Chapter Text
Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down–that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.”
-Revelations 12:7-9
PREFACE:
I’d never given much thought to how I would die–not seriously, anyway, that had always been my father’s job. Though I had had reason enough in the last few months to at least consider it–but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.
I stared without breathing across the long room, into the dark eyes of the hunter, and he looked pleasantly back at me.
Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something.
I knew that if I’d never gone to Eyrie, I wouldn’t be facing death now. But, terrified as I was, I couldn’t bring myself to regret the decision. When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it’s not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end.
The hunter smiled in a friendly way as he sauntered forward to kill me.
Chapter One:
My father’s assistant, Harwin, drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-five degrees in King’s Landing, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue. No doubt father was up there already, blasting about in one of the micro-jets that had built his fortune.
I was wearing my favorite shirt–a sleeveless, white tank top that smoothed down my chest; I was wearing it as a farewell gesture. My carry-on item was a parka.
In the Vale Peninsula of northwest Westeros state, a small town named Eyrie exists under a near-constant cover of clouds. It rains on this inconsequential town more than any other place in the country. It was from this town and its gloomy, omnipresent shade that my father removed me from when I was only two years old. Despite having next to no knowledge about caring for an infant, he already had more than enough money to throw at endless nannies who managed the bulk of his parenting duties.
It was in this town that I’d been compelled to spend a month every summer until I was fourteen. That was the year I finally put my foot down; these past three summers, my mother, Aemma, vacationed with me in Dragonstone for two weeks instead.
It was to Eyrie that I now exiled myself–an action that I took with great horror. I detested Eyrie.
I loved King’s Landing. I loved the sun and the blistering heat. I loved the vigorous, sprawling city, the crowds I could escape into and the places where I could just be. Even with father’s bodyguards and his insistence on knowing my location at all times, there were so many faces in King’s Landing that I could easily blend in. Of course, this was no doubt due to my father’s truly paranoid efforts to keep my features out of any kind of social media; annoying, at times, but I had never been more thankful on the drive to the airport. No paparazzi would be here to watch my self-imposed exile.
“Rhae,” Harwin said to me–the last of a thousand times–before I got on the plane. “You don’t have to do this.” Sad, really. It should have been my father saying those words to me, but other than a brief clap on the shoulder, he had let me close the door on my childhood home.
As I looked at Harwin’s brown hair and laugh lines, I felt a spasm of despair. I had grown up with Harwin, his kind, protective presence enough to make sure that my father’s many bills would get paid, that there would be food in the refrigerator I actually liked to eat, gas in all his cars, and someone to call whenever he got lost.
More importantly, there was someone there, if only on speed-dial, anyway, to let me vent about my father or cover up my being late for curfew. Harwin had long said that the only thing keeping him from quitting his job was that someone needed to be there for me. My father could always find someone to run his house, but oblivious as he was to me and my needs, even he realized that Harwin’s caretaking was irreplaceable.
But he’d been so happy to meet Millie.
“I want to go,” I lied. I’d never been a bad liar, but I’d been saying this lie so frequently lately that I almost believed it myself.
“Tell Aemma I said hi.”
“I will.”
“I’ll see you soon,” he insisted. “You can come home whenever you want–I’ll be at the airport as soon as you need me.”
But I could see the sacrifice in his eyes behind the promise.
“Don’t worry about me,” I urged. “It’ll be great. Let Father know I love him?”
Harwin gave me a look, and then hugged me tightly for a minute, and then I got on the plane, and he was gone.
It was a four-hour flight from King’s Landing to Westeros, another hour in a small plane up to Arryn, and then an hour drive back down to Eyrie. Despite my father’s impressive bank account, I had put my foot down and insisted on flying economy. The Targaryen name was not something I needed following me more than it already did.
Despite Father’s insistence I take one of the family planes, I was pleased to fade into the travelers around me. Flying has never bothered me, regardless of how many babies cried or how many people stole my armrest.
The hour in the car with Aemma, though, I was a little worried about.
Aemma had really been fairly nice about the whole thing. She seemed genuinely pleased that I was coming to live with her for the first time with any degree of permanence, even if the catalyst for my moving was less than pleasant. She’d already gotten me registered for high school and was going to help me get a car.
But it was sure to be awkward with Aemma. Both of us knew how to appease a crowd or talk to strangers, but neither of us was what anyone would call chatty when it came to private conversation, no doubt to the tense reminder of Baelon existing between us. Plus, Aemma hadn’t seen me since I’d cut my hair, and that alone would be a source of inquiry that I didn’t look forward to. Ultimately, I didn’t know what there was to say regardless, about my hair or my trip–I knew she was more than a little confused by my decision–like my father before me, I hadn’t made a secret of my distaste for Eyrie.
When I landed in Arryn, it was raining. I didn’t see it as an omen–just unavoidable. I’d already said my goodbyes to the sun.
