𝗕𝗟𝗢𝗢𝗗𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 || Cregan Stark

42 | The Favour of Gods

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
T H E F A V O U R O F G O D S

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The night rustles with the sound of barking laughter and bawdy wits. From behind the half-closed shutters of a tavern, warm yellow light spills onto the cobbled street, illuminating the worn faces of dockworkers and sellswords gathered around its porch. Tankards clink. Boots scrape stone. Somewhere within, a fiddle sings an uneven, half-drunk tune, underscored by the dull clatter of dice and the occasional cheer or groan of men chasing fortune.

Cregan's step slows as they near the building's edge, his posture unconsciously shifting. Viserra trails behind him, her eyes darting around, taking in the sight of their surroundings with earnest heed. Cregan glances back at her, his eyes trailing over her features carefully, watching her push back her hood, allowing the blazing moonlight to paint her silver.

There is something diligent in the settlement of her mien— a keenness that scarcely displays itself. She seems attentive, or perhaps even curious, as her eyes trail over the crowds of people surrounding them. Here, the heat clings to the walls, thick and sour with humanity. Lanterns swing faintly from the crossbeams above, casting ochre light that pools and vanishes with each shift of movement.

He leans forward, nudging her arm.

"I don't suppose the taverns down south are like this," he asks, faint amusement in his tone.

She hums, her gaze carefully kept away. "I wouldn't know. I've never been in a tavern."

Her lips twitch into a ghost of a smile, though it fades after a short while.

He watches her closely, something rather terse returning to him. The merriment in him wavers, as a sense of realisation settles.

"I suppose it is hardly a place for the likes of you," he murmurs.

He upholds the solemnity of his ways, but within, a certain doubt lingers.

He shouldn't be here with her.

He shouldn't have thrown her into the snake pit.

Viserra, however, seems to think no further of it and slips beside him, entering into the crowd with measured steps. It is strange, he thinks, to watch her like this— to watch himself like this.

This is not her place. She should not belong here, in their foreign lands with their foreign customs. She was not born to share her bed with wildlings and heathens. She is proud and noble and beautiful, and a Targaryen all the same.

But tonight she is also another; a commoner who lets her hair loose, dark and tangled, like an ocean down her back. Who sways through the moving folkmass like she knows of nothing else. A woman of the people, a princess and a peasant, a girl made of simple flesh, embracing herself as if to contain something that is meant to be hidden.

In this place, only Cregan knows who she is. Or at least he would like to think of it that way.

But perhaps he should not assume such things. Perhaps people such as them don't have a reliable nature. In fact, there is usually no true nature at all. No part of them has not been mended with, has not wavered and trembled, has not healed wrongly.

He would know.

The two of them weave through the gathering, drifting by clusters of tables. The smell of spilt ale and sweat is thick in the smoky air, lit by swaying lanterns that cast bodies into shifting relief. They reach a counter, where a barkeep in a stained leather apron wipes a chipped mug, his gaze sweeping the room with practised nonchalance.