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These days, the King of the Six Kingdoms wakes with the sun.
Some of his lazier predecessors might've seen that as a sign of baseness, or a burden. Farmers woke with when the birds did, after all, not royals.
Bran has the luxury of lying in, of rest, of a featherbed with a canopy and fresh rushes spread across the floor, sweet smelling and changed weekly.
When Bran was a little boy and confined to a bed after his fall, he seldom liked to wake at all. Old Nan sat with him in spite of his anger, threading her needles and selectively deaf to his protests toward the spinning of her stories. Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrik would not hear of the Lord of Winterfell staying abed all day, and so sent Hodor to fetch him, promising visits to the godswood and Summer if he only did his duty and listened to his people. Every morning, Bran rose to entertain the lords and smallfolk alike, dressed in his Stark finery and speaking on Robb's behalf. His presence, at times, even soothed Rickon. All the more reason to start the day, like his father would, like his mother would, like his brother would, so he did. Duty was a daunting thing when Bran was young. Now a man and a king, with far more reasons to rise than a green princeling, Bran stirs.
Unlike most men, he has the luxury of leisure. If he does wish to delay the addressing of his responsibilities, the realm waits at his pleasure.
Duty waits for no one, though, not even a raven, so he wakes to listen to the chatter of the sparrows outside his window as the first chirps reach his ears. He slips into the skin of the closest one and his favorite, orients himself in the sky, and finally peers down at the city of stone and ruin. His council has grown to appreciate the novelty of Bran's eyes now that there is still so much rebuilding to be done. There is little he does not see.
There is plenty he does miss, however. That was one of Sansa's first questions, when they began to settle into their new seats.
Can you see the contents of this letter, she had wondered, writing still so neat, or that I intend to send it before I break my fast?
Only a glimpse of you leaving the rookery, Bran answered after a week, a smile flitting across his face. Is that a new gown?
A hawk delayed Sansa's reply until Bran thought to look for her poor emissary in the riverlands, flying for its life near the Trident. Bedraggled and nursing a bent wing, the raven managed to escape with his help and successfully gave Bran the message in the middle of a small council meeting.
Some thought it excessive to hold these meetings so often, but Brandon Stark was raised in Winterfell. Duty was a daily, demanding mistress.
(Some believe that Bran will be an absentee king. He's content to prove anyone in doubt wrong. Summarily so.)
"You know," Lord Bronn complained, "I am getting sick to death of seeing a bloody raven before I finish eating my damn bacon."
Bran resisted the urge to cue the Master of Coin, despite the temptation. Ser Davos had no such qualms, and even beat Lord Tyrion to the punch.
"Wear a blindfold," Davos huffed, misliking Lord Bronn's arrogance as much as the king did. "You whine more than a suckling babe, my lord."
Normally aloof, Brienne deigned to smirk. While Bronn snapped a retort at Davos, actually taken aback, Tyrion Lannister burst into laughter.
Bran misliked that laughter, too, even below the calm veneer of the all knowing raven. Under the feathers, he was still a Stark.
As the bickering continued, the king took advantage of the distraction to break the direwolf seal and start reading.
Yes! Sansa had underlined the word. He thought he saw a grin on her lips when she left Maester Wolkan to his letters. I made it myself!
"Any news from the North?" Lord Tyrion asked when the meal was winding down and their business was just beginning.
Bran could still recall his sister's sobs when it became clear that her chance to flee before her first marriage left with Lord Baelish on the Merling King. He did not like to make a habit of delving into Sansa's past, not when the dried ink was mixed so strongly with her blood as she struggled to survive in a court so determined to kill her spirit. He did not make a habit of gazing into the North's affairs without her permission, either.
"The Queen in the North has a new gown," Bran had said, rolling up the scroll. Men often underestimated Sansa at their own peril. "Shall we begin?"
Little by little, the realm is healing. Bran likes to consider that in the racket of the birdsong, abed and wondering what must be done.
After he's washed up and dressed, preferring to help himself by way of the iron bars and strategically arranged cushions and clean clothes, he settles into his chair, rolls across the room, and raps on the door with his knuckles. Podrick opens it at once, his white armor clinking as he moves.
"Good morrow, Your Grace."
"Good morrow, ser."
"Do you wish to break your fast among your councilors?" Podrick asks, pushing the chair. "The cooks promised applecakes from New Barrel."
Spring pried itself free of the cold just six moons ago. Among the Reach seats, the Fossoways emerged with a successful harvest.
Bronn was heard to anticipate the results of his bannerman's yield, insisting he will get the first bite as soon as the fruits enter the kitchens.
I think not. The vestiges of his mentor would disapprove, but Bran has been prying himself free of Bloodraven, too, little by little.
"We will sup with the fishermen along the shores of the Blackwater, and the smallfolk along the Rosby road," Bran decides at last.
Smiling, Podrick beckons a servant to spread the word. After a moment, she darts away to obey, wide-eyed and eager.
