Chapter Text
The fever had not broken.
This was the first truth of the morning, and it loomed over everything else like a verdict already passed. When she woke, she did not so much return to consciousness as to struggle upwards through the layers of heat and darkness, each one heavier than the last. Lanna’s body ached, the muscles so strained from the constant shivering, and her body felt unfamiliar to her. There were moments when she could not realize it to be her own. She was too hot and too cold all at once. Her skin burned beneath the linen sheets, but her bones felt hollowed out by ice. Even breathing seemed to require constant thought.
She didn’t understand where she was upon first opening her eyes. Her vision was blurry, slowed, and keeping them open required more effort than normal. The ceiling above swam in and out of view, the canvas and carved wood of the pavilion blurring together in the half-light. Shadows moved with purpose around the room. Some were speaking, some never stopped moving. A voice was heard, and when Lanna tried to make out the words, all she could hear were mumbles, as if the voice were far across water.
A horn sounded in the distance. It was long and low. That sound seemed to get Lanna’s attention, turning her head towards the sound. Something clicked into place in her brain, and memory returned with the force of a blade sliding clean between her ribs. She outwardly gasped.
Ashford Meadow, that’s where she was.
The tournament. The trial of seven.
Today. The trial was today.
Her entire body seized with panic so sharp it cut straight through the fever haze.
No.
No, no, no.
Her breath caught in her throat so much so that she almost choked on it. Raising her hands into a position where she could support her weight, she tried to sit up way too fast, and the room lurched violently sideways. For one sickening moment, she thought she would lose the contents of her stomach before falling back into darkness, possibly never waking again. Terror made a cruel medicine.
She pushed up on trembling arms; the blankets falling away from her body. Her nightgown clung to her like a second layer of skin, sweat drenching every inch of her body, plastering her hair to her forehead, temples, and the nape of her neck. Every joint in her body ached with the weight of a brick, and the feelings within her fingertips felt cold and numb.
One of her handmaids, who had been bustling about nearby, turned and spotted the princess moving about and nearly let out a shrill of discontent.
“Your Grace!”
“What time is it?” she demanded, her voice cracking and rough, almost completely unrecognizable to her own ears.
The young woman hurried to the princess’s side in an instant, grabbing hold of her shoulders, trying to guide her back down into the bed.
“You must lie back down. The fever-”
“What time?”
She hesitated, frightened more by the expression of her own terror and demand, other than the tone.
“The lists are gathering,” she said quickly. “The princes have already gone to the trial of seven.”
Gone. He was already gone.
Those words hit like a blow to the side of the head. He had already left the pavilion in armor that wasn’t going to do a damn thing to protect him.
Lanna began to tremble with a terror so cold it reached her bones when a thought crossed her barely conscious mind. He was already walking towards the field where history waited open-mouthed to swallow him whole.
She swung her legs to the side of the bed; the movements nearly made her black out. Pain, nausea, and dizziness crashed through her body so suddenly that as her feet touched the rugs, they slid uselessly because her body refused to recall how to hold itself upright. The young handmaid cried out and reached for the princess, catching her before she hit the floor.
Another maid rushed forward after hearing the commotion. “Your Grace!”
Lanna clung to the edge of the bedpost with one hand, trying to support the rest of her body weight, her breath heavy while her world spun if she moved too rapidly.
“I have to go,” she choked out.
The two women stared at the princess as though she had spoken madness.
“My Lady, no,” the older of the two quickly responded. “You cannot even stand.”
“I must go,” Lanna repeated with as much authority as she could muster. “Bring me to Baelor, now.”
The two women shared looks of horror, debating whether to listen to their princess and risk infuriating their prince.
“Now.”
The tone wasn’t even demanding; it was a clear command. One where the two handmaids dare not disobey. The older of the two nodded, then spoke to the younger one. “Fetch her cloak.”
They traded places, and the younger one only hesitated for half a second before hurrying away.
Lanna’s head swarmed with a sense of desperation she had never experienced before, which made her eyes water, hot with tears. She was utterly frightened, but that fear morphed into a sense of determination. She would rather have died on the rug than willingly sink back into that bed. She would not lose her husband this day. She had come this far to protect him, this far to ward off the impending chains of history that would take him away forever.
