Starfall was lovelier than Ned had imagined possible.
The castle stood upon its island at the mouth of the Torrentine, all smooth white stone and clean lines, the great tower on the seaward side catching the sun so brightly it hurt to look at. The river ran blue-green and swift beneath the bridge, hurrying out to meet the sea.
Beside him, Gerold Dayne rode proudly in the saddle, plainly pleased to be escorting his ancestral blade home. Howland rode on Ned's other side, quiet as ever, one hand resting near the oilcloth-wrapped shape that no longer belonged to them.
Ned had thought, on the ride down from the pass, that he would be ready.
He had been wrong.
The gates opened at Gerold's shouted hail. They rode into the courtyard beneath snapping banners of swords and stars, and Ned saw them at once.
The lord of the castle stood waiting with two women beside him. Vorian Dayne, lean and pale, was the eldest. At his right stood a younger girl Ned took for Allyria. At his left—
Ashara.
The war, the dead, the vows, the blood on his hands, and all the roads between then and now fell away. For so long, it felt like a piece of his soul was missing, and now the sight of her face completed it.
"Ned." Even through dirt and disguise, she knew him at once.
He had barely swung one leg over the saddle before she was running. Not gliding with southern courtesy, but sprinting—skirts gathered, hair coming loose, dignity abandoned in favor of speed. She collided with him so hard she nearly knocked him back into the horse, and then her arms were around his neck and his around her waist and he was holding her, Old Gods help him, holding her as if the whole world had been reduced to that one moment.
Ashara kissed him before he could speak. Deeply, fiercely, with salt at the corners of her mouth and tears already gathering in her lashes.
Ned closed his eyes.
He had told himself on the road that he would be calm. That he would be honorable. That he would say what had to be said first and not shame Catelyn.
Instead his hands tightened on her and a tear slipped traitorously down his cheek before he could stop it.
When at last she drew back, her purple eyes were shining.
"You came back," she whispered. "You survived."
"I did."
It sounded like too little, and felt like so much.
Ashara laughed wetly, half joy and half disbelief, then turned and seized his wrist with the urgency of someone who feared he might disappear if she let go. "Come," she said. "There's someone you must meet."
Only then did Ned realize someone else was standing with the welcoming party.
Behind Lord Vorian was a young brown haired wet nurse. Startled by all of this, though plainly told to stand her ground. In her arms rested a small child in pale swaddling, black hair already visible in the fuzz at the crown.
Ashara stopped before the woman and with a tenderness that near undid him, lifted the babe into her own arms.
"Our son," she said.
Her words were quiet, but the truth of them was like a quake.
The boy was little more than a bundle and blinking eyes, but his gaze already matched Ashara's. His eyes were purple and bright beneath heavy lids, but it was the boy's long solemn face that struck Ned the hardest. His own face, made softer and smaller and infinitely more terrible for it.
Ashara's smile trembled. "I named him Jon," she said. "After your foster father. You always spoke of him with such love. I thought… I thought it was a good strong name."
Jon.
Ned swallowed hard. Lord Arryn's face flashed in his mind: grave, controlled, disappointed. What would Jon say, if he stood here now? Of dishonor. Of duty. Of the ruin one careless joy could purchase.
The child yawned.
"He's handsome," Ned said, and his voice sounded strange to his own ears.
Ashara's face lit with pride so pure that Ned wished himself a different man. A freer one. A braver one. A less dutiful one. Anything but the one standing here with a wife he couldn't be with and a son he had never held.
Howland stepped forward then, merciful as always in the moments when mercy looked cruelest.
"My lord," he said to Vorian Dayne, and held out the oilcloth-wrapped bundle from his pony. "Arthur Dayne fell at the Trident. He fought bravely and slew several northern lords before he was brought down. We have come to return Dawn to its proper place."
The atmosphere changed at once. Grief replaced joy like winter wind through an open door.
Ashara went still, the color leaving her face. Vorian's jaw tightened, though his hands remained steady as Howland passed him the wrapped sword. He took it with both hands, almost reverently, and unsheathed it just enough to glimpse the pale, uncanny blade wrapped inside.
For a long moment no one spoke. Then Vorian bowed his head.
"You have my thanks," he said. "For returning what is ours."
Ashara made a sound then, small and broken, and turned into Ned as if there were nowhere else in the world she could fall. He caught her instinctively, one arm around her shoulders while she wept into his chest for the brother she had lost.
Ned looked helplessly at Vorian over the top of her dark head.
The Lord of Starfall's face was composed, though not untouched. "House Dayne bears no ill will for Arthur's death," he said. "He died for the duty he believed in. Men may judge the cause as they will, but no one who knew my brother will call him craven."
Ned nodded once, unable to trust himself with more.
"And you returned his sword," Vorian continued. "That was honorably done."
Honorably. The word struck Ned like mockery.
He wanted to protest. To say you do not know me. To say I have already dishonored your sister in ways no returned blade can mend. Instead he only stood there while Ashara cried against him and the child Jon fussed softly in her arms, not understanding any of it.
At last Ashara mastered herself enough to pull back. She wiped at her face, embarrassed by tears she had every right to shed. Ned could not bear the sight of her trying to compose herself for his benefit.
He knew then that if he waited any longer, he would lose the nerve entirely.
"Ashara," he said.
She looked up at him.
The whole courtyard seemed to still around them. Even Gerold Dayne, who had spent most of the meeting trying to look older than his years, sensed something solemn enough to keep him silent.
Ned drew breath, then let out his most painful truth. "We cannot be husband and wife before the realm."
The words were plain. Brutal in their plainness. Ashara's face was frozen in shock.
"As you know, my father and brother were murdered," Ned said. "After that… after that everything changed. I needed the swords of the Riverlands if I was to have any hope of reaching Lyanna. Of saving my sister. Lord Tully demanded what my father had promised him. I was forced to marry Catelyn."
Her face did not crumple. That would have been kinder. Instead it emptied, as if he had blown a candle out behind her eyes.
Ned forced himself onward.
"I did not do it because I loved her more," he said, and heard at once how weak that sounded. "You will always be—" He stopped, because Jon didn't raise him to make excuses. "You will always matter to me. I will do right by our son, so far as I can. I swear it. But I understand if you hate me."
Ashara looked at him for a long moment without speaking. The baby in her arms shifted and let out a tiny, sleepy complaint.
When she finally spoke, her voice was calm enough to frighten him.
"I need time to think," she whispered.
Then she turned and walked away, clutching Jon close as if he were the only solid thing left in the world.
Ned half took a step after her and stopped. Howland did not.
"She should not be alone right now," the crannogman said quietly, and then he was gone after her, moving with that peculiar quick lightness of his that made him seem both awkward and impossible to catch.
The courtyard held its breath. Vorian Dayne maintained his composure, sad but stoic. Allyria stared at Ned with wide, wounded eyes. Even Gerold looked stunned out of his theatrical foolishness.
Ned stood alone in the middle of Starfall, in silence except for the lapping of the river, and felt the full price of honor settle onto his shoulders.
He had done what duty required. He had wed where he must. He had come here to return a blade and speak the truth.
And still he had failed.
As a husband. As a father. To be the sort of man songs pretended could keep every vow if only his heart was pure enough.
There was no joy in duty. Only loss arranged into proper shapes so lords could call it necessity.
Ned looked toward the doorway where Ashara had vanished with their son and wished, not for the first time, that he had never been his father's heir.