At midday, Bran sits with the few who avoided death by dragonfire, anchored to his chair by a babe born not long after the city fell to Daenerys.
"She likes you, m'lord," the mother ventures nervously. Bran listens. "You're the only—the only king she's known."
The child beams a gummy grin, splaying sticky fingers along his jaw. With a pair of eyes that blue, Bran can be drawn backwards to see Rickon as a babe in his mother's arms, if he tries and surrenders to the temptation of sampling happier days. But that will scare the girl, Bran knows, thinking of his sisters' grumbling, and thus refrains. He permits the goofy giggles, though, the innocent cheer that only fades with age, and smiles back.
"When she is as old as I am, perhaps she will elect the next one." Or the next queen, Bran muses, thinking of Sansa.
The ice breaks between the high and the low when the child's mother, Thalia, dares to smirk at him. "You're a little lad yet, m'lord."
I can see Osha in that smirk. He feels the lord's face beginning to crack at the seams, and swallows. "Sometimes I forget," he admits.
The babe shrieks with glee when Bran lets her attempt to push his chair, attracting an audience of the shyer fisherfolk. Bran fails to move, though she keeps trying. Brienne looks skyward to hide her amusement, while Ser Ellery Vance beadily studies the crowd, searching for dangers.
"Talla can remind you."
"So she will," Bran answers, and reaches for Thalia's hand. It shakes in his own. "Would you and your family sup with me again?"
Her eyes crinkle at the corners like Catelyn Stark's. The past's ink is dry, but it can still relentlessly haunt Bran, even outside of his visions.
"I—we would be honored, Your Grace."
The smallfolk come closer to beg m'lord's pardon. He releases Thalia's hand, sparing her a smile. "I fear I must darken your doorstep," Bran confides in a carrying voice, speaking in the conspiratorial way that Uncle Benjen loved so much. "My Great Hall is missing a wall, you see."
The laughter is slow to come, but come it does, astonished and hesitant and sheepish. Even Ser Ellery chuckles at Bran's back.
Robert Baratheon helped himself to lowborn women when it struck his fancy, and his fancy struck often. Joffrey shot them full of arrows when they begged for food, desperate enough to plead sanctuary with a boy king gorging himself on cruelty. With the Faith and its High Sparrow at his side, Tommen did briefly lift his people up, Bran must admit, only for his mother to strike them back down and burn hundreds alive in the Great Sept, all to reach one rival queen. Daenerys finished the job with her last dragon, cutting a horrible swathe of death through the streets of King's Landing. Despite everything, Bran shoulders the burden of the Iron Throne, even if it's melted away. Even if the Gray Keep is a shell of what it once was.
Bran can fly from it all if he so wishes, but he won't. The realm's many faces, as always, will come first.
I have another question, Sansa greets in her newest letter.
It's been on his desk for a fortnight, but Bran's been so busy poring over reports of the harvests from the Reach and the stormlands that he hasn't found a free moment to open it. Yawning, he pulls the candle closer, cracks the seal, unravels the scroll, and starts to read. His sister has yet to write of the goings on in the North. Instead, Bran suspects their correspondence is the only outlet she has that demands nothing of her at all.
Did you know what would happen?
This has cost her a lot. She's crossed out other questions, wrinkled the page in her worry, and reined in her curiosity to only a few sentences.
He can't fault her for asking. Ever since he left the cave, Bran closed the doors to himself. Hodor and Jojen and Summer are dead because of him. Bloodraven died because of him. Even Leaf and the Children died for Bran. Theon Greyjoy was slain protecting Bran, along with his ironborn, Lady Alys, and the archers of Karhold. And Meera—Meera. Her heart broke in his service, by his word, after she sacrificed everything to keep him safe.
After, he kept his sisters at a distance, Jon at arms' length, and Samwell Tarly just close enough to confide in, but no closer. Bran Stark made friends wherever he went as a boy of Winterfell, but the Three-Eyed Raven could have no friends, only a successor, if he survived the fight in the godswood and defeated the Night King. His nearest and dearest would not mourn the world's memory as deeply as they would mourn a brother, he reasoned, burying the easy smiles and his summer dreams below the raven's feathers. He would be easier to say goodbye to, to inter, to forget.
In the game of thrones, even the humblest pieces can have wills of their own, Petyr Baelish said to Sansa once, eager to pull her into his web of intrigue. Sometimes they refuse to make the moves you've planned for them. Loath as Bran is to compare himself to Littlefinger, he did give the plan a great deal of thought as the Wall rose up on the horizon and he and Meera hastened on, the wights at their heels. The explanations were varied and numerous, offering a few options should his clever siblings discern the truth from the lies. He was already thought dead to the Seven Kingdoms, butchered with Rickon in his own home and robbed of his birthright. His sister and beloved cousin were ruling Winterfell well enough without him in the meantime. His other sister had her list and her own life to lead, anyway. Meera was better off without Bran, and so on.