The younger handmaid returned with a mantle, soft shoes, and her outer gown thrown loosely over one arm. There was no time for proper dressing. No time for dignity. They wrapped Lanna as best they could; linen beneath, heavier cloth over her shoulders, with the mantle dragging around her more like a blanket than a proper cloak. Her feet were forced into the soft shoes brought, but that barely mattered as she could still feel the cold of the wood beneath her. The two maids lifted her arms over their shoulders and began half-carrying the princess toward the pavilion opening, every inch of Lanna’s body protested. The movement sent shocks of pain through the limbs, enough so that one could cry out in discomfort. Her head pounded in a cruel rhythm with her heart.
The sounds outside grew louder with each staggering step until it felt as though the entire world was made of horns, voices, hooves, metal, and wind.
The flap opened, and the morning fog set deep into her skin, chilling her even more than she was before.
“Your Grace?” a familiar voice traveled, reaching her ears.
Ser Reynard Selmy followed the three women upon seeing them come out from behind the fabric, stepping in front of them; worry and confusion covered his features.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded of the two handmaids.
“Her Grace needs to see Prince Baelor immediately,” one of them replied.
“Why would-.”
“Ser Reynard,” Lanna pleaded, desperation in her voice as a few tears ran down her cheeks. “Please.”
The old knight stared at his princess, bewilderment in his eyes and worry within the lines of his face. Lanna, with the strength she had, lifted her head just enough to look him in his eyes. Chocolate brown ones met with ocean blue. The knight hesitated, thinking of all the things that could go wrong with allowing the princess he was sworn to protect out of her resting place as she fought a devastating illness. He let out a disapproving breath, but held out an arm for her as he replaced the youngest handmaid. His white armor matched the haze of what covered Ashford Meadow, a pale so lifeless it looked as though the meadow was pitiless, washed over by low-hanging silver-blue clouds. The air smelled of trampled grass, mud, horses, leather, and the sharp metallic tang of armor heated by the bodies of the men who wore them. The three servants of her grace guided her towards the tourney gate, Ser Reynard commanding them to open them at once to let them through. The knights stationed there gave him confusing looks, but obeyed without a second thought.
Everywhere Lanna looked, there was motion–lords in rich silk climbing the stands, commoners pressing near the ropes, squires running, mounted men wheeling across the edges of the field, servants carrying water, and grooms calming restless horses. All beyond it, gathered at the center like the eye of a storm, waited the knights who would participate in the trial.
The sound of the crowd rolled over Lanna in waves, making her head ache, and for one sick, helpless instant, the whole field blurred into a smear of color and movement, and she thought she might lose consciousness before she even laid eyes on her husband.
Then she saw them. The symbol of the house she married into. A red three-headed dragon shining on black-plated armor.
Bealor sat atop his horse, among the men preparing for combat. His armor–no, his son’s armor so brilliant and terrible in the foggy haze. He had his helm under one arm as he spoke with the side he had chosen to support. Ser Duncan’s side. The man whom he believed deserved a chance at honor and respect for doing the right thing. His profile was stern, composed in the way he had become when duty closed over him.
It nearly broke Lanna to look at him. He was alive. So unmistakably alive.
A sob rose in her throat before she could stop it.
“Bealor-” the sound came out in a rasp, thin and swallowed almost at once by the noise of the field.
No one heard. Lanna’s nails dug into the maid's shoulder.
“Again,” she whispered urgently. “My Lady-”
She dragged in a breath that tore at her lungs, which made her flinch. “Baelor!”
This time, the cry broke. It was not carried far by strength, but by something else. Perhaps by the terrible rawness in it. Perhaps it was because love has a voice of its own when it’s terrified enough.
The dark-haired prince turned his head. Across the field and all the noise and fog, Baelor’s eyes found his wife’s. The change in him was immediate and absolute.
Duty vanished, the lists vanished, and so did the crowd. For one simple second, he simply stared, and even at that distance, Lanna could see the shock drain all color from his face. He kicked his horse, nearly running over his squire, before he raced across the field of mud and grass. He did not look to ask permission, nor would he have needed it. He came towards her with the terrible swiftness of a man who had just seen the center of his world stumble into disaster. People turned heads, and the crowd's tone shifted, confused, curious. Sensing something was wrong, even though they did not know what.
Lanna tried to keep standing, she truly did, but the relief of seeing him moving towards her, alive and real, not yet sent off to slaughter, loosened whatever desperate force had been holding her body together. Her knees gave way without warning as she took a few steps out to him. The maid shrieked, losing her grip on her as she fell from her hands, while Ser Reynard lurched forward for her elbow to grab, but missed.
