GoT Assassins AU - Chapter 3 - Tyene Sand
Tyene Sand was acutely aware of the danger she was in.
Her heart seemed to clog her throat and every beat was a hammer against her head. Every time she took a step, she wondered if it was too loud, if she would get caught, if her next breath was her last.
She clutched a single sheet of paper in her hand, rubbing her fingers together every few seconds to make sure it was still there. She had spent the past few weeks piecing all the information together on her father’s orders; she couldn’t let it all go to waste.
The night air was crisp and cool, and snowflakes brushed like icy kisses against her few patches of bare skin. Tyene had spent the last few days in the tiny Russian village, perfecting the details of her plan and making last-minute calls to her father. But this, this was the culmination of all their work.
No one besides Oberyn knew where she was and what she was doing, and even now Tyene had withheld some details from her father. It was for their own safety; if her mission went badly—and she doubted it would go well—Arianne and the others might be targets.
I won’t put them in danger.
She passed an elderly couple on the street, the owners of the tiny inn she’d been residing at. They called a short greeting at her in Russian, and Tyene replied carefully, trying to keep her expression of fear off her face.
As soon as they passed, she looked at the paper in her hand again. It was covered with bits of writing, scratched out and erased and rewritten, but several photographs were glossy and new. A string of coordinates had been written thickly in the very center, underlined and circled and circled again. Tyene pulled out her GPS from her pocket and compared the coordinates.
She reached the edge of the small village, where the only houses were a rickety tanner’s shack and, thankfully, a sturdy-looking house with a snowmobile parked outside.
Tyene jogged across the snow-laden ground and up to the sturdy house. She knocked on the door quickly, jamming her GPS and the piece of paper back into her pocket.
A middle-aged woman answered the door, her hair pulled back severely. She didn’t look unkind, but Tyene addressed her politely.
“Good evening,” she started, the Russian crisp on her tongue. “Is it possible that I could borrow the vehicle in your front yard?”
The woman looked past her, as if checking to see if the snowmobile was still there. “Winter is coming,” she said gravely, “and I need a way of transportation.”
Tyene flinched at the Stark words. It was probably just a coincidence, but she couldn’t risk anyone finding out she came north.
The woman started to close the door, but Tyene held up a hand. “Wait, please.”
She pulled out a handful of rubles from her pocket and showed them to the woman. “Please, I need to use it. Take this as an example of my trust.”
The woman eyed her suspiciously, but took the rubles. She said nothing as Tyene thanked her and hurried down the icy steps.
The keys were hanging from the snowmobile, ready. Tyene slipped on the helmet, slightly larger than her own head, and started it, hearing the loud whir as the motor revved. Crouching behind the windshield, she drove away from the village as fast as she could.
Her heart pounded in her ears as flurries of snow flitted past her. The sun had set hours ago; it was well into the night, and the sky scrawled black as ink. There were no houses, not even shabbily constructed lean-tos, as she sped through the darkness.
She set her GPS in between the handlebars, watching the coordinates change as she gained speed. Tyene Sand had no idea where she was going, but she was damn sure she’d at least get there.
The darkness seemed to suck any kind of sound or sign of civilization from the countryside. Mile after mile was eaten up until finally the coordinates started to zero in on Tyene’s destination.
She slowed the snowmobile as she approached it in the gloom. Tyene stalled the engine and stepped off, hanging the helmet back on the handlebars. She tilted her head back to see what she had traveled thousands of miles to come find, what she and her father had spent weeks working on and unraveling.
“Holy shit,” Tyene Sand blurted out.
In front of her was a fortress of black stone, hulking and huge in the night. She’d thought Winterfell was the only stronghold in the north, but that was on the opposite end of Russia, and peaceful nonetheless. This had waves of hostility radiating off of it, and she hadn’t even gone inside.
Tyene wished she had at least brought her pack when she’d decided to go after the coordinates. At least then she’d have topographic programs; she wouldn’t have to charge in blindly. But all she had right now is what she’d stuffed in her pockets, and, hey, the nighttime would turn anyone as blind as her.
She jogged across the hard tundra ground carefully, taking short breaths. As she approached the building, she saw security cameras and silhouettes of people walking on the top perimeter of the walls, and slowed her walk.
There was a grate near the ground, small and cramped, but Tyene knelt next to it all the same. Running her fingers over it, she felt the metal was cold and flimsier than it looked. The walls of the building were rough-hewn stone, and the nearest window was several stories up.
Sighing, Tyene took a step back, looking up at the nearest window. She had a few options: one, try and find a guard, declare herself a member of Sunspear, and try to get in by passing herself off as an ally. Two, she could try and climb the walls to get in through the window, assuming it was breakable glass. Three, she could try and break down the grate and get in through it, assuming it led somewhere useful and the noise didn’t bring a dozen guards down on her.
She looked right at the nearest security camera and took a deep breath. I have to get in somehow. This can’t be a total waste.
Kneeling again, she felt around on the grate until she found the screws. To her surprise, two of them were out and one was loose. Despite the burning cold, Tyene worked on unscrewing it manually, cursing every time her fingers caught a bit of sharp metal. It was tedious work, and uncomfortable, but after a few minutes it fell out onto the hard ground.
Tyene spun the grate on its one last bolt, prying it open enough so she could fit. She stuck her head in, looking down to see where it would lead, and sighed in relief when she saw a square of light about fifty feet down.
She shrugged off her thick jacket, flinching when the cold winter air hit her bare arms. Without thinking about it, she launched herself into the thin grate, using the soles of her shoes to propel herself forward.
The grate was so cramped Tyene had to keep her arms crossed in front of her, using her hands to barely pull herself along. Every few seconds, the walls seemed to close in on her, but she screwed her eyes shut and took a deep breath, continuing forward until the square of light came up on her right side.