The mask of the raven was strong, though, and sometimes it did reel Bran in, drowning him in the sea of the past.
No, Bran writes back, wanting to soothe the shade of the girl that loved knights as much as he did, once upon a time. It feels freeing to explain the mechanism to her, too, in the way that he refused to before, even after she pleaded. Regrettably, he only had eyes for the fallout of Jon's parentage that day. I can't see much of what is to come. It's murkier than the past, like the blurry paintings that Mother loved so much. The past is easier. Think of the Myrish pieces Lord Manderly gifted to Father. The past is clear. The ink is dry. I can see everything, if I know what I am looking for.
She write back after only a day. The ink is dry. I did not think to consider it as such.
Nor I.
Was the past set in stone for our family? She asks after a turn. Bran scans the page, concerned. Were the Starks always meant to fall?
He doesn't have the heart to say as much, and instead changes the subject. You are so melancholy, sister. Is aught amiss?
I miss Arya. I miss you. I miss Jon. I am grateful for all that I have, she writes almost defensively, but even I grow lonely.
His family prodded at the lie of raven even after he pushed all away, unwilling to believe that Bran was no longer Bran. It comforts him.
Arya and Jon are well, Bran replies, wondering why he did not think to extend the offer in the first place. Shall I ask them to write you?
They can do as they please, so long as they are safe. She attaches a postscript, perhaps shyly. But we can carry on as such, if you prefer...
When she gives the letter to a raven, he sees later, indulging himself with a quick peek, she is smiling.
Glad to have a familiar correspondent, Bran composes a new missive. Then let us carry on. Tell me, are any suitors roaming about your halls?
TOO MANY!
Without the threat of the Night King's attack, Bran's dreams grow increasingly mundane, yet just as enlightening.
When the power to see the past first fell into his hands, the temptation to sift through everything was overwhelming. He once claimed to Sansa that he knew it all, but it soon became clear that there was a difference between knowing and understanding. He can recall the annals of history better than any maester, but breaking down a vision required more consideration than Bloodraven's student wanted to offer when the world was at stake.
This world is no longer in danger of extinction, at least for the moment, which gives Bran the time to study, rather than simply learn.
In his dreams, Jaehaerys acts more unwisely than the stories say. He shuns one daughter, angers his wife, and passes over a beloved granddaughter in favor of his own son. Baelor, the holiest of the Targaryen kings, cares deeply for the smallfolk but imprisons his own sisters in the Maidenvault. Aegon the Unlikely works hard to improve the lives of the smallfolk, but succumbs to the Targaryen madness and fails to hatch dragon eggs, resulting in the fire at Summerhall. Bran indulged his curiosity during these initial flights into the past, wanting to put faces to the names that surfaced again and again in Maester Luwin's lessons. (Jaehaerys is as charming and handsome as the stories say, however.)
Like the story of Arthur Dayne, though, Bran finds himself feeling...disappointed. Great deeds conceal greater problems. Some stories are right, others are leagues off. Men are men, usually, and women are women. The world is smaller than he thought. Now that Samwell Tarly has been more or less desensitized to Bran's abilities, he posits the conclusion to his Grand Maester at supper, preferring his nature over the rest. His Hand eavesdrops, despite the pretension of being engrossed in his correspondence, probably intending to interrupt at one point or another.
"You expected the legends to meet your expectations," Sam muses after Bran explains himself.
"I did." The Dragonknight was a noble man, but nobility means little when the king you serve is akin to the mud beneath your shoes.
"It's your point of view, I think," Sam suggests. "You...watch, Your Grace, but you haven't faced the same problems like the others did."
No, he hasn't. His crisis of identity doesn't resemble Baelor's. His rule does not favor the Doctrine of Exceptionalism.
"And," Sam adds, thoughtfully, "you're seeing the meat before it's...er, cooked. The squire before the knight, as it were. If you jump from chapter to chapter, are you reading the whole book? Are you interpreting the entire story?" Not so subtly, he indicates the copy of his own book that he's taken to carrying around in the hopes of Bran reading it. As usual, Bran pretends not to see, too busy considering the idea set before him.
It is easier to follow. His father was so assured of himself in Bran's childhood, but he wasn't much older than Robb when he assumed the responsibility of the North in his brother's stead. The high seat felt too large for Bran, making him wonder if Lord Eddard felt the same, once upon a time. He wonders if Sansa feels that way, too. The opportunity to observe the pages of dried ink let Bran miss the forest for the trees.
"Little men can cast big shadows," Tyrion says at last, not looking up from his work. "It all depends on where you stand."
The shadow of dragons must've impressed Tyrion once. Later, the same shadows scared the Hand away from his queen forever.
As he retires, Bran goes over the conversation again. His perspective certainly lets him see everything, but does he really know everything?
His last name isn't Snow, he told Sam before Daenerys, Jon, or even the dead had reached Winterfell, it's Sand.
