A/N: The first POV here was supposed be the ending of the last chapter but it got too long. So now it's part of this chapter, enjoy! :D
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Year 299 AC/8 ABY
Beyond The Wall
The cockpit of the Jade's Fire was a sealed coffin of warmth and humming avionics, a sharp, antiseptic counterpoint to the white hell screaming outside the viewport. Mara Jade sat rigid in the pilot's couch, the leather groaning under the tension of her grip. Her green eyes weren't on the swirling snow that battered the transparisteel, but on the tactical display, narrowing with the cold calculation of a predator facing a new, apex threat.
She wasn't looking at the view; the blizzard raging in the mountain pass was thick enough to blind a bantha. She was reading the impossible.
"What in the Emperor's black bones..." she whispered, the words tasting like copper in her mouth.
The sensor array was throwing back garbage data. Or at least, it should have been garbage. The valley floor at the base of the sheer cliffs was swarming with movement. Hundreds of contacts. But the thermal imaging was inverting. These weren't heat signatures. They were voids. Walking, fighting pockets of absolute zero that registered colder than the ice around them.
Dead, her instincts screamed, a primal revulsion punching through her carefully constructed mental shields. They're dead, but they're moving.
Then, the center of the display turned white.
A single, blinding spike of energy erupted from the cluster of warm life-forms backed against the rock. It was a kinetic shockwave of impossible magnitude, radiating outward from a single point.
"Show-off," she breathed, though the sneer died halfway up her throat.
The telemetry scrolled too fast to read, but the holographic wireframe told the story. That farmboy didn't just push the enemy back; he detonated the air around him. He turned the atmosphere into a physical hammer. The numerous cold signatures were rag-dolled backward, smashing into the treeline with enough force to pulverize bone.
Mara crossed her arms, her fingers digging into her biceps to suppress a tremor that had nothing to do with the cockpit temperature.
He fights like a child with a god's weapon, she thought, the headache behind her eyes pulsing in time with the sensor spike. All that raw power, spilled out like water. Palpatine would have surgically stopped their hearts from orbit. Vader would have crushed their tracheas with a thought. Skywalker just... yelled at the world until it obeyed.
But the fear lingered, cold and greasy in her gut. She had sensed the targets before the blast. A hive-mind of rotting malice.
She tapped a sequence into the nav-computer, her movements sharp and jerky. She needed to get off this rock, or at least get high enough to break orbit. If Skywalker was expending that kind of power to swat flies, the Empire needed to know why the flies were getting back up.
"R-unit," she called out. "Boost power to the subspace transceiver. Prepare for a sub-light burn. We're punching through the cloud layer."
The droid whistled a nervous confirmation as the Jade's Fire banked hard, engines screaming as they fought the planet's gravity well. The whiteout of the storm faded into the black of the upper atmosphere. The stars appeared, cold and distant.
Mara keyed the subspace transceiver, aiming the burst toward the relay buoy she had seeded in the outer system days ago. "This is Jade calling Chimaera. Priority One clearance. Code: Paladin-Shadow-Seven."
She waited.
Static hissed through the cockpit speakers.
She frowned and adjusted the frequency modulation. "Repeat. Jade to Chimaera. Do you copy?"
More static. But it wasn't the clean, white noise of empty space. It was a garbled, shrieking sound, like metal tearing under stress. The signal strength meter was bouncing erratically, redlining and then dropping to zero.
Mara narrowed her eyes. She reached out with her feelings, dropping the mental shields she kept tightly wound around her mind just an inch.
The sensation hit her instantly. It wasn't technical interference. It wasn't just the planet.
It was the sector.
The Void she had crossed to get here wasn't empty; it was a wall. The Force in this entire region of space was a chaotic, churning mess of background radiation. The storm below wasn't just weather; it was a symptom of a dampening field that bled into subspace, scattering comms signals like leaves in a wind tunnel.
"Jammed," she hissed, slamming her hand onto the console. "It's not just a cage. It's a blind spot. The Chimaera could be just a parsec away and they'd never hear me."
She couldn't hail Thrawn. She couldn't upload the telemetry of Skywalker's little light show. She was dark, cut off from the only person in the galaxy who might appreciate the tactical nightmare developing on the surface.
"Fine," she snapped, checking her fuel reserves. "If I can't talk to the Grand Admiral, I need local intel. And I'm not getting it from the dead or snow."
She banked the ship, looking down at the planet spinning slowly beneath her. From this altitude, the geography was stark, a white canvas painted with grey rock.
One feature dominated the northern hemisphere. A massive structure flashed on the sensors, a jagged white scar stretching from horizon to horizon.
