283 AC, The Tower of Joy

"He is king." Her skin was cracking in the heat, like plaster peeling off an old wall, and her voice was a crone's rasp but Ned Stark had never seen such assurance in a woman's eyes, never before in his sister's. Lya looked at him in the way he remembered his father doing, eyes like iron that yielded not an inch. "He was born to be king. Rhaegar dreamed of it."

"If he did, then he was the only one." Ned gestured to the arrow-slit, outside which red mountains baked under the pitiless Dornish sun. "Outside these walls they will call you his paramour and your boy a bastard."

Ser Gerold's fingers brushed against the hilt of his sword, only the lightest flutter of a warning. Very pleasantly he said, "Your lady sister wed the prince at Summerhall. There was a septon. There were witnesses."

"That would be no marriage, not even by southron law." He could feel the headache building up in his temple, the slow throb of sheer exhaustion. His sword weighed heavy on his hip, his duty heavier still on his conscience. "Prince Rhaegar was wed already."

"Targaryens make their own laws," Lyanna bit out.

"King Aegon-" Ser Oswell began.

"I know all about Aegon and his queens," Ned snapped. "Ser, you forget that the first Aegon had dragons."

"So will he," Lyanna whispered. "He is the prince that was promised."

A look passed between her and Ser Arthur and he finished for her as though they had made a game out of it in those long months of strain, repeating the words between themselves for reassurance. "And his is the song of ice and fire."

Ser Gerold's hands were firmly around the hilt of his sword now. Three against one, he had not brought his men up to his sister's sickbed. In the next room, the wet-nurse cooed to the infant, his nephew (how hard it was to think of the babe as a part of him by blood). "Will you stand with us or against, Lord Stark?"

Lord Stark. The weight of the words registered on his sister's face. She must have known that their father and Brandon were dead, but it was one thing to be told and another to hear him being addressed by the title.

Ned unbuckled his sword and knelt, offering it on the flat of his palms to her. "You will always be my sister," he told her. When the snows fall and the white winds blows, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives. Had he not learned those words at their mother's knees? "And if you were Rhaegar's wife, then you are my liege lady and your son is my king. I am yours, heart and soul, my lady."

Tears clung to her eyelashes but somewhere, somehow, in this pitiless place his sister had changed from the laughing girl he remembered. She took his hands in her own hot, dry palms and gave him the kiss of peace, lip to closed lip. "As the gods are my witness, the old and the new," she said, "I will be worthy of your faith, brother."

283 AC, Casterly Rock

"The queen will not stand for it," Tygett said firmly. "Not Rhaella. She's already crowned Viserys and she's breeding again. She might have a boy again."

"Rhaella might have been a force once but she is spent now. She is a woman alone, clinging to a scrap of a rock surrounded by a sea of enemies," Kevan reminded them. "She might die in childbed - is it so unlikely at her age and with her health, poor lady? - and then who has she left to defend her boy? The castellan at best."

"Are we then to bend the knee to Arryn and his puppet? Or Stark and his sister's bastard?" Gerion snarled. "We are lions, brothers. I say we set our own course and crown Tywin. It was Jaime who slew Aerys, the throne should be ours by right of conquest."

Genna's nephew had been brought into the Lannister family council for the first time, but only as a courtesy. He was here to listen and learn and for the moment, he was playing the part of the dutiful adept to perfection. Not for the first time she wondered whether anything went through that handsome head of his. Cersei, on the other hand, the girl had a certain low cunning that might blossom into brilliance given the right tempering but she was prideful, willful, spoiled. What were quick wits when combined with a clouded mind? She might grow out of it, they are both still so young.

The boy spoke up suddenly. She had not expected him to speak up, let alone advise caution. "Let the stag and the wolf fight it out," Jaime suggested. "As we did before."

Tygett smiled approvingly. "Well said, nephew. Let them tear each other to pieces."

Tywin was still studying the map of Westeros set out before him. Silver pins marked Stark's forces, black Baratheon's, scarlet Lannisters and gold the remaining loyalist forces who were sworn to the child Viserys. Day by day, the gold dwindled, the south near Dorne turning to silver, the east black. It was not Eddard Stark's charisma or his nephew's doubty claim that had caused this shift in the tide but that of the Kingsguard who had accompanied Lyanna Stark to Dorne and upheld her child's claim. The White Bull, the Sword of the Morning... these were names that could turn out tens of thousands in the Seven Kingdoms. Dorne, which had the most to gain by the death of the woman that Rhaegar had preferred to their princess, had, most astonishingly, turned to the paramour's side. It defied comprehension.

