The Tower of Joy – The Upper Chamber
The shadows in the room were lengthening, stretching like long, dark fingers across the stone floor. The heat of the Dornish day was beginning to break, replaced by the swift, dry chill of the desert evening.
Ned sat by the window, watching the play of light on the Red Mountains. Lyanna lay in the bed, exhausted by her confession and the weight of the memories she had dragged into the light.
There was a soft knock on the doorframe.
Howland Reed stepped inside. The crannogman had washed the dust of the road from his face, though his moss-green cloak still smelled faintly of horse and swamp. He moved with the quiet grace of a man who knew how to walk on water.
He stopped at the foot of the bed, looking at the woman who had once been the Knight of the Laughing Tree.
"It has been a while, my Lady," Howland said softly. "Since we last saw each other."
Lyanna turned her head. A genuine smile, weak but warm, broke through the mask of pain on her face. "Howland. The little crannogman who fought three squires."
"And the she-wolf who saved him," Howland replied, bowing low. "You look... different without the mismatched armor."
"And you look taller," Lyanna teased, her voice raspy. "Or maybe I'm just lying down."
Howland chuckled. "I think the mountains just make me look big by comparison. In the Neck, the trees make everyone look small. Here, I am a giant among the rocks."
"Come, sit," Lyanna patted the edge of the mattress.
Howland sat, and for the next hour, the war didn't exist. There were no dragons, no rebellions, no prophecies. Just three friends talking about home. Howland told stories of the journey, embellishing Ned's grumpiness and making Lyanna giggle until she had to hold her swollen belly.
As the sun dipped below the peaks, painting the sky in violent shades of purple and orange, Ned stood up.
"I need to leave you for a bit," Ned said.
Lyanna looked panic-stricken for a second. "Where?"
"Just downstairs," Ned reassured her, squeezing her hand. "And to find food. We can't eat sand, and the supplies in the tower are low. Howland, keep her company. Keep her smiling."
"I will tell her about the time you tried to dance with Ashara Dayne and stepped on her foot," Howland promised.
"I did not step on her foot," Ned lied, his ears turning pink. "It was a complex Dornish maneuver."
"Go," Lyanna said, shooing him. "Bring us something that doesn't taste like salted beef."
The Base of the Tower
Ned descended the spiral stairs. The air grew cooler as he went down, the stone retaining the night's chill.
He walked out into the twilight.
Arthur Dayne was sitting against the wall of the tower. His hands were still bound, but he looked alert. His violet eyes tracked Ned as he emerged.
Ned walked over to him. He drew his dagger.
Arthur didn't flinch. He just watched.
Ned reached down and cut the ropes binding Arthur's wrists.
"Lord Stark?" Arthur asked, rubbing his chafed wrists.
"The war is over, Ser Arthur," Ned said, sheathing the dagger. "And I don't like keeping men tied up like dogs. You aren't a prisoner."
Arthur stood up. He was stiff, but his movements were still fluid and dangerous. He looked at Dawn, which was still stuck in the sand where Ned had left it. He didn't reach for it.
"You could have killed me," Arthur said. "When I was down. You could have finished it."
"I could have," Ned agreed. "But I have seen enough death. The Trident was a river of blood. King's Landing was a slaughterhouse. I'm tired of it, Arthur."
"And if I kill you, your sister will be mad at me. Imagine showing her brother's corpse as a wedding gift to the bride."
He looked at the knight, measuring him.
"Besides, let the wounds heal for a while before we start ripping them open again. Even if we don't start another war, there will always be someone stupid enough to try. The realm will bleed again. It always does."
Ned stepped closer.
"You swore vows, Arthur. To the King. To the Kingsguard."
"For life," Arthur said automatically.
"And what of the vows of a Knight?" Ned asked. "The vows you took before you put on the white cloak? To protect the weak. To defend the innocent. To be just."
Arthur looked away, his jaw tightening.
"Which takes priority?" Ned pressed. "The vow to a madman who burns people alive? The vow to a Prince who chases prophecy at the cost of thousands of lives? Or the vow to the helpless?"
He pointed up at the tower window, where a faint light was glowing.
"There is a baby up there. Or there will be soon. And a terrified woman. She told me you were kind to her. That you protected her from the worst of her isolation."
"She is the mother of the Prince's child," Arthur said. "It was my duty."
"It was your humanity," Ned corrected. "You cared. I saw it in your eyes when we fought. You didn't want to be here. You wanted to be doing something right."
Ned sighed, looking out at the darkening desert.
"Use the life I gave you, Arthur. Don't throw it away on a lost cause. Defend Rhaenys. Defend the baby Lyanna carries. Be the shield that guards the realms of men, not the shield that guards a dynasty of ghosts."
