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The doors to the king's bedchamber creaked shut behind Ned Stark, cutting off the whispers and anxious eyes lingering outside.
Varys, Pycelle, Cersei...
Robert's last ounce of strength had roared them all away.
Now, only he and the king remained.
And the heavy, choking stench,thick with herbs, blood, and rot, clung to the room like a suffocating fog.
Ned stepped to the bedside, looking down at his old friend, the man he'd grown up beside.
Once a giant of a man who could smash an enemy's armor with a single hammer blow, now just a shell, barely clinging to life on the bed.
The wound in Robert's belly had been cauterized with a hot iron. The charred flesh stank, blackened and festering.
A fever flushed his cheeks with a sickly red pallor.
Those blue eyes that once blazed with life were dull now, clouded beneath a film of gray haze.
In his last moments of clarity, Robert felt a sharp lucidity wash over him like rising from a dream of fog into harsh daylight.
"Ned..."
The king's voice broke the silence.
Not the furious roar from before, but calm, eerily so.
"They're all gone?"
"All gone, Robert," Ned said softly. "Just me."
Ned sat down by his bedside.
"Good... good..."
Robert's lips twitched weakly, but it looked worse than crying.
His gaze flicked around the room once, then settled on Ned's face again.
"I'm a fucking bastard, aren't I?"
Ned's heart clenched hard.
He hadn't expected Robert to say something like that.
"When we were young... at the Eyrie, Jon used to call me out, said I'd be undone by the flesh dangling between my legs."
Robert's breathing grew labored.
"I argued with him. But... now... Jon was right. Damn him."
"Whole life, I chased a ghost."
His eyes lost focus, as if staring past the Red Keep's domes to some half-forgotten past.
"Lyanna... she haunts my dreams. But I don't even know what color flowers she liked."
"I thought I loved her, Ned."
"But maybe I just loved a woman I dreamed up."
"No woman can stand her betrothed's cheating."
"So I knew. Lyanna wasn't kidnapped by Rhaegar. They probably ran off together."
"I won. I'm on this damned throne. But it feels worse than losing."
Ned's throat tightened. He couldn't find a word to say.
He just sat, listening quietly.
Listening to the final confession of a king nearing death.
"Tell me, Ned... did Lyanna ever really love me?"
Ned met the question, bracing himself, and said,
"Robert, don't doubt it. Lyanna did love you."
Robert fixed him with a hard stare, then laughed suddenly.
"You're soothing me, Ned. I see that."
"I don't blame Lyanna. I failed."
"I wasn't a good king, either."
"I dumped it all on you and Jon—just drank, hunted, chased women."
"I wasn't a good husband. Nor a good father."
"The ones I wronged most were Cersei, my three children... and the one Cersei lost."
For the first time, genuine pain and regret flickered in Robert's eyes.
Not from his wounds, but a self-hatred deeper than flesh and blood.
"I even... doubted you."
"I believed those rotten rumors—that you and that northern brat would rebel... I was a damn fool."
"Enough, Robert."
Ned's voice broke as tears welled up.
"Please, no more."
"No, let me finish."
Robert gasped for breath but pressed on.
"My time's running out, Ned."
"Remember? At the Eyrie, we snuck out to that tavern in Gulltown."
"You were done after one drink, and I drank three knights under the table—and a blacksmith's daughter... heh heh."
The laugh twisted his wound, triggering a violent cough. Black blood bubbled from his mouth's corner.
Ned grabbed a silk cloth, moving to wipe it away.
But Robert grabbed his hand.
That hand, once able to wield a warhammer with ease, now weak but still gripping tight.
"I'm dying, Ned."
Robert Baratheon, King of the Seven Kingdoms, looked at his only friend with a voice nearly pleading.
"I know. I know I don't have much time."
"The Tears of Lys... those bastards, they've wanted me dead a long time."
"Stannis... Renly... they both eye this throne. They'll tear the kingdom to pieces."
"So I stripped Stannis of his dukedom, sent Renly away from King's Landing...",
"Ned, my brother..."
His breathing grew fainter, voice barely a whisper.
"I beg you... as a friend, as a brother..."
"Help me... watch over Joffrey."
Ned's body froze.
"I know... I know that boy's no good."
A flicker of pain crossed Robert's eyes.
"He's nothing like me."
"Cowardly, cruel, and foolish... full of Lannister faults."
"But he... he's my son, Ned."
"My firstborn son."
"The rightful heir of House Baratheon."
"I can't let Stannis and Renly ruin everything..."
Ned opened his mouth to say the words "He's not your son," but could not bring himself to do it.
He looked into Robert's hopeful, pleading eyes.
This was a friend on the edge of death.
How could he shatter his last hope with such cruelty?
"Promise me, Ned."
Robert's hand gripped harder, nails nearly biting into Ned's flesh.
"Support him. Teach him. Help him become a king like me."
"Don't let him destroy the kingdom we fought so hard to build."
"Promise me!"
Ned looked into Robert's bloodshot eyes, saw the black blood staining his lips.
He remembered the young man named Lynn in Winterfell, remembered the new world Lynn had painted.
He thought of the choice he'd already made.
A lie.
Ned Stark had despised lies all his life.
But now, he would tell the heaviest lie of all, to his closest friend.
Slowly, solemnly, he nodded.
"I promise you, Robert."
His voice was soft but filled with all his remaining strength.
"By the honor of House Stark, I swear I will protect your bloodline. I will do everything in my power to guide the kingdom back on the right path."
At Ned's vow, Robert's tense body finally slackened.
"And that... Targaryen girl, Daenerys... don't go after her... let her live..."
"I have... given up... my hatred..."
The light in Robert's eyes, like a candle flame flickering in the wind, quickly dimmed.
The last breath sustaining him faded away.
"Tha...nk you, Ned..."
His lips twitched, whispering faint, indistinct words.
The hand clutching Ned's finally fell away weakly.
Robert Baratheon, Lord of Storm's End, King of the Seven Kingdoms, victor of Robert's Rebellion, dead.
He died in King's Landing, the city he despised most.
On the Iron Throne, the seat he loathed above all else.
Ned sat silently by the bedside, still as stone.
He did not cry.
The sorrow in his eyes was deep and unyielding.
His friend's body still held warmth, but the promise he had made felt like a block of eternal ice weighing down his heart, chilling him through and through.
Robert, my friend, my brother.
I promised you, but I have betrayed you.
Joffrey is cruel and brutal, not fit to be king.
I cannot raise a Lannister bastard to sit the Iron Throne.
Nor can I stop the war that is coming.
I have to choose the path I believe is right.
Even if I carry the weight of guilt for you, I have to walk it.
Ned stood slowly, closing Robert's unseeing eyes.
He walked to the window and opened it wide.
The cool night wind from King's Landing swept in, scattering the deathly stillness.
It made him shiver.
He lifted his gaze toward the northern sky.
But the kingdom's true suffering had only just begun.
Countless lives would be lost in the wars ahead...
Lynn...
How do we walk the road ahead?
Ned Stark stood by the fallen king's side, feeling a heavy confusion unlike anything before.
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