Finally Genna's oldest brother nodded. "Yes," he said. "For now, we wait."

Genna found Cersei in the rose gardens, a book in her lap and innocence on her face. "You don't need to pretend with your auntie," Genna told her wryly. "I know all the tricks, I used to spy on my father too when I was your age. Not that he ever discussed anything of interest in his private councils."

Cersei let the look drop from her face and it curdled like spoiled milk. "Father said he would make me queen," she said sharply. "Or a princess, at least. If it was not to be Rhaegar, it was to be Viserys. We should be supporting the Baratheon, he's in King's Landing, he's young and he has no wife."

"How I admire your single-mindedness," Genna said, taking her niece's hand. "If it were only so simple."

"I don't see why not," Cersei said sharply. "Father could turn the tide if he chose to. I thought we sealed our alliance with Baratheon and Arryn when we gave them Rhaegar's brats."

"You had care of them," Genna said. "You served as Elia's lady-in-waiting, you knew them almost from the hour of their birth. Yet you speak so coldly of them."

Cersei turned her pretty head scornfully. "They had to die," she said. "If Elia died in childbirth - and we all expected she would, the next time - and Rhaegar made me his wife, I would have held silk pillows to their little faces myself."

Genna smiled. "You are beginning to think like a queen. Do not underestimate your father, my love. No doubt there is something in the alliance between Arryn and Baratheon that gives him pause and makes him consider that playing Stark might be the better bet. Stark was Arryn's protege too, their wives are sisters, who knows which the old falcon might prefer? They both have claims, of a sort." The Tully forces had not declared themselves yet, they had withdrawn from King's Landing to Riverrun where Hoster Tully prevaricated between his two daughters, married to enemy camps.

"But Baratheon-"

"Infants die in the cradle all the time," Genna said softly, persuasively. "If his nephew should die - how sad - Stark might be tempted to take the throne for himself. He has a wife, and so? Wives die all the time, particularly ones as insignificant as Hoster Tully's daughter. He has a son, and so? The boy might be made Lord of the North, if he grows to manhood, while yours... but we are getting ahead of ourselves."

283 AC, Riverrun

Lysa's wails seemed to make the castle shake. "Is she running mad?" Edmure whispered. He had been raised on ghoulish stories of women's hysteria, women who could not be trusted because they thought with their wandering women's parts, women turning to wolves when their time of month was upon them and now he looked well and truly terrified. Catelyn could not fault him, their sister's screams did not hold the timber of a woman who was quite sane in her mind.

"You always choose her," she was screaming. "Always her. All of you. Cat! Cat! Cat! It's never me!"

"You go to the sept and light a candle for her," Catelyn told Edmure firmly. At least it would take him out of Lysa's way and whatever filth she chose to spew. He nodded, looking relieved, and took to his heels. She hesitated and then squared her shoulders and approached Lysa's room. She knew her duty.

She was being held down by the maids, her face white, her eyes rolling back in her head, foaming at the lip like an overheated horse. Their father knelt by the bed, a deep sadness on his face. She knelt by his side, uncertain of how she could help but knowing that she must at least offer. Lysa had been like this ever since their father had broken the news that he had chosen to side with her husband over Lysa's. Of course Lysa would make it about her. She was still such a child.

"You!" Somehow Lysa had seen. She gave an otherworldly shriek and wrestled her arms out of the maids' grip, hands clawed like talons and reaching out madly for Catelyn's face. If she had not jumped back, she would have been raked from forehead to chin. "You bitch! You take everything from me, my wedding, my husband, my baby-"

"I never took anything from you, Lysa!" Catelyn protested. She would have said more but her father put his hand on her shoulder and drew her up.

"That's enough," Hoster said wearily and nodded to the maids. "Douse her with milk of the poppy. Perhaps she might sleep it off."

"No! No!" Lysa was screaming terrible things, incoherent things that made no sense, betrayal, lies, but the maids poured the mixture that the maester had made for her down her throat, while Hoster took Catelyn out of the room and shut the door behind them.

"Your sister has much on her mind," he told her. "Poor thing."

"I don't understand," Catelyn said, bewildered. "The things she was accusing me of, us of-"

Hoster stooped and kissed her forehead. "You are my sweet daughter and the joy of my life," he said. "Lysa is a trial that I must bear." He was hiding something from her, they both were. But she could bide her silence, wasn't that what women were trained to do after all? Wait and keep their peace.

