Chapter Text
Not two moons after Queen Aemma’s passing, Rhaenyra wakes with a dull ache in her abdomen and her thighs smeared with blood.
The princess curls into a ball in her soiled shift, tucking her head to her knees. She lays there for she knows not how long, insensible, feeling horribly betrayed by her body.
She wants to weep. She wants to rage. She wants her mother, but her mother is not there, will never be there again, and the blood that now flows from Rhaenyra’s maiden womb to stain her sheets seems but prelude to the blood that had made the birthing bed into the Queen’s deathbed.
One of her maids has the presence of mind to send for Lady Alicent. Rhaenyra almost declines to admit her. But she does not truly want to be alone, and – poor substitute for the maternal attention she truly craves though her Lady in Waiting’s care is – her closest companion’s presence is at least some comfort.
Or it would be, if her friend’s cheerful demeanor did not so scrape at Rhaenyra’s raw nerves.
“Oh, we’re both women now,” Alicent sighs as she helps her princess to dress and shows her how to pin rags into her smallclothes. “This is wonderful!” Though the other girl is her elder by but a year and some moons, she’d flowered early where Rhaenyra was late. Rhaenyra gets the impression she’s been awaiting the day they could share this mark of maturity.
Of course Alicent would think it a day to celebrate. Her friend has a head full of romantic dreams, sighing over handsome knights and longing for a grand match. But all Rhaenyra can see is her years of innocence and freedom slipping away.
“I want to die,” Rhaenyra declares miserably.
“It’s not so bad, really,” Alicent assures her. “You’ll get used to it. We can get a maester to make you a tea for cramps, and – Rhaenyra, is something wrong with your arm?”
Rhaenyra glances down at where she’s been absently worrying a spot of soreness with her other hand. Out of the corner of her eye, she thinks it at first a bruise beneath her fingers – but then Alicent grabs at her hand, pulling her wrist into the light, and it comes clear. There’s an image indelibly etched upon her skin, ink black and blood red, the Targaryen dragon doubled.
Alicent’s eyes light with wonder. “You’re Marked!”
Rhaenyra’s gaze is no less fixed to the image, but her stare is one of horror. Bad enough that her flowering has brought the duties of womanhood uncomfortably close, but she’d thought at least to have some time yet before she had to face being bartered for whatever alliance the crown saw fit. Instead the Gods themselves have chosen already to whom she shall be sold. To keep soulmates apart is anathema; being Marked makes it a certainty that she will be wedded and bedded sooner rather than later. And brought to childbed not long after, no doubt.
Soulmarks appear all across the known world, rare but unmistakable, said to be a blessing though to be so used as a tool of the Gods might be more akin to a curse. Every culture ascribes their own meaning to them. The Faith of the Seven holds that the marks are the symbols of divine will, bringing couples together for great purpose. The followers of the Old Gods of the North believe them an intervention to make reparation for blood debts.
Valyrian tradition maintains that such unions are ordained to produce children destined for glory.
***
When the mark appears on Daemon’s arm, he’s torn between incredulous laughter and rage.
His first thought is that even the Gods themselves acknowledge what a farce his marriage is. But his brief surge of satisfaction at the prospect of release dies swiftly. This is no decree of freedom, but a trade of one wife not of his choosing for another.
At least the bronze bitch has had the decency to keep to herself in the Vale and leave him to his life. A soulmarked bride will not be one he can ignore. Those so bonded can find no pleasure without each other, and suffer pain and illness upon too long a separation. In the first years of the bond, their very lives are dependent upon one another’s.
And soulmates are marked when the younger of the pair leaves childhood: when a lad’s voice settles or a maiden flowers. To be Marked at one-and-thirty – fuck, his soulmate cannot be more than half his age. What is he supposed to do with such a chit?
No, this is not validation. This is the cruelest of cosmic jests.
And then Daemon looks again at the image upon his wrist, and the impact of this particular mark sinks in: red upon black upon red upon black, a purely Targaryen soulmark undiminished by the sigils of any other house.
A maiden just crossing into womanhood.
Seven hells. Rhaenyra.