Beneath the Tower of Joy, there was only the sound of the desert wind and the occasional bleating of the ewe.
Euron Greyjoy broke the heavy silence. His question was a cold dagger pointed at the future: "Ned, what do you plan to do now?"
Ned remained on the ground, holding Lyanna tightly as if she were his last connection to the world. He lifted his head. His grey eyes were filled with exhaustion and finality, his voice raspy but exceptionally clear.
"I will return to the North. I will bury my sister. And then..." His gaze swept over the infant, asleep again in Ashara's arms. "I will raise him."
Euron sighed. "Do you know how to feed a babe goat's milk? Do you know how to change a clout? The road from here to the North is thousands of miles. With a newborn, and a..." He paused, omitting the word 'corpse,' though the meaning was clear. "...how do you intend to travel?"
Ned closed his eyes in pain and shook his head, his voice dropping low. "With a sword in hand, I can face any enemy. But coaxing a babe to eat and sleep... I truly do not know."
Euron took a step forward and crouched down, meeting Ned's eyes. His voice was low, but every word struck Ned's heart like a hammer.
"Even if you could! Do you intend to march through the Seven Kingdoms, holding your sister's corpse in one arm and her son by Rhaegar in the other, announcing to everyone—'Look, my sister Lyanna Stark bore a bastard with Rhaegar Targaryen'?"
The words were a poisoned barb, striking precisely at Ned's deepest pain and most realistic fear. He wanted to rage, wanted to use Ice to silence Euron, but the immense grief and the equally immense reality of his predicament doused his last spark of strength like ice water. He opened his mouth, but no fire came out. Only boundless confusion and heaviness remained.
Euron's gaze was an ice pick, chipping away at the fragile barrier Ned had built with his grief. He brought up a bloody, recent example. "Do you remember Ariana Whent and her child? The babe dashed against the stones of the Red Keep?"
He gave Ned no time to breathe, laying the cruelest possibility on the table. "Robert is in King's Landing, waiting for news of Lyanna. You heard him swear to 'purge the dragonspawn.' Think, Ned. If Robert learns of this child's existence... what will he do? Will he allow a boy with Rhaegar's blood to live?"
Ned's fist clenched. A fire of defense lit up his grey eyes, his voice trembling with emotion. "I will protect him! I swear it on my life! As long as I draw breath, no one will harm him!"
"I believe you would. I know you would!" Euron said, his tone cruelly calm. Then he sighed. "Have you thought of your wife at Riverrun? Catelyn Tully waits for your safe return. She has already borne you a trueborn heir—your son, Robb Stark."
He emphasized 'trueborn' and 'your son'. "How do you plan to explain this child's origins to her? How do you explain to the entire North that you suddenly have another infant?"
Ned opened his mouth, trying to find an answer. "I will tell her..."
"Tell her what?" Euron interrupted ruthlessly. " The truth? Tell her this is the son of Rhaegar and Lyanna? That is hanging a sword over the heads of everyone in Winterfell, waiting to drop the moment Robert finds out. Or..." Euron lowered his voice further, proposing the shocking yet utterly pragmatic choice. "Will you claim him as your own? Will you tell the world this is the bastard of Ned Stark?"
Ned jerked his head up as if scalded, his eyes filled with the indignation of honor besmirched.
Euron looked him straight in the eye, popping his bubble of delusion word by word. "Everyone who knows you knows you are a piece of cold, hard Northern stone, bound by honor. If you suddenly return with a bastard, who will believe it? No one will believe the honorable Eddard Stark would do such a thing."
Ned froze. Every word from Euron was a hammer blow. For the first time, he saw clearly that every path before him was covered in thorns.
Euron turned his gaze to Ashara, who was patiently feeding the child. Her silhouette against the bloody sunset was extraordinarily gentle.
He looked back at Ned and offered a completely different solution, his tone as calm as a general deploying troops. "Let him go with Ashara to Dorne." Euron pointed at the baby. "I will announce that he is a war orphan we adopted amidst the chaos. The Seven Kingdoms are full of ruins; one more fatherless, motherless child is nothing strange."
He paused, highlighting the practical benefits. "With Ashara caring for him personally, he will grow up safe and healthy. That is far better than dragging him on a long march back to the North with Lyanna's body, risking him starving or dying of sickness on the road."
Euron continued to sketch the blueprint of the future, his voice carrying the weight of command. "I will give him the Greyjoy name. I will treat him as my own. But when he turns eight, old enough to understand," his eyes locked onto Ned again, "I will send him to the North. To Winterfell. To be a ward, and a brother to your son Robb."