"Father," she said hesitantly, when he put his arm through hers and escorted her down the gallery. "Did you choose me over her?" Did you choose my husband over hers? Did you choose me over her because I have a babe in the cradle, a boy with your eyes, and she is still barren?

"I do not play favorites with my daughters," he told her. "I chose based on the advice I received, my own reasoning, my own wits. Which I still have, even if your sister does not."

She dipped her head, in acquiescence to his manly wisdom. "Of course," she said. "You must do as you think best. And now if you will excuse me, I will go see to my son."

He smiled and put his hand on her head in blessing. "You're a good girl, Cat," he said tenderly. "You always were."

She watched him walk down the gallery alone, taking the measure of his straight back and his head held high. He had lied to her face as though she were still a child in the nursery, as though she were only a woman with the wits of a milk-cow. Was that how he saw all women? Had she always been this blind? The truth of it is that you would rather see Lysa a widow than me, she thought. For all your talk of strategy and choice, it comes down to this. Such a small thing to balance a kingdom on.

283 AC, Yronwood

Lyanna's breasts were bound as flat as a board, but they seeped and ached whenever her baby cried. But the maester would not consent to her feeding him herself, she had almost died in childbed and the last thing that she would want to risk would be the milk sickness. Let the wet nurses do their task.

Arthur had made her see reason. He had taken her hand and asked her if she would rather have the short-lived pleasure of nursing her baby herself or ensuring his destiny by living for him? She'd left her baby in Sunspear, under Princess Mellario's watchful eye, but his cries still haunted her dreams. They had wanted her to remain in Sunspear, while the two armies battled it out in the Boneway but she would not hear of it. She would be safe in the castle with the Yronwoods, if the battle turned she might beg Arryn and Baratheon for clemency as women had always done. She could beg for her brothers at least - Ned on the battlefield, Benjen at Winterfell. There was nothing she could do for her son in Dorne, if the tides shifted, the Martells would take care of him in whatever way they chose. She could not shelter him with her body anymore as she had done for nine months.

The Yronwoods had fought the Storm Kings for time immemorial, the marcher lands contested bloodily between them, it was only right that this battle should play out in the Boneway.

"You are a brave woman, my lady," Lady Ynys said. She was the oldest of the Yronwood daughters, Lyanna's own age but unwed still. She approached Lyanna with a cup of honey-mead, almost shyly as though uncertain whether her presence would be welcome.

Lyanna smiled at her and made space on the window-seat. "If I were brave, I would be down there," she said, gesturing to the far distance where they could just see the glow of a thousand camp-fires, like a field of fireflies in the gauzy dusk. The Boneway was perilously steep, as treacherous as a whore men said and the fields would be red with carnage in the morning. Is this to be the thousandth battle in my name? she thought and shivered. Her hands, folded in her lap and scented with rose-attar from the Yronwood women's coffers, should have run red with blood. "But look at me, sitting safe with you."

"Women don't fight," Lady Ynys said. "Well, not anymore."

"I did. But that was another life again," Lyanna said. I will never pick up a sword again, she thought. I will never sit a horse with a lance in my hands.

Ynys' black eyes were owlish in her face. "Your lord father never let you!"

"No, he never did," Lyanna said. "I was too clever for him by half. More fool, I. I would have been better off if I tended my spindle like a proper woman."

Ynys shook her head in confusion. "But then you might never have met Prince Rhaegar." She knew the story, everyone did now, it had come out in bits and pieces and now the singers were spreading it all throughout Dorne. It made a pretty story, the willful wolf-maid and the silver prince, the sacred child conceived in secret at Summerhall, those precious few nights the lovers had spent together in the mountains, their love guarded by knights of legend, before he had left her forever for his duty and his death.

"Would that I never had," Lyanna said sincerely. "My father would have still been alive, my brother too. Thousands would have still been alive."

"You would have been Robert Baratheon's wife then. That would have been terrible."

That would have been a kinder fate than I deserve. "Yes," Lyanna said dully. "I think I would rather be Robert Baratheon's wife and lie still and miserable under him every night than queen over skulls and ashes as I am now."

