They were a few miles from King's Landing when King Hunter's army made itself shown. Outriders from the Dornish lot, more suited to explore the land than Dothraki were, reported that it was assembled on a big open field with the golden lion of House Clarington streaming in the wind from crimson red banners, drawn on flapping camp tents, roaring from the helms of soldiers. The weather was better now that they had left the Riverlands; it wasn't as hot as it was in Essos, but it hadn't snowed nor rained in days, and the sky was clear and bright. Somehow, it didn't seem like the right day for a battle to Kurt. Clouds should be filling a grey-black sky, threatening the earth with the boom and echo of thunder and the shocking, flashing burst of lightening to remind men that something grim was coming, something that would change their lives forever, one way or another.

Maybe the Gods want a clearer view, he thought.

He wasn't surprised when the envoys arrived. After all, it would have been stupid of him to think they were the only ones sending spies ahead of them as they marched. What did surprise him, though, was the message they carried.

"Our noble king wants to offer you one last chance to surrender, young usurper, and blesses you with his kindness and mercy as a way to honor your noble father, may the Seven grant him peace. He offers you the possibility to take the black and join the Night's Watch at the Wall, to serve the realm you feel so attached to and redeem yourself of your ill thoughts of kingslaying and treachery. Your cousin, His Highness the Prince Sam Evans of Dorne, will be granted pardon from the crown for joining your cause and permission to go back to Sunspear, while the khalasar and the rest of the army you carry with you will be allowed to cross the Narrow Sea without any intermission from the Iron Throne whatsoever. What is the answer we shall report back to His Highness the King?"

According to the sacred oath of the Sworn Brothers of the Night's Watch, those who joined the order couldn't engage in sexual intercourse nor in any sort of romantic relationship with another person; they swore to protect the realms of men and pledge their lives to such mission, abolishing any kind of distraction that could prevent them from doing so. Many times in the history of Westeros usurpers, betrayers, kingslayers – and on a lower level, rapists, murderers and thieves – had been granted the mercy of "taking the black" instead of being executed. It meant a life of misery and isolation (unless it was something you did of your own volition, of course), but it was still life. And being offered that – being compared to those types of people – was simply a slight in itself; Hunter knew Kurt would refuse.

"Look up" he told the envoys from atop his horse, a smug smile plastered on his face. They did. "Do you see what those are?"

"They're dragons" one of the men said, visibly older and more experienced than the others. His age made it easier for him to look unimpressed, somehow, but Kurt knew there were fear and wonder mingled together underneath his gold and crimson armor. He looked up as well, squinting against the sunlight to peer up at his children flying in circles like eagles around a mountain top.

"They are" he confirmed with a calmness that seemed to belong to someone else. "And you think I, Kurt Hummelsmythe, blood of the dragon and Father of dragons, could possibly accept to rot away at the far end of the Seven Kingdoms while your king sits on my father's throne?"

The younger envoys shrank back at his words, but the old one kept his ground. Kurt admired him for it, in a way. It was an unlucky job, to carry someone else's word; one that held more dangers than it seemed.

"Is this what you want me to say to His Highness?" the soldier simply said, chin proud and upward.

"It is" Kurt said. "But I hope I'll get the chance to tell him myself on the battlefield."

They all looked at one another for a moment, their hands holding the reins of their elegant white horses, whose hair was trimmed short or weaved in neat intricate braids – such a stark contrast with the appearance of Dothraki horses, whose hair was long and loose and tangled by sand and wind, whose hooves were scraped raw from marching, whose legs were thick and pulsing with veins instead of lithe, poised and sinuous. And it was such a stupid detail to focus on in that moment, yet it made Kurt think as he waited for the men to say something.

"His Highness is in King's Landing, usurper" the old spokesman said, his mouth stretching into a grin. "He had more pressing matters to take care of."

More pressing than a war for the throne he's sitting on?

That was a slight, too. A way to humiliate him, to let him know he wasn't worth Hunter Clarington's time – even though he was, considered all the times the king had sent killers to hunt him down. Or maybe Hunter was just a coward, hiding miles and miles behind his army, protected by the safety of the thick walls of the Red Keep. Maybe it was a mixture of both. Whatever the reason, though, Kurt was disappointed. He tried not to let it show.

"Then I'll tell him when I reach the throne room, right before I cut his throat" he replied, and Gods, if it didn't sound like something Blaine would say. He felt his husband's eyes on him as he said it, piercing his very skin with the intensity of their heated gaze. With that being said, the Clarington men turned their horses around and left, disappearing among the trees.

"That was fucking hot" Blaine announced as soon as the envoys were out of earshot. "If we just had the time, moon of my life, I would bend you over and f-"

"My sun-and-stars!" Kurt yelped from his saddle. "Shut up, Gods."