Mara stared at the tactical display. She reached out to it with the Force, expecting to feel the cold stone or the ice.
She felt... nothing.
It wasn't just inanimate matter. It was a void. A wound in the Force where energy simply ceased to exist. It felt like the airlock of a Star Destroyer—a barrier between the living world and the vacuum. It made her skin crawl.
"Ancient tech," she whispered, shivering despite the cockpit's warmth. "Or ancient magic. Either way, I don't like it."
She turned her attention South, eager to look away from that abyss.
She engaged the long-range scanners, searching the southern hemisphere for signs of industry. Heat plumes. Coherent energy output. The seat of power.
The sensors swept past the scattered villages of the North and locked onto a massive thermal cluster on the southeastern coast.
"There you are," she murmured.
It was a sprawling urban center. Hundreds of thousands of life signs. A massive fortress structure dominating the skyline. It wasn't Coruscant—it looked made of mud and stone compared to Imperial City—but it was the hive.
"Primary population center," Mara noted, observing the density readings. "High concentration of biologicals. That's where the leadership will be."
She locked the coordinates. She didn't have a name for the city, but she knew what it represented: Gossip and Leverage .
The Jade's Fire screamed as the inertial dampeners fought the reentry turbulence, dropping out of orbit and leveling off for a supersonic cruise toward the capital.
And then, it hit her.
It wasn't a physical, but her head snapped back against the headrest as if she'd been punched.
Mara gasped, her hands tightening on the yoke until her knuckles turned white.
It was an intrusion.
She was used to the cold. The Dark Side felt like ice water, like the void between stars. But this... this was kind of cold. It was a surge of Light Side energy that crashed against her mental shields with the subtlety of a thermal detonator.
And felt like response.
"Gah!" Mara rubbed her temple, a migraine spiking instantly behind her eyes.
She realized what it was. It wasn't a random scream. It was an echo.
"Skywalker," she whispered, realizing the connection.
Whoever this was, they had felt Skywalker's massive display of power at the valley. They were reaching out to him. A child shouting across a dark room because they heard a familiar voice.
"I felt you," the presence seemed to broadcast, raw and unshielded. "I saw you in the blizzard!"
Mara winced. "You're loud. You're so loud."
A "Wild User" with terrifying potential, screaming into the void, trying to connect with his Master.
Mara gritted her teeth. The throbbing in her head intensified.
That is a liability, she thought, her internal monologue clipped and professional. An untrained user this strong, communicating with Skywalker? If I ignore this, Skywalker doubles his strength.
She checked her vector. She was on a direct course for the southern capital. The mission was waiting. The local warlords were waiting.
But Mara Jade hated loose ends. And a Force signature this loud, this uncontrolled, was a loose end that could unravel everything.
"Curiosity killed the cat," she muttered to herself. "But satisfaction brought it back."
She disengaged the autopilot.
"New heading," she told the empty cockpit. "Let's go silence the noise."
She banked the Jade's Fire hard to port. The ship carved a long, graceful arc through the thin air, turning away from the gold of the South and diving toward the grey stone and white snow of the North.
The nav-computer flashed the destination coordinates: A solitary fortress in the middle of the wilderness.
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Beyond The Wall
The rucksack straps dug into Luke Skywalker's shoulders as he walked with Robb. It wasn't just the cold that gnawed at him; it was the silence of the woods, heavy and watchful, broken only by the crunch of boots on snow and the labored breathing of the men behind him.
He had packed the bag himself in the Falcon's med-bay, methodically taking bacta patches, stim-shots, and synth-flesh bandages. He knew what happened when armies marched through hell. He had seen it on Hoth, on Endor, on a dozen worlds whose names were just coordinates in a datapad now. Glory was a story told in taprooms; war was the smell of cauterized flesh and the silence of empty bunks.
"My Lord," Smalljon Umber's voice boomed, shattering the quiet. The giant Northman was practically vibrating, his breath pluming in massive clouds. "We cannot keep this a secret! A metal dragon that shoots lightning? We have the power of the gods in our pocket! Let the Lannisters tremble!"
Luke didn't break stride, but he adjusted the pack. "It's not magic, Smalljon. It's technology. Engineering. Bolts, wires, and fuel."
"It flies without wings!" Smalljon argued, slapping his thigh. "It spits fire that isn't fire! If that isn't magic, I'm a maid!"
"People fear what they don't understand," Luke said, his voice calm but cutting through the Umber's bluster. "If we reveal too much, too fast, you won't have allies. You'll have a panic. The Faith will call it demonry. The Maesters will call it an abomination. You don't want to fight a war on two fronts—one against the Lannisters, and one against the superstition of your own people."