Aemma was waiting for me with the cruiser. This I was expecting, too. Aemma is Police Chief Aaron to the good people of Eyrie. My primary motivation behind buying a car, despite the scarcity of my funds, was that I refused to be driven around town in a car with red and blue lights on top. Nothing slows down traffic like a cop.
Aemma gave me an awkward, one-armed hug when I stumbled my way off the plane. Other than her eyes slightly widening at my closely cropped head, she said nothing.
“It’s good to see you, Rhae,” she said, smiling as she automatically caught and steadied me. “You haven’t changed much. How’s Viserys?”
“Father’s fine. It’s good to see you, too, Mom.” I wasn’t allowed to call her Aemma to her face.
I had only a few bags. Most of my King’s Landing clothes were too permeable for Washington. My father had given me unlimited use of his credit card to supplement my winter wardrobe, but it was still scanty. I hadn’t felt like shopping much since I made my decision to leave. It all fit easily into the trunk of her cruiser.
“I found a good car for you, really cheap,” she announced when we were strapped in. Thankfully, my mother hadn’t questioned my desire to purchase a car with my own, rather than Viserys’, money. She hadn’t gotten any spousal support after the divorce, and was probably relieved that I was expecting a different style of living in Eyrie. But still–.
“What kind of car?” I was suspicious of the way she said “good car for you ” as opposed to just “good car.”
“Well, it’s a truck, actually, a Chevy.”
“Where did you find it?”
“Do you remember Corlys Velaryon down at Driftmark?” Driftmark is the tiny Indigenous reservation on the coast.
“No.”
“He used to go fishing with us during the summer,” Aemma prompted.
That would explain why I didn’t remember him. I do a good job of blocking embarrassing, unnecessary things from my memory; I had refused to go fishing anymore after I had a childhood tantrum about not being able to catch more fish than either adult.
Father had labelled that type of behavior competitive–go figure.
“He’s in a wheelchair now,” Aemma continued when I didn’t respond, “so he can’t drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap. He was always in love with Cousin Rhaenys, after all.” I could tell Aemma was about to go into the long will-they, won’t-they saga, but I didn’t feel like listening to four books worth of gossip about a love affair gone awry. What concerned me was the truck.
“What year is it?” I could see from her change of expression that this was the question she was hoping I wouldn’t ask.
“Well, Corlys’ done a lot of work on the engine–it’s only a few years old, really.”
I hoped she didn’t think so little of me as to believe I would give up that easily. “When did he buy it?”
“He bought it in 1984, I think.”
“Did he buy it new?”
“Well, no. I think it was new in the early sixties–or late fifties at the earliest,” she admitted sheepishly.
“Ae–Mom, I don’t really know anything about cars. I wouldn’t be able to fix it if anything went wrong, and I couldn’t afford a mechanic right now…” My mother rushed to assuage my concerns.
“Really, Rhae, the thing runs great. They don’t build them like that anymore, she’s like a dragon.”
A dragon, I thought to myself…it had possibilities–as a nickname, at the very least.
“How cheap is cheap?” After all, that was the part I couldn’t compromise on. I was determined not to be a burden.
“Well, honey, I kind of already bought if for you. As a homecoming gift.” Aemma peeked sideways at me with a hopeful expression.
Damnit.
“You didn’t need to do that, Mom. I was going to buy myself a car.” It wasn’t just that I was determined to prove Viserys wrong, that I didn’t need his money–it was that Aemma certainly didn’t have all the extra cash to drop on me.
“I don’t mind. I want you to be happy here.” She was looking ahead at the road when she said this. Aemma wasn’t comfortable with expressing her emotions out loud. I had inherited my father’s emotionality, according to his earliest stories of my toddler years, but over time, I had seemed to fade and quiet down just like my mother. Whether that was the time apart or the ashes of my brother sitting on her mantle, I wasn’t sure; either way, I was looking straight ahead as I responded.
“That’s really nice, Mom. Thanks. I really appreciate it.” No need to add that my being happy in Eyrie is an impossibility. She didn’t need to suffer along with me. And I wasn’t going to look a free truck in the mouth–or engine, pride be damned.
“Well, now, you’re welcome,” she mumbled, embarrassed by my thanks.
We exchanged a few more comments on the weather, which was wet, and that was pretty much it for conversation. We stared out the windows in silence.
It was beautiful, of course; I couldn’t deny that. Everything was green: the trees, their trunks covered with moss, their branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even the air filtered down greenly through the leaves.
It was too green–an alien planet.
Eventually we made it to Aemma’s. She still lived in the small, two-bedroom house that she’d inherited and lived in with my father in the early days of their marriage. Those were the only kind of days their marriage had–the early ones. There, parked on the street in front of the house that never changed, was my new–well, new to me–truck. It was a faded yellowish green color, with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab. To my intense surprise, I loved it. I didn’t know if it would run, but I could see myself in it. Plus, it was one of those solid iron affairs that never gets damaged–the kind you see at the scene of an accident, pain unscratched, surrounded by the pieces of the foreign car it had destroyed.
