their posts. Two of them had already turned and started running back along the parapet toward the inner gate.

Down the column, picket-mounts bolted and Northern men hauled on their reins. The Tyrell guards ran, shouting.

"Cover the ladies! Move!"

"Lady Olenna! Lady Margaery! Get them clear — clear!"

"Fall back to the river road! Now, now!"

Master Luke's hands rose, fingers outstretched toward the burning fields flanking the road. The wildfire pyres had been creeping closer by the moment. But under Luke's hands, the green flames froze mid-motion, pressed back by the Force. The leading edge curled in on itself, held at bay by the Jedi's power.

Jon pivoted to see the Tyrell guard already moving. Two knights had reached Olenna, hauling her back and putting their own plate and mail between her and the chemical heat. A third brought Margaery’s grey mare up at a gallop. Margaery’s fingers slipped from his as she turned, her focus shifting instantly to the old woman.

"Go," she said to Jon over her shoulder. "I will see her safe. Go."

Jon caught her hand, turning her to face him as he kissed her urgently, her hand fisting in his cloak as she returned the kiss.

When he let her go she did not look back. She went to Olenna.

As Rhaegal lowered his neck, Jon turned and swung up between the wings, the dragon lifting.

Twenty thousand men stood outside, staring at walls they could not breach. Every gate was sealed, trapped. In the smoke above, three dragons wheeled slow circles. Morghaes and Viserion held their path while Rhaegal climbed to join them. On the wall, no gold crown gleamed; only the herald's voice and the green fire he had called down remained.

The Falcon's engines rumbled as it broke from the Kingswood. The ship angled toward the gate, the port ramp already down, ready for them to make their move.

The wildfire Master Luke had been restraining burst free and surged down the street, but the column retreated safely to the river road. He signaled for the descent path. The Falcon descended to meet him as he ran, robes billowing behind him. Chewbacca's arm extended from the open ramp, caught his wrist as he leapt, and hauled the Jedi aboard. The ramp sealed and the ship rose into the sky.

Jon spurred Rhaegal upward and the dragon caught the Falcon at two hundred feet, settling into a long parallel arc above the rooftops.

The city sprawled beneath them, a patchwork of slate roofs, washing lines, and market squares, all wrapped in a grey morning fog. Up ahead and to the right, Aegon's Hill rose, the Red Keep perched on top of it like a fist of pale stone. Its towers glowed in the dawn light, and banners moved on the battlements. From here, the city looked like it might be gone before it surrendered.

The comlink crackled, Daenerys's voice bled through. "I can see the torches from up here. What can I do?"

"The fire's speading too fast," Jon's master advised. "If you get too close, you'll give them a fresh mark. Keep your distance."

A beat. "And if they need me?"

"Then I will call you."

Jon's eyes caught the first flicker on the Street of Seeds - a man in a tattered robe, sprinting south with a torch. Two blocks over, another cloaked figure darted toward a cellar, key in hand. Across the square, a third man vanished down an alley, something hidden under his arm. They moved with purpose, each to their own task.

The cellar door on the Street of Seeds blew open.

Green fire poured out, thick as porridge and bright as the hottest forge, spreading across the cobbles. The man with the torch went up in it before he could let go, swallowed by the hungry flames.

Three blocks east, a second eruption. The torchman who had lit that one went up the same way. Joffrey had told them to throw and run most likely. Unfortuantlye for them, wildfire did not let men run.

The two fires reached toward each other along the street, swallowing wooden eaves and market stalls and a cart that had been left in the wrong place.

The gat was an accident, but this wasn't. The torchmen had keys to those doors and orders waiting for the signal from the boy in the Red Keep. The parley ambush had been the start of it, the murder-holes the next. As long as Joffery had jars left and breath to give commands, the cellars under the city would not be the last to burn. The walls would not hold, and the city itself would become the weapon.

The comlink woke in his ear.

"Solo." Barristan's voice, level. "A pyromancer on the south flank. He's making for the cellar door."