Smalljon grumbled, kicking a clump of snow. "Seems a waste. Like having a direwolf and keeping it in a kennel."
Robb Stark walked silently beside Luke. The young lord's face was grim, his eyes scanning the tree line, but his right hand kept drifting to his belt. Not to the castle-forged steel sword at his left hip, but to the cylindrical metal hilt clipped on his right.
Luke watched the movement out of the corner of his eye. He recognized the itch. He had felt it himself, decades ago, walking the swamps of Dagobah, wanting to ignite the blade just to feel the hum, to feel the power that made him different.
"Don't," Luke said softly.
Robb flinched, his hand freezing on the aluminum emitter. "I wasn't—"
He looked back at the Smalljon.
"They will know," Luke said, shifting his gaze to include the stone-faced Magnar of Thenn. "Your clans and his. But right now, they are running on fear and instinct. If we stop to explain the impossible, they will stop to question it. And if they stop, they die. Let us get them to safety before we ask them to believe."
They continued the trek. The Falcon was miles back now, tucked into a deep ravine under a camouflage net and a layer of fresh snow. To the locals, it was just another snowdrift. To Luke, it was the only lifeboat on a sinking ship.
They were nearing the Vanguard of the retreat. The smell of woodsmoke reached them first, faint and acrid, followed by the murmuring of thousands of people moving through the deep drifts.
Then, Luke stopped.
He didn't slow down; he went from a march to a statue in a single heartbeat.
Robb stopped a pace later, his hand going to his sabre. "Master?"
Luke didn't answer. He closed his eyes.
The Force wasn't whispering today. It was screaming.
Death.
"They are under attack," Luke said, his eyes snapping open. He turned, looking back the way they had come, past the trees, toward the tail of the great, sluggish column of refugees. "The Rearguard."
"The Walkers?" Sigorn asked, hefting his bronze axe.
"Wights," Luke corrected. "Many of them. They're chewing up the tail."
Robb drew his sword with a rasp of steel. "Lead the way."
Luke looked at the boy. He saw the courage, the Stark fire. But he also saw the deep snow, the heavy furs, the human limitations.
"No," Luke said. "You're too slow."
It was a harsh truth, delivered without malice.
Luke unslung the heavy rucksack in one fluid motion and shoved it into Robb's chest. The young lord grunted, stumbling back under the sudden weight.
"Hold this," Luke ordered. "Get to the Vanguard. Rally them. If the rear breaks, the panic will kill more people than the cold."
"Mast—" Robb started.
But Luke was already gone.
Luke called on the Force, letting it flow into his muscles, his tendons, his very cells. He became a conduit for the energy that bound the galaxy together.
To Smalljon and Sigorn, it was terrifying. One second, the Master was standing there, a small man in a black cloak. The next, there was a crack of displaced air, a plume of snow kicked up in a violent wake, and a blur of motion vanishing into the trees faster than a direwolf on the hunt.
The Rearguard was a slaughterhouse.
It was a narrow choke point in the valley, flanked by sheer cliffs of black basalt. The Free Folk had been funneling through it, a desperate river of humanity, when the dead hit them.
Qhorin Halfhand stood at the center of the line, a rock in a stream of blood.
The veteran ranger was fighting with the desperate brilliance of a man who knew he was dying. His longsword was a blur of steel in his left hand. He hacked the arm off a wight wearing the tattered furs of a Thenn, then reversed the stroke to split the skull of a dead crow.
"Hold!" Qhorin roared, his voice ragged. "Shields up! Don't let them through!"
But there were too many.
They spilled over the shield wall like army ants, a writhing mass of rotten flesh and blue eyes. They didn't feel pain. They didn't fear death. They just clawed and bit and stabbed with rusty knives.
A wildling spearman next to Qhorin went down, screaming as three wights dragged him into the snow. The line buckled.
"Back!" Qhorin shouted, slashing a wight across the belly, spilling black, frozen guts that didn't stop the creature. "Fall back to the—"
A shadow fell over him.
Luke Skywalker didn't run into the melee. He arrived from above.
He cleared the thirty-foot shield wall in a single, impossible arc, a black shape silhouetted against the grey sky. He landed in the center of the wight swarm, boots crunching onto the frozen earth.
Snap-hiss.
Green light flooded the pass. In the eternal gloom of the True North, it shone like a trapped star, casting long, frantic shadows against the cliff walls.
The corpses nearest him flinched, shielding milky eyes from the sudden emerald supernova.
Luke didn't wait for them to recover. He planted his boots in the permafrost, shifting immediately into the aggressive high guard of Form V.
He didn't just weather the storm; he redirected it.