"It was kind of hot" Rachel agreed, shrugging with her palms up when Finn turned around on the saddle to glare at her. "What? It was!"

"I agree" Sam commented, his eyes widening when they all turned to stare at him with frowning, puzzled expressions – Blaine's was actually threatening, but still. "In, like, a totally non-sexual kind of way. Like, politically hot. I couldn't have done better myself, cousin. I'm proud of you."

"Wanky" Santana whispered to a wide-eyed Brittany from the ground.

"Is he a rainbow lizard, too?" the blonde Lamb girl whispered in response, and what did that even mean?

"Back to the point" Kurt snapped, shutting them all up. He felt his teeth grinding together. "He's not here."

"He's scared of you" Blaine said, short-sleeved light brown hauberk stretching over his broad chest. "Isn't it a good thing?"

"Not if it means he can get away" Kurt told him pensively. "Even if we win the battle, he will still have enough time to leave the capital before we reach it. I bet he had a ship arranged just in case."

"Then a part of the army will leave the battle before it is finished, when we feel sure we are going to win it anyway" Finn proposed, all trace of playfulness disappeared from his words and features. "We can't risk the king's army coming after us and trapping us between them and the city walls."

"What if they realize it as well and send someone to warn the king of our coming?"

Finn looked at him helplessly for a moment.

"What do you want to do, then?" he asked eventually.

Kurt didn't answer. He looked up, deep in thought, and suddenly all he could see were his children. His eyes widened.

"No" someone said down on earth, and when he looked back down, he found Finn frowning.

"No, what?"

"I won't let you fly to the Red Keep on your own, khalees" Finn replied. His face had never been so upset, and Gods, he'd seen right through it, just as the thought had been taking shape in Kurt's head.

"Was that what you were thinking?" Blaine inquired, his eyebrows knitting together slightly. Kurt felt cornered all of a sudden, like a child caught with his hand in a jar of jam, but when he confessed his voice was clear and sure. He was no child, after all. For a very long time now.

"Yes. The sooner I kill the king, the sooner this war will end. We all know Hunter Clarington is not the kind of sovereign that inspires loyalty even in death. His army will probably surrender as soon as he's gone. It would spare many human lives."

"You'd be cut out of whatever help we could give you" Sam spoke up in a worried tone. "You'd be on your own."

"He wouldn't" Blaine said, his serious, determined eyes shifting from Sam's face to Kurt's. They turned sweeter, yet at the same time there was so much power and strength in them. And even though Kurt feared for Blaine's life every day, even though what he was proposing was dangerous and outright crazy, he couldn't find it in himself to say no because it felt right for them to end it together instead of fighting two different battles. After so many times spent waiting inside a tent for Blaine to return, he wanted to face that last challenge side by side with him. He wanted them to earn their glory like the kings they'd grown to be.

"Are you saying you agree with this- this nonsense, my Khal?" Finn asked him sharply – it looked and sounded and felt so surreal to Kurt, because the knight had always been so careful in the way he addressed both of them.

"Calm down, sweetie" Rachel tried to soothe, stroking Finn's upper arms from behind him.

"I'm just saying I'm going with him, if he decides he wants to" Blaine said, more calmly than Kurt had expected. "It's his decision to make."

"Khalees, please, don't" Finn turned to him, pleading now. It made Kurt uncomfortable, because he wasn't really used to it.

"What if it's my only chance to kill him, Finn?" he asked the knight gently.

"It's his only chance to kill you, too. It's a mistake" Finn said, quieter yet surer of his opinion. "I said it was a mistake when you went inside the House of the Undying in Qarth, and when you married the Harpy in Mereen, and you didn't listen. So I beg you, listen to me now."

The blow was delivered softly, almost timidly, but it struck Kurt harder than intended. A shiver went down his spine at the thought of how blind he'd been back then, of all the ways Adam had fooled him, of the things he had ordered to be done. Of the people he had ordered to be killed.

"Fine" he said, because how could he not to?

Yet in the back of his mind, the seed of doubt had been planted.

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He had never heard so many noises at the same time. Battles had always been foreign and distant to him, a blur of sound in the background of hurried meals and restless sleeps and worried conversations. And when he finally found himself in a real one – well, flying over one anyway –, what struck him the most was the noise. People yelling, swords clashing, shields breaking, horns blowing, horses shrieking, even arrows cutting the air as they uselessly travelled upward to try and pierce through Drogon's scales. He made the loudest noise of all of course, roaring and spitting fire down on those who fought for the other side, matched only by Rhaegal and Viserion. The sound seemed to ripple from his stomach and vibrate all along his throat, making Kurt's body tremble with it from where he was riding him.

