So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings.
SANDOR WRAPPED AN arm around her waist, pulling her up against him beneath the patch blanket of pelts. He enjoyed the sight and feel of her breasts pressing into his chest. Anya laid her hand on the scarred half of his face. Soft beams of sunlight shone through the small slot windows of the lord and lady's chambers. Duty would call soon or the maester would come knocking, but until then they would relish in these rare moments of peace.
Rough hands trailed down her sides, lingering over her scars. Anya draped her leg over his waist and used the leverage to place her lips upon his. Sandor groaned and decided if every day could begin like this one he would be the happiest man in Westeros.
One of his hands found the wet heat between her thighs. She whimpered against his neck as his fingers spread her open. "Fuck, little rose," he hissed, voice low and rough, unable to keep his desire restrained –it'd been weeks since he'd taken her.
"That's gross," a small voice said from the door.
"Arya!" Anya shrieked. She scrambled to push Sandor away and gather up a pelt of fur to cover herself as she sat up, back ramrod straight. Arya Stark had never seen her aunt turn so red –not even when whispers got out during a harvest feast that someone had spotted her and Jory Cassel lying together in the stables one night after an evening ride. "How long have you been there?" Anya asked, unsure if she really wanted to know.
Arya shrugged, glancing down at the dirt beneath her nailbeds. "Few minutes," she answered, indifferent. The Hound grumbled something indiscernible under his breath. The girl clasped her hands behind her back. "Glover said they'll be here by midday," she announced before retreating down the hall.
Anya Whent pressed her face into Sandor's chest and heaved a deep sigh, knowing it was time ready for the day and tend to her duties. Thick, calloused fingers worked their way through her honeyed hair –now tinged with silver. Reluctant, the Lady of Harrenhal pulled herself away from Sandor and rose.
He watched as she moved around the room –gathering up her discarded stays and shift– with the faintest of smiles. Time and age had tempered her once sharp features into soft curves, but the strength in her was still evident, even in simple movements. Anya slipped into the coarse woolen shift and met Sandor's lingering gaze in the mirror's reflection. Despite everything, she still flushed under his intense stare.
The reserve of Northern troops regrouped with those who had lived through the decimation of King's Landing. After conferring with the men and Sansa, they agreed the next two days were to be given for rest, but on the morn of the third day, they would march on the capital.
Sansa, Arya, and Anya rode at the head of the Northern forces. Two wolves and a bat –but they all had claws and sharp teeth to bare. Trailing behind were Sandor, Brienne of Tarth, Ser Davos, and a cart pulling Bran. The armies of the Vale and Riverlands rallied behind Robin Arryn and Edmure Tully. The three factions melded into one just outside the ruined Dragon Gate of King's Landing.
To the south of the capital, a host of Dornishmen waited, headed by Trentan Uller –son of Harmen Uller and Alyssa Gargalen. House Uller of Hellholt had ascended to the Dornish throne in the wake of House Martell's downfall. No doubt Trentan would be eager to learn of what had become of his baseborn sister, Ellaria. Rumors said Cersei had kept her locked away in the black cells –if they were true then the fate of Ellaria was clear.
Fours armies united for a single cause. All prepared to retake the city by force if it came to it. By the end of the day, Jon would be free either by truce or war and the fate of Westeros would be decided.
The leader of the Unsullied met them at the gate and glanced between the Westerosi host and those at its head. Leaders of the remaining Great Houses and respectable figureheads had converged on King's Landing. Grey Worm bade his men stand down. They were to be escorted to the Dragonpit on Rhaenys's Hill to await an audience with the Unsullied leader and their two prisoners.
Tyrion Lannister was brought forth –still shackled for his treason against a dead queen. His eyes darted around those gathered but found grim and unsmiling faces looking back at him. Anya and her nieces exchanged looks. The Unsullied's second prisoner was nowhere to be found. The King in the North had more cause to be at this meeting than a half-man who'd helped see a tyrant rise to power. "Where is Jon?" Anya Whent demanded.
"He is our prisoner," Grey Worm refuted, hands clasped behind his back.
"So is Lord Tyrion," Sansa snapped.
"Jon Snow cannot go free," Grey Worm told them. Anya's jaw clenched, nails digging deep into her knees. She was tired of bloodshed but she would spill as much blood as needed to free the boy she raised –the closest thing she'd ever have to a son. Sandor laid his hand on her shoulder and discussions commenced.
When the council drew to a close, Bran was named King of the Six Kingdoms as the North had declared its independence. Sansa would reign as Queen in the North and Anya knew she would be a good queen.