The ground came fast, but instead of white armor catching her, black-plated armor did. Baelor, in a matter of two seconds, had dismounted his horse, a nearby knight taking a hold of the reins, keeping the animal calm, and reached Lanna as she was tumbling to the ground. His arms came around her so fast and so firmly that the impact drove a startled sound from her throat. One arm slid behind her back, the other beneath her knees for a heartbeat before he shifted, cradling her weight against his chest.
Lanna clutched the front of his armor with weak, frantic hands.
“My love-” his voice was low and shaken in a way she had never heard from him. “What in the seven hells are you doing here?”
His eyes moved over her face, her flushed skin, her unfocused eyes, and her trembling body uncontrollably under the cloak. Pure fear flared in him then; fear not of battle, not of shame, not of politics. But for her.
“You should be abed,” he said, and there was no reprimand in it at all, only disbelief and dread. “You should not be standing out in this air. You should not even be upright.”
Lanna ignored him.
“Don’t-”
The words barely made it out as she grabbed his armor with as much force as she could muster. Her fingers slipped over the steel, leather straps, and the ridges in the armor.
“Don’t fight.”
He froze.
Only for a second, but she felt it.
He looked down upon her, trying to piece together the words through the height of her fever and through the tears that wouldn’t stop flowing.
“You’re ill,” he said softly, as though naming it might make it less terrible. “You’re not in your right mind, my love.”
“Please,” she sobbed out.
The tears that racked her body were not graceful, not contained. They were full-bodied, fever-broken sobs that shook her until her teeth chattered and her breath caught painfully in her chest.
“Please don’t. Don’t fight. Please, trust me.”
Something changed in his face. Not understanding, not yet, but alarmed. Here was his wife, not merely frightened, but pleading with the kind of conviction that belongs only to people who know exactly what they are losing.
Behind Baelor, the field and stands began to slow. Noise still thundered from the stands, but nearer at hand, the men preparing for combat were looking over. Confusion written in their features, and that perplexity spread outwards in ripples.
Among them came Maekar.
Lanna saw him before he spoke, armored and armed as the rest were. No doubt he saw his brother rush toward a woman he did not recognize until he got closer. His brother’s lady wife; his sister-in-law. He opened his mouth upon reaching them, likely to demand an explanation. Then he saw her face. He saw her tears, the paleness of her skin due to the fever, and most of all the desperation in her eyes. Maekar’s eyes traced over his brother and Lanna, noticing how her hands clung to Baelor as if letting him go would be a death all on its own.
His violet eyes narrowed, concern passing through him briefly before being hit with the realization. This was the day. The time, the place, the trial, and the exact moment Lanna had warned him about.
Lanna’s head turned towards him with effort that felt like lifting a stone. “Maekar…”
His name left her as a cracked whisper, but her eyes finished the sentence her voice wouldn’t finish.
This is it, the moment. Save him.
She watched as the full understanding slowly slid in, like a blade inching its way into his heart. His entire body stilled. He had since forgotten the details of what she had told him that day in the gallery, but upon seeing her in the frantic state she was, the conversation played vividly in his mind. He was instantly disgusted with himself for not truly in his heart believing Lanna this day would come as she had promised. He realized he had wanted to forget about the horrors she spoke of, as he believed he could not be capable of such things. Especially not to the brother he held most dear.
Baelor looked between the two of them. Something like a cold dread began to shape the edges of his confusion. “What is this?” he demanded, but his attention kept snapping back to his wife, to the fever shaking her, and most of all to the terrifying incoherence of her fear. “What does she mean?”
She tried to answer and nearly choked on the breath it required.
“I–don’t–” she swallowed, sobbing, trying to force words through a throat that felt stripped raw. “Please. Please don’t.”
Bealor shifted his hold, one hand rising to the back of her neck beneath the mantle as though he could anchor her to the world, to him, by touch alone.
“Look at me,” he said, low and urgent. “Lanna. Look at me.”
She did.
His face blurred and sharpened, blurred then sharpened again.
“You are asking something of me,” he said slowly. “I need to understand.”
“I can’t–” she whimpered, her eyes closing for half a second as more tears flowed from her eyes. “I can’t lose you.”
That did it. The sentence silenced him more effectively than any explanation could have. Perhaps he did not understand her certainty, but he understood his wife enough to trust her.
Maekar came closer then, and when he spoke, his voice was clean, low, a tone meant only for his brother. “Baelor.”
