For two days, the bells tolled. They were a constant, suffocating presence, a metal tongue chanting a dirge for a life Aemma now lived in the shadows. From their prison of safety on the Street of Silk, they could hear the grief of the city—the mournful cries of the criers, the shuffle of thousands of feet moving toward the Dragonpit where the pyres were built. The air grew thick with the scent of burning cedar and, if Aemma let her imagination run wild, the faint, sickeningly sweet smell of roasting meat. Her own funeral.
She sat by the fire, her son, Baelon, asleep in her arms. Every toll of the bells was a hammer blow, forging a new reality for her. She was a ghost. A whisper. A lie given flesh. And her life, and the life of her son, was now in the hands of the sorcerer who had orchestrated it all.
"You said you needed him," she said, her voice cutting through the quiet of the room. She did not look at Harry, who stood by the window, watching the city mourn a tragedy of his own making. "You spoke of a prophecy. Of my son being a weapon."
"I spoke of saving you," Harry corrected, his tone mild, infuriatingly calm.
"You spoke of using him!" she countered, her head snapping up, her eyes flashing with the fire of a cornered dragon. "Do not mistake me for a fool, sorcerer. I have spent my life in a nest of liars. I know one when I see one. You did not risk yourself for the life of a single babe out of kindness. You want something. Tell me what it is. Tell me the price of this 'life' you have given us."
Sirius, who had been cleaning his daggers by the hearth, stilled his hands. The air grew taut.
Harry turned from the window, and for the first time, she saw something other than calm control in his eyes. It was a flicker of ancient weariness, of a burden so immense it was terrifying. "The price is that he lives. The price is that he grows up far from here, strong and whole, and not a pawn for his father's ambition or a target for his rivals."
"And what of your ambition?" she pressed, relentless. "What becomes of him when your prophecy demands its weapon?"
"When the time comes, he will be given a choice," Harry said. "That is more than his father ever would have given him. Viserys chose the knife for him before he ever drew breath."
The truth of that statement was a shard of ice in her gut. He was right.
Sirius rose and strode to the door. "I'm going out. The crowds for the pyre are thinning. It's a good time to gather supplies for the road." He didn't wait for a reply, melting out of the room. He was giving them space, but it felt more like he was escaping the suffocating tension.
"The road?" Aemma asked, seizing on the word.
"We leave tonight," Harry stated. "This city is a tomb. It has served its purpose."
"And if I refuse? If I take my son and walk out that door and declare myself to the King's guards?"
"They will see a madwoman, hysterical with grief, perhaps a whore from the Street of Silk who resembles the dead queen," Harry said, his voice devoid of pity. "They will take the babe from you. Best case, they send you to the Silent Sisters. Worst case… Otto Hightower's men ensure you both disappear before you can cause a political incident. Your son's life would be measured in hours. Your 'truth' would be buried with your body. The real one, this time."
He walked over to her and knelt, his green eyes level with hers. He was no longer a powerful, distant figure, but something far more immediate and dangerous.
"You see no other path because there is no other path," he whispered. "I have burned all the other bridges. All that is left is the one I built for you. Walk it with me, and your son lives. Defy me, and you condemn him to the fate I ripped him from."
She stared into his eyes, searching for deceit, for malice, for anything other than the terrible, absolute certainty she saw there. She was trapped. Her son's life was the chain, and this man held the end of it. She had traded a gilded cage for a cage of shadows, but the bars were no less real.
With a shuddering breath, she gave a single, sharp nod. It was not agreement. It was surrender. For now.
"He will need to be fed soon," she said, her voice flat, turning her attention to her son, breaking the spell of Harry's gaze. It was the only rebellion she had left to her.
That night, they gathered in the dark, empty courtyard of the manse. Sirius stood beside her, a grim, silent statue. Harry approached, and Aemma instinctively tightened her hold on Baelon.
"It will be… unpleasant," Harry warned her. "Hold on to me. And your son."
She placed a trembling hand on his forearm. The fabric of his sleeve was cool, but the skin beneath it radiated a warmth that was not entirely human. He put his other hand on Sirius's shoulder.
The world did not dissolve. It was torn apart.
It was a feeling of being squeezed through a keyhole, every bone in her body grinding, her very essence compressed until she thought she would shatter. There was a deafening roar, a lurching, sickening plunge through a void of screaming color and crushing pressure. She couldn't breathe; her lungs were frozen. Her scream was trapped in her throat.
And then, it was over.
She stumbled, falling to her knees on a floor of polished black stone that felt cold enough to burn. The air she gasped was thin and sharp, tasting of ozone, pine, and something wild and metallic, like fresh blood. She retched, but nothing came up. Baelon, thankfully, had slept through the ordeal, held tight against her chest.
When she finally looked up, her breath caught in her throat.
They were in a vast, cavernous hall carved from living obsidian. There were no torches; a soft, ethereal silver light emanated from the rock itself, casting long, dancing shadows. Arched openings, like the mouths of great caves, looked out not onto a city, but onto a terrifyingly vast and savage landscape. Snow-dusted mountains clawed at a sky choked with unfamiliar constellations. Far below, nestled in a deep valley, a city glowed with the same unsettling silver light, its architecture alien and impossible. This was not a paradise. It was a fortress. A citadel built at the edge of the world.
"Welcome to Skagos," Harry said, his voice echoing in the immense silence.
Aemma got to her feet, pulling her cloak tight around her and her son. The Red Keep had been a prison of stone and ambition, its dangers known, its rules understood. This place… this place was a cage of shadow and sorcery. And its warden was a man who held the fate of gods and kings in his hands.
She had paid the price for her son's life. The cost, she now understood, was everything else.