[Kill The Boy] Chapter 82: The Lord’s Due (Patreon)

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

A/N: Bran can't stand a good monologue. Hope you enjoy the chapter :D

-----------------------------------------------------

Year 300 AC

Harrehal, The Riverlands

The path narrowed beyond the willows. Two men could barely walk abreast, with the bank rising on their right and branches screening the lake on their left. Davos kept Shireen uphill of him, where the footing was firmer. Through a gap in the leaves, he saw a boat tied to a tree root at the water’s edge.

“Will we be back before supper?” she asked.

“A good while before, my lady.”

“Mother said we were only going to pray.”

“So she told me. We’ll walk back when she’s done.”

Shireen picked her way round a loose stone, watching the lake whenever the willow boughs allowed her a glimpse. Looking back over his shoulder, Davos could still see the shore guard at the main landing behind them.

“Do you think King Aemon will be back soon?” Shireen asked.

“I hope so, my lady. I’ll tell you when there’s word.”

Where the path widened beside the lake, Lady Selyse stopped. A bonfire burned on the open shore below the bank, and a dozen or so of her faithful had gathered round it in worn cloaks. Beside the flames, a pace apart from the rest, stood Melisandre, her red robes bright against the grey shingle and her hands folded in her sleeves. Above the path on the bank stood Godry Farring. Davos knew most of the faces and watched their hands as he approached. Four of his guards followed close behind him, while Justin Massey came a few paces back with the other two, where the path bent toward the main landing.

“Shireen. Beside me,” Selyse called.

The girl stepped round Davos, and he followed her across the loose stones to remain at her shoulder when she reached her mother.

“We require room for prayer, Ser Davos.”

“I’ll stand here quietly, my lady. She can hear you well enough.”

Lady Selyse gave him a scathing stare, then turned to her followers. Above them, Farring shifted his weight. From that bank he could strike down into the path, where Davos’s men would have tight room to draw their swords. Justin had come level with the last of the close escort; he glanced up at Farring and laid a hand on his sword belt.

“Gather the faithful,” Selyse said. “Here, and along the path, as the Lord commands. We shall begin.”

The men moved into places that had seemed casually chosen until her words put purpose to them. Two crossed behind Shireen, while a broad fellow with a shield and a red cord about his wrist stepped in beneath Farring’s bank where the narrow path opened, hedging Davos’s escort between the slope and the lake. Down by the bonfire, Melisandre turned toward the path, and an armed follower in a smoke-stained cloak stepped close to her elbow, catching her sleeve with one hand while his other settled on his hilt. Seeing the man check her movement as the two followers closed behind the girl, Davos reached for Shireen at once.

“Shireen, come—”

Selyse seized her daughter’s wrist and yanked her away. A man knocked Davos’s arm aside, and the broad fellow drove his shield into Davos’s chest, knocking him back into his own lead guard.

Shireen cried out. “Ser Davos!”

Davos shoved off the guard behind him at her cry, catching his footing on the loose stones. He heard his men draw behind him, and pulled his own sword free as the broad fellow came on again with bared steel. He thrust at the man’s belly, forcing him aside, but another stepped into the gap before he could reach her. Beyond them, Selyse was dragging Shireen toward the willows.

“Mother, what are—”

“Be quiet!” Selyse cut Shireen off. “Come.”

“I want to go back, please Mother.”

“Take her,” Selyse ordered.

The man who seized Shireen round the waist lifted her off her feet as she kicked at his shin, one hand stretched toward Davos. Davos lunged after her toward the willows, his eyes on her outstretched hand, as stones rattled down the bank on his right.

“Ser Davos, to your right!” Melisandre called out from the fire.

Her cry ended in a sharp gasp as Davos whipped his sword up on the turn, meeting Farring’s greatsword just as the big knight dropped from the bank and swung at his head.

The hurried parry took the weight of the blow and jarred his arm to the shoulder, sending him stumbling back into his own escort. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed a flash of steel by the bonfire, where Melisandre’s watcher had wrenched her back by the arm and bared his blade. Davos’s lead guard steadied him, then pushed forward beside him to meet the red-corded fellow’s shield. Behind them, Justin and the rest of the escort were struggling for room in the narrow path while most of Selyse’s followers hurried toward the water. Farring and three of her men were holding the way shut behind them.

“Let her go,” Davos said through clenched teeth. “She’s under the king’s protection.”