“Wow, Mom, I love it! Thanks!” Now my horrific day tomorrow would be just that much less dreadful. I wouldn’t be faced with the choice of either walking two miles in the rain to school or accepting a ride in the Chief’s cruiser.
“I’m glad you like it,” Aemma said quietly, going to brush a piece of nonexistent hair behind my ears without thinking before pausing. Embarrassed again. I could feel her own eyes on the back of my skull, on the short tufts of blond hair that remained, so I quickly grabbed my bags out of the trunk to start the sole trip of getting all my stuff upstairs.
I got the west bedroom that faced out over the front yard. The room was familiar; it had belonged to me since I was born. The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains around the window–these were all a part of my childhood. The only changes Aemma had ever made were switching the crib for a bed and adding a desk as I grew. The rocking chair from my baby days was still in the corner. The desk now held a second-hand computer; rolling my eyes, I knew Viserys would be horrified at anything less than the newest edition of whatever Apple product had been released. I checked my phone, immediately connecting to the wi-fi. Despite my father’s claims that he would keep in touch, there were no new notifications.
There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I would have to share with Aemma. I was trying not to dwell too much on that fact–how much had Viserys told her about my medications?
One of the best things about Aemma, though, is that she doesn’t hover. She left me alone to unpack and get settled, a feat that would have been altogether impossible for my father. Despite claiming that I was unsuited for the family business, he never tired of complaining about his current work partners. It was nice to be alone, not to have to smile and look pleased; a relief to stare dejectedly out the window at the sheeting rain and let just a few tears escape. I wasn’t in the mood to go on a real crying jag. I would save that for bedtime, when I would have to think about the coming morning.
Eyrie High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and fifty-seven–now fifty-eight–students; there were more than seven hundred people in my junior class alone back home. All of the kids here had grown up together–their grandparents had been toddlers together. I would be the new kid, a curiosity, even without my father’s name and money, and my mother’s grief following me around.
Maybe, if I looked more like–well, a “girl”, I could have worked it to my advantage. I knew without question that Viserys couldn’t understand why I refused to keep my hair long anymore, why I insisted on getting my damn testosterone. Had I chosen to live his vision of a daughter, I would have had my white-blond hair all the way down to my back, dressed in the most expensive designer clothing. Maybe I would’ve been a cheerleader, I mused, smirking to myself.
Viserys had never accounted for the possibility that I would rather date a cheerleader instead, though despite his confusion, he had seemed to take it in stride that I was more interested in playing sports and tackling the boys around me rather than dating one.
It was only when I got older, when my chest got larger and I began to hunch my shoulders in, that I lost the necessary hand-eye coordination to play sports without humiliating myself–and harming both myself and anyone else who stood too close. It was only then that my already fragile relationship with Viserys had started to deteriorate.
When I finished putting my clothes in the old pine dresser, I took my bag of bathroom necessities and went to the communal bathroom to clean myself up after the day of travel. I looked at my face in the mirror as I brushed through my damp blond hair. Maybe it was the light, but already I looked sallower, unhealthy. My skin was covered in red spots and blackheads, an infuriating side-effect to the hormones I brought with me. I had gotten somewhat used to them, and was trying to find skincare that would take care of the irritation and sensitivity, but I would have bet my new truck that even the clearest skin in the world wouldn’t matter in Eyrie. I had no color here.
Facing my pallid reflection in the mirror, I was forced to admit that I was lying to myself. It wasn’t just that I’d never fit in because of who I was and who I liked. There was something more to it, something about me, that never seemed to fit . Whenever I thought I belonged, the rug would get pulled out from under me.
And if I couldn’t find a niche in a school with three thousand people, what were the chances here? Viserys had always said I didn’t relate well to people my age, but maybe the truth was that I didn’t relate well to people, period. Even Harwin, who I was closer to than anyone else on the planet, was never in real harmony with me, never on exactly the same page. Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain.
But the cause didn’t matter. All that mattered was the effect. And tomorrow would be just the beginning.
I didn’t sleep that night, even after I was done crying. Infuriatingly enough, I couldn’t manage more than a few minutes of tears; despite feeling like garbage inside, I had found that yet another side effect of the testosterone was that I had more difficulty crying. Instead, I just laid down in my dark room, the constant whooshing of the rain and wind across the roof not fading into the background. I pulled my faded childhood quilt over my head, and later added the pillow, too. But I couldn’t fall asleep until after midnight, when the rain finally settled into a quieter drizzle.
Thick fog was all I could see out my window in the morning, and I could feel the claustrophobia creeping up on me. Despite my frustration with my father’s planes, I too loved to fly; you could never see the sky here, it was like a cage.
Breakfast with Aemma was a quiet event; she wished me good look at school, and I thanked her, despite knowing his hope was wasted.