A dozen wights crashed against him, a chaotic avalanche of rusted iron and bone. Luke met them with kinetic fury. Snap-hiss-CRACK. He caught a descending axe on the plasma stream, the impact jarring the creature's arm as the ancient steel wept molten tears. He powered through the parry, shoving the superheated blade back to cleave the weapon and the wight wielding it in two, then let the Force guide a savage backhand that shattered the spine of a creature lunging from his blind spot.
He was the Eye of the Storm.
"Get back!" Luke ordered, his voice calm amidst the chaos.
He shifted gears from Djem So so to Ataru.
He exploded into motion. He leaped, the Force propelling him ten feet into the air. He spun, a green buzzsaw. The lightsaber hummed a high-pitched song of destruction.
Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.
He landed, and three wights collapsed, their heads separating from their shoulders in unison. The cauterized stumps didn't bleed; they smoked.
A massive wight, something that might have been a giant once, or perhaps just a monstrously large man, lumbered forward, swinging a tree limb the size of a battering ram.
Luke didn't dodge. He planted his feet. The green blade slid down the club, slicing through the frozen wood like it was smoke, and continued in a lethal upward arc.
The giant wight was bisected from hip to shoulder. It fell in two heavy, smoking pieces.
The swarm hesitated. The mindless hunger of the dead paused in the face of this searing, impossible light.
Luke seized the moment.
He deactivated the blade for a split second, gathering the Force in his left hand. He thrust his palm forward.
PUSH.
The air distorted. A concussion wave slammed into the mass of wights.
Forty of them were lifted off their feet and blasted backward as if hit by a siege weapon. They smashed into the trees, limbs shattering, bodies broken.
The wedge was clear.
Luke reignited the saber, holding it low, the green glow illuminating his face. He wasn't breathing hard. He looked at the remaining wights, and for the first time, the dead seemed afraid to advance.
As silence rushed back into the valley, the only sound was the low, menacing hum of the lightsaber and the crackle of burning flesh.
The wights were down. Piles of smoking limbs lay scattered across the snow. The few that were still twitching were missing heads or legs.
Luke stood amidst the carnage, the green light reflecting off the snow, painting the world in emerald hues.
He took a breath, letting the adrenaline fade, releasing it into the Force. He disengaged the emitter.
Hiss-snap.
The blade vanished. The darkness crashed back in, sudden and absolute.
"Seven Hells," a voice rasped.
Qhorin Halfhand lowered his sword. The ranger was covered in blood—some his own, most black and frozen. He stared at Luke, his chest heaving.
The wildlings behind him were backing away, eyes wide, making signs against evil. They looked at Luke with more fear than they had looked at the dead.
"What god did you steal that from, Ranger?" Qhorin asked, squinting at Luke's black cloak.
Luke turned. He clipped the hilt to his belt, the motion practiced and casual.
"No god," Luke said. He stepped over a smoking corpse, offering a hand to a fallen spearwife. She flinched, but he pulled her up gently. "I'm a friend of Robb Stark."
By the time Robb and the others arrived, the Vanguard had turned back.
Robb burst into the clearing, Smalljon and Sigorn at his heels, the direwolves panting beside them. They skidded to a halt as they found themselves in a graveyard.
Robb stared at the scene. The snow was blackened and pitted. Wights lay in heaps, their wounds clean and scorched. There was no smell of rot, only the scent of ozone and burnt meat.
"Gods be good," Smalljon whispered, lowering his greatsword.
The commotion had drawn the leaders. Horses pushed through the crowd of stunned refugees.
Mance Rayder rode a garron, looking tired and grim. Beside him was Benjen Stark, his face gaunt from months of ranging.
Benjen pulled up his horse, staring at the young man standing in the center of the carnage. Then his eyes drifted to the boy beside him.
"Robb?" Benjen's voice cracked. He swung down from the saddle, stumbling in the snow. He grabbed Robb by the shoulders, shaking him as if to prove he was solid. "We marched straight South. You should be a hundred miles behind us, fighting for every inch. How in the Seven Hells did you get here? Ahead of us?"
"The trek almost did take us," Robb said, clasping his uncle's arm. He nodded toward Luke. "The Skirling pass was an ambush, Uncle. But Master Luke got to us before the White Walkers could finish us off. He... gave us a safe passage."
Mance Rayder didn't dismount. The King-Beyond-the-Wall sat high, his eyes moving from the cauterized corpses to the small man in the black cloak.
Mance was a man who knew tricks. He knew glamours, he knew songs, and he knew the lies men told to seem bigger than they were. But he looked at the wight that had been sliced in half—bone and frozen muscle sheared through as smoothly as cheese.
"Fire that freezes?" Mance asked quietly. "Or steel that burns?"