“The queen commands this. Stand aside, smuggler.”

“She is not queen anymore. She commands nothing, now out of my way!”

Davos managed to turn the next stroke and thrust at Farring’s face, making him check his advance. For a moment he could see beyond the knight’s shoulder, where Shireen had caught a willow branch with both hands and was straining against her captor. The fellow carrying her hauled at her waist until the branch bent toward the water, yet she kept her grip.

“Why are you doing this?” she cried. “Let me go!”

“Shireen! Hold on, I’m coming!” Davos screamed.

While they struggled to pull her free, Davos tried to get past Farring on the lake side of the path. The edge of the red-corded man’s shield struck his ribs. His lead guard drove at the broad swordsman before he could follow the blow with his blade, and the two grappled at the water’s edge. Davos drew a painful breath. Justin was still behind him, and every attempt to bring more men forward crowded those already fighting.

“Up the bank!” he shouted. “Get round them!”

Justin took the two rear soldiers up the slope toward the trees, where a man with a heavy wooden cudgel was waiting above them. One guard raised his shield against the descending blows so Justin could press past along the ridge, while two more of Davos’s men broke left toward the bonfire, where Melisandre’s watcher had drawn his steel. Davos had to turn back to Farring, working his way along the foot of the bank as the knight pressed him. Past the willows came the hollow knock of a boat against a root.

“Shireen!”

“I’m here!”

A parting in the leaves gave him sight of her in the stern, held fast across a man’s knees. Gripping the gunwale, Selyse climbed in with the last of her shore party at her heels. Beneath them the boat rolled, and four oars rose.

Farring had the height and the longer reach, and he fought with a practiced weight Davos could only hope to turn aside. Every heavy stroke drove Davos back from the gap and bought the oarsmen another pull toward open water. That first blow from the bank had left his sword arm aching, and every breath caught hard in his bruised ribs. He was being held at the water’s edge by a better swordsman while Shireen’s cries grew fainter across the lake.

Davos thrust again and forced him back a step, only for Farring to press right back in, beating his blade wide. A root caught Davos’s heel as he gave ground, sending him down hard onto one knee and jarring the sword from his grip into the mud. Farring hoisted his greatsword with both hands to finish him, then stiffened with a sharp gasp and pitched forward onto his side.

Justin stood behind the fallen knight, wrenching his blade free from beneath the hem of Farring’s mail. Farring rolled onto an elbow, reaching for his dropped greatsword. With Shireen’s boat already pulling clear of the reeds, Davos drew his dagger, drove it into Farring’s throat, and returned the knife to his sheath as the big knight went still. He caught up his sword from the mud and slid it home, turning back to the fight along the shore.

On the bank, the cudgel wielder was swinging wildly at the two guards who had followed Justin up. One was thrown back by a blow on his shield while the other caught the attacker from behind and dragged him down among the roots. The man kept kicking as the first guard dropped a knee onto his back and tore the cudgel from his fist, pinning him until they had his wrists lashed behind him.

Beside the fire, the two guards who had charged Melisandre’s watcher knocked his sword out of his hand and forced him face-down into the stones, tying his wrists while he twisted and cursed beneath them. By the willows, the broad swordsman with the red cord backed under the lead guard’s strokes, then slashed the soldier across the forearm. The wounded guard dropped his sword. Justin closed with the attacker at once while the other guard on the path seized the man by his shield, dragging him off balance. Together they forced him down into the mud, wrenched his blade from his fingers, and bound his hands.

Davos caught the wounded soldier as he stooped for his fallen weapon.

“Leave it. Wrap that arm.”

“I can still fight, ser.”

“You’ll bleed yourself empty trying. Keep your hand over it.”

Blood was running from the soldier’s sleeve onto his boot as he tried to close his fingers. He let Davos guide him back against a tree, where he clamped his sound hand over the wound. Near the fire, three of the guards hauled the bound captives together under drawn steel, while Melisandre remained beside the flames with one hand resting on the ruby at her breast.

By the time Davos pushed through the willows, Selyse’s boat was well clear of the shore, its four oars rising and falling at a quick stroke. Shireen’s pale cloak showed among the men near the stern. They were pulling out past the willow point into the open lake. He called over the young guard who had helped Justin take the swordsman.

“Go to the main landing. Tell the captain to bring the long guard boat round. Six oars. We also need men to hold these prisoners.”

