Chapter 55 My Friend, Anya

“Quicker, Matilda,” called the head maid, her sharp voice cutting through the clatter of pots and pans.

Matilda adjusted the platter in front of her, steadying her hands as she set the roast into place. The kitchen hall was alive with motion, maids moving in and out with baskets, cooks bent over steaming pots and the hiss of fat dripping into the fire. 

It was nearly time for dinner and everything had to be perfect. Tonight’s meal was roasted fowl with herbs, a dish that filled the air with a warm, savory fragrance. The smell was so rich her stomach gave a faint twist of longing. She was glad she had eaten a piece of bread earlier; without it, the sound might have betrayed her and earned a scolding from the head maid.

Her fingers ached faintly from the work, but she kept at it.

Out of habit, she turned her head slightly, her eyes finding Anya at her side. She was plating too, though her movements were slower.

“You’re doing it wrong,” Matilda whispered.

Anya looked up at her in surprise, then lifted an eyebrow as if to ask what she meant. Matilda cast a quick glance toward the head maid to make sure her attention was elsewhere, then leaned closer, her voice low.

“After all these years, you still can’t plate properly?” she muttered, half teasing, half scolding. She reached over, steadying the garnish on her friend’s dish before setting it right herself.

Anya gave a small, wry smile. “I’m just not feeling well.”

Matilda frowned, her hands pausing. “I told you to rest. You should have stayed back a few days, not rushed back to work.”

“It’s fine,” Anya said quietly. “I can manage.”

Matilda let out a soft sigh, but she didn’t push further. “Alright,” she said, and turned back to her own platter, though she kept glancing at her friend now and again.

They had been together a long time, ten years, give or take. Both had entered service as children, just twelve when they first became cleaning maids in the Red Keep. That was where their friendship began. Seven years they had spent in King’s Landing, side by side in endless duties, before they were chosen to serve at Dragonstone. 

It felt like a lifetime.

Matilda’s own path had been simple enough. She came from a small village near Rosby. When she was twelve, her parents and the village head had arranged for her to work in House Rosby’s castle. But Lady Rosby, for reasons Matilda never quite understood, decided she would be better suited for service in the capital. So she was sent to King’s Landing. Letters from her family had been rare, then rarer still, until they stopped altogether. Over time, her memories of them had grown hazy, like mist on a window that never quite cleared.

Anya’s story was different. She was the second daughter of a knight in Duskendale. Her mother had died young, her father had remarried, and there had been quarrels in the house. Eventually her father thought it best to send her into service, framing it as an honor. Anya had believed it then. She had gone to serve the Darklyns, and later, like Matilda, had been chosen for the Red Keep. Unlike Matilda, she had never been cut off from her kin. Her father and stepmother had softened when they saw she was serving the royal family. She wrote to them often and visited once a year.

That was where she had been for the past month, home with her family. Matilda had felt her absence keenly, the days long and dull without her friend’s chatter to fill them.

But since her return last night, Matilda had noticed something different. Anya was quieter, distracted, her thoughts wandering. She forgot small things, made mistakes she never used to. When Matilda asked, she only said the journey had tired her, that she felt unwell.

Unwell.

Matilda knew what that could mean. People often fell sick, and sickness lingered. Sometimes it passed. Sometimes it didn’t. The thought left her uneasy. She didn’t like the way Anya’s face seemed pale, or how her hands slowed at simple tasks.

I should make her rest, Matilda thought.

“Clap, clap.”

The sharp sound brought her back. The head maid stood at the center of the room, clapping her hands together briskly. “Time to serve.”

The kitchen stilled for a moment, then everyone moved. Platters were lifted, trays balanced, pitchers gathered. Matilda looked once more at Anya. Her friend gave her a small nod, faintly tired but managing.

Matilda adjusted her grip on the tray she carried. The roasted bird was heavy, the herbs giving off a sharp, pleasant scent. She drew a slow breath, then nodded back.

Together, they fell into line, following the others out of the heat of the kitchen and into the colder corridors that led toward the dinner hall.

Soon the line of servants and maids reached the feasting chamber. Two Kingsguard stood tall at either side of the great doors, white cloaks brushing the floor.

Creak. The doors swung open.

One by one they filed in, trays balanced carefully. At the table sat Queen Alysanne, Princess Gael, Lady Jocelyn, and Prince Aegon, their conversation easy, their laughter soft against the hum of the hall.

On the cue of the head maid, the servants spread out. Platters were placed, goblets filled. Matilda stepped forward with her tray, her focus sharp, until her eyes flicked sideways.

Anya.

She was still standing at the edge of the hall, unmoving. Slowly, she began walking, not toward the Queen or Lady Jocelyn but straight for Prince Aegon.

You’re not supposed to place the tray there! Matilda’s stomach turned cold. Her friend had made mistakes before, but never something this careless. The head mistress will have her hide tonight.

