CHAPTER THREE
[ the girl from volantis ]
EVEN IN GRIEF, THE WAR CARRIED ON. They had to decide where they would go from then on, for Robb had declared that he would take Joffrey's head. Which king that had recently taken up arms against the boy would they support: Robert's older brother Stannis, or his younger brother Renly? Renly was the better man, but Stannis had a better claim. Robb, Asena, and the northern lords gathered to debate what to do next after the sun had set.
"The proper course is clear," one said, "pledge fealty to King Renly and move south to join our forces with his."
"Renly is not the king," Robb told him, interrupting.
"You cannot mean to hold to Joffrey, my lord. He put your father to death."
"That doesn't make Renly king," he retorted to the lord only, then projected his voice so everyone could hear. "He's Robert's youngest brother. Bran can't be lord of Winterfell before me, Renly can't be king before Stannis."
"Do you mean to declare us for Stannis?"
"Renly is not right!" Someone shouted from the back.
"My lords," Greatjon Umber began, standing from his seat and walking to the front of the room, "my lords! Here is what I say to these two kings." He leaned over to spit into the dirt. "Renly Baratheon is nothing to me. Nor Stannis neither. Why should they rule over me and mine from some flowery seat in the south? What do they know of the Wall, or the Wolfswood? Even their gods are wrong!" Laughter followed his statement, rippling over the crowd.
"Why shouldn't we rule ourselves again?" He asked, and it was then that Asena understood what was about to happen. "It was the dragons we bowed to. And now the dragons are dead." She suppressed the smile pushing its way onto her lips at that remark. The Greatjon then drew his sword, and pointed it at Robb. "There sits the only king I mean to bend my knee to. The King in the North!"
He knelt before Robb as he declared this. Robb stood, awaiting more, and more he got. Another lord and Theon followed, both pledging themselves to the King in the North.
Asena took a deep breath, and stood from her seat beside Robb. She met his eyes and gave him a small smile, before drawing her sword and dropping to one knee. "You are my family," she told him, looking up at her friend, her brother, her king, "and I am with you until the end. The King in the North!"
Echoes of 'The King in the North!' echoed across the crowd of men, repeated again and again and again as men drew their swords and knelt before him, and as Robb stood there in front of them, he looked every bit a king.
THE WAR RAGED ON, and Catelyn rode south to Renly Baratheon, hoping for an alliance. Robb had no interest in the Iron Throne, and hoped their mother might negotiate with the youngest Baratheon for northern freedom, should he become king. Theon sailed for his home, looking for help from his father. And Asena and Robb remained, winning battles. Winning the war.
A most decisive victory occured at Oxcross, where by the time the sun began to dip in the sky, all of their opponents were dead on the ground. Asena waded through the heaps of Lannister corpses, looking for each of her friends whom she'd lost track of during the battle, hoping to count all among the living.
She saw Wendel Manderly still standing, bracing himself on one of the carts in exhaustion. Galbart Glover also remained alive, and flashed her a wide grin as he passed by. Smalljon Umber clapped her on the back when he found him, and the two friends clasped forearms, laughing at a joke Smalljon told.
Dacey Mormont, last of all, came bounding up behind her and linked their arms, beginning to walk in step with her. "Another day amongst the living, eh, Asena?"
"Aye," she replied, nodding and leaning against her friend's shoulder as they walked. Dacey had wiped away none of the blood on her face but around her eyes, the blood coating her skin not seeming to bother her in the least. "You fought well today."
"As did you," Dacey complimented. "Another victory with a woman leading the van. The men are in disbelief. It's killing them."
"Well, let us hope too many do not perish. I would hate to be the reason our numbers diminish and we lose this war." She spotted Robb then, talking to a woman she had never seen before. And her brother, with a moony look on his face she had never seen before either. "If you will excuse me, Dacey. I have an urgent need to tease our fearless king."
"Of course," Dacey chuckled, letting go of her arm so that she could make her way over to Robb.
The woman was riding away on the back of a cart when she arrived, and Robb had a fond smile on his lips. She approached with a teasing smirk and her arms folded over her chest. "And who might that be?" She asked, getting his attention.
His eyes widened slightly, as if he had been caught in something. "Her name is Talisa. She was tending to the wounded."
"Talisa," she hummed, "do I know her family?"
"No, she's from Volantis."
"She is very beautiful."
"Aye," Robb replied, a little breathily, "she is."
Just as she was parting her lips for a teasing remark, a voice from behind interrupted them. "Another victory, I see." Catelyn.
She turned to face her mother, and did not hesitate in taking the older woman into an embrace, though her mother's clothes were pristine and hers caked in blood and muck. "I have missed you, mother."
