The scream was colder than death, and oddly familiar.
Yara Greyjoy raced past chambers to reach the sound. Feet on stone echoed behind her – the Dothraki, the Unsullied – trying to reach the source of the yell, but Yara knew she would make it first. As she came closer to the queen’s chambers, dread began to cloak her. No, a voice inside her said. The sound was of a man. It cannot be.
Fortunately, Yara met Daenerys Targaryen on the way. From what little Yara saw while rushing past, dagger in hand, she seemed confused, shaken, yet very much alive. Grey Worm was close to her. Yara heard screeches of dragons outside, as if the beasts somehow knew their mother feared for her life. She rushed past Dany, heading for the door from where the sound stemmed. Unhesitatingly, she kicked it open.
Tyrion Lannister slept face down in a pool of his own blood. A glass shattered lay beside him, wine slowly mixing with the gore. Yara moved toward Tyrion’s still visage, hoping he would grunt, cough or spring to his feet revealing this to be a cruel jape. Tyrion did none. The stench of death in the chambers was rank.
As Yara stood in shock, she heard queen’s men enter the chamber. The silence in the room was more absolute than death itself. None dared approach the body, to turn suspicions into answers. Yara sprung into action. Even if there is a drop of life in him, he may reveal to us his accoster. When Yara tried to flip Tyrion around, the dwarf’s torso turned, but his head remained stuck in blood.
Gasps of shocks followed. Behind Yara, she heard another set of footsteps enter the room, knowing it to be the Dragon Queen’s. This is not my place to grieve. Yara had no love for Tyrion… and knew his killer may still be in the castle.
She ran behind bloody footprints leading to another chamber, in pursuit. Then another, and then another.
After a while, the killer seemed to have either wiped their footprints or abandoned their shoes, for the tracks disappeared. Yara did not feel discouraged, she knew these chambers better than anyone. As she raced past people and pockets of rooms, she felt she was edging closer. The dagger in her hands tightened.
As she turned right, a long narrow corridor lay in front of her, with Lord Varys in the middle of it. Charging toward Varys was… could this really be the killer? Yara could only see the back of her, from which she seemed not more nor less a youth wearing the cloth of a serving girl. Varys saw her face. His eyes widened in shock.
He knows her.
Behind Varys approached a few ironborn, trapping the girl between them and Yara. She knew what the serving girl was considering, and also knew she had little chance of stopping it. She contemplated throwing her dagger at the girl before she took her chance to jump out of the window besides… but knew if she missed, Varys could be next to die. In any way, the window opened to the Ironman’s Bay, and the Salt God was in a fury tonight.
She saw the girl leap to her death. When she looked down from the window, all the cloudy sky let her see were dark rocks and a sea so frightful, even a dragon would not be able to scorch through its waters. She heard the ironborn behind Varys leave to rush to the shore to make certain, leaving Yara alone with the eunuch.
It was she who broke the silence. “Did you know her?”
Varys sounded like a man waiting for someone to ask. “Someone I knew a long time ago,” he said quickly, “she was supposed to be a world away. A… A Stark pup who forsook the family name. What did she do?”
The mention of Stark brought home to Yara the reality of their situation. She stared over the black sea, letting its merry sounds in her ears before they would be replaced with the ring of swords and shields.
“Start a war.”
*
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