Chapter Text
206 AC
Daenys breathes in the fumes of her lady aunt’s cadaver. There are traces of Dyanna's perfume laced into the smoke, but perhaps that is a fault of imagination. A year and a half ago when her own lady mother burned on a similar pile of glorified sticks and kindling, she'd thought to go with her.
She’d made it only a couple of steps to the pyre before fainting. The maesters blamed it on her atrocious diet since Jena passed, in that she ate little and threw up the rest.
No one wants to die. But her mother had been forced from the world as a half-dragon had chewed its way out of her. The little corpse lay at her side, a calcified creature wrapped in bandages. Mother would have hated that it was there.
Father’s madness lasted a fortnight.
He did not bathe, he did not eat, he barely drank. Daenys would go into his room and crawl under the covers and hug him to her. She stroked his hair and kissed the sweet points of his ears and brushed the tears off his handsome face just as she had seen Mother do and it felt good. She felt needed. She went to his room every morning, and remained there till nightfall, feeding him soup because he could keep nothing else down, and wiping the sleep from his eyes and brushing his hair and trimming his beard. Daenys forgot it was her own mother she had lost. She became the mother her father needed and nursed him out of his grief. Her brothers grieved alone.
When Father recovered, he was thinner, but the light in his eye had returned. Daenys noted it as she affixed the Hand’s pin on his lapel with gentle, careful hands.
“A star, Baba." Her grandmother taught her the Rhoynish word for father and it always sounded sweeter than the Common Tongue alternative. She pointed to the star in the reflection of the mirror. “There, in your right eye.”
He smiled when he saw it, and kissed her forehead, the tickle of his beard on her nose making her giggle. “It is you,” he told her. “My little star guiding me north.”
She'd liked that. Father's praise always sank under her skin and pulled out warmth she did not know she possessed. He took her hands and kissed them, before setting them over his heart. Daenys felt trembly then, the sort of feeling that came before a hearty, wet vomit.
“You are the oldest of your girl cousins. And the new lady of your father’s household. You must care for your brothers and guide your little cousins as best you can.”
Blind with love, Daenys nodded. She was thirteen years of age.
Baelor always praised Jena's fastidiousness when it came to managing the money and the family affairs, down to the betrothal she had made for Daenys to Lord Velaryon’s boy before she died. Mother's opinion on a Targaryen marriage for Daenys were plain. I will cut off my own hand before I let it happen.
She had overcome the famed Dondarrion dislike of the Dornish when she fell in love with her prince. The very foundation of her house was built on the corpse of two Dornishmen struck down by violet lightning. Baelor's mismatched eyes made her forget for a time.
But she kept the rest of the family at arm’s length, Lady Dyanna and her brood especially. Dyanna often extended a hand of friendship, and suggested Aerion and Daenys play together as they were the same age and bright as shiny little pennies. But Mother’s smile would turn cruel, and she would hold her daughter like a shield to her body, with a trite declaration that Daenys had to go and pray.
Daenys hated praying when she was a child. There was never any noise in the sept. It was the only place in the world that made her want to scream like an ill-bred Dothraki bloodrider. She, Valarr and Matarys would play Dothraki hordes together in a secluded corner of the Red Keep. Her beautiful Khal of a brother, auburn-haired and spry as a spring branch. She was his Khaleesi, a silver thread woven into her red hair to match his natural streak of white. Their games were childish and twisted and resplendent.
Mother hated to hear of them playing at being savages.
“It is just make-believe mother!” Valarr would protest.
Jena would turn on him, her magnificent height a tower fortress over her small, bright son. “You may tell that to the gods on the day of reckoning! But my duty as your mother is to steer you right!”
Valarr made the same argument when she caught the ‘Khal’ and his ‘Khaleesi’ doing as their parents did with their tongues. She was ten, and he was eleven. At first, she became still, simply observing them both with a vacant look in her eye. Daenys's stomach roiled with excitement and fear, tongue still thick with the blackcurrant juice she had kissed out of her brother’s mouth.