"I see him. Chewie, ventral gun. The man only. Every cellar in that street is a cache. Touch any of them and you finish his work for him."

The Wookiee growled fiercely. Then the Falcon's gun spoke its word. One blast, red as a bloodied sword in the torchlight. No more pyromancer. The cellars still waited.

"Han—" Oberyn, sharper. "You've got eight of them on the rooftops. Look at the Street of Flour."

"Wonderful," Han said sarcastically. "One down, eight more to go."

Chewbacca snarled and Han answered as if he had understood it.

"I'm not arguing, pal. But I need you to hurry up and take them out, before more of these bombs blow up."

"I never thought...Barristan's voice took on a new timbre as he spoke of wildfire. "I had hoped never to see it again. Aerys,loved to use it to silence his enemies. All those people, screaming..."

The roar of the engine filled the pause, a growling cadence that lit the quiet.

"The Mad King's stockpile." Oberyn, threaded with something Jon could not place. "Doran keeps the histories of it in Sunspear. Aegon the Fourth had the pyromancers cooking the substance for his dragon-dreams. Every Targaryen since has added to the vaults beneath the city. There could be more wildfire under King's Landing than there is wine in the Arbor."

"Three o'clock! Another pyromancer!"

Chewbacca growled in acknowlegement.

The Falcon veered south, grazing the rooftops. Jon nudged Rhaegal to follow, the dragon's wings slicing the air. Below, a river of panicked folk gushed from every building, clutching children and bundles, anything not bolted down.In a sudden burst of motion, the crowd broke for the untouched streets, desperate to outrun the relentless green flames that leapt from wall to wall and cracked through windows. Above it all, smoke churned and roiled, suffocating the daylight.

They reached Cobbler's Square. The largest open space in the western city, a wide stretch of packed earth ringed by workshops, where cobblers and cordwainers sold their wares on market days. Today it held hundreds of smallfolk, packed tight, streaming in from every side, children screaming and women dragging old men by the arms. A dog ran in circles, yelping at nothing.

On the square's eastern edge, a man ran toward a stone building with a torch in his left hand.

"Han." Master Luke's voice through the comlink. Jon heard the decision before the words arrived. "Put me down."

"You sure..." Han asked. "...Yea, alright, dumb question. Give me a second."

The Falcon's engines sputtered as Han fought to regain control, jerking them into a steep climb that sent them plummeting past on Rhaegal. The ramp on the port side dropped open, and a powerful gust howled through the opening. The ship hung thirty feet above the square's packed earth, and Master Luke stepped off the edge.

Jon saw Master Luke hit the square, drop and crouch, and spread his fingers toward the cache. The air between the Jedi and the cellar door warped and the torch-fire guttered dead.

Inside the cellar, the first jar cracked.Shards of the shattered jar flew as it released a thick, luminescent green liquid. The substance surged toward the ceiling and open doorway, poised to spill onto the street. Master Luke's hands closed, halting the spread of wildfire. The green tide froze in the doorway, held back by an unseen force. Then it pivoted. It swerved, turning into a stone trough in the wall. The green tide filled it, rippled once, then stilled.

The pyromancer was already running, the torch abandoned in the dirt. He had been ready for swords and crossbows.

Just as the ramp began to close, Robb was out and rolling to his feet, lightsaber ignited blue. Smalljon and Harrion landed behind him with heavier thuds, axes in hand. Grey Wind touched down beside Robb, the direwolf's bulk between his brother and the burning street.

Daenerys's voice crackled through the comlink, already raw with worry. "Robb, be careful."

Robb voice came back, a grin in it. "Aye, Your Grace. As always."

Robb looked up and found Jon on Rhaegal, midflight over Cobbler's Square. Half his brother's face glowed blue, half green, from the lightsaber and wildfire. Robb cupped a hand, shouted "The Keep! Go—we'll hold them!" His words failed in the wind and Robb scowled.