It fell to Sam to correct him about Jon's birth, giving Bran the first lesson outside of the cave he'd had in years. All-seeing eyes can be led astray.
There is plenty of time to learn to see better, he decides, and succumbs to a dreamless sleep.
In Volantis, Kinvara stands before a rapt audience, preaching of R'hllor's victory over the Great Other. Bran listens.
"Our lord's war is not over," the priestess declares. "For darkness still reigns across the seas. Only the glorious flames can free us all."
"The flames," the crowd chants, standing before the nightfire like hundreds and hundreds of pieces of kindling, "the flames!"
"The Prince that Was Promised is no more, but her child lives on," Kinvara continues. "Her child will be R'hllor's mount in the next war."
Bran looks closer. Next to Kinvara, a horn covered in Valyrian glyphs and bound with bands of red gold and dark steel, sits atop a dais.
A red priestess and a dragon horn, an artifact thought lost in the Doom. Why would—?
Drogon, Bran realizes, horrified, and abandons the circling thrush as quickly as he can. There you are. He finds the dragon in the sky in the nick of time, after months and months of fruitless searching. He breaks into the beast's scaly hide and struggles for the reins of its mind, feeling like he's commandeering a rabid horse rather than the last known monster of legend. It's like he's learning to warg all over again. A frightening challenge. But Bran's skills have long since surpassed the will of any animal, big or small. Drogon screeches his rage, but soon enough, Bran is in control.
Finally, the dragon quiets. Submits like the forest did to his direwolf, the prince of the green.
I can do this, Bran tells himself, easing into the new skin. If I can't protect my own bannermen, why should they protect me?
His mother never inhabited the body like Bran, but the elements of the last Targaryen remain, like Varamyr Sixskins lives on in his wolf, One-Eye, the last of Summer's pack. Bran remembers the great fire that breathed life into Drogon's egg. He remembers starving in the Red Waste, fighting in the House of the Undying, and the warm protection that his mother gave him, over and over. Bran dives deeper, indulging his curiosity as nimbly as he used to climb, eager to see the world from above. He burns Kraznys mo Nakloz. He burns Astapor. He flies over the Unsullied. He circles Meereen, unwilling to be trapped like his brothers. Brothers. The pale brother falls beyond the wall of ice, struck down by the creatures of the cold. Later, the other falls into the sea, speared by claws of metal and wood. Drogon screams with anger, flapping its great wings. Bran steers him away from Volantis, even as the heat begins to seep into his bones. Home, Bran begs of the beast, soaring further and further like they're the wind itself.
There is a dizzying freedom in the skies, but Bran knows better than to linger in Drogon's head. The air is getting thinner and thinner.
Don't you want to go home, where you belong? He asks the dragon. His skin prickles. Smoke fills his nose. He coughs, grappling for breath.
When he's old and sick, Bran will return to his own home, at long last. He'll rest with Father and Rickon and Sansa and Arya, instead of a lonely afterlife in the weirwood beyond the Wall, or a sooty hereafter in the Gray Keep with the Targaryens, the Tyrells, and the people of King's Landing.
Three hundred years in the past, Balerion and Aerea fly over the smoking ruin of Valyria. Go, Bran urges of Drogon. His grip is weakening.
As the beast flies into the ash, seeking to find the familiar vestiges of his late lady in the mist, the world goes black.
"Wake up," a voice commands, briefly sending Bran back to a nighttime caper with his quicksilver sister. This same sister prods at his shirt.
"Arya?" Bran croaks. They aren't in Winterfell any longer.
"No, it's Jon," she quips, bringing a confused smile to Bran's lips. That only makes her frown. "You scared your court, little brother."
He shakes the weight of Drogon's grief away, and pulls his own siblings to the forefront. He blinks. These...aren't his chambers.
"What happened?"
Arya places a cool cloth on his forehead. "Pod said you adjourned a meeting because you found Drogon. You don't remember?"
"No," Bran admits. It's all in pieces, save for the swirling smoke in—in the canopy. You'd forget us, Meera warned. He should've heeded her.
"There was a fire in your rooms," Arya says, words stiff. "You left a lit candle while you warged. Pod saved your life before you suffocated."
Podrick Payne, a knight of legend in the making. Bran only regrets giving him such a scare, not the journey, nor the prize.
The last dragon is as good as dead. He wonders what the small council will say. The smallfolk, on the other hand, may celebrate.
"How did you find out?" Bran asks, after Arya plies him with enough water to fill a well. "I saw you at sea not long ago."
"I was at sea," she grumbles. "Then a letter to Storm's End sent me scurrying back to your wretched city. Again."
Bran peeks out from under the cloth, trying his hardest not to smile. "Why were you at Storm's End?"
"That's none of your business."
He pursues a hunch, trying to distract her from his misadventure. "Perhaps Lord Baratheon will tell me if I ask."
Arya narrows her eyes. "Seven hells, I was only visiting. Are all kings so nosy?"