He was wearing an armor he had requested to be made for the occasion, the three-headed dragon of his House (black instead of red, like Drogon was) painted on his red steel-covered chest; it was hot as the Seven Hells inside it, due to the dragon's body heat, but the wind in Kurt's face and hair gave him solace from it. He shouted orders at Drogon, making him duck and turn to avoid the arrows thrown at him every time they so much as tried to get close to the fighting – he was scared one of them would catch Drogon in the eye or mouth. He didn't know if that would be enough to kill him, but he didn't want to find out just yet.

What had seemed so easy in theory – riding the dragons above the battle to make it end as quickly as possible – turned out to be quite tricky instead. The main problem was the fact that it was very difficult to direct the dragons' flames toward very small groups of men, and since the armies were now in the deep of battle, it was impossible not to catch someone of Kurt's own soldiers in the process. The second problem were the catapults. They made the loudest noise right after the dragons' roars, and had been placed all around the perimeter of the battlefield, inward and outward. Huge rocks were thrown at them from all sides, forcing him to take Drogon too high in the sky to be useful to the outcome of the battle itself. It was maddening, and dangerous, and had been going on for hours now. His thighs felt stiff and sore from sitting with his legs open, his back hurt from all the times he'd had to shift to the side or duck down to avoid arrows meant to kill him.

Sam and Blaine were having the same problems, and the longer the battle dragged on, the more Kurt worried about them. As trained as they were, the connection they had with Rhaegal and Viserion couldn't be as deep as the one Kurt had with Drogon; what if the dragons failed to listen to an order or did the opposite thing? What if they reacted badly to something and threw their riders away from the saddles as they flew? The only advantage for them was the fact that they were smaller, so they were a more difficult target for archers and catapults alike. Every now and then, Kurt would take a look around to be absolutely sure they were still there, his heart lodged somewhere in his throat until he saw them reappear from behind a cloud of smoke or from inside a patch of forest at the outskirts of the battlefield, out of the catapults' reach.

Blaine wore an armor too – Kurt had had to sweet-talk him into it, of course – whose design matched Kurt's except for the colors: polished black steel with a three-headed white dragon on his chest, like Viserion. The wild tangled lines of ruthless beauty crawling up his neck seemed to take life from the armor itself, and that, together with the mop of black curls on his head and the thick make-up around his eyes (exaggerated as it always was for battles and fights) made him look like some sort of wicked demon come to reap souls from atop his red-eyed, snow-white dragon, whose color could remind that of a corpse, or a skeleton. He looked like death on a pale horse, and he was utterly, completely, unspeakably beautiful; a nightmare Kurt didn't want to wake up from.

They had sent the women and those too young or old to fight – remnants of the freedmen Kurt had gathered behind him on his journey through Essos – to the harbor of Duskendale, where a ship was ready to take them away in case of defeat; down amidst mud and smoke and blood, instead, Kurt could catch glimpses of Finn, Grey Worm, Wes and David. He had been trying to check on them, too, but sometimes he didn't see them for half an hour before finding them again, further through the enemy's lines than before.

It took him yet another half hour of useless flying in circles and another couple of rocks aimed at his head to realize the battle wouldn't be over anytime soon. It was too balanced, more than he would have thought, the numbers Clarington had compensating the presence of the dragons. Without the Titans and the Northmen, in fact, Kurt's army was smaller. Come nightfall, they would all have to retreat and pick up the fighting in the morning, and Gods only knew how many days that would go on.

I can't wait anymore.

His restlessness became an itching feeling under his skin, an irresistible pull that forced him to glance toward the capital in the distance, the top of the majestic Red Keep hidden among clouds Kurt knew he could part in an instant, flying his way through the glass-domed roof of the throne room itself. All it would take was a burst of flames from Drogon's mouth, and everything would be over. All the fighting and screaming and bleeding and dying around him. All the noise. A burst of flames and then... silence.

Wasn't it selfish of him not to try?

"Blaine! Sam!" he heard himself call, squeezing his thighs around Drogon's neck and looking around.

"Kurt!" Blaine's voice yelled from behind him, before Viserion appeared. They were high enough not to be bothered by the battle.

"Are you okay?" Kurt asked Blaine, voice loud to be heard over the sound of the bloodbath.

"Yes!" was Blaine's shouted answer. "But those catapults are driving me crazy!"

"I know!" Kurt yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth, the wind whipping at his face and drowning the sound of his voice. "Follow me!"

He told Sam the same when they found him – golden locks streaming in the wind in that prince-like way that was the exact opposite of the way Blaine looked – and all three made the dragons land in a clearing not too far from the battlefield, but hidden by a thick circle of trees and bushes.

