The Starry Sept

Aegon waited as the man was brought forth. Once he was before him, Aegon fixed him in his gaze. "Who is this man?" Aegon pointed to the High Septon.

"For... for how long?" Aegon asked, knowing the answer already.

"Go," Aegon said. He shut the door behind the young septon. It took Aegon a long time to turn around, almost as if the slowness of his motion might put a stop to his inevitable duty. This man threw the realm into bloody civil war, Aegon told himself, Few have ever been responsible for more deaths. But whatever the High Septon had once been, he was harmless now -- an old and done man, trapped in an era in his mind before he had hated so fiercely.

Aegon knelt before the septon. The dagger on his belt had never felt so heavy. "Septon Nathaniel," Aegon said haltingly. "Do you believe that a man might still find heaven, even when he has sinned?"

Aegon rose raggedly, burying the blade of his dagger in the old man's heart. He clutched the septon with his other hand, holding him tight. "I hope we both find it," Aegon whispered. "I pray that we do." He held the old septon until he breathed his last.

Aegon laid the High Septon gently down on his soft bed. He slumped down on the ground, leaning his back against the foot of the four-post bed. He deserved to die, Aegon told himself. He brought it upon himself. But Aegon could not bring to mind the hate-filled old demagogue he had imagined on the road to Oldtown, only the kindly, doddering septon too infirm to understand the world around him. With another sudden pang, he recalled Hector's final words. He had thought the man nothing but an awful fanatic, but with his death he felt a sudden, unwanted kinship. Could it be he was just like Aegon, another son fighting his father's war?

Aegon buried his head in his hands. After a while, he stood back up. There was still duty to be fulfilled. His men would look to him for guidance. Aegon composed his features, and if he looked cold and drawn and grim it was better than the alternative. He opened the door and looked at Elsey. For a moment he thought his emotions would overtake him again, but he fought it down coldly and savagely. "We go to the Hightower," Aegon said flatly.

Aegon looked at Elseyris again, once more feeling awful. She was seriously wounded, and she had lost her dragon, yet he had only thought about his own emotions. He wrapped his arms around her, trying not to hurt her wounded arm. "I am sorry," he said softly, "About Nenyan. If I had been a better commander..."

Aegon nodded once, shortly. It was a curt gesture, perhaps a form of self-restraint to keep him from saying something else. "Have your wounds attended to," Aegon said. "Take what knights you need as an escort. Let them know it is on my orders." Aegon reluctantly stepped away from Elseyris, then looked around the devastated sept one last time. He walked out.