"There's the only king in Westeros." Bran's insolent look just makes his sister scoff, but her gaze betrays her. He softens his expression.
"Don't do that again, Bran. We've survived so much. I won't lose you to a candle." This sister was with him in the godswood, with the fate of the world on their shoulders, a gamble in their grasp, and a dagger in her hand. So many would die in vain if Bran choked on the smoke and his pride.
He wants to make them all proud, but he isn't quite so keen to join them, at least not yet.
It is not so easy to be a king, but it is not much easier to be a good brother. Bran aims to succeed anyway, after the others failed. "I won't."
She kisses his brow as gently as Mother did, briefly putting Bran at ease...until she speaks.
"Good luck explaining yourself to Sansa," Arya offers, recovering her composure. She's too cheerful now. "From what I hear, she's furious."
Arya departs after a few days with plans to see Ibben, eager to visit the places that Maester Luwin mentioned in their lessons. Unlike Bran, she's drawn to the freedom and mystery of the unknown, where the maps are vague and the ink on the surface needs a pair of fresh eyes to fix it.
Before she goes, though, he asks for another favor. Silent as a shadow, Arya is more than happy to oblige.
When Bran is well enough to return to his responsibilities, he sees to Sansa's letter first, yielding to the inevitable doom of an elder's scolding.
May I ask, the Queen demands, scrawling her question across the page like the strike of a sword, what were you thinking?
Bran writes the reply in his own hand. Brienne lingers as he's warming the ink, looking as if she's hiding her laughter behind her gauntlet.
I found Drogon, Bran explains, hoping the news will please her as much as it did Lord Davos. He'll stay in Valyria.
That week, ravens fly in and out of the Gray Keep as dependably as a sunrise. The Grand Maester complains to his wife, which goes unheard.
Recklessness may appeal to most men, but it does not suit you, Sansa snaps back. Your kingdom needs you, Bran.
For all of her anger, Bran knows she loves him. She merely worries, like he does. Like Arya does. Like Jon does. Their worry makes Bran feel like Bran again, like the living and the dead have returned to the safety and protection of Winterfell's last golden age, where every problem can be solved by a calm word of Lady Catelyn's, or a kind nod of Lord Eddard's. This is the first moment that he feels so comforted outside of a vision.
I'm sorry, Sansa.
Her reply brings a strange chill to King's Landing, or perhaps it is only confined to Bran's chambers, after another long day of measures, meetings, and meting out justice. He strives for peace and forgiveness where he can, but it is not always found in a realm so broken. I'm not the only one you must apologize to. A old friend came all the way from Greywater Watch to bend the knee to me, and she's just told me quite the tale of you.
Meera Reed, Bran writes back, ashamed. When she left Winterfell, he meant for her to never see a wight again. I owe her everything.
Expect her in a fortnight, brother. I thought it best for her to hear your apology in person.
Unlike the Prince of Dorne's splendorous retinue and wardrobe, Meera comes to King's Landing alone, dressed down in lambskin breeches and a sleeveless jerkin of bronze scales. The year apart has been kind to her, unlike Bran was, putting life into her face and a new strength in her steps.
Uncle Edmure hosted Meera in Riverrun, delighted to show off his young son and the bump of another babe in his wife's belly.
Robb, Edmure writes, enthused fatherhood erasing the blow of losing a crown, is already walking! He's running Roslin and I absolutely ragged...
"Your Grace," Meera greets, meeting Bran on the docks. She doesn't kneel. She only watches the outbound ship of Prince Mors, still and silent. The Prince had come to reaffirm his loyalty to Bran, after the Yronwoods spread many a rumor about an uprising. Bran welcomed him gladly.
Most of the court did not accompany Bran see off the Prince, thanks to Lord Bronn's mysterious vandal. Someone dared to stuff sheep dung into the sheets of the Master of Coin's own bed, ruining the Tyroshi handicraft entirely. Lords Seaworth and Lannister needed escorting to the Grand Maester's chambers, too, after collapsing due to shortness of breath. Bran expressed his sympathies, and excused everyone from duty.
"My lady." Bran drums his knuckles along the arm of his chair, nervous as a green boy. "I am happy to see you."
"Are you?"
He is. Were his palms ever so sweaty? Bran wipes them on his sleeve, hoping she misses that.
Bran's gotten better at shedding his lordly mask, but it is not easy to embody one man when the memories of millions and millions of others wait for him in sleep, in his trances, in his leisure. He focuses on the journey in the days after Winterfell was sacked, preferring the foggy rendering of his own recollections than being an unseen, observing presence. He thinks of her arguments with Osha, her teasings of Jojen, her consideration of Hodor. He tries to feel rather than see, like he did before the raven summoned him north, before his third eye opened to stop an ancient evil.
Like a hero of a song, he thought at one point. The songs never spoke of losing your friends, however, nor losing yourself to an endless oblivion.
For a long time, Bran let himself be lost.