Aemma left first, off to the police station that was her family. After she left, I sat at the old square oak table in one of the three unmatching chairs and examined her small kitchen, with its dark paneled walls, bright yellow cabinets, and white linoleum floor.
Nothing had changed. Aemma had painted the cabinets fifteen years ago in an attempt to bring some sunshine into the house after Baelon’s funeral. Over the small fireplace in the adjoining handkerchief-sized family room was a row of pictures. First, a wedding picture of Aemma and my father in Las Vegas, one of her maternity photos, and then one of the three of us in the hospital after I was born, taken by a helpful nurse, followed by the procession of my school pictures up to last year’s. I knew without a doubt that Harwin had been the one to send those to her. Those were embarrassing to look at–I would have to see what I could do to get Aemma to put them somewhere, at least while I was living here.
There was no photo of Baelon, no photo to even indicate my mother had been pregnant a second time. The only proof was the tiny urn sitting between my pre-k and kindergarten photos. It was impossible, being in this house, not to realize that Aemma had never gotten over the life we could have had. It made me uncomfortable, if only because I knew there was nothing I could do to fix it.
I didn’t want to be too early to school, but I couldn’t stay in the house anymore. I donned my jacket–which had the feel of a biohazard suit–and headed out into the rain.
It was just drizzling still, not enough to soak my hair through immediately as I reached for the house key that was always hidden under the eaves by the door, locking up. For a police chief, Aemma was shockingly lax on security, though maybe growing up with Viserys had made me jaded to the wonders of 24/7 camera and thermal imaging security. The sloshing of my new waterproof boots was unnerving. I missed the normal crunch of gravel as I walked. I couldn’t pause and admire my truck again as I wanted; I was in a hurry to get out of the misty wet that swirled around my head and clung to my skin.
Inside the truck, it was nice and dry. Either Aemma or Corlys had obviously cleaned it up, but the tan upholstered seats still smelled faintly of tobacco, gasoline, and peppermint. The engine started quickly, to my relief, but loudly, roaring to life and then idling at top volume. I couldn’t help but snort–so much for not drawing too much attention to myself. Oh well–a truck this old was bound to have a flow, and the antique radio still worked, a plus I hadn’t expected.
I had never been to the high school before, but had no difficulty finding the campus. The school was, like most other things in Eyrie, just off the highway.
At first, it wasn’t obvious that it was a school at all; only the sign, which declared it to be the Eyrie High School, made me stop. It looked like a collection of matching houses, built with maroon-colored bricks. There were so many trees and shrubs I couldn’t see its size at first. Admittedly, I was unfamiliar with public schools in general, but the smarmy private academy Viserys had enrolled me in years ago still had more of an institutional feel than this. Where were the metal detectors? The hired body guards? The vegan and keto lunch options?
I parked in front of the first building, which had a small sign over the door reading ‘front office.’ No one else was parked there, so I was pretty sure it was off limits, but it was always easier to ask forgiveness than permission. I decided I would get directions inside instead of circling around in the rain like an idiot. I stepped unwillingly out of the toasty truck cab and walked down a little stone path lined with dark hedges. I took a deep breath before opening the door.
Inside, it was brightly lit, and warmer than I’d hoped. The office was small; a little waiting area with padded folding chairs, orange-flecked commercial carpet, notices and awards cluttering the walls, and a big clock ticking loudly. Old school. Plants grew everywhere in large plastic pots, as if there wasn’t enough greenery outside. The room was cut in half by a long counter, cluttered with baskets full of papers and brightly colored flyers taped to cover computer wires. There were three desks behind the counter, one of which was manned by a large, red-haired woman wearing glasses. She was wearing a purple t-shirt, which immediately made me feel overdressed. I had tried to get rid of my flashiest, most expensive clothing before I had moved–would I stick out that badly?
The red-haired woman looked up, and I could tell by the slight furrowing of her brow she wasn’t sure how to address me. Sir? Miss? Finally, she settled on the gender neutral option: “Can I help you, honey?”
“I’m Rhaenyra Targaryen,” I informed her, and saw the immediate awareness light her eyes. I was expected, a topic of gossip no doubt. Daughter of the Chief and her eccentric, wealthy ex-husband, come home at last. Thankfully, the extent of my father’s wealth never seemed to be fully recognized by the people of Eyrie; my parents’ failed marriage and dead child were the gossip of choice.
“Of course,” she said. She dug through a precariously stacked pile of documents on her desk till she found the ones she was looking for. “I have your schedule right here, and a map of the school.” She brought several sheets to the counter to show me. I immediately went to snap a picture of both papers, but she gave just the slightest shake of her head.
“We have a no cell-phone policy during school hours, so make sure you don’t lose these, okay?” Great.
She went through my classes for me, highlighting the best route to each on the map, before having me set up my school email and password. To my surprise, she handed me a thick, dated laptop with scratches on the front.