As the soldier set off at a run, Justin came through the willows with blood on his sword, breathing hard from the climb and the fight. Davos pointed out the course the other boat was taking.

“With fresh men we can gain. Choose fifteen who are fit when they come, and have the rowers shed their mail once we’re aboard. We’ll need room at the benches to work.”

Waiting on the shore was harder than fighting for it. Davos watched the four oars carry Shireen farther away and tried to judge their pace, wondering how much water they would take before the guard boat rounded the reeds. Keeping the pale speck of Shireen’s cloak in sight, he turned his head toward the fire, where Melisandre stood watching the lake.

“Where is she taking her?” Davos demanded, stepping up the shingle so he could see both the red woman and the boat’s wake.

“To the Isle of Faces, Ser Davos,” Melisandre said. “When they dragged the princess to the water, Lady Selyse commanded the oarsmen to row for the Isle while Ser Godry held you on the path.”

Davos looked hard at her, then back to the boat pulling farther out onto the grey water. “And you knew nothing of this before we walked out the gates?”

“She spoke to me only of prayer by the water, and set a blade at my elbow the moment her men closed around the child,” Melisandre answered. “The king forbade the fire to all who serve the Lord of Light. Lady Selyse believes her zeal sets her above his command as R'hllor as deined her to be his next High Priestess. Go after the child, Ser Davos.”

Whether she spoke from fear of the king’s justice or some reckoning of her own, Davos had only her word for the boat’s landing place, and every breath spent on the shingle was another stroke lost on the water. Boots pounded down the path as the young runner returned with the shore captain and a squad of his men, while the splash of sweeps sounded beyond the reeds where six oarsmen were bringing the long guard boat round the point. As the captain’s soldiers took over watching the bound prisoners by the fire, Davos sent Justin to gather the boarding party from their own fit escort and the freshest of the reinforcements, then called the young runner back to his side.

“Run to Harrenhal. Find the Queens. Tell them Selyse took Lady Shireen by force. Farring and his men fought us here, and her boat’s making for the Isle.”

“I saw Queen Daenerys leave earlier, ser,” the lad said.

“Then find Queen Val and the council. Give them what I’ve told you, and say we’re pursuing them.”

Davos watched the lad start up the path before turning back to the captain, whose remaining men stood guard over the three captives and the wounded soldier.

“Bind the prisoners tighter and keep them apart,” Davos told him. “See to my wounded man, and take the red woman back to the castle with you under guard. She can answer to Queen Val and the council for what happened here.”

By the time the guard boat nosed round the reeds with its six oarsmen on the benches, Justin had the nine other soldiers waiting at the water’s edge. Davos turned at the splash of the sweeps close by.

“Get on board and get moving!”

The nine soldiers climbed in over the gunwale, shedding their mail and stowing their weapons beneath the thwarts with the oarsmen’s gear so the boat rode trim and left room to pull. Davos slid his sword and dagger from his belt to stow them under the stern bench before taking the steering oar, while Justin stripped off his mail and laid his own blade with the men’s steel in the bow.

“Where are they headed?” Justin asked.

“The Isle.”

Davos called the stroke until the six oarsmen found one pace, watching their hands as well as the boat far ahead. When the bow men began to hurry their catch in their eagerness to close the gap, he steadied the count at once, making them dip clean and haul together so every pull carried its full weight.

“Keep the stroke long! Put your backs into those oars! We need to catch up!”

Through all the shouting, Shireen was the only thought in his head, and with her the certainty that he would kill Selyse himself if she hurt the girl.

-----------------------------------------------------

Samwell Tarly came along the inland path beneath the weirwoods carrying the Horn in both arms, while a squat, broad-shouldered man followed with a leather writing case tucked beneath his elbow. They had walked a good way from the western shingle where the boats had grounded, coming into the center of the Isle.

Bran waited beside Leaf near the pale wool cloth the Children had spread over the mossy roots. When his left knee stiffened from standing, he shifted his weight onto his ash staff and watched the two men step between the white trunks.

“Here is close enough, Sam,” Bran said. “Thank you for keeping it safe.”

Sam knelt with care, lowering the wrapped Horn across his thighs before setting it down on the wool. Beyond the ring of trunks, where the canopy opened over a broad clearing, Rhaegal folded his wings with a heavy rustle that stirred the fallen leaves. The green dragon had shadowed Sam overhead all the way from the shore, and now he lowered his bronze-and-green head near the gap between two trees to watch Sam’s movement.