"Good boy" Kurt told Drogon as soon as his feet touched the ground, his legs wobbling a little as they slowly regained feeling. So many men had found a writhing, shriveling, howling death in the black dragon's flames, yet to praise him for it felt like praising a dog for bringing back a bone. He didn't know whether he should take that as an unsettling sign; as a matter of fact, he didn't.

That's what they're for, he knew. Only now I can tell them when to stop.

"We're wasting our time" he said, turning from where he was petting Drogon's side to address Sam and Blaine, who were standing close to their mounts as well. The green dragon painted on Sam's golden armor matched his eyes, Kurt realized only then.

"It's just taking longer than we thought" his Dornish cousin said, but weakly. Kurt knew Sam could see the resolution in his eyes – he had already lost.

"I want to go" he announced. "I want to get this done."

Finn will have to understand.

"Are you sure?" Blaine asked, Viserion's huge head cocking to the side at the sound of his voice as if expecting a new order at any moment. The simple movement filled Kurt with so much pride that he thought he might burst with it.

"Yes, I am" he said, high on war-induced euphoria, before his tone softened. "You don't have to come if you changed your mind, though, my sun-and-stars."

Blaine's face split into one of his most seducing sardonic grins.

"You should know me better than that, moon of my life."

Kurt smiled back.

"Yeah, I should."

"Finn won't like this" Sam blurted, as if in a sudden haste to interrupt them. As much as Kurt's mind was set, that still troubled him somehow.

"Tell him I'm sorry" he told his cousin in a pleading tone. "Tell him I need to do this.

Sam held his gaze with a deep frown before he sighed deeply.

"Okay" he conceded at last. "I'll... I'll go back to the battle, then."

He climbed back in his saddle on Rhaegal's back, emerald green-bronze scales standing out against the much duller color of the grass underneath him. The prince stared at them with a suddenly grievous look of finality in his eyes.

"Good luck" he said, before kicking Rhaegal's side and leaving them in a swirling cloud of leaves. Kurt looked at him until he became a faraway point in the bright blue sky.

"Are you ready?" he heard Blaine ask. He looked down at him and nodded.

I am.

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From above, King's Landing looked like a long and slim yellowish snake coiled around itself, hugging the hills and slopes that eventually led to the massive, intimidating Red Keep perched on top of a steep cliff that looked down on Blackwater Bay and, much farther east beyond the island of Dragonstone, on the Narrow Sea Kurt had dreamed of crossing so many times he'd lost count sometime during his childhood. He could see the streets and alleys getting cleaner the closer they were to the royal castle, but overall there was something they all had in common: they were empty. Viserion and Drogon's shadows swept over abandoned carts and market stalls, the citizens hiding in their houses. Kurt could almost picture them, peering through their windows to catch a glimpse of the marvelous creatures that should no longer exist, but leaning back inside at the mere sight of them, covering their children's eyes and ears.

The first ray of sunlight hitting the glass of the domed throne room made his heartbeat speed up in his chest.

This is it. This is the moment I have been waiting for all my life.

He looked at Blaine for confirmation and found him nodding, a look of deep and solemn resolve in his black-rimmed gorgeous eyes. Together, they rode their dragons down, down, down until their thick-scaled bodies crashed through the multi-colored roof in a downward explosion of glass, whose sound was so deafening that for a moment all Kurt could hear was a persistent hissing noise ringing through his skull. He closed his eyes and curled up on himself as he felt Drogon hit the stone floor, waiting for the sharp pieces to stop falling all around him.

When the ringing echo seemed to lessen, he lifted his arms from his head and opened his eyes, and then-

"Kurt, look up!"

He barely had the time to do it. Something black and huge fell on him, on Drogon, trapping them both against the floor. The collision with the thing – was it a net? – pushed him off the dragon's back and on the ground next to him, crashing his right shoulder under his body in the impact. He screamed in pain and panic, clutching at his arm and looking up to find himself, indeed, under a sort of net pinned to the ground with what seemed to be heavy iron weights. Drogon was trashing against it, shrieking like Kurt had never heard him do, his wings awkwardly forced to stay flattened against his body in a way that was probably painful for him, head barely able to turn from side to side.

Why can't he lift it off himself?, Kurt wondered. Is it that heavy?

A matching shrieking sound joined Drogon's wails.

Viserion. Blaine.

Kurt couldn't see them, his vision blocked by Drogon's body since he had landed on the other side from where Viserion was.

"Blaine?" he called, voice anguished and too high for his liking.

"Kurt! Kurt, are you okay?"

