KINGDOM FALL
— 42. Dreams

    An hour had passed after Robb left when Annalys finally woke up. She had been fast asleep when she dreamt of images of a tall man with skin as pale and cold as ice. His eyes glowed blue and top of his head, he had a crown of pointy, frosty horns.

In her dream, she had been standing in front of him, gripping Lady's Wrath in her hand. It was night time and she was standing in what looked like a forest. She fought this inhumane man and fought him well, up until he drove his ice-like sword through her heart.

She awoke from her dream at that very moment with a loud gasp. Abruptly sitting up from her bed, Annalys frantically looked around with wide eyes. It hadn't been the first time she dreamed of that man. She recalled it happening the night before, and numerous other times since the Battle at King's Landing. Usually, the man had a group of men that looked similar to him alongside him. Sometimes, there were thousands of other creatures at his beck and call.

She recalled Old Nan telling her, Robb, and Jon stories of those creatures during her time at Winterfell as a child. White Walkers. She never believed those stories, she still didn't. The White Walkers were dead. They had been for thousands of years. However, it didn't explain why she was dreaming of them.

A frown appeared on Annalys' lips as she turned her head to see Robb no longer laying beside her. She quickly got up from her bed, heading to the twins' nursery to feed them. Annalys felt uneasy when the door to the room was halfway open, despite the fact that she had closed it the night before.

"Robb?" She called out, presuming him to be inside.

Annalys pushed the door fully open, only to have her eyes widen in alarm when she found no one in there, not even the twins. Fearing that something was wrong, Annalys turned on her heel, rushing toward her chamber door as she got ready to call for the guards.

As she opened the door, she came face to face with Robb, who held Lyanna and Eddard in his arms. Both of them were changed into new clothes and they looked happy. Even Lyanna looked to be happy and joyful, which was a surprise since she never looked happy when Robb was holding her.

"Where did you go?" Annalys asked in a stern tone, a look of fear in her eyes as she spoke to him. Her heart was practically beating out of her chest from how worried she had been when she saw Lyanna and Eddard not in their cribs.

There was a reason she rarely slept. Fear. Fear that in her sleep, something could happen to her children. She feared that while she slept, someone may try to harm them.

After all, Annalys was Lady of Casterly Rock now. Some still believed her to be Queen in the North. She was the most feared person in the Seven Kingdoms. Now, she had children of her own that happened to be heirs to Casterly Rock and the Kingdoms of both the North and the Riverlands. Many people would want Annalys and her children dead now, especially people who didn't like the idea of two children who had both Lannister and Stark blood running through their veins.

Many Great Houses allied with each other through marriages, but never through two heads of the Houses. Robb was King in the North and the Lord of Winterfell. Annalys was Lady of Casterly Rock. That made Eddard, their firstborn boy, the future lord of both Winterfell and Casterly Rock. Not to mention, King in the North. People in the Seven Kingdoms weren't supposed to be the heads of two different Great Houses at once, especially not when they weren't the person sitting on the Iron Throne. He would be a threat and that put him and Lyanna at risk, despite them being infants.

"You were asleep and they woke up. Lyanna was crying and I didn't want her to wake you. The servants said you haven't had a proper sleep in months. I decided to take them out for a walk through the gardens while you slept. Catelyn was happy to see them, as was Arya and Sansa."

Annalys stared at Robb with wide eyes. For a split moment, she nearly forgot why she slept with Robb in the first place. It wasn't because she loved him and wanted to be with him, it was because she had to manipulate him. She had a plan. The first part was done. Now, it was time for the second to occur.

Without hesitation, Annalys took them from Robb, holding her children in her own arms instead. Robb stared at Annalys in concern, noticing that she was on the verge of crying for a reason unbeknownst to him, "Are you alright, Annalys?" He questioned and Annalys tried her hardest to hold back her tears as she met eyes with him.

"I'm fine." Annalys snapped at Robb, trying her best to remain cold with him, "Can you fetch Stannis? Tell him I must speak with him."

"Why?" Robb asked, much to Annalys' frustration.

"Just get me Stannis, you needn't know why!" Annalys practically yelled at Robb, much to his shock, "I don't have to tell you anything. You have no right. You're not my husband."

Robb was taken aback by the last part of Annalys' statement. He wasn't her husband. It was something that Robb constantly forgot and also something Annalys frequently liked to throw in his face.