I'm not Lord Stark, he told Lord Baelish, savoring the fear that radiated off that man in the face of a nameless boy. If he wasn't a Stark, the great Littlefinger would have no idea what to make of him, and even less of an idea of how to control him, like all the other pawns on the board. Petyr Baelish was at his most dangerous when he knew all the rules of the realm's little game; he was easy to defeat when he couldn't account for the variables that lay beyond his comprehension. The Three-Eyed Raven was not quite a thing and not quite a person, making the coordination of Bran Stark's sisters all the more surprising, despite all the poison whispered in Sansa's ears, despite the breadcrumbs left about for Arya.
Bran's third eye might've opened, but in the years since he fell, it was as if his throat was closing up at precisely the same time. He could never say the right thing when he wasn't the Prince of Winterfell. He could never offer the right comfort when another of their dwindling party died.
And then, after he returned to the only place where the Night King could fall, he let others believe that he was actually lost.
You died in that cave, Meera said, aghast.
Bran let her believe that, too afraid to imagine a world where all of this was for naught. Every sacrifice meant something. Watching Meera return to her family was the price that he saw fit, the price that Bran'd pay to see the plan come to fruition. It was the least he could do. If he died with Theon in the godswood...well, Meera would've lived a little longer, finally free of her responsibility, of her pledge to protect him. But the plan worked. The dagger that passed from Joffrey to the cutthroat, from the cutthroat to Lady Catelyn, from Lady Catelyn to Lord Eddard, and finally from Bran's father to Petyr Baelish, stopped the king of the dead with one blow. The weapon Bran chose to hand to Arya was the weapon slew the Night King, sealing their fate in a circle. Swift as a deer, the dancing master clucks at his sister. Forel didn't live to see the triumph of his best student.
Choices upon choices upon choices, Bran thinks, drawing in a breath. That's what keeps the future so murky. The whims of others. This time, it's Bran's turn to choose, and he choose to be himself—to be Bran, the boy who dreamed of knights. He didn't die in that cave with Bloodraven. He was only sleeping. The emotion boils through him like a frothing stew, burning him from within like the heat of Drogon's veins. Bran feels so...awake.
It feels even better than flying.
"Yes," Bran answers, unevenly, holding out a hand for her to take, if she so pleases. To his relief, she does. "I am so sorry, Meera."
She places her other hand atop his, waiting. He always admired her patience. She's like a wolf in that way, waiting out its prey.
"I would not be here without you," he goes on, thawing out like old ice. "None of us would. You saved me and the world, in one fell swoop."
"In many swoops," she reminds him, although there is no hint of a bite in her voice. Her eyes shine like the sun off the Blackwater. "Remember?"
"I do." Bran's gaze lays on their joined hands, but he lifts it now, recalling his mother's many admonishments about his habit of avoiding eye contact whilst lying. He never wants to lie to Meera again if he can help it. He would love her for all his days, if she wanted. He is, however, afraid to ask if that is what she really wants. Such is the price of feeling like a man again, not a raven. "I owe you my life, Meera Reed. Truly."
Nearly indistinguishable from the hopeful, lively spirit that kept him safe for so long, Meera smiles and bends to kiss his cheek.
Ser Ellery raises an eyebrow from his perch along the seawall. Ser Podrick examines the ocean with impeccable scrutiny.
"I swore it by ice and fire, didn't I?" She asks, so airily that Bran finds himself laughing. He can't remember the last time he actually laughed. With her and Jojen and Hodor and Summer, probably, when their choices were not so dire and the ink was just meeting the page. He wishes he'd known how quickly those days of harmless idleness would pass for him. "And from what I hear, the real ice and fire came right to your doorstep."
"In the wrong order."
Still close enough to kiss if invited, Meera adopts a conspiratorial look. "Was he as horrible as you expected?" She whispers. "Was she?"
Bran considers. "No. I prepared for the Night King. Daenerys was...unimaginable." The waiting to see Jon and Arya's survival was unbearable.
"Tell me about it," Meera suggests, straightening up with the grace of the proper lady she isn't. "If it pleases the king, of course."
Bran remembers all the stories told on the road to the Wall. Jojen was the best bard, speaking of times past in his slow, moving way, but Meera's narrations were filled with vivid images and funny voices. Bran joined in on the fun, too, and eagerly shared the tale of the Rat Cook. It wasn't quite so fun when the scariest stories came to life, however. "It pleases the king to share bread and salt with the Lady of Greywater Watch."
It's Meera's turn to laugh. "Fear not, Your Grace. Guest right is still held sacrosanct in the North. But," she teases, "do not ask me to kneel to you."
Bran waves that away, secretly glad of such devotion. He'll keep it a secret, now, to preserve the seat's neutrality. It would not do to let the realm know that yet another Stark wears a crown. No, Bran decides, he will continue to don his lord's face among his people, and his own among the few he trusts. When Bran is an old man and bound for the Winterfell crypts, he will be a Stark once more. "Your queen must appreciate your loyalty."
