The din was deafening as the throng crowded into the square before the Great Sept of Baelor, the banners bearing the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen towering higher than the statues that reared out of the clamour below.

Arya felt Jaqen's fingers lace through her own and hold her hand tightly. He answered her resulting stare with a shrug.

'A man does not wish to be lost in the crowd.'

She smiled weakly at him. He was lying.

They had arrived on a boat from Braavos merely an hour ago, and had barely passed through the Mud Gate before being swept up in a billowing wave of so many men, women and children that removing themselves from the crowd would have been impossible. On and on it went, like a massive serpent through the streets, chanting 'the Hand, the Hand, his head, the Hand' until it had reached the square; Arya and Jaqen caught in the middle of so many people jostling to the front that they acquired an excellent view of what was happening on the steps without so much as an elbow to the ribs. Arya didn't have the dimmest notion of who the Hand of the King was or what he had done to deserve beheading, nor did she have time to think of either as she felt bile rising in her throat and her eyes beginning to fade. Clinging to Jaqen's sleeve with one hand, she saw birds flying across a sun-scorched sky; saw Sansa's face change from relief to horror; saw Joffrey with his stupid pouty lips declaim 'Ser Ilyn! Bring me his head!' and shake off his mother's hands; saw only the shoulders and the feet of people in front of her, the crowd fighting her smallness and pulling her back as though she were walking through mud; Yoren's face, the smell of his jerkin, her own screams, and Sansa's, and the birds the birds as the blade came down.

The appearance of Ser Barristan Selmy on the steps of the Sept sent the visions scattering into exile as he took up the executioner's sword and began to polish it. He wore handsome white armour and no mask, his movements as swift and fluid as those of a young knight despite his white hair. Arya grimaced. Playing to the crowd was stupid.

It had been a short and bloody war. Across the Narrow Sea, tales were told of entire Westerosi cities destroyed in the fiery breath of the Targaryen Queen's dragons, and of armies defeated in a similar way, half their number decimated by fire, the other by her soldiers, who did not fear the flames. Arya had asked many times to be sent there despite such requests being forbidden, her elders despairing of her and quarrelling amongst themselves as to which fool among them had been responsible for allowing her to finish her training. When the news had come that Queen Daenerys had captured King's Landing and that Sansa rode with her, Arya had left the House of Black and White in the middle of the night without asking permission, boarding the first ship to King's Landing that she could find. It was only when the ship was already out to sea that she found that Jaqen had deserted too, rising from where he'd been lounging in her cabin chair, his eyes twinkling ironically at her as though she were the intruder.

She crossed her arms and glared at him.

'They'll kill you,' she snapped, 'I can take care of m – '

Jaqen laid a finger on her lips before softly kissing them.

'A girl says nothing,' he had murmured. And she hadn't.

A roar from the crowd showed that the Queen had arrived, her braided silver hair shining in the morning light. Arya was close enough to see that the rumours of the Queen's unearthly beauty were far from untrue, and that the magnificent white and blue gown she wore ended at her calves, revealing Dothraki riding leathers and boots. Jaqen smiled drily at her as she unconsciously nodded her approval.

Daenerys was surrounded by fierce-looking Dothraki, and warriors, and advisors who bore the colouring of the Free Cities, but Arya saw no one else she recognised apart from Tyrion Lannister, who stood at the Queen's side dressed in a magnificent doublet that displayed the colours of his House. He looked sombre, his face so pale that it might have been grey. Daenerys moved to the bottom of the steps to speak with the first few lines of people, and mothers began to pass their babies to the front so that the Queen might bless them. Arya looked about for her sister, but Sansa was nowhere to be seen.

The blessings the crowd were showering on their new Queen soon turned to curses as a line began to be cleared from the back. They were bringing out the Hand.

Arya looked about her in disgust as he was led through the crowd, all but invisible behind the guards that were clearly determined to get him to the block alive. Ten years, and nothing in this shithole of a capital had changed, its inhabitants still screaming in delight for the death of someone most of them had never seen before.

The Hand was dragged to the top of the stairs and forced to his knees, his guards taking up positions on either side of the Queen. The Hand glanced up at the crowd, scorn pouring from every line in his face, his pale blue eyes like ice.

Arya's heart lurched. It was Tywin Lannister.