Lucerys smiled without warmth. "I wondered which rat-run would spit you out." His gaze examined Oswell and Jonothor, looking for someone who wasn't there. "I knew the filthy Dornish would try to slither away. I'm just surprised the white snake isn't with you."
"We don't have time to be clever," Oswell said. "The lions are at the walls. We're taking the royals out now."
"It is all part of His Grace's plan," Lucerys said, delighted to teach. "Let them in. Let the lions celebrate on the hills that don't belong to them. Then they will burn for their avarice." He tapped the bridge rail with his blade in a private rhythm. "You are not invited to the lesson. Lay down your arms."
Jonothor looked to Lyanna. She shook her head. "It will not work. Wildfire does not obey anyone. Aerys will turn the whole city to ash at this rate."
Lucerys's lip curled. "Traitors. Seize them. The black cells can keep them until His Grace has time for trial."
His men moved as one, blades unsheathed. Yet Oswell was a knight of a higher tier, and he moved faster.
He flowed forward and took the front rank apart with cuts that did not waste an inch. A man's arm left his body. Another's knee turned to gristle. Oswell put one guard over the rail with a shoulder and took the next in the throat before the first hit the stones below. Jonothor stepped to the flank and held it alone, blade a wall where none could pass.
Lyanna felt the old rush, the need to act that had first come to her when she picked up a weirwood branch to protect Howland Reed. She let her breath go low. She closed her left eye. Then, the present and the future overlapped.
A flicker of movement showed her the next three strikes before they were born. She stepped into the space the future gave her and cut a man under his chin. She pivoted and took a spear haft on the flat. The spear went wide as if embarrassed to have tried.
She heard Oswell laugh once without humor. Jonothor grunted, then swore. Behind her, allies joined the fray.
Lyanna begun by keeping to the rhythm Thistle had carved into her nerves. See. Plant. Answer. Do not chase the future. Let it come to you.
Yet as the fight continued, her body remembered the thrill of speed. Lyanna reveled as she danced between slashes, bringing down one enemy, than another.
For three heartbeats it was perfect—cuts clean, feet balanced, everything exactly where she needed it. Then the echo of the future thinned.
Her foot slid on a smear of blood. The green outline that had been a gift shimmered away like a desert mirage. She struck where a man had been a half-second ago and met only air.
A crossbow lifted at the far end of the bridge. She did not see it in time. She had moved too fast and her sight had not caught up.
The bolt flew, and Ser Jonothor Darry reacted when she could not. He slammed into Lyanna with one shoulder and took the bolt in the breastplate himself.
It punched through mail, then leather, then into meat. He staggered. Two Velaryon men saw blood and rushed forward. Jonothor's sword faltered as his breath fled him. Steel came down.
Lyanna screamed. She planted a foot on the hinge of a cracked tile and spun around it, shield up, sword low. She crashed into the first man hip to hip and knocked his knee sideways. He tumbled onto the spikes below with a terrible sound.
She caught the second man's blade on the rim and shoved hard, ruining his balance, then slid her point under his mail and drove it home. The men behind them flinched at the ferocity of it and gave Oswell an inch that he turned into a yard.
The fight collapsed quickly after that. Oswell's sword grew blunt from scraping plate but he kept cutting anyway. All but two of his friends had fallen and did not rise. One of the men took a blade to the gut to slice the necks of two others. The other was bleeding out, and he tackled a fresher opponent over the edge of the bridge.
Lucerys tried to rally his men, then discovered he was suddenly alone within arm's reach of Oswell Whent and thought better of it. He threw his blade down and spat something obscene. Oswell hit him with the pommel and let him sleep.
Silence fell when only Lyanna and Ser Oswell remained upright. It ended when distant screams rose up from the direction of the Lion Gate. The sack of King's Landing had begun.
Jonothor sat with his back to Maegor's wall and his knees splayed. His gauntlets pawed foolishly at the bolt in his chest, then gave up. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth with each breath.
Lyanna dropped to a knee. A tear slid down her cheek. "I'm so sorry. I should have—" she began.
He shook his head a fraction. "Don't," he said. The word came thin. "No tears. Not for this. I promised to stand between you and danger. I kept my promise."
His eyes found hers through the helmet. "A Kingsguard should not outlive his king anyway," he said, half-smile there and gone. "If I could choose how to die I wouldn't have it any other way." He coughed and blood ran thinly down his chin. "Be a good mother," he said, and the last word had a gentleness in it that surprised them both.
His breath hitched again. Then it stopped.
Oswell stood above them, face empty and hard the way a man's face must be when no more can be done. He looked down the long corridor to a lone door. The princess' chambers. He looked back to Lyanna.
"We need to move," he said. The words were mournful but motivated. "We don't have much time. The Lannisters are here."
Lyanna set her palm to Jonothor Darry's eyes and closed them. She let out a breath of grief. She had many disagreements with Ser Jonothor, but the man died because of and for her. Then she rose.
Her legs felt steady, which seemed wrong. The green in her sight had gone. It seemed to clash with the guilt in her chest.
Lyanna pushed the guilt down with a few deep breaths. It would have its say later. The lesson it carried had already branded her: speed is a gift until it makes you blind. Remain rooted or suffer uncertainty.
"Lyanna," Oswell called out urgently.
She wiped her blade on her cloak and stepped into the holdfast. "Lead the way."