Arthur stood in silence for a long time. The wind whistled through the pass, stirring his white cloak.
Arthur looked toward the bodies of his sworn brothers. "They cannot stay like this. The carrion birds... they deserve the earth."
"Aye," Ned said. "They do."
They found two rusty spades in the small stable behind the tower. The ground was hard—packed red clay and stone—but neither man complained. They worked side by side in the fading light, the Lord of Winterfell and the Sword of the Morning, digging graves for the last of the old guard.
It was grueling work. Ned used the Force subtly, loosening the earth ahead of their spades, breaking the larger rocks that blocked their way. Arthur, if he noticed the unnatural ease with which the ground gave way, said nothing. He dug with a grim, mechanical intensity.
When the graves were deep enough, they lowered the bodies. Gerold Hightower, the White Bull. Oswell Whent, the dark humorist.
Arthur stood over them. He didn't pray to the Seven. He simply looked down.
"They stood," Arthur whispered. "When the world broke, they stood. They died for a promise. I live for one."
He looked at Ned, his eyes heavy with grief.
"I wonder which is harder."
"Living," Ned answered immediately. "Dying is easy, Arthur. Living with the ghosts... that's the hard part. But it's the only way to fix things."
Arthur retrieved his cloak and clasped it back around his shoulders. "I will think on your words, Stark."
"That's all I ask."
They filled the graves and marked them with heavy red stones. Arthur placed his hand on the cairn of the Lord Commander for a moment, a silent farewell to a life that was gone forever.
He turned to Ned, wiping dust and sweat from his face. "Thank you."
Ned nodded. He clapped Arthur on the shoulder. It was a firm, soldierly grip. Then he turned to look at the landscape.
He clapped Arthur on the shoulder. It was a firm, soldierly grip. Then he turned to look at the landscape.
"Now," Ned said, changing the subject. "I need to hunt. And all I see is rocks and sand. How did you three survive out here for months?"
Arthur blinked, the shift in tone catching him off guard. "There is a goat track to the east. About a mile out. The mountain goats come down to drink at a spring in the canyon floor. And there are sand hares in the scrub."
"East," Ned nodded. "Thank you."
"Take a bow," Arthur advised. "The goats are skittish."
"I have my ways," Ned said enigmatically.
The Hunter in the Dark
Ned moved through the desert night like a shadow.
He didn't take a bow. He didn't take a spear. He took only a knife and the humming, vibrant energy of the Force.
The cooling sands felt different under his boots than the moss of the North or the cobblestones of the capital. The life here was sparse, hardy, and stubborn.
He found the canyon Arthur had mentioned. It was a narrow slash in the earth, shadowed and cool. A trickle of water ran through the center, surrounded by tough, thorny brush.
He sensed them before he saw them.
Life signatures.
Three mountain goats were drinking at the pool. They were alert, their ears twitching, muscles coiled to spring up the vertical rock walls at the slightest sound.
Ned crouched behind a boulder fifty yards away.
In the old days, he would have needed a crossbow and a lot of luck.
Now?
He reached out with his mind. He didn't grab their bodies; he grabbed their motion. He visualized a cage of air around the largest goat.
The goat bleated, startled, trying to leap. It couldn't. It was frozen in mid-air, legs thrashing against an invisible hold. The other two scattered, vanishing into the darkness in seconds.
Ned walked forward calmly, keeping the mental grip tight. The goat panicked, its eyes rolling, but Ned held it firm.
He reached the animal. It was a good size—enough to feed them for days.
But food wasn't the only reason he was here.
Ned placed his hand on the goat's flank. He could feel the heart hammering against the ribs. He could feel the heat, the vitality.
Lyanna is weak, Ned thought. The birth will be hard. Her body has been ravaged by grief and isolation. I need reserves.
He had practiced healing on the journey down, giving his own energy to rabbits and birds. But that was draining. It left him weak. If complications arose during the birth, if Lyanna started to bleed out... Ned couldn't risk passing out from exhaustion. He needed a battery.
He needed Life Drain.
It was a dark technique. The Jedi forbade it. The Sith abused it. But Ned Stark was neither. He was a man trying to save his sister.
Apologies, Ned projected to the animal.
He opened the channels in his mind. Instead of pushing energy out, he pulled it in.
He visualized the vitality of the goat—the red, pulsing strength of it—flowing into his hand, up his arm, and pooling in his core.
The goat stopped struggling. Its bleats turned into soft whimpers. It didn't feel pain, exactly. It felt... fading. Like falling asleep in the snow.
Ned felt the rush.
It was instantaneous and overwhelming. A surge of raw power, wild and earthy, slammed into his system. But with it came something else. A shadow. A whisper in the back of his mind that tasted of ash and absolute power.