And suddenly Blaine was there, beyond the strange thick black net, his eyes wide as he clutched at it with his hands. He must have jumped from Viserion's body just in time to avoid being trapped as well.

"What is this?" Blaine asked in a frantic tone, scrambling uselessly at the thing. He pulled at it, but it didn't break. After all, if Drogon couldn't, there was no way Blaine could.

Kurt shakily sat up under it, his head forced down at an awkward angle, and lifted his uninjured arm to touch it, too. It was smooth and hard and the single pieces were very long, joined together tightly with iron-thread in order to create an intricate maze of square holes. Some of them seemed wide enough for him to get out. He managed to crawl along Drogon's side and reach one of them, Blaine following him from outside the net to help him up and out of it. And as Kurt looked closely, he couldn't help but notice how the polished black of the material matched the dragon's scales so beautifully, and how the curves that lined it sometimes seemed to meet and blend in a way that couldn't be casual, but designed by nature instead.

He drew his hand back when it dawned on him.

"It's-"

"Dragon-bone" another voice supplied for him, making him startle. Only then Kurt realized there was no sign of the beautiful black dragon skulls and skeletons that were supposed to be decorating the red stone hall. He felt sick.

What the Hells is happening?

He saw Blaine's head whip around toward the sound, which came from the far end of the throne room, but the owner of the voice was kept out of their sight by Drogon's massive size. They locked eyes while simultaneously reaching their hands out toward each other. Kurt hissed when his bruised – broken? – shoulder came in contact with one edge of the hole, but he managed to pass through it.

Just as he was dragging his legs out, the hole encircling his waist, three men appeared behind Blaine and wrenched him away from him, two forcing his arms behind his back while the other one pulled him by the hair, dragging him backwards.

"NO!" Kurt screamed, scrambling out of the net and landing face-down on the floor, his lower lip splitting against it as his shoulder screamed for some relief. "Let him go!"

He jumped to his feet as quick as he could and drew out his sword with his left arm clumsily to run after the men, who were taking Blaine around Drogon's head to the center of the hall. The two dragons were screaming non-stop, thankfully not spitting fire in their frenzy – maybe they couldn't open their jaws wide enough – and now Blaine was screaming too, muscles straining against the vice grip of the lion-crested guards. And no, there was no silence at all.

What did I do?

The guards stopped abruptly right at the base of a tall, wide, sharp-pointed thing that thrust upward like a grey one thousand-fingered clawed hand. Kurt had seen it before, once, but it had been just a vision; an hallucination, a trick of magic, and it hadn't focused on it long enough for him to realize how huge it truly was, how scary.

And sitting on it, nestled in a human-shaped hole in the middle of the jagged pile of melted swords people called the Iron Throne, was Hunter Clarington. Kurt stopped dead in his tracks to take a moment and have a look at him. And he looked... Gods, somehow he looked nothing like what Kurt had expected, even though he had never really managed to give him a particular face. He had imagined him to be ugly, though, and he wasn't.

Childishly enough, Kurt had wanted him to be ugly, just like he had thought that a day of upcoming war and death should have been grim and cold and rainy instead of bright and hot and sunny. He had wanted him to pay some kind of price for how evil he was, an ugliness so unmistakable that people would just know he had deserved it for something. Instead, the Gods had granted him the gift of beauty, too; yet it wasn't genuine, but wicked, tainted by a pair of malicious, mocking eyes that could have been sweeter and a smug, devilish grin on lips that could have been plumper. His hair was a brownish gold, Clarington gold, and his jaw was square and shaved. He sat on the throne as if he was bored by it, back slumped against it and legs crossed over one armrest, yet Kurt knew he was anything but bored in that moment.

"Isn't it marvelous what you can do by chopping up some useless piles of bones?" the usurper king said. "It took my maesters months to reassemble them. Turns out dragons can't break them nor burn them, instead. Talk about an interesting reading."

Kurt's surprise at the revelation must have been too obvious, because his father's murderer chuckled. Of course, the Red Keep housed the biggest library of the Seven Kingdoms, and all the books Kurt's father had owned were there; it shouldn't be surprising that they contained more information than the ones Sebastian had managed to gather in Essos, which had been full of lies and superstitions more often than not. Except for the fact that it was. Yet another advantage Kurt had never seriously taken into account: knowledge.

"What, you thought I had been sitting on my hands doing nothing while you made your way here?" Hunter scoffed, raising an eyebrow. "I had to be prepared. After all, I knew you would come here. It was the right, moral thing to do to spare lives, wasn't it? You heroes are so predictable."

The heat of shame rising up to his cheeks was so fierce that Kurt felt even more ashamed because of it. It had been a set-up. The guards had wanted to tell him Hunter wasn't on the battlefield.