“Rhaegal has helped a great deal,” Sam said, glancing back toward the clearing with such plain gratitude that Bran smiled. “He comes whenever I stir, even if I’m only walking down to fetch water. Jon charged him with guarding me at Sunspear, and he’s kept to it ever since.”

The man with the writing case set it down beside a high root. Red sourleaf stains marked his lips, and his eyes moved from the Children seated among the trees to the smaller bundle resting in Bran’s palm.

Branches parted along the western trail as a newcomer entered the clearing. Daenerys entered the shade of the weirwoods, holding her skirt clear of the roots. Behind her, out in the clearing beside Rhaegal, Drogon settled his dark bulk onto the grass with a low rumble that trembled the gorund. Two of the queen’s guards halted at the outer trees knowing they would not be premitted further.

From his knees, Sam made to rise, but Daenerys stayed him with a gesture but her attention went to Leaf and the Children seated among the roots.

“The archmaester wished to witness the working,” Daenerys told Bran, “and Samwell hoped to make a record, if his charge allowed it.”

“Archmaester Marwyn, my lord,” he said. “A thing made in this earth and broken for ages. To see it mended... to see such magic. I know this might be too much to ask but... would you permit us to stay and witness this ritual?”

Bran thought about it for a moment and nodded his head as he opened the small bundle to reveal the mouthpiece.

While the archmaester drew out paper and a reed pen, Daenerys studied the Children’s faces and the places they had chosen around the cloth. Bran understood then that the scholars’ purpose might have given her a way to come for something she wanted to see for herself.

“Sam has found a comfortable seat, Your Grace,” Bran said as he odded toward the low bend of weirwood beside Sam. "You can stay and watch if you'd like."

She thanked him and inclined her head to Leaf as she passed, settling onto the root and gathering her skirts about her ankles. Bran placed his staff in the moss and eased himself down until he sat beside the wool. Leaf helped Sam turn the Horn with its broken end facing the center of the cloth, and Bran laid the mouthpiece close before it, feeling through his fingertips how the two pieces belonged together.

Daenerys glanced once toward the clearing where the two dragons lay beyond the trunks, then looked to Leaf. “Will my dragons trouble your working?”

“They may listen and watch,” Leaf said. “But they must keep their fire.”

“They will,” Daenerys promised.

Marwyn rested his reed pen across his knee, his gaze moving from the weirwood roots to the fractured bone. “Now that you brought the pieces back together,” he said to Leaf. “What of the power required to mend it?”

“This place... remembers the making,” Leaf said. “We have chosen it for the mending, and more of the power reaches us now.”

Bran turned his ear beyond the rasp of the writing case and the breeze rustling high in the red canopy. The song waited down in the forest's bed of roots, heavy with more than the island's own flourishing life as everything done across the river country settled into the surrounding dirt and water.

“The dead have paid for this,” Bran said. “At the Twins and the Trident. From every battle to those who starved in their houses and beside the roads.”

Sam’s fingers tightened on the wool, and Daenerys turned her head from Leaf to Bran. “Must more die to finish it?”

“No,” Bran told her. “The cost is already in the earth.”

Leaf laid her small hand beside his on the cloth. “We can gather what remains,” she said. “Begin with us.”

He closed his eyes and found the first note beneath him, low in his chest before he gave it breath. Leaf answered, and a higher voice joined at his left, followed by another from beyond the great trunk, until the sound surrounded the Horn and the pale bone warmed beneath his fingers.

Bran looked upon the dead as they had been while living. A young man boosted his sister onto a pony and laughed when her fingers tangled in his hair. Next Bran glimpsed him under a table at the Twins, clawing at the quarrel in his throat. A fisherman swore at a tangle in his net while his wife teased him. In the next breath he sprawled amid the reeds of the Trident with an arrow in his back.

A mother pressed her fists into bread dough, her cheek dusted white where a Floury hand had swept her hair away. At her side, her little boy bent in solemn silence over a scrap of his own. The next breath showed her starved lean beside cold ashes. Her son shook at her shoulder, though she had already gone cold. Bran ached to watch until someone came for the boy, but a stranger’s face pushed hers aside, bringing another life with it.