"It's light," Luke said. "Just more focused."
He didn't explain further. He walked over to Robb and took the heavy rucksack back.
"Excuse me," Luke said.
He ignored them all. He walked past Mance's horse and knelt beside a wounded Night's Watchman. The man was young, a boy really, clutching a jagged gash in his thigh where a wight's nails had torn through his breeches. The blood was dark and flowing fast.
Luke opened the bag. The interior glowed with the soft white light of the med-kit.
He pulled out a bacta patch—a square of translucent, gel-filled material.
"This will feel cold," Luke told the boy.
He slapped the patch over the wound.
The boy gasped, arching his back. Then, his eyes widened. The screaming stopped instantly. The bacta flooded the wound, numbing the nerves and sealing the flesh with rapid-coagulants.
Luke checked the boy's pulse, nodded, and stood up.
The silence in the clearing was absolute. They had seen him kill with a sword of light. Now they watched him heal a mortal wound with a patch.
Mance Rayder let out a long breath. He looked at Luke with a new, calculating respect.
"You kill like a demon," Mance said, a small, wry smile touching his lips. "And you heal like a maester. What are…"
He gestured to the fires burning further up the column.
"I don't care where you're from, stranger. Or what stars you fell out of. If you can keep my people alive, you're welcome at my fire."
Luke adjusted the pack on his shoulder. He looked at Robb, then at Benjen, and finally at Mance.
"Thank you," Luke said. "But we should keep moving. The dead don't sleep."
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Kingswood, The Stormlands
The Kingswood swallowed the sun.
That was Leia's first thought as the host crossed the invisible boundary between the open, rolling plains of the Reach and the ancient, gnarled forest. The light simply died. One moment they were marching under a canopy of blue sky, surrounded by the laughter of knights and the flutter of silk banners. The next, they were beneath towering oaks that blocked out the heavens, their branches woven together like the bars of a cage.
Leia adjusted her position in the saddle, her hand drifting instinctively to her stomach. The twins were restless again, agitating against the changing shift in environment. Or perhaps they sensed what she did.
The tactical situation had changed.
Out in the fields, the Tyrell and Baratheon columns had been loose, a sprawling parade of wealth and arrogance. Here, the road narrowed. The ancient trees pressed in on both sides, forcing the column to thin and stretch. Leia watched with a general's eye as the green-cloaked Tyrell guards shifted their formation. They did not just flank the Stark party anymore. They enveloped it.
Riders moved to the front and rear, closing the gaps. Archers unslung their bows, carrying them casually, but ready. The trees provided natural cover for an ambush, or a containment.
It was a kettle maneuver. Standard Imperial doctrine for escorting high-value prisoners through hostile terrain.
The laughter of the tourney was gone, absorbed by the moss. The knights stopped joking. The squires stopped singing. The silence of the Kingswood was profound, broken only by the thud of hooves and the creak of leather.
They were no longer allies marching to war. They were inmates being transferred to a maximum security facility.
Night fell early under the trees. The camp was a subdued affair compared to the raucous feasts of Highgarden. The Stark contingent had been allocated a small clearing, hemmed in by massive sentinel oaks.
Han sat on a mossy log near the fire pit. The flames cast long, dancing shadows that played tricks on the eyes, making the trees seem to lean in closer. He held a tin cup of wine, looking entirely too relaxed for a man surrounded by five thousand potential enemies.
Jory Cassel stood beside him, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword. The Northman's eyes never stopped moving, scanning the dark tree line where the Tyrell sentries paced.
On Han's left sat Marwyn the Mage. The man was a slab of granite wrapped in wool, a disturbing gravity to him that pulled at the edges of their cover story. He had been picking at the seams of their lies for leagues, ever since the whispers of Luke began to circulate among the camp followers. That name was a key Marwyn was desperate to turn with his thick, calloused fingers. He chewed on sourleaf, staining his teeth red, and watched Han with the heavy, unblinking gaze of a man accustomed to dissecting things that did not wish to be opened.
Behind his shoulder stood Sarella Sand. She was silent as a shadow, her dark eyes drinking in every word, every hesitation, cataloging the cadence of their speech like a spy looking for gossip.
Seated at Marwyn's feet, trying his best to disappear into the folds of his own cloak, was Samwell Tarly. The boy was quiet yet as Leia looked at him, she felt a subtle vibration in the Force. It wasn't the roaring furnace of her brother or the raw storm of Jon Snow; it was a small, steady flicker, like a candle flame shielded by a cupped hand. There was potential there, buried under layers of fear and self-doubt, but it was undeniable.