Robb turned to the crowd. An iron-banded wagon shaft pinned two women against the cobbles. He raised his free hand and the shaft answered — wood groaning, lifting an inch, then two, until both women could scrabble out from under it. Smalljon caught the nearer woman by the elbow and pulled her toward the gap. Robb raised the saber high and began moving people through the gap. Grey Wind came back through it with three children clinging to his back and a fourth carried by the scruff of his tunic in the direwolf's teeth. He set them down behind the Stark line and turned back into the smoke for the next. Smalljon and Harrion worked the wings, axes in hand, putting their bodies between the crowd and the flames.

The Falcon's ramp sealed. Han threw the controls forward and the ship clawed east toward Aegon's Hill. Rhaegal swept up after it. Through the cockpit glass Jon could make out Han hunched at the controls, Chewbacca braced behind him, Oberyn gripping a rail. Barristan stood at the ship's rear, watching the city burn below.

Then Jon looked down.

Hundreds of smallfolk — children, old men, women clutching bundles — were packed between the fire at their backs and the wall of green Luke held at their feet. The square shrank as green fire licked the eastern edge, the Hook's second stream reaching the workshops. Master Luke stood at the center, hands raised, holding the line with nothing but will.

Rhaegal beat eastward, closing on the Falcon, and Han was already driving for the Keep. Master Luke’s thought was right: every minute those orders continued, another cache lit below.

But the people in the square would be ash before Joffery answers for his crimes.

Jon hauled Rhaegal into a hard bank. The dragon resisted for half a heartbeat as the bond tugged eastward toward the Falcon, but then wings tilted, claws tucked, and they wheeled back over the square in a tight spiral that shed altitude fast.

Below,Master Luke had not turned. His hands were still raised, his body locked in that posture of containment, and the wildfire he held back pressed against his will with the patience of a tide. The western evacuation was still in motion. Robb and Grey Wind had their hands full and could spare no glance for Jon.

Jon brought Rhaegal down hard, the dragon's claws digging into the packed earth ten paces from Luke. The jarring impact rattled through the saddle and shook Jon's teeth. The heat from the green fire blasted him the moment his feet touched the ground, the honest warmth of dragonfire having nothing in common with this hellish inferno.

Jon's eyes tracked the course of the Hook, following the twisting alleyways that descended through the lower city.And there, coming at them like a destructive tide, a second wildfire stream poured from a cache that had just erupted. Thicker and angrier than the one Master Luke was battling, it surged between the buildings, chewing through wood and stone with a relentless hunger. Wooden stoops, market awnings, even a cart in the middle of the road couldn't slow its onrush toward the square and the hundreds of people Jon had just managed to evacuate.

Raising his hands, Jon felt a sudden certainty take hold. He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he could rein in the inferno. The understanding had hit him like a punch to the gut. Just as Master Luke had shown him, Jon reached for the wildfire's flow, feeling it more than seeing it. Answering his call, the cold rose through him, up his arms, and Jon exerted every ounce of his strength, pushing against the hellish tide.

But Jon was losing control. The wildfire trembled, then broke from his grip.

Two streams of green fire erupted from the main current, spraying violently to the side. They jumped over the low wall to Jon's left, skipping across the cobbles like stones across water, and disappeared into the entrance of a narrow alley between two leaning buildings. The alley where someone had sought refuge. He heard them gasp, the start of a scream, and then the wildfire reached them and the sound ended.

Jon dropped his hands.

The main stream resumed its course, pouring past the point where he had held it, flooding down the steps and into the square's eastern edge. It met the stone foundation of a cobbler's workshop and climbed the wall green and slow, licking at the window frames.

He stood there and stared into the alley. Smoke rose from the gap between the buildings, thin and acrid. The sickly green glow pulsed faintly and then dimmed. Behind the afterimage it had burned into his vision, two charred forms lay on the cobblestones, still and mis-shaped. What had once been a man and a woman now lay still, their forms misshapen and charred by Jon's lost control of the Force.

For half a heartbeat the whole city narrowed to that alley mouth.

"I killed them."

The words fell dull. He had not known they were his own until he heard them.