Leaf’s hand touched his wrist to bring him back. He could hear her singing beside him and feel the warmth beneath his fingers. His throat had tightened, but he kept singing while hearing the intake of breaths from thier onlookers.

Bran opened his eyes. Moisture gleamed along the fracture, and the jagged lip had softened. As he watched, it crept toward its other half by the breadth of a thread. Marwyn’s pen began to scratch quickly across his paper as he murmured to Sam to watch the upper edge, and Sam whispered back that he could see it, holding his supporting hand steady while one of the Children changed her note and the shining gap thinned.

Each of the Children seemed to hear what was needed in the others and adjust her voice before the power could wander. At first, Daenerys only had a curious look about her but now, she looked as if she forgot how to breathe. Bran sensed an answering warmth about her, distinct from the strength rising through the roots.

As the task settled firmly into the Children’s keeping, Bran let his voice diminish and reached outward through the trees to the ravens circling the waters of the God’s Eye.

Well out on the grey water east of the Isle, a raven banked toward the splash of oars. Two boats were making for the eastern inlet, each pulled by four oarsmen. In the leading boat, a girl struggled across a man’s knees in the stern while another held her arms, the wind tossing her dark hair back from the grey scar on her cheek. More armed men crowded the boat following close behind.

He left that bird at once and found a second raven perched in an oak a short way inland from the eastern shore, where Artos Flint and Larence Snow held the watch with the Blackwood and northern men assigned to that side of the island. Bran remembered Larence speaking with Jon by the hearth at the Winterfell feast, and old Torghen Flint’s son had been named to him when the island watches were set.

“Two boats are crossing toward the eastern inlet,” Bran called down to them through the raven. “Selyse has two dozen men with her, and they’re holding Shireen by force. Move to the inlet and meet them.”

Artos Flint rose at the first words and drew his sword. “How far out are they?”

“Still on the open water, pulling hard for the reeds,” Bran answered through the bird. “Take your men through the trees above the bank and cut them off.”

“Blackwoods with me,” Artos called, already pushing into the brush. “Larence, take the Northmen down the lower path toward the water.”

They were running between the trunks when Bran returned to his own eyes in the grove. Leaf looked at him while keeping the measure of her breath. “Go to them,” she said. “We can do the rest now, and we will finish it.”

He felt the strength of her people in the roots and knew she spoke the truth. Reaching for his staff, he pushed himself upright as two of his northern guards stepped forward from the grove’s edge, and Daenerys rose from the root beside Sam. "What has happened?”

“Uninvited guests,” he said, looking toward the eastern path. “I’m going to meet them.”

“I can help,” Daenerys said. She stepped aside to let him pass, her attention already on the path beyond him.

“There’s no need, Your Grace. You can stay and watch the mending.” Bran glanced back at Leaf, who was still singing beside the Horn. “I’ll be back.”

Daenerys yielded with some reluctance and took her seat again. His two guards came after him into the trees, one stepping out in front where the track grew thin. Where the trail crested a broad rise of beech trees, the Children’s singing faded into the rustle of the canopy, though Bran could still feel the deep hum of the working through the soil beneath his boots. He halted beside a pale trunk, resting his hip against the bark while his guard stood at his elbow, and slipped into the eastern ravens again.

Down at the inlet, both of Selyse’s boats lay pulled ashore, with four men keeping watch among the reeds. Out on the lake, the guard boat was closing in. Selyse and her men had borne Shireen straight up the bank and turned off the shore trail, pressing inland along a deer track that led into a separate wooded hollow where a crooked weirwood grew beside an old ring of stones.

Bran shifted to the second bird, flying low above Artos and Larence as they neared the inlet, and turned them inland.

“They have left the shore path for the stone hollow north of the inlet,” he called down to them. “Close on them there.”

Artos raised a hand in answer and led the Blackwoods up the wooded bank while Larence swung his Northmen along the lower trail. Bran left that bird and settled into the raven perched in the crooked weirwood above the hollow itself.

In the gloom beneath the trees, they had forced Shireen down against a young sapling with her wrists bound before her with hemp cord that passed twice about her middle and the slender trunk. Two of Selyse’s men piled dry deadwood inside the ring of stones, and a third broke the seal on an earthen jar to put it in Selyse’s hands. The oil gleamed pale as she poured it out upon the kindling. By the edge of the stones knelt a fourth man with an open tinderbox and a palmful of pale wood shavings, setting a bowstring to a short wooden spindle.