"I believe so. With your sister, it is hard to know what she is feeling."
"Just wait," Bran assures her, smiling. Of all his siblings, it is Sansa that Bran knows best. "She's worth the wait."
In the Haunted Forest, Bran watches Jon Snow through the eyes of a shadowcat, stretching out his paws. He keeps to the upper branches of a weirwood, unwilling to risk Ghost catching his scent. He isn't quite sure if Ghost would smell Bran himself, or mistake him for a predator.
Seated before a cookfire, Jon finishes cleaning one of Ghost's kills and arranges the meat on a spit.
"Little crow," Tormund Giantsbane declares, "if you burn that elk to a crisp, we will be forced to eat you."
"You'd savor every bite of me, Tormund."
"Har!" Giantsbane roars, the sound making Bran sport a fanged grin. "Aye!"
"Even the pecker?" Munda asks, only encouraging her father to laugh all the harder. Her husband, Longspear Ryk, merely snickers.
"He'd eat that part first," Jon surmises, surprisingly droll. That pleases Bran. Since their parting, Bran feared Jon Snow would never jape again.
"With spices," Tormund says unhelpfully, "and a horn of goat's milk."
"You're always drinking goat's milk, Tormund," a spearwife points out, rolling her eyes. Val, Bran learns, after a quick peek into her past.
"Goat's milk makes me strong, but not as strong as the milk from a giant's teat..." He pauses. "Have I told that story?"
"Yes," Val says hastily.
"A hundred times," says Munda, annoyed. "I could tell the whole thing myself by now, and claim all the credit."
"Do not tell it again," Jon chimes in, looking rather green.
Grinning like a madman, Tormund jumps to his feet. "What's one more? Giantsbane, I'm called. Want to know why?"
Still dressed like a crow, Jon groans but settles down to listen. Bran does, too, still cloaked in his shadowcat skin, though he only has eyes for his brother. A year ago, the Unsullied demanded a punishment for the man who dared to slay their queen. To that end, Bran had no choice. Grey Worm's men had already killed a dozen survivors that surrendered—what other concession would stop them and the Dothraki, save for Jon's death?
Bran lost enough brothers to do nothing but submit to the charges.
A good king always keeps his word, but no king sees all. There is no Master of Whisperers to aid him, and no little birds left in the North to spy for him. The realm sentenced Jon to the Wall for the rest of his life, but none other will know, save for Bran, if the penalty is properly carried out.
Before Daenerys came to Westeros, she spoke of breaking the wheel.
She, too, seems to have missed the forest for the trees, Bran observes, for the wheel isn't limited to the ascents and descents of the Great Houses. The wheel, better known as the game of thrones, draws all into its path, from the humblest of grooms to the highest lords of the lesser Houses.
He doubts the wheel can ever be broken. He doubts the game will go away quietly, either, even if Bran is unlike any king that's come before.
A lower Vale noble draws Bran's eye after the peace reaches its third year. The image of Lyn Corbray paying off assassins as clear as a mirror.
Most of the realm does not know the sheer scope of Bran's powers. That's for the best, especially for occasions much like this one.
"Get rid of her. I don't care how it's done, just that it is," Corbray insists. "Her sister slit Lord Petyr's throat in some sham trial. Avenge him."
Osmund Kettleblack measures the bag of gold dragons in his hands, features more curious than greedy. His brothers look on, also puzzled.
"What's it to you?" Osmund asks. From what Bran can tell, this is not so typical of him. "She's in the North, just like m'lord wanted."
"Lord Baelish wanted the Iron Throne," says Corbray, impatient. "He did not want to die in a pool of his own blood in Winterfell, I assure you."
Shrugging, Osmund stows the payment away in a saddlebag, climbs onto his horse, and starts for the kingsroad.
Corbray gives the other Kettleblacks a bag of gold each. "Kill our new boy king, sers. They say Jaime Lannister pushed him from a window when he was a child." The things I do for love, the Kingslayer remarks in Bran's nightmares, and shoves. Bran blanches. "Finish the what he started."
But why? Bran wonders, reaching for a quill to write to Sansa. By now, Meera has joined her. The Vale declared for the Starks...
Yohn Royce does not speak for every man in the Vale, a voice not unlike Bloodraven observes, reminding Bran of his secret pledge. He must be better if he wants to keep the seat in the Gray Keep and the good that's flourished since he came all this way to rule. And you are not a Stark.
Bran can discover why Corbray is so loyal, if he slips into the past and the mind of the man himself, but he won't. Not after Hodor. He knows better.
Sometimes, there are those who are cruel just for the sake of it. And here I thought today was going to be another boring day, Karl Tanner declared after he learned who Jon was to Bran, his eyes shining with malice. A lie, the waif jeers, raising a hand to strike Arya in the House of Black and White, a sad little lie. Who are you? In Winterfell, Myranda bares her teeth at Sansa, angry that her bastard lover will be soon stolen from her. Have you ever seen a body after the dogs have been at it? Not so pretty. But, well, it's your wedding day. Why am I talking about such things?