Fool. Fool, fool, fool, stupid na�ve fool that you are. You were wrong, and Finn was right. You are a child indeed.

But it was no use to try and make Hunter believe he had anticipated this. There was no way he had, honestly. And it didn't matter anymore. The only thing Kurt could do was limit the damage and protect the person he had dragged along in what was turning out to be the worst idea he had ever had. The thought of losing him for it clouded his mind so suddenly with fear and regret that his voice came out hoarse and faltering when he spoke.

"Let him go" he said, lifting his sword threateningly to point it up toward where Hunter was sitting, beyond Blaine and the guards' heads. "He has nothing to do with this."

"He has everything to do with this" the king corrected him, removing his legs from the armrest to sit properly and glare down at him, mockery turning into spite in a matter of seconds. "If it wasn't for him and his filthy, ragged hoard of horse-fuckers, you wouldn't be here. Plus, anything you care for is fair game to me."

Blaine, heedless of the position he was in, bristled at the king's offensive words.

"How dare you speak of my people like that, you fucking piece of-"

A punch at his stomach stopped him before he could finish. Kurt felt it as if it had been directed at him.

"Don't you fucking touch him!" he shouted at the guard who had done it, running to the man with his sword lifted, but the guard drew his and pushed him back after a loud clash of steel against steel. The one who was holding Blaine's head by his hair pulled out Blaine's own arakh from its scabbard at his hip and slipped it under Blaine's chin, grinning.

Like the first Azor Ahai, who defeated the darkness during the Long Night, you shall make a sacrifice, the red priest's words echoed in his ears. Yours will be a different sacrifice, but a sacrifice all the same.

Kurt's face crumbled.

Blaine.

"Don't" he whispered, choking, all pride forgotten. "Please, don't."

"Ah, that's more like it!" King Hunter said excitedly, clapping his hands together. "I thought I would have to try harder to make you beg, blood of the dragon, but you seem to catch up quickly with the program. I am quite pleased. Although you don't make much of a challenge, which is a shame for those who will have to write about this."

Kurt forced himself to draw his eyes away from Blaine – hurt beautiful perfect Blaine dragged into this madness because Kurt was a stupid na�ve little boy, fool, fool, fool, you're a fool - to stare at the king for a moment, struck by a sudden spike of boldness. He narrowed his eyes at him, trying not to make him feel how utterly terrified he was.

This is all wrong.

"Let's make it a challenge, then" he told the king. "Single combat, you and me. So the singers will have something to sing of. Let's end this gloriously, shall we, Your Highness?"

The title was supposed to be mocking, but it burned on his tongue all the same. The sentence, though, worked its magic. Hunter's initial doubt had his guards look up at him expectantly, which automatically had the king make his decision.

The things men do for pride.

"With pleasure" he said, smirking. He stood up and climbed down the steps carved into the throne itself, before drawing out his sword from the scabbard he held at his hip.

Of course, Kurt knew the odds were against him. He was decently trained, yes, but he fought with his right arm, which he couldn't even lift. But there was nothing else he could do to give Blaine a chance. Maybe the guards would get distracted watching the duel and he would manage to wrench free of their grasp and get away. Maybe they wouldn't, but at least the king's sadistic attention would be averted from him for a while.

It was the least he could do, after everything. And he owed it to himself, to get through with what he had planned, odds be damned. At least the singers would say he'd tried.

"Kurt" he heard Blaine whisper, and a part of him couldn't help but feel like that was the last word he would hear from him. That same part, deep in his soul, accepted it with open arms as a punishment he had deserved and was ready to inflict upon himself.

No more love and laughter and dreams of flying for you, little boy, fate seemed to whisper to him, in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Sebastian's. No simple, glorious rescuing and happily ever after. I told you so.

It's okay, Kurt replied. Just let him get away first.

Hunter's first slash startled him just in time for him to lift his sword and block it. He did it quite decently, given his condition, but he wondered how long he would resist.

"I was in this exact spot, right at the base of the throne, when I killed your father" the king started in a conversational tone, as if they were having lunch together instead of trying to kill each other. "Gods, it feels like it was yesterday. The way he screamed when I pushed this same sword through his chest."

Stop, stop, stop, stop the younger part of Kurt screamed in his mind, making him wish he could cover his ears with his hands and curl up in a ball on the floor. The adult part of Kurt – was there one? – gritted its teeth and said, "You'll know what it truly feels like when I'll push my sword through your chest."

"Will I?" the king chuckled, all the while attacking Kurt from left, right, left, right, an elegant dance he was enjoying far too much. "Oh, how I like to see hopes getting crushed. Just as much as I like to see loves getting killed."