Tyrion Lannister found Anya Whent at the entrance to the Dragonpit. She was near tears. The Imp didn't understand how she could be upset –a tyrant was dead and her family all but controlled Westeros. "I just saved your nephew's life and crowned the other a king," he remarked. The way he spoke made it sound like she should be grateful for his actions.
The dolefulness of her expression twisted into anger. Jon would be sent back into the unforgiving North and Bran now bore the weight of the kingship –a dangerous profession. "I've lost my brothers and sister, my mother and father, and too many friends to count." Anya Whent's life had been defined by losses, but after each one she'd risen from the ruins and carried on stronger than before. Now though, she vowed not to lose another loved one for the rest of her days. "If you do anything to put any of the Starks in danger then Bran will be looking for a new Hand."
The Imp's lips quirked upward. Her fierce love and determination to see her nieces and nephews' safety reminded Tyrion of his sister. Cersei's devout love for her children was her one redeeming quality –that and her cheekbones. "Is that a threat?" He inquired.
"No, Imp," Anya answered staring down at him, "it's a promise." Tyrion Lannister looked up at Anya Whent with his mismatched eyes and disfigured nose and felt a chill creep down his spine. He'd felt the same kind of chill when Daenerys Targaryen burned a surrendering city. She was a woman of commitment, and Tyrion had never known her to go back on her word. His life was effectively in her hands and still, he trusted her.
After one of the Unsullied loosened the shackles on his hands, Jon wanted to see Anya first. She entered the room where he'd been kept holding a torch aloft. The flames were blinding and reminded him he hadn't seen fire since Drogon smelted the Iron Throne. Anya placed the torch in a twisted iron sconce and sat next to Jon on a cold, stone bench.
Jon's dark hair was a tangled, curly mess and the scruff on his jaw had turned into a full beard. "Never seen you with a beard before," she noted, trying to make light of the grim situation. He wanted desperately to be able to laugh, but his throat was dry and tight and no sound would come. Jon Snow shifted and caved in to his aunt as he did after waking up from a bad dream when he was a boy.
Anya held him tight against her bosom, smoothing down his knotted hair. "I keep asking if I did the right thing," he choked. The same thoughts and questions plagued him every day. They don't get to choose. When he closed his eyes, he could still see the shock in Daenerys's when the blade slipped between her ribs.
"I think you did," she whispered. Anya had witnessed the Targaryen girl's compassion. Burning supplies and food to spite the Lannisters. Forcing injured and tired men to march into another war. Slaughtering the innocent and those that had laid down their arms. Her reign hadn't even begun and was already built upon the corpses of thousands. Jon sat back up and looked at his hands, unconsciously flexing his burned fingers. Anya laid her hand on his cheek, bringing his focus back to her. If not for his choice then she would have been put to the sword or flame when Daenerys Targaryen demanded her fealty. "Oftentimes the right choice is the hardest, Jon," she reassured him.
Jon hung his head. He heard similar words in the past. "You sound like father," he noted. It was a compliment to be compared to the honorable Eddard Stark. Ned would be proud of his children. "What're they gonna do to me?"
"Nothing," Anya told him, musing his hair. That earned her a dry chuckle. "I won't let them harm a single hair on your head." He finally smiled, an echo of the toothy grins he'd worn as a young boy chasing after Robb. "The remaining Unsullied and Dothraki will sail back to Essos," she sighed. "They want to see you return to the Night's Watch."
His brows furrowed. "There's still a Night's Watch?" He asked, voice cracking.
Anya gave a small shrug. "Not sure if there is anymore, but they didn't know either." She rose from the stone bench and reached for the torch again. "We can talk more over supper," she announced, motioning for him to follow her.
Two morns later, several ships were waiting in Blackwater Bay but only one was sailing to White Harbor. Sansa, Arya, and King Bran gathered on the dock. Jon was dressed in all black. He wasn't Jon Stark or Aegon Targaryen. He was just Jon Snow and for him, that was enough.
"Always was your color," Anya told him coming to stand behind him on the dock. She bit her cheek to stay the tears. Saying goodbye once was hard enough. This was almost unbearable. "You don't have to go, Jon," she told him in a low voice. As soon as the remainder of Daenerys's army had sailed they would never know if he had boarded the ship to White Harbor or not.
He took her shaking hands. "Maybe that's true," he said, then he thought of Ghost and Tormund –and Ygritte. Days in the Night's Watch had been difficult, but there he had found friends and some semblance of happiness. "And maybe I belong in the True North." Jon glanced down at their hands. There was once a time when their roles were reversed when she was the one to comfort him. "You can come visit."