"As have I," Robb said from behind her.
"Are you all right?" Asena pulled away to look at their mother, inspecting her for injuries. They had heard of the death of Renly Baratheon, whom Catelyn had gone to see, just the night before, with differing accounts of how the death occurred. "When we heard, I feared for your safety."
"I am perfectly fine, Asena. I had a protector." Catelyn gestured to a woman behind her, larger than Asena had ever seen. Tall and broad, with light blonde hair and stunning blue eyes, the woman wore armour and a longsword. "This is Lady Brienne of Tarth. Lady Brienne, my daughter Asena and my son, Robb."
Brienne gave both a polite nod. "Princess. Your Grace."
Princess. She supposed she was one, now, again, as Robb had made her, his eldest sibling, his heir, even despite the protests of the lords. Over the weeks everyone in camp had been so familiar, calling her by her name or still in the habit of 'my lady', that she had not heard the title from anyone's lips as of yet. Princess. The last person whose lips she had heard that title from, other than the two Lannisters, was her father, the day he saved her life.
"Come, Princess," he said, kneeling down to be level with her. His voice was soothing, gentle. "I won't hurt you."
"My father said the wolves were trying to hurt us," she replied, eyeing the wolf sigil on his coat.
"Not all wolves are vicious and ravenous creatures. Some are kind. Just as not all dragons are big, fire-breathing beasts." He held out his hand, offering it to her. "I won't hurt you, Princess. I promise, I won't ever hurt you."
Perhaps it was the innocence of childhood, but she believed him. And he wrapped that coat with the wolf sigil on it around her, picked her up, and took her home.
"It is an honour to meet you, Lady Brienne," Asena replied, forcing the memory out of her head.
Before Brienne could respond, Roose Bolton interrupted with news. The news of Theon's betrayal.
THEON TOOK WINTERFELL. Robb was up in arms over it, as they all were. He wished to ride there himself, to pass the sentence and swing the sword with his own hand, as their father had always done.
It was then that Asena asked Lord Bolton and their mother to leave the tent, to give them a moment alone. She remembered what their father told her, before he left Winterfell for King's Landing. Robb will hear your counsel, if no one else's. She had to steer him toward the right path. Or, the only path she could see to be right.
Once they were left alone in the tent, Asena turned to Robb, who was boiling with anger, as he had been since they heard the news, with soft eyes and a gentle tone. "You cannot ride there yourself. No matter how much you may wish to."
"A king who cannot keep his own castle is no king," he retorted. A truth, to be sure, but even still, she knew that he could not go.
"We have the Lannisters on the run," she reminded him, "we are winning this war, we have momentum. Lord Bolton has already offered to send his son to retake Winterfell. Let him. He will bring you Theon, and you will take his head."
"It should be me."
"It should," she conceded, "but it cannot be. Robb," she said, taking his hand and squeezing as she met his eyes, "if you look back, you are lost." An old phrase she had heard Rhaegar use once. It had been with her all her life, the one thing that had kept her moving forward.
The words seemed to impact him, at least a little. He struggled within himself for a while, trying to decide which option would be best. In the end, he nodded his head and said, "Tell Lord Bolton to send his son."
"SO," ASENA BEGAN ON THE RIDE BACK FROM THE CRAG, "you are getting rather close with your Volantis girl." It was a long ride back to their encampment from the Crag, and she and Robb rode side by side the entire time, talking. Only when they were far enough ahead of their party did she dare to broach the subject of the girl from Volantis.
"Talisa," he reminded her.
"Right, Talisa." She glanced over at him, his eyes facing straight ahead and jaw clenched. "You wish to marry her, don't you?"
"I cannot."
"I know that you cannot. But you want to."
"Yes," he admitted.
"Offer Frey something else. Someone else," she proposed. "He will view it as a slight, to be sure, but it is nothing to be worried over."
"Offer someone else's hand? Whose do you propose? Yours?"
A laugh bubbled up from within her chest and spilled out as she shook her head. "No. Not me. And if you ever did, I would kill you, king or no."
"Who, then?"
"I do not know, Robb. We have many family members, pick one. But if you love Talisa, then you must marry her." Her tone was firm, with no room for argument. "I want at least one of us to be happy. It might as well be you, being the king and all."
"Mother will not be pleased," he said, putting a broad smile on her face.
"Mother will understand," she told him, "eventually."
There was a beat of silence, before Robb turned his head to look at her, and said, "it does not have to be only one of us, you know. You can be happy."
"Can you make him come back?" She asked, and his following silence gave her her answer. "Then it will just have to be you, then."
"You could meet someone else."