Mother struck her first. Daenys always remembered that. And while she was crying, blinded by tears, she could not see how hard Valarr was slapped, if at all. He later said he was, but she knew he lied to make her feel better.
Aunt Dyanna found her later, crying her heart out into her skirts.
“What is the matter, child?” she cooed, wiping her tears with soft hands.
Daenys was not supposed to speak of family matters to outsiders. It did not matter how much Father loved his brothers, Mother said it was unseemly, and besides, she did not like Uncle Maekar for reasons that were beyond her daughter's understanding. But Dyanna was no ordinary woman. She was a witch, adept in prying open the secretive world of children and she pulled the whole story from Daenys’s mouth.
There was an awful row that evening. Mother and Aunt Dyanna fought like angry wolves. The final blow was landed by Jena herself.
“You cannot strike a child for innocent games!”
“Have your own daughter and then you may come and lecture me on how to raise mine!”
“But you did not slap Valarr! Why is it different that Daenys is a girl? I would treat her the same as my sons if she were mine!”
“Ha! Spoken like a true Dornish woman!”
At the time, Daenys did not understand why it was that Lady Dyanna almost came to blows over it; Maekar had to physically hold her back. She would later grow up and understand the venom behind Mother’s use of the word Dornish. It was turned into a spear aimed right between Dyanna’s lovely blue eyes.
Mother never regretted her words. Daenys knows because she asked her, fearing that she might hate her daughter for causing the rupture. “Not a word untrue was said.”
When Jena was given to Baelor, she wore her red hair loose on the day of her wedding, refusing to have it done up, a defiant storm maiden to the very end. Because it was a defeat in her eyes. She was now sleeping with enemy, and it did not matter how much she might come to love him, the first foot into the marriage was skewed. She warmed to her goodmother Myriah only because Myriah overcame her own resentment first - she had wanted Baelor for one of her Martell nieces, but hewed to Jena out of a desire for peace.
“How did you make her love you, baba?” Daenys would ask her father sat her on his knee before the hearth.
She loved the story, and she loved the tenderness in Father’s eyes when he told it.
“I loved her a hundred different ways. And for ninety-nine of them, she scorned me, turned me down. Saw the Dornish sun in my eyes and claimed it was nothing but trouble.”
“And the hundredth?”
“The hundredth time...” he leaned in close, beard tickling her ear like insect legs. They would both turn their eyes to Mother sitting in a corner where she was busy with her embroidery and feigning deafness. Father would wait until her lips twitched. And then, he'd say, “The hundredth time I walked away from her and she told me...never do that again! And I never did.”
And so Daenys understood better than Valarr why her Father needed her now that Mother was gone. He had never abandoned her. How could he cope? He could not. How sweetly he tended to Daenys, cupping her chin and begging her to smile for him when her natural temperament reverted to subdued dampness.
Always so sad, my little girl, he'll murmur. It bleeds out of you sometimes.
Her darling kepa with his wounded eyes when his children did not do as he told them. When they defied him with their little ways, because they were raised too well by Jena to be anything more than just slightly wilful.
They were not Uncle Maekar’s children. They were better. They had to be - they were an example to the realm.
206 AC
Daella and Egg are weeping. It is the broken, fragile keen of lambs abandoned in a barn without their mother. Their father reaches from behind and squeezes only Egg’s shoulder, not his sister’s. It is a silent command. Egg sniffs, squares himself to stand taller and does not make another sound.
Aerion is at a distance, staring out at the sea, refusing to look towards the pyre. Daeron is huddled against the wind into his cloak, sandy blonde hair whipping into his eyes. They are the colour of cerulean powder diluted in water, just like his mother's.
A large hand comes to rest on her shoulder. She always smells Father before she sees him, the traces of cinnamon and smoke. He curls his arm over her and pulls her into his cloak, before doing the same with Matarys. Valarr looks to them but does not join. He is sixteen now, too grown up to be comforted in such a way, or so he believes.