Leia shifted on the hard log. The damp cold of the moss seeped through her trousers, settling into her bones. She recognized the hunger in the Archmaester's face. It was not the curiosity of a scholar but the appetite of a scavenger sensing fresh meat. He did not want answers. He wanted confirmation of the impossible.
"I am telling you," Han said, gesturing broadly with his tin cup, sloshing cheap wine over the rim. "I drank a Wookiee under the table on Nar Shaddaa. Big fella. Temper like a solar flare. Thought he could handle Corellian brandy because he was eight feet tall. He woke up two days later in a garbage compactor."
Jory Cassel frowned, his brow furrowing as he tried to parse the alien terminology. The captain of the guard looked weary, his eyes darting to the darkness where the Tyrell men patrolled. "Is a... Wookiee... akin to a bear? We have snow bears in the North. Thirteen feet tall, some of them."
"Bigger," Han lied smoothly, a rogue's grin splitting his face. "Hairier. Much worse breath. And bears don't pull your arms out of their sockets if they lose at cards."
Jory looked horrified. Marwyn did not smile. He leaned forward, his bull-neck straining against the collar of his robes. His voice was a gravelly rasp, like stones grinding together in a rockslide.
"These beasts," the Mage said, ignoring Jory entirely. "Do they navigate by the stars like you? Or do they use the glass candles to see across the world? The currents you speak of. This Hyper-Space. It sounds like the void where the shadows live."
Han's smile didn't falter, but the skin around his eyes tightened. His gaze flicked briefly, almost imperceptibly, toward the nearest Tyrell sentry before returning to the Mage. It was a look Leia knew well.
"Just a fast ship, pal," Han said, his tone light, though the air between them grew heavy. "Good nav-computer. No magic involved. Just math and fuel."
"There is always magic involved when one crosses the void," Marwyn whispered, leaning closer until Leia could smell the sourleaf and old parchment on his breath. "You smell of ozone and dead stars, smuggler. You smell of the places the dragons fear to go."
Han laughed, a short, sharp bark that lacked any real humor. He looked across the fire and caught Leia's gaze. A subtle nod toward the perimeter. Cut it.
Jory was listening too closely. The Northman knew of Jon's power, and he had seen Luke's sword, but talk of stars and voids would confuse him, or worse, make him ask questions they could not answer here.
"Master Marwyn," Leia said, her voice cool and commanding, the voice of a Princess of Alderaan cutting through the humidity of the Kingswood. "My husband enjoys his tall tales, but the hour grows late. Captain Cassel, perhaps you should check the horses. The Tyrells are restless tonight."
Jory blinked, snapping out of his confusion. He looked from Han to the Mage, sensing the sudden tension but unable to name it. "Aye, my lady. The horses." He rose, relieved to have a task that involved simple beasts rather than hairy giants and void-walking.
As Jory retreated into the gloom, Han drained his cup. He did not look at Marwyn again, but his hand drifted casually to his hip, resting near the holster concealed beneath his cloak. The Mage merely chewed his sourleaf, his black eyes glittering in the firelight, satisfied with the new knowledge.
Leia acknowledged him with a blink. She stood, smoothing her tunic. The damp chill of the forest floor was seeping through her boots. She needed to rest. The pregnancy was draining her reserves faster than she liked to admit, and she needed a clear head for whatever game Renly Baratheon planned to play when they reached Storm's End.
She turned toward her tent, located at the edge of their designated area.
Movement caught her eye.
Jon Snow was holding the perimeter where the trampled grass of the campsite surrendered to the wilder, gnarled roots of the Kingswood. He had shed his cloak, leaving him in just his tunic and boiled leather. While the creeping chill of the Reach night was enough to make Leia wrap her arms around herself to shield the baby, the boy stood perfectly still, impervious to the temperature.
He was staring into the dense thicket with a quiet, heavy-shouldered intensity that made her miss her brother. The posture of a young man waiting for the galaxy to drop a weight on his head.
Suddenly, he stiffened. He didn't turn his head, but his posture changed. He became alert, not with the tension of a soldier spotting an enemy, but with a different kind of awareness.
Across the camp, Margaery Tyrell was walking toward the royal pavilion.
She was surrounded by handmaidens and guards, a vision of soft velvet and fox fur amidst the leather and steel of the war camp. She did not stop nor did not walk toward the Stark perimeter.
But as she passed the firelight, her head turned. Just a fraction.
Her eyes found Jon in the darkness. It was a glance that lasted barely a second, stolen amidst the chaos of the camp. But it carried a weight that bridged the distance instantly.
Jon didn't look away. He stared back, his expression unguarded for the first time in days. He looked like a starving man catching the scent of bread.
Then, Margaery was gone, disappearing into the golden light of the King's pavilion.
