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One day you will sit where I sit, and rule all Dorne.
There were other words written before and after those twelve, but Arianne remembered none of them, none except those indelible twelve.
Twelve fateful words, addressed to her brother, which caused her to question not just her father’s faith in her, but also her faith in herself. Twelve fateful words, acting in concert like an insidious snare, trapping her in an endless cycle of questions after questions after questions, and doubts after doubts after doubts. She even began to question her father’s love for her, something she had never ever done before, in the fourteen years of her existence.
She had always thought herself safe and secure, in her position as her father’s heir and the heir to Dorne, but equally as significant, she had always believed herself to be safe and secure in the shining light of her father’s regard for her, and in the warm embrace of his fatherly love for her.
What a fool you have been, Arianne berated the self she used to be, the one who had not yet found her father’s letter. What a naïve, trusting and oblivious fool!
Later, the plea came unbidden to her mind, despite her furious effort to turn it away, a remnant of the girl of yesterday who still believed with all her heart that her father could be remonstrated with. What have I done wrong, Father? How have I displeased you as your heir, as your daughter? Quent is a boy, only a boy, a boy far too young to be sent away from home, Mother said. How could you trust him more than you trust me?
And what of her father’s wish, hope and prayer, all rolled into one, that Arianne would be as good and as wise a ruling Princess of Dorne as her grandmother? She was almost six when her father said those words to her, old enough to remember not just the words but also the sincere conviction behind them. Quentyn was a babe in his cradle, already born, already existing at the time, yet her father still spoke of Arianne as his heir on that day. What had changed since then, to cause her father to commit those treacherous twelve words to a parchment?
Or perhaps her father had been lying even then. Perhaps it was not sincerity she heard in his voice that day, but a clever ploy to deceive and misdirect. Perhaps he had decided to make Quentyn his heir the very moment he saw that his second child was born with a cock.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Perhaps this was her father’s worst and most unforgivable transgression of all: making her question her previously unquestioned faith in him.
How could you, Father? How could you even think to disinherit me as your heir? How could you even think to rob me of my birthright?
It hurts, Father. It really hurts! She could not run to him, not this time. This was not her knee or her elbow that was skinned or bruised. This was something else altogether, and her father was the cause of her pain, the direct cause. It was her mother she needed, her mother she must run to.
Her hurried steps echoed along the hallway as she made her way from her father's solar to her mother's bedchamber. Since her parents began sleeping in separate bedchambers, Arianne had made this same journey many times over, to give each of them a good night kiss. The direction would vary from night to night, sometimes from her father’s solar to her mother’s bedchamber, and other times from her mother’s bedchamber to her father’s solar. Each night, she had mourned for the time when she had kissed them both in the same location, when she could turn around for one last glance before leaving their shared bedchamber to see them both smiling, at her, and at one another.
Tonight, however, Arianne was relieved that her parents were no longer sharing a bedchamber. Tonight, she had no intention to kiss her father good night. Tonight, she had no wish to even see his face.
To her great dismay, she almost collided with her father, when he abruptly came out from her mother’s bedchamber just as Arianne was about to knock on its door. They both quickly rearranged their shocked expressions. Her father smiled, his warm and gentle smile that still looked the same, the same as it ever was, the same as Arianne had always remembered it. But how could it be the same, how could anything be the same, after his cruel words on that parchment had crushed and trampled her heart?
“Have you come to kiss your mother good night?” her father asked, calmly, obliviously.
Arianne nodded, not trusting herself to speak, not trusting herself not to burst into tears if she did speak. She must maintain her composure. Her father must not see her weep. She would not give him that satisfaction, never!
Her father kissed her forehead. Arianne had to hold her breath to stop herself from flinching, from turning away from his touch.
_______________________
“What was Father doing here?” Arianne asked, as she sat on her mother’s bed, watching her mother fiddle with the rings on her fingers, twisting and turning one ring, then another, and another. This was not how Arianne had imagined it would be, when she ran from her father’s solar to her mother’s bedchamber. She had envisioned throwing herself into her mother’s arms straight away, letting the tears finally fall, the tears she had fought so hard to keep from falling in her father’s solar. She had imagined herself telling her mother everything, even as the tears were still streaming down her cheeks, as she had done many times in the past. The words would come tumbling out of her mouth, and her mother would know what to do, would know how to make the pain stop.
But the encounter with her father had thrown everything out of kilter. When Arianne finally entered her mother’s bedchamber, she was still in that guarded state of mind, and her mother … well, her mother was the one already in tears.
“I sent for him,” her mother replied to Arianne’s question, reluctantly, after a long silence. Lady Mellario had quickly brushed away the tears from her cheeks when her daughter entered the room, and had then pretended that she had not been crying at all. Seeing her mother’s tears, Arianne desperately wanted to put her arms around her mother, to be the one giving comfort instead of receiving it, but seeing the way her mother was busily pretending that nothing was amiss, she had a hunch she should wait a little longer.