“Your uncle will need help for a time, so he is will remain at the Red Keep,” Father whispers to them. “Dany, he will need your aid especially. With the girls.”
She looks at newborn Rhae,drowned in her swaddling. She is held aloft by a Dayne aunt whose name Daenys does not remember. The woman is crying into Rhae's blankets. Uncle Maekar casts her a dour glance, as if the display of grief disgusts him somehow. He turns back to the front and Daenys notices only then that Aemon is standing inside his cloak, huddled against his leg.
Why not Egg and Daella? Why does he only let Aemon cuddle up to him?
“Daenys?” Father says, and she nods to show that she is listening, she will help.
She always helps. She does not understand why Father always asks, as if she will begin a case for disobedience now, after all this time. Her fingers lift to her mouth.
She rips into an exposed hangnail on the index of her right hand and the pain is blinding. Her eyes roll into the back of her head, and she goes at it again, nibbling like a mad hare, until Father tuts and pulls her hand from her mouth. The blood imprints from her flesh to his lips when he kisses the wound. It is an old habit of hers. He no longer asks why. He just kisses it and the wiry hairs of his beard inflame the injury further.
“Egg? The oatcakes have pine nuts and blackberries. Your favourite.”
She coaxes him with a gentle rub to his shoulder. A film of unshed tears turns his eyes watery. The room is unusually quiet for how many children are gathered at the high table. Members of the nobility filter in and out of the hall, none daring to stay too long and partake of the food and wine. Even Jena's funeral was a more lively affair, though that was in part because Manfred Dondarrion got drunk and claimed it was what his cousin would have wanted.
Daella tugs on Daenys’s sleeve and points to the bowl of fish stew. Her cousin spoons some into her bowl. She turns her attention back to Egg, asking if he would like some fish stew too. He lets out a rickety sob and wipes his eyes, darting a nervous look at his father to see if he has noticed.
Uncle Maekar is staring into empty space, face ashen. Rhaegel is at his side softly stroking his arm with a feeble, mottled hand. Aerys is more interested in the loose threads on his sleeve. He looks utterly bored.
Only the twins, Aelor and Aelora, eat heartily, giggling and whispering in their made-up language. Their mother, Lady Alys picks at her food, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. It should be Aunts Alys and Aelinor in Dany's place, cajoling and caring for the children. They are the only princely wives left. But neither shows any interest.
Egg is saying something. Daenys hears it too late. Aerion reaches across the table and smacks the ladle full of fish stew out of her hand. “He said he didn’t want to fucking eat!”
Some of the soup splashes on Daella’s sleeve and she bursts into tears. Egg can no longer hold his peace and follows suit. Great, glugging sobs, the raw pink of their mouths stretched wide, wailing as loud as their baby sister.
Daenys looks around, helpless, as all the eyes turn on her. Your fault. You can’t even get two little children to eat. Children are always hungry, no matter how sad they are. But they don’t want to be fed because it’s you, you’re standing over them. You're a useless heap of sh-
“Daenys, sweetling, come.” Father beckons to her as Uncle Maekar stands up unsteadily.
They pass each other halfway down the table but Maekar does not acknowledge her. He puts his hands on Egg and Daella's heads, and whispers to them. Daella buries her head in her arms and her aunt reaches over to stroke it. But Egg cannot stop sobbing. He has done his best to keep from expressing emotion, but he is only six, and he can do so no more. Maekar lifts him out of the chair, carrying him as if he were a babe again. He paces back and forth behind the long table, a hand cupped over Egg's silver-blonde head where it has dropped onto his shoulder. Aerion glowers.
Daenys trembles as she lowers into a chair. “I’m so sorry. I only - “
“I know,” Baelor nods, squeezing her hand. “It’s alright. Maekar has them now.”
“She's a little copy of her mother,” Alys says to Aelinor, and they both smile at Daenys. But then a wry glance is exchanged, and the smiles take on a different meaning.
It is the tone. Dornishwoman. Little version of her mother.
