Chapter 33

Inside the envelope was another piece of paper, a map with directions to where she needed to go. It said that the place was at the dungeons, not far from where her room was in the wing, but Maegara knew she had to get out first. But how?

Daemon would surely never let her out of anyone's sight, and anyone would be someone who would report back to him if he ever went out of line. She felt like a tiger caged in a tiny cell, and though she was tired and in pain, she jumped out of bed and began pacing her chamber, thinking of how she would escape. She knew what she had to do, and if she was fast enough, she could still save Jason.

But how? She paced. A single moment of doing nothing drove her wild. How? HOW?!

She turned once more and faced the other end of her chambers. She picked up the letter and ran through it once more. Her family was more powerful than she imagined. It was a secret worth keeping in the family. Well, inside the family, Serys, and every other Master of Whispers who had learned their trade from the original spider, a eunuch Varys.

She had to get to Serys. Maegara knew the Master of Whispers' chambers was not far from hers, and was in the same wing of Maegor's Holdfast. But how do I get out of here? She looked at the wall in front of her and slowly came to her senses.

Serys. Of course.

Maegara remembered the night a month ago. He had just appeared at the foot of her bed. The guards posted outside her door at that time looked surprised when Serys stepped out of the room with her.

She looked around the chamber. Maegara was taught that her namesake, Maegor the Cruel, was just as smart as he was cruel, and built a network of secret tunnels and passages, most of them leading to the bottom of the Keep and to different exits across King's Landing. This chamber had always been for royalty, so she figured it was built with a secret passage in case she was trapped in her apartment, which, ironically, she was. Serys knew of the exit. She had to find out where it was.

She faintly remembered the sound of rumbling and looked at the bare wall at the far end of the room. It never crossed her mind that, in the eighteen years she had this room, that wall was any more than it really seemed. She walked to it and tried to press it, but it wouldn't budge. She looked at the lines the stones were. They all looked commonplace until she noticed that a pattern formed where there was no dust in the cracks, and she realized it was a door of some kind. Still, she couldn't move it, no matter how she tried.

It's not impossible. This would have been an escape route for some royal member during an attack. Someone would have been able to get out undetected. She looked at the door out of her bedchamber. If I were under attack, all I'd have to do is run in here and escape. Maybe I'd use a key. But where would it be?

Her room had always been kept tidy, and apart from her used bed, the room looked elegant and spotless. Maegara sighed. Keep it quiet, Marga. The guards shouldn't hear.

She turned over her room like a storm had passed through it. She moved anything unimposing in her room, furniture that could have been a key to the door this entire time. She made sure anything metal or anything that would make noise wouldn't make a sound. She was getting frantic, but she also knew she shouldn't catch any attention. At least, not yet.

Most of her room was already overturned, yet there was still no sign of an entrance. It's not outside this room, she deduced. If I were escaping, the key to opening this door wouldn't be far from here. Think like Maegor, like the visionary of a castle made of a second layer of tunnels…where? WHERE?

As though Maegor's had come back to help her, a breeze entered her room, making the light of the torch flicker. Maegara looked at the source. Of course…

She took the torch off of its handle when she felt a small groove inside the handle on the wall, and she pressed at it. She felt something move inside. The hot metal handle would have singed a normal man, but it was almost warm for her. The source of heat made her feel slightly better, like an assurance from the Targaryens past that she was on the right path.

And sure enough, there was a faint click and the rumble as the door on the wall opened slightly. Wasting no time to be in awe of the secret entrance, Maegara took the torch and ran in. Behind the door was a particularly narrow staircase steeply descending into the darkness. The unpolished, rough walls would have scratched the skin on her elbows had she not been wearing sleeves on her dress. The stairs seemed to be going downwards for a long time until finally it ended with a three-foot drop onto a long hallway that stretched on either end.