In his tent, Ned re-read the letter from his wife again. The words were formal, strained. There was no lust between them - how could there be after only a few nights together? -, no affection. Only duty. She wrote of their son and how he was faring. Robb, named before his father had broken with his best friend forever. She wrote that she missed him and prayed that he came soon to her. He did not believe that, they barely knew each other. She was comfortably settled in her father's castle, if the tides of battle turned, Jon Arryn would be merciful to his wife's sister no matter what her husband or father had done. Robert would not hurt her son, he would remember the boys who had grown up together in the Eyrie and be merciful.

In the castle upon the hill, his sister would be praying with hot, dry eyes. She prayed constantly, even when she was walking, talking, listening. She did not need a godswood to pray nor a sept, she did not need to be on her knees, she did not need to close her eyes or fold her hands together. Their father's burned carcass, their brother's broken neck, her husband's battered body, these were always before her eyes, open, closed. Sometimes, he thought, looking into her bleached face and hard eyes, he thought she must surely break. She was only sixteen, she had never been trained to be anything more than a charming, spoiled girl. He did not know where she found the strength to go on living everyday.

Tom raised the flap of his tent and Ned put the letter away. He must remember to write to his lady wife before morning, she might want some last words to pass to their son if he should die in the morning. "Someone to see you, m'lord," Tom said. A tall man entered, unbidden, the hood of his plain brown cloak drawn deeply over his face so that it was in shadow. At first Ned took it for one of the camp's spies, late-come with pressing news. But then the man spoke.

"My boy," he said simply. "I've missed you." It was Jon. Ned leaped up, as though scalded by the coals in the small hearth before him. He shot Tom an accusing look but his man had already slipped away guiltily. Jon smiled faintly. "Do you really fear me that much?"

His sword hung out of his reach but Jon spread his arms, to show that he too was unarmed. "I have never been your enemy, Ned."

"Nor I yours," Ned said steadily. He spoke haltingly, the words an old ritual that dredged slowly up to his mind, the words that Jon had taught him when he was still a squire. "Will you break bread with me?" The man had come to him in good faith, unarmed, by his honor he could afford him nothing but courtesy.

Jon smiled, a pleased and approving teacher. "It would give me the greatest pleasure."

Ned put out the loaf of bread, the cold cheese and the pitcher of cider that he had been dining on himself and cut it for Jon as though he was still in truth his lord's squire. "I knighted Robert on his eighteenth nameday myself but you refused the honor," Jon said.

"I would not kneel in a sept to receive it, not even from you," Ned said stiffly. "I meant no disparagement but your gods are not mine."

"And now my king is not yours." Jon shrugged. "I am an old man but I wish to the gods that I never lived long enough to see this day, when the two boys that I loved as sons meet against each other in enmity."

Ned said nothing, because really what was there left to say?

"By law, I suppose, the crown should go to Prince Viserys," Jon said thoughtfully. "But then there are others who say that might makes right, which would make Robert king."

"Lyanna's son-" Ned began.

"So you still claim that the child is not Rhaegar's bastard?" Jon said. "Of course your sister would lie, better to call herself an honored bride now rather than a shamed mistress or worse, a victim of lust and rape."

"There were witnesses. Ser Gerold foremost among them."

"Why should Whent not play kingmaker now that the kingdom is up for grabs? He would not be the first White Knight to turn colors to suit the times."

Ned was reminded briefly of Criston Cole. "I believe Lyanna," he said simply. "Her word is enough for me."

Jon nodded. "And she is your blood. Her and her boy." He put his hand on Ned's shoulder. "As you are all but mine. I do not think that I will ever father a son now, though my good father swore that my bride was as fertile as she was young."

"You once called us your legacy," Ned remembered. "We were honored."

"I must have done a poor job then," Jon said. "You left King's Landing in anger, after you saw what was done to the children. A poor piece of work and not of my desiring - the boy could be sent to the Wall as I mean to do with Viserys if I ever hold him. Rhaenys, well she was only a girl. Did you hate Robert so much then?"

"I never hated Robert," Ned said slowly. "Yes, I was angry at him and yes there were words between us. But I left to find Lyanna."

"He hates you," Jon said dispassionately. "He feels that you betrayed him. You and your sister, she was to be his love, his prize, his queen. And you were his brother. It cut deeply into his soul and brought out all that was dark and cruel." He shook his head sadly. "You broke him as a man. And I do not think that he will ever be fit to be a king again."

Ned felt like he might throw up, like a lad on the eve of his first battle and not his hundredth. "I am sorry," was all he could say. "I never meant to hurt him. Will you tell him that from me?" He was almost pleading.

