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After four years, Elia hoped she would stop missing her mother, but when she stared across her bedchamber at the white gown shot through with threads of orange that hung waiting for her to put it on the next morning, all she could think of was how she wished her mother would be there to see her wear it. Loreza Martell would have tipped her chin up, wiped the tears out of her eyes and told her to go show the Seven Kingdoms who their true queen was. Doran would be there, of course, and he'd kiss her head and offer to slip poison into her husband's wine, but that wasn't the same. She didn't want vengeance, she wanted the strength to carry on. Now it was her who had to be strong for little Rhaenys and Aegon.
Elia had dismissed her maids earlier in the evening, wanting some quiet before the chaos that would be her coronation tomorrow, but as she reached behind her head, searching for the last couple of hairpins, she was starting to regret that. She had just found the last one when a knock came on her bedroom door. Elia's heart dropped into her stomach, and her legs shook when she stood to move to the door. She didn't know what she would say if it was Rhaegar on the other side, as unlikely as that seemed, with his winter rose moved into the chambers nearest his.
The tall silver-haired form she saw when she peered through a crack in the wooden door was not Rhaegar however, but his mother. "Your Grace," Elia murmured, pulling the door open and curtsying to the Dowager Queen.
"None of that," Rhaella demanded, grabbing Elia's arm gently and pulling her up. "We are to be equals, you should call me by my name."
"Of course," She replied, stepping aside to let the older woman in and fighting back anxiety. Despite the fact that they had lived together in the royal apartments together for nearly four years, Rhaella had spent most of that time in seclusion, and so she knew little about her. Did she hate Elia, as so many courtiers did, blame her for being such a poor wife to her son that he had to go looking elsewhere, or did she, like Aerys, share a hatred of the Dornish. The thought of Aerys drew her eyes down to the soft swell of Rhaella's stomach, not concealed beneath the light dress she wore. There was some sort of twisted humor in that Rhaella, at close to forty and despite how many failed pregnancies she had endured, should still be able to have a child while that option had been torn from Elia after only two successful ones.
Rhaella must have noticed her gaze, because she rested a hand on her stomach and smiled sadly. "I'm sorry Elia. If it makes you feel any better, this is not what I would have wanted either."
"No, no," She waved a hand, pushing the door closed. "I'm happy for you. Shall we sit?"
The Dowager Queen nodded, and led Elia into her own sitting room, taking a chair close to the window and setting a bag she hadn't noticed until now on the floor beside her. "I am too. It's rather amazing, actually."
"Because Aerys is dead?" Elia asked, taking the chair across from her. It was probably unfemininely blunt for a good Andal woman, but the Dornish didn't dance around abuse in the same way, and she'd been biting her tongue about it for too long.
Rhaella winced as if the name hurt her physically. "Is it that obvious?"
"I think we've spoken more since your return from Dragonstone than we did in the first three years of my marriage."
That made the older woman laugh, though there was a bitter note in it. "I rather suppose that is true. I thought the only way to hide what Aerys was doing to me was to make sure no one saw me. Viserys didn't seem to know, and that was all I could manage," Her eyes grew serious then, and she took a breath before continuing. "I'm sorry, Elia. I should have done more for you."
"There was nothing you could have done anyway," Elia replied. "Rhaegar was gone before anyone knew what was happening, and the worst thing Aerys did was threaten me." She still remembered the feel of the cold dagger pressed to her throat as Aerys had told Llewyn what would happen if he thought to betray House Targaryen, but Rhaella didn't need to know that.
"I still should have," She brushed a lock of silver-gold hair from her face and met Elia's eyes with her blue-violet ones. "Your mother was my best friend growing up, but beyond that, you are my good-daughter. You came to our household a stranger with the Targaryen cloak draped around your shoulders. I should have protected you as if you were one of my own."
That squeezed Elia's heart, though she knew what her mother would have done had she lived would have only gotten her burned as well. "He was the king," She said finally. "What could anyone have done?"
"That's what's kept me up at night every time I've been pregnant," Rhaella replied, more bitterly than Elia had ever heard her speak before. "My life was sold away at four-and-ten for reasons no one would explain to me, and my father was a good man. I feared what would happen to any daughter I had by Aerys. The Seven only saw fit to give me one daughter, Shaena, who was born into the Stranger's arms. I grieved her death then, but now I don't know how I should feel."
"You have every right to," Elia wanted to reach across the distance and take Rhaella's hand, but she wasn't sure if that would be acceptable. "She was your daughter. I can't even think what I would do if something happened to Rhaenys."