When Bran meets with the small council, a letter arrives in the talons of the old, bent-winged raven. Bran allows Sam to crack the seal.
"'Osmund Kettleblack shall stand vigil above my walls until h-his head rots away'," Sam reads, lifting his eyes from the scroll. "I..."
"There was an attempt on my sister's life," Bran explains. Seaworth utters a curse under his breath. "And Ser Osmund's brothers will come for me."
"Thought you can't see the future," Bronn grunts, still smarting after the prank. The Reach lords have been heard to laugh at him.
Bran prefers to leave Bronn as uninformed as possible simply for his own amusement. In spite of the circumstances, Bran can't resist. "I can't."
"Well," Tyrion interrupts in a strained voice, like as not thinking of the tumultuous lives of all the rulers he's served, "do elaborate, Your Grace."
Taking pity on them, Bran obeys. Ser Brienne, the only one initially aware of the vision, departs to prepare Bran's chambers for his newest guests. Courteously, the Kettleblacks discussed their plan on the kingsroad, within earshot of all the birds in the canopy and all the quarry in the wood. Discourteously, the brothers intend to climb up the broken balcony and through Bran's window without so much as a by-your-leave.
"The Kingsguard will be waiting just outside the door," Pod promises, nervously.
"Brienne will protect me," Bran assures him, hefting the crossbow higher onto his lap. "Worry not."
In the end, Bran's words, Brienne's presence, and an ably aimed crossbow bolt are just the combination to convince the Kettleblacks to submit to a frosty exile at the Wall. Ser Ellery and a handful of riverlands knights volunteer to escort the pair north, with a stop in Winterfell to see what became of their brother, while Brienne is sent to the Vale to inform Lord Robin and Lord Yohn of Lyn Corbray's treasons. Somehow, Bran knows he will not be the last to try such a trick. Some are cruel just for the sake of it, but others, like him and Sansa, favor a just route, the same route that their family was never afforded. Justness, kindness, honor, and sometimes, the threat of a wolf's bite? I would not want to face us, either.
As much as Bran would like to, flying away from the a discussion of the state of his treasury is, alas, not possible.
Over Tyrion's protests, the windows are closed, to give Bran a semblance of restraint. Nothing bars the chirps beyond, though, or his temptation.
Bran, Maester Luwin reminds his younger self, wanting his complete attention. The boy keeps fiddling with his trinket. The king listens.
Between Robert Baratheon, Joffrey Baratheon, Tommen Baratheon, Cersei Lannister, and Daenerys Targaryen, the funds to repair the realm can be counted in less than a day. After the last war, the Iron Bank washed its hands of Westeros and for the first time in its history, abandoned a debt. The Gray Keep is truly on its own, even with the slow but steady influx of new gold from the westerlands. The Westerlings, a once impoverished house, were the first to discover a new seam near the Crag. Without their contributions, Bran doubts the castle would be repaired in his lifetime.
"Lord Gawen offers his daughter's hand in marriage, as well as the gold," Tyrion reports, "which sounds like prudent pick to my ears."
"Only if she will have me," Bran says, wondering about Eleyna. "I want to a see a better world rise from the ashes of the one before it."
A knock at the door briefly stalls the conversation. At Bran's nod, Pod admits a man wearing a wolfish helm. Bran gestures for him to speak.
"A gift from my queen, Your Grace." The envoy places a frame on the table, pulls the wrappings off, and rotates the frame for his inspection.
It's him, he realizes. A portrait, painted in Sansa's own hand, if Bran is to guess (he knows). A smile stretches across his face from ear to ear, matching the image perfectly. She's done it in the Myrish style, capturing Bran with uncanny precision, as if she is the one who can see the past in perfect clarity whenever she likes. Bran's fingers slide from the canvas to the frame's inscription. Bran the Rebuilder. A breath escapes his chest.
"Seven hells," Tyrion grumbles, lowering his goblet in his shock, "that frame is bigger than I am. Wherever will you put it?"
"In my chambers," Bran answers absently, still studying the gift. There's a smaller etching below the other. Dragonslayer, Sansa wrote.
She knows him just as well as he knows her, it seems. Once upon a time, before duty fell upon the last of the Starks, Bran dreamed of being the most loyal of Queen Sansa's knights, the most heroic man of her Kingsguard. How alike they were. Are. He can't help but grin. His own gift—a suggested betrothal to the Sword of the Morning, proposed by Lord Dayne himself—should arrive in White Harbor shortly. He hopes it goes well.
It is not so easy to be a king of a fractured country and its healing people, Bran understands, watching the builders finish the repairs on another room before he's lured back to his ledgers, but he thinks he's starting to get the hang of it now. After all, dear reader, the story is just beginning.