"There is no one else," she rejected, her words clipped. "There will never be anyone else." He let out a defeated breath, and returned his gaze to the road ahead. Asena reached over and sets her hand on his arm, a comforting smile on her face. When finally he met her eyes again she told him, "I have made my peace with my future. But I have not made peace with yours. Follow your heart, Robb. If only so I may live vicariously through you."
A hearty chuckle left his lips, and she knew that she had won.
THEIR SHORT MOMENT OF PEACE WAS JUST THAT, SHORT. For when they returned to their encampment, everything was in shambles. The Kingslayer murdered Torrhen Karstark, and their mother had let him go, sending Lady Brienne with him to return him to King's Landing in exchange for Sansa and Arya. The Karstarks were furious now, and it would take much to sate their bloodlust.
Robb, livid and rightly so, put guards on their mother at all times and doubled the number of men out searching for the Kingslayer. The guards on their mother is one matter on which, no matter how hard she fought, she could not change Robb's mind. When night fell, Asena was exhausted from quelling unfavourable talk of Robb and breaking up fights between the men, who had been drinking copiously since midday.
But right before she was about to fall into bed, Robb entered her tent, a strange, giddy smile on his lips and an excitement in his eye. "Asena, come with me."
"What?" Her brows furrowed at the look on his face, having not seen it for some time.
"Come with me," he repeated. "I want you to be with me for something."
"Alright," she said slowly, still a little apprehensive and quite a lot sure that her brother had gone mad. She followed him through the camp and out into the woods where, by a tree, waited Talisa and a septon. "Oh," she breathed in realization upon seeing it, "oh, Robb."
He was marrying his love, as she had advised, and wished for her to attend the ceremony. Wished for her to be, as it appeared, the only attendant of the ceremony. The thought was enough to touch her heart and bring a tear to her eye.
"I wanted you to be here," he explained. "If no one else, I wanted you to be here. My sister. My friend."
"Thank you," she told him, sincerely. She then looked to Talisa, who was positively glowing in the low light of the moon. "And you, Talisa, thank you for allowing me to be here."
"It is my pleasure," Talisa replied. "He speaks so highly of you. You, if no one else, deserves to be here, for you are Robb's sister, and now you will be mine."
She stood back as the septon began, and as she watched her brother marry the woman he loved, she could not help the feeling of hope and warmth that built in her chest.
HARRENHAL WAS DESERTED WHEN THEY ARRIVE. They had planned on an assault, killing the Lannister soldiers and taking the castle by force. Instead, they found an empty castle littered with the bodies of slaughtered northern prisoners. It was here that they received two devastating ravens.
The first sent news of their grandfather, Hoster Tully's, death. The second, news from Bolton's son. When he'd gotten to Winterfell it was deserted, and there was no sign of Bran and Rickon. Robb had hope that they escaped, or that Theon took them when he left, but Asena was not so sure.
They rode the next day to Riverrun for the funeral, leaving Roose Bolton in command at Harrenhal. Upon their arrival at Riverrun Asena practically jumped off of her horse to greet their great-uncle, Brynden Tully. The Blackfish. Quite possibly her favourite extended family member, including her uncle Benjen.
The Blackfish was rough and crass and painfully funny, and each time they had met they had gotten on splendidly. He was waiting for her, too, and as soon as she entered the castle behind Robb and Talisa, he opened his arms to her with a smile.
"I have missed you, Uncle," she said as she embraced him.
"And I have missed you, She-Wolf," he replied. "I've heard that you have been leading the vanguard."
"And winning every battle."
"That's my girl." He clapped her on her shoulder as they parted, a proud gleam in his eyes. He threw an arm around her shoulders to lead her inside with the rest, where a small group holds a meeting.
Asena's uncle Edmure was thoroughly berated by both Robb and Brynden for taking a Stone Mill instead of following orders and luring The Mountain west. He also took two Lannister boys, Willem and Martyn, cousins of cousins that will not matter to Tywin Lannister outside of their surname.
Days later, they were roused from their sleep to the news that Lord Rickard Karstark, seeking revenge for the murder of his son, had murdered the two Lannister boys. Robb ignored the counsel of Talisa and their mother, and heeded hers instead: this cannot stand, Robb. Not only the killing of prisoners, but children. He must pay for this, even if his men leave us for it.
Robb took Rickard's head, and indeed, the Karstark men marched home in response. Robb decided that they had to make amends with Walder Frey if they were to have enough men to take Casterly Rock. They held another meeting, and together convinced their uncle Edmure to marry one of Frey's daughters, in order to mend the relationship that Robb's marriage to Talisa had fractured.
And so, the journey to the Twins began.