The plan was a carefully woven net, trying to catch a glimmer of life in the cracks of a cruel reality. It buried the truth in the sands of Dorne and the salt mists of the Iron Islands, building a fortress out of lies.
Ned's gaze lingered on Ashara.
She was completely focused on the babe, carefully guiding him to suckle. The infant, fed and warm, made soft, satisfied sounds. A tiny, unconscious smile bloomed on his milk-stained face.
The Dornish sun highlighted Ashara's lowered lashes and her focused profile. That instinctive tenderness and care stood in stark contrast to the desert that had just seen blood and death.
Watching this scene, feeling that peace and life that could melt steel, a crack opened in the heavy grief encasing Eddard Stark's heart. Reason told him Euron's plan was cold and calculated, bearing the domineering stamp of the Ironborn.
But the warmth of the scene before him, and the stark reality of the child's survival, forced him to admit it—in this moment, of all the possibilities he could imagine, there was no better choice. Euron's way would keep the child far from Robert's wrath and let him grow up in a loving home.
This realization, heavy with helplessness and a sliver of relief, settled on Ned's shoulders.
He nodded heavily, as if the simple motion drained the last of his strength. Deep in his grey eyes lay the exhaustion of compromise and the resigned acceptance of the only way out.
Euron looked around at the others, seeking final consensus. "What say you?"
Oberyn nodded almost immediately. A flicker of disdain for the people in King's Landing passed through his narrow eyes. "I agree," he said crisply. "I have never trusted the men who sit the Iron Throne. To secure their power, there is nothing they will not do." In his mind, keeping the child far from the capital's gaze was protection in itself.
Then, all eyes turned to the three silent Kingsguard.
Gerold, Arthur, and Oswell exchanged glances. Their eyes were filled with complex emotions—unfulfilled loyalty, mourning for a fallen dynasty—but finally, it all coalesced into a duty toward this new life. They didn't speak. They simply nodded solemnly, one after another. They understood the treachery of the center of power better than anyone.
This gesture symbolized the laying down of their weapons and the continuation of their failed guardianship through silent assent.
Beneath the Tower of Joy, a brief and fragile unity was formed over this sanctuary built of lies and necessity.
Euron looked at the three white knights who had just abandoned their death wish. His question was simple and direct. "And you three? What will you do now?"
Arthur Dayne looked down at his white cloak, stained with dust and blood, and the sigil on his chest that once symbolized supreme honor. A bitter smile touched his lips. He slowly raised a hand and undid the clasps of his pauldrons, his movements filled with finality and loss. "I have not thought on it deeply," he said, his voice low. "But I am no longer fit to wear this white cloak." It wasn't self-pity, but a total negation of his own worth after the collapse of his beliefs.
The White Bull, Ser Gerold Hightower, looked up at the blue, unfamiliar Dornish sky, his eyes lost. "I only wanted... a knight's end." He paused, his voice raspy. "Now, I find I want to live. At least... to see that child grow to be a man." But this new desire brought a deeper uncertainty. "But... the world is wide, and I have nowhere to go." King's Landing would not welcome a 'derelict' Kingsguard, and anywhere else was just exile.
Ser Oswell Whent looked north, as if his gaze could pierce the mountains to see the scarred walls of Harrenhal. A painful clarity surfaced on his face, pale from blood loss. "You are right..." he repeated, his voice quiet but firm. "I should return to Harrenhal. Ariana... she needs me. If these old bones die here, too... House Whent truly has no future." The duty to his family was an invisible chain, pulling him back from the edge of death into the burden of reality.
The three Kingsguard, having lost the royalty they swore to die for, needed to find a new direction on these red sands—whether forced, resigned, or necessary—or they would have no reason to live.
Euron looked at the three knights who had just laid down their mission and shrugged. "If you don't mind, I would actually like to recruit you. After all, your skill and experience are top-tier anywhere in the world." He shifted tone, his expression knowing. "But I imagine you wouldn't agree to serve a pirate king of the Iron Islands."
His gaze grew distant as he continued. "Knights who have lost their old glory often need to find their honor and worth again in a completely different place. Since you have voluntarily taken off the white cloaks..." He paused deliberately, then spoke the name clearly. "Then perhaps consider wearing the black."
Gerold and Arthur looked up simultaneously, surprise and thought flashing in their eyes. "You mean—the Wall?"
Euron nodded affirmatively. "Indeed. The Night's Watch would surely open its gates to warriors such as you. However," he added, a trace of cold humor in his voice, "the White Walkers and wildlings beyond the Wall might not be so welcoming."
The suggestion was like a light shining into their lost path.