"Yes," The older woman looked to the side, "but I can't be sure she would have been spared what Aerys did to me, or what Rhaegar did to you, and I don't know if I could live with watching my baby go through that. She would have been a bride for Rhaegar had she lived, though, and I have to wonder if that would have changed anything, if he would have found whatever he was searching for in her and not Lyanna Stark," Rhaella sighed deeply and turned back toward her. "You have to know, Elia, I could never for a moment be glad you were the one to be betrayed. You deserve none of this, and you have been so strong through all of it. I don't think I could have raised a daughter half as well as Loreza raised you, but she was always the best of us."
Elia suddenly found herself blinking hard to fight back tears. No one had told her she was strong in so long. Her brothers loved her dearly, of course, and there had been a time when Rhaegar did too, but they had looked at her small frame and frequent illnesses and saw someone they needed to protect. It was always "I will be strong for you, Elia. I'll protect you." It was only her mother who had kissed her forehead and told her to be as strong as she could, who hung a pendant with the seal of House Martell around her neck and told her to never forget who she was.
In a flash, Rhaella was on her feet and beside Elia, offering her a handkerchief that smelled like roses. She dried her eyes and looked up at her good-mother. "I'm so sorry," She said. "It's just-"
"I understand," Rhaelle replied. "My coronation was not a happy affair either. I think I must have cried the whole night leading up to it. Poor Joanna was with me, and I think she must have nearly fainted from exhaustion during the ceremony. That's part of why I wanted to visit you, to make sure you were not alone. I wanted to take you with me to Dragonstone, you know, but Viserys and I very nearly didn't get out."
"Really?" Elia remembered the bitterness she had felt when the news broke that Rhaella and Viserys had been "evacuated" while she remained in the city. It had been in the confusion right after the Trident, when no one knew if Rhaegar was alive or if the armies now turning East towards King's Landing were marching home or to battle.
"Of course!," She exclaimed, then paused for a moment, as if in thought. "You could go there, you know, after the realm is settled. Aegon is Prince of Dragonstone now. It's his birthright."
For a moment, Elia let herself imagine getting to escape the stares of the court and the constant reminders that Rhaegar had chosen another woman over her and raise her children a peaceful place. Then she brushed the idea away. It would be seen as a retreat and as giving up her rights as queen, and she could not afford that personally or politically. She was a Martell, and they did not bend. Besides, how could her children prepare to be king and queen so far from court?
"I am needed more here," she said finally.
Rhaella nodded. "I rather expected you would say that, but I had to offer. In that case, I have something to help you," She crossed to the chair she had been sitting in and picked up the bag. It was velvet, and Rhaella held it as if what was within was very precious.
"Had my Shaena lived, this would have been her coronation, but as it is, I have no living daughter to pass this too. Elia, you are everything I could have wished for in a daughter and I would be honored if you would wear my crown," From inside the velvet, she pulled the shining gold crown Elia had only seen her wear on a handful of occasions, a gold band with a wrought gold lattice rising from it to suspend small diamonds that winked in the light.
"Rhaella, I can't!" Elia exclaimed, eyes filling with tears again.
"This has been the crown of queens since Aegon III married Daenara Velaryon. I can give you nothing better for your legitimacy. Rhaegar will be crowned with the Dragonbane's crown, and it seems only right that you should have its match, especially when I am unlike to wear it again. If you have another you would prefer, I will of course understand."
Doran had offered her a crown of red-gold and citrine, but if she wanted to be seen as Queen, she must be as much Targaryen as Martell, reach for Daenerys's blood in her veins and wear the crown of those ancestors, not one that was a constant reminder of Sunspear. She was about to reach out and take it when a thought occurred to her. "Your babe, if she is a daughter-"
Rhaella pressed a hand to her stomach protectively. "I prayed to the Mother every night until Aerys was killed for a son because I was too afraid to birth another daughter. I could not bear to watch Aerys raise her and marry her to Viserys. If she sees fit to give me a daughter now, she will never wear a crown. I can't go back in time and undo my mistakes, Elia, but I can be your ally now, do all Loreza would want if she was still alive, and all I would do for my own daughter."
"Then I would be honored to wear your crown," Elia told her, feeling a hot tear slide down her cheek. "Though I would ask that you keep it so you may crown me tomorrow."
To Rhaegar's credit, he did not flinch when, after the High Septon placed Aegon III's circlet on his head, Rhaella stepped forward to crown Elia at the same time as a Septa rested a gold and sapphire circlet on Lyana's dark curls.