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The dreams come in the blackest nights, in a flash of fire and smoke and a spreading pain behind his eyes, thrumming in tandem with his tempest of a heartbeat.
A flash of marbled silver, and two dragons dancing above Gods Eye; Harrenhal consumed by flame. Choking ash and blood spilling blood and blood spilling blood —
When Larys wakes, his skin sheened with sweat, a black bird with three beady eyes bears down upon him, crooning to him in the crackling voice of the Stranger. The only breath that can fill his lungs is thick and dark and acrid.
He does not realize the dream has ended until he feels the grass beneath his bare feet, his cane sinking into the mud, and the bleeding eyes of the weirwood boring into him. The summer air is warm, but he shivers anyways, because the Old Gods have only ever looked through him, never at him.
I’m still dreaming, Larys thinks, but the words pass through him like wind through stalks of ghost grass. The pale light of the full moon filters through the weirwood’s amber leaves, rustling in the wind; their shadows dance upon the earth. He falls splay-kneed in front of the tree.
Alys is behind him.
The old gods tell him. In the muffled footfalls in dirt, in the sound of grass brushing at the hem of her dress. She treads carefully in the godswood; Larys can only think of his brute of a big brother crashing through the trees as if the very land was made for him to desecrate.
She slips beneath the gnarled branches of the weirwood and sits beside him, sparing him no peace. “It happened again, didn’t it?”
Larys glances at her. It must be the hour of the wolf, but Alys’ eyes are bright, as if she hasn’t been sleeping at all; she’s only fourteen, tall and lean, but seems so much older and wiser in the dark.
“No,” he answers in a quiet, low voice. He gnaws at his lip, even though the maester and his father have told him off for it more times than he can count. He feels the tips of his ears fluster fire-hot.
She knows. Larys never told her of his very first dream, but when his feet found the weirwood he found her, too, dark hair braided over her shoulder, cotton dress stained with smudges of grass and dirt. She’d smiled at him, the way an older sibling should, the way ten-year-old Harwin never did to his crippled nine-year-old brother, and offered to pray to the old gods with him.
Her very presence had been prayer enough.
Alys kneads her fingers into the white roots protruding from the ground, tilting her head. She looks more like him than Harwin does, all bone and willow-thin limbs that seem too long for her body. If he didn’t know any better, if his father hadn’t clout him on the ear the first and only time he’d suggested Alys was his full-blooded sister, he could have believed they had the same mother.
“What did you see this time?”
Her voice pulls at the words lodged in his throat, willing them free, when all Larys wants to do is sit in silence and pretend he’s the normal, no-name second son of Lyonel Strong, who has no clubfoot and doesn’t dream of the future’s fires.
“Harrenhal was…” Larys frowns. If his dreams are true, past and future, as Alys once said, what kind of power does he grant them by speaking them aloud? He rolls his lip between his teeth, harder, and the taste of iron spreads across his tongue.
Alys watches, but doesn’t scold; she only smiles, like he imagines their mother would have, and takes his hand. “We’ll strike a deal. I’ll tell you of my last green dream. You tell me yours.”
Through the darkness Larys sees her eyes, the same shade as sage and pine needles, lined with something black. A streak runs down her lips. She’s staring the same way the weirwood does; the same way the three-eyed raven did each time Larys awoke.
Witch, they call her, the same way they call him Clubfoot, but in front of him he only sees his half-sister, not quite his flesh and blood, but more than a stranger. He and Harwin share parents, but with Alys, Larys shares dreams, and shouldn’t that mean more than having the same mother?
“Okay,” he says tentatively, sighing, trying to ease the weight pressing down upon his shoulders. His breath comes heavy and thick. “You first.”
Alys nearly grins, canine teeth poking into the flesh of her lower lip. “A prince.” The words come from her lips quicker than lightning. “Silver-haired, with sapphire eyes. His great dragon danced above the Gods Eye. Her shadow swallowed the Riverlands whole.”
“I saw our home burn,” Larys sputters, not allowing the air between them breath for a single second. “The flames rose so high they touched the clouds. And— And I saw your dragon, too. I think. There were two. One was red, and…”
“Harrenhal hasn’t burned since Aegon’s Conquest,” Alys cuts in sharply. “We see the past too sometimes, you know.”
“It wasn’t Balerion who burned it, it was…” Larys rubs his fingers together and feels soot between them, mixed with something sticky and wet. The flush spreads to his cheeks “It doesn’t matter. You don’t believe me.”
“I will always believe you, little brother. You saw the past, that’s all.” Alys squeezes his hand. Her smile quivers. He thinks some of the ash rubs off on to her, but when she draws her hands back, the only thing they’re stained with is smudges of dirt. “We must stick together, you and I.”
“I know, sister.” The word is cloyingly sweet on his tongue. Only here, in witness of the gods, are they allowed to share blood and bone and dreams.
“The world will fear us some day, as they did the greenseers of old. You and me and my silver dragon prince.”
Larys nods, but mouth is full of cotton and his eyes heavy. He can only bring himself to look up at the eyes of the weirwood, twisted and scorned, glaring into him. He wipes his hands on his tunic and heaves himself onto his feet without waiting for Alys. Night melts into dawn across the godswood, at the corner of his eye; he wonders if his father would even care if he was found missing from his bed. Alys could go disappear for a moon and no one would bat an eye. He leans on his cane, legs aching and back burning. He tells himself it’s from sitting improperly, but everything has begun hurting more and more as of late.
Alys stands after him, takes his free hand again, and wordlessly they begin the walk through the godswood, back to Harrenhal. Her nails dig into his skin.
If she feels the blood dripping from his palms, or smells the ash clinging to his frame, she says nothing of it.