“Higher,” Selyse said beside the stone ring. “The wood must stand close about her. Leave room at her feet for the first flame.”

“Mother, please,” Shireen begged, pulling at the rope until her voice shook. “I’ll pray with you. I’ll say all of it, please let me go.”

“You must be brave now,” Selyse answered. “The flesh is weak. The Lord knows what you give.”

In the hollow, Selyse looked over the oiled kindling and the bound girl. “Her blood is Stannis’s blood,” she told the men around the stones. “The Lord will know it, and He will give us strength against the darkness.”

“Your god is a liar,” Shireen pleaded, glancing off toward the landing path. “Look how he has forsaken Father.”

“Do not speak ill of your father,” Selyse chided Shireen, her voice nearly a mother's. “He died for a glorious purpose.” Stooping toward the man with the spindle, she added, “Keep that tinder dry. Put the flame to it when I give the prayer.”

“Hold your heathen fire!” Artos Flint barked.

He stepped down into the hollow with four Blackwood men beside him while Larence’s party closed from the lower trail, their swords drawn. Two Blackwood bowmen stayed among the trees above. “By the king’s command, step back and release the girl.”

Selyse drew herself upright beside the sapling. “Lower your swords at once. You intrude upon the Lord’s prayer, and no king’s law will hold back the night. The Lord of Light commands this offering. Stand aside!”

There were a score of Selyse’s men in the hollow. Those among the trees came forward with swords and spears, joining the men around the stones. Selyse turned to the man crouched over the tinder. “Light it,” she commanded. “The rest of you, hold them!”

Artos met the first man’s charge with his sword. More came behind him, driving the Blackwoods back up the slope. A spear caught one guard beneath the arm, and he fell against a tree. The man beside him stepped across his fallen companion and cut the spearman across the face, then drove his sword into his chest as he staggered.

Larence’s Northmen struck from the lower trail. The faithful nearest them turned to meet the attack, shouting for R’hllor, while others stayed close about the sapling. Shireen strained against her bonds as a man planted himself in front of her with a sword in his hand. She pressed her cheek against the bark as swords clashed in front of her.

Beside the stones, the tinder caught. Its keeper bent over the little flame, shielding it with his palm. A Blackwood bowman shot him in the back before he could put it to the wood. He pitched forward, scattering the burning scraps into the leaves. Another man dropped to his knees to gather them, but Larence drove his sword through him as he reached for the flame. A Northman stamped out the embers while Larence turned to meet the next attacker.

“Shireen!” Davos’s shout came from the landing trail.

“Ser Davos!” she cried, twisting toward his voice.

He came hurrying down the slope with his boots muddied to the knee, Massey beside him and soldiers close behind. Several of the faithful broke away from the Northmen to meet them. A man with a knife lunged at Davos, but Massey caught the blow on his sword and drove his point into the attacker’s belly.

“Go to her,” he told Davos as he pulled his blade free. “We’ll hold them.”

Davos pushed past him as the soldiers struck the faithful from the side. Artos came down the slope, cutting his way toward the sapling. Shireen’s captor caught her by the cloak and swung his sword at Davos. Larence struck the blade aside, and Artos thrust beneath the man’s raised arm. His grip slackened as he fell. Davos cut the rope fastening Shireen to the tree and caught her against him, her wrists still bound between them.

Selyse reached for her daughter, but two Blackwoods seized her arms and pulled her back. “Keep him from her!” she screamed. “You swore yourselves to the Lord!”

Her men pressed after Davos. A Northman fell across the lower trail with his hands at his neck, and the man who had cut him stepped over him, shouting for the girl. Massey met him between the trees. He turned the descending sword and struck at the man’s knee, then thrust into his throat as he went down.

Davos carried Shireen up the slope behind his soldiers. She clung to him with her bound hands as he lowered her beside an oak, his breath coming hard. Below them, the fighting spread among the trunks. The faithful struck at the men closing around them, some crying prayers, others fighting with their teeth bared. A wounded man caught Larence’s cloak and hauled him close enough to stab. Larence trapped the knife hand against his side and drove his own blade under the man’s chin.