Thankfully, this grate was easier to get over, and Tyene soon slid out into the dimly lit hallway. It was long and narrow, and several barred doors were on either sides.
“This is a prison,” Tyene realized quietly, taking a few slow steps down the hall. She saw that each door had a name stenciled on it in plain, military-esque font, with a picture resembling a mug shot below it.
Tyene pulled out the piece of paper from her pocket again, eyes scanning it hastily. She saw next to each of the pictures of the recently deceased one number—27.
Hurrying down the hall, Tyene ran until she stopped in front of room 27. The two rooms on either side of it were vacant, but the door on 27 still read one name, and had an utterly recognizable picture.
They shout made Tyene turn, and she saw a skinny man in a dark uniform at the other end of the hallway, walking towards her quickly. One hand was already on his gun. “You’re unauthorized!”
As soon as he came within distance, Tyene jumped up, kicking the man square in the jaw. He spun around and Tyene kicked him in the back of the knee, sending him to the ground. The man tried to fire his gun, but Tyene grabbed his wrist and twisted it, slapping the gun out of the man’s reach as he cried out in pain.
She sat on the man’s back in a nimble position, pinning him to the ground. “Who are you?” Tyene hissed, drawing a slim knife from her boot. “What is this place?”
“I—I—” the man choked, his jaw already turning purple from Tyene’s kick.
She waited, patient for his answer, until she saw that the man’s free hand was holding down the button to a radio, signaling their conversation to whoever was on the other end. Tyene cursed, slitting his throat and crushing the radio beneath her shoe.
She saw that the man had a slim keycard around his neck. Snatching it from out of the pool of blood spreading from the man’s neck, Tyene stood, taking a few small steps down the hall.
Suddenly there was a bang on the door to Tyene’s right. She jumped, ready for another guard to come sprinting down the hall, but it was just one of the rooms—20.
Curiosity took over her mind and she swiped the keycard through the lock. It let out a soft chime and the sound of a bolt sliding resonated.
Tyene waited for the person behind the door to do something: open the door, escape, attack her—but nothing happened. Slowly, cautiously, she turned the handle and looked inside.
At first, there was nothing but darkness. The room was solid black, not so much as a crack to see the outdoors. She thought the room must be empty until a raspy, weak voice said, “Hello?”
Tyene gripped her knife in her hand and replied, “Who are you?”
Something in the darkness shifted and a girl stepped into the light cast in from the hall. She was once probably a good looking girl, healthy, but imprisonment had stolen her looks. Now she was shrunken, bone-thin, with brittle, washed-out brown hair and tortured, bleak eyes. Her fingernails were as long as claws and she couldn’t stop shaking.
“A-are you real?” the girl stammered, reaching out as if to touch Tyene’s face. She took a step back, holding her knife out in front of her, and the girl flinched.
“N-no,” she girl pleaded, holding her hands up in surrender. “E-emily, my name is Emily, I d-don’t mean to-to harm you.”
Tyene didn’t move. She had come to this place—whatever it was—to find answers about deaths; she didn’t expect the rest of the people here would be friendly.
Emily dropped to her knees, still shaking. “You have to go,” she whispered, silent sobs shaking her shoulders. “Go, hurry, before they know you’re here.” She dove forward, gripping Tyene’s shoes in her fragile fingers. “Take me with you, please!”
Tyene jerked away again. “What is this place?” she demanded, but her tone was less forceful than before. “Why are you here?”
Emily trembled, her wide eyes swimming in fearful tears. “T-there were people before you,” she admitted, “people looking f-for answers. L-like him. A-all of them.” She pointed down the hall, her shaking hand signaling to room 27.
Tyene stayed silent as Emily continued talking.
“T-they brought the big man f-first,” the girl recalled, “the Baratheon. H-he lasted a f-few months, but then he was g-gone. T-then the quiet man, th-the Lannister. He lasted l-longer, b-but they got rid of him t-too. Viserys was l-last. He l-lasted a few weeks. I-I saw him leave d-days ago. Dead now, all d-dead.”
Tyene’s skin crawled as she heard Emily talk. “All of them, brought here and killed?” she confirmed, scanning the hall for guards.
Emily nodded, her face streaked with tears. “T-they were all q-questioned, b-but they all d-died.” A timid smile appeared on her face, and she whispered, “I th-think they’ve f-forgotten about m-me.”
A chill ran up Tyene’s back and she turned away from the girl, walking down the hallway quickly.
“Wait,” Emily called after her, “don’t leave me!”
She’s insane, Tyene thought, approaching a stairwell at the end of the hall.
They made her freeze, turn, go into fighting mode. Down the hall, Emily began to whimper and cry.
“Shut up!” Tyene hissed, looking for an exit. The guard’s body blocked the grate she’d entered in, and moving it would signal where she’d escaped.
Suddenly the stairwell door she’d been standing in front of slid open, and before she could react more men in black uniforms were grabbing her arms, dragging her down the hall. Tyene screamed, clawed, kicked, and cursed, but nothing she could do would break the men’s hold.
“You should’ve run,” Emily wailed when Tyene passed her cell, “You should’ve run.”
The men threw her into room 27, and Tyene hit the wall hard, her left side exploding in pain. She tried to stand, but her knee crumpled and she fell back again.
A dark silhouette appeared in her door, leaning casually against the frame.
“Tyene Sand,” a familiar voice purred, snatching the knife out of her hand. “I had suspected Sunspear may be involved in this soon. Ah, well. You’ve put the pieces together. You know what’ll happen in a few months.”
Tyene tried to lunge at her captor, but the door slammed shut and her head smacked against the cold metal.
She heard Emily’s cries followed by a muffled gunshot.