Mother sent for him. Arianne could not hide her surprise. Lady Mellario had not sent for Prince Doran for a long while. He must have considered it a good sign, a sign of a possible reconciliation between husband and wife, Arianne speculated. No wonder her father had been in a hurry, in such a hurry that he did not have time to put away the half-finished letter, did not even blow out the candle before he left his solar. It was the candle that caused Arianne to notice the letter. She had walked over to her father’s writing table to blow the candle out, and her gaze had fallen on that cursed unrolled parchment.
Judging from her mother’s tears and her father’s abrupt exit from her mother’s bedchamber, there had been no reconciliation between them, Arianne surmised. That still left another question unanswered.
“Why did you send for Father?”
This time, her mother’s reply came swiftly. “To ask him about a letter.”
A letter? Arianne almost gasped out loud. Could it be that letter? Her father’s unfinished letter to Quentyn, the one Arianne herself had just found and read? No, surely it could not be that particular letter her mother was referring to. Lady Mellario had not set foot in her husband’s solar for months, since the day Quentyn departed Sunspear for Yronwood.
“What letter?” asked Arianne.
Her mother sighed, deeply, before replying, “A letter from Yronwood arrived this morning. I heard it from Maester Caleotte. I thought there might be news of Quentyn in the letter, but your father assured me that Lord Yronwood’s letter was about a different matter entirely.”
If that was the only topic of discussion, then why had Arianne found her mother in tears, after her father left the room? Surely there must be something more. Before Arianne could ask more questions, her mother looked at her, truly looked at her for the first time since Arianne entered the room. “What’s the matter, Arianne? Has something happened? Why do you look so distraught?”
Something did happen, Mother. A terrible, terrible thing. Father has – he has – he – he –
But the words remained stuck in her throat. All the words she had imagined herself saying to her mother, she could not say them out loud, not now, possibly not ever, she only just realized.
“Tell me all. Pour out all your woes to me, Arianne. That is what a mother is for,” her mother had often said.
And what happens after I tell you, Mother?
Her mother would fight for her, would fight for her and her birthright with the same intensity she had fought for Quentyn. Of this, Arianne had no doubt at all. “If it was you or Trys who had to go to Yronwood to pay a blood debt, I would fight just as hard against it,” Lady Mellario had told her daughter. “I would fear for your safety and your well-being just the same, no matter which one of my children is to be sent away.”
Father did not listen to you then. Who’s to say he would listen now? And if you fail to change his mind again, Mother, what then? What will happen then? To your marriage, to our family?
Arianne could not bear to be the cause of further discord between her father and her mother. She had seen how much their growing distance had pained them both.
A rebellious voice interjected, Father did not care how much it would pain me to be disinherited. Why should I care about his pain?
Oh, but she did care. Still cared, in spite of everything, in spite of those twelve words her father had written. Even as her faith in her father was growing steadily weaker and weaker, her love for him burned as brightly as ever. She could no more deny it than she could understand it.
But most of all, Arianne could not bear to cause her mother further anguish, to cause her mother to feel that she had failed to protect another one of her children. The failure would wound her mother deeply, so deeply that Arianne feared she might never recover from it. No, that must never be allowed to happen. Her mother must not know, no matter how much Arianne needed her comfort and her reassurance. She was her father’s rightful heir. She was her mother’s beloved daughter. She must be strong enough to protect her mother.
Her mother’s hand was caressing her cheek. “Arianne? What is it, sweetling? Tell me.”
I cannot, Mother, for your sake. I cannot, forgive me!
Arianne rested her head on her mother’s shoulder. “I have missed your songs,” she said. Her mother used to sing her to sleep, when Arianne was a little girl. As she grew older, the songs turned into stories, but tonight, it was her mother’s songs she wanted, and needed.
She fell asleep in her mother’s bed, with her mother’s arm as her pillow and her mother’s warmth as her shield. She fell asleep as her mother was singing to her about Nyel, the third bell of Norvos, whose silvery sound was as sweet and as precious as the laughter of children. She fell asleep wishing the night would never end. She fell asleep wishing that daylight would never come, and with it, the remembrance of those twelve hateful words her father had written.
She fell asleep dreaming that her father was burning that unfinished letter in the hearth of his solar.
Words are like arrows, Arianne. Once loosed, you cannot call them back.
Call them back, Father! You can call them back. Burn that letter, and wipe out your intention to disinherit me, to rob me of my birthright. Burn that letter, and with it, those twelve words that are like arrows to my heart. Burn that letter, and return to me my faith in my father. Burn that letter, and help me protect my mother from another heartbreak and heartache.