Artos and the Blackwoods fought their way through to the woodpile. Two of the faithful stood over it with their swords drawn, and a third came at Artos from behind the crooked weirwood. A Blackwood arrow caught the third man in the chest. The other two kept fighting. One cut a guard across the thigh before a spear took him beneath the breastbone. His companion swung at the spearman and struck the shaft, giving Artos room to close. Artos drove his sword through the man’s belly and pulled it free as he fell against the stones.

The faithful lay dead among the roots and the scattered wood. A guard sank down with both hands pressed to his bleeding thigh. Another knelt beside the Blackwood who had taken the spear, holding a folded cloak beneath his arm. On the lower trail, one of Larence’s men crouched beside his fallen companion, then drew the dead man’s cloak over his face.

Davos knelt beside Shireen a few yards away, his right shoulder moving stiffly as he worked at the rope about her wrists. His shortened fingers held the knot steady while his other hand sought the tight end.

“Give me a little slack, my lady, and bring your hands together,” Davos murmured. “That’s it. Hold still a moment while I loosen this.”

“I tried to make them stop,” Shireen whispered, shivering against his knee. “I tired to fight like you taught me!”

“I saw you hold on, my lady,” Davos said, “and you did your best.”

On the otherside, Selyse strained against the two Blackwood men holding her arms. “Shireen, come to me at once. Davos, give me my daughter!”

The girl pressed into Davos’s side, pulling the rope taut again. He waited for her to settle before looking back over his shoulder.

“Don't worry,” Davos said. “She will never get her hands on you again.”

“She belongs to me!” Selyse cried.

The rope loosened beneath Davos’s fingers, and he slipped the coils off with care, supporting Shireen’s wrists as the last loop came away to show angry red marks around her skin. Davos brushed the damp hair away from her mouth, studied her face while she steadied her breathing, and drew her cloak round her shoulders.

While the soldiers tended their wounded, Artos collected the oil jar and tinderbox. Davos looked toward his fair-haired companion, who was wiping his sword on a dead man’s cloak.

“Bind her hands,” Artos told the two Blackwoods holding Selyse.

As the guards brought her wrists together before her waist and wrapped them with hemp cord, Selyse lifted her chin toward Davos and the men around the stone ring. “You blind yourselves with a king’s law while the night rises,” she said. “One life, freely given to save all the living. Even a smuggler should understand the need.”

“I didn’t give it,” Shireen said from beside Davos’s knee.

“You are a child,” Selyse told her sharply. “Your blood is the king’s blood, and it belongs to the Lord of Light.”

Davos rose, lifting Shireen with him and keeping her face turned toward his shoulder as he started up the western slope out of the hollow. “We are done here,” he said to Justin. “Bring--”

Davos halted at the sight of Bran as he stepped out of the woods. “My lord,” he said.

“You have her safe, Ser Davos,” Bran said, stopping a pace before them. He looked down at Shireen’s raw wrists and blotched cheeks. “I saw the boats through one of my ravens, Shireen. I sent the guards to help you.”

Shireen looked up from Davos’s side, wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist. “Th-thank you, Lord Brandon.”

“Your men had already closed on the hollow when Justin and I came up from the reeds,” Davos said. “Another minute at that woodpile would have been too late.”

“Queen Daenerys and the Children are at the grove in the center of the Isle with Samwell Tarly,” Bran told him. “Follow this path west over the ridge. My guard here will walk with you and show you the way.”

Davos glanced past Bran toward the hazels below. “And Lady Selyse?”

“I will deal with her,” Bran said. “I will join you at the grove.”

Davos studied Bran’s face for a moment, then nodded once. He held out his left hand to Shireen, and she fitted her fingers carefully round his shortened ones as Bran’s first guard led them onward along the western trail.

Bran turned with his remaining guard and walked towards Selyse.

Justin and Larence Snow stood beside the crooked weirwood as two soldiers helped the wounded Blackwood down toward the boats. Selyse’s men lay between the trees and beside the stones, their weapons gathered in a heap. Two Northmen lifted their dead companion, while Artos Flint’s men kicked the oiled kindling clear of the stone ring. Selyse Baratheon stood near the weirwood with her wrists lashed before her waist, two Blackwood guards holding her by the arms.

Her eyes fixed on Bran as he stepped down onto the moss. “You have looked into the north, boy,” she said, her voice tight and shrill. “You know what comes for us. Tell these fools why this offering must be made.”

“Shireen has gone with Ser Davos,” Bran told her. “You will answer to the king’s council.”