“This will be yours for the semester! Login is your email. Each of your teachers should help you sign into their class folder before you leave for your next class, alright? Just have them sign this form to indicate there was no issue getting you all set up, and bring it back at the end of the day.” She passed me a small, slightly crumpled form from the pile. It seemed almost overbearing–I didn’t think I would really need a teacher to help me sign into a laptop that seemed older than me, but the woman smiled at me and hoped, like Aemma, that I would like it here in Eyrie.
I guess overbearing was the normal here.
When I went back out to my truck, other students were starting to arrive. I drove around the school, following the line of traffic. Most of the cars were older like mine, nothing too flashy. If Viserys had been there, or worse, Uncle Daemon, both men would have been shocked at the lack of even a single new Mercedes, Porsche, or BMW. That the nicest car here was a shiny Volvo, and that it stood out? I think they would have been lost for words.
Despite the many older cars, I cut the engine as soon as I was in a spot, hoping the thunderous volume wouldn’t draw more attention to me.
I looked at the map in the truck, trying to memorize it; I really didn’t want to have to walk around with it stuck in front of my nose all day. Stuffing everything in my backpack and smoothing down the front of my shirt, I slung the strap over my shoulder and sucked in a huge breath.
You’re a Targaryen , I thought to myself. You can do this . I had no other choice, after all. At the very least, no one was likely to bite me. I finally exhaled and stepped out of the truck.
I kept my face pulled back into my hood as I walked to the sidewalk, crowded with other teenagers. Thankfully, my plain black jacket didn’t stand out.
Once I got around the cafeteria, building three was easy to spot. A large black “3” was painted on a white square in the upper right corner. I felt my breath gradually tightening as I approached the door, and I tried inhaling as I followed two raincoats in.
The classroom was small, the people in front of me stopping just inside the door to hang up their coats on a long row of hooks. I copied them. I took my laptop up to the teacher, a tall, balding man whose desk had a nameplate identifying him as Mr. Mason. He gawked at me when he saw my name–not an encouraging response–and of course I immediately scowled. But he at least quickly set up my class access, and sent me to an empty desk at the back without making me introduce myself to the class. It was harder for my new classmates to stare at me in the back, but somehow, they managed.
I kept my eyes down on the reading list in our class folder. It was fairly basic: Brontë, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner. I’d already read everything. That was comforting…and boring. I wondered if Harwin would send me a folder of my old essays, or if he would think that was cheating. I went through different arguments with him in my head while the teacher droned on.
When the bell rang, a nasal buzzing sound, a gangly boy with dark black hair and pierced ears leaned across the aisle to talk to me.
“You’re Rhaenyra Targaryen, aren’t you?” He looked like the overly helpful, dungeons and dragons chess club type.
“Rhae,” I corrected. Everyone within a three-seat radius turned to look at me.
“Where’s your next class?” he asked.
Cursing under my breath, I realized I would have to check the paper in my backpack.
“Um, Government, with Jefferson, in building six.” My voice cracked, and I did everything to pretend I didn’t notice the curious eyes.
“I’m headed towards building four, I could show you the way…” Definitely over-helpful. “I’m Larys,” he added.
I gave the slightest grin, more of an uptick of the side of my mouth. “Thanks.”
We got our jackets and headed out into the rain, which had picked up. I could have sworn several people behind us were walking close enough to eavesdrop. I hoped I wasn’t getting paranoid, but it was hard not to feel the eyes on my hair and chest.
“So, this is a lot different than King’s Landing, huh?” he asked.
“Very.”
“It doesn’t rain much there, does it?”
“Three or four times a year.”
“Wow, what must that be like?” he wondered. I was quiet for a second.
“Perfect, honestly,” I told him. His eyes narrowed slightly, though not in an unkind way.
“You don’t look very tan.”
“Both my parents are part wax figure.”
He studied my face apprehensively, and I sighed. It looked like clouds and a sense of humor didn’t mix.
A few months of this and I’d forget how to use sarcasm.
We walked back around the cafeteria, to the south buildings by the gym. Eric walked me right to the door, though it was clearly marked.
“Well, good luck,” he said as I touched the handle. “Maybe we’ll have some other classes together.”
He sounded hopeful.
I gave him a vague smile and went inside.
The rest of the morning passed in about the same fashion. My Trigonometry teacher, Mr. Varner, who I would have hated anyway just because of the subject he taught, was the only one who made me stand in front of the class and introduce myself. Thankfully, I didn’t blush or stammer–I had always been fairly put together in front of crowds–but I did trip on my boots on my way to my seat as he finished introducing me. He put too much emphasis on my being Chief Aaron’s daughter for me to be comfortable.
After two classes, I started to recognize several of the faces around me; there was always someone braver than the others who would introduce themselves and ask me questions about how I was liking Eyrie. I tried to be diplomatic, my years of lying to Viserys coming in handy. At least I never needed the map.
One girl sat next to me in both Trig and Valyrian, and she walked with me to the cafeteria for lunch.