They never liked Jena. She was haughty, and she was tall, and she looked down on dull, stolid Aelinor and pale little Alys. But Daenys is not her mother. She does not know how to convince them of this so that they will like her and not give her compliments that make the food in her mouth taste like crushed slugs. She wants so desperately to make her aunts love her. She wants to have a mother again.
When Daenys hiccups a sob into her fish stew, her Father thinks it is because she misses Jena.
“I am sorry, sweet girl,” he mutters, rubbing her back and pulling her flush against his side. Matarys swats her arm with brotherly affection and goes back to shovelling crab into his mouth. “I should not have put such a burden on your shoulders. What was I thinking? You are a child yourself. Your cousins have their nursemaids and their aunt. They will recover from this, as you once did. As your brothers did. All will be well.”
His words are impossibly gentle. They should be a balm on her torn nerves. But they make Daenys want to scream until her lungs burst.
When night falls, the Red Keep is like a fairy tale place, a creature of stone that might get up on its hindlegs and wander off through the rolling fog. Many a time Daenys has dreamed of such an eventuality. Many people would fall out of its windows in a panic. But the Red Keep would know where it was going and Daenys would trust it and hold on tight. They would end up somewhere far, like Old Valyria, where there are only Stone Men who will not be able to scale the high walls of the Keep to get to the little princess inside.
Her dreams do not frighten her. It is the flames she fears when she looks into them. Her dreams are a fluid place, unlike Daeron’s which only ever frighten him half to death.
She adores night time. Pure silence. Nothing to do. Nowhere to run to. She knows all her loved ones are in their beds. She does not have to worry about anyone. The soft hiss and crackle of candles in their sconces mingle with the hymns of crickets. The air is heavy and damp, like the plumes of steam from her tea when she hovers her face over the cup. It will rain soon. Aunt Dyanna’s pyre, lonely on the hill, will be completely extinguished. She wonders what shape and colour the urn is in which they put her ashes. She hopes amethyst and silver, with stars carved around the widest part.
She decides she would quite like to go for a walk.
One footstep out of the door and Ser Roland’s giant bulk appears to block her. Daenys shrinks back. She is well used to the kingsguard assigned to her protection, but not quite to his height whenever she is attempting to sneak off somewhere.
“Might I escort you somewhere, princess?” Ser Roland’s tone is polite, but there is a watchful gleam in his eyes she is never sure what to make of.
He has never been impolite with her. But for some odd reason, he reminds her of the potential future, where she will be bound to a lord in some castle far from the Red Keep, far from her family. Princesses marry outside of the clan all the time. Daenerys did and is happy by all accounts in Dorne. But Daenys fears not being surrounded by other Targaryens, alone in a castle somewhere, with a husband that mounts her on the wall with his other hunting trophies.
“I would like to go for a walk, Ser Roland. I will be quite safe. You don’t have to follow me.”
He bows his head and follows her anyway. But he is careful to walk several paces behind, short enough that he can close the gap with ease, but long enough that she can pretend she is alone.
The sky is near-black, with a deep velvet tint of plum. Each star is picked out like a beam of light pierced through a fabric covered in tiny needle holes. As if some celestial being sits behind it, embroidering the darkness to let light seep through.
She loses herself in the ambivalence of thoughts stitched together with no real meaning. When her mind runs loose around the edges this way, it is the safest place in the world.
A howl rips through the night air.
Daenys jumps, startled. Ser Roland approaches slowly, his eyes scanning the courtyard below. He has his hand on the pommel of his sheathed blade. His jaw is set, but she can tell the sound unnerved him too.
“It sounds like a wolf,” she whispers.
“There are no wolves here, princess,” he answers. “Would you like to return now?”
She hesitates.
Aerion once told her a nasty story about wolves. He only ever tells nasty stories. But this one was truly horrible and haunted her dreams for nights on end before Father told her not to play with her cousin anymore.