Anya found it within herself to smile and Jon wrapped her in his arms, placing a soft kiss against her forehead as he stepped back. A hand fell upon her shoulder –the weight and size familiar– as she watched the dinghy row out to the ship with white sails waiting in the harbor. Anya covered the hand with her own and leaned back into Sandor.
In the days following Jon's departure, Sansa and the Northern host left on the Kingsroad –she would need to begin preparing for her coronation. In those days, Arya had gathered a group of seafarers to crew her own ship –Nymeria. She was making good on her plans to explore. The morning she planned to set sail, the girl found her aunt and the Hound waiting for her on the docks.
Arya Stark glanced over her shoulder as she stepped down into the rowboat. Her smile a mix of Ned and Lyanna's. "Sandor," she called. The Hound looked up –he didn't think the Stark girl had ever called him by name before. "Thank you." Anya gripped onto Sandor's hand as he nodded, offering a reserved smile to the girl. Arya sat on the small bench and picked up the oars, rowing toward her ship and adventure.
In the wake of Edmure Tully's incompetence, Bran declared Harrenhal the seat of the Riverlands. House Whent would serve as the envoy to its people and king -as it once had many years ago. As such, Anya was given a seat on the small council. When the first small council meeting was called, she and Sandor reported to the capital from Harrenhal.
Anya entered the council chamber, surprised to see who else had already arrived for the meeting. "Ser Bronn of the Blackwater," she remarked taking a seat across from him, barely able to hide the disdain in her tone. Once she might have considered him a friend, but that was before he'd put an arrow in her.
The sellsword shifted in his seat. "Lord of Highgarden now too," he quipped, eyeing the Hound standing behind her chair, "and Master of Coin."
"Sellsword," she reminded him. He seemed quick to forget his humble and treacherous origins. The Whent girl leaned forward. She knew his loyalty could be bought and with enough coin, it could easily be swayed. "If you ever betray Bran," she began in a low, grating voice, "I'll be the one who puts an arrow through your eye and I won't miss." Sandor Clegane snorted, he'd like to see that.
Bronn sat back in his chair, his cocksure attitude unchanged by the threat. "I'd expect nothin' less from a lady of your reputation."
The tension within the room did not fade when the Hand of the King entered. Tyrion looked between the two and spared a fleeting glance at the Hound –he was Anya Whent's shadow now. The Imp passed over his chair and poured a cup of pale Arbor Gold. "To old friends?" He inquired, smiling at the sharp look both Bronn and Anya offered him.
In the months and years following the devastation, King's Landing had been rebuilt in full. Some stone was still tinged by flame, but those scars would never fade. Harrenhal was repaired in full too, and the seat of the Riverlands had returned to the great castle. Anya governed the lands as the Lady of Harrenhal and Sandor as her sworn shield, for he would take no titles or vows.
For all her inexperience, the people felt she was a good and just ruler who enforced peace and took care of even the lowliest of peasants. Such quality life had not even existed before the War of Five Kings or Robert's Rebellion. Time had sneaked in and stolen her recklessness since the wars were over. Peace reigned and Westeros prospered for perhaps the first time in almost a century.
Winter was coming to pass too. The first buds of flowers and blades of green grass were peeking through melting snow. It was after the last feast commemorating the late Shella Whent that Sandor led her into Harrenhal's godswood. He'd tried making her his wife before the Long Night, but she hadn't let him say the words. Now Sandor knew it was time he made good on his promise.
A full moon shone down upon them, silver light mixing with the warm glow of the torch Sandor held aloft. They stopped before the weirwood and the Hound turned to face her. Anya's cheeks were flushed from both the wine and cold wind, her lips rosy pink. A streak of pure silver hair blew before her face.
Sandor took her in his arms beneath the heart tree and the vows slipped past his scarred lips easier than he ever thought they would have. "I am yours, and you are mine, from this day until the end of my days." Those were the only vows he'd ever take. She repeated the same vows, smiling with tears glistening in her steel eyes. Sandor Clegane stooped down and kissed her with only the Old Gods as witnesses.
Every so often, she called upon the children of those who remained and helped in the castle to tell stories the way Old Nan used to at Winterfell. She sat in the center of a group of young boys and girls –pondering what tales would be good for a chilly spring night. "Tell us again about when giants walked among us," a young girl pleaded. "What about the one with castles made of winter?" Another asked. Anya could think of a time where both requests would be satisfied –the Age of Heroes.
Sandor watched and listened from across the Hall of a Hundred Hearths and came to realize she had never been a wilting rose. No, he thought to himself with a smile Anya Whent is a rose that has just now bloomed.
After almost 5 years and over 160k words, we have come to the end of Anya Whent's tale. Thank you to my readers, who have offered continual support and feedback.
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