Gerold and Arthur looked at each other and, unexpectedly, smiled lightly. It was a smile of relief, of accepting fate. To trade the pure white armor of glory for the pitch-black cloak of guarding the realm... for men who had lost everything and had nowhere to go, guarding the Wall, becoming a brother of the Night's Watch, perhaps... really was a good end.
Perhaps, the only end.
Beneath the Tower of Joy, the hot wind swirled the grit. Euron dropped his usual mocking expression for a rare solemnity. He looked at everyone present—Ned, Oberyn, the three unarmored knights, and Ashara holding the babe.
"Regarding this child," Euron's voice was clear and hard, like iron striking rock. "We must swear an oath. His existence will be a secret known only to us. Not to our parents, our brothers, our wives, or our kings. We must keep our lips sealed. The fewer who know the truth, the safer he will be."
His gaze swept every face, seeking the firmest commitment. Eddard Stark nodded heavily; for his sister's blood, he would carry this secret. Oberyn Martell smiled slightly, with Dornish wildness and promise. Gerold, Arthur, and Oswell nodded in turn; they would use a new loyalty to guard this old orphan.
Seeing everyone in agreement, Euron's face returned to that signature smile, a mix of boldness and wildness. He announced loudly, "Then let us make a pact here today! To protect this child, our 'Pact of the Six Knights' is established!"
At that moment, Ashara, who had been listening quietly while holding the sleeping babe, took a step forward. Her clear gaze swept over the men, her voice gentle but holding undeniable strength. "My noble lords and knights, you seem to have miscounted. What about me?"
Euron was stunned for a moment, then burst into hearty laughter that carried far across the desert. He nodded vigorously, correcting himself.
"Right you are! My mistake. Not the Pact of Six Knights. It is the pact of the seven of us—the 'Pact of the Seven Knights'!"
Seven people, for the future of one infant, formed a secret alliance that crossed families and regions, beneath the ruins of the old dynasty and the shadow of the new.
The Tower of Joy stood silent, the sole witness to this extraordinary vow.
---
In the long shadow cast by the Tower of Joy, seven figures stood in a circle. A small patch of red sand in the center was cleared, and the sleeping infant lay in the middle.
Oberyn Martell stepped forward first. He drew his Dornish dagger and, without hesitation, sliced a thin line across his palm. Blood dripped into the sand, quickly sucked dry and coagulating. "Witnessed by the red sands of House Martell," he said deeply, looking at the others.
Eddard Stark walked forward silently. He pricked his thumb with the point of Ice, mixing a drop of Northern blood into the Dornish sand. "In the name of the Direwolf of House Stark." His voice was as steady as the north wind.
The three former Kingsguard exchanged glances. Arthur Dayne drew Dawn across his finger. Gerold Hightower and Oswell Whent followed suit. Three drops fell in succession, symbolizing the end of old vows and the start of the new. "Sworn by the white cloaks we set aside," they said in unison.
Euron laughed as he cut his palm, letting the blood flow freely. "Witnessed by the waves of the Drowned God!"
Ashara Dayne used a small dagger to cut her palm. "Witnessed by the honor of House Dayne!"
Seven different blades crossed over the bloody sand—the chilling Ice, the holy Dawn, the tricky Dornish spear, the heavy knightly sword, the bloodstained Whent broadsword, Euron's twin blades, and Ashara's dagger.
"Today we swear," Euron's voice rang through the valley. "We seven, bound by blood, witnessed by steel."
"To protect this child until death takes us!" Ned's oath hit like crashing ice.
"The secret buried forever, witnessed by sun and moon!" Oberyn's promise was a viper's whisper.
As the last oath faded into the hot wind, seven hands pressed down on the hilts of their weapons. The blades rang clearly, and a faint metallic scent rose from the bloody sand between the edges.
Euron bent down and scooped up a handful of the blood-soaked sand, wrapping it carefully in a piece of sheepskin. "This is our covenant." He handed the packet to Ashara. "When we meet again in years to come, this shall be the proof of our bond. When he comes of age... if one day, and I say if, any of us feels we must tell him his true identity or reveal it to the world, it must be agreed upon by at least four of the seven."
The child's identity was too sensitive; this was a further layer of protection. Everyone nodded in agreement. Ned was especially impressed; it seemed Euron considered every angle, no matter the situation.
The wind of the Tower of Joy brushed past seven resolute faces. This alliance, born between death and rebirth, was forged in steel and bloody sand.
No Maester would record it, no singer would sing of it. Only seven pairs of eyes would remember this secret that might one day change the fate of Westeros.