We might marry you off to the North, like cousin Daenerys went to the South, Aerion said, his sharp teeth stained with the red of strawberries. Would you like that, Daenys? Forced to breed Stark pups in a Northern hut somewhere? Their men turn into wolves at night. I hope you like the smell of wet dog. They’ll make you a Stark bitch through and through.
But she isn’t young anymore. She is fifteen. That was no Stark wolf. It was a man’s howl.
“It’s coming from the godswood,” Daenys says, and sets off running.
“Princess!” Ser Roland hurries after her, his white cloak cast out like a ghostly hand behind him.
The heart tree is a pale beacon at the centre of the godswood, its branches overgrown with smokeberry vines, flowering scarlet, like the droplets that fell on the snow the day she first had her moonblood. Daenys stops at the columns at the top of the stairs. There is someone kneeling there, hunched over one of the tree's gigantic roots.
Ser Roland puts a hand on her shoulder to coax her back. “Princess, we should return - “
“No!” She shrugs her shoulder out of his grip, suddenly panicked at the thought of being touched.
The moon eases out from behind a cloud and the godswood is bathed in its faerie glow, every blade of grass cut pristine, the white stones agleam. It brushes over a head of silver hair, the broad shoulders under it wilted like a child's. Beside him is the urn. It is squat and round, with a lid in the shape of a turnip. It does not suit Aunt Dyanna at all.
“Stay here,” she whispers to Roland, and before he can try and stop her again, she darts down the stairs.
Uncle Maekar looks wretchedly alone. But he is still terrifying. She does not think she has ever seen him smile directly at her, or anyone else. Except for Father. Baelor always makes him laugh, reluctantly albeit. They tease each other like they are small boys again, until the awareness of being watched reduces them to the grown men they are.
Daenys inches closer, mouth too dry to form the word uncle. His head is bowed into his hand, the nails untrimmed. She noticed earlier his beard was unkempt too; she has never seen Uncle Maekar without his beard perfectly combed and his hair swept tightly back across his head. She has never seen his hair dance in the wind. How strange. She wishes she knew some grown-up way of telling him that it feels nice to dance in a field with your hair flowing wild. Uncle Maekar seems as if he would only appreciate a grown-up way of looking at the world. Dancing in a field likely does not count.
She is almost within arm’s reach, but still, nothing leaves her mouth. Her hand alights on his shoulder, fingers trembling over the slack muscle.
It hardens instantly, and the tremor that runs through him makes her recoil. But before she can withdraw, a larger, tougher hand clamps on her wrist, hard enough to break. Maekar doesn’t turn; he just grips her, so tight that they are both left shaking.
Daenys is speechless with pain. She tries to scream, but the bone in her wrist feels like it is seconds from snapping. Ser Roland is suddenly there, forcing her uncle’s fingers open. But even he struggles. Maekar’s stare is unseeing, a glaze of ice pulled over the damson of his eyes.
“It is your niece, my prince! It is only Daenys!” Ser Roland cries, and finally, finally, she breaks free.
The blood rushes back to her hand, but the pain in her wrist makes her stumble. It is fresh and bright, vicious as a whip of fire tangled around the bone. She feels more alive than she has in days.
Ser Roland is staring down at the prince as if he has grown a second head. Then he rushes to Daenys's side, checking to see how bad the injury is. Her wrist is bright red with the imprint of Maekar’s fingers, the same ones that wield the mace with such ease. Her grandsire does not approve of the weapon; to this day he asks Maekar if he would not be better suited to a sword. It is difficult to imagine her fortress of an uncle dancing behind the swing of a sword.
“We’ll need to get that seen to,” Ser Roland murmurs, and lifts her up into his arms with little effort.
Prince Maekar is still on his knees, staring, as if he has never seen either of them before.
Daenys starts to weep as her sworn shield carries her back up the stairs. “You should call my father. He will know what to do.”
“I am sure the maesters will know better, princess. I will have someone send for the Hand once you are in their care.”
“No, not about my wrist. Uncle Maekar.”
To this, Ser Roland says nothing. His hold on her tightens instead.