Baelor did not look up. “Not now.”
“Yes. Now.”
Something in Maekar’s tone finally cut through enough that Baelor’s head snapped towards him. The brothers stared at one another over Lanna’s body. She saw the moment Baelor recognized something was wrong, not in her, but in his brother. He looked… altered. His skin was so pale that it almost matched the hair that rested upon his head and the hair that covered his face. Eyes fixed too hard. Jaw clenched with something far deeper than annoyance or shame.
Maekar spoke carefully, each word chosen the way a man chooses where to place his feet over cracking ice. “She came here to stop you.”
“I can see that,” Baelor said sharply, a tone he rarely took with anyone.
“No,” Maekar replied, “you do not.”
Baelor’s expression hardened. “What does that mean?”
The field seemed to hold its breath around them. Nearby knights had begun to drift closer in uncertain clusters, not near enough to overhear, but near enough to watch. The heralds looked alarmed. Word would already be running through the stands like wildfire. The princess had staggered from her pavilion near death. Prince Baelor held her. Prince Maekar stood beside him.
The trial had not begun. History was wobbling.
Maekar’s eyes flickered to Lanna once– just long enough to confirm what he already knew, what she had entrusted with him in another place and another time. Then he made his decision.
“Do you trust her?” he asked Baelor.
Baelor’s answer came instantly, furious with fear. “Yes.”
“Enough to stop?” The eldest brother stared at the younger.
For the first time, true uncertainty crossed his face. “Maekar–”
“Answer me.”
The force of it snapped like a whip. Baelor’s arms tightened around the women in them, reflexively.
“Yes,” he breathed out, because in truth, there was never any other answer.
Maekar nodded once, then turned away and walked towards the lists and raised his gloved hand and shouted, “Hold the field!”
The command rang out loud like iron striking stone. No one moved. One of the heralds blinked in confusion.
“My Prince–”
“I said, hold the field!”
Now the entire near side of the lists was staring. Prince Maekar strode several paces forward, towards the marshals and heralds gathering in alarm. “The trial is stayed,” he spoke.
That caused immediate uproar.
“You cannot–”
“My Prince, the campions are ready–”
“What about the trial in honor of your son?”
Maekar wheeled on them with such cold fury that several of the men actually stepped back.
“The prince’s wife is greviously ill,” he said. “Prince Baelor does not fight while she is in this state. If any man who finds sport more urgent than the life of a princess of the realm, let him say so plainly so I can remember his face.”
No one dared to answer. No one was foolish enough.
Baelor was staring at his younger brother, trying to understand what world he had just stepped into.
The crowds beyond had gone from roaring to muttering. Lords stood in the boxes, ladies leaned forward with the hope of hearing what might be happening. Smallfolk craned necks for any scrap of explanation. Among the nearby company, some of the men looked relieved, others shocked. A few insulted on the principle of it, but none were willing to challenge Maekar openly, not when he stood armed, and in a storm of fury.
“Get her back to the pavilion,” he spoke to no one in particular.
No one dared to wait even a single moment to obey, as the handmaid who had previously escorted Lanna the first time scrambled to help her prince with his wife.
“No.”
Baelor’s voice carried out the order, more harshly directed than it was meant to be. “I will carry her.”
With that, he secured his left arm under her shoulders and his right under her knees and, in one shift motion, stood with her securely pressed to his chestplate, then with haste hurried off to the pavilion where she was supposed to be abed. The handmaid, Ser Reynard, and a few other knights of the kingsguard followed.
Lanna, who had been drifting in and out of consciousness, had held on tightly to her senses, trying to focus on her husband. The world was dimming at the edges, her fingers still weakly pressed to his armor, but her strength was not going. She didn’t understand what was happening, and when she felt movement, she thought she was being taken away. “No…”
Baelor looked down at Lanna, sadness in his eyes, before leaning closer to her hairline and pressing a kiss to it. “My love,” he said, his voice wrecked, beautiful, and terrified all at once, “stay with me.”
She tried, she really did. Her lips parted, delirious and afraid, “Don’t–”
“I won’t,” he said immediately. “Do you hear me? I won’t.”
Something broke in her at that moment. Relaxing as soon as she heard those words leave his lips, the only words that mattered to her. With the sound of the crowd rolling away from her like the tide withdrawing from the shore, Lanna slipped into a darkness, knowing he would be safe. She had done her duty for this day.