Jon nodded. "It will bring him scant comfort now but I will." He set down his cider. "Ned, I cannot fight against you and I cannot fight against Robert. It would be as unnatural as asking a father to pick between two sons."

"You set your levies to Robert's cause," Ned said. "I wrote to you myself to ask you for your aid-"

"It was one thing to fight against Dornishmen, against Riverlanders, against Ser Gerold's pick and a host that had crowned an infant bastard king," Jon said. "I believed in Robert, I did not believe in your sister's son. It is another thing entirely to face you in battle, Ned."

His meaning dawned on Ned. "So you will hold out on the morrow? Have you told Robert?"

Jon nodded. "I will tell him. He will not be best pleased." He smiled ironically at the understatement, Robert Baratheon had never been a man to check his temper and having been crowned king, seeping with rage and vengeance, would not have any sweetening effect on his nature. "And I will give him your last words. For surely they must be either the last you send to him or the last he hears from you."

"One or the other must die come the morrow," Ned said. He had always known this, ever since he had sworn his sword and shield to his sister's service. It had been so for Rhaegar and Robert, it would be so for him and Robert. And always, always, over Lyanna. Never was a name more cursed.

"One or the other," Jon said sadly. He put his hand on Ned's head, a blessing, his pale blue eyes weary with exhaustion. "It has made me happier than I can say to see your face again. May all the gods bless and keep you, my cautious Ned, my son. The old and the new."

He left soon after, a tall man shrouded in a plain brown cloak, too large for him, stooped with care and exhaustion. Ned watched him leave and began a letter to his wife and the infant son that he had never seen and might never see.

And in the morning, Lyanna Stark watched from her castle tower and Jon Arryn watched from his camp and almost at the same time, both were given the same news. Ned Stark was dead, his chest caved in from a blow from the king's warhammer. Robert Baratheon was dead, stabbed in the heart from his best friend's sword.

284 AC, Sunspear

"He's so small," Arianne said doubtfully, peering into the little king's cradle. She let him grasp her finger and he cooed in pleasure. A tuft of dark hair curled on his forehead, he wasn't going to look anything like his illustrious father it seemed.

"He'll grow," Mellario assured her.

"I don't think I want to marry him," Arianne said uncertainly. "He's so much littler than me. I'm the oldest, why do I have to marry him at all? I could be Princess of Dorne like grandmother. Then I'd never have to leave here." She had begun to pout.

Mellario could not allow this train of thought to continue. Doran had a dream for their daughter. "You are to be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms," she told her only daughter firmly. "That is a greater destiny by far than being a mere Princess of Dorne. Now run along and play with your cousins, you'll set the babe to fussing with your teasing."

Oberyn wandered into the nursery, comfortable in his airy yellow silks and eating a pomegranate. He smiled and offered her a scattering of seeds when he saw her looking but she shook her head, feeling uneasy. Her good brother always had that effect on her and he delighted in it. He had invited her to his bed once - her and Doran - but she had declined, of course. She was not Dornish. "The child's all Stark," he observed laconically.

"With Baratheon dead and Prince Viserys in hiding, he's the only king there is," she said dryly. "He can look whatever way he likes."

"Perhaps she slipped Dayne's bastard into the royal cradle," Oberyn suggested idly. "I've seen the way he looks at her. And he was with her all that time, far longer than Rhaegar ever was."

"Oberyn!" she protested, scandalized. "You mustn't say these things-"

"Not that it's like to matter now," Oberyn shrugged. "He's a babe and his mother's scarcely out of her nursery smocks. Arryn's a spent force with his precious boys dead, Lannister hasn't declared himself yet and the only family she has left is an infant nephew and a brother whose voice hasn't broken yet. They can be trained to be anything we want them to be."

"What of the Tullys?" she demanded.

"Lord Hoster played his card and he lost even though he supported the right side," Oberyn said. "His older girl's a widow now, she can be married to our best advantage and she'll have to yield her boy to us. Little Lord Stark can be raised in the royal nursery with his cousin. The younger girl can go scurrying back up to the Eyrie with her husband, he won't be long for the world now, mark my words. And he has a son who's yet unwed, Doran has some ideas about that."

"You will leave for King's Landing in the royal train?" Mellario said. She was pleased to hear it and Oberyn must have guessed because he shot her an amused look.

"So ready to be rid of me, sweet sister?" he murmured, taking a step towards her.