She was tiny, several inches shorter than my five feet four inches, but her beautifully curly white hair made up a lot of the difference between our heights. If I remembered correctly, her name was Baela. Trying to avoid any awkwardness just in case I was wrong, I just smiled and nodded as she prattled about teachers and classes. I didn’t try to keep up.
We sat at the end of a full table with several of her friends, who she introduced to me. I forgot all their names as soon as she spoke them, despite my best efforts. The smell of cafeteria pizza was nauseatingly overwhelming. Despite my lack of social skills, Baela’s friends all seemed impressed by her bravery in speaking to me. The boy from English, Larys, waved at me from across the room. It was there, sitting in the lunchroom, trying to make conversation with seven curious strangers, that I first saw them.
They were sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, as far away from where I sat as possible in the long room.
There were five of them. They weren’t talking, and they weren’t eating, though they each had a tray of untouched food in front of them. They weren’t gawking at me, unlike most of the other students, so it was safe to stare at them without the risk of meeting their eyes. But it was none of these things that caught, and held, my attention.
There was something…off. Of the two boys, one of them was big–tall and muscled like a serious weight lifter with white blond hair. The other was even taller, leaner, but still muscular, with that same hair. The three girls were the outliers. One of them had the same blond hair as the boys, and was the shortest girl I had ever seen, probably no more than five feet. She was pixielike, thin in the extreme, with small features. Her hair was short, cropped and pointing in every direction. The taller girl was statuesque, with a beautiful figure, the kind that made every straight woman around her take a hit on her self-esteem just by being in the same room. Her hair was a deep black, gently waving to the middle of her back. The last girl was shorter, rounder, with somewhat untidy, wavy red hair. She seemed somewhat younger than the others, who looked like they could be in college, or even be teachers here rather than students.
They clearly had different appearances, and yet, they were all exactly alike. Every one of them was washed out; even though the taller girl had darker skin than the rest of her companions, I would still easily say they were the palest of all the students living in this sunless town. They all had very dark eyes, and more notably, dark shadows under those eyes–purplish, bruiselike shadows. As if they were all suffering from a sleepless night, or almost done recovering from a broken nose. (My own nose almost twitched in the memory of my own recovery.) Of course, all their noses were perfect, despite the shadows.
But all this is not why I couldn’t look away. I stared because their faces, so different, so similar, were all devastatingly, inhumanely beautiful. They were faces you never expected to see, except perhaps on the airbrushed pages of a fashion magazine. Or painted by an old master as the faces of angels. It was hard to decide who was the most beautiful–maybe the tall black-haired girl, or the perfect redhead.
They were all looking away–away from each other, away from the other students, away form anything in particular, as far as I could tell. As I watched, the short blond girl rose with her tray–unopened soda, unbitten apple–and walked away with a quick, graceful lope that belonged on a runway. I watched, amazed at her lithe dancer’s step, till she dumped her tray and glided through the back door, faster than I would have thought possible. My eyes darted back to the others, who sat unchanging.
“Who are they?” I asked Baela; as she looked up to see who I meant–though already knowing, probably, from my tone–suddenly she looked at her, the redheaded one, the girlish one, the youngest, perhaps. She looked at Baela for a fraction of a second, and then her dark eyes flickered to mine.
She looked away quickly, more quickly than I could, though in a flush of embarrassment I dropped my eyes at once, an uncommon move for me. In that brief flash of a glance, her face held nothing of interest–it was as if Baela had called her name, and she’d looked up in involuntary response, already having decided not to answer.
Baela giggled in embarrassment, looking at the table like I did.
“That’s Alicent and Aegon Hightower, and Mysaria and Aemond Florent. The one who left was Haelena Hightower; they all live together with Dr. Hightower and his brother, Gwayne.” She said this under her breath.
I glanced sideways at the beautiful girl, who was looking at her tray now, picking a bagel to pieces with long, pale fingers. Her mouth was moving very quickly, her perfect lips barely opening. The other three still looked away, and yet I felt she was speaking quietly to them.
Strange, unpopular names, I thought. The kinds of names grandparents had. But maybe that was in vogue here–small town names? God knew the names I’d heard at the academy. But Baela was a perfectly common name; there were two girls named Baela in my History class back home.
“They are…very nice-looking.” I struggled with the conspicuous understatement.
“Yes!” Baela agreed with another giggle. “They’re somehow all related, too, and come from crazy money. I’ve heard the little one, she hears voices.” Her voice held all the shock and condemnation of a small town, I thought critically. But, if I was being honest, I had to admit that such gossip would have been right at home in King’s Landing. Hell, my father probably would have started it. Baela took my silence as a sign to keep going.
“And get this, Dr. Cullen is really young, in his thirties or early forties. All of them are adopted–they all are foster children.”
“They look a little old for foster children.”
“They are now, the twins Aemond and Mysaria are both eighteen, but they’ve all been with Gwayne and Dr. Hightower since they were eight. They’re their uncles or something like that.”