She was about to hiss a warning when the sound split the air.

Bang!

A wine glass shattered in front of the prince. Aegon was on his feet in an instant, his chair clattering backward across the stone. Gasps rippled through the hall. The gentle prince, who had never raised his voice at the maids or servants, now stood smiling, wide and unshaken.

That smile unsettled Matilda more than the broken glass.

Then his voice rang out, sharp as steel.

“KINGSGUARD!”

The cry thundered through the chamber, echoing off the stone walls. All froze. Maids clutched their trays tighter, the Queen herself turned her head in confusion.

And then the hall erupted.

The Kingsguard burst through the doors, their boots pounding against the floor. At that same instant, Anya, her Anya, sprinted forward, tray clattering to the ground. Her movement was wrong, too fast, too precise.

Aegon’s hand lifted, and in it bloomed fire. A sphere of flame swelled, roaring into life, and with a thrust of his arm he hurled it forward.

Boom!

The blast struck Anya full in the chest. She was thrown back, her body crashing against the floor, fire curling over her limbs. A scream tore from her throat, high and raw, her body writhing as the flames consumed her.

Matilda’s own scream followed, strangled and broken. “Anya!”

Her tray crashed from her hands as she stumbled forward, horror choking her breath. Her dearest friend, her only family, burning before her eyes.

She meant to rush to her, to smother the fire with her own hands if she had to….

But another shout cut through the chaos.

“She is an assassin!” Prince Aegon’s voice cracked like a whip, fury in his tone.

Flames swirled again in his right hand, ready to strike, while his left pointed squarely at the figure on the floor. The Kingsguard hesitated, baffled, torn between the sight of a burning maid and the command of their prince.

Matilda stood frozen, her heart pounding, her mind refusing the truth. Assassin? No… that was Anya. 

And yet the writhing, burning figure on the floor no longer looked like her friend at all.

Aegon stood rooted, his fire coiling in his palms. His eyes were fixed on the writhing shape that was no longer the maid. 

The screams tore through the hall, mingling with the crash of dishes and the panicked shouts of servants.

Ser Clement moved closer, placing himself between Aegon and the burning assassin as if to shield him.

“Protect the Queen!” Aegon barked, his voice sharp.

The other Kingsguard broke away at once, moving toward Queen Alysanne, Lady Jocelyn, and Gael, who stood frozen in shock, pressed together by the table. The maids around them scattered, crying out in fear. Aegon stepped forward, putting himself between them and the threat.

He lowered his flames slightly, letting the blaze thin so he could see. What stood before him was no longer a maid at all. The skin and clothing hung in loose strips, burned through in places. The shape beneath was grotesque, half-charred flesh, and yet it prayed, mumbling in a language he did not know.

Then, with a sudden lurch, it sprang up.

Its scream was guttural, raw, and in its hand glinted a dagger.

“Move back, my prince,” Ser Clement said, sword already rising as he advanced.

But Aegon was faster. His spirituality locked onto every twitch, every muscle. He summoned two fireballs, blazing to life in his hands, and hurled them forward in rapid succession.

Boom—Boom!

The assassin staggered back under the force, screaming again. But this time the voice broke, not the high cry of a woman, but the hoarse shout of a man. The glamour faltered, the ruined mask of skin breaking apart.

The heat was so fierce that even Ser Clement could not close the distance, forced to shield his face against the wave.

At last, Aegon stilled his hands. The flames guttered out at his command, leaving only smoke curling in the air. What remained on the floor was a blackened figure, twitching weakly, its throat rasping with rough, gurgling noises.

“Ser Clement,” Aegon called, his voice level though his chest burned with fury.

The knight turned toward him, eyes wide with awe and fear.

“Check him.”

It took Clement a moment to steady himself, but then he swallowed, nodded, and moved forward. The smell of burnt flesh rolled through the hall as he knelt beside the smoldering figure. 

It struck like a hammer, the stench of charred flesh mixed with the herbs from the feast, turning the air foul.

A maid gagged and retched onto the floor. Another fainted where she stood. The sour smell of vomit mixed with the stench, and the great hall became a place of sickness and horror.

Aegon turned his eyes to the high table. His grandmother, Jocelyn, and Gael huddled close behind the Kingsguard, the white cloak standing guard before them. He caught his grandmother’s lips moving…Aegon, and he gave a small nod, raising his hand to show he was unharmed.

Then he looked across the hall.

Servants cowered against the walls, some weeping openly, others clutching each other. Trays lay scattered, dishes broken.

Only a pace from where he stood, one maid had collapsed onto the floor. Her hair had come loose, her apron smeared with food. She sat with her arms wrapped tight around herself, rocking and sobbing.

“Anya,” she whimpered, her voice breaking. “My friend… my Anya…”

Aegon’s jaw tightened, his flames dimming to embers around his fingers.

The assassin twitched one last time on the stone, the gurgling breath rattling out into silence.