More, the shadow hissed. Take it all. Why stop at goats? You could be a god.
The corruption curled around his heart, cold and seductive. It was the Dark Side, eager to claim a new vessel.
But Ned Stark had made a deal with a higher power.
Deep in the core of his soul, a golden light flared. It wasn't the Force; it was something older, something amused. It felt like warm molasses and infinite wisdom.
Not today, son, the Voice seemed to echo.
The golden light surged outward, meeting the encroaching shadow. It didn't fight; it simply dissolved it. The corruption hissed and evaporated like mist in the morning sun. The addictive, maddening edge of the power was scrubbed clean, leaving only pure, unaligned energy.
Ned gasped, his eyes flying open. The shadow was gone. The whisper was silenced. He was left with a reservoir of clean fuel, filtered by the blessing of the entity that had sent him here.
"Immunity," Ned whispered, shaking his head to clear the dizziness. "Handy."
The goat went limp, unconscious but alive. Its breathing was shallow.
Ned withdrew his hand. He felt electric. He felt like he could run back to Winterfell without stopping.
"Thank you," Ned whispered.
He drew his knife. He made it quick. A clean cut to the throat.
He dressed the carcass efficiently, his hands moving with the precision of a surgeon.
He repeated the process with two large sand hares he found in the brush. Capture. Drain. Cleanse. Kill.
When he was done, he stabbed the carcasses with his knife in specific patterns—simulating spear thrusts and lucky throws. He rubbed dirt into the wounds.
"Can't have Arthur asking why the goats died of exhaustion," Ned muttered.
He slung the game over his shoulder and began the walk back.
The Feast of the Survivors
When Ned returned to the tower, the fire was already crackling in the hearth of the lower room.
Arthur Dayne was feeding sticks to the flames. He looked up as Ned entered, eyeing the goat and the hares.
"You are a better hunter than I thought," Arthur commented, looking at the knife wounds. "To get that close to a mountain goat with a knife... you must move like the wind."
"The wind was in my favor," Ned deflected, dropping the catch on the table.
Howland came down the stairs. "Lyanna is resting. She drank some water." He looked at the food. "Ah. Meat. Finally."
Ned took charge of the cooking. He skinned the hares and quartered the goat with the ease of a man who had spent his youth fostering in the Vale, where hunting was a way of life.
He skewered the meat and set it over the fire. Soon, the smell of roasting goat and dripping fat filled the tower, chasing away the scent of dust and old blood.
They ate in a strange, companionable silence.
It was a tableau that would have baffled any historian. The Lord of Winterfell, the Lord of Greywater Watch, and the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard (or whatever Arthur was now), sitting on the floor of a tower in Dorne, sharing a meal.
Ned tore a leg off a hare and handed it to Arthur.
"Eat," Ned said. "You'll need your strength."
"For what?" Arthur asked, taking the meat.
"For the future," Ned replied. "Whatever it brings."
He cut a prime slice of the goat meat, placed it on a wooden platter, and added some bread. Then he prepared a smaller plate with a portion of the hare and some soft cheese they had found in the stores.
"Wylla will need to eat too," Ned said, looking at the ceiling. "She needs her strength if she's to help with the birth."
He picked up both plates.
"I'll take these up," Ned said.
He walked up the stairs, feeling the energy he had harvested humming in his veins. It was a dark secret, carrying the life of another creature inside him, but as he pushed open the door and saw Lyanna's pale face turn toward him, he knew he would drain a thousand goats if it meant keeping her warm.
"Dinner," Ned announced, forcing a cheerful smile. "Roasted goat à la Stark. It's a bit chewy, but it beats starvation."
He handed the smaller plate to Wylla, who was hovering by the window. The midwife took it with a grateful nod, her eyes tired but relieved to see fresh meat.
"Thank you, my Lord," Wylla whispered, retreating to her corner to eat.
Ned sat by the bed. He fed Lyanna small bites, watching her eat. Every swallow seemed to give her a little more color.
"It's good," she whispered.
"It is," Ned agreed.
He placed his hand over hers. Under the skin, he pushed a tiny, microscopic thread of the stolen energy into her. Just enough to ease her pain. Just enough to help her sleep.
"Rest now, Lya," Ned said. "I'm here. We're all here."
She closed her eyes, her breathing deepening into sleep.
Ned stayed by the window, watching the stars wheel overhead. He touched the Force, feeling the vast, indifferent universe around him. He was a small man in a big world, playing with powers he barely understood.
But he had food in his belly, a sword at his hip, and a promise to keep.
I will save her, Ned vowed to the night. Whatever the cost.