Jon remained frozen, staring at the spot where she had been. He let out a long breath, his shoulders slumping slightly, the brief connection severed.
Leia watched from the shadows, a phantom chill racing down her spine that had nothing to do with the twins.
She recognized that look. She saw it in the mirror every time she looked at Han. It was the look of a Skywalker finding their anchor.
But she had been a Princess with the power to choose a Scoundrel. Jon Snow did not have that luxury.
Here, he was a bastard and for some reason, that meant something. And Margaery Tyrell wasn't just a girl; she was a Queen, a piece on the board protected by an army and married to a King. This wasn't a romance; it was a death sentence.
Leia shook her head, a wave of fierce protectiveness washing over her. Be careful, kid, she thought. She didn't fear the love itself—she knew better than anyone that love could save a galaxy. She feared the fall.
Skywalkers loved with a terrifying intensity, and she could see Jon leaning out over the precipice, ready to jump for a woman he could never catch.
She stayed silent. She knew Jon wasn't a fool, but she also knew that loneliness was a poison that made even wise men drink from empty cups.
Leia ducked into her tent, seeking the quiet refuge of canvas walls.
She stopped dead.
The tent was not empty.
Sitting in Leia's folding camp chair, sipping a cup of Arbor gold, was an elderly woman. She was small, withered, and dressed in green silk that cost more than the Millennium Falcon.
Two massive Tyrell guards stood on either side of the tent flap behind Leia. They crossed their halberds, blocking the exit.
Leia turned slowly back to the woman.
"Lady Olenna," Leia said, keeping her voice level. "Is this a raid?"
Olenna Tyrell looked over the rim of her cup. Her eyes were sharp, bright beads of obsidian in a face made of wrinkled parchment.
"If it were a raid, you would be in irons," Olenna said. "Sit down, child. You look like you are about to topple over."
Leia did not sit. She stood her ground. "I prefer to stand."
"Suit yourself," Olenna said. "Though in your condition, I would think your ankles are screaming."
Leia stiffened. The woman noticed everything.
"I am weary, my Lady," Leia said, falling back on the cover story Jon had constructed. "The journey from Skagos was long. The sea air does not agree with me."
Olenna laughed. It was a dry sound, like twigs snapping underfoot.
"Stop it," Olenna said. She waved a dismissive hand. "You have the hands of a courtier and the accent of a High Lord. Skagos is an island of cannibals and unicorns. If you were Skagosi, you would be wearing fur and eating my guard. Do not insult my intelligence. It is the one thing I have left that still works properly."
Leia held her gaze. "And if I am not Skagosi?"
"Then you are a liar," Olenna said simply. "But that is fine. I can deal with liars. They are usually the only people with anything interesting to say."
The Queen of Thorns set her cup down on the small travel table. Her humor vanished like smoke in a gale. The firelight cast deep shadows on her face, turning her into something ancient and predatory.
"Besides," Olenna said softly. "It does not matter where you are from. It matters who your friends are. And your Lord Stark has been very... busy."
Leia felt a prickle of warning at the base of her neck. "Lord Stark is a man of honor."
"Lord Stark is a fool," Olenna corrected. "A raven arrived earlier. Not to Renly—he is too busy picking velvet for his doublet—but to me. From a friend in the Riverlands."
She leaned forward, the firelight catching the gold threads in her veil.
"Ned Stark is not just marching south to fight Tywin. Apparently he had made a detour before his march, to collected a guest."
Olenna paused for effect, her eyes locked on Leia's.
"A Targaryen girl. With three dragons."
Leia kept her face perfectly neutral, though her mind raced. Dragons? She knew the word, of course. Krayt Dragons on Tatooine. Myths in old books. But the way Olenna said it with a mixture of fear and reverence suggested these were not myths.
"Dragons," Leia repeated, flatly.
Olenna watched her closely, searching for a flinch, a gasp. When Leia gave her nothing, Olenna's eyes narrowed.
"You do not seem surprised," Olenna noted. "Walder Frey surrendered without a fight. The girl has hatchlings. And Ned Stark has declared for her."
Leia realized her silence had been misinterpreted as knowledge. She decided to lean into it. "Lord Stark does what he believes is right."
"He is doing what will get him killed," Olenna snapped. "We are three days from Storm's End. Renly is about to face his brother Stannis. He is already nervous. And now he learns that the Starks—his strongest potential allies—have backed a Targaryen?"
She shook her head.
"That... is unlikely," Leia managed, her mind racing. "The Starks helped overthrow the Targaryens."
