Chapter Text
Shadows has started reaching with dark fingers further and further inside the bedchamber, dulling the radiance of the immaculately kept silver brush. Looking at it, Maekar noticed the few brown hairs tangled between the teeth and smiled a little. Not so immaculately kept, after all. She must have been truly worried if she had failed to follow her ritual of cleaning every single thing after using it.
Saryl Lothston followed his eyes. “What… ah, this.” She shook her head. “I’ll throw them away right now.”
But she did not move. Still, Maekar reached for her hand and took it. “Not now,” he said and she leaned back against the pillows. “I had no idea that it’s been so long,” he added with some surprise. “Look, twilight is already here.”
She glanced at the window and while she did not say a thing, he knew that she had not noticed either. She had been entirely focused on him. Still, it shocked him that they had both lost account of time so entirely. Not that time had passed as it ought to after this terrible day at Ashford but still. And he knew how much time had passed since then. Nine days. This knowledge comforted him, told him that he had not lost his mind. Yet.
Not that he would lose it at all, of course. No such luck. And even if he did, he doubted he’d ever be as carefree as Rhaegel. It was all about temper and well, conscience. Rhaegel had never offended or hurt anybody. He certainly had not killed anyone.
Maekar, on the other hand, had just added another body to his list, however inadvertently. He did not deserve peace and he would not get it.
He sighed. “I have to go,” he said.
“Why?” Saryl asked. “There is no feast tonight.”
“No, there isn’t any.”
Soon enough, there would be. As soon as the mourning was over. But not now. Maekar was glad for this small respite, this chance to come back and spend the evening and night with her. Although it would bring her no joy, he was sure.
“You can see the King later,” she said, startling him as she sometimes did with the way she could read his intentions before he could as much as give a hint. “Stay with me.”
Dyanna had been the same, although her seriousness had been hidden behind layers of japes, fantasies, making light of the situation. The core had been the same, as hard and glinting as a diamond, this sharp focus on what moved him and the drive to make it better. He shuddered at the thought of what would have become of him if he had not found Saryl after Dyanna’s horrific death.
If she had come with him to Ashford, perhaps… He chased this thought away before it could fully form. Saryl was not responsible for what he did or did not do. And he knew she hated the riverlands with a passion akin to his own hatred for King’s Landing. Why drag her to a place where she could not take any part in the public life next to him? As much as she professed indifference, he knew that the treatment she received hurt her. She might be a beneficial influence on his temper but he was not her responsibility.
The sin was his alone.
He should now face his father and he knew it, yet he did not want to leave here. Fear of the King was not a feeling he was accustomed to and he knew that he could not bear it to hear the accusations he kept repeating in his head echoed in Daeron’s voice. For the first time since Ashford, he felt almost at peace here, with her. His throat was raw from tears and words… he was taken aback at just how many words he had gathered on the way back. She had listened silently, not letting go of him for a moment.
He supposed meeting his father could wait, as cowardly as this was. Hiding from the world would not make his deed disappear. He looked at her. “Do you think I should go to the girls?” he asked and saw how she immediately switched to her part of caretaker – which was her official role in his household.
“No,” she replied. “Not until you’re more composed. I have taken care to limit the damage as much as possible but they… they’re scared. And upset.”
Maekar nodded, trusting her judgment far more than his own. After all, he had proven just how trustworthy his was where his children were concerned – and Baelor had paid the price. It was a mishap, he thought for a thousandth time but he did not say it. There was no need. Not to her.
Dyanna could never understand what it felt like to always be the one in the shadows. The one not good enough. She had always been the bright sun attracting everyone’s notice and appreciation without doing more than stirring. Just like Baelor had. The fact that they had done much more had only elevated them to an almost godlike status.
Saryl had always dwelled in the world of shadows. She knew the feeling of their touch on the surface of her soul, knew how easy it was to let them in sometimes and how hard to force them out. The feeling of being considered just these shadows and not the rest of one’s soul. It was not other people’s fault – they only saw what Saryl and Maekar could show. The obvious. The bitterness. But the two of them – they were one of a kind. Sometimes, he wondered how it had come that they were not feeding each other’s anguish, the feeling that they had been disadvantaged by the Seven themselves in the moment of their conception when the gods had failed to place in them some bits that were so very necessary.
Had it been bitterness guiding his hand? Or the pure instinct of self-defense? He would never know, not unless he remembered this particular blow. He told her this and she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said insistently, looking him in the eye. “What matters is that the leading thing in your attitude to him was not bitterness. What?” she asked sharply. “What is it?”
Maekar silently stirred, moving closer. He did not want to share with her the memory that had suddenly arose, of Dyanna in another room, another kingdom, another life. “As long as you don’t let bitterness become the axis around which your life revolves, it will be all right,” she had said in those days when he had first felt that it did not matter what he did, that he would always be looked as inferior – before, he had just known it with his mind but after Redgrass Field, he had seen and felt it in reality. That the love his family had for him and their trust in his loyalty would not overcome political caution, never this after Daemon’s rebellion.
But he had let bitterness become this, these last few years. Blinding him to reality. Pushing his children into the rivalry that he had never had the chance to win himself. And now, he would never have the chance to make it right. Not after committing the ultimate horror.
“Stay with me,” Saryl said again. “Everything can wait. “
After committing the ultimate horror, he could commit the ultimate cowardice as well, why not? In the face of danger, he had never looked for a shelter but always gone to face it without delay; this time, he stayed away from the judging eyes of the world that had already proclaimed him guilty – which, of course, he was. Away from his father, although he’d have to look him in the eye soon enough and explain. Away from the two little girls who had no idea how it had come to this and were likely even more confused than him.
“Do you want me to light the candles?” Saryl finally asked right before the twilight gave way to full night reflecting the dark that had invaded his soul. In a minute or two, they’d have to scramble for the candles; now, she could still find them easily enough.
“No,” he replied. He did not need to see her. It was enough that he could feel the warmth of her skin, the soothing rhythm of her heart under his cheek, the hand on his back. Shadows and silence, darkness and touch, the two of them had been born to. Shelter. Delay. A place away from the world for one night, at least, although not away from the guilt. Never this.
He stayed.