The day has come.
Bells vibrated the air like stone fallen in water- one, two, three -each heavier than the last. Not for mourning. Not a wedding. Warning.
Shouts filling up the space. Screams answers. The floor starts to shake with feet.
The solar goes small.
Elia stands, steady in the face and bright in the eyes. Bright isn't joy. But a will to stand still till the end. And the reason?
"Under," she tells Rhaenys, voice low and firm. "Quick now, my sun. Do as I say."
Rhaenys freezes for half a heartbeat, then nods. She slides under the bed on her elbows, knuckles white. The ribbon in her hair looks wrong in this light.
Elia crouches and smooths the blanket down to hide her. "Hands to yourself. Must remain quiet." she murmurs, warm, unshaken. "You hear me, little one?"
A small voice from the dark: "Aye, Mother."
Boots slam past the door. A man curses. Another tells him to shut it. Laughter that isn't laughter bounces off stone somewhere far and close at once.
I feel it in my bones: the plan built is about to be asked for.
Elia kisses two fingers and touches them to the blanket. Then she straightens and looks at the door like it her time. She does not look at me. She doesn't need to. She knows my job.
A fresh shout from the gallery: "Lions at the gate!"
Fuck.
Smoke threads under the sill. Thin. Oily.
I hear more clashes down. Closer. Heating up. The kind that decides things without thinking.
I choose.
I drop to the floor and get to the bed. I grab the corner of the blanket and pull. The fabric drags, catches, moves. I pull again. It lifts enough to show me wide eyes in the dark.
I peck Rhaenys's wrist, light, quick. Not hurt. Wake up the brave part.
I give three short chirps. Our signal for "now."
She shakes her head, tiny and frantic. "Mother?" It's almost no sound at all.
I point beak, wing, stare toward the side door I practiced in quiet nights. The one that sticks unless you lift and pull. The one that leads to the flour room and the barrel gap. Numbers I counted until they lived in my claws.
Elia hears the boots too. She closes her eyes once, like prayer without gods, then opens them and turns to the bed. Her voice stays calm; her face stays made of love and command.
"Listen to me," she says, low, every word clean. "You go with Velmir. You do what he tells you. No sound unless you must. Look to your feet."
"Huh?"
"Mother.."
My ears can't believe what I heard. Did she just said to follow me?
"Later." She swallows pain and fear together and makes neither the point. "I will come behind you as I can. You are my brave girl. Go."
A crash two doors down. Men laugh like dogs.
I tug the blanket again. Rhaenys inches out on her belly. Her face is chalk. Her eyes are wet. She is four and the world is asking her to be thirty.
I hop, look back, hop.
She follows. Small steps. Fists tight on the blanket's corner like it's the last soft thing she owns.
We cross the rug. Every fiber feels loud. The room smells like lemons and smoke and now goodbye.
I look back at Elia.
She is already at the solar door, spine straight, listening to the corridor with her head tipped. She nods once to me. Not "farewell." Not "go." Just an agreement between two living people. Understanding I never asked for.
"Desert wind carry you," she says, soft and sure, a blessing I never heard before.
I take us to the side door. My claws find the rough patch I tested a hundred times at dawn. I jump and hit the hinge pin with my beak. It shifts a fraction. I hit it again. It moves.
I chirp once "lift."
Rhaenys reaches up with both hands and pulls the iron the way I guided her- up and toward her together. The bar slips. The door gives with a groan.
We freeze.
Boots pause outside the main hall. Voices overlap. Then they move on, chasing someone else's last minute.
We squeeze through.
The service passage is narrow and hot. Smoke reaches along the ceiling. Flour dust hangs in the air at the far end.
I hop, look back, hop.
Rhaenys moves like a mouse that still believes in morning. Bare feet. Soft steps. Breathing too fast.
"Mother," she whispers to herself and it almost breaks me.
I cannot lift three people.
I can move one right now.
We reach the flour room. Sacks stack to the rafters. The barrel with the gap waits where it always waits. The crack is mean and tight, but it listens to fear.
I slip through and pop out the other side to prove the hole still exists.
Rhaenys hesitates. I go back and press my head to her wrist. Warm. Human. Terrified. Mine.
She closes her eyes once and shoves her shoulder into the space. Skin scrapes. A held breath escapes as a hiss. She does not cry out. She pulls and kicks and works through and falls to her knees in dust on the far side.
Steel hits steel somewhere behind us. Men shout about a door. The smoke thickens, sweet-rotten. The bells won't stop.
Rhaenys looks back the way we came. Her lower lip shakes. "Mother?"
I point again. Wing. Beak. Stare. The next door. The next turn. The next breath.
"Later," I think, and it tastes like a lie and the only way to live.
We move.
I run the numbers in my head because if I don't I will think about the cradle in Elia's chamber and the baby who does not know what today mean.
Eighteen heartbeats to the ash flue if we need it. Twelve to the pantry if the guards choose the other corridor. The postern takes a lift-then-pull; it will hate small hands; it will open if I make it.
We slide along the wall where men don't look. Rhaenys keeps one hand on the stone like she's learning to walk again. Soot streaks her cheek. The ribbon is gone. Good. Less to snag.
Goldcloaks rush past the cross-corridor, coughing and swearing. One staggers, eyes red. "Seven is coming for me," he whispers, and disappears the way we're not going.
We wait until the echo dies.
I hop, look back, hop.
She follows.
Shouting blooms somewhere closer. The floor shakes again. The bells slowly dying.
We hit the pantry turn and I force myself to check the wedge I stored three nights ago behind the broken amphora. Still there. Good. If the postern sticks, that wedge buys us a second try.
Rhaenys leans on the wall. Just once. Just long enough to say she is four. Then she lifts her chin.
I don't promise her anything. I can't.
I give one short chirp that only means "with me."
We go for the postern.
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