"Which makes this betrayal all the sweeter, don't you think?" Olenna took a sip of wine. "It makes one wonder what hold this Dragon girl has over him. Or perhaps... what hold the Dragons have always had over House Stark. The honorable Ned Stark returns from Robert's Rebellion with a motherless son, and now he rises for a Targaryen Queen? A suspicious mind might think the Honorable Lord Stark has a soft spot for silver hair."
Leia frowned, confused by the implication. "Jon is a Stark.."
"Oh, he has the brooding down pat," Olenna mused, her eyes drifting toward the tent flap as if she could see Jon standing guard outside. "But there is something else there, isn't there? A gravity. Bastards are usually scrabbling for crumbs, eager to please or eager to bite. That boy stands as if he is waiting for the world to come to him."
Olenna's gaze snapped back to Leia.
"Renly does not know yet," Olenna continued, brushing the thought aside. "I burned the letter. But he will hear soon enough. And when he does..."
"He will be angry," Leia said.
"He will be terrified," Olenna corrected. "Renly is a Summer King. He likes tourneys and adoration. He does not like the idea of his brother Stannis to the East and a Dragon Queen to the North. When fear takes a man like Renly, he does not act rationally. He lashes out."
"Jon Snow is a valuable hostage," Leia said, her voice firm. "Renly wouldn't kill a valuable hostage just to spite Lord Stark."
"Wouldn't he?" Olenna raised a withered eyebrow. "If I leave him to his own devices, he will put Jon's head on a spike just to show the North he isn't afraid."
The threat hung in the pavilion, but as the silence stretched, a sudden, sharp clarity cut through Leia's apprehension. She burned the letter.
If this grandmother truly feared Renly's temper, or if she were as loyal to the stag as she claimed, she would have handed him that scroll the moment the wax seal was broken. She was hoarding the truth like a miser hoards coin, keeping Renly ignorant while she assessed the board.
This was not a death sentence. It was a negotiation.
The tightness in Leia's chest uncoiled. She knew this game. She had played it with Hapan matriarchs and Bothan spymasters who smiled with too many teeth. Olenna Tyrell wasn't looking for a reason to kill Jon Snow. She was looking for a reason to keep him alive. She was looking for a backup plan.
Leia forced her hands to relax. She let the silence linger just long enough to show she wasn't intimidated, her brown eyes locking onto the older woman's sharp, calculating gaze.
"And you?" Leia asked softly.
"Me?" Olenna scoffed. "I prefer not to waste assets. But I need to know if the asset is worth the trouble."
She set the cup down. The playful grandmother mask vanished.
"Tell me about the sorcerer."
Leia feigned ignorance. "Archmaester Marywn?"
"Do not play coy," Olenna said, her voice hard. "I have explicit details about the incident at Oakenshield. And I saw him move, briefly, before he vanished from this camp. He was... unnatural."
Olenna leaned in.
"I don't care about his philosophy, girl. I want to know about his utility. Is he a man? Or is he a siege engine wrapped in skin?"
Leia dropped the victim act. She straightened her spine. The fatigue fell away, replaced by the steel that had stared down Grand Moff Tarkin.
"We are hostages, then?" Leia asked. Her voice changed. The deferential tone vanished, replaced by the commanding cadence of a Senator.
Olenna blinked, surprised by the shift. "As of this moment? Yes."
"Then you are making a mistake," Leia said.
"Am I?"
"You ask if my brother is a siege engine," Leia said. "No. He is worse."
She took a step closer, invading the old woman's personal space.
"He is a builder, Lady Olenna. He fixes things. But to fix a rot, sometimes you have to cut it out."
Leia leaned down, face-to-face with the Queen of Thorns.
"Renly has an army. Tywin has gold. My brother has the power to reshape the ground you walk on. If you treat us as guests, he will be an ally. But if you harm Jon Snow or us?"
Leia's voice dropped to a cold whisper.
"Luke will not negotiate. He will not send a raven. He will dismantle this camp—and these woods—tent by tent, tree by tree. He will tear the Kingswood apart until he finds us. Are you ready for those consequences?"
Olenna stared at her. For a long moment, the only sound was the wind snapping the canvas of the tent.
The old woman did not look frightened. She looked appraised. A slow, genuine smile spread across her face.
"Finally," Olenna murmured. "Someone that can banter. And brother you say…"
She stood up, smoothing her skirts.
"Renly will bluster," Olenna said. "But I control the food. The Reach feeds the Stag. As long as I say you are guests, you are guests."
She moved toward the exit. The guards parted their halberds instantly.
Olenna paused at the flap. She looked back at Leia.
"But keep your wolf on a leash," Olenna warned. "And pray your 'Builder' shows up soon. Even I cannot hold back a frightened Stag forever."
She swept out into the night.
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