“That’s really nice–for them to take care of all those kids like that, especially if they’re so young and everything.”
“I guess so,” Baela admitted, but I got the impression that she didn’t like Dr. Hightower and Gwayne for some reason. With the glances she was throwing at their adopted children, I almost got the sense that she was apprehensive. “They’re all kind of…intense, I guess,” as if that lessened their kindness. I reminded myself that I didn’t know any of those kids, and my surprising frustration with her words was probably, likely, due to my being starstruck by the redhead.
Throughout all this conversation, my eyes flickered again and again to the table where the strange family sat. They continued to look at the walls and not eat.
“Have they always lived in Eyrie?” I asked. Surely I would have noticed them on one of my summers here.
“No,” she said patiently, though truthfully, it should have been obvious, even to a new arrival like me. “They just moved down two years ago from somewhere in the North–Winterfell, I think?”
I felt a surge of pity, and then relief. Pity, because as beautiful as they were, they were outsiders, clearly not accepted. Relief, that I wasn’t the only newcomer here, and certainly not the most interesting by any standard.
As I examined them, the youngest, one of the Hightowers, looked up and met my gaze, this time with evident curiosity in her expression. As I looked swiftly away, it seemed to me that her glance held some kind of unmet expectation.
“Which one is the girl with the reddish hair?” I asked. I peeked at her from the corner of my eye, and she was still staring at me, but not gawking like the other students had today–she had a slightly frustrated expression. I looked down again.
“That’s Alicent. She’s gorgeous, of course, but don’t waste your time. She doesn’t date. Apparently no one here is good-looking enough for her.” She sniffed, a clear case of sour grapes. I wondered when she’d turned her down.
I bit my lip to hide my smile, though, if only because of how casually Baela had implied she liked women, too. Then I glanced at her again. Her face was turned away, but I thought her cheek appeared lifted, as if she were smiling, too.
After a few more minutes, the four of them left the table together. They all were noticeably graceful–even the tall, lanky one. It was unsettling to watch. The one named Alicent didn’t look at me again.
I sat at the table with Baela and her friends longer than I would have if I’d been sitting alone. I was anxious not to be late for class on my first day. One of my new acquaintances, who considerately reminded me that her name was Rhaena, had Biology II with me the next hour. We walked to class together in silence. She was shy, too.
When we entered the classroom, Rhaena went to sit at a black-topped lab table exactly like the ones I was used to. She already had a neighbor. In fact, all the tables were filled but one. Next to the center aisle, I recognized Alicent Hightower by her unusual hair, sitting next to that single open seat.
As I walked down the aisle to introduce myself to the teacher and get my laptop set up, I was watching her surreptitiously. Just as I passed, she suddenly went rigid in her seat. She stared at me again, meeting my eyes with the strangest expression on her face–it was hostile, furious. I kept her gaze, waiting for her to be the first to lower her gaze. After a second, she turned away, but the scowl was obvious on her face. I walked without much thought to the table, almost dropping my laptop on the way.
I’d noticed that her eyes were black–coal black.
The teacher, Mr. Banner, had handed me a book with no nonsense about introductions. I could tell we were going to get along. As he started to lecture, not waiting for me to sit in my seat next to Alicent, I decided this time to keep my eyes down, confused by the antagonistic stare she’d given me.
In King’s Landing, I’d been beyond hot-headed, but something was telling me now wasn’t the time to push any buttons. I didn’t look up as I opened my laptop and scrolled to the syllabus, but I noticed Alicent’s posture change from the corner of my eye. She was leaning away from me, sitting on the extreme edge of her chair and averting her face like she smelled something bad. Inconspicuously, I sniffed my hoodie–same cologne as always. Maybe my shampoo? My hair was nowhere near long enough to sniff, but I had used the same cake scented shampoo I had used for years. It was an innocent enough odor. I shrugged my jacket off, hoping to make it clear that I was here just to pay attention to Mr. Banner.
Unfortunately, the lecture was on cellular anatomy, something I’d already studied. I took notes carefully anyway, never looking to my side.
Well, I took occasional peeks–during the whole class, Alicent Hightower never relaxed her stiff position on the edge of her chair, sitting as fair from me as possible. I could see her hand on her left leg was clenched into a fist, tendons standing out under her pale skin. This, too, she never relaxed. She had the long sleeves of her white shirt pushed up to her elbows, and her forearm was surprisingly lithe and muscular beneath her light skin. She wasn’t nearly as slight as she’d looked next to her burlier brothers.
The class seemed to drag on longer than the others. Was it because the day was finally coming to a close, or because I was waiting for her tight first to loosen? It never did; she continued to sit so still it looked like she wasn’t breathing. What was wrong with her? Was this her normal behavior? I questioned my disdain at Baela’s remarks at lunch today. Maybe she was right after all–Alicent was undeniably both tense and intense .