Robb tried his hardest not to look hurt by Annalys' words. Annalys, however, had tears welled in her eyes, despite being filled with so much anger and hostility.

Robb remained silent, slowly nodding his head before leaving to fetch Stannis. Annalys tried her hardest not to cry as she found herself feeling bad for how she had been treating Robb. He did what he thought was right to do to protect his kingdom and his wife, yet he seemed to have lost both in the process.

Annalys watched as Robb walked down the hallway, only to watch as he released a large group of flowers from his grasp, causing them to fall onto the ground. She immediately felt saddened at what he had done.

He had gone to gardens, he said it himself. He told Annalys that he went simply to walk with the twins, but that wasn't the case, as it seemed. He had gotten her flowers. Annalys was never the type of girl to like flowers, but that didn't change anything.

She sighed in defeat, walking out of her room and over to where he had dropped the flowers. She tried her best to hold the twins while also bending down to pick up the flowers. After many attempts, she finally grabbed ahold of them.

Annalys held them in her grasp, feeling guilty as she set her eyes upon the flowers. They were the only ones in the gardens Annalys ever truly liked, seeing as though she usually hated flowers. She only told one person about the fact that she liked those kinds of flowers.

Robb.

Guilt consumed Annalys as she walked back to her chambers, knowing that what she was on the verge of doing was going to hurt the man she loved more than anything. He most likely would never forgive her, but she knew it had to be done. If she wanted to save her family, she'd have to sacrifice her own happiness.

Catelyn Stark once told Annalys that the love she and Ned had for each other didn't just happen to them. They had built it slowly over the years, stone by stone, just as Annalys and Robb did.

However, what Annalys was doing would ruin and destroy every single stone she and Robb had built over the years. She'd destroy anything good between them and she knew she'd be regretting it for the rest of her life.

However, she also knew she couldn't let him take away her family. She refused to watch them die. She wasn't going to stand back and watch it happen. She was going to do something to stop it, but there was only one way to sucessfully defy a king and get away with it.

  Become just as powerful, if not more, and take away anything they can use to try to get you to surrender.

Not even an hour later, Stannis arrived at Annalys' room to find the woman fully dressed and her children asleep in their nursery. Annalys stood at her window, looking out onto Blackwater Bay.

Annalys knew that Stannis was there, but still didn't turn to face him. Stannis felt insulted, knowing that Annalys should have turned to face him and bowed, seeing as though he was her king now. She was Lady of Casterly Rock and Casterly Rock was apart of the Westerlands, which was one of the places Stannis now ruled over.

"You asked to see me." Stannis finally spoke up, leading to Annalys slowly turning to face him.

She was silent for a moment and Stannis frowned when she made no attempt to bow to her king. There was only one king she had ever willingly bent the knee to and he sure as hell would be the last one. That king was Robb.

"I'm the reason you're sitting on the Iron Throne right now. I'm the reason Joffrey died. I'm the reason Tywin died. I'm the reason the Mountain died. And I am the reason why everyone loyal to the Lannisters in King's Landing is now dead. I worked for six entire months from the capital while pregnant with twins in order to take the throne for you. Now that I think of it, I'm the only reason you're alive," Annalys wasted no time telling Stannis what she needed to say before she decided to make some demands, "I want the Westerlands. And I don't want to just be Lady Paramount of the Westerlands. I want to be Queen of the Rock. There's a chance you may say no, but if you do, just know that even if you take me as your prisoner, there are far more people in the capital loyal to me than there are of people loyal to you. With one raven, I could have the Reach, Dorne, and the Westerlands rise up against you. But there isn't any need for that, right? Because you will allow me to have what I want."

Stannis tried his best to maintain composure after hearing Annalys' demands. He couldn't stop thinking about the fact that she had threatened him and looked to not even be bothered by it in the slightest. He was on the verge of arguing with her and sentencing her to be executed when he recalled what the Red Woman said.

Annalys couldn't die. She needed to survive in order to stop what was yet to come. Annalys was the key to everything and if he wanted to live, he needed to keep her alive and the two of them allied.

"You may become Queen of the Rock," Stannis hesitantly managed to agree with her, despite how hard it was to give up yet another one of his kingdoms are agreeing for Robb to rule the North and the Riverlands, "I will legitimize you and your children."