Kurt couldn't help but glance at Blaine at that, who was actively fighting against the guards now. Maybe Kurt's plan had worked. Somehow Blaine wasn't held down anymore and he was pushing and kicking in all directions (unarmed, since one of the guards had taken his arakh), avoiding the men's blades. Kurt could only hope no more guards would come.

"You'll see none of it today" he told Hunter Clarington, almost feeling like he believed it.

"Love, love, love" his opponent said in a melodramatic tone, starting a monologue no one had asked him to perform. "It's the most overestimated, morally accepted kind of evil there is. So terribly selfish, to claim another person's heart as yours. So brutal. In fact, what I like the most is to make people see it with their own eyes."

Kurt started to pant as they danced their dance, shoulder aching even though he was trying not to move it. Sometimes his grasp on the sword faltered, his left arm stiff with the sudden effort it wasn't used to bear.

"You're out of luck with me" he answered Hunter's sickening declaration. He wanted to give longer, sassier replies, but it was best to save breath and strength for the actual fighting.

"So, so self-centered, blood of the dragon" the king reprimanded him in an almost paternal tone, shaking his head from side to side in disappointment as he took a step back, interrupting the duel for emphasis. "I wasn't talking about you."

He didn't have to say more. Kurt gave a growl of sudden, almost animalistic anger and threw himself back at him, resuming the fighting.

"You lay one finger on him, and I swear-"

"Oh, but I will do so much more than that" Hunter assured him, their faces meeting for a moment under their joined swords trembling above their heads. "Let's make it very clear, Hummelsmythe. You'll probably die nice and quick, because I can't risk locking you up and keeping you alive. Not safe for the realm and all that, sadly. But your Khal... he doesn't mean anything to me. I'll kill him so slowly, and I'll make it so painful, that in the end he will beg for me to end it."

Kurt gripped the sword so hard that his arm cramped with it. He held Hunter's challenging gaze, forcing himself to look indifferent and not at all threatened, when in fact the words had killed him even before Hunter might have a real chance at it.

"Didn't your precious maesters tell you?" he managed to croak, blinking back tears of pure anguish and terror. "Khals never beg."

Hunter smiled before pushing him back, breaking their swords apart. In the background Kurt could hear Blaine struggle, but he couldn't allow himself to look away from his opponent for even a second.

Get away. Please, get away.

"There is a first time for everything, isn't it what they say?" the king replied with a blow directed at Kurt's side, that missed. "After a week, he will pray his filthy horse God to end his life. After two weeks, having been disappointed, he will turn to me, uselessly of course. After three weeks, maybe four, he will curse you and the day you were brought into this world and then, with love's reckless cruelty all bared for him to see, I'll grant him the gift of mercy."

He explained it so effortlessly, as if listing things he meant to have his servants buy for a feast, that the words coiled around Kurt's heart in an ice-cold grip, choking the air out of his lungs. It was no empty threat. Hunter meant every single word. And Kurt had learned how to deal with presumptuousness, self-aggrandizement, intimidation, with people trying to be tough and threatening, but when he found himself face to face with evil, pure, simple evil, it scared him. And in that moment, he knew: if I die, let me fall to the deepest and darkest of the Seven Hells. Because there's no way I will forgive myself if I do.

"As for your precious children" Hunter went on, taking advantage of Kurt's stern silent attitude, "I still haven't found a way to kill them, but I think hunger will do. Or do you think one will end up eating the other after I lock them away? That would be even better."

He marked the importance of the word with a blow directed at Kurt's right shoulder. This time, Kurt was too slow to react. The pain was so sudden and burning and piercing that he fell on his knees because of it, sword slipping from his grasp and landing at his side. Behind him, he could still hear Blaine screaming over the sound of fighting. Once in a while it sounded like Kurt's name.

He crouched to retrieve his sword, but Hunter kicked it away and slipped the point of his blade under Kurt's chin, lifting it so they could look at each other. His eyes seemed aflame with mischief and pride, a fire that would soon engulf Kurt's soul after he was dead. Failure stared back at him, mocking, laughing, rolling its eyes and shaking its head and that's when it really, truly hit him.

I lost.

"And who are you, the proud lord said, that I must bow so low?" Hunter intoned softly in a sad, melancholic litany Kurt had never heard before.

"What are you doing?" he whispered in disbelief, but the king kept going, eyes half-lidded as if in a trance. And as he did, the words echoed in the air and drifted around Kurt's head, not entirely comprehensible but haunting enough, the swan song of the great adventure that had been his life.

In a coat of gold or a coat of red,
a lion still has claws,
And mine are long and sharp, my lord,
as long and sharp as yours.

Yes, Kurt had thought they were.