Maegara could see why people said it was better to be in the dark when exploring the lowest dungeon level. In front of her, there was a small chamber on the side of the hallway. In it was a contraption of metal bars and wires so complex that she couldn't imagine how a human body was meant to fit in it. The only indication that it was meant for human torture was the human skull that fit snugly on one end in a curved groove.

She knew she was supposed to be scared of what lay awaiting in the dungeons, but as she stepped closer to the torture chamber, the light from her torch shone on it and, while she didn't know how or why, she could slowly begin to understand how the device worked. She could tell which of the wires were meant to hold down the captive and which were meant to bend the body to excruciating shapes. Maegara could tell it was the perfect punishment for deserters and traitors, back in the days of Maegor the Cruel. It was as if, right before her, the dungeon was coming to life. She could almost hear how the screams of the captive would sound, and how bloodied the place would look like if it were used. And in her little dark circle of light, the dungeons didn't seem that cold and deathly.

And then she remembered that Jason was down here as well.

"Jason?!" Maegara yelled into one end of the hallway. Her instincts were telling her to go right, and she did so, taking note of where the stairs to her room were hidden in plain sight.

The map was of no use to her. It only said which wing the path would be, but it did not start from any particular entrance or exit to the dungeons, and started in the middle of a relatively large, circular room. Maegara remembered the large room in her dream. She also remembered how she nearly died in that dream. But she was looking for Jason and the one power to restore her family's House once more, and she knew she couldn't afford to be scared.

"Jason!" Maegara shouted. The hallway seemed to stretch on and on, and seemed to be slowly descending.

As she walked on, she discovered many other torture chambers. The hallway resembled any street in King's Landing, a long stretch with shops and stalls on either side. But apart from that and the occasional rat, there was nothing else. Instead of the occasional litter on the ground, it was the remains of a discarded body part. Instead of shops and stalls, there were torture chambers lined on either side. Chambers lined with iron maidens were among the most common sights. Rooms with chairs with small bottoms and a vice-like mechanism where the neck would be when someone sat on it were plenty as well. She recognized the ancient Brazen Bull torture device that used to be common in Volantis. One room was empty, with what looked like a mark on the floor showing that there used to be something attached to the ground, but it still had a strong, foul smell that made Flea Bottom smell like the Reach in springtime.

The corridor stopped at a cross-roads, and Maegara quickly chose to go right, and the amount of torture chambers didn't seem to stop. She discovered a small tunnel that seemed to lead to a brighter area, but she had a feeling that it was meant to lure someone with a promise of an exit, because a foul stench of death came from inside it. She saw a wheel-like device with most of the wood corroded, and in another room a large, rusted wedge with two shackles tossed to one side of the room. She had a feeling how these contraptions worked, and the mere thought of her knowing what to do with some scared her. There was even one where it was impossible for a grown human to fit in, and the idea came to her head scared her so much that she had to touch her stomach and hope that her unborn child wasn't seeing what she was imagining.

Towards the end of the fifth hallway she wandered to, her throat was getting dry from calling out Jason's name that she couldn't even gag over the stench of the half-decomposed corpse in front of her. She encountered booby traps along the hallway, ranging from simple ones that those with torches could simply go around it, and tricky ones that made her choose to take another hallway. She recognized the thief she had sentenced to wander here, and from the way the spike impaled his face she could tell how he had triggered it. She still had no sign of the room in the map, and she began to feel scared that she would eventually end up lost in this place, or worse like a fate similar to the thief.

"Ja…Jason!" Maegara called out, getting very weary. Her dress was getting heavy, and the hot and humid air made her sweat constantly.

And then she heard it. The sound coming from the descending darkness of a hallway that gave her hope. "Marga!" Jason called out.

That was immediately followed by the sound that broke her: the sound of soft rumbling in the walls, immediately followed by the sound of metal clashing with metal, and then a gut-wrenching choke. Maegara forgot her weariness and ran. She ran, and then she continued to run, until she saw the sight that, for all she knew, could have made her heart stop at that moment.