But it couldn’t have anything to do with me. She didn’t know me from Eve.
I peeked up at her one more time, and immediately regretted it. She was glaring up at me again, her black eyes full of revulsion. As I turned away from her, the phrase ‘if looks could kill’ suddenly ran through my mind.
At that moment, the bell rang loudly, and Alicent Hightower was immediately out of her seat. Fluidly she rose–she was shorter than I’d thought–her back to me, and she was out of the door before anyone else had started to put away their laptops.
I sat, almost frozen in my seat, staring blankly after her. What a bitch. It wasn’t fair. I began gathering up my things slowly, trying to block the anger that filled me. I was a lot calmer than I used to be, but I didn’t want to blow my cool on the first day.
“Aren’t you Rhaenyra Targaryen?” a male voice asked. I looked up to see a cute, dark-haired boy, his hair carefully gelled into orderly spikes. He was smiling at me in a friendly way; he obviously didn’t think I smelled bad.
“Rhae,” I corrected him, with a smile.
“I’m Criston.”
“Hi, Criston.”
“Do you need any help finding your next class?”
“I’m headed to the gym, actually. I think I can find it.”
“That’s my next class, too.” He seemed thrilled, though it wasn’t that big of a coincidence in a school this small.
We walked to class together; he was a chatterer–he supplied most of the conversation, which made it easier for me. He’d lived in California till he was ten, so he knew how I felt about the sun. It turned out he was in my English class also. He was probably the nicest person I’d met today.
But as we were entering the gym, he asked, “So, did you stab Alicent Hightower with a pencil or what? I’ve never seen her act like that.”
Great. I cringed. So I wasn’t the only one who had noticed. And apparently, that was Alicent Hightower’s usual behavior. I decided to play dumb.
“Was that the girl I sat next to in Biology?” I asked casually.
“Yeah,” he said. “She looked like she was in pain or something.”
“I don’t know,” I responded. “I never spoke to her.”
“She’s kind of a weird girl.” Criston lingered by me instead of heading to the changing room. “If I were lucky enough to sit by you, I would have talked to you.”
I smiled awkwardly at him before walking to my pre-assigned locker room, trying to avoid the ‘F’ printed on the door. Criston was friendly, that was clear–maybe a bit too friendly. It did nothing to ease my irritation.
The gym teacher, Coach Clapp, found me a uniform, but didn’t make me dress down for today’s class. Thank God. I would have to figure out a way to bring up my need for a less…gendered space. At home, only two years of PE were required, and we each had our own assigned, private changing spaces. I’d never had to actually deal with being automatically pushed into the women’s locker room.
Here, though? PE was mandatory all four years, and I didn’t see a private stall in sight. Eyrie was literally my personal hell on Earth.
I watched four volleyball games running simultaneously. Remembering how many injuries i had sustained–and inflicted–playing volleyball, I felt faintly nauseated.
The final bell rang at last. I walked slowly to the office to return my paperwork, ready to prove I had done as asked. The rain had drifted away, but the wind was strong, and colder. I wrapped my arms around myself. When I walked into the warm office, though, I almost turned around and walked back out.
Alicent Hightower stood at the desk in front of me. I recognized again that tousled red hair. She didn’t appear to notice the sound of my entrance. I stood pressed against the side wall, waiting for the secretary to be free.
She was arguing with her in a low, attractive voice. I quickly picked up the gist of the argument. She was trying to trade from sixth-hour Biology to another time–any other time.
I just couldn’t believe this was about me. It had to be something else, something that happened before I entered the Biology room. The look on her face must have been about another aggravation entirely. It was impossible that this stranger could take such a sudden, intense dislike to me.
The door opened again, and the cold wind suddenly gusted through the room, rustling the papers on the desk, swirling the hood of my jacket against my face. The girl who came in merely stepped to the desk, placed a note in the wire basket, and walked out again. But Alicent Hightower’s back stiffened, and she turned slowly to glare at me–her face was absurdly beautiful–with piercing, hate-filled eyes. For an instant, I felt a thrill of genuine fear, raising the hair on my arms. The look only lasted a second, but it chilled me more than the freezing wind. She turned back to the secretary.
“Never mind, then,” she said hastily in a voice like velvet. “I can see that it’s impossible. Thank you so much for your help.” And she turned on her heel without another look at me, her skirt swishing noisily as she disappeared out the door.
I went, stunned, to the desk, my already pale face even whiter.
“How did your first day go?” the secretary asked kindly, holding her hand out for my slip.
“Fine,” I lied, my voice weak as I responded instinctively. She didn’t look convinced.
When I got to my truck, it was almost the last car in the lot. It seemed like a haven, already the closest thing to home I had in this damp green hole. I sat inside for a while, just staring out the windshield blankly. But soon I was cold enough to need the heater, so I turned the key and the engine roared to life.
I headed back to Aemma’s house, the anger finally causing tears to fall the whole way there.