CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
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The weight of the world is heavy in your trembling arms,
but the heaviest burden to bear is not the sins of your life, it's the devil inside you.

ALLEN GINSBERG, HOWL AND OTHER POEMS
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               THE SERVANTS IN PENTOS HAD a game that seven-year-old Astoria did not understand.

If you were to be born again, what would your second life be like? one servant would ask another; when they were ferrying heavy jugs of wine through the corridors towards a feast of drunken men with wandering hands, or when they passed each other by in the hallways carrying bedpans that splashed their feet, or mucked out the stables of a horse that kicked them bloody.

Astoria didn't understand then because she was blind to the hardship of their lives, and because she was young and thus any dreams she had — that of travelling the world, marrying a handsome knight, or bearing the heirs of a noble house — were still possible for the future; she did not have to wish to start again when she had barely even begun.

But she understands that game now that she is older, because she has played it every day in King's Landing and she plays it in Dorne, as well.

She thinks it as men burn and turn to ash before the court; she wakes with the same question every morning and drifts to sleep each night thinking of its answer; she murmurs it to herself in her rooms after Elia has informed her that she is to flee with Aegon, that she is to leave her oldest friend behind. And when Doran informs her of the sack of the captiol, she cannot help but wonder — in a haze of unspeakable grief and fury at the gods who would leave her alive to bear this pain — whether they too played the same game in the scant few moments before their deaths.

If I were to be born again, what would my second life be like?

She does not ever expect to find a true answer to this question, because that would be impossible — you can never have a second life; the gods have only given you one to use as you see fit, to ruin.

Astoria does not shed a tear for a very long time. Only waiting for the nightmare to be over, to awake and find that it was naught but a bad dream. The thoughts of Elia are burning her mind, burning up everything, burning up the castle. Closing her eyes is never enough, but she always tries it even so. Everything reminds her of Elia. Everything she has done for the last years, she's done with Elia by her side, and everything she hasn't, she told Elia about. That, or she found out some other way. How did she always manage to do that, anyway?

And Rhaenys. Rhaenys, who would never grow up. Rhaenys, who would forever be a child. Rhaenys, who would never have the chance to love songs and silks and chivalry and gallant knights. Innocent, soft-spoken Rhaenys.

After that she weeps for hours, for days and she would have kept weeping for years had it not been for the infant boy and his lilac eyes. She weeps for the nameless child as well that had died in Aegon's place. She weeps for the Martells, who have lost so much and must still be patient. But she cannot weep forever. Astoria must live on. She allows herself to wallow in self pity for a time, but then she would have to go on.

To go on.

     To not think about what has been lost.

     To go on instead.

     To live on.

     It is one question however, that nags at her the most: Why are women always made to pay off the debts of men?

     Was it not Prince Rhaegar that abducted the Stark girl? Was it not King Aerys that killed Lord Rickard and his heir? Yes, and still —

I promise you, dearest friend. No harm shall ever come his way as long as I breathe, she prays, hoping that R'hllor can hear her. It is the last thing I can do for you.

Only death can pay for life, the saying goes. Astoria knows that Elia would gladly give her own life for that of her son's. And she did. Elia died so that Aegon may live. Although she had not been present when the city had been sacked, Astoria can imagine. In the night her dreams are made of men hollering and screaming and the Mad King screeching for everyone to burn and burn and burn. But no one had burned and then he had stopped hollering. As had Elia and her daughter.

She hears the rumours, of course, that come in the form of ravens and whispers from the capitol. About the Mountain that Rides and his deeds to the new crown, the usurper. The mountain of a man breaks through Elia's door, ripping her apart. And Astoria knows who is truly responsible. Everyone does. Lannister red is the colour of blood, and she swears that the Rains of Castamere can be heard echoing through the halls of Sunspear. For the slights that Aerys delivered, for the possibility of power, all dragons must die.

     Death is not the opposite of life. It is already here, within her being, it has always been there, and naught would permit Astoria to forget it. When King's Landing falls that day, Death takes her as well.

If you were to be born again, what would your second life be like?

WHERE WAS I? Is his first thought and then —

The children.

His chest starts to tighten and the world gets a little dull around the edges. It tilts on the side. Arthur shudders. There is a scream lodged in his throat.

     He inhales and the air tastes bitter with dread, heavy with a sense of knowing. It burns to breathe and Arthur can feel his eyes filling to the brim with tears. His fingers are clutching his white cloak. Dimly, he recognises that his Lord Commander has scrambled into the room, is trying to pry his hands from his face and control his thrashing, but there's no room for any of that. Not next to the memory of Elia gasping for breath, gurgling in her throat, drowning in her own blood, so confused at how this could be happening. And Rhaenys, bursting with life and easy laughter. Aegon, a babe.

     He sees the way Elia fell, curled on her side, blood soaking into the rug under her, eyes wide, and he feels her tremors as the sword slices her open, and the shock that she is dying, and her solid resolve that she would have to protect her children, that they could take her life if that was what they wanted but not her children. It's only too easy to imagine her racing heartbeat pumping the blood out of the wound the sword had made, and how Elia hadn't even tried to save herself, only the children.

     And his Commander is shouting at him, but all he can hear are blood-curling screams and soft wails, and forever their faces will be tainted by the blood on his hands, the fact that Arthur had left them unprotected, like they were nothing. Like they meant nothing. And her quiet pleading, her begging, tinged with a new desperation, and that is the thought that crystallizes in Arthur's mind: that Elia had died alone, without anyone to offer her comfort. That Elia had died clinging to her children with shaking hands, asking for mercy, and been denied.

     He howls, shoving Gerold away from him, fighting off Oswell and batting away Lady Lyanna, who tries to calm him. He has to get back to King's Landing. He has to go back, has to find Elia, has to hold her. He has to sing the children to sleep and bring her home. Surely the Lannisters haven't thrown them to the dogs. They can't be left there to rot. He can still do this last thing for her, and wherever she's going she'll know that he hadn't wanted this.

     I should've died with them, he thinks. I should've died defending their lives. His heart has never been heavier than in that moment. Arthur feels his stomach lurch, feels his throat beginning to constrict, and he storms out of the tower, gasping for air. The sun is high in the sky and the day is beautiful. Blue sky, puffy clouds. A breeze that carries the scent of wildflowers. The day is beautiful, but it shouldn't be.

"You bastard," he whispers, voice thick with anger. His bones ache with the loss of Elia and the children. "You silver fool."

Anger is better than tears, better than grief, better than guilt. His chest is heaving, and he thinks he might throw up but he swallows the bile rising in his throat. A sob wrenches its way free from his chest, and with it, Arthur breaks too.