She shrank back, as though he was truly the snake for which he was named. "No, I-"

He laughed and taking her hand, pressed a kiss over her fingers. "I am honored to be a part of the boy king's regency council," he said. "So that takes me neatly out of your way for oh fourteen, sixteen years, I'd say."

"You are always welcome in Dorne," she said feebly, wanting to believe it.

"Dorne will always be my home," he said. "And what a pleasant home to return to, with such a pretty sister in residence. But no, there are things I must attend to in King's Landing, sweet as your company is."

"Lannister?"

He nodded and dropped her hand. A shadow dropped over his face, it was as though he had become another man entirely. Or no, not even a man. A beast, in human skin. War makes beasts of us all. The day was warm but she drew her silk shawl tight around herself. "Lorch, to start off with. Clegane. And then - Lannister."

284 AC, King's Landing

She would have to get used to this rathole city at the mouth of a stinking river, this treacherous castle built on innocent blood and lies. She would have to learn to call it home.

Promise me, Lyanna.

She squared her shoulders and smiled at Jon Arryn. He did not return it. No, of course he would not. She had brought enough grief to his doorstep. She had all but murdered his boys. How sick he must be at the sight of her, but nevertheless he treated her with all courtesy.

"You must hate me," she said baldly. There was nothing she could preface it with.

He shook his head. "Child," he said, "When you come to my age, you will realize there is no use in hating or loving. You are what you are and you have made of your life as you saw right."

"I was fourteen when I saw Rhaegar for the first time and he saw me," she said. "A child. My destiny was already written in stone then."

"I knew your lord father," he said simply. "You were already betrothed before you ever laid eyes on Prince Rhaegar. Your duty was clear. You chose to write your own destiny, my lady, and thousands paid in blood for it."

"And I never stop reliving the guilt of it," she snapped. "Gods know, I am sorry. Sorrier than you can ever know, my lord. But I have a son and I made my husband a promise to him, long before he was ever born, and I will stand by it while there is still breath left in my body. So, my lord, tell me, will you stand with me or against me?"

"Neither. I wish you well in your ventures," Jon said mildly. "But I am an old man and I do not believe that I will leave long enough to see them bear fruit."

"You gave my father good advice," she said. "You were his friend. You were like a father to my brother. Why cannot you be the same for me? Please, my lord, I beg you. I am all alone. Help me."

He held up his hands to forestall her. "You have chosen to slip in bed with the vipers," he said. "I cannot help you."

She had tried her best. There really was nothing she could do. "So you are going back home?" she said dully. "Back to the Eyrie?"

He nodded. "I will stop by Riverrun to take my lady wife with me."

"I wish you joy in your marriage," she said flatly and he chuckled.

"I wish it too," he said dryly. "But I do not expect it."

"I wish I could go home too," she blurted out. She could not help it. She had no one to talk to now. "But I never can now, I suppose."

He gave her a look that was almost pitying. "No, child, I suppose not." He hesitated. "I have one last thing to tell you if you have the wisdom to hear me out." She nodded. "Dorne bears a blood-grudge against the Lannisters, against Lord Tywin in particular and you know well why. But there must be balance in the kingdom, you cannot be ruled wholly by the Martells and expect to see your son reach his majority. And you yourself have confessed to being alone, to being fearful. Do you not think it time you took a husband?"

She flushed and looked away, but he was right. She knew that. Everyone knew that. She was barely seventeen and she had no experience at all, not in battle, not in council. Only a steadfast determination to do right by Rhaegar's son and the ravaged kingdom that had been left to her. That was not enough. The proposals had begun pouring in long ago. "You think I should marry Ser Jaime." The Kingslayer. He could be released from his vows, now that he had already broken the most sacred one, she supposed.

Jon snorted. "The boy? Gods no. What good would a boy of not quite nineteen be? No, I did not mean Jaime Lannister."

She was lost. "But you said, about the Lannisters-"

He sighed, as though she was hopelessly inept and he was almost sorry to be leaving her. "Child," he said, "I meant his lord father. I meant that you should marry Lord Tywin and seal an alliance between the Starks and Lannisters."

A/N: Well this could have played out in many different ways. There are so many different Lyanna-lives fanfics out there that I wanted to do something different, focusing on how the end of the war would have played out. If anyone is interested, I'll probably add another chapter, dealing with Stannis, the Tyrells, Viserys and Daenerys and of course if Lyanna marries Tywin. Leave a review!