“Your brother’s council has no power over me,” Selyse said, straining forward against the guards’ hands. “Her blood is the king’s blood, and the Lord of Light demands—”

Her breath snagged in the middle of the word with a dry rattling hitch. Selyse’s head jerked upright as the sinews of her neck pulled tight as cord, and when her eyes met Bran’s again the frantic zeal in them had disappeared. Now all he felt from her was a sudden scorching hunger, a parasite living in the heat of the red priests’ fires and calling itself a god.

Selyse’s lips parted, and the voice that came from her throat was dry and raspy.

“You thief in the roots,” the voice rasped through Selyse’s mouth. The two Blackwood guards stiffened. “You might have killed my servants and stolen my offering, but do you think this is the end. You do not know—”

Bran willed the weirwood to strike. A white root tore through the moss behind Selyse and drove through her chest, cutting off the voice. The Blackwoods released her and stumbled back.

Blood ran down the pale wood, and Bran felt R’hllor leave her as she died. The root slid free so she fell onto the moss as the men stood staring at her confusion and fear.

Artos Flint let out a long breath, his weathered face grey as he looked from the body to Bran. “That was another voice in her mouth at the end, my lord.”

“It was the thing she prayed to,” Bran said, taking his staff back from his guard. He had to swallow before he could finish. “She was bound when I struck her. Artos, Larence, when you return to Harrenhal, tell Queen Val and the council that I killed Lady Selyse with my own hand.”

Justin stepped over, unclasped his wool cloak, and laid it over Selyse from head to foot so that only the grey cloth showed beside the stone ring. “We all saw and heard what happened here, my lord,” Justin said quietly.

Bran turned away from the dead woman and started on the trek back towards the center of the Isle. Deeper in the island, he felt the power in the roots easing as the gathered sorrow of the river country settled into the earth. As the oaks gave way to the white trunks near the grove, his ears caught the Children’s voices fading into a last quiet harmony under the red canopy.

When he stepped between the outer roots into the grove, the first thing he noticed was that the Horn now laid whole upon the wool cloth.

A continuous curve of bone ran from the mouthpiece into the old body, closing the fracture along its entire length. Sam knelt with one hand beneath the wider bell while Leaf supported the narrower end, the other Children sitting close about them as their song died into silence. Near the edge of the circle, Shireen sat on the low weirwood root with her cloak drawn tight around her shoulders and her fingers fitted round Davos’s shortened ones, while Daenerys stood beside them.

Sam looked up, relief plain across his round face. “They’ve done it, my lord,” he said. “The bone closed just before Ser Davos brought Lady Shireen in.”

Daenerys stepped forward from the root as Bran approached. Her gaze went to his face and then dropped to the dark smear of blood dried along the cuff of his sleeve.

“Ser Davos told me the guards stopped them before they could set the pyre alight, and that you went down to speak with Lady Selyse,” the queen said, her voice quiet and steady. “Whose blood is on your sleeve?”

Bran halted beside the cloth with both hands on his staff and met her eyes. “Lady Selyse’s, Your Grace,” he said. “After Ser Davos brought Shireen out, their Lord that Selyse worshiped took hold of her. I had to stop it.”

Shireen drew a sharp breath. Her fingers clutched at Davos’s hand, and Davos went down on one knee before the root at once, placing his shoulder between the girl and the center of the grove.

Daenerys stood very still beside the wool cloth. “The Lord of... Light?” the queen questioned. “I... I see.”

Shireen looked at Bran with her face pale beside the grey scale on her cheek. “My mother is dead?” she whispered.

“Yes,” Bran said, his throat tight. “I killed her, Shireen.”

A tear slipped down over her scarred cheek as she held tighter to Davos’s hand.

“Look at me, my lady,” Davos said from his knee, keeping his eyes level with hers and drawing the edge of her cloak closer about her neck. “What happened there belongs to those who brought you here, and to us. None of it lies on you.”

“I know,” she said, her voice breaking on the last word.

Davos drew her against his shoulder and held her there while she cried quietly into his damp tunic, his hand resting broad and steady between her shoulder blades. Bran stood a few paces away with his weight on his staff, looking down at the moss around his boots. He had wanted to be a knight once, and the old wish came back with a sharp ache as he watched them, the stories of tall horses and bright armor where a boy rode in to save a lady and everyone went home glad of it. Here sat the lady saved from the monster, yet he did not feel like a knight.