"I aimed it at them."

"Jon," Master Luke said, his voice strained with effort. "This wildfire doesn't behave like anything I've encountered. You can't direct it and suppress it at the same time. Not with just your training so far."

"But--"

"No." Master Luke's hands trembled, but his voice did not. "You did not aim it. You reached for the fire to turn it aside, and you did turn what you could. The hand that aimed it sits on Aegon's Hill, and he will pour more until someone makes him stop. Go turn aside the hand."

Jon looked at his hands, steady though the tremor deepened within.

"Your priority is the Keep," Master Luke said, his hands remaining raised as he strained to hold back the wildfire pressing against his will. "Each passing minute risks another cache igniting. I can hold this quarter. But if I move, the fire behind me comes with it. Every step I take forward, a hundred people lose their shield."

If Master Luke moved, the Hook and Flea Bottom and the Street of Flour would burn.

"I can't leave you here," Jon said.

"You can and you will." Master Luke's face tightened with the strain as the wildfire surged and he pushed it back.

Jon looked back at Robb. Smalljon and Harrion held the rear; Robb stood at the head of the line with Grey Wind beside him, moving the last of the crowd through.

"Robb—"

"I heard!" Robb didn't turn. "End it, Jon. End it."

Jon turned to Rhaegal.

The dragon crouched ten paces away, wings folded tight against his body, nostrils flaring at the alchemical stink. Through the bond Jon felt the animal's disgust — a deep revulsion at a fire that burned without heat, without purpose, without the clean honesty of a real flame. Jon pressed his palm against the dragon's jaw and felt the shudder pass through them both.

I know. I know.

He quickly mounted. Rhaegal's muscles bunched, wings swept wide, and they left the ground in a single powerful leap that carried them over the workshops and into the smoke-stained air above the square.

Jon banked Rhaegal east toward Aegon's Hill and climbed through layers of greasy smoke that burned his throat and stung his eyes. Below, King's Landing lay in patches of green fire and fleeing crowds and silence where the screaming had stopped.

A market square in the shadow of the Hill of Rhaenys bloomed green. Warehouses near the Iron Gate caught next, the fire jumping from roof to roof faster than horses could run. On the Street of Flour a six-story tenement went up in the breath it took Rhaegal to clear it. Figures ran in the smoke, small and desperate, and some of them stopped running, and the ones who stopped did not get up.

To his left, dust rose from a cavalry engagement along the Rosby road. Tarly's banners had come out against a column from the Kingswood. The old lion had brought his relief force exactly when the gates burned shut, close enough to fight but too late to enter.

Jon activated the comlink. "Daenerys, at the Kingsroad, west of the city. Tarly is fighting a Lannister force. Break them apart."

Daenerys' voice was steady with resolve as she declared, "I see them." In the sky above, Morghaes banked, the black dragon tilting into a steep dive. Viserion dove a moment later, the two dragons falling toward the dust cloud as one. Jon watched their shapes merge with the grey sky, only to be swallowed by the smoke.

To his right, the Blackwater opened beneath the morning haze, ships burning with orange fire, not the pyromancers' green. Masts stood like black fingers against the smoke. The bay was someone else's fight.

As Jon looked toward the Red Keep, he saw the Falcon had already touched down.

Smoke billowed from the Red Keep's outer wall, betraying the scorpion platforms' fate. Han had struck with brutal efficiency, the Falcon landing hard in the Keep's outer bailey. Its ramp gaped open, a dark shape against the pale towers. Even from a distance, Jon could see figures scurrying about below. The strike team was on the ground. The Keep's defenses, built to withstand an army, had fallen before a single ship.

Rhaegal dove towards Aegon's Hill, his wings folded and neck stretched, as Jon leaned into the dragon's spine and held on tightly. The bailey cracked under Rhaegal's claws and Jon was off his back before the wings folded, lightsaber in hand, the Falcon twenty paces away with its ramp down and the strike team already gone inside.

The madboy King had to be put down.