And so he spoke, and so he spoke,
that lord of Castamere,
But now the rains weep o'er his hall,
with no one there to hear.
Yes now the rains weep o'er his hall,
and not a soul to hear.

The swordpoint pressed against his throat, where the skin was thin and tender. Drogon and Viserion let out an heart-wrenching wail further down the hall. Hunter smiled at him like a pleased cat and drew his sword back to aim the final blow. In the exact moment that it started moving down, Kurt closed his eyes and thought of endless curves of black ink over smooth olive skin.

"NO!" Blaine's voice screamed, and suddenly Kurt was being shoved away from where he was kneeling, ending up on the floor. He heard someone choking, and the unmistakable, yet almost imperceptible sound of a blade slicing through soft human flesh.

No.

No no no no no no NO.

When he turned around, Hunter had indeed pushed his sword into someone else's body. But it wasn't Blaine's.

"Noooooo!"

He looked around for his sword and found it very close to where he had fallen. He dragged himself toward it, picked it up and stood up on his feet, pain dulled and unimportant and forgotten. The next thing he knew, he was flinging himself at Hunter with a rage he had never known, his sword cutting through the air in a single horizontal slash that chopped the king's head from his body before he barely had the time to turn around, probably just as shocked by the turn of events as Kurt was. The head flew to the floor and rolled away, dead open eyes forever stuck in wonder as the useless body collapsed to the side like a ragdoll.

"No, no, no, no! What did you do? What did you do?" Kurt screamed, letting the bloody sword slip from his hand as he fell on his knees next to the barely breathing body quietly trembling on the stone floor.

Finn smiled, the hole open just above his clavicle making it hard for him to speak as blood trickled down the side of his mouth.

"I saved you" he choked. Kurt cradled his head in his lap and let out a dry sob, his hands shaking. "I knew you'd need me, khalees."

Blaine appeared at the other side of Finn's body. He had a wound on his left temple that was bleeding a lot, drenching one side of his face, and his armor was full of bumps. No one else was making any noise except for the dragons, so Kurt assumed he must have killed the guards in the end. They stared at each other for a moment above Finn's head, Blaine's face crumbling. He started crying - crying - and Kurt had to look away.

"It's Kurt" he told Finn, clutching at his hand. It was so cold. "It always should have been Kurt for you. I'm sorry, Finn, I'm so sorry."

"It's okay. Just tell my mom I did it" Finn whispered, his eyes getting glassed-over and distant as he spoke in a thin, tremulous voice. "Please, tell her I did what I promised her."

"Of course. Of course I will, Finn" Kurt assured him, tears slipping down his cheeks. "She will be so proud of you."

Finn smiled, and died like that. Smiling. Kurt felt it in the weakening grasp of his hand, in the slowed down breathing of his chest, and saw the life leaving his eyes and body except for that, that last remnant of what could have been painted on his face to stay like that for all eternity – the memory of loss and bravery and honor and unexpected love and possibilities, of a little house in the countryside and a bunch of loud children, the simple life Kurt had always imagined for him. He'd meant to name him his Hand, yet a part of him had always known that Finn didn't belong to power and politics. He'd meant to name him his Hand, and he'd never even told him.

Yours will be a different sacrifice, but a sacrifice all the same.

"Finn" Blaine whispered, shaking Finn's shoulder weakly. "Finn!"

He started sobbing then, all his talk of being strong and not letting the world get to him flying out the window because that, that was too much even for him. There had always been some sort of deep, unspoken connection between him and Finn, a bond of loyalty and mutual respect neither of them had had to acknowledge in words to know that it was there. Blaine curled up on the floor, his head nestled against Finn's chest, and wailed like he'd done back in Meereen, only there were no objects being thrown, no pictures being ripped off the walls, no mirrors crashing on the floor. It was just him, his frame looking so tiny for the first time in Kurt's eyes, and the terrible sound of angry grief. Kurt knew better than trying to comfort him. He wouldn't have been able to, anyway.

Standing up in a daze, he turned around to look at the throne. He felt his feet dragging him slowly toward it, then up the steps, until he was seated on it and looking down at the battlefield the hall had become. The dragons trapped amidst a sea of broken glass, the dead guards scattered around, the two parts of King Hunter's body laying motionless on the floor, Blaine crying over Finn's corpse.

How does it feel to win?, a little voice asked him. It was Sebastian's once again. He sounded genuinely curious.

Kurt stroked at one armrest of the Iron Throne and hissed, staring down at his hand. Apparently a swordpoint hadn't completely melted when the throne had been created, sticking up from the otherwise flat surface. A little drop of blood blossomed on his palm from the little cut.

It hurts.

He looked back down.

Good, he thought. It's supposed to.