Jason did not have a torch with him. She could tell that he was beaten before he was abandoned because of the blackened bruises around his face that wasn't there before, but most of it was covered by the blood pouring out of his nose and at the corner of his mouth as he coughed pathetically. In several places in his body, he was pierced with ancient-looking arrows that were still sharp enough to puncture flesh. One hit close to his heart, another in his gut. She saw him just in time as he fell to the ground, a few steps away from a seemingly-harmless bump on the ground.

"Oh gods—Jason." Maegara cried. She kneeled down towards him, sobbing as she pulled his body close to hers. His blood stained her light-colored dress, but she ignored this as she placed his head on her lap. "I'm too late…I'm so sorry, Jason…"

"Marga…" He looked up and feebly caressed his hand on her face. "Marga…"

"I'm here, Jason." She said. "I'm going to get you out of here."

He coughed out blood, still courteous enough to cover his mouth. He shook his head but sighed as though he was content. "You and I know that's not possible, my love." He placed his other hand on the arrow resting on his chest.

"You don't deserve to die like this…" Maegara cried.

"Marga…I don't have that much time." Jason said weakly. "Please…take care of the children. You've seen how the Lords reacted to…to…there'll be war. There'll be…be bloodshed. It's…it's too late…for you. Get out of King's Landing...while you c-can. Take the twins…get to…Free Cities…hide…"

She wanted to tell him that she didn't have to hide. She was done hiding. She was going to fight her brother if that was what it took to save the Seven Kingdoms. "Jason…"

"Promise me…you'll take care…of the children…" he wheezed, placing his hand on her flat stomach.

Tears ran down her face as she tried to speak clearly. "I will…" She sniffed. Maegara placed a hand on his. "I love you."

"I love you, Maegara." He coughed. "Please…stay…until…"

"I'll be here for you." She promised, grasping his hand. He gripped her hand and smiled weakly. "I should have taken the crown when I had the chance."

"S'not your fault." He said quietly. "You love your brother…saw the best in him…can't ever buh-blame you…for-it..."

"I wish we had more time."

"We all do." He smiled wistfully. "But you…being with you…in these past few weeks…made all the difference…"

He winced as a spurt of blood popped from his wound in his heart, and moments later, his eyes stopped looking painfully into hers and looked up blankly into the ceiling.

Maegara couldn't remember how long she stayed there, nor how long she cried, embracing Jason's body before realizing she needed to move forward. She looked forward down the hallway and saw that the walls of the hallway stopped and seemed to grow wider.

Maegara looked at Jason's body, knowing that she would eventually have to let go. She had her children and Seven Kingdoms to think of, and while the idea of staying with Jason's body and waiting for the Stranger to come and offer to bring him back was one she wouldn't hesitate to consider, she knew he wouldn't want her to do something like that. She remembered the story of Daenerys Targaryen, who gave up the barbaric Dothraki lord she loved and continued on to become the most powerful queen in the world. I'll come back for the body if I ever make it, she promised Jason's body, gently pushing him off her lap before weakly standing up.

Maegara took one last look at Jason's body before she walked onward. The hallway stopped going lower and expanded into a circular room. She noticed three arcs at the end, and she knew she had reached it. She looked at the map, quickly finding the room similar to the one she was in. The rightmost arc led to a room with a large, red 'X' marked on it. The other two rooms seemed small—only an eighth of the right room's size. Careful to make sure she wasn't going to fall into anything like in her dream, she made her way slowly to the right arc.

She was tired and in despair over Jason's death, and by the time she reached the doorway a bit more into the arc, she wondered if she could even find her way back to the surface. But as she touched the door's handle, she felt a warm sensation—an almost calming feeling. At that moment, Maegara felt somewhat better that she couldn't help but smile and tell herself that everything was going to be okay. Wasting no time, she opened the creaky door.

As she opened it, a hot burst of air hit her. And then she heard the loud roar, and then she smiled.