"Yes, you will," Annalys confidently replied, a small smile on her face, "But you will legitimize my children as Lannisters, not Starks."

Stannis frowned slightly, not understanding why Annalys would want such a thing, "But that would mean they're legally not Robb's." He pointed out to Annalys, who seemed to already know that.

"I know," Annalys admitted, much to Stannis' shock, "Robb believes he can take what is mine and I won't do anything about it. I mean to show him that isn't the case. A Lannister always pays their debts. It would seem I need to remind him of that," She paused, a weird feeling in her gut as she said her family's unofficial motto.

She had never said it before. Not when she was talking about herself. She always hated that saying. Why the hell was she saying it now? She could just imagine Tyrion at that moment smiling proudly at her, perhaps even Tywin, too.

Annalys snapped herself out of her thoughts, giving Stannis a stern look, "I don't have to worry about you telling Robb, do I?" She questioned Stannis, who immediately shook his head.

"You don't," Stannis responded, much to Annalys' relief.

"Good. Then, we're done here." Annalys replied, her face now emotionless.

She couldn't believe it. She had actually convinced Stannis, of all people, to give up the Westerlands. The Westerlands was, in truth, the key to Stannis keeping himself on the Iron Throne. They were the place where the Seven Kingdoms got most of its money from. With the Reach allied to Annalys in secret, Stannis had no way of getting the crops he needed to support the kingdoms.

How was he supposed to rule a kingdom when two of its most important necessities were actually in Annalys' grasp now and not his?

____

    That night, after she had fed her children for what felt like the hundredth time that day and then put them to bed, Annalys climbed out of her bed. She walked over to the wall next to her bed, pushing the secret door open. She picked up the lit candle on the candlestick rested on her nightstand before heading into the secret passages.

Annalys walked through the passageways until she stopped when she heard Robb's voice on the other side of the wall, "You must tell her!" She heard Arya shout at Robb, sounding furious, "She needs to know what happened in the Riverlands. You bedded another. If she finds out from someone else, she'll never forgive you."

"She won't," Robb argued with Arya in a stern tone, "And I'm not going to tell her. She doesn't have to know. It was a mistake and it will never happen again. What happened in the past must stay in the past. Annalys need not know."

Annalys covered her mouth with her hand, tears beginning to fill her eyes as she turned back around. She rushed back to her room, opening the passageway back up. She entered her room, closing the secret door back up before freezing in motion.

Annalys' mouth was gaped open slightly as she tried her hardest not to cry. She tried her best to hold back her tears, but soon failed as she turned to watch Jeyne enter, "What is it, Annalys?" She questioned in a concern, slowly making her way toward her friend.

"He bedded another," Annalys explained to Jeyne, beginning to quietly cry as she found herself unable to stop the tears from flowing any longer, "While I was here, risking my life for him, he fucked another woman. He betrayed me!"

  Hearing Annalys' words, Jeyne expression became consumed with sadness. She couldn't believe it. She couldn't believe Robb Stark would do such a thing. She heard stories of how honorable he was and how loyal to Annalys he was. He broke a sacred oath just to be with her. Annalys risked everything to be with him and this was how he repaid her?

She had been there with Annalys, standing at her side as she did so much to reunite with the man she loved and now, they find out that while Annalys was distraught without him, Robb was with another?

"Oh, Annalys," Jeyne whispered sadly, rushing over to Annalys before hugging her tightly. Annalys began to cry in Jeyne's arms and Jeyne did her best to comfort the woman.

At that moment, Annalys knew Jeyne was the only one she could trust in King's Landing.

Yes, Annalys may have pushed Jeyne away constantly and tried to distance herself from her as much as possible, but it was only because Annalys feared what may happen to Jeyne.

Anyone close to Annalys had a great risk of being harmed. Take Talisa, for example. She had been Annalys' handmaiden and died because of her loyalty to Annalys.

However, Annalys knew that no matter how much she tried to push Jeyne away, the Crakehall girl would be at her side no matter what happened. She'd always be there for her. In a way, Jeyne was Annalys' best friend, nothing could change that.

Annalys grew to care for the girl deeply and Annalys knew no matter what, she'd protect her loyal handmaiden. She knew that if she were to escape with her family, Jeyne would be coming along with them, no questions asked.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Annalys knows!!! And she's now legitimized, as are her children.

How do you think Robb will react when he find outs the truth about what she's planning?